The Ellsworth Case (A Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Novella Book 5) (11 page)

“Well, we just got a stack of notes from Karen
Holmes.
 
Maybe they’ll turn out to
be fake and she’ll be the one responsible,” Janet said.

“If only it were that easy,” Robert
replied.
 

“I thought I heard voices,” Joan said from
the doorway.
 
“I was afraid Janet
was talking to herself.”

Janet laughed.
 
“I often am,” she admitted.
 
“But not this time.”

“I hope you didn’t have to interrupt
anything terribly important to come over,” Joan told Robert.
 
“But we did want you to see the notes
that Karen gave us.
 
She’s rather,
well, unlikable, but that’s no reason to assume she’s doing anything criminal,
I suppose.”

“I’ll just take a look,” Robert said.
 
“Keep in mind that, if any of them are
fakes, she might have received them herself in some innocent way.”

Joan handed him the notes.
 
As he inspected them, Janet found
herself staring at his face.
 
Was it
her imagination, or did he look more and more interested as he shuffled through
the stack?

“Well, now, I suppose I’d better get back to
the office and ring a few people,” he said after a moment.

“They’re fakes,” Joan said.

“They’re suspicious,” Robert clarified.
 
“I’ll need to get the experts to take a
look at them, though.”

“All of them?” Janet asked.

“Certainly most of them,” Robert
replied.
 
“I’m sorry, but I’m going
to have to keep the lot.”

“Does that mean we can tell Karen she can’t
stay?” Joan asked.

Robert hesitated.
 
“I’d rather she didn’t stay here,” he
said, “but I really don’t want you two to confront her, either.
 
I’ll ring or stop back as soon as I know
anything for sure.”

An hour later Robert rang.
 
It was a short conversation.

“Karen won’t be staying with you tonight,”
he told her.
 
“We have her in
custody.”

“So she’s the person behind the
counterfeiting?” Janet asked.

“At the moment all I can say is that she’s a
person of interest in the case,” Robert replied.

Janet and Joan were watching television when
the
Elllsworths
arrived back at
Doveby
House around nine.
 
Paula stopped
for a quick chat.

“Thank you again for earlier,” she said to
Janet.
 
“Peter and I have had a long
talk and we’re going to take a break from everything and just enjoy life for a
few months.
 
I know time is part of
the problem, in that I’m getting older, but I just can’t face any more
procedures at the moment.”

“I hope everything works out for you,” Janet
said.

“We thought we might come and stay for a few
days around Valentine’s Day,” Paula said.
 
“We could have a nice romantic weekend away, if you have the room.”

“I’m sure we do,” Joan said.
 
“I’ll make the booking for you before
you leave.”

At ten the sisters switched off the
telly
and headed for bed.
 
In the sitting room, Janet checked that
the front door was locked.
 
She was
just turning away when someone knocked.

“Who could be visiting at this hour?” Joan
demanded.

“Maybe Robert has come by with some news,”
Janet suggested.

“He’d have waited for morning,” Joan
replied.
 
“Maybe we shouldn’t open
it.”

“Maybe,” Janet said, looking at the
door.
 
Their visitor knocked again,
more loudly.

“Or maybe we’d better open it before whoever
it is wakes the guests,” Joan muttered angrily.
 
The door was too heavy to talk through
and lacking in windows, so opening it was the only option for seeing who was
knocking.

Janet pulled open the door, confident that
her sister’s very angry face would stop just about anyone in his or her
tracks.
 
William Chalmers was
standing on the doorstep.

“I’m so sorry to come by so late,” he
said.
 
“But, well, I just needed
someone to talk to.”

“Do come in,” Janet said in a kindly
voice.
 
The man looked upset and she
had a feeling she knew why.

He walked in and sat down on the edge of the
couch, a largish parcel in his hands.
 
“I gather Karen gave you a pile of fake twenty-pound notes,” he began
hesitantly.
 
“And you rang the
police.”

“We’ve been watching for counterfeit notes
for the last week or more,” Janet said.
 
“We’ve been having Robert check every note we get.”

William nodded.
 
“We, that is the merchants in
Doveby
Dale, have been taking all of our notes over to the
bank every afternoon and having them checked.
 
I never thought
,
it never crossed my mind that Karen was involved, though.”

“We were worried that she was after your
money,” Janet said bluntly.

William laughed.
 
“I haven’t all that much of that,” he
told her.
 
“But I can see why you
might think that.
 
She is very young
and very attractive, isn’t she?”

“I do hope you weren’t falling for her,”
Joan said.

“Oh, no, I might have, but I guess I’m too
old.
 
I kept suspecting that she was
up to something and kept my emotions firmly in check,” he replied.
 
“I just kept pretending to be smitten,
even when she was horrible to me, so that I could find out what she was really
after.”

“I don’t understand what she was even doing
in
Doveby
Dale,” Janet said.

