The Ellsworth Case (A Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Novella Book 5) (2 page)

The loud buzzer announced their arrival at
the antique shop.
 
There was no sign
of anyone in the large front room that was jammed full of antiques and collectables.

“Maybe he’s in the back,” Janet muttered.
 
William had the smaller room at the back
of the shop set up as an art gallery.
 
Janet headed towards the doorway between the rooms while Joan walked off
in the opposite direction.

“That armoire is lovely,” she said to Janet.

“Ah, visitors,” William’s booming voice
filled the space as he appeared in the doorway between the rooms.
 
“It’s the Markham sisters, some of my
favourite
people.”

Janet smiled automatically as the man walked
in, his arm around a stranger.
 
The
smile faltered slightly as she studied the woman who was clinging tightly to
William’s arm.

“Oh, goodness, customers,” the woman giggled.
 
“And I’m only wearing one shoe.”

Chapter Two

Janet glanced down at the woman’s feet.
 
She was, indeed, only wearing one shoe, a
plain black flat that had scuffed toes.
 
Her dress was a floral print that Janet felt would have better suited a
younger woman, but she knew she was possibly being unfair.
 
As she was in her mid-sixties, Janet
considered much of what the younger generations wore as inappropriate.
 

William’s new friend probably wasn’t forty
yet, but Janet guessed that she wasn’t too terribly far from that birthday,
either.
 
William, on the other hand,
was also in his sixties, and Janet found herself wondering if the woman was his
daughter.
 
The way the stranger was
holding William’s arm suggested a different type of relationship, however.

“I’ll go and find your other shoe,” William
said with an uncharacteristic chuckle.
 
“I can’t imagine how you lost it.”

“The door buzzer startled me,” she
explained.
 
“I jumped right out of
my shoes, and then you rushed me over to see who was here and I didn’t quite
manage to get them both back on again.”

“Never mind, I’ll find it,” William told
her.
 
“In the meantime, you can get
to know the Markham sisters.
 
Joan
and Janet Markham, this is Karen Holmes, my new, um, well, friend.”
 
William blushed and then turned and
headed back into the back room.

Karen smiled brightly at the sisters.
 
“Isn’t he a dear?” she asked.
 
“But it’s ever so nice to meet you
both.
 
Do you shop here often?”

“Only occasionally,” Janet replied.
 
“We own the local bed and breakfast, so
we do our best to support other local businesses, but we bought the house fully
furnished, so we don’t need to buy much.”

“What brings you to
Doveby
Dale?” Joan asked the woman.

“Oh, I was just passing through,” she
replied.
 
“I’ve taken early
retirement from the civil service.
 
The stress was too much for me, you see.”

“You’re awfully young to be retired,” Janet
commented.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” the woman said.
 
“But I was fortunate to come into a bit
of money.
 
That is, my husband,
well, he passed away and left me a small nest egg.
 
That meant, a short time later, when the
pressure of the job started to really bother me, I could simply walk away.”

“How very fortunate for you,” Joan said dryly.

“Anyway, I get rather restless, living on my
own, so I often just choose a random place and visit there for a day or
two.
 
I actually chose Little
Burton, but after an hour there I felt I’d exhausted its, um, pleasures.”

Janet chuckled.
 
The
neighbouring
village of Little Burton was even smaller than their own tiny village.
 
She couldn’t imagine how the woman had
managed to spend even an hour there.
 
There was a small grocery
store,
a store
selling locally made crafts, and a chemist shop, otherwise there was very
little else aside from a petrol station.

“So you drove over to
Doveby
Dale?” Janet asked.

“So I drove out to Derby and found a hotel,”
the woman corrected her.
 
“That was
on Wednesday, last week.
 
On
Thursday I decided that I wanted to do some Christmas shopping for friends back
in London.
 
Rather than drag myself
about the mall and shops in Derby, I decided to try a few small towns, hoping
to find little antique shops that might have something special.”

“And she found me,” William said, smiling
brightly as he rejoined them.
 
He
was carrying Karen’s missing shoe.
 
“Here you are, my dear,” he said.
 
He handed the shoe to the woman and she blushed and slipped it back on.

“Thank you so much,” she told William.
 
“I felt quite uncomfortable without it.”

“So what can I do for you ladies today?”
William asked now.

“We were wondering about that painting,”
Joan answered.

William shook his head.
 
“I haven’t found you anything yet,” he
told them.
 
He glanced at Karen and
then stared hard at Joan.
 
“I’ll
keep trying, but I have rather a lot on my plate at the moment.”

Joan nodded.
 
“I’ll look forward to hearing from you
soon, then,” she said, frowning.

“Yes, well, as soon as I can,” William said
nervously.

“Also, we found a few coins and we were
wondering if you would be able to tell us anything about their value,” Joan
added.
 
“There are only a handful of
them.”

She reached into her handbag and pulled out
the small bag she was keeping the coins in.
 
Janet watched closely as Joan dug out
the coins.
 
Janet knew there were
six coins in the bag, but when Joan handed the coins to William, Janet could
see that she’d only handed him three.

William turned the coins over in his hand,
giving them a cursory glance.
 
“I
don’t really know much about coins,” he told the women.
 
“They aren’t really my specialty.
 
I know a good dealer in Derby,
however.
 
I would be happy to send
them on to him and get them valued for you.”

“We can take them up to Derby ourselves,”
Joan replied.
 
“Perhaps you could
give us the name and address of the man’s shop?”

“Of course,” he said.
 
