The Chalmers Case (3 page)

The door
opened easily and Janet was quick to find the light switch right inside the
door.
 
The room in front of her was
small, but still larger than she’d been expecting it to be.
 
There were perhaps half a dozen easels
scattered around the space, a partially finished canvas on every one of them.
 
A small table in the
centre
of the room was covered in painting supplies.
 
Janet was struggling to resist the urge
to walk into the room when she heard a sound behind her.
 
Switching off the light, she quickly
pulled the door shut again before she turned around.

“That’s just
storage space,” William told her as he strode into the room.

“I was just
looking for a loo,” Janet said, hoping William didn’t
realise
that she had actually already opened the door.

The man
frowned.
 
“I’m afraid we don’t have
customer,
er
, facilities,” he said.

“Never mind,
we aren’t far from home,” Janet said.
 
She walked quickly past him, back into the main room where Joan was
standing near the door.

“There you
are,” Joan said.
 
“I was starting to
think you’d gone out a back way.”

“Just admiring
that painting one more time,” she told her sister.
 
“There’s just something about it I
like.”

“But not the
price tag,” Joan replied.

“No, I don’t
like the price tag at all,”
Janet
agreed with a laugh.

“I might be
able to let it go for, let’s say, half the price on the tag,” William
interjected.

Janet shook her
head.
 
“That’s still far more than I
can afford to spend on something for just me.
 
If it were for a guest room or one of
the public spaces in the house, I might think about it.
 
But if I were to buy it, I’d want it in
my room for sure.
 
Thank you for the
generous discount, though.
 
I wish I
could use it.”

“Think about
it,” William told her.
 
“The offer
is good for the rest of this week, at least.
 
If you find you can’t live without the
picture, stop back.”

Janet nodded
and then smiled at Joan.
 
“We should
get going,” she suggested.

“As we have
guests arriving on Wednesday, we definitely should,” Joan agreed.

The pair made
their way out of the shop and back down the pavement in front of the small row
of stores.
 
Janet forced herself to
keep her mouth shut as they walked, even though she felt as if she might burst.

Chapter
Three

“Well, that
was interesting,”
Joan
said as she pulled the car out
of its parking space.
 
“William
seemed like he was trying quite hard to be nice.”

“He did,
didn’t he?” Janet replied.

“I suppose,
now that he’s having to deal with customers, he’s found he must be nicer.”

“But didn’t
William say that he didn’t know any local artists?” Janet asked.

“He did, but
he said he’d try to find some for us,” Joan told her.
 
“Weren’t you paying attention?”

“I thought I
was, but after I saw what he’s keeping in his back room, I wasn’t sure I
understood.”

“Don’t tell me
you were snooping!” Joan exclaimed.
 

“I was looking
for a loo,” Janet said defensively.

“Really?” Joan
asked.

Janet
sighed.
 
She tried hard not to lie
to her sister.
 
“No, not
really.
 
I was just curious what was
behind the door.”

“You’re lucky
he didn’t catch you being nosy,” Joan told her.
 
“He would have been furious.”

Janet thought
back to how disagreeable William had been the first time they’d met him.
 
She shuddered as she
realised
how close she came to really angering him.
 
“I just took a quick peek,” she told Joan.
 
“And he’d have only been angry if he’s
hiding something.”

“And is he
hiding something?”

“I don’t
know,” Janet said with a shrug.
 
“It
sort of seems like it, though.”

“And you’re
waiting for me to ask, aren’t you?” Joan demanded.
 
“Okay, what did you find behind the
door?” she asked in a tight voice.

“It looked
like an art studio,” Janet replied.
 
“There were a bunch of half-finished pictures on easels, and paints and
supplies all around the place.”

“Why would
William want an art studio in the back of his store?” Joan asked.

“Maybe he has
a team of artists making forgeries in there,” Janet suggested.
 

“Maybe you’ve
been reading too many books about such things,” Joan retorted.
 
“It seems more likely one of his artist
friends is using the space to make pictures for the store.
 
I didn’t pay any attention to the names
of the artists on the pictures that were for sale, did you?”

“No,” Janet
admitted.
 
“But why would he have so
many unfinished works?
 
Surely
artists do one painting at a time.”

“As I’m not an
artist and can’t draw a straight line even with a straight edge, I’m not the
one to ask about that,” Joan said.
 
“Anyway, it isn’t any of our business what he’s doing back there.”

