The Excursion Train

Inspector Robert Colbeck of Scotland Yard, and Sergeant Victor Leeming have been assigned to investigate a murder on an excursion train by Superintendent Tallis.  Those on the train had gone outside London to take in a bare knuckle fight.  One man was garrotted.  Colbeck finds out that a woman may have been involved.  He also discovers that the. Victim was a hangman.

Colbeck turns to his girlfriend Madeleine Andrews for help.  He is able, with Madeleine's help, to get into the hangman's private sanctum.  There he discovers a note threatening the hangman's life.  The note points Colbeck and Leeming in a possible direction.

Colbeck's investigation takes him to the prison at Maidstone where ge looks into the hanging of Nathan Hawkshaw.  There he discovers why Hawkshaw was hung and the circumstances surrounding it.  Colbeck wondered about the guilt or innocence of Hawkshaw.

It is while the two detectives are in Ashford, that the chaplain from the Maidstone prison is murdered in the same manner as the original victim.  He is the second person directly connected to the Hawkshaw case.  Could the prosecutor be next?

As the investigation progresses further, the information that Colbeck and Leeming put together point to the true culprit and his accomplice.  A thoroughly enjoyable, quick read by author Edward Marston.