Timetable of Death Read Online Free Page A

the GWR.’
    ‘The victim was a director of the Midland Railway.’
    ‘That proves my point. The killer was probably a discontented customer and there are plenty of those, believe me.’
    Madeleine Colbeck was so struck by the absurdity of her father’s claim that she burst out laughing. It only encouraged Andrews to repeat his claim. Having retired after a lifetime’s service on the railway, the former engine driver had contempt for all the companies except the one for whom he’d worked. In the past, he’d reserved his bitterestcriticism for the Great Western Railway but, Madeleine now discovered, he was ready to pour even more scorn on the Midland.
    ‘It’s a complete hotchpotch, Maddy,’ he said. ‘It’s made up of three companies who should have been strangled at birth – North Midland, Midland Counties, Birmingham and Derby Junction. Not one of them could provide a decent service. When they joined together to form the Midland Railway, they fell into the hands of a money-grubbing monster named George Hudson.’
    ‘Yes, I know. Robert has told me all about the so-called Railway King. He was forced to resign in the end, wasn’t he?’
    ‘He should have been lashed to the buffers of one of his own engines.’
    ‘But he was hailed as a hero at one time.’
    ‘Not by me, he wasn’t. From the very start I thought he was a crook.’
    Madeleine let him rant on. When her father was in such a mood, he was like a locomotive with a full head of steam and had to be allowed to let some of it off. They were in the house in John Islip Street that she shared with her husband and was always pleased when her father came to visit, especially as he’d finally become accustomed to the notion of her having servants at her beck and call. Andrews was a short, wiry man with a fringe beard now salted with white hairs. Rocked by the death of his wife years earlier, he’d been helped through the period of mourning by his daughter who’d had to accommodate her own anguish at the same time. It had drawn them closer, though there were moments whenMadeleine reminded him so much of his beautiful wife that Andrews could only marvel at her.
    She had undergone a remarkable transformation, moving from a small house in Camden Town to a much larger one in Westminster and leaving a crotchety father to live with an indulgent husband. What united all three of them was a mutual passion for railways. There was only one disadvantage to that. With a son-in-law dedicated to solving crimes connected with railways, Andrews kept trying to appoint himself as an unpaid assistant.
    ‘Robert should have come to me before he left,’ he asserted. ‘I’d have told him all that he needed to know about the Midland Railway.’
    ‘Valuable as it would have been,’ she said, tactfully, ‘he didn’t have time to listen to your advice. When the summons came, he dashed off to Derby without even coming home first. Robert sent word of where he’d gone.’
    ‘When you hear more about this murder, let me know.’
    ‘I will.’
    ‘I may be able to help in some way.’
    ‘You’re not a detective, Father.’
    ‘I’ve got a sixth sense where railways are concerned, Maddy. Look at that threat to the royal family. I was the first person to realise the danger.’
    ‘That’s true,’ she conceded.
    ‘I made a big difference in that case,’ he boasted, ‘and I may be able to do exactly the same again with this one. Be sure you tell me all the details. I could be useful.’
    Madeleine wondered why it sounded more like a threat than a kind offer.
     
    Augustus Hadlow was a sharp-featured, stooping man in his forties with a low voice and a pleasant manner. The son of a country doctor, he’d followed his father into the medical profession and had worked in Spondon for well over a decade. When they called at his house, a fine Georgian edifice with classical proportions, the detectives were given a cordial welcome before being conducted to the room in which the