Read Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) for Free Online

aware of the King and his host already puffing contently on cigars, but it was the outside of the building that riveted his attention. Perhaps toram home the undesirability of the noxious weed, Lady Tabor had selected a most unusual smoking room. Jealous of a neighbour who boasted a peel tower in his garden, a Tabor of the 18th century had decided to go one better (in his view) and erect a Gothic folly of tumbling towers, sharp pinnacles, and castellated roofs.
    On her arrival at Tabor Hall, Cyril explained, Priscilla had decreed this gloomy monstrosity would make a most admirable smokehouse. She would brook no argument, and George wisely put up none. Instead, secure in the knowledge that his high-principled lady would never compromise her integrity by setting foot inside, he had adorned the smokehouse with the kind of paintings usually only hung in the back rooms of gentlemen’s clubs, a collection he had much pleasure in updating from time to time. Thus the Alma Tadema ‘Psyche’ over the mantelpiece had been replaced with a distinctly more erotic Sickert nude of the type usually only exported to Paris, and by a variety of Parisian art of lesser distinction in which garters and stockings were the only concession to haute couture.
    Faced with this unexpected entertainment the King seemed somewhat dazed, as Auguste entered, but no doubt reflecting that he was used to such exoticisms in Paris, he was politely congratulating his friend on his choice of artistic adornment, and accepting his second brandy.
    Equally slightly taken aback by his surroundings, Auguste accepted a cigar from Alexander, whose Russian and English ancestry were both clearly visible in his dark romantic good looks.
    ‘Like it?’ he asked Auguste, grinning. ‘Victoria thinks it’s wonderful.’
    ‘Most original.’ Auguste cleared his throat, desperately trying to think of polite conversation in the face (or in some cases rear) of so many flauntedladies who were anything but polite. Standing by the mantelpiece, he was unable to avoid close study of the Sickert, which showed a lady on a bed, bursting from her armour all too efficiently. Uncertain of his company, he passed a remark to Oliver on the glories of the dead duck on the mantelpiece so charmingly carved in wood. Oliver chuckled, and he relaxed. ‘I gather you are an old friend of the family?’
    ‘Not so old. Late forties,’ Oliver informed him, handing Auguste a glass. ‘I’m a regular visitor every six months. I only come here to propose to Laura. She never accepts. Perhaps luckily so.’
    ‘Luckily?’
    ‘It would affect my career, Didier.’
    ‘And that is?’ Auguste brightened, now he knew he was in the company of a fellow member of the working proletariat.
    ‘I’m a professional bachelor. I’m invited to Society occasions to make up numbers, make amusing conversation – and at Tabor Hall to propose to Laura of course.’
    ‘Why does she refuse? Does she not love you?’
    ‘Apparently not.’
    ‘Waiting for that ne’er-do-well to roll home,’ grunted George, overhearing. ‘Fellow wasn’t a gentleman.’
    ‘Not in your sense of the word, no,’ Oliver agreed, good-humouredly. ‘But after all, when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’
    George tried to make sense of this, failed, and dismissed it. ‘Only one sense of the word. Fellow either is or he isn’t and nothing can be done about it.’ George’s eye suddenly fell on Auguste and he realised to his horror that he had been guilty of the ultimate ungentlemanliness of making a guest uncomfortable. ‘Seen this one, have you?’ he asked, to make amends. He swung back a folded panel to reveal a fetchingstudy of an otherwise naked lady looking winsomely through her plump black-stockinged legs.
    ‘Er—’ Auguste gulped, reflecting that there were some advantages after all in the restraining armour of the less artistically pleasing portions of a lady’s anatomy. ‘No, I haven’t had the