Read The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade for Free Online Page B

Chinese wallpaper. His bed was appallingly uncomfortable and the room cold. He had not come with the intention of staying but in view of the deceased’s no longer wanting them, Sir Henry Cattermole had lent him a nightshirt and a dressing gown of Lord Hurstmonceux’s. They were a trifle large perhaps and decidedly ornate by Lestrade’s rather drab standards, but they would do. He looked out from time to time across the lawns and caught the scurrying moon flickering on the waters of the lake. Occasionally the baying of a hound bore in on him the extent of his exasperation. But as dawn began to creep over the low trees below the house, a theory began to emerge. Well, after breakfast, Lestrade would see whether or not it paid off.
    Cairns was all for it. Cattermole had his doubts, but would do a great deal for the good of the family name. Rosebery wished he wasn’t there. Within an hour after breakfast, the pack was out with their handlers and the house guests, including Lestrade, mounted and ready to go. Standard police procedure, he had assured them – the reconstruction of a crime. He kept as far as he could from the hounds and each man carried a loaded revolver in case they ran amok again. Lestrade was a fair rider, but he wasn’t used to rough country and five-barred gates. He hoped they would encounter neither.
    It was a misty morning, raw-cold for early April and totally unlike the clear night. The ground was heavy with dew like tears as Cattermole sounded the horn and the pack moved off. A suicidal groom was riding far ahead with a dead fox over the cantle of his saddle, to draw the hounds the right way. It was an odd sight. A hunt, now rather out of season, if only by a day, with too few men, too few horses, no real quarry and an odd, gloomy silence. There was no jollity, no bantering and even Cattermole’s horn sounded chilly and alone. They crossed the ploughed fields of the South Meadow, the horses sliding in the morning mud. Lestrade felt faintly ridiculous in Lord Hurstmonceux’s spare pink and the ghastly uncomfortable hat bouncing around on his head. But the fields were a joy compared to the woods. Branches lashed at him as he doubled up to stay in the saddle. Splashed with mud and the dew from leaves he swung away from the path in an effort to find solid ground. His horse plunged and reared, snorting with annoyance at the increasingly less competent man in its back. Fleetingly, Lestrade saw Bertie Cairns across to his right, at the head of a scattered field. Fleetingly, because he saw him at a curious angle while somersaulting over the horse’s head.
    Lestrade landed squarely on his back, badly jarring his spine as he did so. He had the sense and training to cling to the reins as he fell, so was able to haul himself upright using the horse. There was no sign of the others. He hoped no one had seen him. Two or three of the straggler hounds rushed past him, leaving him firmly alone. He remounted with difficulty and made for the light at the edge of the woods. Below him, he saw that the hounds had reached the spot where he presumed Lord Hurstmonceux had been killed. Beyond a low, dry-stone wall, unusual for the area, the dogs milled around, sniffing, yelping, obviously having lost the scent. The groom with the dead fox had done his job well and had effectively lost his pursuers. Cattermole, Cairns and Rosebery sat on their horses, looking around them for Lestrade.
    The inspector urged his mount down the furrowed slope. The view in front of him bobbed and leaped. He dug his knees in hard and clung on as majestically as he could. The horizon dropped before him and he was down, wheeling his horse sharply in a circle to join the others.
    ‘Bravo, Parapet,’ called Rosebery. The name had lost all semblance of reality so that for a while Lestrade assumed he must be talking to somebody else. ‘A yard or so to the left, however, and you would have caught that harrow.’
    Lestrade just had time to catch sight of