The Chalmers Case (4 page)

“I was
starting to think we had the wrong place,” the man at the door said as soon as
Joan opened the door.
 

“I’m sorry. I
was in the kitchen and it took me a minute to get to the door,” Joan
apologised
.
 
“You must be Harold Stone.”

“Yes, that’s
right,” the man said.
 
“And this is
Mildred.”
 
He nodded towards the
woman next to him on the small front porch.

By now, Janet
had reached the doorway and she found herself studying their guests.

William had
said they were both in
their
sixties and Harold
certainly looked it.
 
His hair was
grey and sparse and his skin was weathered and wrinkled.
 
Janet wasn’t sure where they’d driven
from, but his trousers and shirt were incredibly creased, as if he’d been
driving in them for days.
 
He was a
few inches short of six feet tall and looked reasonably fit.

Mildred had
platinum blonde hair that was caught up in some sort of puff on the top of her
head.
 
Guessing her age was more
difficult, as her face had a strange stretched and surprised look to it that
Janet associated with plastic surgery.
 
Her generous curves were spilling out of a top and trousers that were
several sizes smaller than they should have been.
 
Janet blinked and then looked away quickly
when she
realised
she was staring at the woman’s
heavily made-up face.
 

“I do hope our
room is ready,” Mildred said now.
 
“I’m
quite anxious to freshen up.”

“Of course, if
you’ll just follow me,” Joan replied.
 

Janet stepped
backwards and watched as the man picked up their single suitcase and followed
Joan towards the stairs.
 
Mildred
trailed along behind them, following a strangely meandering route in her
incredibly high heels.
 
As she shut
the front door, Janet was torn between following the group upstairs to watch
with morbid fascination what might happen next and wanting to be as far away
from the new arrivals as she could be.
 

Before she’d
decided what she wanted to do, Joan was coming back down the stairs.

“That was
quick,” Janet said.

“Mildred wanted
to freshen up, so I left them alone,” Joan told her.
 

The sisters
exchanged looks that spoke volumes, but didn’t speak aloud, uncertain as to how
voices might carry in the house.
 
Only a few moments later, before the sisters had left the sitting room,
they heard Harold on the stairs.

“Right, well,
Mildred will be down in a minute.
 
We’re heading off into town to see exactly what William’s getting
himself up to now,” he told the sisters.
 
“We have a key for the front door, don’t we?
 
I’m not sure when we’ll be back.”

“William said
you’d want to take your evening meals here,” Joan told him.

“Oh, well,
maybe another time,” he replied with a wave of his hand.
 
“I reckon tonight we should make William
buy us dinner in town.”

Mildred came
down the stairs now.
 
She had exchanged
her wrinkled shirt and trousers for a very tight and very short black
dress.
 
She tottered over to her
husband on yet another pair of skyscraper heels and took his arm.

“Off to see
William, then?” she asked.

“Yes, let’s
go,” Harold replied.

“Have a lovely
evening,” Janet said as the pair headed for the door.

“What time
would you like breakfast?” Joan asked.

“Oh, we aren’t
much for getting up early,” Harold replied.
 
“You needn’t worry about breakfast for
us.
 
We’ll probably roll out of bed at
midday anyway.”

Harold pulled
open the door and he and Mildred disappeared through it, leaving Joan and Janet
staring after them.

Chapter
Four

“I think we
bought too much food,” Joan said faintly, after a moment.

Janet crossed
to the door and checked that it was shut properly.
 
She locked the door and then turned back
to face Joan.
 
“They seem nice,” she
said, a touch desperately.

Joan stared at
her for a moment and then began to laugh.
 
“They seem terrible,” she corrected Janet after a while.
 
“I should never have said yes to William
Chalmers.
 
I don’t like him and I
can’t imagine why I thought I’d like his friends.”

“Well, we’re
stuck with them for now,” Janet replied.
 
“We’ll just have to make the best of it.”

Joan
sighed.
 
“Thank you for being nice
about this,” she told her sister.
 
“I suppose it’s my own fault for being so eager to get the place open.”

Janet opened
her mouth to reply, but a knock on the door interrupted.
 
She turned back around and pulled the
door open.

“Constable
Parsons, how nice of you to visit,” she said brightly to the young man on the
porch.
 
“I do hope you haven’t come
to warn us against anyone this time.”

The man shook
his head, returning Janet’s smile.
 
“Not at all,” he assured her.
 
“I was just driving by and I
realised
I hadn’t
spoken to you two in a while.
 
I
wanted to see how you were doing, that’s all.”

“Do come in
and have a
cuppa
,” Janet suggested.
 
“Joan baked loads yesterday and our
guests don’t seem interested, so you may as well have some biscuits, too.”

Janet stepped
backwards and let the man into the house.
 

