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Authors: Gwendoline Butler

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BOOK: Dread Murder
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Slowly Charlie laboured uphill to the gateway with the soldiers on guard. They asked him his business, studied his burden, assessed the weight, and sent him on his way with directions. ‘You can do it.'
More slowly now, and ever slower as he went down into the Castle. He thought he was lost, and was preparing to dump his burden and depart, when a pretty woman asked him what he wanted and where he was going.
‘Major Mearns …bundles to deliver.'
Mindy, for it was she, hammered on the door behind an archway. ‘This is it.'
The Major himself opened the door. ‘These are for you,' said Mindy. ‘Give the boy a coin …and a drink; he looks as though he needs it.'
The Major studied the boy and the bundles. ‘What's your name, lad?'
‘Charlie, Sir.'
‘Well, Charlie, where have these packages come from?'
‘Left for you, Sir. In the inn below.'
Silently, the Major handed over a coin and a small beaker of beer.
‘Thank you, Sir,' said Charlie, drinking gratefully. Then he sped off. He had had enough of those two parcels. Another time, they could walk there, he joked to himself.
He ran down the Castle mound and back to the inn in the High Street. The coach was just departing for the rest of its journey.
Charlie held out his hand for his second payment. ‘Did what you asked. Parcels for Major Mearns – he took them from me himself.'
As the coachman paid up, while protesting that it was none of his business and he had been obliging a friend, he said: ‘And where will you be tonight?' It was going to be a cold night, and he could not dismiss some feeling for the boy.
Charlie hesitated, then said, ‘Miss Fairface said to come to the Theatre; she thought she could find me a place.'
The coachman nodded; this lad would go far. ‘And what about your father and mother, do they know you are on the loose?'
‘I have no one,' said Charlie.
 
Miss Alice Fairface might or might not have expected Charlie to come to the Theatre but, when he came, she greeted him with kindness. He reminded her of her young brother, at present on tour in the north of England. Her mother and father were performing in London at Drury Lane. She would like to go back there herself; she was hopeful – she knew she was good. But
you needed a bit of luck. Still, you worked where you could and Windsor was a good theatre to which the old King had come. He was mad, of course, but better a mad king than no king at all.
She was sitting in the dressing room where she applied colouring for her cheeks and eyes, and then put on her wig. She had blue colouring around one eye and had been doing the other when Charlie arrived.
‘You should have knocked on the door,' she said mildly. ‘I could have been in a state of undress. Who told you where to find me?'
Charlie gazed in fascination at her face, one blue eye and one plain. The pink on the cheeks did not quite match either.
‘No, no. I came through the door on the side street and listened till I heard your voice … You were talking quite loud.' He looked round the room. ‘But there is no one here.'
‘I was running through my lines.'
She studied his small, sturdy figure. He was not fat, rather thin and under-nourished in fact, but the sturdiness was of the spirit. He was so young – half child, but half old man. What had happened to him in his short life to split him in two?
He was looking at her expectantly, but without trust, as if life had taught him hope, but caution with it.
‘Yes, I'm sure I can find a spot. But not for long, you know.' She only had an engagement for a month in this theatre.
‘I will move on.'
The door was pushed open. Miss Fairface swung round. ‘Oh, hello, Beau.'
Beau was tall, handsome and only half dressed.
‘Alice, flower,' he bellowed, ‘the costume girl has given me tights to fit a midget.' Beau was his stage name, taken from the celebrated man of fashion, Brummell. Bertie was his real, never-used name.
Hanging over his arm was a pair of white-to-grey tights, meant to be worn with his handsome boots. They did look small.
‘Oh, put them on, dear – squeeze yourself in, then go to see her. Or put on a kilt – you wore one when you were Robert the Bruce last week.'
‘Good idea, my love …' He stopped. ‘Who's the boy?' Alice Fairface hesitated.
‘Bring him from London, did you?'
‘On the same coach … He needs somewhere to sleep.'
‘I can pay my share.' Proudly, Charlie produced his handful of coins. ‘I earned them carrying two parcels up to the Castle. Precious heavy they were, too.'
‘You can sleep back-stage … And help with setting up the scene. So, you've been up to the Castle. Did you go in?'
‘Up to the gate where the soldiers stand guard and then right up the hill to the room where I had to deliver them.'
‘Where do you come from, boy?' enquired Beau.
‘London,' said Charlie.
‘That's a big city. Won't some person be looking for you?'
Charlie shook his head.
‘What about your family?'
‘No family.'
