Free Blood From a Stone by Dolores Gordon-Smith Page B

voice to carry over the clamour of the disgruntled group of passengers who had formed a knot round the harassed official at the gate. ‘Have you any urgent business you need to attend to?’
    â€˜Unfortunately, no. I only wish I had.’
    â€˜I wish those people were as cooperative,’ muttered Rackham. He jerked his head in the direction of his sergeant. ‘Sort that lot out, will you?’
    â€˜Very good, sir,’ said the sergeant. He strode forward accompanied by the two constables. ‘Move along there, ladies and gentlemen,’ he intoned in an official bellow. ‘Move along there, please!’
    â€˜It’s an absolute disgrace !’ thundered a lady in a feathered hat and a black-beaded dress to the accompaniment of rumbled support from her fellow travellers. ‘Not only has our journey been disrupted, we have been compelled – yes, compelled – to give our names to the police!’
    â€˜Shockin’, I call it,’ agreed a bowler-hatted tradesman, hooking his thumbs into his expansive braces.
    â€˜Absolutely,’ fumed a man who looked like a bank manager, emphasising his point by striking his furled umbrella on the floor. ‘Outrageous!’
    Mme. Clouet favoured everyone with an outburst in French, bewailing her late arrival. Isabelle broke away from Inspector Whitten to retrieve a straying Michel and presented him back to his mother. ‘That poor woman,’ she said, with a grin to Arthur. ‘She’ll never want to get on a train again.’
    â€˜Come on, ladies and gentlemen,’ intoned the constable in a patient way. ‘The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be home.’
    A bright-looking man in wire-rimmed spectacles stopped by the other side of the gate. ‘I say, what’s happened?’
    â€˜Hades,’ groaned Bill. ‘That’s Burgess of the Monitor. That’s all we need.’
    Burgess had caught sight of Jack beyond the barrier. ‘Haldean! What’s the story?’
    â€˜It’s too long to explain,’ called Jack. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’
    â€˜There’s been an incident on the train,’ said Bill soothingly. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
    The feather-hatted lady looked at him in acute disgust. ‘Since when has murder been nothing to worry about, young man?’
    â€˜ Murder? ’ echoed Burgess in delight.
    â€˜Get these people off the station,’ said Bill in tight restraint to the sergeant. ‘ Now. ’ He turned to a man in railway uniform who edged his way through the throng.
    â€˜Inspector Rackham? We’re going to shunt the compartment with the body in it over to the sidings.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ said Bill and plunged into a discussion of details.
    Beyond the barrier, Burgess, notebook in hand, had buttonholed a group of passengers.
    â€˜I ought to be doing that,’ said Duggleby to Jack, looking wistfully at the busy Burgess. ‘Interviewing the passengers, I mean. I’m a journalist,’ he added, in response to Jack’s enquiring look.
    â€˜Freelance?’ asked Jack.
    â€˜Very free, unfortunately.’ His rather melancholy face lightened. ‘You’re Jack Haldean, the author, aren’t you? Mrs Stanton told me about you and I could see you knew that reporter. I suppose I’d better try and write something but I can’t tell you how beastly it was. It’d be different if I wasn’t involved.’
    â€˜You might as well give it a go,’ said Jack. ‘A first-hand account of discovering a murder must be worth something.’ He paused. ‘You did discover the body, didn’t you?’
    â€˜Yes, I did,’ said Duggleby gloomily. ‘I suppose that means I’m suspect number one, but all I actually did was walk into a railway compartment.’
    Bill, accompanied by Inspector Whitten, walked back along the platform to them. ‘I suppose I