Free Maggie by M.C. Beaton Page B

telegraph poles appeared to fly up and up to join them and then suddenly to be pulled down just when it might seem they would disappear from view. The train gave a long melancholy whistle and plunged into a tunnel. He fingered the little gift-wrapped box on his lap. Roshie had given it to him before they got on the train, saying it was a present from Mr. Farquharson.
    As the train hurtled out into the daylight once more, he idly unwrapped it and uncovered a small box.
Parkinson’s Miracle Emetic
said the label. “For all cases of poisoning, take two spoonfuls and send for the doctor.”
    The earl burst out laughing and wrapped the package up again so that Maggie should not see it.
    And then he thought, “I don’t know whether she did it or not. I’ll never know now.”
    He had been so sure of her innocence in court when everything and everyone seemed to be against her.
    But now…
    The train plunged into another tunnel with a great wailing roar and his fingers tightened involuntarily on the little package in his lap.

Five
    It was only when Roshie silently handed him the London newspapers at Euston Station that the earl realized his flight was not going to solve anything unless he took action very quickly.
    He had thought the case of Maggie Macleod would only have been featured in the Scottish newspapers. But every London newspaper was full of it.
    The earl had not grasped the fact that the ‘great’ murders, the ones that the public read about avidly and remember for years afterwards are the respectable ones, the ones with a middle-class background.
    There were plenty of murders in the teeming slums, but no one paid much attention to them. It took a really solid respectable setting to titillate the imagination of the public. The poor and the aristocracy were expected to sin; the middle classes were not.
    The earl stood scowling down at the newspapers, wondering what to do. Maggie would need a chaperone. He had no intention of setting up house with her openly.
    But what to do?
    He suddenly recalled he had a maiden aunt living in a village in Oxfordshire. He had not seen her for many years but he hoped she was still alive. London was too dangerous. Too many eyes.
    Maggie was too tired and numb to protest when shelearned their journey was not at an end, and that they were to take the train to Oxford and from there, hire a carriage to take them to the village of Beaton Malden.
    She had slept most of the journey but still looked exhausted.
    But it was already eleven o’clock at night and Roshie muttered he was sure they would not get a train to Oxford until the morning.
    “The house in Charlton Street,” said the earl suddenly. “Are there servants in residence?”
    “Oh, no, my lord,” said Roshie. “The old earl aye took the servants doon frae Scotland. It’s a wunner ye didnae ken that,” he added tartly.
    The earl stared at him coldly for a few moments, reflecting there was a lot to be said for the more obsequious manner of the English servant, but contented himself by asking in a voice of chilling politeness how one got into the house.
    “I hae the key,” said Roshie. “I carry a spare set o’ keys around wi’ me to a’ your lordship’s property.”
    “Well,” said the earl, brightening, “we may as well go there for the night.” He turned to Maggie. “We may have to sleep without linen but we’ll manage somehow.”
    “I wish I had a change of clothes,” murmured Maggie in her soft voice, her eyes flinching away from the passing crowd since the station was busy even at night.
    “We’ll arrange something in the morning,” said the earl.
    “We could go to an hotel, of course, but someone might recognize you.”
    The house in Charlton Street had belonged to the Strathairn family for over a hundred years. It was a prim Georgian building with shallow marble steps leading up to a glossy black door with a fanlight.
    On either side of the door were still huge snuffers where the link boys used to