He was poorly dressed but not ragged, thin but not starved. A mystery here, thought Beau. On the other hand there were many new orphans. Death came easily and quickly.
‘Follow me, lad, and I will show you where you can sleep.'
Charlie bowed to Miss Fairface. ‘Thank you, ma'am, for your help.'
‘Come and see me again, Charlie. I am here for the next four weeks.'
‘I will indeed, ma'am.'
Then he followed Beau.
 
The parcels were left untouched overnight. Denny and the Major had other things to think about – one of which was a trip to Datchet to see a contact.
Next morning, back in his rooms in the Castle, Major Mearns was unpacking the two parcels. He used scissors to cut the wrapping. As he did so, he began to frown.
‘Open the window, Denny,' he instructed.
Denny obliged.
‘By God,' said Mearns. ‘This is a leg … A man's left by the size, weight and look of it. We have been sent a pair of legs.'
‘Is it …?' began Denny, then stopped.
‘Yes, of course, they're dead,' said Mearns irritably.
‘But whether they were cut off when the man was dead or alive I have no means of knowing.'
Denny felt sick. ‘You better send them to the Crowners' Unit.'
The Crowners was a newly-formed unit of men, almost all former soldiers, The Crown Keepers of the Peace in Windsor – another sign of the changing times.
Mearns kept quiet. He did not like the Crowners. He particularly disliked Felix Ferguson, a young Scotsman, and the head officer. ‘Too cheeky!' was Mearns' comment – ‘blandness helps you more.' John Farmer he liked a little better, and sometimes took a drink with him. He was a handsome young man. Felix was less handsome, but exuded power – which was what irritated Mearns.
No, in his most honest moments he admitted that he disliked Felix because Mindy liked the man. Also, Felix, unmarried, was showing that he liked Mindy.
Jealousy.
But it was agreed on all sides that the Unit was doing a good job in Windsor. It was small, but efficient. England was changing. Industry was spreading and cities were growing. The Unit was part of that change. Major Mearns felt that he was part of the past.
But he had no intention of going near the Crowners with the legs.
 
The Unit was at that moment meeting. Felix was laying down the law. His law. He had strong proprietary feelings about the law and Windsor. But what annoyed
Mearns was that Felix did not look fierce; he had a quiet, gentle face – almost feminine – with big blue eyes and a crest of fair hair. He had a good army record, though – as Mearns knew — and by all accounts was not one to leave a fight. Otherwise, too confident for anyone's good.
Windsor, with the King in his Castle, was a town that needed the Unit to keep the peace, which, as Mearns admitted, it did well.
It was an efficient unit, and soon there would be units like it all over the country. England was changing. London was growing. Cities were spreading in the Industrial North.
Law and order should be respected. But all the same Mearns had no intention of consulting the Crowners' Unit.
‘Life must go on,' said Major Mearns gloomily. ‘Take those legs away. They begin to stink.'
Dead meat, thought Denny. He was a strong meat-eater, but it might be some time before a leg of lamb had much appeal. ‘I suppose they are human?'
‘Look at the feet.' Only one leg had been unwrapped, but they must match.
Denny had seen many dead feet, but they were usually booted and on the battlefield. The foot he could see now was dirty; it had a large corn on the little toe and broken nails – a foot that had seen a rough, hard life.
‘I don't know the foot,' said Denny. Who could? One foot on its own was not easily given a name.
‘Take them down to the courtyard and undo the other leg. Then come back and I will join you …' He looked into Denny's reluctant face. ‘I should smoke a pipe while you do it … Come on, Denny – you did enough battle fieldwork.'
Denny grunted as he went out, carrying the pair of legs in the paper of
The Times.
The King would have to
do without. The Major considered what he should do. A pair of legs was not a welcome present, and who had sent them?
‘And why to me?' he asked himself silently.
He went to the door to shout after Denny. ‘See if there is a letter or such in the wrappings. Or if my name is written on the cloth …'
‘And shall I look to see if there's a love letter inside?' Denny called back with heavy irony.
Mearns lit his pipe, and deliberated on what he was calling ‘the matter of the legs'. It was for him to take action. He was the master in this matter. Or so he thought.
The legs could be burnt. Or buried in the Castle grounds somewhere.
He stood up, making himself ready to go out and view the legs. The Magistrate, Sir Robert Porteous, should be informed, and he in turn would tell the coroner, Dr Archibald Devon. The Major knew both men well as he'd had cause to contact them in the past …as when the mad servant girl hanged herself and her baby. Except that the baby was not hers — just one she had ‘borrowed' for the occasion.
