A top-secret family recipe, that VERY amorous kiss under the mistletoe – and a dead guest. So who’s the killer? Read the second part of our thrilling Christmas mystery to find out… by the Rev RICHARD COLES

The story so far: Seven guests join Reverend Daniel Clement, his mother Audrey and brother Theo for Christmas lunch. But the day’s festivities take a shocking turn during a game of charades when one of their visitors falls to the floor… and doesn’t get up. 

Now, in the second and final part of the Mail’s electrifying serialisation, questions swirl over his sudden death – as suspicion falls on Audrey’s special bread sauce…

Audrey, who had been resuscitating the lifeless since she had been a nurse in the Blitz, crouched over Victor Cabot: ‘…nine, ten, eleven, twelve…’

Daniel said: ‘Alex, see where that ambulance has got to.’

‘There’s a strike, remember, and it’s Christmas Day. You couldn’t pick a worse day to have a heart attack.’

Daniel winced, and instinctively looked to see if Jane, Victor’s wife, had heard, but she wasn’t in the drawing room.

Her cousin, Lord Bernard de Floures, had taken her out to the kitchen, for he thought it no seemlier for a wife to witness a husband’s death than a father the birth of a child.

Miss March and Honoria had gone with them to make tea and be reassuring and to see that Jane did not help herself to another stiffening tot.

A top-secret family recipe, that VERY amorous kiss under the mistletoe – and a dead guest. So who’s the killer? Read the second part of our thrilling Christmas mystery to find out…

Audrey, with help from Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo, kept the effort up for half an hour before the ambulance arrived, blue lights flashing.

The ambulance crew knew Neil from his professional life as a policeman and spoke to him as professionals do, without the softening gloss applied to white-faced relatives surrounding a body.

For Victor was now a body, his life extinct almost as soon as he fell.

Neil took it upon himself to carry the news to his widow. ‘I am sorry to have to tell you…’

‘I know,’ said Jane, ‘he’s dead. We all know.’

‘Jane, how awful, I’m so sorry,’ said Audrey.

Honoria had started to wash up, making herself useful at this most testing time, but Neil came and stopped her.

‘Please don’t wash anything up, Honoria.’

‘I am capable of housework, you know?’ she said, stung.

‘Evidence,’ he replied. She took off her Marigolds and sat down.

‘Evidence?’ said Daniel.

‘I could use a drink, Honoria,’ said Jane. ‘Scotch if there is any.’

‘There is,’ said Theo, and he went to fetch it. He stopped at the door. ‘Anyone else?’

Nods came in response. ‘I’ll bring the bottle.’

Alex said, ‘What do you mean, evidence?’

‘Victor’s diet was… particular,’ said Jane. ‘He had to be careful with dairy, with glutens, with wine – the sulphides – and cigarette smoke, and caffeine. Cheese gave him a migraine – histamines apparently – so did smoked fish. And there was eczema and urticaria and, of course, nuts.’

‘Could something he was allergic to have caused him to get into physical distress?’ said Neil.

‘Not the cheese or wine, but the nuts. Yes, when he was younger, he used to have a fit of some kind, but not so bad now. You think it was a reaction to something?’

Theo returned with the bottle of the Macallan, which made Audrey wince, for there was a perfectly good bottle of Teacher’s that she thought a better choice for a medicinal tot than a twelve-year-old Speyside single malt.

‘Anything you can think of?’ asked Neil.

‘Me?’ said Audrey.

‘Anything that could have nuts in it?’

‘No. And anyway, Jane supervised every morsel.’

‘There is one thing…’ said Jane. ‘What one thing?’

‘Your divine bread sauce, Audrey.’

Theo gasped, then pretended to cough. Audrey’s bread sauce recipe was as closely guarded as the formula for Mr Lea and Mr Perrins’s Worcestershire Sauce.

‘What about my bread sauce?’

‘What’s in it?’ asked Jane. Audrey tried to speak, but nothing came at first.

She opened her mouth again, then closed it. Then she said, ‘Bread.’

‘Bread and…?’

‘Bread and milk and butter. And an onion. And some bits and bobs.’

‘What bits and bobs?’ Jane asked.

