Most Secret

by John Dickson Carr

  The wound was actually of small consequence. Harker’s point had nipped through some loose flesh at the top of the shoulder blade; beyond a slight stiffness for a day or two, there could be no ill effects. But there was a fair amount of blood, which enables us to persuade the ladies that death may be imminent. And so my grandfather fetched up a dismal groan or two, rolled his eyes glassily, and felt not displeased at all.

  She was in a passion of concern, was Dolly. From the table she took a large pewter soup tureen and emptied its cold contents out the window, to the audible dissatisfaction of some gentleman passing in the alley below. Then Dolly took the gallon jug of boiling water she had bespoke from a tapster; she flung half the boiling water out the window, by way of reply; and this time the unseen gentleman stood and passionately addressed the window for some minutes.

  Under the blue-and-orange gown Dolly wore an astonishing number of petticoats. From the topmost one she tore strip after strip, turning round and round like a cat chasing its tail. Having thus obtained clean bandages, and a quantity of lukewarm water by mixing boiling with cold in the soup tureen, she proceeded to bathe and dress Kinsmere’s wound. Dolly’s nearness as she bent over him had an irresistible effect. Once the bandage had been adjusted, and his shirt and coat put on again, he could contain himself no longer. He rose to his feet, took the girl in his arms, and kissed her at some length.

  Again, young ladies and gentlemen, I perceive your shocked expressions. For this is the Year of Grace eighteen hundred and fifteen. Pious old King George the Third, however mad and blind he may be, is still alive. But our true ruler is His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, whom I once saw at a prizefight when he was still a youth and I the mature colonel of my regiment. And I am sure that the Regent would be in no sense shocked. He is recorded as having remarked that King Charles the Second was the only one of his predecessors whose company he could have tolerated as a gentleman.

  But I was telling you how Rowdy Kinsmere, on that May afternoon of the year sixteen-seventy, for the first time kissed Dolly Landis. Nor did Dolly herself display the least coyness or reluctance, clasping him tightly round the neck and furthering the process with her tongue after a fashion of which you, young ladies, will doubtless hear when you are a little older.

  They were in this position when Bygones Abraham walked into the Cupid Room.

  “Well, strike me blind!” roared Bygones, stopping short.

  “Sir and madam,” says the exalted Kinsmere, “it seems necessary that we drink.”

  “Can ye spare the time?” says Bygones. “It would grieve me to interrupt a teet-ah-teet merely with mention o’ something relevant. Howsobeit! I have tied Harker securely, with my sash round his head by way of a gag, and shut him in the cupboard with the door latched. He’ll be tractable, we can warrant, for lack of the power to be anything else.”

  Whereupon Kinsmere bethought himself of what Dolly had told him. He went on to inform Bygones, who at first refused to believe it.

  “Have a care, lass, if this is more deceit! Deceive Pem Harker all you like; but if you’d deceive us too …”

  “ ’Tis no deceit, I do solemnly swear! You are an ugly old cat o’mountain. Yet I like you; I would not deceive you. And could I dream of deceiving this boy here?”

  (‘Boy, damme? Now who are you calling a boy?’)

  “Indeed,” confessed Dolly, shivering all over, “I was sore perplexed and afeared as to how I should proceed. Knowing, as I did, there was some person listening at that knothole …”

  “You knew that too?”

  “For sure I did! But who was the watcher? And was it a spy on me? And who sent him to spy there? Was he put there by … by …?”

  “By the king, would you say? Oh, body o’ Pilate! D’ye fancy the king (God bless him) would set a spy to observe the postures of his own spy?”

  “I don’t know and can’t say. I am not so familiar as some people with the ways of conspirators. And yet, having been acquainted with His Majesty some matter of a month or six weeks, I vow I think he might do anything. Nor was it an easy task I had. When Pem ceased speaking so much treason, I must prod him on again by making mock of the king as an idle good-for-nothing.”

  “Which we know he is not.”

  “Oh, sir, I greatly fear he is not!”

  “You fear it?”

