clicked his glass back onto the sideboard. 'Well, shall we go and see to this poor gentleman?'
Brandon led us to a lane that lay near to where I had been riding that morning. The stable lad who accompanied us called it Linden Hill Lane. Tortuous and narrow, the road climbed toward a low ridge that encircled the valley. To either side of the lane, the land fell away in steep, wooded banks. Trees grew thinly here, but the underbrush was dry as tinder in the summer heat.
About a quarter of a mile along, Brandon stopped. 'There.'
He pointed. A body was caught halfway down the brown hill, the brush and branches broken in a path to it. He lay facedown, very still. I could see why Brandon had thought him me. He was a tall, lean man with thick dark hair and no hat and wore a brown coat, the one I had mislaid that morning.
We stood in a semicircle, staring down at him. In addition to the stable lad, Bartholomew and Matthias had accompanied us.
'If he rode a horse up here,' I began, 'then where is the horse? Has it returned home?'
The stable lad shook his head. 'Lad' was a misleading appellation-this man looked to be about fifty. A stable lad was simply a man, of whatever age, who looked after the tack and helped the grooms care for and exercise the horses. 'Unusual, that,' he said. 'A horse will run right back to his own stable. Knows where the grub is, don't he?'
Grenville poked at the brush with his walking stick. 'Bartholomew, can you get down there?'
The energetic young footman promptly began crashing through the dried scrub toward the body. His brother followed. I came after them, using my walking stick to bear my weight.
I slid and scrambled down the two dozen or so feet between the road and the body, arriving just as Bartholomew put out a large hand and turned the body over.
Matthias whistled.
'Who is it?' Grenville called down.
I straightened. 'It's Breckenridge.'
Chapter Eleven
Breckenridge's eyes were open to nothing, unseeing and glassy, pupils fixed. His mouth was open as well, as though he'd been drawing a breath to shout. His face had been slashed by the dozens of branches he'd crashed through, not to mention bruised where I'd hit him the day before. His knee-high boots and buckskin breeches were likewise scarred by his descent. My coat and his gloves were in ribbons.
Bartholomew slid his huge hand beneath Breckenridge's head. 'Neck's broken,' he informed us.
Grenville cupped his hands around his mouth. 'Can you bring him up here?'
Bartholomew stooped beneath the branches. Breckenridge was a large man, but Bartholomew was larger. He rolled the older man onto his shoulder. With his brother's help, Bartholomew began climbing back toward the road, brush crackling and breaking under his onslaught. I followed slowly.
Bartholomew laid Breckenridge out at Grenville's feet. 'Must have fallen from his horse, sir,' he said, dusting off his hands. 'Broke his neck tumbling down the hill.'
Questions spilled through my mind. Had Breckenridge truly fallen or had someone broken his neck for him and tossed him down the hill? What had Breckenridge been doing up here at all? And why dressed in my coat?
I also wondered why Brandon had suddenly turned up at Astley Close, and why he'd just happened to have been taking a walk this morning in Linden Hill Lane. I thought I knew the answer, and beneath my stunned surprise at Breckenridge's death, anger seethed.
Something caught my eye and I moved away from the others. The soft earth at the side of the lane showed two shallow furrows. They began about ten yards from where Bartholomew had dropped the body and led straight to the edge of the road where Breckenridge had gone over. The tracks were intermittent, sometimes disappearing altogether, sometimes appearing for only an inch or so.
I followed the trail back. 'Look at his boots,' I instructed.
They stared at me collectively. Impatiently, I bent over Breckenridge and turned the sole of his boot upward. The edge of the heel was crusted in earth. The other was the same.
I straightened. 'He was dragged here, and thrown over the side. He did not fall from a horse.'
'But there's a horse gone,' the stable lad said. He removed his cap, wiped his forehead, and replaced it. 'And the tack. Someone rode out.' He looked at me. 'Thought it was you.'
'Which horse is gone?' I asked.
'Chestnut gelding.'
'I rode a bay,' I said. 'I put him away when I returned. Was the chestnut Breckenridge's own horse?'
'He was that.'
I mused. 'Even if he did ride up here in the first place, someone dragged him from there to here.' I pointed. 'Here, the brush is not as heavy. Easier to throw him down the side. He would slide most of the way.'
Grenville frowned. 'But why, if he'd broken his neck falling, would someone push him from the road? Why not lay the poor man over the horse and bring him home?'
'Because I think the person deliberately killed him and wished it to look as though he'd had a bad fall.'
Brandon snorted. 'Who would do such a thing?'
'A very strong man,' I said. 'Or a very angry one. Or perhaps it was an accident. Perhaps they quarreled, Breckenridge slipped and fell and broke his neck, and the second man panicked.'
'Seems unlikely they'd come all the way up here for a quarrel,' the stable lad pointed out.
I considered. 'An appointment, perhaps.'
'Or a footpad,' Grenville said. 'Tried to rob him, broke his neck, and pushed him over.'
I closed my mouth. I sensed strongly that this had been murder with a purpose, but Grenville's suggestion was logical, and arguing with it at present might look strange to the others. It might have been simple robbery, but I did not think so.
We all did agree about the need to search for the horse. The stable lad and Matthias easily found the chestnut gelding not a mile down the road, in a pasture of the farm that the lane skirted. Whether he had wandered through an open gate on his own, or someone had retrieved him and led him there, we could not tell.
The horse seemed displeased at being found, having had its pleasant meal of lush grass interrupted, but once caught he was docile enough. He was about sixteen hands high, fine-boned, and expensive. The head stall and saddle he wore were the very ones I had ridden out with and left behind to be cleaned.
Bartholomew and Matthias agreed to stay with the body while the rest of us returned to Astley Close. The magistrate would need to be informed and a cart sent to retrieve Breckenridge. There would be an inquiry, and an inquest. I imagined the coroner and jury would happily let the horse be the culprit, but I was not so certain he had been.
We followed the lad into the stable yard. I looked into the tack room, which was simply a horse box on the end of the row used for the purpose. Saddles on pegs lined one wall, and bridles and halters hung opposite. A wooden shelf filled with curry combs, brushes, hoof picks, and cloths occupied the wall opposite the door.
'Why would he use the saddle I had left to be cleaned?' I asked as the lad unfastened the cinch and dragged the saddle from the horse.
The stable lad shrugged. 'It was nearby.'
'It was dirty. In the middle of the floor, where I left it. Why not use a bridle with a clean bit? Besides, Breckenridge had his own saddle, a French cavalry saddle. He boasted of it.'
I pointed. The saddle rested on a peg at the end of the row. Both pommel and cantle curved high, making the seat, covered with a quilted leather pad, deep. The English saddles had been similar. On campaign, we had strapped sheepskin to the saddle for more comfort, the cinch wrapping across the top of the sheepskin and fastening beneath the horse.
Breckenridge's stolen French saddle was a fine thing, obviously the property of a high-ranking officer. I knew in my heart that if he'd saddled his own horse and gone off riding early, he would have used the cavalry saddle, not the one I'd left, damp and dirty, on the stone floor.
