Murder on a Summer's Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

head until four year ago, roe and sika. He said to wait and we’d hear a shot, or his whistle. We thought we could be there till doomsday. Them deer sense when someone’s out walking with a gun. But sure enough we heard the shot. If I’d been there, I might have stopped him.’
    ‘Why would you have stopped him?’
    For the first time, he turned and looked at me full on, incredulity in his small, rheumy eyes. ‘Why? Why? Didn’t I say? He shot a white doe. The man shot a white doe, God help us. I went to the churchyard this morning to pray, but it’s too late. My bones tell me it’s too late. To shoot the white doe is sacrilege.’
    What had upset the man so much? In my experience of country people there is nothing they like better than felling an animal, carrying home a carcass, large or small.
    And then it dawned. This was the land of the white doe. I tried to remember the Wordsworth poem,
The White Doe of Rylstone
. Emily and her soft-paced doe trek across Barden Moor to visit the grave of her murdered brother at Bolton Priory. When Emily dies, the faithful doe continues the journey. I had seen an engraving of the doe, lying beside a grave, the embodiment of gentleness and fidelity.
    In a world of long-held superstitions, where a four-hundred-year-old legend is alive and well, the prince had offended local sensibilities.
    ‘He blundered out of ignorance then.’
    Isaac grunted. ‘Don’t tell me he didn’t know. You should hear him speak, like the duke himself. That Indian is more English than I am. Everyone knows the story and if you ask me…’
    The clip-clop of hooves and clatter of cartwheels stopped his speech. We both looked up as the horse-drawn cart approached, on which the stretcher holding Osbert Hannon lay.
    Isaac and I stood until it passed, he clutching his cap.
    The grit-stone man who had helped pull Osbert Hannon from the river flicked a whip that missed the horse’s flank.
    When the cart moved out of sight, Isaac said, ‘I knew it would end badly. God bless us. Where are they taking him?’
    ‘To the Hall.’
    ‘Where was he found?’
    He would know soon enough. I answered him to watch his reaction. ‘In the river.’
    Isaac closed his eyes. ‘Drowned?’
    ‘Yes.’
    His breath came in rapid bursts. We both sat down again. Isaac pulled and twisted his cap. His hands were shaking.
    I waited until his breath returned to something like normal. ‘Isaac, when did you part company with the prince?’
    ‘After he shot the deer, he left it to me and Osbert to take it to the barn. We would have gone on with him, for the pleasure of watching him ride, in spite of the deer. But he insisted. He’d go on alone. I expect we held him back, not being such fine riders.’
    I sensed there was something he was not saying.
    ‘What time was that?’
    ‘About four o’clock.’
    ‘Did he ask for directions anywhere?’
    ‘Not as I remember. Osbert said he went towards Halton East. I were too upset about the doe.’
    ‘Did he give a hint of going somewhere?’
    ‘No. The good lord had another plan for him. The river claimed the heathen. The earth takes its revenge. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an Indian prince for the white doe.’
    ‘Isaac, I have just one more question. When did you last see Osbert Hannon?’
    ‘Osbert? He’d have no hand in such an impossible deed. Are you saying he drowned the Indian?’
    ‘When did you see him?’
    ‘It was last midnight, when some of us gave up, so we could come fresh to task in’t morning.’
    ‘You must have been bone weary.’
    ‘That we were.’
    ‘And did Osbert have far to go?’
    ‘Not far, up by the Coney Warren.’
    ‘And you?’
    ‘Why, less still, at Strid Cottage.’ The creases in his face deepened. He stared from frightened eyes. ‘Tell me it’s the heathen just gone by, not Osbert.’
    Upton would by now have broken the news to Osbert’s family. ‘I’m sorry, Isaac. Osbert is the one who was taken from the