The Ellsworth Case (A Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Novella Book 5) (4 page)

“Whatever is easiest for you,” Charles
said.
 
“We’re pretty easy to please.”

Lynne looked as if she might argue, but then
she sighed and kept quiet.
 
Joan
glanced at Janet.

“We’ll get out of your way, then,” Janet
said brightly.
 
“Do let us know if
you need anything.”

The sisters headed back down the
stairs.
 
In the sitting room, Joan
pulled out the notes and the pair quickly went through them.

“They all seem fine,” Janet said after a
moment.

“You almost sound disappointed,” Joan
replied.

“They’re here from Derby,” Janet said.
 
“Robert said there were lots of the fake
notes there.
 
They might have taken
one as change or something, that’s all.”

“I’m glad you aren’t suspicious of our
guests,” Joan said.
 
“They seem like
a lovely couple.”

“I thought they seemed a bit odd,” Janet
replied.
 
“Charles was friendly enough,
but Lynne seemed on edge about something.”

“Yes, well, as long as it isn’t anything to
do with
Doveby
House, it isn’t our concern,” Joan
replied.
 
“I’m going to put the
money in the safe.
 
What are you
going to do?”

Before Janet could reply, there was a knock
on the door.

“I think I’ll answer the door,” she told
Joan.

The
couple on the doorstep
were
considerably younger than Charles and Lynne Walters.
 

“Hi, we’re Peter and Paula Ellsworth,” the
young woman said.

“Welcome to
Doveby
House,” Janet replied.
 
She stepped
back to let them in, looking them over curiously.

Neither could be much over thirty, she
decided.
 
Peter had his dirty blond
hair pulled back into a ponytail that oddly seemed to suit him.
 
He was slender and was wearing those
glasses that darken in sunlight.
 
For some reason they didn’t seem to lighten up much as he stepped inside
the house.

Paula was even thinner than her husband, and
Janet found herself wanting to urge the girl to eat a few biscuits.
 
She looked tired and stressed about
something, in spite of her perfectly styled hair and immaculate makeup.

They were both dressed in jeans and T-shirts,
but neither looked especially comfortable in them.
 
Peter carried their one small suitcase
in as they entered the house.
 
Joan
joined them as Janet pushed the front door shut.

“Welcome, I’ll just show you to your room,”
she said.

Janet followed her sister and the pair up
the stairs.
 
Joan opened the door to
the smaller guest room and Peter and Paula shuffled inside.
 
Joan explained about the key to the front
door, but her only reply was a vague shrug from Peter.

“I guess I just need to know what you’d like
for breakfast, and an approximate time that you’ll be down,” Joan said finally.

“Oh, I was, that is, I’d rather not, oh,”
Paula said, looking at Peter.

“We’d rather not commit to much of
anything,” Peter told Joan.
 
“We’re on
holiday, after all.
 
We both have
very high pressure jobs and we were looking forward to not having to plan a
thing for the next week.”

Joan nodded and smiled, but Janet could tell
the smile was forced.
 
“Of course,”
Joan said.
 
“Breakfast will be
available any time between eight and midday.
 
After that you’ll have to find somewhere
for lunch, I’m afraid.”

Peter nodded.
 
“We don’t mean to inconvenience you,” he
said tentatively.

“It’s no problem,” Joan insisted.

“Thank you,” Paula said quietly from where
she’d sat down on the side of the bed.

Joan nodded, and then she and Janet walked
out into the corridor.
 
Joan pulled
the door shut behind them.
 
It was
barely closed before they heard raised voices coming from the room.

Janet took a step closer, but resisted the
urge to push her ear to the door.
 
She could tell the couple was arguing, but she couldn’t make out any of
the words.

“They definitely need a holiday,” Joan
murmured as she pulled Janet away from the door and towards the stairs.

“Where have the
Ellsworths
come from?” Janet asked when the sisters were back in the sitting room.

“Let me check my records,” Joan said.
 
She disappeared into her suite for a
short time and then returned.

“Oddly enough, according to the letter they
sent requesting a room, they live in Derby, too,” she told Janet.

Chapter Four

The house always seemed different to Janet
when they had guests.
 
Feeling as if
both sets of new arrivals were rather unusual, Janet took herself off to the
library, the room where she felt most at home.
 
She shut the door behind her and turned
in a slow circle.
 
The space was
just about perfect, being filled completely with bookshelves that stretched
from floor to ceiling.
 
Every shelf
was full of books and ahead of her Janet had the wonderful job of sorting them
all out.

Having been working on cleaning the room for
the last several months, she had only a single set of shelves left to clean.
 
The shelves on the back wall had revealed
two hidden panels.
 
The sisters had
managed to open one, which was where they’d found Piggy, with the key and
coins.
 
They hadn’t yet found a way
to open the second panel.
 
