Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,24

to meet us.

He looked older by the week, I thought uneasily, watching him roguishly kiss the princess’s hand. He always half-flirted with her, with twinkling eyes and the remnants of a powerful old charm, but that morning he simply looked distracted, his white hair blowing when he removed his hat, his thin old hands shaking.

‘My dear Wykeham,’ the princess said, alarmed. ‘You look so cold.’

‘Come into the house,’ he said, moving that way. ‘That’s best.’

The princess hesitated. ‘Are my poor horses still here?’

He nodded miserably. ‘The vet’s with them.’

‘Then I think I’ll see them,’ she said simply, and walked firmly into the courtyard, Wykeham and I following, not trying to dissuade her.

The doors of two of the boxes stood open, the interiors beyond lit palely with electric light, although there was full daylight outside. All the other boxes were firmly closed, and Wykeham was saying, ‘We’ve just left the other horses here in their boxes. They don’t seem to be disturbed, because there’s no blood … that’s what would upset them, you know …’

The princess, only half listening, walked more slowly across to where her horses lay on the dark brown peat on the floor of their boxes, their bodies silent humps, all flashing speed gone.

They had died with their night rugs on, but either the vet or Wykeham or the lads had unbuckled those and rolled them back against the walls. We looked in silence at the dark revealed sheen of Cascade, and the snow-splashed chestnut of Cotopaxi.

Robin Curtiss, the tall and gangling boyish vet, had met the princess occasionally on other mornings, and me more often. Dressed in green protective overalls, he nodded to us both and excused himself from shaking hands, saying he would need to wash first.

The princess, acknowledging his greeting, asked at once and with composure, ‘Please tell me … how did they die?’

Robin Curtiss glanced at Wykeham and me, but neither of us would have tried to stop him answering, so he looked back to the princess and told her straight.

‘Ma’am, they were shot. They knew nothing about it. They were shot with a humane killer. With a bolt.’

SIX

Cascade was lying slantwise across the box, his head in shadow but not far from the door. Robin Curtiss stepped onto the peat and bent down, picking up the black forelock of hair which fell naturally forward from between the horse’s ears.

‘You can’t clearly see, ma’am, as he’s so dark, but there’s the spot, right under his forelock, where the bolt went in.’ He straightened up, dusting his fingers on a handkerchief. ‘Easy to miss,’ he said. ‘You can’t see what happened unless you’re looking for it.’

The princess turned away from her dead horse with a glitter of tears but a calm face. She stopped for a minute at the door of the next box, where Cotopaxi’s rump was nearest, his head virtually out of sight near the manger.

‘He’s the same,’ Robin Curtiss said. ‘Under the forelock, almost invisible. It was expert, ma’am. They didn’t suffer.’

She nodded, swallowing, then, unable to speak, put one hand on Wykeham’s arm and with the other waved towards the arch of the courtyard and Wykeham’s house beyond. Robin Curtiss and I watched them go and he sighed in sympathy.

‘Poor lady. It always takes them hard.’

‘They were murdered,’ I said. ‘That makes it harder.’

‘Yeah, they sure were murdered. Wykeham’s called the police, though I told him it wasn’t strictly necessary. The law’s very vague about killing animals. But with them belonging to Princess Casilia, I suppose he thought it best. And he’s in a tizzy about moving the bodies as soon as possible, but we don’t know where he stands with the insurance company … whether in a case like this, they have to be told first … and it’s Sunday …’ He stopped rambling and said more coherently, ‘You don’t often see wounds like these, nowadays.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Captive bullets are old hat. Almost no one uses them now.’

‘Captive bullets?’

‘The bolt. Called captive because the killing agent doesn’t fly free of the gun, but is retracted back into it. Surely you know that?’

‘Yes. I mean, I know the bolt retracts. I saw one, close to, years ago. I didn’t know they were old hat. What do you use now, then?’

‘You must have seen a horse put down,’ he said, astonished. ‘All those times, out on the course, when your mount breaks a leg …’

‘It’s only happened to me twice,’ I said. ‘And both times I took my saddle