“Good
afternoon, Constable Parsons,” Joan said.

“You both
really must call me Robert,” the man told them.
 
“No need to be formal with me.”

“Why don’t you
come into the kitchen for that
cuppa
,” Joan said,
finding herself unable to add his Christian name to the end of the offer.
 
Although the man was only in his
twenties, and looked younger, the sisters had been raised to believe that
authority figures commanded respect and that included using their formal titles.

Janet followed
the others into the kitchen.
 
Joan
quickly put the kettle on while Janet began to pile several different sorts of
biscuits onto a large plate.
 
While
Joan fixed the tea, Janet set out small plates for each of them and then put
the large plate in the
centre
of the kitchen
table.
 
Only a few minutes later
they were all settled in with tea and biscuits.

“So, when do
you think you’ll be open for business?” the man asked after a moment.

“We actually
have guests now,” Joan replied.

“Do you?
 
I didn’t
realise
.”

“They’re
friends of Mr. Chalmers’s,” Janet told him.
 
“He asked us if they could stay here for
a few days while they’re visiting with him.”

“Friends of
Mr. Chalmers’s, did you say?
 
What
was the name?”

“Harold and
Mildred Stone,” Joan answered.
 
“But
you don’t think there’s anything wrong, do you?”

The man took a
sip of tea before he spoke.
 
“I’m
sure they’re lovely people,” he said eventually.
 
“I just like to keep track of everyone
in my little village, that’s all.”

“I do hope you
won’t be expecting us to ring you every time we’re going to have guests,” Joan
said.

“Not at all,”
Robert replied quickly.
 
“But I’ve
had a few, um, interesting conversations with Mr. Chalmers.
 
I’m more interested in his friends than
in most people.”

“Have you been
to his shop?” Janet asked.

“I have,
several times,” was the reply.

Janet opened
her mouth to ask another question, but Joan silenced her with a look.
 
Janet could tell that her sister thought
she was being nosy.
 
I probably
shouldn’t mention the back room, Janet thought as she nibbled her biscuit.
 
That would definitely make me look nosy.

“They’ve just
arrived today,” Joan told the policeman.
 
“In fact, they arrived not long before you did.
 
They did little more than drop off their
bags before they headed down to the antique store.”

“Perhaps I
should pay Mr. Chalmers a visit,” Robert said thoughtfully.
 
“Just check in on him and see how
business is going.”

“It wasn’t
going at all when we were there Monday,” Janet said.
 
“We were there for over half an hour and
no one else came in at all.”

“I suppose,
with the prices on most of the things he’s selling, he doesn’t need many
customers,” Joan said.
 
“Just one or
two wealthy ones.”

“I’m not sure
he’ll find many of them around here,” Robert said.
 
“
Doveby
Dale
isn’t that sort of village.”

“I wonder why
he chose to have a shop here,” Janet said.

Robert
shrugged.
 
“I was told he was tired
of the hustle and bustle of London and wanted a change.
 
You can’t get much quieter than
Doveby
Dale.”

“Which is
lovely, but not necessarily good for a small business,” Janet replied.

“But that’s
really none of our concern,” Joan said firmly.
 
“I’m sure Mr. Chalmers has his reasons
for being here.
 
There’s little
point in our speculating on them, though.”

Janet thought
about objecting, but she bit her tongue.
 
It wouldn’t do to make the young policeman think she was sticking her
nose in, after all.

“Did the
Stones happen to say where they were from?” Robert asked after he’d finished
his third biscuit.

“They weren’t
here long enough to say much of anything,” Janet said.

“I don’t
remember William Chalmers mentioning it,” Joan added.
 
“I got the impression that they were
coming up from London, but I don’t really know why, now that I think about it.”

“It doesn’t
matter,” Robert assured them.
 
“I’ll
ask them when I meet them in the antique store.”

He turned down
Joan’s offer of more tea and biscuits.
 
“I really must get going.
 
I’m in Little Burton for the rest of this week.
 
Do ring the station if anything out of
the ordinary happens, though.
 
Susan
will be there to take a message during our regular hours.”

“She seemed
very nice when we met her,” Janet said.
 
“We really must stop and see her, actually.
 
We’d like to put some of her knitted
items around the place like Margaret Appleton did.
 
Hopefully, we can help her sell them.”

“Oh, please
do,”
Robert
said.
 
“Maggie Appleton used to sell quite a few of her blankets and things,
and now that Susan isn’t making things for selling, she keeps making things for
me.
 
I have more jumpers, blankets,
and wooly hats than I’ll ever be able to use.
 
Susan just knits all the time when it’s
quiet at the station, which is most of the time.”

“She does
beautiful work,” Joan said.
 
“We’d
be delighted to be able to help her find loving homes for her things.”

Robert
frowned.
 
