The Gallows Murders

Prologue
    Black-hearted, red-eyed murder! Like the mist which hangs above the marshes of Burpham Manor then spreads its tendrils out around the oak, sycamore and ash which fringe the far side of the lawn, so murder seeps up from my past. It plagues my sleep and jolts the enjoyment of my waking days. I lie in bed at night (between the lovely Phoebe and Margot) and stare up at the ceiling. Always the past! It's ever around me!
    Two weeks ago, just before midsummer, the great Elizabeth came to Burpham as my guest. She sat and giggled in my private chamber. In that room there are no gaps between wainscoting and wall. No peepholes, no squints for any spy or eavesdropper like my little chaplain. Yes, that horrid little man, that viper vile, my sweet little tittle-brain is not above listening at keyholes. Oh, the little, noddle-pated fool, that greasy tallow-catch should be more careful of our Queen. Elizabeth once threw her slipper at old Walsingham, her master spy, and scarred him for life. On another occasion she wrote such a fierce letter to the Earl of Essex that he fainted, his body becoming so swollen that all the buttons on his doublet popped off as if cut away by a dagger.
    Anyway, on this latest occasion, Elizabeth and I sat in my damask-draped chamber eating comfits and drinking sweet wine. The Queen looked magnificent, even though she's well past her sixty-fifth year. Her nose is a little more hooked, her teeth all black, her hair is false and she still insists on wearing very high-heeled shoes to make her appear more majestic. Not that she needs it. Her face is oblong and fair and those small eyes, dark pools of nothingness, still arouse in me a pleasant smile. We giggled as we talked, remembering this and recalling that. Abruptly Elizabeth put her glass down, the smile fading from her face. Only a small smile! You see her face is covered by so much white paint it cracks if her lips gape too widely.
    'Before I leave, Roger,' she'd declared on a previous visit, 'I’ll need your fairest mirror and, for every crack I see in my face-paint, I'll fine you ten pounds sterling. In gold!' she added, rolling her tongue round her carmine-painted lips.
    Of course I paid. That's one thing about Elizabeth, never mind about 'fair heart in a woman's breast'. She's as hard as flint when it comes to money! Mind you, a great girl! Lovely lass! My Queen, my lord, my monarch, my mistress, and mother of our dear bastard son. God knows where that rogue is! Last time I heard he was in Spain trying to sell that noddle-pate, the Spanish King, a map of Eldorado, the silver city of the Aztecs.
    Ah well, back to the story. On her last visit, Elizabeth looked in the mirror counting the cracks. She stared at me standing behind her.
    ‘You owe me more this time, Roger!' she -exclaimed. "However, promise to bring me the other mirror and I'll cancel the debt.'
    I just shook my head. 'Madam, I do not know what you mean.'
    Elizabeth turned, those eyes, black pebbles in her white, snowy face. She seized my wrist and pinched the skin most cruelly. ‘You know what I mean, Roger!' she hissed.
    I'd just smile back and shake my head. She may well be my mistress, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, the greatest Queen in all the world, but I will not show her that mirror! That's kept in my secret storeroom in a coffer secured by seven locks. A terrible mirror! The one Catherine de Medici used in her Chamber of the Black Arts at Blois. Nostradamus gave it to her. You know, the man who could prophesy the future and see terrible, burning things falling from the sky. Once in Blois, pursued by an insane assassin, I fled to that chamber. I killed the assassin and stole the mirror. I saw the real power of that mirror. I shall not tell you what I glimpsed there. Those sinister secrets which swam out of a black mist, dreadful scenes from the future!
    I dashed the candle to the ground and drove the warlock from my manor, screaming that if I saw him again I'd hang him from the highest branch. I never showed Elizabeth that mirror, but somehow she knew I had it. Anyway, I digress… On that day Elizabeth just smiled and turned in her chair. I could tell from her eyes she'd leave the magic mirror to another day.
    'If not the future, Roger,' she whispered, 'do you remember the past? What you once told me about the Tower? Well, I have been there again!'
    At the time I just looked askance. I did not know what she meant but, when she left and I lay on my great four-poster