The Chalmers Case Read online

  The Chalmers Case

  A Markham Sisters Cozy

  Mystery Novella

  Diana Xarissa

  Text Copyright © 2015 Diana Xarissa

  All Rights Reserved

  For David and Catherine,

  because everything I do is for them, really.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to the many people who work with me on my stories.

  Denise, my editor, who has better things to do than edit my books, but does it anyway.

  Charlene and Janice, my beta readers, who manage to find time to fit in extra reading when I send them yet another manuscript.

  My readers, who make what I do so worth it. Please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you. (Contact details are in the back of the book.)

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  Letter to Bessie (part one)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Letter to Bessie (part two)

  Glossary of Terms

  Other Notes

  By the same author

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  I wasn’t planning to write a third story in this series until some time in 2016, but ideas just kept nagging at me until I did it anyway! As always, I suggest you read the stories in order (they run alphabetically), but you don’t have to; each story can be read on its own.

  If you haven’t read the others, you should know that the Markham sisters first appeared in Aunt Bessie Decides, book four in my Isle of Man Cozy Mysteries series. Janet has stayed in touch with Bessie, and I use parts of her letters to Bessie to open and close each novella. The letters have nothing to do with the Bessie series, and you don’t have to read that series to enjoy this one.

  I have used English spellings and terms and provided a glossary and some notes in the back of the book to help readers outside the UK with anything that might be unfamiliar. The longer I remain in the US, the greater the likelihood of Americanisms sneaking into the text, although I do try to eliminate them.

  This is a work of fiction and all of the characters are fictional creations. Any resemblance that they may share with any real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The sisters live in a fictional village in Derbyshire. Although some shops or business may bear some resemblance to real-life businesses, that is also coincidental.

  Please feel free to get in touch with any comments, questions, or concerns. I have a monthly newsletter that provides updates on new releases. All of the information about subscribing or getting in touch is available on the About the Author page at the back of the book.

  15 October 1998

  Dearest Bessie,

  What an exciting, albeit stressful, life you lead. I can’t imagine what it must be like to find a dead body. I know that I invite you to visit in every letter, but it really does seem as if you could use a holiday.

  We’ve finally started taking in a few paying guests, after having our first so unexpectedly last month. I do think Joan is in her element cooking for other people, but I do find it odd having strangers in the house. I’m not sure Joan is as eager to have guests as she once was, though.

  You see, having guests led to our own little bit of excitement earlier this month. No one got murdered, but the police were involved anyway. It all started when Joan and I decided to do some shopping that we’d been putting off.

  Chapter One

  “How are you getting on?”

  Janet dropped the book she was holding and spun around. “I didn’t hear you coming,” she exclaimed.

  “Clearly not, or you would have put the book down and at least pretended to be working,” Joan retorted.

  Janet flushed. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but her older sister was right. If she’d heard Joan coming towards the small library in the back of their house, she would have stopped reading and returned to work. As it was, Joan had caught her doing what she loved best, rather than doing what she was meant to be doing.

  “I’m getting there,” she said defensively. “It’s a huge job, cleaning and reorganising our library.”

  “And it will take much longer if you stop to read every book,” Joan pointed out.

  “I’m not trying to read them all,” Janet said. “That one just caught my eye, that’s all.”

  Joan picked up the book from the floor. “The Missing Picture,” she read off the garish cover. “Not a very interesting title.”

  Janet shook her head. “It is rather dull, especially compared to the cover,” she replied. “I’ve only read the first chapter, but it’s all about art forgery and theft. I’m not sure what the knife dripping with blood on the cover has to do with the story, at least not yet.”

  “Is he a popular author?” Joan asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Janet replied with a shrug. “From what I can tell, the book was printed by a local printer here in Doveby Dale back in the fifties. I doubt they printed many copies.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “It is, actually, in spite of the boring title and the rather horrible cover. I was quite absorbed in it when you came in.”

  “Yes, I noticed,” Joan said dryly.