Now, as
Janet turned her attention to the last shelf, she wondered what might be hidden
behind that second panel.

She wasn’t surprised, but she was excited,
when she discovered yet another hidden panel behind one of the last set of shelves.
 
After carefully piling that row of books
on the floor, Janet tried pushing, then sliding, the panel.
 
For a moment it seemed quite stuck, but
then, suddenly, it slid open.
 
Janet
shouted for Joan and then forced herself to wait until her sister appeared
before looking inside the small hole in the wall that had been revealed.

“What’s wrong?” Joan asked, slightly out of
breath.

“I found another hidden panel,” Janet said
excitedly.
 
She switched on the
torch that she’d dug out of the desk while she’d waited for Joan.
 
“Let’s see what we’ve found.”

The light lit up the small space.
 
“It’s an old oak
tantalus
,”
Janet said as she reached in and picked up the object.
 
“There are crystal decanters and
everything.
 
And it’s very heavy.”

Joan took it from her and turned it slowly
in her hands.
 
“It’s beautiful,” she
said after a moment.
 
“And, as you
say, very heavy.”

Janet laughed as Joan quickly set the object
down on the desk in the corner of the room.
 

“It must be an antique,” Janet said.

“I don’t understand why it was tucked away
inside a hidden compartment,” Joan told her.
 
“Even if it is an antique, I can’t
imagine it’s that valuable.”

Janet shrugged.
 
“I suppose we could take it to William
and ask him what it’s worth,” she said.

Joan nodded.
 
“We needed an excuse to see him anyway,”
she reminded her sister.
 
“You
couldn’t have found that at a better time.”

“I’ll just go and find a nice big empty box
to put it in,” Janet said, thoughtfully.
 
“And an old bed sheet or something to wrap around it.
 
I’d hate for it to get damaged while
we’re moving it around.”

“Perhaps we should leave the decanters
here,” Joan suggested.

Janet tried to lift them out of the cabinet,
but couldn’t.
 
They were firmly
locked into place.
 
“I don’t suppose
I missed the key?” she asked.

Joan picked up the torch and carefully
checked the inside of the hidden compartment.
 
“I don’t see a key,” she said after a
moment.

Janet was wiggling the stopper on the top of
one of the decanters.
 
“It seems
like I should be able to get this out of here,” she said after a moment.
 
“But I’m worried I might break
something.”

“Maybe we should invite William to come here
and take a look,” Joan suggested.
 
“That way we can be sure of having a private conversation with him as
well.
 
You never know who might be
in the shop with him if we just stop by.”

Both women immediately thought of Karen
Holmes.
 
While she seemed nice
enough, neither sister was eager to get to know her better.

“I’ll finish the cleaning in here and then
ring William and see if he can stop by this evening,” Janet told Joan.
 
“I know you’ll be busy with dinner.”

Joan smiled.
 
“That sounds like a hint,” she
said.
 

“It is nearly five,” Janet said after
glancing at the clock on the desk.
 
“That’s probably why I’m so hungry.”

“I’ll get started on dinner, then,” Joan
told her.
 
“Just don’t forget to
ring William.
 
Maybe you should do
that before you finish the cleaning.”

Janet grinned.
 
Joan was always the first to insist that
Janet clear up her messes before doing other things.
 
Clearly, Joan really wanted a chance to
talk to William.
 
As Joan headed
back to the kitchen, Janet found William’s business card with the number for
the store on it.

“WTC Antiques,” a perky female voice said
when the call was answered.

“Oh, good afternoon,” Janet said, frowning
at the phone.
 
Surely William wasn’t
having Karen answer the store’s phone?
 
“I was hoping to speak to William,” she said after an awkward pause.

“He’s just with a customer.
 
I’ll see if he can spare a moment.
 
Who shall I say is ringing?”

Janet scowled at the receiver.
 
“It’s Janet Markham,” she replied
tightly.

“Just hold on for a moment,” the voice
replied.
 

Janet heard the woman put the phone down on
the table.
 
The
loud bang was probably unintentional
,
she tried to
tell herself
.
 
A few moments
later, she heard footsteps.

“Ah, Janet, what can I do for you?”
William’s voice boomed down the line.

“William, Joan and I have found a
tantalus
and we were hoping you might have time to stop by
and take a look.
 
We were just
wondering what it might be worth.
 
We didn’t want to try to bring it to you, as the decanters seem quite
fragile.”

“I’d be delighted to stop and take a look,”
William replied.
 
“Did you have a
date in mind?”

“We were hoping you might be free this
evening,” Janet said.
 
“But if not,
whenever you are available.”

“I can certainly do this evening,” William
told her.
 
“I’ll stop by around half
seven, if that suits you.”

“That would be just about perfect,” Janet
answered.
 
