The Ellsworth Case (A Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Novella Book 5) (6 page)

Janet and Joan exchanged glances.
 
Hadn’t Robert told them at the grocery
store what serial number to look out for? Janet thought.
 
The man at the till pulled out a credit
card and completed his transaction, his face still set with an angry scowl.
 
The next customer was an older woman who
paid for her small order with a handful of crumpled five-pound notes.
 

“We aren’t accepting twenty-pound notes,”
the girl said mechanically to the sisters as she started scanning their items.

“We’ll use a card,” Joan told her.

“All this counterfeit money is shocking,”
Janet said to the girl.
 
“I thought
there was something about serial numbers that let you pick out the fakes.”

The girl shook her head.
 
“That’s what we were told at first,” she
replied.
 
“But I hear there’s now
been some found with different numbers.
 
I guess the police are going quite mad.”

“I can imagine,” Janet replied, quickly
packing their shopping into bags.
 
“Poor Robert Parsons.”

“He’s a lovely man,” the girl said with a
sigh.
 
“But he works all the time.”

Janet hid a smile.
 
It seemed the handsome young policeman
had an admirer.
 

“I wonder if any of the money I got from
Karen is fake,” Janet said as soon as pair was on their way back home.

“I suppose we must be suspicious of every
note we get now,” Joan said.
 
“I do
hope the police can figure out some way to pick out the fakes quickly.”

“Maybe we should stop at the police station
and give Susan her money,” Janet suggested.
 
“She can have Robert look it all over.”

“We ought to stop anyway.
 
I like to pay her promptly,” Joan
replied.

The small car park at the station was nearly
full.
 
“There are never any cars
here,” Janet said as Joan squeezed their car into the last available space.

“I can’t imagine where all of these people
would be,” Joan replied.
 
“The
station isn’t big enough for this many people.”

As it happened, the station was only just
big enough for the crowd inside it.
 
Janet stopped in the doorway and looked around.
 
Susan was sitting behind the reception
desk, but there were at least a dozen people spread throughout the space
between the door and the desk.
 
When
the door shut behind the sisters, a buzzer sounded.
 
Susan looked up and then waved at them.

“I’ll come to you,” she shouted over the
confusion.
 

Janet and Joan watched as the woman pushed
her way through the crowd, most of
whom
were talking
to one another or on mobile phones.
 
None of them seemed to have noticed the
Markhams
.

“What can I do for you?” Susan asked in a
loud voice that Janet could just about hear over the many other voices.

“We sold a blanket,” Janet shouted
back.
 
She reached in her handbag
and pulled out the stack of notes.

“I do hope they’re all good ones,” Susan
said, glancing through the small pile.

“Can you tell?” Janet asked.

“Not really,” Susan replied.
 
“I knew the first serial number by
heart, but now we’ve had notes turning up with all different numbers.
 
They’re all very good fakes, too.
 
Much better than what we usually see.”

“And no one knows where they’re coming
from?” Janet asked.
 
She
flushed.
 
“That was a dumb question,
wasn’t it?”

Susan laughed.
 
“Well, if we knew where they were coming
from, we wouldn’t have a station full of people, that’s for sure.”

“Who are they all?” Joan asked.

“Investigators from different places and
different governmental departments,” Susan told her.
 
“They’re all meant to be working
together to try to figure things out.
 
So far all I’ve seen them do is argue, but you never know.”

“So they think the money is coming from
Doveby
Dale?” Janet asked.

Susan shrugged.
 
“We’ve suddenly seen a handful of notes,
just as they’ve stopped turning up in Derby, but that doesn’t necessarily mean
anything.
 
I understand they found
some in Little Burton yesterday.
 
I
wish everyone would rush off there to investigate, but their station is even
smaller than this one, so this is serving as the command
centre
for both areas.”

“We’d better get out of your way, then,”
Janet said reluctantly.

“I’ll let you know if any of these notes
turn out to be counterfeit,” Susan promised.
 
“But I won’t hold you responsible for
them.”

“We can figure that out if it becomes an
issue,” Joan said.

Susan looked as if she was going to reply,
but just then someone shouted from a corner.
 
“I think we should start the meeting!”
he yelled.

Suddenly the room fell silent.
 
It seemed as if everyone in the small
space turned at once and looked at Janet and Joan.

“See you soon,” Janet said to Susan as the
sisters took their leave.

Chapter Six

Back at
Doveby
House, the sisters unpacked the shopping.
 

“What are you planning to do with the rest
of the day?” Joan asked Janet when they were done.

“I suppose I’ll get to work in the library,”
Janet replied.
 
“I’m ready to start
cataloguing the books.”

“Would you like any help?” Joan asked.

Janet quickly shook her head.
 
“I’m happy to do it by myself,” she
said.
 
“I’m sure you have other
things to do, anyway.”

“I think I’ll bake a cake,” Joan
answered.
 
“Maybe a Victoria
sponge.”

