Dread Murder

by Gwendoline Butler

‘Do you think it’s Felix?’

  ‘Who is that woman – or man – who was here and gave you the basket?’

  ‘I don’t know who it was, I didn’t see the face under the bonnet, but I saw her dress and shawl in Felix’s house,’ whispered Charlie.

  ‘He’s got plenty of enemies, don’t you worry! I wouldn’t call him the most popular man in Windsor.’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie thoughtfully.

  ‘There’s a tale that he killed a young girl who worked in the Theatre and buried her under the floorboards here.’ Miss Fairface looked around her as if she might pick out the actual board.

  ‘Didn’t anyone look to see?’ Charlie was both surprised and shocked. Perhaps it wasn’t true; it sounded like a made-up tale.

  ‘I suppose the manager back then didn’t want to find anything. Anyway, he died himself soon after.’

  Yes, Charlie found it an interesting story! Theatre people were great storytellers, he had noticed. That did not mean they believed them, they just enjoyed doing it. He had noticed the pull himself. Easy and enjoyable to be a storyteller.

  Miss Fairface got up from the bench to leave, saying she had to rest before the performance that evening. She disappeared from Charlie’s sight, but he could still hear her talking to someone. ‘Probably Ally Anderson, the wardrobe mistress,’ he thought, but at first he wasn’t sure; Miss Fairface was much easier to hear. Actresses learn to project their voice, Miss Fairface had told him.

  But, yes, that sharp, low mutter was Mrs Anderson. She had a sharp tongue too when it suited her, but it was a stupid soul who quarrelled with a woman who made a good cup of tea like she did, and Charlie never did; and he noticed that Miss Fairface never did either.

  He smiled. He knew a bit more about Miss Fairface than when he had first come to Windsor. She was friendly, but with more men friends than women; and she preferred a comfortably placed businessman or lawyer, rather than an actor.

  ‘Money!’ thought the cynical boy. One day she would marry (if she wasn’t married already – he kept an open mind there), but then it would be to an actor. Performers had to marry performers. She had said that to him herself. He had told Major Mearns what she had said, and he had nodded. ‘Oh yes, it’s like being a Royal; you have to marry a Royal or it doesn’t work. They’re different sorts, you see.’ He had added thoughtfully: ‘Just as the rogues, thieves and killers who come in and out of my life are different and born that way.’ He looked appraisingly at the boy. ‘And you are a different sort, Charlie. I didn’t see it at first, but I see it now. Or perhaps you are just growing into it.’

  Charlie did not smile, for this was a serious matter. He felt there was something important inside himself like the seed of a plant.

  You had to admit it with the Major; he could put his finger on it sometimes.

  Charlie left the issue of his destiny undecided for the time being. It needed some thinking about. Meanwhile, a body had to be found.

  ‘That floor looks difficult. How would I get it up? Or where to start?’

  He began to pace the floor of the entrance hall, pondering the possibilities.

  ‘You might kill a person in the entrance of a Theatre, but it’s not easy to bury a body there.’

  Charlie walked around thoughtfully. He couldn’t see anything on the floor that hinted that it had been dug up. He couldn’t think of anywhere else to look except that little wash place and lavatory no one used because it stank so.

  Stank …smelt … A body would smell!

  He had smelt one once before when, as a small boy, his family had moved to a house near a cemetery. The cemetery had been a little bit casual about burying its dead. His mother had soon moved them out of that house saying she knew why the rent was so low.

  Charlie walked up and down outside the door, but he did not go in.

  ‘What are you up to?’ said a voice behind him. It was Fred, the stage set helper (he only carried in the furniture; the producer preferred his own assistants to do more – or even did it himself).

  ‘Just poking around, Fred,’ said the boy.

  ‘Well, don’t poke.’

  Fred, who had good days and bad days, was clearly having one of his bad days. Charlie did not like the man. He had seen him beating a dog, but as the dog promptly bit Fred, who retired bleeding and shouting, the dog had got the better of the clash. He turned out to be the live-in pet of the owner of the nearby ale-house where Fred would certainly not find himself welcome.

