Death at Glamis Castle Read Free Page A

governance was becoming unwieldy and fearing the expansionist passions of his generals, Hadrian had intended the Wall—which ultimately stretched from Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness on the Solway—as the edge of empire, the boundary beyond which there would be no more territorial enlargement, no more subjugation of native peoples. For the Romans, this was to be the end of their world.
    From somewhere behind and below him, Charles half-heard the sound of hoofbeats, and he shifted his position, still lost in thought. With Britain’s possessions now flung across a quarter of the globe (that the sun never set on the British Empire was not just a figure of speech), Hadrian’s Wall offered a lesson from which the government and the British people might well profit. Whether they would, of course, was doubtful, for the temptation to Empire was as strong at the beginning of this new century as it must have been in Hadrian’s distant day. What would the Romans make of the land they had so arduously occupied, as it had been altered by time and technology, transformed into a world they would scarcely recognize? And what would they say of the British Empire, with its jingoistic fervor, its irrepressible confidence in its own economic and technical superiority, its seemingly-incurable blindness to its many intractable social problems?
    â€œHalloo, m’lord! Halloo!”
    The shout shattered the noon-time silence and jarred Charles from his thoughts. He turned as the hail came again, from the village constable whom he and Kate had met when they arrived the week before at Haydon Bridge, where he had joined several members of the Newcastle Society to undertake another excavation at Housesteads and Kate had taken to photographing the ruins and tramping the ancient hills in search of inspiration for another of Beryl Bardwell’s books.
    â€œBeggin’ yer lordship’s pardon,” the constable said breathlessly, as he dismounted from his horse. “I’ve been instructed t’ locate ye and deliver this telegram.” Reaching into the pocket of his blue tunic, he produced an envelope. “I’m also t’ escort ye to the train.”
    â€œThe train?” Charles took the envelope. “What train? Why?”
    The constable straightened his shoulders, obviously feeling the gravity of his mission. “A special train, waitin’ fer ye down below, sir.” He puffed out his cheeks and added importantly, “The biggest engine I ever did see. They’ve cleared traffic fer it all th’ way from Newcastle to Carlisle.”
    Charles slit the envelope with his pocket knife and scanned the telegram. It had been sent by Andrew Kirk-Smythe, whom he had met half a dozen years before at a house party given by Lady Warwick, where the young man was acting as bodyguard to the Prince of Wales. Charles had quite liked the young lieutenant and knew that he had done well for himself, continuing in the Royal service. The Prince of Wales was now King Edward VII, the “E.R.” of Kirk-Smythe’s telegram, the one man in the British Empire with the temerity to intrude upon Charles’s holiday and expect his instant acquiescence.
    Charles frowned. But what was this “matter of gravest importance”? And why all the secrecy? Obviously there was something here that Kirk-Smythe felt he could not trust to the discretion of the local telegraphist. With a sigh, Charles folded the telegram, thinking that it was a good thing that they had packed their baggage into the motorcar that morning. The prospect of returning to the soot and grime of London, only a fortnight after Parliament’s adjournment, did not fill him with enthusiasm. Still, there was nothing for it but to find Kate, tell her the news, and board the train.
    The constable was already mounting his horse. “Beg pardon, m’lord, but they’re waitin’ fer ye.” He picked up the reins. “If I may be