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proffered hand.
    ‘My Lord,’ Lestrade bowed stiffly. ‘Can you shed any light on this unfortunate affair?’
    Rosebery looked around him like a stag at bay, his large watery eyes flashing to every corner of the yard. He took Lestrade’s arm and led him away down the lawns. Cattermole sensed his air of secrecy and suspicion and walked back towards the house. ‘I’ll see to your room, Lestrade,’ he called.
    ‘Thank you, Sir Henry.’
    ‘Look, Balustrade, there’s a Garter in the offing for me.’
    ‘My Lord?’ Lestrade would believe anything of the aristocracy, but Rosebery did not strike him as one of those.
    ‘No scandal, y’see. I can’t afford any scandal. Not now. I mean, Home Rule is one thing. And the gee gees, but this … God, poor Freddie.’
    ‘What sort of a man was he, sir?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Lord Hurstmonceux.’
    ‘Oh, a bastard. An absolute bastard. He had his moments, mind.’ Rosebery chuckled a brittle, distant laugh. ‘No, I suppose Freddie wasn’t what you would call a decent sort. Look here, er … Balcony … this won’t become common knowledge, will it?’
    Lestrade had met this kind of pressure before, but from a man like Rosebery, Gladstone’s right-hand man, a foremost politician and Peer of the Realm, it was disconcerting. He wouldn’t budge Lestrade himself, but an inspector’s hands could easily be tied and he wasn’t at all sure about McNaghten. Influence and the old school tie were all they had once been, despite the extension of the franchise.
    ‘You can’t conceal the death of a member of the House of Lords, My Lord.’
    ‘Death?’ Rosebery’s tone suggested that he had been misjudging Lestrade. Then, more calmly, ‘Oh, quite so. Quite so.’
    But Lestrade had been quicker. He had read the signs. Rosebery was hiding something.
    ‘Do you think it was something more, My Lord?’
    ‘More?’ Rosebery’s attempt to effect unconcern was pathetic.
    ‘Murder, My Lord.’ Lestrade turned to face the man so that their perambulations came to an abrupt end. Rosebery stared at him, his mouth sagging open.
    ‘How?’ was all that he could manage.
    ‘That’s exactly what’s bothering me,’ confessed Lestrade. ‘I don’t know. Yet.’
    Rosebery blinked and walked on, following Lestrade’s lead. The tone of the conversation had changed. The policeman was now in charge, leading the noble lord around with an invisible ring through his aristocratic nose.
    ‘I take it Lord Hurstmonceux was an experienced huntsman?’
    ‘Oh, yes, ridden with the Quorn, the Cattistock, the best of them.’
    ‘Knew horses and dogs?’
    ‘Like a native. That’s what’s so damned peculiar.’ Rosebery was beginning to open up. ‘I mean, he treated his animals badly, God knows. But dogs are faithful curs. They’ll stand for a lot, y’know.’
    ‘When foxhounds are on the scent, what do they go for?’
    ‘Well, the fox, of course.’
    ‘Because of the scent?’
    ‘Yes. It’s bred into them.’
    ‘And what could make them turn on a man, especially when they are in full cry after the fox?’
    Rosebery shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s the damnedest thing.’
    Dinner was surprisingly convivial. True, Rosebery was still nervous, but the wine flowed and the aristocracy found the presence of a Yard officer more novel than irritating. Lestrade deflected probes about the Ripper case as deftly as he could but it was obviously still the talk of clubland. He coped remarkably well, for a man of his class, with the vast range of cutlery and silver which would have made Mrs Beeton’s head spin. It was a curiously masculine evening. A ‘stag weekend’ was how Lord Hurstmonceux had termed these functions – by family tradition the last hunt of the season was a ‘gentlemen only’ affair. Over cigars and port, Sir Bertram Cairns took Lestrade aside.
    ‘They’ll be talking Home Rule all night.’ He motioned to Rosebery and Cattermole, heads together in earnest