A Meddler and her Murder by Joyce Porter

Author:Joyce Porter [Porter, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Eight

Charlie took her time about letting the dog see the rabbit. ‘Men!’ she spat. ‘ They make me sick! Well, I mean – take him in there.’ She jerked her head once more in the direction of the office. ‘Stingy? He’d nick the pennies off a dead men’s eyes! And you should see the wages he dishes out. Talk about exploitation! What he pays wouldn’t keep a bloody church mouse in crumbs. So’ – she avoided meeting the Hon. Con’s eye – ‘you can hardly blame me if I try and get my own back sometimes, can you?’

In happier circumstances the Hon. Con would have been more than content to listen to Charlie’s husky tones for the remainder of the day, but now she began to get impatient. ‘What,’ she asked, ‘has all this to do with driving Mrs Urquhart’s grandson to the station?’

‘Everything!’ proclaimed Charlie, hamming it up a bit and even going so far as to strike her head dramatically with her fist. ‘ Because – I didn’t!’

‘You didn’t?’

‘I didn’t! Oh, the booking was for the station all right but as soon as the lad got in the car he says scrub the so-and-so railway station and take him but straight to ‘‘The Martyr’s Head’’.’

‘The Martyr’s Head?’ squeaked the Hon. Con, her voice achieving a dizzy height in her excitement.

Charlie edged nearer. ‘ Well you see the point, don’t you? The fare from Sneddon Avenue to the railway station is fifteen new pence more than it is from Sneddon Avenue to The Martyr’s Head. I told young hopeful that he’d have to pay for the journey that’d been booked for and he said that was OK by him. He coughed up a bloody good tip as well. Well you see my predicament, don’t you? There I was with fifteen pence sheer profit (to say nothing of the tip) and the best part of five miles buckshee on the clock and old Skinflint in there not knowing a thing about it.’ Charlie broke off to look questioning at the Hon. Con. ‘You following me, ducks?’

The Hon. Con was actually miles away in the Old Bailey, busy outlining her case to an appreciative and deferential judge in Number One Court, but she interrupted her daydream to inform Charlie tartly that of course she was following.

‘Well,’ said Charlie, ‘that’s that, really. I entered it up in my log-book as a journey to the station, pocketed the cash and used up the surplus mileage nipping home to lunch the next day. I wouldn’t have thought any more about it because, God knows, he’s made enough out of me in his time, but then there was this blooming murder in Sneddon Avenue and, before I knew where we were, we had the fuzz around. Well, I was right up the bloody creek, wasn’t I? They had me in the office and asked me if I’d taken this lad from Sneddon Avenue to the railway station at six o’clock on Monday evening. Well, there was old Scrooge, sitting at his desk with the bloody log book open in front of him.

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