  ‘Hear me there? Leave things alone!’

  Charlie did not answer. He recoiled from Fred – and not only because of what he had done to the dog that day; there were other things which the boy did not dwell on.

  Passing Fred on his way out, Charlie gave him a brief nod, but got nothing back.

  He walked down the hill away from the Theatre. Tonight there would be a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Miss Fairface was playing the Queen of the Fairies.

  He didn’t hear anyone behind him, but he must have been conscious of movement because he began to turn round to see a shadow looming over him.

  Then something hard hit his head and he fell to the ground.

  ‘You were lucky,’ said Major Mearns.

  ‘Doesn’t feel like it.’ Charlie rubbed his head. ‘No blood anyway.’

  ‘If Denny and I hadn’t come down from the Castle to get a drink at that little ale-house beyond the Theatre, you’d be dead. He was trying to strangle you but he ran off when he heard us coming.’

  ‘Or heard me,’ said Miss Fairface. ‘I was there too.’

  ‘You were, ma’am, you were, but Denny and I are stronger. You might have got done yourself.’

  Miss Fairface blinked. ‘I’d have managed,’ she said at last. But inside herself she was thinking that perhaps, after all, she was glad she had not got there in time to do anything.

  Charlie struggled to sit up. ‘I want to know who did it.’

  The Major pushed him back down. ‘Lie down.’

  He looked at Denny, both of them exchanging the conviction of their suspicion about ‘who did it’.

  Charlie suddenly realised where he was – on the big, long chair in the Major’s sitting room in the Castle. Staring at him with eyes of sympathy were the dog and the boy.

  ‘You’ve got the lot of us,’ said Charlie.

  ‘So I have,’ agreed the Major, but in no unfriendly way.

  Charlie found that, while he was unconscious, his mind had been at work and come to a decision.

  ‘I’ll take us all away to London tomorrow.’

  ‘How will you do that, lad?’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of money. I saved it. It was what I was working for.’

  ‘But London …?’

  ‘You can do anything in London,’ said Charlie with conviction.

  ‘London?’ said Major Mearns. ‘Yes, it might be wise for you to get away there. I can get you a seat on the coach and see you right for money. I hope you know your way around?’

  There are so many Londons. Charlie knew this, but he knew too that your London was the one you lived in. That way you could have, of course, several Londons, because the true Londoner liked to be on the move. But not outside a certain area.

  He couldn’t count himself as a Londoner as he had not been born there, and might not stay there; but he would think about it often and visit it often.

  The dog and the boy would be a problem, but he had taken them over so he must look after them. He thought about the two of them and knew he could not let them down. Felix Ferguson would be looking for them. It could have been Felix who hit him on the head. Would he ever know?

  More likely to have been the Theatre man, but he was not going to name him or ask. Just get away. He had never meant to stay in Windsor for ever; he had just been venturesome and felt it was a place he ought to see. He had seen it and liked it a lot. He would be back. But now he knew he must go.

  Go to London.

  Chapter Eleven

  Charlie
had arrived in London with Tom and Jo, thanks to Mearns’ help, and they were lodging in a small but clean house that the Major had insisted was safe for them till he came to see them. Tom was happy and Jo was finding life full of surprises and kindness. Tom had a job working in a stables where Jo was allowed in, and where he caught rats with great regularity. Charlie strolled about, absorbing this new western side of London. One day he saw the elegant red-headed man who Mindy had told him was a Lord-in-Waiting.

  Charlie was not surprised when the Major arrived with Denny in tow. He had somehow expected that Major Mearns would want to know how he and Tom were getting on. The Major arrived in the morning on a bright spring day, although there was a suggestion of rain in the air.

  ‘You didn’t come all the way to London just to see me?’

  ‘And the boy. And the dog.’ He smiled. ‘All well, I see.

  Charlie nodded. ‘Better than I would have expected.’

  ‘London suits him. And the dog. But we miss him in the Castle.’

  ‘He’d come back to Windsor, I daresay,’ said Charlie thoughtfully. He himself might want to move on elsewhere, Charlie thought, and Tom and Jo might be able to come with him. ‘If you made him a good offer!’ he added.

