: Deep Moat Grange by Crockett S R Samuel Rutherford - Murder Fiction; Mystery fiction; Northumberland (England) Fiction

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unded pale.

It was Harry Foster's wagon, and I could see in a minute that something was wrong. Oh, it was easy to see that, even for a boy. My ears sung and I felt suddenly old. But by a sort of instinct I got the piebald pony by the bridle, which was trailing among her forefeet. And I could see she had been down, too. Her knees showed that. Poor Dappled Bess never tried to get away. She had terror in her eye, quite like a human it was. And she seemed to limp with all her feet at once. I was sorry for Bess. She and I were friends, you see. I used to ride her about in our pasture on Sundays, to keep her from feeling lonesome.

But it was Elsie who cried out. She had looked inside the mail cart.

"There's blood!" she gasped. "O Joe!"

She didn't faint just when she was needed to do something, though she did put her hand to her eyes, and, faith, I don't blame her. She came and said very quietly: "I'll take the horse's head, Joe--you look. I can't!"

Then I looked; and just as soon as I put my foot on the step I turned sick. But I didn't let on, being a big fellow and getting on for seventeen. There was a big, darkish pool, sort of half dried, under the seat, and there were cuts that had been made with an axe scattered all about, even on the soaky bottom of the cart. The whip had been cut right off three or four inches above the black japanned holder, and the lash lay over the splashboard of the trap, which was all reddened, too, and half covered with leaves. I saw some flyfisher's hooks stuck in the leather apron. There were no mail bags, no parcels for Bewick Upton--nothing at all in the post trap except what I have told. And it was quite enough for me. I got down, and we all took the road to the police station as quick as the pony could limp. I did this because I knew it was the proper place to go--not because old Silver-buttons Codling was the least good.

And in the crack of a thumb I had the whole village after me--asking questions, and wanting to look. But I kept going on, calling out to the folk to get out of the way.

Then my father came, and I stopped for him, and he looked the trap all over very carefully, as if it were something he was going to take at a valuation.

Then he said out loud: "This is a bad business; this is no accident. It looks to me like murder!"

"MURDER!"

The vicar had bustled up. He and my father almost tied for the first place in Breckonside, and so it was a settled thing that if my father thought one thing, the vicar, without any ill feeling, would take the opposite view.

"No, Mr. Alderson, that is just it, you do not see," said my father. "There is this whip handle cut through six inches from the holder; what do you make of that?"

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