A Clear Hope by Amelia C. Adams

Author:Amelia C. Adams [Adams, Amelia C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

The neighbor gave his name as Andrew Brown. He was an older gentleman and avid gardener who said he’d been out weeding his flower bed when he saw Margaret Smith go running past. “She went that way, she did, toward the train station,” he said, waving his hand. “She looked like she was being chased by a bear, all scared and shaking. I called after her, but she didn’t stop, and I knew I’d never catch her on these knees.” He gave a self-depreciating chuckle. “This was around . . . oh, I’d say three o’clock in the afternoon.”

“She was on foot, you say? She wasn’t riding a horse?” Gabe asked.

“She was definitely on foot.”

“Tell me, Mr. Brown—you said she was running for the train station. How did you know that’s where she was headed? There are several other businesses between here and there, or she could have been going to a friend’s home,” Abigail said, happy to ask the question that had been bothering her.

“Well, now, I suppose I thought the piece of paper in her hand looked like a train ticket. But I could be wrong.” Mr. Brown scratched his head. “People aren’t supposed to make assumptions, after all, but I guess that’s what I did.”

“She was holding a train ticket in her hand?” Gabe asked, just to be sure he heard correctly.

“I don’t know if it was a train ticket or something else. I just thought it looked like a train ticket.”

Gabe scowled. This just didn’t make any sense at all. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Brown,” he said, reaching out to shake the man’s hand.

Instead of leaving right away, Gabe and Abigail sat in the buggy for a moment. “Let’s assume it was a train ticket,” Gabe said. “Why didn’t she mention it before? If she was running from the house to the station with the ticket in her hand, she was bringing the ticket from her house—a ticket that had been purchased earlier.”

“Meaning that she would have gotten it before her head injury,” Abigail said.

“Exactly. Had she been planning this? Maybe not planning to murder him, but to leave?”

“I don’t know.” Abigail shook her head. “If she’d planned all this, wouldn’t she have packed a satchel?”

“Unless she purposely came to Topeka without a satchel to lend her story credibility.” Gabe picked up the reins and gave them a flick. “I’m going to send Colonel Gordon a telegram and ask him to question Mrs. Smith about that train ticket. We also need to talk to the station manager.”

They found the telegraph office quickly enough, and Gabe sent off a note to the marshal. Three things were on his mind—the ticket, the baby, and the horse. What else had Margaret failed to mention, or forgotten entirely? Then they drove to the train station to find it closed up for the day. Gabe kicked the edge of the platform in frustration.

“We have to wait to hear from Colonel Gordon anyway,” Abigail reminded him. “We can come back in the morning, can’t we?”

He took a deep breath and smiled.

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