"The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ashley Mike, Edwards Martin, Ellis Kate, Frazer Margaret, Carr John Dickson,...)

STAG NIGHT by Marilyn Todd

Marilyn Todd worked as a PA before setting up her own secretarial agency, but these days she writes full time. She is the author of the audaciously delightful series of mysteries set in ancient Rome, in the early days of the Empire. The first was I, Claudia (1995), and the series currently runs to six volumes. This is her second Claudia short story, but the first “impossible” murder.

Fat and replete against the trunk of an ancient oak tree, the old boar suddenly snorted awake. What was that? Hairy ears pricked forward, straining, craning – but through the dappled shade they discerned only the liquid trill of a flycatcher, the rustle of foraging beetles. Unconvinced, he lifted his snout and sniffed the sultry air. Ripe woodland raspberries. Chanterelles. The musk of a badger who’d passed through last night. Familiar scents, which should have reassured a seasoned tusker – yet the bristles down his back refused to be pacified. Obedient to a million years of instinct, the old boar lumbered to his feet.

Then he smelled it.

Dog! Dog and… and – He was halfway up the bank before he placed the memory.

Man.

Dog and man, and as he shambled towards the brow of the hill, the glade behind him filled with alien sounds. The clash of steel. Shouts. Baying. And the sickening scratch and slither as frantic claws sought a purchase on the slippery leaf litter…

Only once did the old boar glance back. The hunt was gaining. One man was way out in front now, the sunlight off the hunter’s long spear blinding the boar’s button eyes. This was not his first brush with the enemy. Last time, when he’d stupidly allowed himself to be cornered, he escaped only by goring two dogs to death and leaving one human male badly gashed. Even then, someone shot an arrowhead into his haunch, but he’d been lucky. The barb dropped out as he ran and the wound quickly healed. Nevertheless, it was a lesson learned the hard way and today the stakes were higher than ever.

The first litter of the year had been raised, this was the mating season again. The old tusker had sows and his territory to protect…

And so it was, crashing through the undergrowth, with the smell of sweat and metal closing fast, that the wily boar prepared his defence-