“That sounds lovely,” Janet said.
 
“I’ll look forward to it.”

In the library, Janet looked at the long
shelves crammed full of books and sighed.
 
While she wanted to be the one who sorted them all out, it suddenly felt
like an overwhelming task.
 
The
first job was to figure out exactly what genres were represented and how many
books fit into each category.
 
She
started on the wall by the door, pulling down the entire row of books and
stacking them on the desk.
 

Janet was surprised and a little worried
when she
realised
that the twenty-five books on that
single shelf represented sixteen different genres or sub-genres.
 
She hadn’t paid much attention to the
various book titles while she’d been cleaning, but now she found that fiction
and non-fiction were all mixed up with one another.
 
Really, there seemed to be a little bit
of everything, from romance to mystery to children’s books in the fiction
titles.
 
The non-fiction seemed to
be
focussed
on the two World Wars, but perhaps that
was just this shelf.
 
Janet sighed
again.
 
This was going to be a very
large task.
 

Her mobile, tucked into her pocket, rang
before she could start on the next shelf.
 
She smiled at it as she answered the call.

“Ah, Janet, I do hope I haven’t reached you
at a bad time,” Edward Bennett’s voice came down the line.

Janet sank into the corner chair.
 
“Not at all,” she replied.
 
“I was just working on
organising
the library, which will be an endless task, I’m
afraid.”

Edward laughed.
 
Janet sat back and pictured him sitting
in the library a few months earlier, telling her that he worked for the
government in some sort of secret capacity.
 
She still wasn’t certain that she
believed that he was a spy, but she couldn’t deny that she was attracted to the
man.
 
He rang occasionally, usually
when she least expected it, and just last month, after she’d mentioned a
painting she’d liked in William Chalmers’ shop, he’d purchased it and had it
sent to her.
 
Now she
realised
she’d never thanked him for it.
 
She’d had the conversation in her head a
million times, but she actually hadn’t spoken to him since the painting has
been delivered.

“Before I forget,” she said quickly, “thank
you for the painting, but I really can’t accept such an expensive present from
you.”
 
Well, that was what Joan had
said, anyway.

Edward laughed again.
 
“William gave me a great price,” he
assured her.
 
“If it makes you
happy, I insist you keep it.”

“It makes me very happy,” Janet
admitted.
 
“It looks perfect in my
room.”

“Excellent, that’s that sorted then,”
Edward
said.
 
“But how are you?”

“I’m fine,” Janet told him.
 
“Busy with guests, but otherwise
fine.
 
How are you?”

“Busy with too much,” Edward replied.
 
“I retired last year and I think I’m
working more now than I did when I was working.”

“I hope you’re getting paid exorbitant rates
as a consultant, then.”

“I am, rather,” Edward said.
 
“But I’d quite like a few days off now
and again.
 
I’m getting too old for
this sort of work.”

“Oh,” Janet exclaimed.
 
“I nearly forgot.
 
You gave us the wrong combination for
the safe in the library.”

“I did?” Edward sounded surprised.
 
“I was certain, well,
but,
I am sorry.
 
I’ll have to dig
into my files on Maggie to find the right combination.
 
I’ll have it for you the next time I ring,
if that’s okay.”

“I’d appreciate that.
 
Obviously we’re anxious to see what’s in
there and also to have use of the safe.”

“Indeed.
 
But how are all of the guests working
out?
 
Have you had anyone especially
interesting to stay?”

Janet thought for a moment.
 
“Not really.
 
Not since the Stones and the Harrisons,
really.
 
They weren’t so much
interesting as criminal, both pairs.”

“Do you have guests now?”

“We do.
 
Two couples, actually, so we’re full up,” Janet said.

“Well, tell me all about them, then.
 
I’m interested in whatever is going on in
your life.”

Janet wasn’t sure she believed the man.
 
Was he interested in her life or was
there something suspicious about one or the other of their pairs of guests?
 
“Charles and Lynne Walters are a nice
couple in
their
sixties,” she told him.
 
“They’re just here from Derby,
apparently, but then so are our other guests, Peter and Paula Ellsworth.
 
They’re quite a bit younger.”

“But they’re both just perfectly ordinary
couples, are they?”

“Well, they don’t seem exceptional in any
way,” Janet replied.
 
“Peter and
Paula both appear to be under some sort of stress, but hopefully their holiday
will sort them out.
 
They had a bit
of a row when they first arrived, but they seemed to have relaxed a little bit
by the time they came down for breakfast this morning.”

“And Charles and Lynne Walters?
 
Were they happy at breakfast?”

Janet considered the question.
 
She hadn’t paid all that much attention
to their guests at breakfast; she’d just kept them supplied with toast and
coffee.
 
“Actually, there was some
tension between them this morning,” she said after a minute.
 
“I think Lynne was upset about
something, but I’m not sure.
 
She
only said about three words at breakfast, but Charles made up for it by boring
Peter and Paula with stories about his travels.”

