Birds of a Feather: 3: Fly the Nest (Bennett Sisters Mysteries Book 16) by Lise McClendon (free novel 24 .txt) 📕

slick and wet but not icy yet. At nine o’clock in the evening the lights were still blazing in Monnow House, with the flickering of the fire sparking on the windowpanes. Icicles hung from the transom.

None of them had a key, an issue they confronted at the top of the stairs. The door was locked. Conor cursed under his breath and began to turn to go back down. “Wait,” Pascal said. “I think I hear someone.”

“Knock,” Elise urged.

Pascal rapped on the door. In a moment it creaked open. Gini stood inside, still in her uniform from earlier, the white shirt and black trousers. She glanced nervously at each of them, then looked at Pascal. “Oui?”

He explained to her in French that they wanted to look at Sabine and Gabriel’s room for anything that might help them figure out what happened to her. Gini glanced over her shoulder. Someone answered then she opened the door wide. They saw Audette, the chef, sitting on an old armchair in a small sitting area, next to an electric heater. She wore a robe and slippers and didn’t stand up.

Gini said something rapidly. Audette listened then nodded. “Go ahead.” She waved her arm toward the two doors off the sitting room. Gini walked to the door on the left, turned the knob, and looked inside. She flipped a light switch and stepped back.

“Thank you, Gini. Audette,” Merle said. “We won’t be long.”

Elise hung back in the sitting room. The bedroom itself was small, dominated by a double bed on the small side that must have been very uncomfortable for two grown adults to sleep in. She watched through the open door as Pascal went methodically through the room, gently moving items, opening drawers, checking luggage. A large suitcase sat on a luggage rack, open and sagging with clothes and stockings and shoes. Merle and Conor handled the other side of the room, mimicking his actions.

Audette rose from her chair, retying her robe. She stepped up next to Elise. “I—we are very sorry,” she said in almost a whisper.

Elise gave her a smile. “Thanks. She wasn’t my relative but that’s nice of you.” She paused and took a second look at the chef. “She was your employer, right?”

Audette shrugged. “Sabine? Yes. But what I meant was— about the oysters.”

“That you ate them? And didn’t get sick? That’s fine, Audette. No one cares about you eating the oysters.”

“But it was wrong.” She hung her head.

Elise touched her arm. “Really, literally none of us cares. I’m glad you didn’t get sick.”

“They were fine. Delicious.” Audette glanced up and smiled.

“Good. No point in them going to waste.”

They stood at the door and watched the three in the bedroom. Merle stood by Sabine’s open suitcase, delicately moving her underclothes and looking underneath. She found a small velvet bag, heavy with jewelry. She patted down the dresses hanging from a curtain rod, including the gold sequined number Sabine wore the first night. Conor was on his hands and knees, looking under the bed. He pulled out a small leather valise about the size of a medical doctor’s bag.

“What’s this?” he asked everyone. “Did this come with them?”

Elise turned to Audette. “Was it Sabine’s or Gabriel’s?”

“I do not know,” she muttered.

Conor sat on the bed and put the valise in his lap, snapping open the latch and widening the mouth of it. Elise stepped closer to peer inside.

“Looks like toiletries,” she said, seeing razors and aftershave.

Pascal moved around the bed to inspect it. “But why keep it under the bed?” He swiped dust off the outside. “Dump it out.”

Conor stood up and turned the valise upside down. The items scattered: combs, shaving brush, hand mirror, various bottles. The men leaned over the mess and poked it. “Nothing unusual,” Conor said.

“Looks old,” Pascal said, checking the labels on bottles. “Maybe from another era.”

Merle glanced at it. “Some chauffeur’s stuff?”

Audette went back to the armchair. Gini was huddled on a footstool by the heater, wrapped in a blanket. Elise stepped over to them. “Chilly in here, isn’t it? Did Sabine and Gabriel complain about that?”

Gini shrugged. Audette said, “We rarely saw them here. We go to bed early.”

“And get up early,” Gini added.

“How did you come to be hired for this job?” Elise asked.

“Through the caterer we work for sometimes,” Audette said. “Things were slow after Christmas and we needed work.”

“Are you two related?” Elise glanced at Gini, then back at Audette. The two Frenchwomen exchanged a look.

“We are cousins, yes. We came from France last year to work in London. We knew the General and Sabine through the caterers.”

“They were friends with the caterer?”

“They had some soirées last spring that we worked,” Audette said.

Elise frowned. “In London?” Audette nodded. “They lived in London?”

“For some time. I don’t know how long,” Audette said.

“Do you remember where they lived?”

Gini frowned. Audette shook her head. “Too many parties since then.”

“Can I get the name of your employer? Someone in the family might need something catered.” Elise smiled at the chef.

She saw through the fabrication, that was obvious. “I don’t care. We will get no more work from him now. He has heard about the death somehow.” Audette stood up and rummaged through a black tote on the table, extracting a business card. “Louis Bordeaux, he calls himself. A nom de guerre— a business name.”

Elise took the card. Bordeaux had a Kensington address, very fashionable at least on paper. “Thank you.” She slipped it into her coat pocket. “Did you get on with Sabine and Gabriel?”

Gini choked back a laugh. Audette sighed. “She was quite a trial, always wanting to change things.”

“She spit in the custard,” Gini said, making a face.

“I had to throw it out and start over,” Audette continued. “There was nothing wrong with it. She just liked to boss around. That is correct— boss around?”

Elise raised her eyebrows. “Correct. What about him— the General?”

“He liked to argue with her. On and on. They were quite a team.”

Gini nodded. “A shouter, Louis calls him.”

“And boorish,”