“Such a tragedy, what happened to Earth,” said La Duchesse, intellectually curious rather than actually sympathetic. “But what an adventure, to start again on another world. What do you think of New Ceres, my dear?” she asked Catherine Stevens.
“It’s beautiful,” said the Earth woman and then, falling for La Duchesse’s expression of interest, “but so overwhelming. It’s like stepping back through time!”
Bob Stevens took a loud slurp of coffee. “Just how long has it been the Eighteenth Century around here anyway?”
There was a tangible moment of silence in the room. Catherine reddened a little, as if aware of her husband’s faux pas, but Bob simply looked past the women to exchange a ‘men of the world’ look with me. I smiled politely, and inhaled the heavily spiced aroma from my own dish.
“Nearly two hundred years,” said M. Ambrose Marchmont, the Anglais Ambassador to Europa, as he entered the room with his sixteen-year-old daughter Sarah on his arm. “Give or take. I’m afraid we’ve grown rather attached to it.”
His wife laughed dutifully, a beat too late. Then, quite casually: “Have you met the Duchesse Recherche Dubois, my dear, and her secretary M. Pepin?”
The ambassador took this with reasonable humour. “My dear Duchesse, how nice to see you again,” he said, kissing La Duchesse’s hand with the exact quantity of briskness required. “And … Pepin, is it? A pleasure,” as if he and I had not broken our fast together on numerous occasions, consuming fruit and rolls while we waited for our mistress to arise from her slumber.
“And now we are seven,” said Mme. Marchmont, sounding pleased with herself.
La Duchesse managed valiantly not to roll her eyes. She quite despises the outdated tradition that the number of dining guests be always divisible by seven, and takes pleasure in thwarting such attempts at any opportunity. She returned to the discussion with Catherine Stevens. “What did you do, my dear, back on Earth?” It was a question that showed her expertise in Earth matters; one would never ask such a question of a New Ceresian in our circles. Being is far more important than doing, unless one is civilised enough to perform some kind of artistic endeavour.
“Software engineer,” grunted Bob Stevens, before realising the question had not been directed at him. “Lot of use that is in a theme park like this,” he added beneath his breath. No wonder he was angry at the universe — not only was he now a planetary orphan dependent on the kindness of strangers, but his professional skills had been rendered useless as soon as he set foot on this world.
“I was a writer,” said Catherine.
“Still are, surely?” said La Duchesse.
“Well, yes … they confiscated my latest novel at Customs,” Catherine said forcefully. “I mean, not just the data crystals and e-book library, I expected that, but they took the manuscript too! I had been hoping it might be of interest to people here, that it might help to establish my credentials…”
“Was it scandalous?” asked La Duchesse.
“I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Sex and spaceships,” said Bob disparagingly. “Popular sort of trash for women with too much time on their hands.” He directed his comments at the Ambassador and myself, and we were both gentlemanly enough to smile politely and say nothing.
“Well, no one minds sex around here,” said La Duchesse to Catherine. “It will be the spaceships that were the problem. Anything smacking of scientifiction is illegal on New Ceres, most days of the year. Spaceport or no spaceport, we’re not supposed to acknowledge that such things exist.”
“Not until tomorrow, in any case,” said the Anglais Ambassador with a grin.
La Duchesse laughed. “Twelve blissful days of being able to read a ‘Lady Heinlein’ novel without fearing persecution.”
“As if you fear anything,” he shot back, then covered the slip of familiarity with a deep draught from his coffee dish.
“What’s so special about tomorrow?” asked Bob Stevens.
“The Saturnalis, of course,” said young Sarah Marchmont, her eyes sparkling.
“Until Twelfth Night, the world is allowed to be topsy turvy — at home in Anglais, the servants dress up as masters and mistresses, and husbands swap clothing with their wives. The conventions are a little less personal here on Europa,” said the Anglais Ambassador, smiling fondly at his daughter. “But the restrictions against technology and offworld literature are relaxed at this time. The Prosperine sky is a riot of airships and light-shuttles — and the Conservatives grind their teeth.”
