Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains

Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains Read Online Free PDF
Author: Catriona McPherson
Tags: Fiction, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
in an Edinburgh town house are really nothing.’
    ‘And what does the current Pip Balfour do with the rest of it?’
    ‘Counts it from time to time, I think. Too terrified by all the near misses to try anything more risky. Lollie says he felt the run of Balfour luck had to give out sometime and he doesn’t want to be the one who finally lets it slip through his fingers on some wild scheme.’
    ‘Well, that’s a pretty poor show,’ said Alec. ‘He’s hardly carrying the torch aflame, is he? Sounds like a bit of a ninny.’ He paused. ‘If ninnies went in for strangling their wives, that is.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, agreeing with what he had not quite said. ‘It’s hard to come to a firm view from what we’ve been told, isn’t it? I can’t quite put him together somehow. I’m very much looking forward to meeting him for myself.’
    ‘ I’m not looking forward to you meeting him,’ Alec said. ‘Promise me you’ll be careful, Dan.’
    Tender concern for one’s safety is always gratifying to behold. Hugh, in marked contrast, barely raised his head when he heard I was going.
    ‘On Monday,’ I added. ‘To Edinburgh. I can’t say for how long.’
    ‘Good, good,’ he said and turned the page of his newspaper. I poked a hole in the top of one of my poached eggs and dabbed a piece of toast into it. I had only had one letter in the morning’s post and was shamelessly lingering, putting off the evils of the coming day.
    ‘You might know them,’ I said. ‘The people I’m . . . going to stay with.’
    ‘Mm,’ said Hugh. Then he added: ‘Hah!’ I waited. ‘They’ve locked them out. Should have done it nine months ago. This’ll bring them to their senses.’
    ‘The miners?’ I hazarded.
    ‘I knew this would happen,’ said Hugh, looking up at me at last. ‘I predicted it from the start if you remember, Dandy.’ I did not remember, but nodded anyway. ‘There’s no talking to these people and goodness knows how much money has been poured down the drain while everyone bent over backwards trying.’
    It was my understanding – not firm but far from hazy – that both sides had their arms folded and their chins stuck out refusing to listen, but it was not worth starting an argument over it.
    ‘Will the coal run out?’ I asked.
    ‘No, they’ll be back at work before there’s any chance of that,’ Hugh assured me. ‘And should think themselves lucky to have work to go back to. If I were a mine-owner, I should sack the lot and give their jobs to someone a bit more grateful.’
    I judged another silent nod to be the best response to this. Hugh had never sacked anyone in his life, not even the mole-catcher who had once ruined Gilverton’s lawns when, pushed beyond his limits by the little devils, he threw down his patented fumigation pump and testing rods and started digging wildly, swearing at the top of his voice and scattering divots of turf and sprays of soil for yards around him. Besides, the coal crisis was one of the few affairs of the day upon which Hugh and I saw eye-to-eye, or rather where our views happened to coincide: Hugh’s view that the mine-owners could do what they jolly well pleased with what was theirs and my view that the wages one read about in The Times always seemed generous enough, pounds and pounds a week, and many of the families had half a dozen wage packets all told, between father and sons, and then they always lived in those dear little rows of cottages built for the purpose and enjoyed, one assumed, free coal.
    Hugh turned another page and breathed in sharply, then started coughing to expel the inhaled toast crumbs. After a minute, I half stood to go round and bang him on the back, but he waved me into my seat again.
    ‘Listen to this,’ he croaked, eyes still streaming. ‘ The extraordinary conference of trade unionists currently convened in London will vote this afternoon upon whether to take sympathetic action in support of the miners .’ He took a gulp of
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