“Charles travels a lot, does he?”

 
“I
gather it was all related to his work,” Janet replied.
 
“It didn’t seem as if he’d ever taken
Lynne with him, at any rate.
 
Most
of the stories were about various small towns in the US.
 
I don’t know what he does for a living,
but it seems to require him to visit a lot of places I’d never heard of.”

“Interesting,” Edward said.
 
“Have you made any new friends lately in
Doveby
Dale?”

Janet laughed.
 
“Aside from our guests, there’s never
anyone new in
Doveby
Dale,” she said.

“William Chalmers is a fairly recent
addition,” Edward pointed out.

“He is,” Janet conceded
 
“And he appears to have a new
girlfriend, but I certainly wouldn’t consider her a friend of mine.”

“See, there is someone new to
Doveby
Dale,” Edward said with a laugh.

“She isn’t, though,” Janet disagreed.
 
“She’s just visiting.”

“Tell me all about her,” Edward
suggested.
 

“Her name is Karen Holmes and she’s a widow,
from what she says.
 
She’s probably
in her early forties somewhere, and William seems quite taken with her.”

“Where is she staying, if she isn’t staying
with you?”

“She said something about a hotel in Derby,”
Janet replied.
 
“We’re the only bed
and breakfast in
Doveby
Dale and there are no
hotels.
 
Maybe now that she’s seeing
William she’ll move somewhere closer.”

“Are there other places closer than Derby?”
Edward asked.

“There are two houses that do bed and
breakfast in Little Burton,” Janet replied.
 
“They each have three guest rooms and their
prices are similar to ours.
 
We’re
hoping that Joan’s cooking will give us an edge if we ever have to compete with
them.
 
For now, we seem to have
plenty of guests, more than I’d like, if I’m honest.”

“And does Joan know how you feel?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure she knows I’m not as
happy taking in guests as she is,” Janet said.
 
“And I don’t mind it as much as I
thought I might, anyway.
 
It’s just
strange and different, that’s all.
 
I suppose I shall get used to it.”

“Or perhaps Joan will change her mind and
you’ll be off on a new adventure elsewhere.”

Janet laughed.
 
“This bed and breakfast is the only
adventurous thing that Joan has ever even considered, and I’m pretty sure we
never would have done it if I hadn’t agreed.
 
I can’t see Joan coming up with any new escapades
for us.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to come up with a
new idea,” Edward suggested.

Janet sighed.
 
“I’m quite happy here, really,” she said
after a moment.
 
“I love
Doveby
House.
 
It’s so much more wonderful than any house I thought I’d ever own.
 
Having to take in guests now and then
seems a small price to pay for having such a beautiful home.
 
It all just feels like hard work
sometimes, that’s all.
 
You have to
be nice to the guests, even if they don’t bother to tell you when they decide
to lie in or come in drunk at midnight or whatever.
 
It’s just all so new to me, that’s all.”

“What you need is a holiday,” Edward told
her.
 
“I’d love to take you away
somewhere in the
new year
.
 
Where would you like to go?”

“Oh, good heavens,” Janet exclaimed.
 
“We couldn’t, that is, I couldn’t, I
mean, what an idea.”

“I wasn’t suggesting anything improper,”
Edward said, his voice somewhat cool.
 
“I thought you might like to get away, that’s all.”

“You just took me by surprise,” Janet
replied, not wanting to argue with the man.
 
“But you must remember that we barely
know one another.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Edward said.
 
“So instead of going away together, I
must come and visit you again, mustn’t I?
 
I shall have to look at my schedule and see when I can get away.”

“You know you’re more than welcome,” Janet
said.
 
“I mean, we’re taking guests
regularly anyway,” she added quickly, not wanting to sound too eager.

“So what else is happening at
Doveby
House?” Edward asked.

“Not a lot,” Janet said.
 
“We did find a few hidden panels built
into the bookshelves in the library.
 
Inside one was a ceramic piggy bank that had a key and some coins in it.
 
We think the coins might have some
value.”

“Make sure you take them somewhere reputable
to get them checked,” Edward cautioned her.
 
“I’m not sure I would trust William
Chalmers to value them properly.”

“We’re going to take them into Derby.
 
William has recommended a coin dealer
there, and we thought we start with him, and then find another dealer for a
second opinion.”

“You’ve thought it all through, then,
excellent.
 
Did you find anything
else behind the other panels?”

“We can’t even get one of them opened,”
Janet told him.
 
“Maybe you can help
us figure out the trick to it when you’re next here.”

“It’s probably just stuck,” Edward
replied.
 
“I believe those panels
are original to the house.”

“There was a beautiful oak
tantalus
behind another one,” Janet said.
 
“Oh, and I completely forgot.
 
William found the key inside one of the
decanters, but I wouldn’t let him open the little drawers in the
centre
.
 
I
wanted to wait until Joan was home, but then I forgot all about it.”