  “Ay, truly I fear it!” Dolly answered. “He is much given to idling and laziness, as which of us is not? He loves the sins of the flesh, as which of us does not with the right person for company? But he is endowed with so great a crowning of brains that ’tis frightening and not sootheful.”

  “You yourself, lass, are not altogether lacking in that respect. How much have you learned of this conspiracy at the palace? Of the band o’ malcontents and their plotter-in-chief?”

  “Only what Pem boasted of. And some few hints from His Majesty’s self, which did but mislead me. What else should I know?”

  “Come, Madam Landis! Are you a loyal king’s man?”

  “Oh, I am! Pray believe I am!”

  “Why, then,” said Bygones, uprearing in eloquence, “I’ll tell you what it is and must be. We will form, here and now, a defensive band o’ counterconspirators. We will exchange bits and pieces of guess or knowledge, like three more deities on this Olympus at the Devil. We will command dinner at long last, and take a deep cup or two to drink our own prosperity. Hey?”

  “Oh, this is lovely; this is most pleasant!” Dolly beamed at him. “I am ripe for a drinking set, or carouse if it must be. But be sure we don’t o’erdo it. Pack me off to the theatre by four o’clock, I implore you, and sober enough to play.”

  Afterwards they had fine memories of that little hour or more in the Cupid Room: partly because they got on so well together and partly because Bygones poured wine with a liberal hand. (He and Kinsmere drank claret; Dolly drank champagne.) In a niche over the chimneypiece stood a small figure of Cupid, painted pink as the bust of Apollo downstairs was painted blue. Beyond open windows, beyond the alley, lay the romantic garden of Serjeants’ Inn. It is true that every fresh breeze sent in neighbouring chimney smoke like somebody making a skilful stroke at billiards, that flies buzzed round the food and that a hitherto sunny day began to grow overcast.

  But, so far as my grandfather was concerned, it could be called idyllic. Up had been ordered a comfortable meal, which commenced with a roast calf’s head and a couple of geese, and ended with a large Cheshire cheese. Though in Dolly’s presence Kinsmere had believed himself no longer hungry, yet he was constrained to partake of most courses and to finish at least one grilled fowl down to the bones.

  It was pleasanter still to sit at table beside Dolly, observing how the brown eyes would constantly return to him as she ate or drank. She was telling them something of her history; nor did she speak solemnly in the telling, since Dolly was always inclined to laugh at herself rather than to laugh at anyone else.

  She told them of her late home in Coal Yard, Drury Lane; of her late mother, who had been a kind-hearted soul and a good enough mother in all conscience, except when she belted Dolly because there was no money to buy drink, or else had the horrors from too much drink and chased everybody in sight with a manure fork. A drunken cobbler taught Dolly to read and write. The identity of her father she never learned. There had been several brothers and sisters, so far as she could remember; but all these had died naturally or been killed somehow: according to the fate, Dolly said, which usually overtakes such.

  Of her apprenticeship as table servant at the brothel—Mother Fenniman’s handsome establishment in Red Lion Fields—she made good comedy. As for her second apprenticeship, an orange wench at the theatre, she did not slur over the fact that she had picked the pocket of Sir Aubrey Fairchild. Orange wenches for the play, either under Killigrew at the King’s House or the late Sir William Davenant at the Duke’s, received pay too wretched to live without other means. There were always men to get money from; and yet Dolly, though she made no pretence at bei
ng better than others, would not go with a man unless she was fond of him. It seemed the more ironic that somebody like Harker, of all people, should fasten on her with his grisly threat of the gallows, and should hold that threat for nearly three mortal years.

  “Until you met him and beat him! And, oh, I am so very happy!”

  “The plain fact, madam, is that I did NOT beat him. ’Twas the merest accident, sweet heart, as you are well aware. Also, to speak a truth, I was somewhat frightened of the fellow.”

  “Oh, be bothered!” cried Dolly, or words something like it. “Did you fight him, dear boy, or did you not?”

  Clang smote the great bell at the Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West, clearly heard from Fleet Street on the opposite side; it went on to strike two.