“We’ll be done with
dinner and ready for tea and biscuits about then.”

“Excellent.
 
I’ll see you then.”

Janet put down the phone and then sighed
deeply.
 
Back to cleaning, then, she
thought to herself.
 
It didn’t
really take long for her to finishing clearing and cleaning the last set of
shelves.
 
With that job out of the
way, now she could start thinking about reordering the books.

Sinking down into the comfortable leather
chair in one corner of the room, Janet looked happily at the rows and rows of
books.
 
They were hers to do as she
pleased with and she couldn’t wait to get started.
 
Before she could do anything, though,
she had to figure out exactly how she wanted to arrange things.
 
There were several different “library
classification” systems that she could use, but Janet felt as if she wanted to
create her own system.
 

How I do it doesn’t matter, she told
herself.
 
What she needed to be able
to do was to know exactly what they had and exactly where each book was on the
shelves.
 
The more she thought about
it, the more she was tempted to develop a scheme that let her classify the
books by how much she liked or disliked them.
 
Of course she didn’t have time to read
every single book, but she could at least sort the genres by how much she liked
each one.
 
She laughed to
herself.
 
She’d never be able to
tell Joan what system she was using.
 
Joan simply wouldn’t approve.

With paper and pencil in hand, Janet spent
the last few minutes until dinner working through her plans.
 
She’d start with her
favourite
genres in the corner by the very comfortable chair.
 
That way, when she was curled up in it,
they’d be close to hand.
 
Within
genres, it made the most sense for her to arrange the titles by the author’s
last name.
 
She thought briefly
about sorting by the author’s first names, just to be different, but then
realised
that such a method would put Agatha Christie’s
books on the very top shelf in the mystery section.
 
As they were among her
favourites
, she decided she’d much rather have them closer
to eye level.

She was just about to start looking at book
titles when Joan stuck her head into the room.

“Dinner’s ready,” Joan announced.

Janet sighed.
 
“It was just about to get interesting,”
she complained.

“I made apple crumble,” Joan replied.

Janet grinned.
 
Apple crumble was her
favourite
pudding.
 
It was just about worth leaving the book sorting for apple crumble.
 
She followed her sister to the kitchen,
hoping Joan sister had made something she wasn’t overly fond of for dinner so
she could leave lots of room for crumble.

After a slightly smaller than usual serving
of delicious shepherd’s pie, Janet was pleased when Joan served her a very
generous plate of pudding, with a scoop of ice cream as an added bonus.
 
As she took the first bite, she started
to get suspicious.

“So, what’s on your mind?” she asked her
sister.

“What do you mean?” Joan replied.
 

Janet stared at her, but Joan didn’t meet
her eyes.
 
Janet sighed and sat back
in her chair.
 
Her
favourite
pudding was a bribe, then, of some sort.

“What do you want from me?” Janet clarified
the question.

Joan flushed.
 
“Nothing, really,” she said.
 
“Is William coming over this evening?”

“He is, around half seven,” Janet replied.

Joan nodded.
 
“It’s just that Michael invited me
around, you see.
 
There something on
the
telly
that we were going to watch together,
that’s all.”

“So you’re leaving me on my own with
William,” Janet said resignedly.

“I don’t have to go,” Joan replied.
 
“I’ll ring Michael and tell him I
can’t.”

“No, you go,”
Janet
said firmly.
 
Joan had never dated
when the sisters were younger.
 
Now
that Joan and Michael
were
becoming a couple, Janet
was determined to do what she could to help the relationship grow.
 
“I can show the
tantalus
to William and see what he says,” she continued.
 
“If I need you, I can always ring you.”

Janet watched the smile that spread across
her sister’s face.
 
It was clear
that Joan really wanted to spend the evening with Michael.
 
Janet was glad she’d told her to go.

“If you’re sure,” Joan said, slowly.

“I’m very sure,” Janet answered.

After dinner, Joan insisted on sorting out
the washing up
herself
.
 
“You go and get some more work done in
the library,” Joan said.
 
“The
washing up is the least I can do, under the circumstances.”

Janet put up a token protest, but she agreed
with her sister.
 
She didn’t fancy
being alone with William Chalmers, who had been far friendlier of late but had
been quite difficult to deal with when they’d first met him.
 
In the library, Janet slowly turned in
the
centre
of the room, wondering exactly where to
start.
 
She thought for a bit and
then giggled.
 
Perhaps it would be
best to start by reading a few of the books, she said to herself.
 

She ran a hand along a shelf, counting to
three.
 
On three, she pulled the
closest book off the shelf.
 
Murder Most Melancholy
, she read off the
cover of the book.
 
“Could be good,”
she muttered to herself as she slid into the leather chair.
 
Half an hour later, she was three
chapters in and totally absorbed in the story.