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Authors: Dorothy Cannell
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name,” I pointed out.
“Apologies! Apologies! Did I not say? It is Georges LeBois. Forgive the lack of a French accent.” He performed another of those hand flourishes. “My formidable English nanny, may she rest in peace,” eyes raised heavenward, “drilled it out of me. She was less successful in inuring me to milky puddings and toad-inthe-hole.” His vast stomach quivered noticeably at the horror of memory. “Is it any wonder that I escaped into the world of make-believe and at the conclusion of my incarceration within the vilely conceived British public school system studied film and became a director? I am here, at the aptly named Mucklesfeld Manor, for the making of Here Comes the Bride .”
“So we have been told.” It really was too bad of Ben not tomake an effort to sound impressed. Monsieur LeBois might look and sound like a self-satisfied, overfed bloodhound, but he might also be a very nice man. Although perhaps not fanatically truthful. I doubted that he was French. The only trace of an accent he possessed sounded as if it had been born within sound of Bow bells. Probably started out as George Woods and had the imagination to reinvent himself. I doubted the nanny and the posh schooling, too.
“And I have been told that you are a chef.” A stark hunger came into his eyes as he looked at Ben. “Have you any idea what a godsend that makes you in this house, where that gruesome female in need of wooden teeth to go with her Georgian male wig serves up food that a starving rat wouldn’t eat! My dear, noble sir! In one day I have become the shadow of the man I once was. I endure torturous rumblings”—he placed his fat hands tenderly upon the enormous waistcoated stomach—“soon, I fear, there will be an outcry from within equal to that of the mob that stormed the Bastille! Believe me, I have not suffered such outrage to my constitution since the horse-riding accident that placed me in this wheelchair. An egg, one superlatively cooked simple egg, is all I ask of you. Even that foul creature cannot get inside the shell of an egg to pervert its intrinsic goodness. And your wife!” The purplish bloodhound jowls shook with emotion. “Surely you will not subject her to being poisoned before your eyes, when all that is required of you is to follow me down a warren of damp corridors to the kitchen.”
“What state is it in?” All Ben’s professional instincts were aroused, as evidenced by the tilt of his dark head, the flash of blue-green in his eyes, the fact that he proceeded to turn his back on me. For the moment, my headache and I were nothing to the intriguing challenges to be met behind a green baize door.
“A dungeon. All the well-rusted implements for drawing and quartering. Livestock in the pantry, I wouldn’t doubt, and typhoid in the drains!” Georges LeBois eyed Ben narrowly through puffy lids, a professional sizing up how far to push his actor, shifting and leveling the camera to get the reaction he wanted. “A challengesurely no chef of any spirit with an ounce of stuffing inside him could resist.” I was wondering where his assistants were lurking when Ben asked Georges how he had discovered he was a chef.
“From Plunket. And I do, despite my aversion to men with pimples, have to give the mealy-mouthed fellow some points for trying to cheer me up upon seeing how low I was feeling following the accident. You know we lost one of our contestants? Most unfortunate—particularly for the woman herself, of course—but five is an awkward number to be left with. Still, I knew if I pressed that point too hard, Belfrey was liable to back out and we wouldn’t want that. I’m convinced this one could be a winner.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. Did I glimpse a cold-blooded ruthlessness that would let nothing stand between him and what he saw as his big chance to become a household name? I’d certainly never heard of him before today, not that that meant much. Or was he a man
“Apologies! Apologies! Did I not say? It is Georges LeBois. Forgive the lack of a French accent.” He performed another of those hand flourishes. “My formidable English nanny, may she rest in peace,” eyes raised heavenward, “drilled it out of me. She was less successful in inuring me to milky puddings and toad-inthe-hole.” His vast stomach quivered noticeably at the horror of memory. “Is it any wonder that I escaped into the world of make-believe and at the conclusion of my incarceration within the vilely conceived British public school system studied film and became a director? I am here, at the aptly named Mucklesfeld Manor, for the making of Here Comes the Bride .”
“So we have been told.” It really was too bad of Ben not tomake an effort to sound impressed. Monsieur LeBois might look and sound like a self-satisfied, overfed bloodhound, but he might also be a very nice man. Although perhaps not fanatically truthful. I doubted that he was French. The only trace of an accent he possessed sounded as if it had been born within sound of Bow bells. Probably started out as George Woods and had the imagination to reinvent himself. I doubted the nanny and the posh schooling, too.
“And I have been told that you are a chef.” A stark hunger came into his eyes as he looked at Ben. “Have you any idea what a godsend that makes you in this house, where that gruesome female in need of wooden teeth to go with her Georgian male wig serves up food that a starving rat wouldn’t eat! My dear, noble sir! In one day I have become the shadow of the man I once was. I endure torturous rumblings”—he placed his fat hands tenderly upon the enormous waistcoated stomach—“soon, I fear, there will be an outcry from within equal to that of the mob that stormed the Bastille! Believe me, I have not suffered such outrage to my constitution since the horse-riding accident that placed me in this wheelchair. An egg, one superlatively cooked simple egg, is all I ask of you. Even that foul creature cannot get inside the shell of an egg to pervert its intrinsic goodness. And your wife!” The purplish bloodhound jowls shook with emotion. “Surely you will not subject her to being poisoned before your eyes, when all that is required of you is to follow me down a warren of damp corridors to the kitchen.”
“What state is it in?” All Ben’s professional instincts were aroused, as evidenced by the tilt of his dark head, the flash of blue-green in his eyes, the fact that he proceeded to turn his back on me. For the moment, my headache and I were nothing to the intriguing challenges to be met behind a green baize door.
“A dungeon. All the well-rusted implements for drawing and quartering. Livestock in the pantry, I wouldn’t doubt, and typhoid in the drains!” Georges LeBois eyed Ben narrowly through puffy lids, a professional sizing up how far to push his actor, shifting and leveling the camera to get the reaction he wanted. “A challengesurely no chef of any spirit with an ounce of stuffing inside him could resist.” I was wondering where his assistants were lurking when Ben asked Georges how he had discovered he was a chef.
“From Plunket. And I do, despite my aversion to men with pimples, have to give the mealy-mouthed fellow some points for trying to cheer me up upon seeing how low I was feeling following the accident. You know we lost one of our contestants? Most unfortunate—particularly for the woman herself, of course—but five is an awkward number to be left with. Still, I knew if I pressed that point too hard, Belfrey was liable to back out and we wouldn’t want that. I’m convinced this one could be a winner.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. Did I glimpse a cold-blooded ruthlessness that would let nothing stand between him and what he saw as his big chance to become a household name? I’d certainly never heard of him before today, not that that meant much. Or was he a man
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