Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses Read Online Free PDF

soft knock-knock of the boats themselves, making one great percussion section out of the whole scene.
    ‘Delightful,’ I said, standing up in the cart as it drew to a stop and spreading my arms to encompass all of the view. It was not in my nature to be so expansive but the last fifty miles from Dumfries to here had been spent on a tiny ancient train with very dark upholstery and very
very
small windows from which the view was of bleak high moors and glowering valleys, so this sight of the sea was as welcome as a toddy.
    I breathed deeply in hopes of ozone, but was met instead with the sharp rich smell of fried fish and vinegar from somewhere nearby.
    ‘Fish on Friday,’ said Alec. ‘I’m ready for my dinner, Dan; I don’t know about you.’
    At this the dour porter let fly a stream of bitter invective, no more decipherable than his previous offerings in its detail but crystal clear as to its broad intent. Alec and I hurriedly descended and stood on the pavement while he tugged our suitcases out of the back of the cart and dumped them onto the ground.
    ‘Let’s go in and try for a cup of tea at least,’ I said, nodding at the hotel – not much more than an inn really – where we had alighted. ‘Then I think I’ll set off and try to find this school. Eh-hem, I say, Porter? Do you know where St Columba’s is?’
    This innocent question set him off worse than ever, a torrent delivered at top speed and high volume of which I understood not a word, but since he was no longer holding the pony’s reins and had finished unloading, this time the words he spat out were accompanied by wild gestures. He shook his fists and jabbed the air with his fingers and, as our gaze followed the way he was so emphatically pointing, up above the roofs of the cottages, up the face of the cliff, all the way up to the headland, we saw a squat grey building, hunched above the village, glaring down. I could not believe – once it was noticed – that it had gone unnoticed before. Almost it seemed to be looming, although in fact it was set back safely with a terrace and a narrow strip of garden, but I wondered if I was alone in wanting to retreat lest it topple from its perch and flatten me.
    ‘I take it they don’t start with a kindergarten,’ Alec said. ‘I shouldn’t want my precious tot running around up there.’
    ‘Eleven and up,’ I said. ‘What a supremely unwelcoming facade. Or maybe it’s very different when approached from the carriage drive. One can only hope so.’
    But when I came at it after tea – leaving Alec to stroll the harbour and the single street or so of the town – it was up the cliff path under its cold grey gaze after all, since it appeared that to make a more conventional entrance would involve me in a tiresome round trip, much longer but somehow just as steep-looking. I was wearing stout shoes, for Grant has got into the spirit of my new venture rather splendidly, even sewing extra pockets in my new tweed coats ‘for clues and what have you’ as she informed me (although none of our cases has yet produced the traditional cigar butt, scrap of unusual cloth, or hair ribbon snagged on a bush and wound around with one long red waving hair, a perfect match for the crowning glory of our chief suspect and therefore her swift undoing under our scrutiny). Stout shoes notwithstanding, though, it was a scramble and I was panting when I gained the terrace. I stopped, meaning to catch my breath, and was still looking down at the rooftops and watching Alec, ant-like, making his way round the harbour, when a voice behind me made me jump.
    ‘This is private property.’
    ‘Oh!’ I wheeled round.
    ‘Unless you’re Miss . . .?’
    ‘Gilver,’ I said. ‘Miss—’ I was going to say ‘missus’ but the woman I found myself addressing was such a very miss-ish miss that it died on my lips and she took it to be my matching curt demand for her name, since I had given mine.
    ‘Shanks,’ she supplied. ‘Can I