Dread Murder

by Gwendoline Butler

  It was amazing, and puzzling, and deeply satisfying how his life was opening up in front of him.

  His father would be pleased to see him back, even if it meant asking for some money so he could pay for some schoolwork. But he could imagine his mother’s face; she would not be happy, as she had thought he was off their hands – no great career, but earning his own living.

  He could understand it; she had carried him around for nine months, then given birth, and then fed him and trained him in the ways of the world, yet he had never felt any love there.

  The interesting thing was that he suspected she would treat him exactly the same when he was rich and famous (as he was determined to be) and he respected her for that.

  He sat in thought for several minutes. Not everyone had a mother whom they did not like and who did not much like them, but he must come to terms with it.

  ‘I will buy her a present.’ He had very small savings from his work in Windsor. ‘A present from Windsor.’

  ‘But what?’ he grinned. ‘I can’t afford a crown.’

  At the bottom of the Castle hill there was a small square of shops, next to the church and facing old Windsor – which was there back in the Anglo-Saxon times, decades before Norman William came blasting over the water from France.

  Charlie had not known this before he came to Windsor, but he had been told it by Major Mearns who, although he was a Royal servant, was not averse to making it clear that there was an England – and a rich and settled one – before the present Royal House.

  It was the Major who took him round the shops, advising him what to use: ‘When you’ve got any money,’ with one of his large smiles; but he knew that, one way or another, Charlie had managed to earn something, even if not much.

  ‘I like to earn when I can,’ admitted the boy.

  ‘And why not!’

  There was a shop that sold silks and velvets in lovely colours – such lovely colours that he imagined the ladies of the Court shopping here, but he had never seen one go in there and come out with a bundle. For that matter, he had never seen anyone go in, let alone come out having shopped. But the shop had an air of quiet prosperity.

  Suddenly he knew; this was theatre stuff – not for women to wear for everyday life, but on the stage, in a play; men too in some plays – say, Shakespeare.

  He longed to touch and stroke the silks, but he also knew that he could not afford to, or not yet. Some time in the future – oh yes, he intended he should!

  Next door was a smaller shop still, which sold the most delicious sweetmeats and chocolates. The Major had taken Charlie in and bought some chocolate. The owner of the shop, a man of kind heart, saw Charlie and came out to him.

  ‘Here — try one of these.’ He held out a handful of bright green balls. ‘I had them sent to me from Scotland. They are called Soor Plums.’

  Charlie put a ball in his mouth. It seemed to bite a hole in his tongue, but at the same time he liked it. He could tell that you could get fond of Soor Plums, acidic though they were.

  As he stood there, sucking away, a small tabby cat sidled up beside him, and then went into the shop.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Grissy,’ said the shop man. ‘Thought I’d lost you.’ He looked at Charlie and smiled. ‘Only joking. She doesn’t go far.’

  Charlie looked at the cat, which had a certain plumpness about its figure.

  ‘She eats well – plenty of rats round here.’

  But Charlie was a worldly-wise little Londoner. He smiled at the man and cocked his head sideways.

  ‘Oh yes.’ It came with a sigh. ‘You’re right. Another litter.’

  ‘What will you do with them?’

  ‘Oh, there’s always the river.’

  ‘No! You don’t mean it. You couldn’t …’ Charlie paused; he didn’t want to say the words.

  There was a sigh, or perhaps a groan. ‘No, I never have yet, but it gets harder to find good homes. Fortunately, she has very small litters. I have wondered if she eats some of them.’

  ‘Surely not!’

  ‘She might drop one or two in the river.’

  Charlie could not believe it.

  ‘It’s what animals do,’ said the man. ‘Want another sweet?’

  But Charlie was still sucking the bright green ball. Soor Plums were both powerful and long lasting.

  ‘Lovely stuffs in the shop next door,’ he commented. He had a good view from where he stood of the velvets and silks in the window.

  ‘You can go in and have a look round if you like. It’s my shop.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Charlie with surprise. ‘I would love to, if you are sure.’

  Dombey and Son, said the name above the door.