  Janet flushed again. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I’ll put it to one side and read later, after I’ve done some more cleaning. Feel free to help,” she added as she took the book from her sister and set it on the desk.

  “I’m trying to get lunch ready,” Joan replied. “I just came down to ask you if you would prefer to have sandwiches for lunch and shepherd’s pie for dinner or have them the other way around.”

  Janet thought for a minute. “I suppose sandwiches for lunch,” she said eventually. “That won’t take very long, so I can get even more work done in here before dinner.”

  “Actually, I thought we might go out after lunch,” Joan told her. “I’d like to do some shopping.”

  Janet frowned. What was her sister planning now? “I didn’t know we needed anything,” she said, avoiding questioning her sister outright.

  “It’s high time we found some artwork for the guest rooms. WTC Antiques and Collectibles is having their grand opening today. I heard an advert on the radio while I was tidying the kitchen.”

  “I don’t know that I want to shop there,” Janet said thoughtfully. “I really don’t like William Chalmers. I’m not sure I want to help support his new business. I think I’d rather he moved away.”

  The sisters had met William Chalmers, the owner of the new village antique shop, some weeks earlier when he’d come to ask them to sell him some books for his store. He’d been rude and obnoxious each time they’d seen him since and had developed a reputation in the village for being demanding and difficult.

  “I don’t like the man, either, but Doveby Dale is a small village, and I think that as owners of the only bed and breakfast here, we have to support our fellow business owners, even if they are disagreeable.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Janet sighed.

  “Apparently the entire store is on sale because of the grand opening,” Joan added. “We could use a bargain.”

  Janet nodded. The pair had used a small inheritance and the proceeds from the sale of their previous home to purchase Doveby House several months earlier. Although they’d both always been frugal, they’d spent a great deal of their savings on painting and redecorating the seventeenth-century manor house. While they both agreed that a few pictures would enhance the décor in the guest
rooms, neither sister wanted to spend much money on acquiring them.

  “Okay, I’ll work really hard all morning and then, after lunch, we can go and see what Mr. Chalmers has on offer,” Janet said.

  “Excellent,” Joan replied. “Maybe I’ll be able to see some progress by the time I come back to tell you when lunch is ready.”

  Janet waited until her sister was out of sight before she stuck out her tongue. She sighed. Joan was eager to get the library finished. It was the last thing standing in the way of their opening for business. Janet was less enthusiastic about welcoming strangers into their home.

  Buying a bed and breakfast had been Joan’s idea. The sisters had both retired as schoolteachers from the same primary school in the past year. They’d lived together their entire lives, both enjoying working with children, but neither interested in starting a family of her own. Usually it was Janet who suggested their doing out of the ordinary things, and she had been dumbfounded when Joan suddenly began talking about buying Doveby House and starting their own business.

  Now, a few months into owning the house, Janet was running out of excuses to keep Joan from taking in guests. The last bit of the house that needed finishing was the library, and Janet had insisted that she be allowed to do all of the work herself. Joan had agreed, but now she was pushing Janet to get the job done.

  Janet was starting by removing the books shelf by shelf and then cleaning each shelf. Then she was dusting all of the books before returning them to their original position. After working intermittently for the past fortnight, she had two walls of shelves finished and two to go. It was tiring work and she was starting to think that maybe she ought to just dust the books in situ and worry about deeper cleaning another time. After the cleaning was done, she’d start sorting the books into categories and seeing exactly what they had. Janet was looking forward to that part.

  Resisting the temptation to sigh again, she carefully slid several books off the next shelf. It took a while to remove them all and she had to fight hard against the urge to at least glance at the titles as she stacked them on the desk. Joan was right; if she stopped to read every single book, she’d never get the library done.

  “And then we wouldn’t have to have guests,” she muttered to herself.

  The previous month, the sisters had found themselves with an unexpected first guest. He’d paid very well for just a few nights and Janet had found herself being romanced by the handsome visitor who may or may not have been some sort of spy. It had been a strange first experience with a paying guest and Janet wasn’t encouraged to try the whole thing again.

