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

Another gem, he mused, lost forever. Where had they been bought? At auction, of course. Lestrade broke the silence he had promised by sending a telegram to the Yard to check. As he guessed, the former owner could not be traced.
    The inspector had one last card to play. Rosebery had gone, nursing his wounds, back to London to wait for his Garter. The funeral for Lord Hurstmonceux was due on the following day, in the family chapel a mile or so from Hurstmonceux Hall. Lestrade would not be there. His presence would not be welcome. The night before he left them, Lestrade crept from his room after dark. He crossed the moonless courtyard to the kennels. Once inside, his heart raced. Once or twice his nerve left him, but each time he turned back. The dogs slept more or less soundly despite his entrance. But he knew, even in the dark, that one or two of them were awake, watching him. He levelled the revolver, a heavy Smith and Wesson and prayed. His heart pounded in his ears. Flashing before his eyes he saw again the lacerated corpse of Freddie Hurstmonceux, the congealed blood on his throat and clothing, the dried trickle on the baize of the billiard table. He cocked the pistol, once, twice, and somewhere from the depths of his throat came the whispered word – ‘harrow’.
    The kennels roared into life, hounds snarling and snapping. Lestrade threw himself back through the door, sliding the bolt and collapsing against the wall. He was right. He had proved it. But the house was coming to life, lights appearing in the servants’ quarters. Voices and shouts in the yard. Lestrade saw no point in advertising himself. He put the gun away and crept via the shrubbery to the relevant wing. Up the stairway and into his room, before the house returned to an uneasy slumber. On the night before the funeral of the master, everyone was uneasy.
    Lestrade travelled back to London by train. The newspapers had carried the headlines – ‘terrible hunting accident’. Everything was neat, vague and unexceptional. Lord Hurstmonceux might simply have fallen from his horse. Only Lestrade knew
how
. Someone had placed the harrow by the wall in the Lower Meadow. They had then led the hunt that way, probably as Lestrade had done, getting a beater to carry a scent over his saddle. Hurstmonceux had leapt the wall, hit the harrow or narrowly missed it. What would have been his reaction? ‘What’s that bloody harrow doing there?’ or something similar. Whoever had arranged this had already sold the pack to Freddie and had taught them to react, viciously and blindly, to anyone who spoke the word ‘harrow’.
    Well, there it was. All the same, it was fantastic. It was astonishingly risky, uncertain. The murderer ran a risk in drawing on the hunt. He could easily have been seen. How did he arrange the sale? How could he be sure that Freddie would reach that wall first? And that he would use the essential word ‘harrow’. That he was alone at the time was the good luck of the others who rode in the hunt. Lestrade realised that he should have talked to them. But by the time he had arrived, most of them had gone and they could probably have added nothing to the facts of the case. Still, there it was. Risky, uncertain, fantastic, yes. But it had worked.
    So Lestrade knew how. What he did not know was who. He would put the evidence before McNaghten, who would brush his moustaches and straighten his cravat and consign the information to the bowels of his incomprehensible filing system. He would then compile a list as long as his arm of those who knew Freddie Hurstmonceux for the cad and bounder that he was. It didn’t help him a great deal.
    The letter was waiting for him when he got back. A mourning letter, lying square in the centre of his desk. Lestrade enquired why it was separate from the week’s mail pile which stood to one side. The desk sergeant explained it had come this morning and looked personal, addressed to Lestrade himself. The inspector opened