He crossed to the small desk in the back
of the store that functioned as his office, the coins still in his hand.
 
Karen followed him closely.

“May I have a look?” she asked quietly.
 
“My husband was something of a
collector.”

“Certainly,” Joan said.

William passed the coins to Karen, who
studied each one in turn.
 
After a
moment she walked over to Joan and handed the three coins back to her.

“If I were you, I’d get them valued rather
quickly,” she said in an excited voice.
 
“I think at least one of them is very valuable and the other two are
worth a decent amount as well.
 
If
you plan to keep them, you ought to have them insured.”

Joan took the coins and tucked them back in
their bag, returning it to her handbag.
 
“Really?” she asked.
 
“That’s
good news.”

“Yes, well, I’m no expert, but I did learn a
few things from my dear Lester before his sudden passing.
 
He loved collecting coins, common ones
as well as rare and valuable ones.
 
He left me quite a collection, but I’ve sold much of it since I lost him.”

William walked back across the room as Karen
was speaking.
 
Now he handed Joan a
slip of paper.
 
“He’ll take good
care of you and give you a fair price if you want to sell,” he told the
sisters.

“Thank you so much,” Janet said as Joan
added the slip of paper to her handbag.
 
“We should get home, I suppose.”

“After I take a quick look at that armoire,”
Joan told her.
 
She crossed the
room, leaving Janet to make small talk with William and Karen.
 
While Joan opened and closed drawers,
Janet talked about the weather and the latest news from London.
 
Joan was back by her side a few minutes
later.

The sisters were silent on their walk back
to the car.
 
As Janet started the
engine, she couldn’t wait to ask a question any longer.
 
“Do you really want a new armoire?”

Joan shrugged.
 
“It’s really lovely,” she replied.
 
“If the coins are actually worth what
everyone thinks they might be, maybe I’ll treat myself.”

“Or maybe I’ll buy it for you for
Christmas,” Janet countered.

“Only if you find something equally
valuable,” Joan retorted.

Janet laughed.
 
“That sounds fair enough,” she
agreed.
 
“But what did you think of
Karen Holmes?”

“She was, well, interesting, I guess,” Joan
said.
 
“But in a small town, anyone
new is always interesting.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Janet agreed with a
smile.
 
“She seems awfully young for
William, though.”

“I don’t know,” Joan replied.
 
“She may well be older than she
appears.
 
Women often are.”

“She dressed young,” Janet countered.

“You just didn’t like her dress,” Joan
replied.

Janet had to laugh.
 
“You’re right about that,” she
agreed.
 
“I don’t really like floral
fabrics for clothing.
 
They always remind
me of the curtains our granny had in her bedrooms.
 
You remember?”

Joan frowned for a moment and then began to
laugh softly.
 
“I haven’t thought
about granny for some time,” she said.
 
“But now that you mention it, I can just picture her, living in that
house all alone with five bedrooms, each decorated in a different
colour
.
 
All
five rooms had floral curtains, and all of the curtains were different, garish
and awful patterns, weren’t they?”

“I remember going to stay with her at
Christmas one year.
 
I must have
been about six or seven and she put me in the room with the mauve and yellow
curtains.
 
I had a bad dream one
night and woke up crying.
 
Our
parents were too far away to hear me, and I remember lying there for hours,
staring at those curtains and sobbing to myself.”

“You poor dear,” Joan said softly.
 
“I don’t remember you ever telling me
about that before.”

Janet shook her head.
 
“I never told anyone,” she said.
 
“It was so awful that I didn’t want to
talk about it.
 
Now, nearly sixty
years later, it just seems silly, but at the time, the pattern on the curtain
seemed almost to move and I was terrified.”

“No wonder you don’t like floral prints,”
Joan replied.

Janet looked at her and then sighed.
 
“You know what?
 
I feel a lot better for having told you
that story.
 
I guess I never quite recovered
from the experience.
 
I must
remember not to automatically dislike women who wear floral dresses,
though.
 
It is quite unfair to
them.”

“I didn’t like her, either,” Joan said.
 
“And I don’t have any irrational
prejudices to overcome.”

Janet grinned.
 
“She was just a bit odd, wasn’t
she?
 
And she and William seemed
awfully
cosy
considering they just met a few days
ago.”

“I’m sure William is flattered by the
attentions of a younger woman,” Joan said.
 
“Men usually are.”

Janet had to agree.
 
Neither sister had ever married, but
Janet had dated a great deal in her youth.
 
Regardless, both sisters were keen observers of the world around them
and they usually agreed with one another when it came to issues about human
nature.

“But what is she after?” Janet asked.

“Hopefully nothing,” Joan said.
 
“But I think we should keep an eye on
the situation.
 
We don’t want to
stick our noses in where they aren’t welcome, but it bothers me that he didn’t
want her to know about his paintings.”

“I suggest we stop back in to see him again
tomorrow.
 
We’ll have to find some
sort of excuse, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something,” Janet said.

They had arrived back at
Doveby
House now and Janet pulled the car into their car park.
 
Another car was already parked there.

“Isn’t that Robert’s car?” Joan asked as
they shut their car doors.

“I think it is,” Janet replied, wondering
what their local police constable could possibly want.

“Do you suppose he’s checking up on us
again?” Joan asked with an indulgent smile.

“I do wish he wouldn’t worry about us so
much,” Janet said.
 
“We can take
care of ourselves, after all.”

“Maybe we should have a word with him about
Karen Holmes,” Joan suggested.
 
“I
wouldn’t mind if the police took a little look at her.”