“I really do appreciate
everything she’s given me,” he told the sisters.
 
“Please don’t think I don’t.
 
It’s just too much, really.
 
I only have one head and she’s made me
at least a dozen hats.”

Janet
laughed.
 
“I’ll try to stop by to
see her this week,” she told the man.
 
“Joan will be busy with our guests, but I should have a few minutes.”

“Do let her
know if anything else comes up,” Robert reminded her.
 
“I worry about you two here on your
own.”

“Michael is
just across the road,” Joan said.
 
“And so are Stuart and Mary.
 
We aren’t exactly on our own.”

“Is Stuart
still doing all of your gardening for you?” Robert asked as he rose to his
feet.

“He is,” Joan
answered.
 
“And he’s doing a
wonderful job.”

The sisters
walked their guest to the front door.
 
“I’ll stop back to visit early next week,” Robert said in the
doorway.
 
“I hope everything goes
well with your guests until then.”

“They’re meant
to be gone by that time,” Joan told him.
 
“William said they wouldn’t be staying through the entire weekend,
whatever that means.”

“Well, good
luck,”
Robert
said.
 
He crossed the porch and headed down the
stairs with Janet and Joan watching.
 
Janet continued to watch as he climbed into his car and drove away.

“What did he
want?” she asked Joan as the car disappeared around the corner.

“He was just
checking in on us,” Joan said as she plumped the pillow on the nearest chair.

“Why?” Janet
demanded.

“Because
that’s all part of his job?” Joan suggested.
 
“He’s responsible for
Doveby
Dale and likes to know what’s happening all around
the place.”

“He seemed
very interesting in William Chalmers’s friends,” Janet said thoughtfully.

“They were the
only interesting thing we had to tell him,” Joan pointed out.

Janet had to
laugh.
 
“I suppose you’re right,” she
said.

The sisters
spent the rest of the day feeling as if they were just waiting for their guests
to return.
 
Janet did some more work
in the library, but she wasn’t really in the mood.
 
After clearing and cleaning a few
shelves, she gave up for the day.
 
After making certain that the mysterious panel was completely covered
up, she locked up the library and curled up with her book instead.
 
She was just pages away from discovering
who was behind the art forgeries when Joan called to her from the kitchen.

“Janet?
 
We may as well have dinner.
 
We don’t know when the Stones will be
back.”

Janet glanced
at the clock and was surprised to find that it was half six.
 
She hadn’t
realised
it was that late.
 
Her tummy
rumbled, letting her know that it had noticed the passage of time, even if her
brain hadn’t.

In the
kitchen, Joan was standing the middle of the room, frowning.
 
“I had meals planned for four people
while the Stones were going to be here,” she told Janet.
 
“I’m going to have to freeze a great
deal.”

Before Janet
could reply, the sisters heard the front door opening.
 
Janet hurried to the sitting room,
reminding herself along the way that the Stones had a key and it was highly
unlikely to be anyone else.

“Ah, we’re
back,” Harold
Stone
said brightly when he spotted
Janet.
 

“I see that,”
Janet replied.

Mildred looked
over at her and gave her a crooked grin.
 
“You said something about food earlier,” she said.
 
“I’m starving.”

Janet felt
herself pressing her lips together firmly.
 
Although she was no expert, it seemed to her that Harold and Mildred
were both rather drunk.
 

“We have
shepherd’s pie with veggies,” Joan announced, having joined Janet.
 
“With Victoria sponge for pudding.”

“Oh, I never
eat pudding,” Mildred said, slurring her words slightly.
 
“Too fattening.”

“You know I
love you anyway,” Harold said loudly.
 
“Have some cake.
 
I want some
cake.”

“Dinner’s just
about ready if you want to freshen up, then,” Joan announced.

“I’ll just do
that,” Mildred replied.
 
She headed
towards the stairs, but it seemed as if she couldn’t manage to walk in a
straight line.
 
Instead, she
stumbled sideways to the left, nearly bumping into Janet, then abruptly back to
the right, lurching past the stairs and nearly falling over.
 

“Oh, never
mind,” she said brightly.
 
“I’ll
freshen up later.”

“If you’d like
to take seats in the dining room, I’ll bring the food through to you,” Joan
said stiffly.
 
She turned and walked
back into the kitchen, leaving Janet to show their guests through to the dining
room.

“Please sit
anywhere,” Janet said as she escorted the pair into the room.
 
Harold fell heavily into the first chair
he came to at the large rectangular table.
 
Mildred giggled as she brushed past him and sank down in a seat next to
him.
 

“I need a
glass of wine,” she said loudly.

“I’m sorry, we
don’t serve alcohol,” Janet told her, not feeling the least bit sorry.

Mildred
frowned and looked at her husband.
 
“Why are we eating here?” she demanded.