Charlie looked at him with intensity, fascinated that someone really used words like that which he would only have used as a joke.
‘Go and bring me the spade,’ ordered the Major, giving Charlie a nod. When he came back with it, Mearns said: ‘You can dig.’
Charlie thought for a minute, then held out his hand. ‘How much?’
‘I’ll see what the job’s worth when you’ve done it.’
Charlie grinned and got down to it. He was a good bargainer.
He shovelled away; the earth was soft and damp. After a bit, he raised his head.
‘I’m getting there.’
The Major turned towards Miss Fairface and Beau. ‘You two still here?’
They didn’t answer.
Charlie stopped digging and looked down into the hole from which a smell began to rise. Then he quietly said to the Major: ‘I can see a dog’s head.’
Miss Fairface gave a little scream. But she did not move away. No scream from Beau; already he seemed to have melted away.
‘If you’re going to stay, then keep quiet,’ ordered the Major.
Mearns came up to where Charlie was digging. He bent over the hole, then straightened himself: ‘It’s Traddles’ dog,’ he said briefly. ‘The rest of it is there, buried.’
‘Sure?’ asked Charlie.
‘I recognise it. He loved it. The only thing he loved.’
‘At least it got buried,’ Charlie thought, ‘not like Traddles,’ realising that whoever had owned the dead dog was also likely to have owned the body parts he had carried.
‘Shovel the earth back, cover him up,’ ordered the Major.
Charlie bent to his job.
‘What sort of dog was he?’
‘Just a tyke Traddles picked up from the gutter as a puppy, but it was a decent dog.’
But Miss Fairface – with the sharp eyes of the performer (actresses, she had once said, have to see everything: which man will protect them, and which will seduce them and run; and is that a real diamond or paste?) – had seen something.
‘Stop! Underneath the dog – I can see clothes. No, perhaps not clothes, but red stuff …silk maybe.’
‘Red silk?’ Charlie looked. Yes! There was a hint, a flash of redness beneath the shaggy fur.
The Major pushed him aside to look. ‘Yes, I see something red. But silk? How can you tell?’
‘I can’t of course,’ she said, ‘I’m just guessing.’
Using his stick, the Major gently moved the dog’s head to get a better look at the red. Delicately, he dragged at the cloth, catching a glimpse of what was beneath. A small piece of the material stuck to his stick as he drew it out.
‘It is silk. And red – or was once. Stained now.’
The torn triangle that the Major had on the end of his stick was marked with brown. He put it back in the hole. ‘Cover it up,’ he ordered Charlie.
‘If you say so.’
‘I do.’
Charlie finished up his work, then held out his hand. The Major was not ungenerous.
‘Come to my dressing room,’ Miss Fairface said to Charlie as she left.
‘Put the spade back where you found it first,’ the Major ordered, as he also departed.
Charlie nodded. As he took it back, he found himself wondering what thoughts had crossed the Major’s mind as he plucked out the stained red silk.
Whatever those thoughts had been, he decided, they had not been welcome ones.
Sergeant Denny was asleep in the big leather chair by the window as Mearns came in.
‘Yes, my darling,’ muttered Denny.
The Major pinched his arm. ‘Who are you calling “darling”?’
Denny opened his eyes slowly. ‘Well, not you.’
‘I hope not.’
‘I was dreaming,’ said Denny with dignity. He got up.
‘There is some tea in the pot, and porter on the table.’
Mearns drank the tea thirstily, then moved on to the porter. He drained the beaker and set it down with a bang that announced it was now business.
‘So, what have you done today? What is new in the world?’
‘Nothing from London,’ Denny said carefully.
‘So, what else?’
‘His Majesty rose late, as usual. Lady Hertford wanted to see him.’
Lady Hertford had been the object of an obsessive love (although she was said to grant him no favours) for many years. She was not classically beautiful, but she had a handsome, well-developed figure which always attracted the Prince Regent – as he was when their liaison started. Lady Hertford was the woman for whom he had cast aside Mrs Fitzherbert.
