Read Murder on the Flying Scotsman for Free Online

embarrassed,’ said Kitty with all the worldly wisdom of fifteen years. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that. We’d better have aniseed balls
or liquorice bootlaces instead of the choc. Or there’s Dolly Mixture. Which d’you like best?’
    ‘Dolly Mixture, please. They last longest.’ She held out her cupped hands and Kitty filled them with the tiny sweeties, pink and orange and yellow, white and red and brown, all
different shapes, some hard and some soft. ‘Do they let you eat sweets at school?’
    ‘Only on Saturdays. It’s a boarding school.’
    Belinda was fascinated. Popping Dolly Mixtures into her mouth, one by one, she plied her new friend with questions, until a small, thin woman came in. She had greying hair, elaborately
marcelled, and she looked cross.
    ‘Kitty, you’re not eating sweets again! How do you expect ever to have a decent figure?’
    ‘I don’t care. I’m not going to be a deb, after all. I’m going to work and make pots of money. Anyway,’ she went on hastily as her mother frowned, ‘I’m
giving half . . . most of my sweets to Belinda. This is Belinda, Mummy.’
    ‘I’d better go,’ Belinda said even more hastily as the frown turned on her. ‘Miss Dalrymple must be wondering where I am.’
    ‘Here.’ Kitty thrust the paper bag of sweets into her hands. ‘If I don’t see you before, let’s sit together at lunch.’
    ‘If I can.’ Making her escape, Belinda worried about lunch. She was already costing Miss Dalrymple an awful lot of money but she had a feeling even such a nice grown-up would not let
her eat liquorice instead of a good, nourishing meal.
    She glanced into the next compartment. Kitty’s brother Jeremy was there, with a lady who was either very fat or going to have a baby. She was crying. Tabitha’s mummy and daddy were
there, too, but not Tabitha, so Belinda went on.
    As she passed she heard one of the gentlemen say loudly, ‘Albert McGowan is a rotten blighter who’s dashed well letting the side down.’
    ‘Calm down, Bretton,’ said the other. ‘Slanging the old ba . . . boy won’t get us anywhere. We need to put our heads together and decide what to do.’ The noise of
the train cut off his voice as Belinda moved on.
    The door of the next compartment was shut, the blinds pulled down; then there was one with strangers in it. After that came Miss Dalrymple’s. Kitty’s other brother, the nice one,
Raymond, was still there with Judith, the lady he wanted to marry. There was an old lady, too, a plump, comfortable sort of old lady who reminded Belinda of Granny.
    She bit her lip. Granny must be awfully upset, wondering where she had got to. She shouldn’t have run away – but Kitty said it was a simply ripping adventure, and some bits were
exciting and fun.
    The old lady was talking. ‘Father always was unreasonable,’ she said, ‘but Uncle Albert is utterly unnatural, leaving everything to a stranger. Desmond is furious. You know how
your father is, Judith, always liable to fly off the handle even at the best of times.’ She went on about Desmond’s temper.
    Belinda didn’t like to interrupt by going in. As she hesitated in the corridor, Miss Dalrymple saw her and smiled. Belinda pointed forward to indicate she was going to the lavatory at the
end of the coach. Miss Dalrymple nodded.
    The next compartment had its door shut but its blinds up. The three men in it all looked hot and angry. Belinda wondered if one of them was Judith’s bad-tempered father. The one nearest
the door had a red mustache almost the same colour as his face. Next to him, by the window, was a stringy man in gold-rimmed glasses with a long, thin neck and a sticking-out Adam’s apple. He
was bald as a coot and he kept wiping his glistening head with a large white handkerchief. Opposite sat a large man with a white mustache and a purple face with a big nose. Belinda could hear him
right through the closed door.
    ‘I don’t care if he is in the next