  Denny said that he missed them both and would be glad to have them both in the Castle.

  ‘But what was it you came for?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘You know the ways of the Castle,’ replied Major Mearns. ‘I came to deliver a letter from the King by hand. I am on my way there now.’

  Charlie said, with no question in his voice, ‘To Mrs Fitzherbert.’ Then he added, ‘Can I come with you?’

  He meant to go, having made up his mind at once. The Major knew this.

  Mrs Fitzherbert had a house in Tilney Street, not far from Bond Street. It was an aristocratic, smart area, but the house was not large.

  Although where Charlie had a room was certainly not aristocratic, it was within walking distance of Tilney Street.

  The Major pulled the bell chain. The door was opened by a maidservant, and he went in.

  ‘You don’t go in with him?’ Charlie said to Denny; they were watching from some way off.

  ‘Not wanted.’

  Charlie absorbed this information in silence for a moment, and then said, ‘You come here though?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie, yes, because after this we shall go off and have a drink and meet a few friends. It is an escape from the Castle. Yes, I know; you liked it, and so do I – but not all the time.’ Denny paused for a moment.

  ‘And Mindy’s away,’ he added morosely. ‘She’s gone off with Princess Augusta and one of her Ladies-in-Waiting to Bath.’

  ‘And you miss her,’ said Charlie with sympathy.

  ‘We both do. She does our washing apart from anything else. She cooks our supper too sometimes.’

  ‘I thought you got it from the kitchens, or you cooked.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that is something that life in the army does teach you – how to cook when you have to. But a woman is better, you know … But Mindy is due back soon.’

  The door of the house opened and the Major came out. Behind him came a woman who must have been Mrs Fitzherbert. She seemed to be talking in a forceful way to Mearns, whose face was impassive.

  ‘He’s not getting a pat on the back,’ Charlie decoded from what he saw, ‘but a slap on the hand.’ Then: ‘An interesting face,’ he thought. ‘The sort of face that would get people writing about it. Not me, though.’

  ‘What did he come here for?’ Charlie asked Denny.

  ‘Sent.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  Denny shrugged. ‘I don’t know exactly why, but the King sends him every so often. She’s his wife.’

  ‘Not the King’s wife?’

  ‘Yes. They were married years ago.’

  Charlie studied the woman. ‘She’s very fat, but the face is beautiful – her skin gleams.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s natural – not like the King; his face is covered with grease and paint.’

  ‘I noticed he looks a bit done over,’ said Charlie, then: ‘She looks as though she is being very sharp with the Major.’

  ‘Be over money,’ said Denny. ‘Usually is; she wants more.

  ‘Well …’ began Charlie thoughtfully.

  ‘The King gives her ten thousand a year.’

  Charlie was silenced. He could hardly believe it.

  ‘But it’s never enough,’ Denny went on.

  ‘How do you and the Major know all this?’

  ‘Oh, we get to know most things.’

  Major Mearns had made a slight, polite bow to Mrs Fitzherbert and then turned away. After all, the bow said, if things had gone differently she would have been his queen.

  Perhaps she was the real wife, as she had certainly been the first one. ‘Queen Fitzherbert,’ thought the Major. ‘What was her first name?’ He found he did not know. Yes, he did: he remembered it was Maria Anne.

  He saw that Denny and Charlie were there too.

  ‘You waited.’ It was not a question.

  ‘We wanted to see how you got on,’ commented Denny.

  ‘Oh, I got on,’ replied the Major. ‘A message to pass on to His Majesty. She made it clear what I was to say.’ He looked around and asked Charlie: ‘How’s the lad?’

  ‘Oh, he’s working – takes it seriously. When it’s work time then he works. Tom has changed — become more …’ Charlie hesitated. ‘Well, more solid is the word I think.’

  ‘The dog too?’

  Charlie considered. ‘Yes, and Jo too.’

  ‘You can all come back to the Castle with me if you desire.’

  Charlie said thoughtfully: ‘Give us another two weeks or so; he’s learning so much.’

