Dread Murder

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘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 c
ut 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.

  ‘Oh, he can look after himself, can that one. He’s got a tongue on him … “Oh, Mr Burgeon,” he said out loud, “you’ve got one hot hand and one cold. You must have a fever. Shall I call out for the doctor …?” Harry sheared off pretty quick, I can tell you.’

  Beau stood up. ‘Must be off. I have to check my wig for tonight. Leave it too late and Harry will have my wig and leave me his.’

  Miss Fairface went back to brushing her dress, but her thoughts were with Charlie. He was a one, all right. One of a kind.

  ‘Bother,’ she said, after a bit. ‘Too dark in here for anything.’

  She went into the corridor, the better to see how her dress had fared; the light was better by the small window, so she stood there examining her dress carefully.

  From there, she saw the boy.

  The back of the Theatre opened onto a sidestreet by means of a heavy iron gate. Through the bars of the gate she saw the lad, back towards her, in conversation with a very tall, thin woman; she could see the swirl of the skirt and the edge of her bonnet. Not a fashionable bonnet, so Alice Fairface judged. She stared at the couple for a long minute. It had been a hard year, with widespread poverty, so that there were many children like Charlie on the streets, trying to live.

  Then a voice called her and she moved away from the window.

  Meanwhile, Charlie laboured up the hill from the Theatre, going slowly because he was carrying a basket that was heavier than he had expected when he accepted the errand. He put down the basket while he stood there, thinking and breathing deeply. Then he turned around, sniffing the air.

  Food, hot bread, and sausage and bacon.

  He was standing at the head of a small court. The smell of food came from a cook shop in the court. He fingered the coins in his pocket, then made his decision. He picked up the basket and went towards the delicious smells.

  The cook shop was dark and warm, with a counter running across the back behind which stood a man wearing an apron, which had once been white but was now blotched with stains of many colours. A small fat woman stood by his side.

  Charlie looked around. ‘Mulled wine, please, with a hot sausage and bread.’

  There was a silence. Then the woman said: ‘Are you one of those midgets from the circus?’

  ‘No.’ Charlie was indignant.

  ‘Has that basket got an animal in it?’

  ‘No.’ He thought this was the right answer; nothing moved in there – that was sure.

  The woman considered. She looked at the man and gave a nod. ‘Show us your money first,’ said the man.

  Charlie held out his palm with a few coins in it. Not all he had; he had that much caution.

  ‘Give it ’im,’ said the man to the woman.

  Silently, the woman pushed a beaker and a plate with a length of dark sausage resting on bread.

  ‘And bread,’ said Charlie. ‘Fresh bread. Not that stale stuff.’

  She obliged, giving him a smirk. ‘You’re a one, you are.

  Charlie moved away with his plate. From an inner, darker corner came a small figure, even smaller than Charlie, and thinner and older.

  A little old man, with grey hair flowing from a skull that was bald at the top, over a face that was wrinkled and shrivelled up into something too old to count. He was wrapped in a cloak, many sizes too big and so old that the stains and dirt of years had settled on it like a shroud.

  A whispered croak issued from the lips: ‘The wine’s all right, but I shouldn’t touch the sausage. I think they put dog in it.’ A claw-like set of fingers reached out for the sausage. Charlie beat the hand away and started the meal. Then he turned back and handed over half the sausage without a word.

  He finished the drink and the bread, picked up the basket and set off again.

  He hadn’t gone very far before he heard a shuffle behind him, then a bony hand gripped his shoulder. ‘Don’t hurry away … Be careful; they’re after you.’

  Charlie stopped, letting the basket hang over his arm. ‘Who is? Who is after me?’

  There was a pause. ‘Don’t know. Not knowing them, can’t say.’ Behind the drunken mutter was the hint of a voice that had known education – the ghost of an earlier life. Charlie sensed this without understanding it. One truth he had absorbed in his short journey through the London undergrowth was that what you couldn’t understand it was best you moved away from fast.

  He did this now, his feet tripping over the cobbles as he prepared to deliver his basket. ‘Seems to get heavier every minute,’ he said to himself. ‘Wonder what it is?’ He had a strong, active imagination, so he could call up several pictures.

  Books? Heavy enough if you carried enough of them. Boots? Yes, boots and clothes are heavy. Food? He often thought about food. He co
uld think of worse things to be carrying, but he decided not to. He didn’t believe he was being followed, but there was no sense in thinking frightening thoughts and giving yourself a nightmare during the day. He had got enough of those at night: hands grabbing; sticks raining sharp, hard blows on his back; a kick; a slap.

  Without meaning to, he put his hand to his ear, as if he felt the slap now.

  He looked round, but there was no one there. No one following him. People passing up and down the same path, but not following him. Or even looking at him.

  He was observed, however. A sharp pair of eyes was watching Charlie from the window on the top floor of a tall, narrow old house that overlooked the Castle and its hill. ‘Oh, I wish I could be there with him – there when the basket is opened,’ came the muttered sentence.

  Muttered, but audible to the woman sitting on the bed, unpinning her hair. She was not very young, but still comely with pretty, fair hair curving in thick waves. These she fixed with hot tongs, but who was to know?

  ‘Oh, go to … You!’ she said with irritation. ‘I think you only come here to look out of that window.’

  They knew each other well, these two; but it was not a continuous relationship. They met as it could be managed.

  ‘Not just that, Dol,’ said the man swinging round.

  ‘Not just that; you too.’

  Dol leaned back on the bed with a welcoming smile. She controlled her smile – not too wide. There was nothing personal about this restraint, it was just that she liked to make sure not all her teeth were on show. Some signs of age had to be hidden. Like a gap.

  Just between herself and the wall, she wished he’d get all this over with and go; she did have other people in her life.

  ‘Don’t take advantage,’ she said presently, half languorously, half sharply. ‘Not of me.’ She knew her way about men. But at times, she lost it.

  ‘What a tongue you’ve got, Dol. You ought to watch it.’

  ‘Just a little warning.’

  Charlie marched up to where the soldiers stood at the guard box — which was what the boy called it to himself. One of the soldiers recognised him.