Dread Murder

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Your mother?’ He could hear Miss Fairface’s voice hinting.

  His mother? She would weep when she heard he was lost. She had wept when she said ‘Goodbye’, yet she had told him how lucky he was and how much he would enjoy himself. No, he concluded on reflection, she would not be looking for him in a hurry.

  The actress stared at his face and thought that no boy his age ought to have that look in his eyes. Not that she knew for sure what his age was, and she wondered if he knew; sometimes he seemed ageless.

  Then he smiled and the happy boy came back.

  Miss Fairface sighed with relief. ‘Got a job for you … A walk-on in the play tonight.’

  ‘What’s a walk-on?’

  ‘No dialogue. You just go on and follow the crowd.’

  ‘Will there be a crowd?’

  ‘Well, not much of one.’ It was all being done on the cheap. In fact, Charlie might be the crowd.

  ‘Do I get paid?’

  She told him how much, and he nodded as if satisfied. She saw the approval flash in his eyes. ‘Just one night,’ she said quickly. ‘You can’t count on the theatre as an earner.’

  Depends where you start from, was what Charlie thought. A day walking-on paid better than a week in the blacking factory.

  ‘It’s the writer who makes the money,’ said the actress. ‘A play can go on for years.’

  ‘Like Shakespeare,’ said Charlie thoughtfully. The play that night was Macbeth. He knew about Shakespeare; his mother used to recite passages, flirting with her big eyes. He had not admired her performance, however.

  ‘You don’t have to be Shakespeare.’ Miss Fairface thought of all the poor romances and comedies in which she had appeared that had run and run. ‘Just give the audience what it wants. You have to find that out, of course, or stumble on it by luck by finding a hole and filling it.’

  Charlie thought he would look for that hole. ‘How will I know where to go tonight?’

  ‘Follow the stage manager; that’s Jack Eden. He’s the one with the big nose and the red hair.’ Attributes which had prevented Jack from making a success as a performer. One physical drawback you can overcome, but not two.

  Charlie had noticed the nose.

  He followed the nose later that day, down the corridors, towards the dressing rooms and the stage. Here he was stopped by a harassed-looking woman who told him all that she could allow him for the crowd scene was a cloak. ‘Which might be on the big side for you, lad.’

  The cloak was black corded silk and velvet. ‘Stand up as straight as you can, lad,’ said the wardrobe keeper. ‘Pity they couldn’t get someone taller.’ But Charlie dragged the cloak over his shoulders and gave it a kind of a tuck at his neck which shortened it.

  He soon discovered that all he had to do was walk behind Miss Fairface. He had the feeling that the stage and performing came naturally to him.

  From the front row, the Major and Denny, sitting side by side, had an excellent view. Shakespeare was not the first choice of a play to see for either man, but they had received complimentary tickets from the Manager – a man one did not scorn in Windsor social circles. Also, there was to be some conviviality on stage after the performance that the Major meant to attend.

  Denny recognised Charlie and pointed him out to the Major. ‘That’s the messenger boy.’

  ‘I saw him too,’ said Mearns impatiently. He had handed over a few more coins to the lad after the last delivery. You had to admire such cheek. Except it was not cheek, the Major had been around the world enough to recognise the difference. It was a kind of deep self-assurance. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘Earning. He’ll get paid.’

  The Major gave a short laugh; he felt sure the boy would get paid. ‘He ought to go home …if he’s got one.’

  He watched the performance, deciding glumly that Macbeth had not been much of a soldier and was certainly a poor leader of a country’s army. He wouldn’t blame it on the man, being a Scot; but Shakespeare he could blame. Clearly the great bard had not understood military matters.

  And as for Lady Macbeth – she was such a beauty, mad or otherwise. He could see it was a good part for such as Miss Fairface.

  He watched Macbeth advance across the stage to his wife.

  ‘If I’d had him in the army, I’d have made him carry himself better than that,’ he thought as he looked. ‘Not sure if her ladyship likes his lordship very well either.’ Her body seemed to curve away from him rather than cling. But it had been some while since Mearns had had anything to do with a woman (although the Castle always presented offers) and perhaps ways had changed.