‘I thought she was dismissed.’
Denny shrugged. ‘So did the King, he hid in his bedchamber until she was gone. Then Lady Coningham arrived.’
‘The “Vice Queen”, as they call her.’
Denny nodded. ‘So His Majesty came out … Only Lady Hertford had not quite left so the two ladies met.’
‘Only wanted the Princess of Wales to come,’ said Mearns.
‘They got better than that; Queen Caroline appeared with two of the Princesses, Amelia and the little one whose name I always forget. She had dragooned her sisters-in-law (for they do not like her) to come with her. Of course, they hate the Vice Queen even more, even the little one.’
‘Sophia, that would be.’ The one that is as quiet as a mouse. The old King, their father, George III, would not let them leave their mother, or get married. ‘He has a lot to answer for,’ the Major always thought. A couple of the girls had escaped to make suitable princely German marriages, which were not much to the satisfaction of the present King, who was busy turning himself, as far as he was able, into the civilised English gentleman. ‘So what happened?’
‘That’s all I know,’ admitted Denny with regret. ‘The Mistress of the Robes and one of the King’s Gentlemen swept everyone into an inner room.’
‘It’ll be all over the Castle tomorrow – today even — so we shall know soon.’ And a finely embroidered version it would be, as the Major well knew, but none the worse for that. Denny was only one amongst many in the Castle for enhancing a piece of gossip and sending it on its way.
Sergeant Denny nodded at the prediction, then sat looking at the Major, waiting. He knew this man; there was more to come.
‘I visited Felix today.’
‘I know,’ said Denny. ‘Then you came back here with that boy.’
‘I talked with him – not a man after my own heart, but clever.’
‘So will he keep the peace in Windsor?’
‘He is the sort of man who will be used more and more in policing in the town. All towns; London will get its share. He talked, but not much information was passed on to me. He knows more than he is telling.’
‘Not like you then,’ thought the cynical Denny.
‘But he told me about the blood at the back of the Theatre.’
Denny nodded.
‘I thought it my duty to investigate the blood. I went to see it for myself.’
‘I’d have come too if you’d asked me. Find anything?’
‘We found a hole; my stick sank in the soft soil. So Charlie dug it up.’
‘Did he now,’ thought Denny. He stood up. ‘Come on, out with it! I can see there was something – you’ve been so long-winded about it.’
‘I thought I might find the rest of Traddles’ body.’
‘And did you?’
‘No, just his dog.’
‘Foxy.’ Denny looked sad.
Mearns nodded. Denny could read his face. ‘And something else?’
‘Yes. Underneath, wrapped in silk, was a baby.’
Charlie had not wasted his time with Miss Fairface. He had eaten well with the Major and Sergeant Denny but, mindful that he did not know where his next meal would come from, he hid food – a good thick wedge of it – from her tray in his pocket. Thanking Miss Fairface, who was about to take a short rest before her performance, Charlie left the T
heatre. He was more convinced every day that he liked Theatre people, but was unsure if he himself wished to act.
He passed up the road, then down towards where Felix had his office.
Mr Pickettwick, taking the air, saw him. ‘Where is that boy going?’ he asked himself out loud. Pickettwick was planning to visit his London home to check that his business was being well run. Although he often claimed that he was retired, and devoting himself to his literary and historical interests, this was not strictly true; he still kept a keen eye and a strong hand on his affairs. Meanwhile, his ‘literary and historical pursuits’ were assumed by the cynical but uncensorious Major Mearns to be various young men in the Royal Guard – or any of the young actresses and pretty ladies who caught his eye. Pickettwick was a man of broad tastes. The equally tolerant Denny judged that there was ‘no harm in the old ‘un’.
The unknowing Charlie passed on to a point where he could watch Felix’s quarters without being too noticeable himself. The house seemed quiet, so he moved closer, still listening and watching.