If it had been a law court rather than her kitchen, Audrey would have asked to approach the bench. ‘No nuts…’ But there was something she was not saying.

‘I need to know everything, Audrey, everything,’ said Jane.

How wicked of Jane, thought Audrey, to use her husband’s unexplained death as a pretext to wrench her most treasured recipe out of her hands. ‘Bay leaf. Cloves. You stud the onion with cloves. For the milk infusion.’

‘Is that all?’

‘More or less.’

‘What else, Audrey?’ asked Neil, sounding ominously official.

There was silence. Then she said, in the breezy tone she always used in defeat: ‘There was a sprinkle – no more – of mace.’

‘Of course,’ said Jane, ‘that’s what I couldn’t place.’

‘Mace?’ said Neil. ‘It’s a spice made from the outer casing of a nutmeg,’ said Daniel.

‘So, a nut?’ said Neil.

‘Nutmeg’s not a nut,’ said Audrey, ‘it’s a seed. Like tomato is not a vegetable, but a fruit.’

‘But it’s still an allergen,’ said Jane. ‘I once nearly lost Victor to an eggnog. It was the nutmeg!’

‘But mace is not nutmeg,’ said Audrey. ‘It’s got the same damn chemicals in it,’ said Jane.

‘Barely a pinch. And as I said’ – she looked to Daniel for support – ‘it’s not a nut, so how could it pose a risk?’

‘Why didn’t you say?’ said Jane.

‘I don’t give a comprehensive list of ingredients for everything I serve, dear,’ said Audrey, but then she remembered that Jane’s husband had just died on her drawing-room floor and checked her sarcasm.

‘You said you would make sure there was nothing on Victor’s plate that could harm him.’

‘But how was I to know the bread sauce – your famous bread sauce that everyone goes on about – was laced with allergens?’

‘Really, you make me sound like Lucrezia Borgia!’

‘You just killed my husband!’ There was silence.

‘Jane, I know you’re very upset,’ said Honoria, ‘this is upsetting for all of us, but I don’t think this is an outcome anyone intended…’

Neil did not know why he looked at Daniel when Honoria said this, but he did, and what he saw he had seen before.

Daniel and Neil were in the study. ‘What was that about?’ said Neil.

‘What was what about?’

‘Your look of nearly imperceptible scepticism. Not imperceptible to me.’

Daniel said, ‘Not ‘an outcome anyone intended’…’

‘Yes, that’s what made me look. To see how it went down. You think this was an outcome someone intended?’

‘I don’t know. It could just be an unfortunate combination of things. His undeclared allergy, Mum’s undeclared mace, a lapse of diligence by Jane? What do the paramedics think?’ Daniel asked.

‘Cardiac arrest. Probably triggered by a reaction to the mace in the bread sauce – looks like he was allergic to nutmeg – with alcohol a factor, maybe physical exertion?’

‘Charades is hardly a marathon.’

The day’s festivities take a shocking turn during a game of charades when one of their visitors falls to the floor… and doesn’t get up

‘He was quite strenuously handled under the mistletoe.’

‘Not something I’ll easily forget,’ Daniel said, remembering how they had all winced when Jane had enthusiastically embraced her husband under the mistletoe.

‘Did you see him actually have any bread sauce?’

‘No. I don’t remember. Why would I? What about you?’

‘I didn’t see, but I don’t think he would have.’

‘You’re being mysterious, Dan. Why do you think he didn’t?’

‘The Book of Exodus. I think it’s Chapter 23.’

They gathered in the drawing room. It was dark outside now, the fire glowed red, the lights gleamed on the Christmas tree. Audrey had brought in tea on a trolley with the Christmas cake and a block of Wensleydale. Jane looked sadly at the spot in front of the fire where Victor had died. ‘Could we get this over with? I want to go home.’

‘I’m sorry to put you through this, but I need us all here to clarify a couple of things,’ said Neil.

‘And there are refreshments,’ said Audrey, to whom the matter of a guest’s sudden demise was no reason to curtail the full ceremony of the day.

After everyone had resolved the peculiarly English challenge of managing side plates, cake forks, cups and saucers and teaspoons while sitting on a sofa, Neil began.