  Bygones Abraham, who had been stuffing himself until his face assumed richer purplish-red hues than ever, here settled back with a look of drowsy comfort. A moment later he leaned forward, poured out and disposed of two tankards in rapid succession, hiccupped, patted his stomach, and settled back again with an expiring sigh. As he watched Kinsmere and Dolly lean towards each other, their fingers touching as though reluctantly, a watery and sentimental light began to grow in his eye.

  “It was ‘way far and gone’ in forty-three—!” Bygones said, so abruptly that the others jumped.

  “What was?”

  “Ay!” muttered Bygones, in a sepulchral voice like a prophet. “There were men in those days, lad! Men, I tell ye!” He contemplated the wine bottles in a gloomy and mysterious way. “Tempoura mewtanter, ate nose some-thing-or-other in illus! Faith was stronger, causes were spiritualler, a more noble scale struck a chord in the forefront of human existence. A good backsword at your hip in a cavalry charge, taking care the grip don’t turn in your hand when you rise in stirrup to hit ’em; and skill in all the arts and diplomatic tongues of this earth.—What is Love?” inquired Bygones, changing the subject.

  “Come, here’s d-drollery!” chortled Dolly, and lifted her glass once more. “The talkative gentleman, I do protest, is grown most remarkably drunk.”

  Both to Dolly and to Kinsmere this notion seemed so extraordinarily funny that they leaned towards each other and roared. But the old soldier would have none of it.

  “ ’Tis rank slander!” he declared. “Bygones Abraham, pride of the cavalry, become foxed on a few pints of claret? Zhommy duh lah vee! It’s a habit o’ mine, when much discourse must be spoke on weighty matters, to oil the muscles of my eloquence with some choice words beforehand. Have you never seen runners before a race? Springing up and down in such fashion, freely unlimbering ’emselves?”

  “And an excellent habit I pronounce it!” said Kinsmere. “The question before us, good friends,” he continued, with some recollection of his uncle Godfrey, “hath been propounded as ‘What is Love?’” He looked sideways at Dolly, his head spinning. “Love, good friends, may be described as—”

  “I am already unlimbered,” Bygones cut him off. “Nay! Zoot ellers! Assay duh saw! And as for you, lass!” Indulgent yet judicial, Bygones also contemplated her. “What you say is of much interest, may be, but it’s not to our purpose. Let us hear instead of plots and counterplots: how you met the king, what he said to you, and what was determined thereon.”

  “You’d hear it all?”

  “I would,” said Bygones, with sudden grimness striking through, “and every word of it. Well?”

  “Well!” replied Dolly. “It was about the beginning of April, I think, and at the theatre. I was Olivia in The Mulberry Garden, which they’d played two years before but were playing again.”

  “Ay, lass?”

  “There was a great throng in the pit, the middle and top galleries filled too, and all the court in the side boxes come to see us. The king was applauding hard, though ’tis no very comical play; and he was applauding me, though he’d not aforetime cast a glance in my direction.

  “All of us were in a flurry and dither: especially Mary Knepp, who took the part of Victoria and had a song to sing. I played badly, I know; I forgot some of my speeches to Ned Kynaston (he was Jack Wildish) and needs must improvise with jeering speeches out of other plays. And, whatever this portended or might not portend, I vow I felt much more alarmed than I felt pleased.”

  At the end of three acts out of five, Dolly explained, she was changing her dress in the tiring room when Mrs. Knepp brought her an unsigned note and said: “Lacka-day, Doll, there’s good fortune in store for some people.” The note, which was from the royal box, she could not have disregarded even if she had wished; and it requested her to be at home that night could she find it convenient to do so.

  In her more prosperous days now she had lodgings off Bow Street, with a cage of canaries in the window. And so she swept, dusted, and polished in a mighty to-do. Then she put on her best gown, doused herself with perfume, painted and patched her face; and sat down in apprehension to await her visitor.

  He arrived secretly, after the docks had gone eleven. She heard him walk up the three flights of stairs whistling a country air, which hardly seemed dignified, nor did he have any escort except a few bad-tempered spaniels. He had to stoop to enter the doorway; he wore a plain dark coat much behind the fashion; and yet by his manners, she said, you could tell he was the King of England.

