A Rare Interest In Corpses by Ann Granger

My ticket was whisked from my hand by the grand-looking official on guard there and my escort and I arrived on the main concourse.'Being met, miss? Or need a cab?'The porter was peering up at me.'Oh, yes, a cab, but-'Too late. 'You're neither pretty enough nor well-dressed enough to need worry you'll be troubled.'All the same, it bruised my vanity to be dismissed so quickly.The smoke was thinning rapidly now and the next figure to appear before me wore, to my great relief, the uniform of a porter.A small, wiry man of uncertain age, he grinned at me and tapped his cap in a gesture meant to signal respect, but which unfortunately looked much like the conspiratorial tapping of the brow to suggest simple-mindedness in a third party.'Take your bag, miss?''I've only the one,' I apologised, 'and a hatbox.'But he was already reaching for them and I found myself setting off after him at a fair pace towards the barrier. He gave me a sharp, predatory look and I just had time, before the smoke curtain was drawn over him again, to see the look turn to one of dismissal.'Come along, Lizzie Martin!' I told myself briskly. I must have appeared to his view as suddenly as he to mine. As they vanished, in another spot appeared a man in jacket and trousers of a loud check pattern with his hat at a rakish angle. Here was a woman with a large bag in one hand and, with the other, towing a small boy in a sailor suit. The smell took me back to Mary Newling's kitchen where, as a small child, I'd been given the task of peeling hard-boiled eggs.At unexpected intervals the smoke veil parted and a figure emerged briefly before disappearing and being replaced with another in a flickering lantern show. It swirled along the platform and upwards to be trapped beneath the station roof. THE ENGINE emitted a long sigh rather like an elderly lady loosening her corset and enveloped everything and everyone in a sulphurous pall of smoke and steam.

A Rare Interest In Corpses by Ann Granger