‘It’s not confirmed yet, but it looks like Mr Cabot had an allergic reaction to the bread sauce’ – Audrey was suddenly fascinated by the fire light when he said this.

‘It wasn’t the first time he had reacted badly to whatever it is in nutmeg and mace, but unfortunately it caused a heart attack. It would be very helpful to know if anyone actually saw him take any bread sauce?’

No one said anything. Then Jane said: ‘Yes, I did. He’d had it before, here, on a shooting weekend, only it wasn’t fatally toxic.’

Audrey said nothing. Jane went on: ‘He took some today. He looked at me to see if I thought it was OK, and of course I did, so I nodded. Didn’t think anything of it.’

‘Are you sure?’ Neil asked. ‘Quite sure.’

Daniel said: ‘I don’t think that can be right.’ ‘Excuse me?’

‘I suspect your husband would not have tried any bread sauce.’

Jane tutted. ‘You know, Daniel, your instinct to exonerate your mother and her bread sauce is to your credit, but let us deal with the facts. He had no reason to think it was dangerous.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So what’s the damn problem?’

‘It wasn’t kosher.’ There was silence.

‘What do you mean?’ said Jane, sounding for the first time uncertain.

‘Exodus, Chapter 23, Verse 19: ‘Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.’ I just looked it up.’

‘And what does that have to do with anything?’ she asked.

‘Jewish dietary law forbids mixing meat and milk. Like venison and bread sauce. Victor was Jewish, I think?’

There was another silence. Then Jane said: ‘So what? It wasn’t something he went on about. It wasn’t a big part of his life.’

‘Until recently,’ said Daniel. ‘It had started to become something he took seriously. Going to shul, observing the Law?’

‘So Victor was Jewish?’ said Bernard. ‘Why didn’t you say anything? I would have asked Mrs Shorely not to wave her awful sausages under his nose at breakfast.’

‘Thank you, Bernard, that’s precisely why someone might want to keep their Jewishness quiet,’ said Jane. ‘Not quite right, not one of us, the wrong kind of old country.’

‘I mean nothing of the sort,’ Bernard blustered, but then was quiet and took a slurp of tea.

‘But he was observant?’ said Daniel.

‘Yes, quietly. But if you lived in a place where Jews don’t get into country clubs, would you shout about it?’ replied Jane.

‘So, if Cousin Victor was so good at keeping it quiet, Dan, how did you know he was Jewish?’ said Alex.

‘Hymn books.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘At church this morning I noticed that whenever Victor went to open his hymn book, he opened it from the back, not the front.’

‘I still don’t follow,’ said Alex.

‘Hebrew is printed from right to left, so in the synagogue all the books begin at what we call the back. We had a conversation last night after Midnight Mass and Victor said he had started to rediscover his faith. I imagine he was just doing what he always did when he went to worship.’

Neil said: ‘So he would not have eaten the bread sauce?’

‘Apparently not,’ said Jane.

‘Then how did he come into contact with the allergen?’

‘You had bread sauce, Jane,’ said Daniel.

‘Of course I did, after all that build-up. And it’s good, Audrey,’ she nodded at her. ‘But it’s not foie gras.’

‘I could see you liked it,’ said Audrey, ‘you were first to help yourself, a lovely big ladle’s worth. And your curiosity about the recipe was so flattering!’

Jane shrugged.

‘You remember, dear? I found you busying yourself in the kitchen. When you said you were going to fetch a jug of water?’

Neil said, ‘The mace?’

‘It was next to the Aga,’ said Audrey.

Neil said: ‘Did you know there was mace in the bread sauce?’

‘No. I got cloves, I got bay, but I didn’t get mace,’ said Jane. ‘But this is ridiculous! And in very poor taste!’

‘You kissed him,’ said Miss March. ‘Under the mistletoe.’

‘A wife can’t kiss her husband under the mistletoe at Christmas?’

‘That’s how he came into contact with the allergen. By kissing you,’ said Daniel.

Jane looked around the room. ‘Ridiculous. He reacted to a tiny pinch of mace in a mouthful of bread sauce eaten half an hour before he kissed me?’

