Eldridge Murder at Claridge's

The wartime whodunnit series set in London's stylish hotels
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7490-2811-4
Verlag: Allison & Busby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 307 Seiten

Reihe: Hotel Mysteries

Jim Eldridge, author of the Museum Mysteries, turns his pen to Wartime London's grandest hotels. October 1940. The Blitz bombing raids continue mercilessly, but when the body of a kitchen porter from Claridge's hotel is found, it is clear that he has not been the victim of a blast: he was strangled. Detective Chief Inspector Coburg has to find out exactly who he was, and what he was doing at Claridge's under a false identity. Armed with those facts, he might get an insight into why he was killed, and by whom. But the investigation is complicated by the fact that so many of the hotel's residents are exiled European royalty. Clandestine affairs, furtive goings-on and conspiracies against the government: Coburg must tread very lightly indeed .

Jim Eldridge was born in central London towards the end of World War II, and survived attacks by V2 rockets on the King's Cross area where he lived. In 1971 he sold his first sitcom to the BBC and had his first book commissioned. Since then he has had more than one hundred books published, with sales of over three million copies. He lives in Kent with his wife.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eldridge, Jim

Leseproben

CHAPTER TWO

Wednesday 16th October 1940

It was 5.15 a.m. Janos Mila wheeled the trolley laden with boxes of potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms and other vegetables, along with sides of bacon and different sorts of sausages through the kitchen at Claridge’s Hotel and left them on the thick wooden tables where the chefs were busy preparing the hundreds of breakfasts. As he did so, he scanned the tables for a spare knife that someone had left unwatched, unguarded. The knives were of different sizes and blades, thin ones for paring apples and pears, thicker ones with well-honed edges for slicing the bacon into thin rashers. He saw one that was perfect for the task ahead of him: a razor-sharp blade that would slice through the carotid artery in the neck, along with a sharp point that would slide easily between muscles and ribs into the heart. At the moment, this particular station where the knife lay was unmanned, the chef being absent. How long would he be absent for, Janos wondered? Chefs were very protective about their knives. If this station was still unmanned in four minutes and the knife still here, he would snaffle it. Hide it in the inside pocket of his kitchen porter’s whites. Everyone here in the kitchens wore whites, from the chef of chefs down through all the levels to the porters.

He put a side of bacon down on the table on top of the knife, obscuring it from view, making sure that no one else would take it before he returned, if the chef didn’t come back soon.

He was moving on to the next table when Alexandru Hagi stopped him. Alexandru was one of two other Romanians who worked in this kitchen. The other was Josef Malic. Janos did not like Malic. He was an immoral man. A man with no honour.

‘There is a man outside in the street who says he needs to talk to you?’ said Alexandru.

Janos frowned. ‘I do not know anyone,’ he said, puzzled. It was true. Janos had come to England just two months before, and all he’d done since his arrival was work here in the kitchen, waiting for instructions. Was the man who was outside calling with a change to those instructions? If so, why?

‘Did he ask for me by name?’ he asked.

‘He did,’ said Alexandru. ‘Please tell Janos Mila I must talk to him.’

Janos shot a concerned glance towards the burly figure of Marcel Devaux, the overall chef in charge who was bellowing in French at some unfortunate minor chef.

‘I will not be long,’ Janos murmured, and he made for the back door that led to the street.

Kill one of the kings currently in residence at the hotel, that was his mission. Do it at 6 a.m., the time when they will be least expecting it. Kill the bodyguard first, then gain entry to the royal suite and cut the throat of the sleeping monarch. He will be alone in his bedroom, Janos had been assured.

Janos pulled open the door and went out into the street. A man was standing there in the shadows of a doorway. Janos approached him and heard the man whisper: ‘Janos Mila?’

‘Yes,’ said Janos.

The next second he felt a movement behind him, then something was dropped over his head and down to his neck. He started to turn, but there was a sudden pain as something sharp bit into the skin of his neck, and as it bit deeper he found himself unable to breathe. He struck out, but it was no good, and he felt himself falling.

Detective Inspector Arnold Lomax of the Metropolitan Police force struggled out of bed as the ringing of the telephone penetrated his sleepy state.

He looked at his wife, Muriel, in bed next to him, who was just starting to stir.

‘What’s that noise?’ she asked.

‘It’s the telephone,’ he said. ‘I’m getting it.’