  ‘Dombey was my father. He left me the shop. I’m the son.

  Not sure if he was being laughed at or not, Charlie agreed he would like to go in. ‘Seems a good name.’

  ‘Mostly sold to Theatre folk.’

  Charlie gave himself a mental pat on the back for getting it right.

  ‘Not that they pay their bills,’ said the Son of Dombey. ‘Or not very fast. Just go in and look. Door’s not locked. Don’t touch though.’

  ‘No, I won’t. Thanks, Mr Dombey.’

  ‘He has got a theatrical look at the back of the eyes himself,’ thought Dombey. ‘Be an actor himself, I wouldn’t wonder, when he grows up. He has grown up already, in a way.’

  ‘Did you ever see Mrs Fitzherbert?’

  Dombey was surprised. ‘What made you think of her?’ ‘Someone mentioned her.’

  ‘I saw her once. She didn’t come to the Castle much – or, if she did, she was kept hidden; that’s how kings manage things. She may have lodgings here. A lovely lady; she’d have made a beautiful queen. Some people say he did marry her, but I don’t know about that. We see and hear more in Windsor than is realised.’

  ‘So do we in London,’ thought Charlie.

  As he wandered round the shop, Charlie wondered if Miss Fairface had been in here. Then to his great pleasure he saw her walking down the road. He wondered if she was coming into the shop where he was. But her eyes moved forward, further down the street – not into the sweet shop either; Miss Fairface was very careful about what she ate. But no, she was looking in the window of the jewellery shop. Yes, she liked to glitter; he had noticed that already.

  Then he saw Felix coming down the road.

  ‘I hate that man. I’m sure he would mistreat Miss Fairface if he got the chance, and I know he mistreats Spike and the dog. I’m going to rescue that boy before I go from here and if I can’t do it myself I know who can; I shall ask Major Mearns.’

  Then Felix stopped and looked straight at Charlie’s face. For a moment he hesitated between him and Miss Fairface, then she marched on, undisturbed, towards the jewellery shop and Felix came towards the boy.

  Charlie did not like the look in his face. He thought, ‘I knew he didn’t like me, but that look says he wants to hurt me. I must get the dog and boy away from him.’

  Charlie stepped backwards into the black velvet hanging in folds. He peered out.

  ‘Trying to see how you will look when you die?’ said Felix grimly.

  Charlie just stared, trying not to feel frightened.

  For a whole minute they remained there, eye-to-eye, then Miss Fairface half-turned her head and gave a smile to Felix. He at once shot after her, smiling back. Miss Fairface went into the goldsmith’s and Felix followed her.

  ‘You fool!’ thought the cynical young Londoner. ‘She’s an actress and will follow the rules of the world. She can smile and take, and give nothing back except her smile. But she will do it so gently and politely that you won’t know what she’s doing. You think you are clever and worldly wise, Felix, but Miss Fairface is in a way you would not understand.’

  The pair were still in the goldsmith’s shop. Charlie decided it might be sensible for him to get out from behind the velvets in case Miss Fairface fancied doing some shopping here.

  He walked bri
skly out, and waved cheerfully at the kind donor of the sweet, which was still in his mouth, stuck to his teeth.

  He knew he must go and talk to the boy before he did anything else. And talk to the dog; he might be able to tell the dog what to do if the boy got in trouble. The dog might be the more sensible one of the two.

  Major Mearns was sitting in his room in the Castle, comfortable in his big armchair with a dog at his feet and a cat on his lap. He was drinking a glass of good burgundy, of which there was always plenty in the Castle cellars as it was the King’s favourite wine too.

  ‘Where did this cat come from?’ he asked Sergeant Denny, who was sitting on an upright chair at the window.

  ‘Walked in. Took a fancy to you and stayed. The dog you’ve always had.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Mearns irritably.

  ‘He might have brought in the cat. They seem friendly.’

  The Major looked with doubt at the friends. ‘Perhaps Mindy knows something about the creature.’ He did not dislodge the cat, but gave it a gentle stroke as he thought of Charlotte Minden.