  The Major’s powers of observation had not misled him. Miss Fairface was not happy with her Macbeth.

  ‘You smell,’ she whispered, very quietly, her back turned to the audience so that they would not hear. But Charlie with his youthfully acute hearing heard her.

  ‘And I know of whom …’ he thought.

  Beau kept his Macbeth stance, but managed to mutter something under his breath.

  ‘I bet it was that sluttish Dol Worboys,’ Miss Fairface hissed back.

  ‘Had nothing to do with Dol for ages.’ He pulled away, going into one of his biggest speeches. He had a lovely voice and he did not want to waste a syllable of it.

  The audience sat hushed, even as he spun around, treading on Charlie’s toe and letting Miss Fairface know that if she made any more trouble he would kill her.

  The Theatre was lit by great chandeliers, while wicks in oil held in tin containers lit the stage.

  As Beau marched about the stage, proclaiming Macbeth’s fate, somehow the bottom of his robe, made of imitation fur, caught Charlie’s foot and hobbled the royal progress. He was a good enough actor to build it into his action so that it looked natural, but the glance he gave Charlie suggested that the death threat included him as well as Miss Fairface.

  Macbeth is a short play so the party on the stage was soon assembling. There was to be a short interval, with refreshments for those who wanted them, before finishing off the night with a comedy. Charlie abandoned his stage cloak and slid into the crowd.

  Major Mearns and Sergeant Denny had also arrived at the party. Across the room they saw Mindy. No surprise there, as the Castle and the Theatre mingled happily. Wine, beer, tea and coffee with cakes and cheese savouries passed between them. Everyone there was laughing as they talked, at least pretending to be happy. In this world, you had to act as though you were successful even if you were not.

  Across the room was Mr Pickettwick, who was no more an admirer of the Bard than Denny and Mearns, but liked to be in the social swim. He was talking to the boy, Charlie, beaming broadly and nodding his head, and apparently making a little joke because they were both laughing. He liked the boy – but the boy was likeable.

  Denny looked at Mearns with a query.

  ‘It’s all right, Denny, he doesn’t want a boy; he’s just a friendly old man. There are a few around.’

  ‘I like the boy myself. He has something …’ Denny hesitated. ‘He’s clever; but more than that – you see him looking at the world and telling himself what it means …

  ‘You’re confused,’ said Mearns kindly.

  As they watched, Pickettwick and the boy started to talk to a tall, thin woman who had been standing near them.

  ‘An actress?’ asked Denny. ‘Don’t know her.’

  ‘We don’t know them all …’

  ‘Had a jolly good try.’

  This was true of the Sergeant, although his great protection was that he was never taken seriously – otherwise, as the Major put it, he would have been married off a hundred times since.

  The woman was talking away and waving her hands. One had begun to stroke Charlie’s head – a hard, strong hand.

  Hand still on the boy, she began to promenade round the room, talking to as many as would answer back. Not all did.

  Mearns gave a quick laugh. ‘Ask her to march.’

  ‘What?’


  ‘Look at her ankles, man, and the way she walks. Women don’t use their feet like that.’

  He gave another laugh. ‘She’s a man.’

  Slowly, Mearns added, ‘and the boy knows it. I think he recognises it.’

  ‘Let’s go talk to the man-woman. Bound to be an actor.’

  They were walking towards Charlie and the strange-looking figure, who had just been joined by Mindy, when a high scream tore into the air.

  The scream came from one of the young actresses – not one whom Mearns knew well, but he thought she was called Henrietta.

  Henrietta was standing at the edge of the stage where a passage led into the dressing rooms. She leaned back against the wall, her face white; she was trembling.

  ‘There’s a body out there. A dead woman. She’s been strangled.’

  Mearns left Denny to support Henrietta as he went to look at the body.

