Murder in Stained Glass by Margaret Armstrong

Author:Margaret Armstrong [Armstrong, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780993235719
Publisher: Pepik Books
Published: 2015-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

11

‘Information’ was in a bullying frame of mind – they often are. There were, it appeared, two Beauforts; one in North Carolina, one in South. A glassy young man finally admitted that the one I so strangely preferred was on the coast, some sixty miles south of Charleston. You took the Atlantic Coast Line and changed at Yemassee, then you had a thirty mile run on a mean little one-horse road.

At the Atlantic Coast Line office I bought a ticket and engaged a section – my unluxurious train didn’t provide compartments – for that very afternoon. Foolish? Quixotic? I dare say. But I felt restless. I was at loose ends. I had kept the week free of engagements because I had been expecting Phyllis and Leo. Now their visit was postponed. I felt unhappy about Dolly and Jake. Worried? No, worried was too strong a word. I wasn’t really worried about Leo, but I was uneasy. Suppose that scandalous rumour reached him, what misery for both him and Phyllis! In short, I was depressed. And when I feel depressed I always rush off and do something. In that mood, a wild goose chase, even in a slow train, seemed more attractive than the ‘innocuous desuetude’ of my own fireside.

It was afternoon, nearly four, when I stepped out on the dusty platform of Yemassee. As the train moved away, dozens of small children seemed to spring up from under my feet. My bag and my umbrella, my book and my coat, were snatched from me.

“Where is the train for Beaufort?” I asked.

The oldest child pointed to railway tracks wandering vaguely into the woods. As no rolling stock was in sight, I gathered that the Beaufort train wasn’t as patient as it was supposed to be. It had gone home.

“A taxi?” I suggested.

Instantly, as if I had pushed a button, all the little boys gathered up my things and began running away. I saw now they were making for a minute hotel on the far side of the railroad tracks. I followed.

But there was a flaw in my theory; no taxis lived in Yemassee. You telephoned to Beaufort and, if the taxi man was in – ominous phrase – he came over for you. The girl in the hotel restaurant – a gentle, haggard girl of sixteen or so, who looked thirty – assured me he’d be over right soon. I sat down on a bench outside to wait. The sun blazed down. Flies buzzed about my head, something bit my ankles – a flea? I watched the little boys eating bananas; my tips were responsible. I was half asleep when a cry brought me to my feet.

All the little boys were shouting at once. A horn sounded. A car drove up.

“You must have hurried,” I said to a chauffeur, a stout man in clean blue denim.

“I did, ma’am,” he said briskly, starting the car. Where were you aiming to stay in Beaufort? The Golden Eagle is grand. New management.”

“Are there any

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