  She had heard (Dolly continued) that the best way to please King Charles was to behave naturally in his presence—as though anybody could!—and even jeer him a little. She contrived the mockery pretty well, drinking a good deal of wine to keep up her courage. Yet he seemed so comfortably at home as he sat there, his great voice urbane and his long legs stretched out, that she did behave naturally, forgot fears, and found herself more frank than she had expected to be with anyone.

  Dolly fetched out her most cherished possession, a music box which played “Cuckolds All Arow” when you wound it up. He was so pleased with this that he wouldn’t let it go, but played it over and over until he almost broke the works, shaking it beside his periwig when it ran down, and tapping his foot in time to the music.

  For his part, he said, he liked tunes a man might keep time to; and he asked her if she could sing. Dolly, all fear gone and able to troll out a rollicking measure with the best of them, promptly produced a beribboned cittern. She sang him a number of well-known airs, full of hey-ding-a-ding-dongs and fa-la-li-la-las. She sang “Here’s a Health unto His Majesty” and “The Man That Is Drunk Is as Great as a King,” whereat her visitor wagged his head and joined in the chorus. Then she sang one with which he said he was unacquainted, Grainevert’s song out of Suckling’s play.

  Come, let the State stay!—

  Drink merry away,

  There is no business above it;

  It warms the cold brain,

  Makes us speak in high strain—

  He’s a fool that does not approve it.

  The Macedon Youth

  Left behind him this truth:

  That nothing is done with much thinking;

  He drank and he fought

  Till he had what he sought:

  The world was his own by good drinking!

  At this he fell silent for a time, with the spaniels curled up at his feet. “Ay?” says he. “It may be true, though the matter is debatable,” so that she wondered if she had offended him. But he only bade her sing him another strain, which she knew but had never liked, it being a queer and solemn song by John Shirley. It surprised her, Dolly thought, that he would like it. She plucked at the strings lightly, feeling for the tune.

  The glories of our blood and state

  Are shadows, not substantial things …

  That was how it went, as the bells were tolling midnight:

  The glories of our blood and state

  Are shadows, not substantial things;

  There is no armour against fate—

  Death sets his icy hand on Kings …

  In the quiet of the little room King Charles sat motionless, with his wig black against the candlelight and h
is swarthy chin in his hand.

  “But that, madam,” says he, “is a melancholy business to contemplate.” And he reached over and took the cittern away from her.

  Whereat Mistress Dolly, being a rational young woman and thinking she knew what move would be next, smiled at him, albeit she was a trifle disappointed. For this was the king, who had a great reputation among the ladies. And yet she felt, astonishingly, no more drawn towards him than towards several others who (for one reason or another) she had obliged.

  “Madam,” says the king in a thoughtful way, “we are now, at the least of it, made acquainted. What’s your opinion of me?”

  “Sire,” says Dolly, “I think I may say I like you.”

  She cursed herself in bitterness for not more nimbly exercising her charms. Here was such stupendous opportunity, such opportunity as would be offered to few wenches in a dozen lifetimes, that any sane woman would have hurled herself at him without more ado. She could have wept with vexation for being such a fool. Yet it stuck in her throat that a man who approached her fair and friendly, without arrogance on the one hand or foppish struttings on the other, should not get a straight and friendly answer. And so she spoke out of her very hatred of too much coyness. “Sire,” says Dolly truthfully, “I think I may say I like you.”

  Bygones Abraham and Rowdy Kinsmere, listening to her recital, gathered that at this point the king must have observed her furious face. But Dolly only reported that he smiled, plucked at a string on the beribboned cittern, and explained that his errand here was not what she had supposed.

  “Madam,” says he with great civility, “pray don’t exert yourself. I am an old fortress, unconscionably easy to capture. I do not think there has been a watchman awake these twenty years. But that,” says he, rubbing his nose, “is precisely the difficulty. Already there are so many conquerors feasting inside that I am not at all easy in my mind. Too many more assaults might bring down the walls or wreck the powder magazine—which would be, you must own, some little of a catastrophe.”