Murder [and Baklava] (A European Voyage #1)- Blake Pierce Page 0,23
in here.”
London braced herself for the ugly scene she knew was coming.
CHAPTER NINE
Mrs. Klimowski drew herself up, looking markedly less frail than she had a few moments ago.
“I’ll have you know that Sir Reginald Taft is my emotional support animal,” she said in a growl not unlike her dog’s. “He is essential to my mental and physical health. Wherever I go, he goes too. If he leaves, I leave.”
Mrs. Klimowski and János stared grimly at each other.
London glanced around the table. The others in the group were looking intently at their menus, although she could detect a slight smirk on Cyrus Bannister’s features.
“Well?” Mrs. Klimowski snapped. “It’s entirely up to you.”
János seemed unimpressed by the woman’s furs and jewels and imperious manner. His expression darkened.
“Very well, madam,” he replied in a clenched voice. “I’m afraid you must leave our establishment.”
“Then you must force me to me leave,” Mrs. Klimowski replied.
London had to admire the woman’s sheer stubbornness, but it was clear they had reached an ugly impasse. What if János bodily lifted Mrs. Klimowski out of her chair and hauled her away, perhaps with help from others in the restaurant staff?
“No one is going to force anybody to do anything,” London said sharply, standing up and confronting the waiter directly.
The man didn’t budge.
Just then another customer stepped up and spoke to János quietly in rapid Hungarian. London had trouble catching much of what he said, but the gist of it seemed to be that the animal was hardly making any trouble, and the lady obviously needed its companionship, so why not let her and the dog stay?
London breathed a sigh of relief when the waiter finally nodded in sullen agreement.
She used her best Hungarian to thank the stranger who had intervened on behalf of the dog. She thought he cut an authoritative figure, with his jutting push-broom mustache, wavy gray hair, and kindly but intense expression.
As János took everyone’s drink orders and went away to let them look at their menus, London sat down again. The stranger smiled graciously at the group and spoke in somewhat stilted English with a thick Hungarian accent.
“I am Vilmos Kallay, and I am at your service. I am a poet, although I’m sure you wouldn’t have heard of me even if you were Hungarian. My ‘day job,’ so to speak, is as a university professor.”
“Indeed?” Emil asked, looking pleased to meet another scholar. “What is your area of expertise?”
“It is what some Scotsman once called, if I remember correctly, ‘the dismal science.’ I forget the man’s name.”
Emil nodded with a chuckle.
“Ah, economics, then,” he said. “The Scotsman was Thomas Carlyle, by the way.”
“Thank you for refreshing my memory,” Professor Kallay replied.
Emil introduced himself to the professor. Then the professor added to the whole group, “If you haven’t decided what to order for dinner, I highly recommend the paprikácsirke. It’s a traditional Magyar recipe—diced chicken prepared with sour cream and dumplings. It is by far the finest dish on the menu.”
At that moment, János the waiter returned with everybody’s drinks. As he served them to the group, he eyed Mrs. Klimowski with scarcely concealed hostility.
She ignored the man completely.
“I thought that awful waiter was really going to throw me out,” she said to London. “It’s just been one crisis after another this evening. I don’t know how much more I can take. I should never have left the ship tonight.”
“Fortunately, the kind Professor Kallay has settled one crisis for us,” London replied. She watched as Mrs. Klimowski pulled a brightly colored little box out of her bag and snapped it open. As she did so, she leaned forward so that her ruby pendant with its setting of diamonds and gold fell fully into view—not just to the people nearby, but to many others in the restaurant. London felt another spasm of worry.
It’s like trying to keep a walking jewelry store safe, she thought.
And she’s all dressed in furs.
And she’s got a dog.
London found it hard to imagine how the woman could be “higher maintenance.”
Mrs. Klimowski took a couple of pills out of the box, swallowed them with water, and put the box away. Whatever medicine she was taking, London hoped it would settle the woman’s nerves.
Still a bit sulky, János began to take their orders. Although Gus and Honey decided to order goulash, everybody else took Professor Kallay’s advice and chose the paprikácsirke. János nodded with approval as he jotted the orders down.
“An excellent choice,” he said. “Ours is the best paprikácsirke in Budapest. You