Free Most Secret by John Dickson Carr Page B

mooring below. Here the singing of birds in the queen’s volary rose at its loudest.
    “You’ll observe, hey?” Bygones swept out his arm. “The queen’s apartments are on that side, the north. The king’s apartments are here, the south—where I also (mark’ee, lad) have the honour to be. Here’s the door, and this fellow with the staff, we’ll send about other business. Come! Rare fine lodgings, or so I think?”
    There were two rooms, guarded outside by a porter with a tip-staff. Though the bedchamber might be small and stuffy, the withdrawing room was a spacious place of panelled walls adorned with tapestries. Its two windows looked down on a little garden full of statues, the Volary Garden, round which stretched the private apartments of the king.
    There were chairs in some dark polished wood, much carved, with seats and backs of woven straw having body cushions for comfort. Silver candlesticks stood on a round table scored over with the marks of glasses. Between the windows was a sideboard bearing tankards, goblets, a brass-bound tobacco box, three or four long clay tobacco pipes, even a few books. It was rather warm here; dust motes danced above the sideboard.
    “Come, here it is,” cries Bygones, indicating a chair beside the centre table. “Sit you merry, friend; take ease! Rare fine quarters or so I think?”
    “Yes, most noble of aspect.”
    “And, now I call it to mind, there’s another set o’ chambers vacant to the west o’ these. No doubt, matters standing as they do, they’ll invite you to occupy ’em?”
    “Invite me? Why a pox should they lodge me at the palace?”
    “Is this another mystery? Bend your wits to the question; you’ll divine it. Now, then!”
    Fetching up a deep sigh and shaking himself, he loosened his coat, his waistcoat, and the fall of lace at his throat He removed hat and peruke, revealing stubbly grey hair that made another contrast with the red or purplish hues of his face. The peruke he draped across a wig block on the sideboard.
    They must drink sack, he said, meaning the wine we now call sherry. From the top of the sideboard he took two pewter tankards each holding a pint; from the lower part he fetched out an armful of bottles. With these he marched back to the table.
    “Ayagh!” said Bygones Abraham, clearing his throat and opening bottles. “I had thought, d’ye see, we should first descend to business. But we will not. We will drink a health to the king, as loyal men should, and pledge him long life. Hey?”
    “We will.”
    Bygones filled the two tankards and pushed one across the table. The gurgle of the wine as he poured seemed to fire him with eloquence. Said he, striking a great attitude:
    “I have drunk his health, lad, in prosperity and in exile: as an excuse to start and as a reason to continue. I have drunk it out of tankards, mugs, goblets, glasses, pint pots, quart pots, great jacks, small jacks, gingleboys, and other receptacles whose names for the moment escape me. Down this throat have flowed libations in which England’s star ascends, so to speak, with reverse motion. Long life; down she goes; God for King Charles!”
    Up tilted the tankard; back went his head. His Adam’s apple had scarcely wriggled twice before his face, redder than ever, flipped back into view. He puffed out his moustache. Beaming, he turned the tankard upside down and ticked its edge against his left thumb. One drop slid from the empty vessel and exactly covered the thumbnail.
    “Ha!” And he snorted with pleasure. “There’s the proper way, d’ye mark it? One drop on the nail. No more, no less. Now, lad what do you say?”
    Not to be outdone, my grandfather rose to his feet and stood straight.
    “You have said it, Friend Bygones; I have but to make echo. May he live long years, and … God for King Charles!”
    He lifted his own tankard. In four swallows he drained off the ful., mellow, not-too-sweet wine, which sent a pleasant warmth through him as though