Janet sat back
in her seat and frowned.
 
There was
something suspicious going on in that store.
 
If Joan wanted to ignore it, she could,
but Janet was determined to find out more about what was happening in WTC
Antiques, with or without Joan’s help.

Back at
Doveby
House, over a cup of tea, Joan quickly made a list
of what needed to be done before they welcomed their guests on Wednesday.
 
As she filled first one and then a
second sheet of paper with chores, Janet remembered why she wasn’t eager to
start running the bed and breakfast.
 

“I’ll just go
and do some more work in the library,” she told Joan, getting up from the
kitchen table.

“You go and do
that,” Joan said, clearly distracted by her list making.
 
“But once I’ve finished the list, you’ll
have to stop and help with that instead.
 
We can just lock up the library while the guests are here, so it won’t matter
if you leave a mess in there.
 
The
rest of the property has to be spotless, though.”

Janet shut the
library door and quickly began to pile books against it.
 
With the contents of two shelves stacked
behind it, Joan would struggle to get the library door open when she came to
get her younger sister.
 
Janet knew
she was being childish, but Joan’s list had been nothing but tidy this and
clean that, which was never Janet’s idea of fun.

Joan had never
embraced Janet’s habit of adding small incentives to her to-do lists.
 
There was nothing Janet liked better
than crossing off a chore and finding “have a scoop of ice cream” as the next
item on the list, but Joan didn’t see it that way.
 

Now Janet
grabbed the furniture polish and went to work on the two shelves she’d just
cleared.
 
There didn’t seem to be
any additional hidden panels.
 
Janet
had just returned the last of the books to the second shelf when Joan pushed
the door open.

“Ah, it looks
like you’re in the perfect place to take a break,” Joan said brightly, as she
watched Janet slide the last book into place.
 

“If you mean
take a few minutes to sit down with my feet up and read a book, I am,” Janet
replied.
 
“If you mean stop cleaning
in here and come and clean somewhere else, well, that’s a lot less appealing.”

Joan actually
smiled before she spoke.
 
“I’m
sorry, my dear,” she said.
 
“I know
this whole bed and breakfast thing was my idea and I know you don’t share my
enthusiasm for it, but I’d really like to give it a good try.
 
If you really hate it after we’ve had a
few guests, we can talk about selling
Doveby
House
and doing something else with our lives.”

Janet thought
for a minute before she replied.
 
“It’s a little late now for me to start voicing objections,” she said
finally.
 
“And I’m sorry I haven’t
been more supportive of your plans.
 
I just hate cleaning and tidying, and it seems like we have an awful lot
of that to get done.”

“I know you
hate cleaning,” Joan said.
 
“I
thought you might like to go and do the grocery shopping instead, while I start
tackling the cleaning?”

“Oh, yes,
please,”
Janet
said eagerly.
 
She didn’t exactly like grocery
shopping, but if Joan wasn’t with her, she could at least add a few treats to
the trolley as she went.
 
Joan gave
Janet a detailed list of everything she wanted from the shops and Janet headed
out with the promise of apple crumble for pudding after dinner if she managed
to find everything on the list.

Janet drove
rather slowly to the large supermarket that was some distance away.
 
She wasn’t exactly eager to get the
shopping done and get home and it was a lovely day for a drive.
 
Groceries were less expensive at the larger
shop than at the smaller store in
Doveby
Dale, but
sometimes the bigger store was unpleasantly busy.
 
Today it wasn’t too bad, and Janet found
herself in a fairly good mood as she pushed her trolley up and down the aisles.

“We need a
cat,” she said aloud as she unexpectedly found herself in the pet food aisle
after making a wrong turn.
 
She’d
always wanted a pet of some kind, but when she and Joan had both been working
full-time it seemed unfair to adopt an animal and then spend very little time
with it.
 
When they’d retired,
they’d discussed the idea briefly, but as they planned to travel, again the
thought was dismissed.
 
Now,
however, they were clearly staying in one place for a while and the large manor
house seemed the perfect place for a cat.
 
Determined to discuss the idea with Joan, Janet carried on with the
shopping.

She did very
well sticking to her sister’s list until the very end.
 
From what Joan had requested, it seemed
as if her older sister was anticipating that their guests would be eating their
evening meals at
Doveby
House in addition to
breakfast.
 
Perhaps that was part of
the arrangement that Joan had made with William Chalmers.
 