  ‘I think it’s Dol Worboys,’ he said quietly. ‘And yes, she’s been strangled.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘She was always down to be killed,’ said Mearns sadly as he looked down on the red, swollen face with its staring eyes. ‘Her sort don’t often get a quiet ending.’

  ‘No, well, that’s true,’ Denny admitted. He was leaning against the wall, looking down at the body, one arm still propping up the unlucky finder of it, who was crying gently.

  ‘I always kept my distance, I thought you did too.’

  ‘Her prices were high,’ said Mearns. ‘But there’s more than one way of paying.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Oh, not by me.’

  A few minutes later Felix appeared at the off-stage door. He looked at the dead woman. ‘Oh dear.’ He turned to Mearns: ‘You were looking for me, of course.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ lied Mearns, who had been hoping that Felix would not appear. But of course, that was not the way Felix worked. In a theatre or not, he did not like to be off-stage.

  The rest of the party were crowding forward to get a look at what had happened. The Major saw Miss Fairface’s horrified eyes. She was holding Beau’s arm, and the look she gave Beau was enigmatic.

  Mearns moved to push them all backwards. ‘Don’t look … Leave it to us.’ He turned to Felix who was on his knees by the body. ‘We’ll have to tell Dr Devon, the Coroner, and Sir Robert Porteous, the Magistrate.’

  Without looking towards him, Felix said: ‘You forget that it is my Unit that will have to investigate the murder.’

  A commanding, stout figure was pushing through the enlarged crowd surrounding the all-too-real scene; some from the audience had leapt across the orchestra pit, or out of the stage boxes, or pushed their way through the side doors. But others were still sitting in their theatre seats, and were beginning to shout for the second part of the performance to start. There was always a lighter ending, often with music and singing, and this was a crowd that wanted its money’s worth, real life murder or not.

  ‘Here, here, what is this?’ It was the Theatre manager and owner. He got to the front of the crowd. ‘My God, what’s this?’ he said, looking down. ‘Is she hurt? Is she dead?’

  ‘She’s dead,’ said Felix, crisply, standing up. ‘Strangled.’ He moved forward. ‘All this crowd must be moved away.’

  It took but a few minutes for those few who wanted to go to leave and the great bulk of those who wanted to stay and see what was going on to be moved into the street, where most stood watching.

  ‘Oh stay, Mearns, dear chap,’ the Theatre manager, Mr Thornton, called out as he saw the Major and Denny moving off. Not that they intended to go far. ‘And your Sergeant, too.’ He knew, as did most people, that when you got the Major you got Denny too.

  ‘Weren’t going,’ muttered Denny. ‘Just moving my feet.’

  Mearns grunted. ‘The murderer may well be among those being moved out.’

  So the Major and Sergeant Denny remained where they were. As did Miss Fairface, Beau and one or two other cast members. Miss Fairface had edged away from Beau.

  ‘Lucky for you that you were on the stage most of the night so you could not have killed Dol.’

  ‘Don’t say things like that,’ he hissed back under his breath, a strange light in his eyes.

  ‘But then we don’t know when she was strangled, do we? You could have done it before coming on stage.’

  ‘Henry, Henry!’ A middle-aged, beautifully dressed woman bustled forward to Thornton.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Oh, my love,’ Thornton greeted his wife. ‘A death, a murder!’

  ‘Dear me, dear me, that will send profits down and we are on a knife’s edge.’ Then she brightened: ‘But not for long; we shall make it up.’

  ‘Murder,’ he reminded her dolefully. ‘Murder, my dear. You cannot overlook murder.’

  ‘Who is it?’ She started to push her way towards the body. Thornton held her back.

  ‘Don’t look, dear.’

  She hesitated. ‘Someone we know?’

  ‘Only by sight,’ he said hastily, nervously.

  Rightly suspicious, and knowing her husband, she managed to get through for a look. Then she turned back to him. ‘Dol,’ she said. ‘By sight, eh?’ and she shook her head. Mrs Thornton, who always performed in their productions, whether there was a suitable part or not, had cleared her face of make-up and removed her cloak. She had been playing one of the witches.

