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.
The stable lad shrugged again, and moved off to care for the horse. Grenville was watching me curiously, Brandon impatiently. I sensed I would learn no more here, and the three of us left the stable and trudged toward the house.
"I will inform Lady Mary," Grenville said as we walked. "And tell her to send for the magistrate." He slanted me a glance. "I think for now you should keep your murder theory to yourself, Lacey. You would have difficulty convincing a magistrate without more proof."
"We have proof," I said. "He would not have used that saddle, and he was dragged down the road to a convenient place to be tossed over the hill."
"What about my idea of the robber?" Grenville asked.
I shook my head. "He still had his watch. I saw it in his waistcoat. A robber would have taken the watch, not to mention the horse."
Grenville deflated. "That is true."
"For God's sake, Lacey," Brandon broke in. He had been striding along Grenville's other side in silent anger. "A man has just died, and his wife waits in the house to learn of it. She will not want to hear you going on about murder. Leave it be."
I stopped. We stood halfway between the house and the stables. The stable and yard lay beneath the curve of a hill, the roof just visible from our position. The house sat a good fifty yards ahead of us, rising like a sphinx from the green lawns, arms extended.
"If he were murdered," I said doggedly, "it was not done up on that road. He was killed in such a place as this, where they would not be heard from house or stable. The killer fetched the horse, saddling it with the tack I'd left, and led it back to Breckenridge. He laid Breckenridge across the saddle and led him up to the woods until he found a likely spot to dispose of him. Then he slapped the horse on the rump and sent it on its way. When the horse was found, the assumption would be that Breckenridge had fallen from it."
"He did fall," Brandon said. "Why make things complicated? If a man could know which horse was Breckenridge's, why would he not know which saddle belonged to him?"
"Perhaps the murderer was not staying at the house. Breckenridge rode out at an early hour every morning by habit. Anyone staying at the village would have grown used to seeing him on the chestnut, and assume the horse was his, or at least the one he liked always to ride. But they might not have noted the saddle."
Brandon still looked annoyed, but Grenville nodded. "You may be right. I admit, if Westin were not dead, I would not be as quick to agree with you. But two of the four gentlemen involved in the incident on the Peninsula are dead, seemingly by accident. Strange, is it not?"
He was closer to the truth than he knew. Brandon did not stop scowling, but a worried light entered his eyes.
Grenville nodded to us. "I will go break the news to Lady Mary."
"Do you want me to come with you?" I offered.
Grenville considered. "No. Best I do this alone. I dislike Lady Mary, but Breckenridge was her friend. She will doubtless take it hard."
He pivoted on his heel and marched away, shoulders squared.
When he was out of earshot, I turned on Brandon, other questions troubling me. Brandon had mistaken the fallen Breckenridge for me; Breckenridge was dead. I feared, I very much feared, that the idiot had done something irreversible.
"What brings you to Kent?" I asked him sharply.
He met my gaze, his eyes chilling. "I like the country."
My anger rose. "Balls. You followed me down here. It was you skulking about the inn and the gardens, watching me, and then again this morning, was it not?"
He did not answer, but his ice blue stare told me I'd guessed right.
"Good God," I exploded. "Why?"