Murder Makes an Entree by Amy Myers Page A

were clutched by tiny hands
     as symbols of veteran travel, sailor suits were sported by every male under twelve, and ladies of high fashion bound for the
     respectable haunts of Broadstairs or the Cliftonville Hotel at Margate pursued their porters bound for first-class carriages.
     Their less affluent sisters swarmed cheerfully towards second-and third-class carriages, clutching ancient grips and eyeing
     their battered trunks possessively, while the excursionists scurried for their own cheap fast train.
    Auguste and Sid followed their porter to their reserved first-class carriage. The Auguste Didier School of Cuisine did not
     do matters by halves. Like in a recipe in which ingredients suddenly assume a different identity when mixed together according
     to instructions, he was interested to see what would happen when this odd mixture of pupils was together for a whole fortnight.
     Holidays were strange occasions. Those you thought you knew well turned out sometimes to be quite unlike that at all. Others
     you had previously set little store by could turn out to be shining jewels of companions. And what, after all, did he really
know
about these six people?
    As Auguste climbed up into the teak carriage, he tripped over Sid’s feet, his spirits tumbling with him as he saw his six
     pupils squeezed together in the one carriage. Alas, who could believe these six geese might in a few hours’ time become happy
     swans? No one could have guessed this quietgroup was bound for the seaside. True, Broadstairs was apparently decorous, even dull by Ramsgate and Margate standards, yet
     surely not this sombre.
    Auguste seated himself next to Alice Fenwick, who was sandwiching Alfred Wittisham between herself and James Pegg. Alfred
     was sporting his Old Etonian waistcoat, but beyond that showed no signs of holiday festiveness. James, too, with brown boots
     and heavy suit, was subdued. By the corridor window Auguste was opposite Emily Dawson, clad in an unbecoming dark brown cotton
     dress, unrelieved by touches of colour. What would she wear at the seaside? he wondered. Black bombazine? Algernon Peckham
     sat next to her ostentatiously reading Carlyle. Various other levels of reading matter adorned the other laps, including,
     he noted, the inevitable
Harmsworth
in Alice’s lap. Auguste’s spirits fell further. Despite a lack of excitement, there was a definite tension. But why? He told
     himself that he was imagining things, but the impression would not go away.
    ‘My book says,’ remarked Emily brightly, ‘that there was a murderer from Ramsgate thirty years ago, killed five people. Ramsgate’s
     near Broadstairs, isn’t it?’
    ‘Quite near,’ replied Auguste repressively. He had no wish to encourage talk of murder.
    ‘Is that vy ve go there?’ rumbled Heinrich Freimüller with interest.
    ‘
Non
,’ said Auguste. ‘Certainly not.’
    ‘It said in one of my
Harmsworth Magazines
,’ announced Alice, ‘that if you walk along the Strand from Charing Cross to Temple Bar and back any day at any busy hour,
     you’ll pass a man who has either done a murder or who will do a murder before he dies. It says that somehow you will sense
     it. Is that true, Mr Didier?’ She found it necessary to clutch Alfred’s arm for protection against such horrors.
    ‘This I do not know, Miss Fenwick,’ answered Augustegrimly. ‘I work during the busy hours. I do not have time to wander along the Strand gazing at my fellow man when I have to
     teach pupils as difficult as yourselves.’
    ‘We’re not as bad as that, are we?’ drawled Algernon. ‘I thought my veal curry rather excellent yesterday.’ Too late he realised
     he had betrayed an interest in meat cookery.
    ‘You used curry paste,’ Alice retorted disapprovingly. ‘You can’t make a real curry like that. You have to use the proper
     spices – red pepper and cardamoms, and garam—’
    ‘Nor,’ said Auguste breaking in, ‘do you use a
Soyer
recipe for curry. Miss