Murder on the Brighton Express by Edward Marston

offend you?’ wondered Colbeck.
    ‘He’s treated people with contempt as if he inhabits a superior order of creation. Then, of course,’ said Follis, knowingly, ‘there’s the small matter of his inheritance.’
    ‘Judging by the size of his house, I’d say that it was an extremely large one.’
    ‘His father made his fortune in the slave trade, Inspector.’
    ‘Ah, I see.’
    ‘He grew rich on the suffering and humiliation of others. That may explain why Thornhill regards so many of us as mere slaves. However,’ he went on, sympathy coming into his voice, ‘I’m genuinely sorry that he was injured in the crash anddid my best to help him at the time. Needless to say, I received no thanks.’
    ‘Do you see Mr Thornhill often?’ asked Colbeck.
    ‘At least once a week – we catch the Brighton Express every Friday evening and often share a carriage. Though we acknowledge each other, we rarely speak.’ Follis grinned. ‘I fancy that he knows he can’t rely on my vote.’
    They chatted amiably until the housekeeper arrived with a tray. As she served the two of them with a cup of tea, Colbeck was able to take a closer look at Ellen Ashmore. She was a stout woman of medium height with well-groomed grey hair surrounding a pleasant face that was incongruously small in comparison with her body. Though she and Follis were of a similar age, she treated him with a motherly concern, urging him to rest as much as possible.
    ‘Mrs Ashmore will spoil me,’ said Follis when she had left the room. ‘She did everything she could to stop me taking the service this morning. I told her that I had a duty, Inspector. I couldn’t let my parishioners down.’
    ‘I’m sure that they appreciated your being there.’
    ‘Some of them did.’ Adding sugar to his cup, Follis stirred his tea. ‘Incidentally, did you manage to get anything coherent out of Horace Bardwell?’
    ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Colbeck. ‘He’s hopelessly bewildered.’
    ‘We prayed for him and the other victims.’
    ‘While I was at the hospital yesterday, I spoke to some of them. Two, apparently, were in the same carriage as you.’
    ‘Oh? And who might they be?’
    ‘Mr Terence Giddens and a young lady named Miss Daisy Perriam. They were both highly distressed at what happenedto them.’
    ‘That’s understandable,’ said Follis with something akin to amusement. ‘Instead of being trapped in hospital beds, the pair of them had hoped to be sharing one.’ Colbeck was taken aback. ‘You didn’t see them together as I did, Inspector. Had you done so, you’d have noticed that, though they pretended to be travelling alone, they were, in fact, together. That’s why Giddens was so desperate to get out of the hospital.’
    ‘He told me that his bank needed him in London.’
    ‘I heard the same lie. The truth of it is that he was afraid that his wife would read about the crash in the newspapers and see her husband’s name among the injured. The last thing that Giddens wanted was for his wife to discover that, instead of doing whatever he told her he would be doing that weekend, he had instead slipped off to Brighton with a beautiful young woman. He lives in fear that Mrs Giddens will walk through the door of his ward at any moment.’
    Colbeck was impressed. ‘You’re a shrewd detective, Mr Follis,’ he said. ‘I wish I had your intuition.’
    ‘It’s something one develops,’ explained Follis. ‘If you’d sat by as many sad deathbeds as I have, and settled as many bitter marital disputes, and listened to as many tearful confessions of wickedness and folly, you’d become acutely sensitive to human behaviour. As it was, Giddens gave himself away at the start. When I first spoke to him in hospital, he wanted to know if Daisy Perriam had survived the crash. He was far less interested in the fate of Giles Thornhill and the others in our carriage.’
    ‘I wish that I’d talked to you earlier.’
    ‘Why – are you going to offer me a job