‘It was quite a kiss,’ said Audrey, ‘rather a grown-up sort of kiss…’

Neil interrupted. ‘It can take only a tiny amount, especially when you have already had a bad reaction to it. You said Victor nearly died after drinking eggnog?’

‘But that was years ago, and he didn’t nearly die – pure hyperbole – he just… wheezed a bit.’ Jane looked round the room. ‘I didn’t know there was mace in it!’

It is not unusual for Christmas guests to accelerate to the door of departure. This departure, however, was downright urgent, for speculation that one of your guests has killed another would test the hospitality of a society hostess like Emerald Cunard, and Audrey all but shoved them towards the door, not that they needed encouragement.

In the kitchen, Daniel washed and Neil dried.

‘Do you think she knew about the mace?’ said Neil.

‘Yes, don’t you?’

‘I do. Do you think she meant to kill him?’

‘At best it’s unbelievable recklessness,’ said Daniel.

‘At worst it’s a highly ingenious murder. But why would she want to kill him?’

‘I don’t know. There are, of course, countless married couples feeling murderous by sunset on Christmas Day, but few indulge it.’

‘Money?’ said Neil.

‘I think that likely, although Victor was hardly parsimonious. Perhaps she has another husband in mind. Alex said she has always married up. Started with an Honourable with a mews in Mayfair, left him for a banker with a brownstone on the Upper West Side in the Swinging Sixties, left him for Victor, who inherited a chunk of the Upper West Side, and now?’

‘If it is murder – and that assumes rather a lot – she’s got away with it, hasn’t she?’ said Neil. ‘Hard to see how any accusation would stand up. Unless, of course, she was stricken with conscience and confessed, preferably to me rather than you.’

‘I don’t think either of us will be troubled with that. Most murders go unpunished, don’t you think?’ said Daniel.

‘I do. Most murders are undetected.’

Daniel nodded. ‘A fall. A mishap by the river. A moment’s forgetfulness with medication.’

‘A misunderstanding with mace.’

‘Yes, precisely.’

Jane was finally alone at the end of that unforgettable Christmas Day. Her room at Champton House was cold. She silently cursed the land of her birth, with its terrible plumbing and endless discomforts and narrowness and tax.

She had made herself a hot milk to wash down a Valium. It would help her into her first night of widowhood. Two tablets, ten milligrams, she decided, under the circumstances.

There was something else in her bag next to her tablets and she took that out, too. She popped the tablets from the strip, put them on her tongue, took a sip of milk and down they went. She had 20 minutes or so before the effects would be felt; she wanted to be in bed before that and there was one more thing to do first.

Perhaps Victor would have started laying down the Law and keeping a kosher household, and they would have to put in a milk kitchen and a meat kitchen.

She wouldn’t have minded that so much; she liked doing up kitchens. It was another cornerstone of the ancient faith that she really stumbled over.

Almsgiving. When she had looked it up she had discovered that faithful Jews were expected to give generously to charity. Really generously, endowing libraries and hospitals and colleges.

What a drain that would have been on resources – resources she had plans for.

Religion, she thought, tutting, especially late-onset religion, messing everything up.

She looked again at the object in front of her.

If you did not know what it was, you would think it a marker pen, with a barrel and a tip covered by a cap, but it was not that. She picked it up and went carefully along the corridor towards the boiler room.

In the boiler room there was also an ash bin, one of the old metal ones with the grooves on the sides and a scalloped lid.

She lifted it and saw that it was half filled with ashes from the library fire, which, she supposed, would be going thence to the tip.

She looked at Victor’s auto-injector. ‘EPIPEN’ it said on the barrel. She kept one in her bag wherever they went so that, should he accidentally eat something and have an allergic reaction, she could remedy it at once by sticking the needle into his leg to release a spurt of adrenaline.

What a brilliant idea – so simple, so easy to use, life-saving.

She pushed it into the ashes as deep as she could.

Adapted by James Carey-Douglas from Murder Under the Mistletoe by Reverend Richard Coles (Orion, £12.99). © Richard Coles 2024. To order a copy for £11.69 (offer valid to 04/01/25; UK P&P free on orders £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.