“She was trying to set up a, well,
distribution point for her fake notes,” William told her.
 
“I didn’t find out any of this until this
evening, by the way.
 
Robert came by
and interrupted by arresting her.
 
I
gather she’d already found a small craft shop in Little Burton to help her out
and she thought I would be another good partner, especially since I already
have a criminal record.
 
She assumed
that I wasn’t bothered about breaking the law, you see.”

“What did she want you to do?” Janet asked.

“She wanted me to buy twenty-pound notes
from her.
 
I would pay ten pounds
each for them, even less if I bought lots at a time, and then I would give them
out as change when people bought things in my store.
 
She was trying to work with lots of
small shops that mostly cater to tourists, assuming that the tourists would
then take the notes back to wherever they’d come from and no one would be able
to trace them backwards successfully.”

“It’s a clever idea,” Janet admitted.

“Unfortunately, she wasn’t very clever
herself.
 
Her dearly departed
husband, Lester, left her several boxes full of fake money, and she didn’t pay
much attention to what she had, she just started spending it.
 
The first lot all had the same serial
number, which made them easy to spot.
 
The others were better quality fakes, but she was overconfident in their
ability to evade detection.
 
Or
maybe she’d just stopped caring.
 
She was leaving in the morning, anyway.
 
I don’t think she expected you to ring
the police while she was still here.”

“I guess she misjudged us,” Janet said
sharply.

“She misjudged me as well,” William told
her.
 
“I was going to ring Robert as
soon as she left me tonight.
 
She
seemed to think that she could charm or threaten me into doing just about
anything.
 
She knew all about my
past.
 
Lester was a London associate
of mine, you see.
 
She assumed no
one in
Doveby
Dale knew, though.”

“I’m glad she was wrong about you, and I’m
glad she’s behind bars tonight,” Janet said.

“I’d better go.
 
It’s awfully late.
 
I hope you’ll forgive me for coming over
at this time,” William said as he stood up.

“We were still up,” Janet told him as she
followed him to the door.
 
“And I’m
grateful to you for filling us in on the rest of the story, as well.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said
suddenly.
 
“I brought this, in case
you still want it.”
 
He handed Janet
the parcel he was carrying.
 

Janet unwrapped the painting that he had
been working on in his storage room.
 
It was finished now and it was truly lovely.
 
She held it up for Joan to see.

“It’s beautiful,” Joan said.
 
“We definitely want it for one of the
guest rooms.
 
How much do you want
for it?”

William shook his head.
 
“You take it and enjoy it,” he
said.
 
“I’m going to start working
on another one for your other room.”

Joan opened her mouth to protest, but
William held up a hand.
 
“Really, I
insist,” he said firmly.
 
“If you
want to thank me for it, Janet can let me buy her dinner one night.”

With that, as both women stared at him,
William let himself out.

So
what do you think of that, Bessie?
 
I’d never thought of William in that way, but he has been trying so hard
to be nice, I must admit I’m rather tempted to take him up on the offer.
 
If it weren’t for Edward Bennett, I
probably wouldn’t hesitate.
 
We
haven’t seen William since, so I haven’t had to address the issue, at least.

We’ve
been keeping busy, getting the baking done for Christmas and shopping for one
another.
 
I do think I’m going to
get Joan that armoire, though, so I shall have to see William at some point in
the near future.
 
I’m thinking of
asking Joan for a kitten, but I haven’t quite worked up the nerve yet.

I’ve
taken to calling this little adventure the Ellsworth Case, not because Peter
and Paula were involved, but because that poor young couple made quite an
impression on me and I’d rather forget Karen Holmes.
 
I do hope Peter and Paula manage to work
through their difficulties.

I
hope your Christmas is a lovely and quiet one in your beautiful cottage by the
sea.
 
Please plan to visit us in the
new year
.
 
We’d both love to see you.

With
my very best wishes,

Janet

Glossary of Terms

Other
Notes

In the UK
dates are written day, month, year rather than month, day, year as in the
US.
 
(May 5, 2015 would be written 5
May 2015, for example.)

When telling
time, half six is the English equivalent of six-thirty.

When talking
about money, paper money is generally referred to as “notes” where in the US we
might say “bills.”

A “full
English breakfast” generally consists of bacon, sausage, eggs, grilled or fried
tomatoes, fried potatoes, fried mushrooms and baked beans served with toast.

A
semi-detached house is one that is joined to another house by a common center
wall.
 
In the US they are generally
called duplexes.
 
In the UK the two
properties would be sold individually as totally separate entities.

A wardrobe is
a large piece of furniture that, in UK bedrooms, takes the place of built-in
closets.

A
tantalus
is a small cabinet designed to hold decanters of
alcoholic drinks.
 
They allow the
drinks to be displayed, but the cabinets lock so that, without a key, no one
can access the liquor.
 
(The one on
the cover is one that my husband purchased many years ago.)