  But really Charlie said this because he was worried about what Felix Ferguson would do. He did want to be there to see for himself.

  However, this was not the only reason to hold back for a couple more weeks so that Tom and Jo could develop.

  The perplexing thing was that Charlie could not be sure if he wanted to be there to protect Tom and Jo, or if he wanted them there to protect him.

  Chapter Twelve

  As the little party waited in the inn courtyard for the Windsor coach, Mearns was looking with some amusement and pride at his young protégés. Charlie and Tom were washed and clean, and dressed in neat suits and boots, and the Major had taken them to the barbers in Covent Garden where the two boys had been given smart haircuts, whilst he had had a shave. The boys had washed the dog, who seemed to find this new experience enjoyable and fun, and Jo now had a proper collar to wear. Denny saw Mearns’ look: ‘You’ve taken a very fatherly view of our young team,’ he grinned.

  ‘They’re going to be more useful than we realised,’ replied Mearns. ‘We must keep them safely with us till we solve our latest Windsor murders.’

  The coach rumbled into the inn yard, and the ostlers ran to change the horses. The driver was the one who had first brought Charlie to Windsor, which seemed like years ago. He recognised Charlie. ‘Well, young Sir. You have come up in the world!’ Then turning to the Major: ‘He does you credit, Sir.’

  ‘Thank you. Tell me, whilst we are waiting, when you brought him here to Windsor, you kindly let him earn some money by bringing up two heavy parcels to me at the Castle. Did the ostler tell you who had given them to him?’

  ‘He said it was a very tall, very thin woman — like Miss Tux who came down with us that day.’ The coachman recollected: ‘He did say this woman fair gave him the creeps. There was something he didn’t like about her – “proper bullying type” he called her.’

  ‘If it was a “her”,’ muttered the Major.

  The coachman stared. ‘That might explain the big hands he saw. Came from near the Theatre, too.’

  Charlie heard all this without letting the men see he was listening. He was being cautious. He had been attacked. He had seen Mindy nearly burnt to death. He remembered the chef and the actor who both had str
ange affectionate ways. Could women kill? Could a woman killer cover her tracks? Could she kill again?

  Charlie pondered these matters on the very comfortable journey inside the coach – to the Windsor he knew was now becoming more and more important to him. On arriving at the inn yard there, he noticed it was the same ostler as the coachman had pointed out to Mearns. Charlie asked him about the mysterious woman and the two heavy parcels.

  The ostler told him she had been hanging around near the inn or near the Theatre for some time. The heaviness of the parcels hadn’t seemed to worry her, and she had held them all the time as if they were valuable. Yes, he had noticed the large hands: ‘Now you mention it, they could have been the hands of a man. That could explain why she just didn’t seem right.’

  Mearns and Denny took the two boys and Jo to the Castle, where they found them a room in which to sleep, and then gave them a good meal from the Royal kitchen. Then they brought them into Mearns’ room for a talk.

  Firstly, Charlie told the Major that he had seen the red-haired Lord near Mrs Fitzherbert’s house in London. Then he explained about the privy at the Theatre, which no one used because of the awful smell — much worse than most privies. The Major sat up like a hound straining at the leash – enough to startle Jo who sat up with equal alertness.

  ‘Yes, you can come with us too, Jo,’ said Mearns. ‘Dol killed in the dressing room. The attempt to kill Mindy – saved thanks to you, Charlie. The actress slain as well – or instead. The attack on you, dear boy … There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark! – as the players might say.’

  The two men, the two boys and Jo walked swiftly to the Theatre and entered the yard quietly. Charlie got the spade and Denny started digging by the privy in fits and starts. Although the Major scattered flowers around, and smoked a pipe vigorously, the smell was now even worse.

  As he dug deeper into the earth, Denny gently dug in smaller spade-fulls. Soon clothes could be seen – a waistcoat, then the body of a headless and legless man. ‘Traddles, poor devil! Get a wheelbarrow, Charlie. We must take him away. God be thanked the new mortuary attendant is one of my ex-soldiers, and an honest man. We’ll not tell the Theatre they can use this privy again – not for the moment.’