Murder on a Summer's Day Read Online Free PDF

that were exceedingly pink around the lids. ‘Has summat happened to him?’
    ‘Mr Withers, I need to ask you a few questions. When you have seen to the pony, please come and join me on that bench out there.’
    ‘What do you want to know?’
    ‘We’ll speak when you are done. Five minutes?’
    ‘I’m on me own, and I’m not as fleet as I were.’
    ‘Then, when you are ready.’
    I left the stable block and sat outside. On the bench, I stretched my legs, examining the toes of my well-worn boots. These boots have been my stand-by since the age of nineteen. Perhaps I shall still have them when I am ninety.
    The tranquillity of this place was palpable. Yet it was not silent. Nearby, bees hummed in a patch of lavender. Birds sang. Above, small white clouds raced by; clouds with an appointment to keep.
    After ten minutes, the sound of hobnail boots cut into the hum of bumblebees. I edged to the far end of the bench to give the man room. ‘Please sit down, Mr Withers.’
    ‘They call me Isaac.’
    When he sat down, a smell settled between us – horse muck, animals, sweat, damp clothes dried out, stale tobacco.
    He took out a clay pipe. ‘Is it all right if I smoke?’
    ‘Yes.’
    I waited until he had filled and lit his pipe.
    ‘Tell me about going out with the Indian prince yesterday, Isaac.’
    ‘He’s not found then?’
    ‘Were you asked to go, or did you volunteer?’
    ‘I’m better on a horse than on my feet these days, though I’ll be joining the beaters when grouse-shooting starts. Mr Upton picked me and Osbert to go, on what whim I don’t know. Me being the eldest and him the fleetest probably.’
    ‘What time did you set off?’
    He pressed his fingers on the centre of his forehead and rubbed his inner eye, perhaps to prompt his memory. ‘Seven o’clock yesterday morning, that was the first time.’
    ‘How did he seem to you?’
    ‘He was right enough.’
    ‘Was he friendly, aloof, did he ask any questions?’
    ‘He wanted to know the lie of the land and asked about the grouse shooting. I pointed out Hazelwood Moor and Barden Moor. We took him through the Valley of Desolation, White Doe Path, all around. He were asking about Embsay Moor and the grouse butts. I gave him fair warning over the disused shafts up there, and peat pits.’
    I made a mental note to ask Upton whether the shafts and pits had been searched, but given the man’s thoroughness, I felt sure they had, if searching such places was possible. A thought struck me. Perhaps the prince would never be found.
    ‘What was he like?’
    Isaac sucked on his pipe. ‘Not like any man I ever did see. Something special about him. You’d say he was royal even if you didn’t know it.’
    ‘Can you explain?’
    He thought for a moment. ‘I seen the king when he came here shooting twelve year ago. You know it’s the king but that’s because you know he’s the king. This one, even the horse took to him. It’s a horse with a wild streak, likes no one, tosses its mane, mount me if you dare. But when he came near, mild as a lamb it lowered its head and nuzzled his hand.’
    ‘So were you surprised when the horse came back without him?’
    ‘Surprised? I were fair flabbergasted.’
    The curling tobacco smoke smelled sweet, too sweet.
    ‘What else can you tell me?’
    ‘His highness wanted to shoot. Said he’d shot his first tiger at ten, and shooting was what he were after.’
    A sudden coughing made him thump his chest.
    ‘When you went out with him the second time, in the afternoon, did you notice any change in his mood?’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Did he seem upset, or more caught up in his thoughts?’
    Isaac shook his head. ‘Not as I noticed. You’d have to ask Osbert. It’s not up to the likes of me to take notice of a personage’s frame of mind.’
    ‘Tell me about the afternoon.’
    ‘He left us by the stables and stalked up into the woods, after deer. Her ladyship made a deer farm on the park. There was five hundred