  ‘Tidy your face,’ she said to her husband. He had been another of the witches while fully dressed in his usual trousers and jacket under the witch’s robes. Whether this was from absence of mind or for warmth was not clear. These cloaks did service from Macbeth to Othello to Mrs Thrufts Heiress —a very popular comedy in Windsor. So the robes were well known to all the regulars at the Theatre and had caused no surprise to Denny and the Major, who had also recognised Mr Thornton as the First Witch – a good part for him as he never learnt any lines but always made up his own.

  Thornton passed his hand over his face, dragging brown powder down onto his collar and making his wife cluck in anger. ‘Grubby, grubby …no way to meet the dead.’

  ‘She’s right about the dirt,’ said Denny to Mearns.

  ‘He’s probably had that on him since he last played Othello.’

  The crowd of onlookers was slowly moving away under the directions of Felix, now assisted by another of his Unit. The chanting from those still penned in their seats, waiting for the performance to go on again, was getting louder. The custom was for a farce to follow the main play and, murder or not, they wanted the farce.

  Dol lay where she had fallen, but a sheet had been dropped over the body. Denny drew the Major’s attention to a short but elegantly dressed man pushing his way through the crowd. People drew back with respect as he was recognised.

  ‘There’s Old Pompey,’ said Denny. This was the nickname of Sir Robert Porteous.

  Sir Robert, well informed and not a foolish man, bent his head politely towards the Major. He knew that Mearns was, in his way, an important figure in the Castle establishment.

  He also knew what many did not – that Sergeant Denny was the Major’s ears and eyes in the Castle. He knew that he was sometimes called Old Pompey, and sometimes Old Pompous, and that the origin of these names was from Denny. He was biding his time on that one and would one day get his revenge.

  One of the town constables had arrived and he was talking to Felix Ferguson. Relations between the Constables and the Crowners’ Unit, as with the Coroner and the Magistrate for that matter, were guarded and cautious.

  Felix had been a good soldier – as the Major, who had made enquiries, had to admit – but he had not fought in any battles with the Major and Denny, which made a gap between them. And they judged that, if you hadn’t had the touch of the whip from Napoleon, then you didn’t know what a fight was.

  Denny had been thinking out loud: ‘I suppose Dol’s death couldn’t have anything to do with Traddles? Just wondering.’

  The Major did not answer at once; he cou
ld see that someone else was arriving. Then he said: ‘Possible, but it’s a different sort of killing. I don’t think Tommy Traddles was strangled; his eyes weren’t bulging at all. It looked as if his death had been quick and sharp.’

  ‘Team work, you think?’

  Denny had also noticed a new face. ‘The Coroner’s just come. Thought he wouldn’t be slow in getting here.’

  The Coroner disliked all the other law keepers in Windsor and, in particular, Felix Ferguson and his Unit. He had no time for the Constable, or for the Magistrate, both of whom he regarded as encroaching on his territory.

  ‘The Coroner’s Office,’ Denny had heard him proclaim more than once, ‘dates back to Norman times when men kept the peace by means of the Frankpledge system.’ He would then go on to explain the Frankpledge system – until stopped.

  But, like the Magistrate, he too respected the position of the Major and of Sergeant Denny in the Castle. He smiled at them, then bowed. The Major responded in kind.

  ‘Dol will go down to the mortuary once Dr Devon’s given the word,’ said the Major. ‘I wonder how he feels about seeing her this way.’ He eyed Denny.

  ‘There’s plenty who knew the way to her little cot,’ said Denny.

  The Major shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ In fact he did know; he had made it his business to know. Not hard in a town like Windsor to scout around and find out who visited the lovely whore. Traddles had been one of his informants.

  ‘So you think the good doctor will go down to the mortuary with Dol?’

  ‘Sure of it. He’ll want to inspect her. Make sure what she really died of, and when. If he can.’

  The Sergeant dragged out his own worry. ‘I hope Tosser doesn’t say anything about our bundles.’

  ‘I don’t think he will.’