“So I could have a career as a … scientifiction author for twelve days out of the year?’ said Catherine Stevens. “I think I’ll stick to the sex. After a few months here I should be able to try my hand at stories set on New Ceres. I’ve been brushing up on my Regency literature.”
“Excellent,” said La Duchesse. “And in the mean time, you could always take a page out of the book of the pseudonymous ‘Lady Heinlein’. Her techno-romances have sparked off a thriving black market in Prosperine in the last few years.”
“I didn’t hear that,” said the Ambassador.
La Duchesse concealed a smile. “I’ll repeat the suggestion at breakfast, your Grace, when the subject of the black market will have temporarily misplaced its illegality.”
“Did someone say black market?” hallooed a false male voice in the hall. “I knew this was the right party for us, Savon!”
There was no mistaking Everard Dray, the most infamous fop of both continents. He entered the room in a cloud of caramel perfume, ribbons and powdered wig gleaming. “Sister, I brought a friend to join us. You don’t mind?”
Mme. Marchmont’s face was a picture of horror as a second man — just as carefully dressed as Everard, but far less theatrical — entered the room. Her perfectly calculated party of seven had suddenly exploded into a party of nine — an unlucky number in Anglais. “Everard, I wasn’t expecting you back from the health spa until Twelfth Night.”
“Ye-es,” said Everard. “But there’s only so much seaweed and high-priced mud a man can slap on his nether regions, you know. And then I met my new best friend here — may I introduce Drusus Savon, by the way — and he mentioned a rumour that the Great Detective was spending Saturnalis at my very own sister’s house! I couldn’t resist that, now could I? How dee do, Claudine.”
“Charmed as ever, Everard,” said my mistress with a knowing smile. She enjoys the pretention of fops. They take the pressure off her to be the most outrageous person in the room.
“Oh, I say,” said Everard, staring around as if he had only just noticed the decor. “How daringly gauche, Valeria. Easy to squeeze in another guest if you’re not bothering with chairs and seating arrangements and all that fizz.” He sounded almost disappointed.
“Kind of you to include me, Mme. Marchmont,” said Drusus Savon as he chose — deliberately — to sit beside La Duchesse.
Everard squeezed in beside Savon, and clapped with delight as the baristas came forward to pour his coffee. “Do we have syrups? I’ll have a vanilla musk, my sweetheart,” he told the maid who was playing a waitress. “And easy on the cinnamon — it gives me wind.”
“I can’t quite place your accent, M. Savon,” said Mme. Marchmont. “Are you Anglaise or Europan?”
“Martian, madame,” said Drusus Savon. I myself had already guessed his offworld origins from his manner: as if he were tensing himself to run for the door at any moment. He was not quite as uncomfortable in his garb as Bob Stevens, but still wore the cravat and pantaloons as if they were a somewhat bewildering costume.
“Savon here was wild to meet the scandalous Great Detective,” volunteered Everard. “Couldn’t disappoint the old boy, not when he’d just beaten me dry at whist.”
“Scandalous — me?” said La Duchesse. “Hardly that. I’m a staid old lady by the standards of your set. The days are gone when my slightly outré neckline caused comment in any fashionable circles.”
“I’m sure you’re too modest, La Duche
sse,” said Drusus Savon. “Why, they don’t bother to print an afternoon edition of the Prosperine Times unless there’s a mention of your latest hairstyle in the social pages.”
A look of annoyance crossed Everard’s face, but he covered with a veneer of bitchiness. “Didn’t you say the same thing about me last week?”
“Too good a compliment to waste on a man,” smiled La Duchesse, though her eyes revealed that she wasn’t fooled by Savon’s flattery.
I myself had long since ceased listening to the girlish prattle of Sarah Marchmont (who was attempting somewhat clumsily to flirt with me) in observing this flinty exchange. Could Everard Dray have something to do with our unexpected invitation? Having now met Mme. Marchmont, I had no doubt that her natural inclinations railed against bringing my mistress within a hundred miles of her husband. More than that — Mme. Marchmont was very pale, as if her brother’s arrival was personally devastating to her.
