The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade by M J Trow Read Free Book Online

the implement, when it started. The hounds howled and snarled, springing up at Rosebery, jaws snapping as they turned in air. Cairns and Cattermole drew their revolvers, firing wildly to left and right. Rosebery clung to the saddle for dear life, trying to extricate his plunging horse from the melee of dogs. Three or four grooms were hurrying down the slope towards the wall shouting harshly at the dogs. Lestrade drove his horse through the bedlam, caught Rosebery’s rein with a deftness which surprised him and led him away over the furrows. By the time Rosebery had taken stock of himself and was controlling his horse, Lestrade swung back with his revolver cocked, but Cairns and Cattermole had done their business well and the hounds were recoiling, calmer now and stunned by the gunfire and the corpses by the wall.
    The horsemen rode to higher ground as the grooms and handlers took charge of the pack. Rosebery, gashed and bleeding, slumped in his saddle in shock. ‘It’s the damnedest thing,’ he said, staring blankly ahead.
    ‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ said Cairns, handing Rosebery his hat.
    ‘At least that lead hound won’t attack anybody else,’ said Cattermole. ‘I just shot him.’
    ‘It wasn’t the lead hound,’ mused Lestrade, almost to himself.
    ‘I saw it,’ said Cattermole, ‘exactly like poor Freddie.’
    ‘Tell me, sir,’ Lestrade turned in the saddle to face him. ‘When you shot the dog, Tray, who killed him – you or the gun?’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘I mean that the hounds killed Freddie Hurstmonceux. But who trained them to?’
    ‘Trained?’ snapped Rosebery. ‘You can’t train dogs to go for a man.’
    ‘Yes, you can,’ said Cairns. ‘But they must have been trained to go for Rosebery, too.’
    ‘No, sir, I don’t think so. If my assumption is correct, then this morning’s incident was merely an accidental repetition of the original. Lord Hurstmonceux must have been unhorsed. You were lucky, My Lord.’
    ‘We’ve got to get you back to the house, Rosebery,’ Cattermole urged. ‘I don’t know what you’ve achieved, Lestrade, except for nearly killing someone else.’
    ‘Sir Henry, please bear with me. I believe I have the answer, but I must see the tenants first. Can that be arranged?’
    ‘Good God, man, there are nearly two hundred of them. Can you spare that time from the Yard?’
    It took Lestrade just over a week to interview all the Hurstmonceux tenants. With two or three sergeants to help him he might have halved the time, but Cattermole was insistent for the sake of the family honour that the incident must be hushed up. Lestrade knew all too well that whatever he uncovered here would never become public. Freddie Hurstmonceux had been notorious enough in his lifetime, but no one would be able to make matters worse after his death. The ‘laboratory’ would never see the light of day. Lestrade wasn’t even sure if Cattermole knew about it.
    Of the one hundred and eighty-three adults on the Hurstmonceux estate, one hundred and eighty-three had the motive and opportunity to kill their former master. Even some of the children looked murderous. But Lestrade only asked one question- at least he was only interested in the answer to one question: who placed the harrow against the wall in the Lower Meadow?
    It transpired that none of them had. Lestrade prided himself on his judgement of men – and women. There were many tenants who would have split Lord Hurstmonceux’s head with a hoe, blown it off with a shotgun or sliced it apart with a sickle, but who among them had the ability to kill him in this way? Trained policeman that he was, he noticed the tenants’ reactions to the harrow question. They told him the truth. No one had moved it.
    He then interrogated, with all the subtlety at his disposal, the handlers of the pack. It was a new pack to the hunt, they told him. Lestrade toyed with the question of whether the seal had been broken, but the situation prevented it.