Return of the Emerald Skull by Paul Stewart Read Free Book Online Page B

in front of me …’
    Others took up the same refrain – an old woman with a basket; a dairymaid with a couple of buckets of milk yoked across her shoulders – everyone seemed in agreement. ‘Didn't look where he was going …’ ‘He just ran out in front of him …’ ‘Looked like a madman, poor soul …’ A police constable, red-faced and wheezing, barged his way through the milling crowd.
    ‘Mind your backs,’ he shouted as he elbowed onlookers aside. ‘Move along now, please. Nothing more to see.’ Standing over the dead body, he pulled a notebook and a pencil from his back pocket. ‘Now, can anyone tell me exactly what happened?’
    ‘He didn't look. Just ran out into the street …’ the dairymaid began.
    ‘There was nothing I could do,’ came the gruff voice of the coachman, repeating himself. ‘Just ran out, he did …’
    Slipping back into the crowd, I left them to it. One more crazy beggar coming to grief on the cobbles of Market Street, busiest thoroughfare in the great bustling city. ‘Carriage carrion’, such casualties were called, and this poor wretch was just one more of them. The difference was that a few weeks ago, this madman had been sane and rational and cheerfully tending the gate at a respectable private school.
    What had gone wrong?
    The incident had brought me down to earth with a bump. While I'd spent all summer with my head full of laundry tickets and Stover's pasties, mental gymnastics and sweet smiles, something had gone badly wrong at Grassington Hall. Of course, I hadto find out what. But first I needed something to settle my nerves.
    Crossing the snarled-up traffic of Market Street, I headed down Cannery Row and stepped into the reassuring wood-panelled gloom of Marconi's Coffee House. Ordering a cup of Black Java, I breathed in the rich coffee aroma and tried to make sense of what I'd just witnessed.
    ‘Barnaby?’ A hearty voice broke into my thoughts. ‘Barnaby Grimes. My dear fellow, good to see you!’
    Looking up, I saw that the voice belonged to a regular client of mine – a portly, ruddy-cheeked coal merchant by the name of Sidney Cruikshank – seated at the next table. Together with his brother, he owned Cruikshank and Cruikshank, the coal merchant's next door to Marconi's.
    Throughout the autumn and early winter, their huge carthorses would deliver vast loads of coal all over the city, recouping themoney week by week throughout the rest of the year. My job in the last week of summer was to take the advance orders for the season ahead. We tick-tock lads called it ‘coal scuttling’, and it was one of our busiest times of the year.
    ‘Morning, Mr Cruikshank,’ I said, a little weakly.
    ‘Good morning to you, Barnaby,’ he said, his loud voice drowning out the babble of conversation in the coffee house. He reached across and thrust out a great ham of a hand, the nails and creases black with coal dust. ‘You must drop by – the new season's almost upon us, my boy.’
    ‘Certainly,’ I said, and sighed.
    Mr Cruikshank frowned and thrust his huge red face close to mine. ‘Are you all right, old son? If you don't mind my saying, you're looking a bit peaky. Not coming down with something, I trust?’
    I shook my head. ‘I've just seen a man getrun over on Market Street,’ I told him.
    Mr Cruikshank breathed in noisily through his teeth. ‘Dreadful, dreadful,’ he said, shaking his head sympathetically. ‘The roads these days. Not a coal dray, I hope …’
    ‘A coach-and-four,’ I said. ‘Ran over a beggar.’
    ‘Carriage carrion!’ said Cruikshank with a snort. ‘When will these people learn? One must take care crossing a busy street …’
    ‘I knew him, actually,’ I said. ‘Up till quite recently he was the gatekeeper at Grassington Hall School.’
    ‘Grassington Hall, eh?’ said Cruikshank, arching an eyebrow. ‘Mighty fine academic institution. And I should know. I send young Sidney junior there.’
    The news surprised me – although