Janet was
nearly finished when she reached the ice cream.
 
Joan had requested vanilla, presumably
to offer with apple crumble and other puddings.
 
Janet added it to her cart and then
found her
favourite
ice cream in the freezer.
 
Joan wouldn’t mind if she brought home a
container of that as well, she decided impulsively.

Back at
Doveby
House, it took Janet three trips to get everything
from the car into the house.
 
Janet
could hear Joan working hard on the first floor, presumably cleaning the guest
rooms.
 
No doubt Joan would put the
couple in the east room, as it was somewhat larger than the west room.
 
It was just a shame that they hadn’t
found any art for the walls yet.
 
Janet was still hoping to come up with better names for the rooms eventually.

Once she’d put
the shopping away, Janet climbed the stairs and found her sister in the east
room.

“I’m back and
the shopping is all away,” she told Joan once Joan had switched off the vacuum.

“Excellent,”
Joan said happily.
 
“I’ve just been
around with a duster and now the vacuum.
 
Tomorrow I’ll give the en-suite a quick clean and then give the west
room the same treatment.
 
I’m
assuming the Stones will want to stay in here, as it’s the larger room, but I
want to give them a choice.”

“Is that their
name?” Janet asked.
 
“Stone?”

“Yes, Harold
and Mildred Stone,” Joan replied.
 
“Apparently Harold is a cousin to William as well as a friend and
business associate.”

“Lovely,”
Janet muttered.

The rest of
Monday and pretty much all of Tuesday passed in something of a blur for
Janet.
 
She helped her sister clean
and air the guest rooms, dusted and vacuumed all of the public spaces, and
whenever she had a spare minute, worked hard on the library.
 
While these guests might not be
interested in reading, she was sure they would eventually welcome a guest who
would be interested in their collection of books.

Wednesday
morning, Joan was driving herself and Janet crazy with last-minute
preparations.

“Are you sure
one vase of flowers is enough for the guest rooms?” she asked Janet for the
tenth time.

“I’m
absolutely certain,” she told her sister.
 
“The rooms aren’t that large.
 
If we put more vases in them, the guests wouldn’t have anywhere to put
their things.”

Joan nodded
and paced back and forth across the kitchen while Janet sipped a cup of
tea.
 
“Maybe I should have baked
more biscuits,” Joan said after a moment.

Janet looked
at her for a moment and then shook her head.
 
“We have two dozen different varieties
of biscuit.
 
I’m sure they’ll
manage,” she said eventually.

“I feel quite
sick to my stomach,” Joan confided in her sister.
 
“I can’t tell you how badly I want this
to go well.”

“I know,”
Janet said.
 
She got up, crossed to
Joan and gave her a hug.
 
“It will
all be fine, you know,” she said soothingly.

William had
told them to expect their guests some time after ten, so when midday arrived
with no sign of them, Joan rang him at his store.

“It’s Joan
Markham.
 
I was just ringing to
double-check that your friends are arriving today?”

“Oh, they’ll
be here,”
William
answered.
 
Janet was surprised that she could hear
the man from across the room.
 
He
must have been shouting into the phone.
 

The look on
Joan’s face confirmed that he was speaking very loudly.
 
“I did wonder if you had an idea when
they might arrive,” Joan said.
 
She
held the phone out from her ear and both sisters were able to clearly hear the
reply.

“Any time
between now and midnight, I suppose,” William said.
 
“I’m sorry, but I really must go.
 
Customers, you understand.”

He
disconnected before Joan replied, leaving her shaking her head.

“I’ll bet he
doesn’t have any customers,” Janet said as Joan hung up the phone.

“I’m starting
to wonder if he actually has any friends coming to visit,” Joan muttered.

Janet insisted
that the pair eat lunch at their normal time.
 
“If Mr. and Mrs. Stone arrive in the
middle of the meal, they can join us,” she told her sister.
 
“I’m not waiting to eat until they get
here, especially not until midnight.”

Around three
o’clock, just when Joan was muttering darkly about ringing William again, this
time to give him a piece of her mind, the doorbell rang.

“Oh, dear,”
Joan said.
 
She headed for the front
door, with Janet following behind her.
 
Janet could hear her sister taking slow deep breaths to calm her nerves.
 
As the doorbell rang again, Janet found
herself following her sister’s lead.
 
Deep breaths weren’t much help as the doorbell buzzed for a third time
just as Joan reached the door.