  ‘Anyway, you can ask her yourself.’ Denny, from his window seat, had seen her arriving.

  Mindy knocked on his door and walked in.

  Mearns took his hand off the cat. ‘Is this your cat, Mindy?’

  ‘No, of course not. I don’t have a cat.’

  ‘You can have this one.’ But the Major knew the cat was here to stay. He would have to find a name for him – if it was a ‘him’ — but, yes, this creature was surely male.

  ‘Felix Ferguson has been calling on me these last weeks,’ she announced. ‘Oh, don’t worry, he only wanted to talk – about himself, mostly. He thinks it makes me admire him.’

  ‘No judge of a woman’s nature,’ said Denny. ‘He never was. Knew his type in the army.’

  ‘Today is Miss Fairface’s turn,’ Mindy announced. ‘I saw them going into a shop near the Castle.’

  ‘Miss Fairface is tougher than he realises,’ said the Major. ‘She knows how to take and not to give.’

  Denny said in a firm voice: ‘I think Ferguson is a cruel and violent man. I think he beats that boy he looks after, the dog too, I daresay. I saw blood on his stick. Dried blood, but blood and plenty of it.’

  ‘He ought to be beaten himself,’ said Mindy.

  ‘You wouldn’t do it yourself though, would you Mindy?’ said the Major. He knew that, although Mindy was a successful Castle worker, much appreciated by the people – all high-ranking – that she worked with, she came from a poor London background where you met violence with violence and knew how to defend yourself. She had come to the Castle a wild-eyed thin young girl as servant to Miss Fanny Burney. Miss Burney had hated Castle life as Lady-in-Waiting to a Royal princess, but Mindy was clever and had learnt from Fanny how to behave.

  ‘No,’ said Mindy, and the Major thought, with some amusement, that she said it with reluctance. ‘No, my hands aren’t strong enough. He’s stronger than he looks, is Ferguson.’

  ‘So she’s had a brush with him,’ thought the Major. ‘Wonder what he tried on. What did he do to you? And what did you do to him? What a girl you are! I do love you, Mindy!’

  To his surprise, he found he meant it.

  When Mindy left a few minutes later, having delivered the laundry she had done for them (as she explained to them, she could no longer bear the sight of a badly ironed shirt), the Major knew he had lost his heart for ever.

  He looked around for Denny to talk to, but he was nowhere in sight.

  Charlie was speeding through the streets. When he got to the boy’s house he hoped that Felix Ferguson was not yet home, but he thought he could tell from the expression on the dog’s face that he was not. The Crowner was one of those people to whom animals responded at once, and not kindly.

  Charlie climbed in through the back window and looked around for Spike.

  He found him lying on the floor in the hall, his back against the wall. There was a long blue bruise down the side of his face.

  ‘Did he do that to you?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘All right,’ said Charlie, ‘I’m going to take you away. Gather up what you want to take.’

  The boy got together his small pathetic traps: a broken comb, a white cotton square with ragged edges – obviously his handkerchief – and a battered, small, black notebook. Charlie, although not tall, was strongly built. ‘Hop on my back. I’ll help – hang on. Here we go. Come on Dog!’

  The strangely assorted trio climbed the hill to the Castle. Charlie knew an entrance at the side and went through. He put the boy down on a chair, which was in a recess and used by the messengers. He stood beside him, resting a little after his exertions, with the dog crouched at his feet.

  As soon as he had recovered his breath, Charlie said, ‘Come on. Let’s go and find the Major.’

  Charlie knew how to get in, whether the Major was there or not. The door gave before him and the three of them were in.

  No Major Mearns.

  ‘What’s all this?’ demanded a voice from the door. Major Mearns stood there, looking stern.

  ‘They’re homeless,’ said Charlie. ‘There’s lots of rooms in this Castle. I’ve seen them. No, I know what you are going to say: they are not yours to fill. But the King would not want this pair to be homeless.’ Charlie added with a grin: ‘And he need never know. I don’t suppose he goes round all the rooms.’

  ‘Kings get to know more than you might think,’ said the Major, but he did not sound worried.