The waiters brought trays of food to the table. In keeping with the theme, these were the usual snacks of a coffee house: nut pastries, chilled pottage and the like. Bob Stevens looked quite glum at the slight repast, but made up for it by grabbing four pastries at once.
Everard drained his coffee dish to the dregs with deliberate uncouthness, and gestured to the waitress for a refill. “I must say, this makes a nice change from the usual culinary bore that we’re accustomed to at the Feast of Saturn. No stodgy pudding or dry old poultry dishes.”
Mme. Marchmont gave him a dirty look. “We shall be having a formal Saturnalis dinner tomorrow, Everard.”
“Excellent,” he said without missing a beat. “And as the resident youngster, I hope my niece is planning something splendid in the way of a festive gambol?”
Sarah Marchmont looked startled at being addressed. “Me, Uncle Evie?”
“Come now,” said Everard. “If Saturnalis isn’t an excuse for grossly inappropriate theatrics from the younger generation, what is it good for?”
“I hardly think that would be appropriate,” Mme. Marchmont said stiffly. “The child tells stories enough without being encouraged.”
When her mother wasn’t looking, Sarah made a face at her.
La Duchesse motioned for a refill of her own dish, and sat unflinching as the scalding hot coffee was poured from two feet above her shoulder. “Personally,” she said, “I consider any festive occasion a dismal failure unless at least three of the party have been revealed as secret lovers, three more accused of being golden priests, government agents or ‘Lady Heinlein’ in diguise, and a further three criticised for wearing unfashionable perfume.”
“Are you ‘Lady Heinlein’?” asked Drusus Savon, only half joking.
La Duchesse sipped her coffee. “My dear, if I had the time for writing novels, I could rule the world.”
###
Late that evening, I knocked discreetly on the interconnecting door between my chamber and that of La Duchesse. As usual, she was enmeshed in the chaos that is the inevitable result of removing a hairpiece without patience, expertise or a personal maid.
My mistress loses maids the way other women lose gloves, and I have long since learned to attend to her hair myself.
“Did our esteemed hostess finally admit why she had invited us?” I asked, taking her comb from her and attempting to repair the worst of the damage.
“You owe me thirty sous, Pip. We have been commissioned to solve a mystery.”
“An interesting case?”
“No, a dreadful bore. Her family ruby has gone missing, can you believe it? It’s like something out of a penny novel. Valeria is intriguingly distressed about the matter — yet she expects me to solve it without involving the servants, or mentioning the existence of the jewel to anyone up to and including her own family members.”
“Not actually a family ruby, then,” I said.
“Oh, I agree, a data crystal is far more likely. That’s why she needs the case solved between now and Twelfth Night — so she can be certain I won’t report the thing to the golden priests. I asked the wretched woman how she expected me to solve the case without questioning anyone and she said, “Claudine, I thought you had a reputation for working miracles.”
I smiled a little to myself. “Not untrue, my lady.”
“I’ll warrant she suspects her refugees and won’t admit it. I finally told her she was being ridiculous, and I couldn’t help her. You and I will escape as soon as propriety allows — which, unfortunately for us, is after this dreadful dinner tomorrow.” La Duchesse shuddered. “Christmas pudding should have been outlawed centuries ago, I can’t think why the settlers from Earth thought it was a good idea to import that particular tradition. We may as well eat each other’s livers and be done with it.”
“Did anyone overhear your discussion with Mme. Marchmont?’ I asked.
“You mean Everard’s unconvincing friend Savon? He made a good attempt, but my darling Ambassador asked him a question about Martian football at the last moment, and he was quite distracted away from us. You’ve been worried about him, I suppose.” It wasn’t a question.
“He has the eyes of a policeman,” I said grimly. “And — Mars.”
Her cool fingers reached out and gripped mine. “Stiff upper lip, Pepin.”
My mistress always knows exactly what to say.
Part II — Death, and Pudding
Everard Dray was found dead at the foot of the stairs, shortly before breakfast. I heard Sarah Marchmont’s scream as she discovered the body, and then the slamming of doors as various people (including La Duchesse) ran to deal with the situation.
I dressed quickly but carefully before stepping out on the landing, still tying my cravat.
