Page 4 of Murder at Hambledon Hall
After a lovely long walk, I decided to return to the house. The eastern tower was just visible through the trees when a gunshot rang out.
I froze. Should I hide? Run? Where had the shot come from?
Perhaps it was simply Mr. Shepherd shooting a rabbit.
I tugged on my jacket hem and continued on my way. My nerves remained taut, but I no longer thought I was going to be the next victim of a mad gunman. If Harmony were here, she’d tell me my imagination had been fueled by my experiences investigating murders and reading detective novels.
I emerged from the woods and saw a man dressed in black crouching on the driveway, alive, thankfully. It wasn’t until he stood and shouted for help that I realized a crumpled body lay at his feet. From this distance, it was impossible to see who.
As I drew closer, however, I got the feeling I’d seen those clothes quite recently. One glance at the face, frozen in shock, confirmed it was Mr. Shepherd, the gamekeeper. He’d been shot in the chest. There was no gun in the vicinity, so it wasn’t self-inflicted.
He’d been murdered.
Chapter2
“Miss! Stay back! This isn’t a sight for a young lady to witness.” The bespectacled man dressed in black spoke quickly and with authority. I realized with a start that he wore a clerical collar, so he was probably the local vicar, come to call on the landed gentry of his parish.
Even though he was first on the scene, I dismissed him as a suspect. It was several minutes since I’d heard the gunshot. If he were the gunman, surely he would have fled. Besides, he looked very pale. He was more likely to faint than kill me next.
I bent to take a closer look at the body. Despite the horrid scene, I did my best to focus on the details. They might be important.
The bullet had entered Mr. Shepherd’s chest, so if he’d been walking toward the house, the shot had been fired from there. If away, then the gunman had fired from the garden or one of the trees lining the long drive. I was no expert on bullet wounds, so I couldn’t be sure what type of gun had been used.
I tucked my hand into Mr. Shepherd’s outer jacket pocket.
“Miss! What are you doing?” the vicar cried. “That’s sacrilege!”
“A clue to his murder could be in his pockets.”
“M-murder! Good lord, I doubt it. It must have been an accident. This is Hambledon Hall!”
I wasn’t sure what the house had to do with anything. Finding nothing in the pocket, I went to search another, but the vicar caught my wrist.
“I insist you step back, Miss. You’re violating a dead man.”
Others were coming now, so I obeyed. I didn’t want to embarrass my uncle and aunt by being seen rummaging through a dead man’s pockets.
Uncle Ronald was in the party of men approaching. Lord Kershaw was with him, as was Mr. Browning. The butler brought up the rear.
My gaze connected with my uncle’s. His bullish features folded into a frown at the sight of me. He gave his head a slight shake, and I stepped back, a hand to my chest, pretending to be overwhelmed by my exposure to the gruesome sight. No one else seemed to be paying me any attention, however, so I dropped the act.
Lord Kershaw stood over the body. He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Dear God, no. Shepherd.”
“I’m afraid he’s dead,” the vicar announced.
His lordship continued to stare down at the face of the gamekeeper. His own face gave no hint of his thoughts. Perhaps he was too shocked to feel anything yet.
“I heard a gunshot,” Mr. Browning said. “I was in my room at the time and didn’t see anything.”
“Did you see anyone fleeing the scene, Reverend?” Uncle Ronald asked the vicar.
“No.”
“You were here quickly,” I pointed out.
The vicar stilled. It wasn’t until that moment I realized how constant his movements had been. His thumb had rubbed across his gloved knuckles, over and over, and a muscle in his left cheek twitched, tugging the corner of his beard upward as if it were on a puppet string. The neatly trimmed beard made it difficult to guess his age, but I doubted he was older than mid-thirties. He was still extraordinarily pale, so perhaps that was his usual appearance and had nothing to do with what he’d witnessed.
“I was on the driveway,” he said. “I assure you, I saw no one. I assume the gunman disappeared into the woods.”