He pulled on his dressing gown and hurried downstairs. Muriel still hadn’t got used to the telephone. Very few people had their own private phone. He only had one because his superintendent, Jeremy Moffatt, had insisted. ‘Serious crime happens at any time of night or day, Inspector,’ he’d said. And so the telephone had gone in. Muriel still looked at it suspiciously, reluctant to pick it up when it rang. She hadn’t got used to the idea of a disembodied voice at the other end of the line.

He lifted the phone from its cradle and said ‘“Arnold Lomax”.’

‘Sorry to trouble you at this early hour, sir,’ came the voice of his detective sergeant, Joe Potteridge. ‘Only there’s been a murder at Claridge’s Hotel.’

‘One of the guests?’ asked Lomax hopefully. He’d wanted a high-profile murder to investigate for a long time, one with which he could push himself further up the promotion ladder.

‘No, sir. One of the kitchen staff. It looks like he was strangled.’

‘In the kitchen?’

‘No, sir. His body was found in the street by the rear entrance. But he was wearing his kitchen uniform.’

‘All right, Sergeant. Come and pick me up. I’ll get dressed and we’ll get along there.’

He went back upstairs.

‘Who was it?’ Muriel asked.

‘Sergeant Potteridge. There’s been a murder at Claridge’s, the big hotel. I’ve got to go.’

‘Anyone important?’

‘No,’ he sighed. ‘Just someone who worked in the kitchens.’

Lomax and Potteridge arrived at Claridge’s accompanied by a uniformed sergeant and a constable and made their way down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen. Lomax recoiled as he pushed open the double doors and they entered what seemed to be a blistering inferno filled with shouting in foreign languages and the rattling of wooden shoes.

‘They’ve all got clogs on,’ said Potteridge, surprised.

Lomax stopped a man who was hurrying past with a box of vegetables and demanded: ‘Who’s in charge here?’

A tall, burly man dressed in chef’s whites, complete with a tall chef’s hat joined them.

‘I am!’ he boomed. ‘Marcel Devaux.’

‘Inspector Lomax from Mayfair police station,’ Lomax informed him. ‘Where’s this dead body?’

‘We have left him in one of the cold rooms.’

‘Is that where he was killed? I was told he was murdered out in the street.’

‘That is where his body was found, but we could not let it lay there for all to see.’

‘Why not?’ thundered Lomax angrily. ‘If that was the murder scene, we need to have examined it.’

‘You can still examine it, but the body had to be brought in,’ said Devaux firmly. ‘Follow me and I will show you.’

As the policemen followed the chef, Lomax muttered angrily: ‘Bloody French. They’ve got no idea of the proper way to do things.’

Devaux opened a door to a room not much bigger than a cupboard. Blocks of ice were on the shelves, along with salad vegetables. On the floor lay the body of a man in kitchen whites. A ring of freshly dried blood ran around his neck.

‘What’s his name?’ asked Lomax.

‘Janos Mila.’

Lomax gestured to the uniformed officers. ‘Drag him out so we can get a look at him.’

The officers pulled the dead man out of the room and into the kitchen. Lomax knelt down beside him.

‘It looks like he was strangled with a piece of wire,’ he said to Potteridge. ‘Thin wire. A garrotte. You don’t see much of that in this country.’ He looked at Devaux. ‘What nationality was he?’

‘Romanian,’ said Devaux.

‘Who found the body?’

‘Another of the kitchen workers. Alexandru Hagi.’

‘Nationality?’

‘Romanian.’

‘Does he speak English?’

‘Yes. He has been in this country for many years,’ said Devaux angrily. There was no mistaking his dislike of Lomax.

‘Get him for me,’ ordered Lomax. He wiped his sleeve across his sweating brow. ‘I can’t work in this heat. It’s like being in an oven. Send this Hagi to me outside in the corridor.’ He looked at the uniformed officers. ‘You two arrange to have the body removed. Take it to Middlesex Hospital. And put it back in that cold room until the ambulance arrives, otherwise it’ll go off in this heat.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant. He turned to the constable and said: ‘Put it back in there. I’ll arrange an ambulance to pick it up.’

He left to go up to reception to use the phone to call for transport while Lomax and Potteridge walked through the double doors into the corridor.

‘Thank God for that,’ said Lomax. ‘All that noise and that...