Then he slid round to the back of the house, to the window through which he had previously seen Spike and Dog. He saw Spike at once, with Dog close behind him, as if they could never be parted, which Charlie reckoned was pretty near the case. They had each other and that was all.
‘Well, you’ve got me now, too,’ Charlie thought conclusively.
‘Spike?’ said Charlie, uttering the name softly.
The lad heard his name and looked up, but said nothing. The dog looked up too, his eyes sharp. He gave his tail one quick flick.
‘He knows me,’ Charlie thought with satisfaction. ‘Knows I’m a good supplier!’
Spike had a wet mop in his hand. It looked as though he was cleaning the back yard. Possibly the house too. He was slave labour.
‘You’ve been working?’
Spike nodded, words not being his medium.
This was when Charlie noticed a long length of thin rope tied around Spike’s ankle with the other end attached to the big, heavy door.
‘Not so clever,’ he thought. ‘I can untie that.’ He looked into Spike’s face and wanted to say: ‘Untie — then I tie you up again – and your slave master will never know you have been free. You can escape!’
Then he thought: ‘But this is your only home and shelter. Here you have a bed and food, even if not much. If you leave here where will you go? Only to the streets – and I know what that is like!’
So he handed over the food from Miss Fairface’s tray, half to Spike and half to the dog, then left.
‘I’ll be back!’ he said aloud. ‘Let me put my thinking cap on.’
He looked up at the other window. The room with the cupboard – what could be in it?
While he was talking to Spike, the Major was talking to Sergeant Denny: ‘I want you to go to Tosser, ask him to come and meet us at the Theatre yard.’
Tosser, the mortuary man – yes, Denny saw the point of that.
‘Then go to the coffin makers in Bell Yard and get two baby’s coffins.’
Chapter Seven
‘Two coffins?’ Denny queried, although he had done what was required and had hefted the two tiny boxes over from Bell Yard. God knows they were light enough, and would not be that much heavier when filled. ‘Two coffins, and here they are.’
Bones of a baby and a dead dog.
The Major read Denny’s face. ‘The dog deserves a decent burial too.’
‘I had to pay him.’
‘You’ll get your money.’ The Major had the money ready in his pocket, ready to hand over as soon as he saw the two small caskets.
And there they were on the grass before him. The old horse came over to see what they were.
‘He takes his money seriously, does Bell Yard Billy.’ The Sergeant and Billy met occasionally over a drink in the Duchess of Hanover’s Arms, but they were not friends.
‘He does – in fact it’s said he lets his coffins out to rent. A rented coffin. After the service and before the burial, the body is tipped out and covered in earth and you take the coffin back, for further use.’
‘He won’t be doing that again,’ said Denny with some satisfaction. ‘He has a broken nose and a black eye. Seems one parent recognised a coffin he’d bought and paid for being used again …more than once. So he went in, gave Billy a black eye, and got his money back.’
The grey had finished investigating the two coffins, then turned away.
‘Small enough?’ asked Denny.
‘Even smaller would have done.’
‘Yes.’ Denny felt the pinch of pity himself. Strange really, he and the Major had buried bodies enough after a battle and felt nothing. Perhaps you needed the fighting to harden you.
Nor did he look forward to the job to be done. He had buried many bodies, but never dug one up before. He took the lid off one coffin to take out a small hand shovel and a pair of gloves; from both a faintly unpleasant smell floated.
The Major looked at them.
‘I got them from Tosser …he said I’d find them useful. Uses them himself on occasion, when the need arises.’
‘It will very soon,’ said Mearns.
Under Mearns’ direction, Denny began to clear the earth away. Soon he stopped digging and turned towards the Major. ‘I’ve got there.’ He put on the heavy gloves, and with their help eased the dog’s body onto the shovel. Then with some help from the Major he moved the dog into the coffin. Mearns put back the lid. Some jobs were better closed up quickly. Then slowly, and gently, Denny got the earth off the baby’s mortifying body, and got the shovel underneath. The child had been there longer than the dog so the flesh had gone and all that was left was bones. The skull seemed to be grinning at them.
