‘Smith and Wessons are American,’ William snapped back.
‘Sure, and it’s the right of every American citizen, including you, bucko, to carry one.’
‘In defence of others, I believe,’ Auguste intervened, ‘not in defence of his entitlement to a title and money. I have one question to ask both of you before I make my report to the police, and it’s this: which of you did Jonathan Luckens ask to see first last night? There wasn’t an opportunity in the banqueting house, so it must have been here, in his room.’
‘Not me,’ William came in promptly.
‘Nor me,’ Red said earnestly.
‘Suppose they both went,’ Lord Luckens growled. ‘Thought of that?’
‘We didn’t, Grandpappy,’ Red assured him. ‘Why, speaking for myself, I slept like a babby all night.’
‘Says you,’ William snarled.
Auguste was puzzled. This was all very odd. After the police had been notified, he left them to return to the kitchen, for he needed room to think and breakfast. Both were possible since the servants taking theirs in the servants’ hall. What should he have? All he could face was a drink of soothing chocolate. Then his eye fell on the humble egg. An egg!
One could always rely on an egg. Unassuming, nutritious, the self-sacrificing base of the most perfect dishes in the world. Who thought of the egg while a bavarois was in one’s mouth? Who thought of the egg while a sauce hollandaise eased itself into one’s stomach? Yes, he would boil himself an egg, plain and unadorned, perhaps with soldiers, as in the English fashion, crustless buttered bread cut into strips.
Eagerly, Auguste placed the egg in the boiling water, turned the ornamental egg timer, from Alum Bay no doubt, upside down for the coloured sands to run through, and prepared lovingly to watch the cooking of his breakfast.
Coloured sands? Alum Bay? Queen Victoria? Egg timer? He stared at it hypnotised, as first the solution of the case of the missing heir and then that of the murder of Jonathan Luckens clarified in his mind like heated butter. It was as plain as a boiled egg..
‘Well?’ Lord Luckens demanded, after Auguste had requested a private interview.
‘Which of them did it?’
‘I prefer to tell you which is the impostor.’
‘Same thing.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Have it your own blasted way then. Just tell me.’
‘Red Luckens is a fraud. I am convinced he has never been near a silver mine in his life, for hominy grits is a southern dish and Colorado is not in the south of the United States. Also, he is, like a neatly trimmed poached egg, too good to be naturally true.’
‘So William’s my grandson then,’ Lord Luckens said glumly. ‘Pity. Red has more spunk in him. Still, it’s better than the estate going to Queen Victoria, God bless her. And Red killed Jonathan. Might have guessed it.’
‘No, sir.’
‘So it was William shot him,’ Lord Luckens said immediately. ‘He knew Jonathan had got it the wrong way round, and wasn’t going to risk his precious inheritance vanishing.’
‘No, sir. William as well as Red is an impostor. That letter must surely have been forged, for he wrote, “Wait till you see Denver”, as though it would be his wife’s first visit. In fact, William purports to have been born there, so that is impossible. I was puzzled by their apparently amicable private conversation at the banquet, and suspect they were discussing their spoils.’
‘You’re raving, Didier. How can both of them be impostors? There wouldn’t be any spoils to discuss.’
‘I refer to the spoils they have or will shortly receive from you, Lord Luckens.’
‘What the devil do you mean?’ he shouted, red in the face with anger.
‘I looked at this case the wrong way up. It took an egg timer to understand that I needed to stand it on its head and let the sand trickle through. When I did so it was quite obvious that neither of these gentlemen could be your missing heir. That in any case was always a possibility, but the egg timer caused me to realise that it was you who had planned the whole thing, hired their services, forged the so-called evidence and falsely claimed to them and probably your solicitor that Pinkertons had checked out the birth certificates in the States.’
‘Think I’m out of my mind, do you? I’d have to adopt one of them to keep Jonathan out of it. Why the devil should I adopt a stranger?’
‘Because you hated your brother and then his son so much.’
‘Enough to adopt an out-of-work actor and a smooth-talking rogue? That’s who they are and that I can prove. How could I have known one of them was going to shoot the fellow to make sure of his inheritance?’
‘You couldn’t. You hated your nephew so much, you’d prefer the Queen to have the estate. With Jonathan dead you would later find proof that neither Red nor William is your missing heir. There is in fact no missing heir. It was a plot to rid yourself of Jonathan by murder. You shot him, Lord Luckens, in the expectation one of them would be blamed.’
To Auguste’s surprise, Lord Luckens did not treat him to an outburst of abuse. Instead, he gave a bark of laughter.
‘You’re clever for a Frenchie, Didier. Not clever enough, though. If I were a murderer, I’d be unmasked the minute those two rabbits blabbed to the police. No, I’ll tell you what really happened. I hired them all right. The mistake I made was to make it a gamble for them. Whichever you unmasked as the impostor would get nothing but his expenses; the one you decided was my grandson would get £5,000. Tidy sum, eh? Worth killing for. Hadn’t foreseen that. Whichever Jonathan picked on as the impostor had good reason to stop him talking. With two such prime suspects, the police aren’t going to suspect me just because I didn’t like the fellow, no matter what beans they spilled about my hiring them.’
‘Would the police not believe it a little strange that you were willing to pay so much money merely for the pleasure of seeing your nephew’s ambitions temporarily thwarted? You could hardly explain that you knew in advance of hiring Red and William that Jonathan would no longer be alive when you disclosed the truth about them.’
Lord Luckens gave a gargoyle grin of pure evil. ‘They’ll understand why I hired them, Didier. I’m a poor old man of eighty, and can’t hang around for ever. Devoted to Lady Luckens, tears in her eyes, not too bright in the head, loving husband wants to make her happy. What better than that her beloved grandson’s returned to her? Worth any price, that. Might even adopt one of them – which do you fancy, Didier? Money no object to make her ladyship happy. They’ll believe me, not a blasted chef.’
‘They will when they hear what I have to say.’
His lordship snorted. ‘You stick to cooking, Didier. Blasted sugared lettuce stalks.’
With some effort Auguste ignored the insult to his suckets. ‘I asked myself why Jonathan should have armed himself with a pistol to defend himself and then left it in a drawer when a night-time visitor arrived. If he were expecting Red or William, or if the visit were unannounced, the pistol would be within easy reach; if he knew the caller was you, however, he would hardly have felt fear for his life. I believe that you told him you were coming, giving the excuse that at such a time and in such a place you could not be overheard if Jonathan were to tell you whom he suspected of being the impostor. Or perhaps he suspected them both. You, Lord Luckens, were the only person who need not fear the gunshot being overheard. What’s more natural than that the host, who sleeps nearby and who has placed his guests’ bedrooms far away from the Queen’s Chamber, should be first on the scene to find the cause of the alarm?’
‘Poppycock,’ Lord Luckens snorted, with less conviction.
‘I think not. Had you hired only one impostor, you might well have succeeded. Your mistake, Lord Luckens, was to over-egg the pudding by hiring two, to try to make your story more convincing.’