“Took you a while,” noticed Drusus Savon. He wore an embroidered dressing gown.
“My lady attracts murders like a dog attracts fleas,” I said. “I have learned that it is best, at such times, to be fully clothed.”
“Hard not to be sorry that your mistress thinks differently,” said Savon. From where we stood, we both had an excellent view down at the negligee-wrapped cleavage of La Duchesse, as she leaned over the body.
The Anglais Ambassador emerged from his own bedroom at the far end of the wing, and strolled across to join us both. Like myself, he had taken the time to dress properly. “Everard’s gambol, I suppose,” he said in annoyance.
Drusus Savon leaned on the polished stair rail. “I was expecting something rather more original.”
“Perhaps he couldn’t get his scriptwriter to do a rush job?” I suggested, earning a bark of laughter from them both.
From the hall below, La Duchesse regarded us with great irritation. “You do realise this man is actually dead?”
Sarah Marchmont let out a stream of giggles. “It’s a joke, don’t you see? A Saturnalian gambol for the Great Detective! It was Uncle Evie’s idea.”
“Hilarious,” said my mistress. “I particularly like the way he’s managed to stop both his breathing and his pulse. Such an eye for detail.”
###
As the household waited for La Policia, it fell to Drusus Savon and myself to carry the perfumed but undeniably deceased gentleman on a makeshift stretcher from the hallway to a suitably quiet place which turned out to be a glass-walled observatory filled with exotic plants.
“If Sarah Marchmont saw her uncle lie down to stage the murder,” he said, “There was a very small window of opportunity for anyone to kill him. Particularly since Sarah was in the hallway the whole time, and only took her eyes off her uncle when she closed her eyes to scream.”
Assuming, of course, it was not Sarah who had killed him — a possibility no one had yet voiced.
“La Duchesse will solve the matter to everyone’s satisfaction,” I said aloud, as we manoeuvred our burden towards a clear table.
“Funny,” said Drusus Savon. “I was just thinking that the person with the easiest means of killing him was La Duchesse herself, when she leaned over the body. Is she trustworthy, your mistress???
?
“Always,” I said, swallowing the natural qualification of, Except when she is up to something.
“Then why are you both pretending that you are a man?”
I dropped my end of the stretcher, and Everard’s cold dead corpse slid on to the tiled floor. “What did you say?” Even in shock, my voice did not rise from its calculated deeper tones. I had been doing this a very long time.
“I know what you are,” said Savon. “Did Everard Dray know your secret? Is that why you and your mistress decided he had to die?”
I turned and walked out of the observatory.
###
I found La Duchesse in Everard Dray’s bedchamber. “Poison,” she said as I entered. “That much is evident. But how was it applied, Pip? I was certainly in an excellent position to jab the poor man with a syringe, but I would rather we considered some alternative suspects to myself.”
I thought of Drusus Savon, watching from the balcony. “A blowpipe?”
“Excellent,” said La Duchesse, rummaging through a tallboy drawer. “But why no dart on the body? Oh, of course — I removed it. At least that demotes me from murderer to accomplice.” She held up a newspaper clipping from the society pages of the Prosperine Times, and read it aloud. “Spotted at Madame D’Avignon’s salon, the ever scandalous Everard Dray, indecently clad in the golden robes of a priest.”
“He liked to court controversy,” I noted.
“Masquerading as a Suncatcher is more than controversial, Pepin. It’s positively irreligious. Valeria must be constantly holding her breath, wondering what scandal he will bring upon the family next.” She held up a sheaf of receipts. “Interesting, then, that she seems to be funding his lifestyle. In the last month, she has signed her names to a dozen of his bills — to his tailor, to his bookie, and to that very extravagant spa that was supposed to keep him occupied over the Saturnal.”
“Perhaps she was paying him to stay away?”
“But why now — to keep him away from me? From the refugees?”
“How can it have been poison?” I said suddenly. “Surely he wouldn’t have died so quietly — Sarah Marchmont barely took her eye off him. Most poisons bring frothing at the mouth, or convulsions, a gasp or two at the very least.”