  They were all surprised when Mindy and Denny came into the room together.

  ‘We hear you’ve got another dog here.’ This was Mindy.

  The Major groaned. ‘You can’t keep anything quiet in this place.’

  ‘I’m not against dogs,’ said Denny, ‘I like them.’

  ‘The King wouldn’t say anything. He’s got half a dozen dogs himself. Anyway, there’s no reason for him to know.’

  ‘We won’t tell him,’ said Mindy. ‘But someone else might.’

  ‘He’s only here until I can find a proper home for him. And for the boy,’ said Charlie. ‘They were with a man who used to beat them,’ he explained.

  ‘You’d better leave the boy and dog here. That’s what castles are for, isn’t it? To shelter those in need?’

  Charlie looked thoughtful, but he understood what the Major was doing. ‘Trust me’, he seemed to be saying.

  ‘So what do we call the boy?’ he went on. ‘We don’t want this man to know they’re here.’

  Charlie looked at the Major and understood that he knew exactly who Spike and ‘the man’ were. He studied the boy and made his own decision. ‘Jo.’

  ‘And the dog?’

  ‘Tom.’

  The boy shook his head, tapped his breast and said: ‘Tom’, then pointed at the dog: ‘Jo.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Charlie, surprised. ‘Got it wrong, did I? You are Tom and he is Jo.’

  ‘And what are you to be called, Charlie?’ questioned an amused Major, wanting to bring him in on the game.

  ‘Charlie!’ he said fiercely. ‘I am Charlie.’

  ‘And,’ he added in his mind, ‘I will be famous one day, and everyone will know my name.’

  The Major, guessing he had hit a sensitive point in the young rescuer, offered soothingly: ‘I daresay you could stay here too, if you like – tuck you away beside the dog and boy.’

  Unsure if that was a real offer or a joke, Charlie shook his head. ‘No, of course I will come in and see them both, but I will stay in the Theatre – I like it there.’

  Both the boy and the dog saw him go with calm faces.

  ‘I’ll be coming back for you, remember!’ he said from the door. ‘And you’ll both be coming to London with me when I go.’

  The Theatre always felt welcoming to Charlie. It wasn’t that actors were always happy, but they knew how to ride out the ups and downs of life. And he felt they were teaching him.

  All the sam
e, he had no intention of going into adult life as an actor. He could already tell what he was going to do and it meant more education than he had now. It meant going back home and demanding it from his father. He thought his father would do his best – might even be pleased.

  Sometimes the Theatre was busy with people rushing around with cheerful faces, and sometimes all was quiet. Today was a quiet day.

  Without surprise Charlie saw a mouse run across the floor in front of him. It looked a plump, well-nourished mouse and this did not surprise him either. He would not have been surprised to see a rat; there was plenty to eat in the Theatre, and mice and rats went where the food was. Miss Fairface had told him she had once seen a fox.

  Charlie would have liked to see a fox. He sat down on a bench wondering if one would come along if he waited. And how long would he have to wait!

  Miss Fairface came in carrying her make-up bag over one arm. This in itself was something he saw in his everyday life, although he could not imagine his mother with one.

  ‘You all right?’ asked the actress.

  ‘Yes, just wondered if I would see a fox like you did. If I sat here quietly.’

  ‘You might. What will you do if you do see one?’

  ‘Just look, I expect.’

  ‘I don’t expect he’d bite – be more frightened of you than you were of him.’

  ‘That’s when animals bite,’ said Charlie. ‘Humans bite too.’

  Miss Fairface looked at him thoughtfully. ‘You’re growing up very fast, Charlie.’

  ‘I am going back to London.’

  ‘I think I’m surprised you left, Charlie,’ said Miss Fairface with a smile. ‘You seem such a natural Londoner. So you’re going? Any special reason?’

  ‘I think it has something to do with that growing up.’

  ‘I won’t ask why.’

  ‘I think I had better – I mean, ask myself why I’m going. I don’t think Felix Ferguson will be pleased with me …

  ‘I wanted to warn you about that, Charlie, and also to ask you to help me find Henrietta’s murderer.’