Denny handled the bones very carefully into the coffin in case the skeleton came apart. This done, he gave the Major a nod.
‘We’ll shoulder the coffins down to the mortuary,’ said Mearns.
‘Does Tosser know they are coming?’
Mearns did not answer. Tosser didn’t know they were coming, but he would soon find out.
From where he had been working, Charlie came up to them with a trolley belonging backstage. He had guessed it might be needed. He pushed the trolley while the two men walked behind. No one said much. Tosser was not welcoming. Never a very jolly chap, as Charlie had noticed, but what could you expect living and working where he did. But he was especially dour today. Charlie, the observer, rather enjoyed the spectacle. ‘You never know,’ he found himself thinking, ‘when a character like Tosser might come in handy.’ But there was something about Tosser’s face that suggested satisfaction.
Tosser saw Charlie looking. ‘Take your eyes off me, young man.’
Charlie did not answer. Then Tosser saw what it was Charlie had on the trolley. He glared at Mearns. ‘No room,’ said Tosser. ‘Full up.’
‘Not if I say so.’
The Sergeant moved to stand next to the Major. ‘Come on now, Tosser. Just for the odd night or two; we won’t leave them here for long.’
‘There are times when I hate you two,’ said Tosser with feeling.
‘We don’t always love you, Tosser.’
Tosser was studying the coffins. ‘Not very big, are they? So what’s in the boxes? Babies? Dwarfs?’
‘No reason for you to know.’
‘Are you going to bury them?’
‘It’s usual with coffins,’ said the Major evasively.
‘Where?’ demanded Tosser, who detected the evasion.
‘Here, please, Tosser,’ said the Major, as if he had just thought of it. ‘May move them later. Let’s call it just storing them for the time being.’
‘It’s work for me,’ said Tosser.
Charlie realised then that there was a cost to being dead. ‘Doesn’t cost much though,’ he thought as he watched the coins being handed over.
Outside, Tosser had a tiny graveyard. It was overhung with drooping trees, beneath which was a bench. Charlie could tell th
at it was all much, much older than Tosser.
‘What an interesting place,’ Charlie thought. In his mind’s eye he could see a dark figure sitting on the bench, perhaps dying there. Being found dead. He thought about it for a while, storing it in his memory as something to hold on to. Confidence bounded inside him; whoever was found dead in such a place, it would not be him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a large rat strolling across the grass. He was unmoved; he knew about rats, having lived and worked with them in London. This one, though, was a particularly big and bold animal.
‘If I’d had a dog with me, I bet we would have found the rest of Traddles’ body,’ he thought.
A few modest coins were pressed into his hand with the polite request that he take back the trolley.
Charlie nodded. Miss Fairface would not notice if it was there or not, but the stage manager would.
As Charlie walked towards the Theatre he saw Mindy on the path in front. She was too far ahead for him to catch up, which he would have done if he could have managed it, as he was one of her admirers. He thought she liked him too. She disappeared into the side stage door of the Theatre. He wondered whom she was going to meet. He liked a mystery – even a little one.
The Major and Sergeant Denny returned to the Castle. ‘I like that boy,’ said Denny.
Mearns was not listening. ‘We are the only law keepers in this town,’ he declared.
‘There is the Unit,’ said Denny. ‘And in the Castle there are the Officers of the Guard—’
The Major interrupted him. ‘We report directly to London.’
This was true and Denny was usually the person who carried the reports to London. But he often wondered if it got far past the polite young man in St James’s who took the message in. The days of William Pitt were over.
The Major continued: ‘The death of the woman in the Theatre last night may not make a report to London necessary, but I want to find out exactly how and why she died.’
‘Well, she was strangled,’ said Denny. ‘We know that.’
‘But why in the Theatre?’
‘It may not have been … Perhaps she was dragged there, when already dead?’
Dread Murder Page 9
