Dread Murder Read Free

again.’
    â€˜Henry VIII would have had their heads off for that,’ remarked the Major.
    Mindy finished her drink. ‘I must go.’ She wrapped her shawl around her. ‘You must never say. All is secret.’
    Except from Lord Castlereagh.
    â€˜It looks cold out there,’ said Denny from his window perch.
    Although it was still early morning, he could see people moving around in the courtyard. He knew most
of them by sight, men and women both. This was one of his uses to Major Mearns; he never forgot a face.
    He watched Mindy’s graceful, strong figure swing out of sight. She had learnt how to bargain for a good wage from the Queen’s household since Miss Burney had departed. The Queen could be generous, even handing on clothes that had served their time. The shawl, for instance, that Mindy was wearing that morning had probably started life over Royal shoulders.
    He turned to the Major. ‘Looks peaceful out there.’ ‘That’s how I like it.’ Like most old soldiers, they preferred a quiet life. ‘Well — to work! What is it today?’
    â€˜I will take our tray back to the kitchens and talk to Barber; he always knows what is going on. If the Queen is off to Kew, it would be best to know for sure.’
    â€˜Do so,’ Mearns nodded. ‘And let him know we are short of ale. After that, if it proves the Queen is on the move, then you might ride over to Kew and make our dispositions there.’
    Denny nodded. ‘And what will you be doing?’ he thought to himself. ‘Reading the King’s paper and smoking your pipe?’
    Mearns read his thoughts. ‘The King can have his paper back. I will deliver it myself.’
    â€˜Not to him in person?’
    â€˜He won’t be awake. No – in the tray to his dressing room. And then I will return here to write my report and get it sent off. Lord Tom is Messenger this week and I can trust him to deliver it.’
    Lord Tom was not a peer, nor the son of one, but a
rider from the stables who was sent on commissions by the Household. His name was one of those jokes that big households, like big families, spawn; his real name had been forgotten, but ‘Duke’ came into it somewhere. As the Major knew all the sins and crimes of everyone living in the Royal Household – knew of their lies, thefts, adulteries and even murders – someone he trusted with an important errand was not likely to betray him.
    He knew in this instance that Lord Tom had killed an officer in the wars recently concluded. An unpleasant officer; a coward and a bully. But it would have been a shot in the head for Lord Tom and no more heard about him if he had been discovered. Even now, with victory and peace declared, it would have prevented him getting a job in the Royal stables, despite his skills with horses and guns.
    The Major speculated that it had been some letters found in his victim’s pocket that had eased Lord Tom’s way into the stables, but on this there was silence.
    â€˜And what do they all know about you, Sir?’ Denny had asked humbly at the beginning of their working relationship.
    â€˜Nothing,’ the Major had replied in a sad voice. ‘There is nothing to know.’
    This Denny did not believe.
    After delivering the tray back to Barber, who, for once, was not informative, Denny took himself off for his usual early morning walk – which was in part a pleasure to him and in part a duty. He did not always
take the same path because he must not be expected; but he always looked about him with observant eyes, ever noting and checking. This power of reading a scene had been invaluable to him as a soldier, saving his life more than once.
    He walked out of the immediate Castle grounds towards the Great Park; then he debated whether to walk ahead or swing left to go through Shaw’s Farm and then push into the Park. He must be brisk, anyway, as the Major would be waiting for