He had found both men humane and reasonable. He did not doubt that good manners would prevail now, but something held him back. They would be interested, so very interested, and he had the feeling that he would prefer this not to be what happened. He was a man for a secret; all his training had reinforced a natural inclination that way.
He would not be breaking any law if he managed the matter of the legs in his own way. After all, he had the fountain head of all law in the Castle – mad and confined to his own rooms, but still the King and the source of law.
Because of this, the Castle and its environs were a specially protected place – a franchise. The Common Law ran here all right, but its officers, like the Coroner and the Magistrate, were not free to advance in to control what went on, as in an ordinary house.
The Major believed he could act as he thought best, behind this special liberty in the Castle.
‘I shall do what I think best,' he said aloud as he walked out of the door. Always in his mind was what William Pitt, then Prime Minister, had said when he sent him to the Castle: ‘Remember you are responsible to me, and he who succeeds me. You are there to watch and report. Secret work, Major. As far as the Castle knows, you are there as an old soldier needing a home.'
And there are plenty of them about, Mearns had thought at the time – in the Castle and outside it. The nature of society in the Castle was such that he and Denny were absorbed into the fabric in no time at all, and their presence taken for granted. They were old soldiers living in the Castle.
Mearns was a tall, upright man who still had a thatch of once-red hair – now grey – which he kept well cut by the barber who used to work for the then Prince of Wales. Denny was smaller and slighter, and had lost his hair early on so that his bald head had a fine polish on it.
But he and the Major had known each other so long that they matched, making a pair.
The Major was the senior partner and in charge; but Denny was clever – which Mearns admitted.
At the moment, he couldn't see Denny, but he could smell the way he passed. Along the covered way, down a flight of steps into the courtyard, and there he was.
He was sitting on a low stone wall, smoking; at his feet were the two bundles.
‘Smelt you,' said Mearns. He was studying the foot. ‘That's a working man's foot, not the foot of a gentleman.'
‘Somehow I never thought he was a prince.' Denny drew on his pipe.
‘He did a lot of walking.'
Their eyes met. ‘You thinking what I'm thinking?' Denny spoke first.
The Major nodded. In a level voice, he said: ‘A soldier's feet.' He took a pace up and down, then came back to where Denny crouched by his bundles.
‘Unwrap the other leg, Denny; I want to study it.'
Reluctantly, Denny parted the sacking, using the knife to cut through the several layers. The smell of dead flesh grew stronger.
‘It's stuck,' he complained.
‘Dig away!' came the command.
Denny looked around him; he had chosen a spot where not many people came. ‘What shall we do if someone comes along and asks us what we are doing?'
‘We shall tell the truth – that the legs were delivered as
a parcel to me and I am trying to find out whose legs they are.'
‘Truth?' thought Denny – ever suspicious of his revered superior. ‘I think you know or suspect who walked on these legs.'
The unwrapped leg lay before them, swollen and discoloured by decay. ‘That leg was cut off first,' judged the Major. ‘It has decomposed more than the other.'
‘Or it was kept somewhere warmer,' said Denny. Mearns ignored this comment; he was staring at a long line of darker blue – almost black – that ran down the muscle of the leg like a seam. It ran in a curve down the leg.
‘God save us,' he said under his breath. ‘That is a scar.'
Denny covered the leg up. It seemed kinder somehow.
‘I know that scar, Denny, and so do you.'
Denny frowned.
‘There was blood on it when you first saw it. Blood on all of us.'
Denny looked towards the leg; he stood up from his kneeling position. ‘What are you saying, Major?' But he thought he knew.
‘A sabre wound. In Spain. You helped bind it up.'
‘It's Tommy Traddles.' Denny remembered now; a fierce little fight – part of the main battle. Had they won? He couldn't remember. Afterwards they had been told it was their victory. ‘I remember his hurt …he was never as careful as we were.' Years ago they had all been young; but Traddles was older than Denny and Mearns.
The Major was remembering too. He turned away.
‘Aye. Cover him up again. What we've got of him.' Just in time, Denny performed this service for Traddles, as footsteps sounded on the flagstones.
Mindy came across towards them. She looked neat and pretty in her print dress and soft woollen shawl. She had put on a little weight over the years – no longer girlish, but a mature, elegant woman. Usually both men were delighted to see Mindy; she was their friend for whom they felt a warm affection. Which was returned.
