Death Waits for No Lady by James Andrew

Death Waits for No Lady by James Andrew

Author:James Andrew [Andrew, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Book Folks historical murder mystery and crime fiction publisher
Published: 2018-12-26T22:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Philip Middleton, the railway station clerk, had always avoided police stations and here he was in one for the second time. It was a gloomy enough place, with its bare, whitewashed walls and linoleum floors. Philip was sitting in a waiting room while they assembled the suspects. Well, one of them was the suspect but they had said they would round up more who looked similar.

The door opened, and a constable walked in. ‘Thank you for waiting, Mr Middleton. The line-up is ready now, so if you would just come through.’

Philip had felt so sure before but, in all the time he had been sitting there, had not been able to recall an image of the man he’d seen, and Philip wondered if he was going to be any help at all. He had not realised at the time what offering information would lead to, and he was wishing he had never said anything. When he stood up to follow the constable, he was not sure for a moment whether his legs were going to do what they were told but was very glad when they did.

The men were standing in a row side by side and facing forwards. To Philip’s relief, there were also two policemen in the room. Philip had been told to put his hand on the shoulder of the person he recognized and was nervous about the reaction he might receive. The men were on the other side of the room from where Philip entered, so Philip had a general look at all of them before the constable who had brought him in signalled to him to walk in front of the men one by one to study them.

‘Please walk forward now, sir.’

So he did. They were all dressed in a similar fashion: in jackets that fitted in with Philip’s description of what the man he had seen had been wearing at the ticket office. The first man was nonchalant as he stared ahead of him as Philip assumed the police had instructed him to be. Philip would not have described that man’s hair as fair but a shade of brown, so he knew this was not him. The second man was stout. The third was too tall. The fourth was the right height and weight, had the correct colour of hair, and it lay across his forehead in the way that Philip remembered. The fifth was the right height, weight, and again had the correct colour of hair, but also had a squint. The sixth was the wrong age. Philip supposed the police had done their best to get a line-up of men who fitted the description but, as far as he was concerned, there was only one man who looked anything like the man he had seen. Philip stood in front of the fourth suspect again, looked him up and down, and tried to think of anything that was not right. He did fit what Philip remembered but he still hesitated. There was something.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.