In both instances, a hurried, impulsive proposal was not entirely out of order.
But what could that event be, she wondered.
Decidedly, the list could not be very long, for the most accomplished chef in all of Europe was not subject to the same vagaries of fate as an ordinary servant. He would never be turned out for squabbling with the other members of the household because he was thoroughly irreplaceable while footmen and scullery maids were interchangeable. Even his employers had to earn his approval: The quality of James Van der Straeten’s kitchen had been so underwhelming, Mr. Réjane left the well-known banker’s service without preparing a single meal—and then included a lengthy description of the inferiority of the gentleman’s Castrol stove in his memoir.
Only something deeply significant or hugely troubling could have changed his plans.
A decisive quarrel, Bea thought, and one that occurred during the preparations for the dinner party. Tempers were frequently frayed by the anticipation of guests, and if Mr. Mayhew had made an outlandish request while Mr. Réjane was struggling to create the perfect meal, the chef might have responded without restraint. A vicious row ensued, ending with Mr. Réjane’s resolution to leave.
The fact that Mr. Mayhew had made increasingly generous offers to convince him to stay suggested that the gentleman had realized his misstep at once and sought to fix it.
How had he felt when his attempts at reconciliation were roundly rebuffed? An intractable servant might be infuriating to a man accustomed to a pliant domestic staff.
It was true, Bea thought, and yet she could not imagine the gentleman chopping off the head of his chef in a surge of fury simply because the man refused to remain in his employ.
At the same time, she could not dismiss it either, for she knew nothing of Mr. Mayhew’s petit bourgeois character and couldn’t say how he would react when thwarted by an upstart Frenchman with ideas beneath his station. That Mr. Réjane could actually prefer drudging in a sweltering kitchen in a benighted Parisian alleyway to working in the gracious splendor of Berkeley Square might have been an insult beyond bearing.
All things considered, it was a minor offense and hardly the sort of thing that should drive a gentleman to strike, let alone kill, one of his subordinates. But Bea did not consider it within her purview as an investigator to make sense of her suspects’ motivations. It was her task to discover whether they had the opportunity and wherewithal to commit the crime.
Could Mr. Mayhew have sliced Monsieur Alphonse’s neck in half?
To make that determination, she would have to meet him. Without question, how he handled her interest would provide meaningful insight into his disposition, for he could not relish being interrogated by a random stranger, but it was not only intangibles that interested her. The death had been a physically violent one, and possibly Mr. Mayhew lacked the strength to sever a head.
The answer would depend, she supposed, on the type and condition of the weapon used. If its blade was unduly sharp, then the job might be done neatly and quickly.
“Regarding the cut that ended Monsieur Alphonse’s life,” she said matter-of-factly, “was it done in one masterful stroke or did it require quite a lot of hacking?”
The color drained from Joseph’s face, and Bea immediately remembered Mrs. Norton’s expression when she had insisted on examining the corpse of Mr. Hobson. Without pausing to consider her words, she had once again revealed her ghoulish soul by not acting with appropriate squeamishness. How appalled the society matron had been at Bea’s cool appraisal of the slain actor’s wounds, the bloody hole violently gashed into his stomach by fireplace tongs.
A lady of proper feeling would have turned away in horror!
Given that her archnemesis had been party to arranging the terrible scene, Bea cared nothing of her opinion, good or otherwise, but Joseph was a different matter. He was a member of the duke’s household, which meant he was a member of her household now, and she would have liked to have made a slightly better impression than appearing coldly indifferent to the lurid details of a decapitation.
Fleetingly, she recalled wondering only a short time ago what kind of duchess the staff would prefer to serve and realized it was too late to worry about the answer. Her true nature had been exposed in a moment of unvarnished honesty, and there was no point in wringing her hands over it now.
It was actually for the best, she decided, for it spared her the obligation of trying to meet their expectations, an effort that would have inevitably ended in failure. Unlike the many young ladies with whom she’d shared a first season—and five unsuccessful subsequent ones—she had not been raised from infancy to bear the weight of a duchy. No one had anticipated anything grander for Beatrice Hyde-Clare than a second or a third son, a clergyman, perhaps, with a rectory where she would comfort the parishioners with tepid tea and familiar platitudes such as “Good things come to those who wait” and “Everything happens for a reason.”
Whatever heights of gracious dignity she might have aspired to—or even briefly achieved—it was all a matter of hopeless speculation now.
Her disgrace assured, Bea did nothing to mitigate it, choosing instead to apologize to Joseph for speaking so plainly. “I should have shown more consideration for your sensibilities,” she said, stopping just short of begging his forgiveness, for that, too, would have displayed an unacceptable lack of decorum. “Just because I am accustomed to the ghastliness that accompanies brutal death does not mean everyone else is. But do please tell me what you know about”—she paused momentarily as she tried to think of a gentler description and settled on euphemism—“how Monsieur Alphonse met his unfortunate end. Maybe you