Mindy liked and trusted them — which in the society of the Castle was not always the case. She was now an assistant dresser to one of the Princesses, which gave her a security she had not known before. She had one or two suitors, to whom she showed no favours and no preference. Perhaps as a child she had seen too much of the rigours and pains of marriage to be eager for it. Both men thought it would be a pity if she did not marry; she looked born to raise a family and run a neat household. But she must marry well, not for her the destiny of ten children and a basement room. They were looking out for a good husband for her. Denny had thought of her wistfully for years as someone he would love, did love; but he was a humble man and did not rate himself worthy of her.
‘So that's where you are. I've been looking for you.' Denny placed himself in front of the covered-up legs so that she could not see.
But she was quick. ‘What are you hiding?'
‘Not the crown jewels,' said Denny. ‘Nothing you need to worry about.'
The Major said nothing.
Her laugh died away. ‘It is a dead …' She moved towards the bundles. ‘I saw these yesterday when the boy delivered them.'
Mearns spoke up. ‘Better not look.'
‘It's not an animal, is it?' she said slowly. ‘You haven't killed an animal.'
‘As soon kill the King,' said Denny with an attempt at lightness. He had no intention of letting her see inside the bundles.
But on the left leg the wrapping, hastily put back by Denny to mask the sight and even more the smell, fell away to reveal the foot.
‘Leave it,' said the Major hastily.
Mindy gave a little cry, then put her hand to her mouth.
‘Told you not to look.'
Mindy, frozen by the sight, went on looking. ‘Mindy,' he admonished. ‘You must learn your manners. A lady would not have looked.'
‘I'm not a lady.' She had her handkerchief to her nose.
‘And before you lose a bit more of your manners, Miss – no, we did not kill him. The legs were a present to me.'
Mindy had gone pale. ‘Was he dead when his legs were cut off?'
‘I judge, yes.' He hoped he sounded more convinced than he was.
‘And they were sent to you? Are you sure they were meant for you?' But she had seen them arrive herself.
‘Sent, delivered, given – call it what you like.' He was terse and cross.
‘Came yesterday,' volunteered Denny.
‘I know that already.'
‘We've only just opened them.' Giving them an opportunity to get really ripe, he thought savagely.
The trouble with having Mindy as their friend was that she was also their conscience. ‘Have you told Sir Robert? Or Dr Devon?'
The Major answered his dear conscience smartly: ‘I do not think it is necessary for a member of the Household.' Especially for one who was secretly in the pay of the Cabinet, Whig or Tory, as they came and went. Major Mearns was not a political man himself, and had no vote and no influence; but he recognised power when he saw it.
‘Can't be hidden,' said Mindy. She was as conscious of the smell, stench even, of decay as the two men were.
The Major shrugged. ‘Who knows?'
‘I know. And the person who sent the legs to you knows. And who can tell what other …' she hesitated, ‘things he may have to send?'
 
In the Theatre Miss Fairface was shaking out the dress she must wear later as Carmina in
Escape to Spain
, a farce with songs that she was doomed to perform that night as the end of the programme.
‘No, Beau, dear, no outing for me today. I must run through my songs …written by a man with a tin ear, I vow.'
‘The Theatre owner,' said Beau, ‘whose slaves we are bound to be while he pays us to perform.'
‘You didn't mind playing Falstaff.'
‘Oh Falstaff. That was different. That was Shakespeare.'
‘Pot belly and all?'
‘Belly and all.'
He had been a very good Falstaff – funny, passionate, with a hint of violence, which, after all, is often there in the background with Shakespeare.
Beau Vinter was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room while he trimmed his fingernails. He took up a piece of chamois leather to begin polishing them.
‘Yes, Beau, you have very fine nails indeed; but as tonight you play a groom, they might as well look rough and stained.'
‘Ah, only “pretend groom”, playing at it so I can get close to you, my love, and whisk you off to Spain. It is Spain, isn't it?'
He stopped buffing his nails and went back to cutting one on the right hand which had got badly torn.
He saw Miss Fairface looking. ‘It's that fight in the last Act of
Escape
…'
Miss Fairface shook her head. ‘You take it too seriously, that you do.'
‘It's Harry Burgeon, not me. He takes it too seriously, Harry does. Can't act it. I have to fight him off.'
‘I wish he took making love to me in Act Three seriously,' complained Miss Fairface. ‘I have to do it all myself.'
‘Not interested, you see … He's interested enough in that lad you brought in, though,' said Beau with a laugh.
‘What?' cried the actress with alarm. Broadminded in
many ways, as actresses were obliged to be, she was prudish in others.
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