  She sprayed polish on the now cleared shelf and carefully wiped away the years of accumulated dust and grime. It seemed likely that no one had ever taken down the books from the shelves for cleaning purposes and Janet frowned as she cleared away a dried up spider corpse. The poor thing must have been living behind the books for many years and simply died of old age.

  The walls were completely covered in bookshelves, but the shelves were in sections of six feet each, rather than running continuously along the entire wall. Now, as Janet started to dust each book and return it to its place, she noticed that there was something odd about the shelf itself. She was working her way down along the shelving unit along the wall. The top three shelves had been exactly like all of the others, but this one was different.

  Where the side of the shelf met the wall, instead of solid wood, there was a small panel of a different sort of wood. Janet ran her fingers along it. She could feel a small gap all the way around the panel. When she tapped on it, she could hear what she fancied was a hollow sound. She rapped on the wood around the panel and was instantly pleased to find that it sounded different. Pulling a few books off the next shelf down, Janet was disappointed that there was only the ordinary shelf behind them. She knocked on it as well, hearing the same sort of sound she’d heard from the wood around the panel.

  “What on earth is all that banging?” Joan asked from the doorway.

  “I seem to have found some sort of sliding panel or something,” Janet said excitedly. “Come and see.”

  Joan took a couple of steps towards her sister and glanced at the wall. “It’s probably a removable section to access a plug socket behind it or something,” she said dismissively.

  Janet frowned. Her sister was probably right. They’d already found a wall safe, hidden behind a small picture that neither of them had even noticed initially among the sea of books. It was highly unlikely that this was another hiding place. She tapped on it again and then tried to slide it sideways. When it didn’t move in either direction, she tried going up and down with it, but that wasn’t any more successful.

  “It won’t move,” she told her sister.

  “As we don’t need to plug anything in, I can’t see what difference it makes,” Joan said with a shrug. “Lunch will be ready in about an hour. Maybe you can finish that set of shelves before midday?”

  Janet nodded, but she was only half listening. She really wanted to get the small panel open. “Maybe there’s a button somewhere that makes it slide,” she muttered to herself.

  “Maybe, if we’ve just fallen into a James Bond film,” Joan said tartly.

  “There must be a way to get it open,” Janet said.

  “Perhaps we should just hire someone to come in and sort out the library,” Joan said in a thoughtful tone. “Although I’m not sure we can afford to do that as we are rather broke.”

  “We aren’t broke,” Janet said firmly. “We both have our pensions and they are more than adequate to cover our expenses, as long as we’re careful.”

  “But if we had paying guests, we wouldn’t have to be as careful,” Joan pointed out.

  “As if you’re suddenly going to start being extravagant,” Janet said with a laugh. “You just want to have lots of people tell you what a wonderful cook you are, that’s all.”

  Now it was Joan’s cheeks that reddened. “Is that what you think this is all about?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know what this is all about,” Janet replied. “One day we were enjoying our retirement and talking about travelling more and the next day we bought a bed and breakfast. You never did offer me any explanation.”

  “Do you remember the year we stayed in that little bed and breakfast in Wales?” Joan asked her. “It was a tiny little house almost right on the beach, with only one guest room that we had to share with Mum and Dad.”

  “With mum and dad?” Janet asked. “How old were you?”

  “Oh, maybe eight or nine,” Joan replied.

  “So I was six or seven,” Janet said. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t remember. That was over fifty years ago. Why?”

  “It was the best holiday I’ve ever had,” Joan told her. “The woman who ran the place was an excellent cook, and as it rained pretty much the entire fortnight we were there, we spent a lot of time in the house. She let me help out in the kitchen and taught me just about everything I know about baking.”

  “I didn’t know that. I mean, I know mum wasn’t much for baking, but I didn’t realise you learned to bake from a Welsh woman who ran a bed and breakfast.”

  “She was very kind, and I told mum and dad that when I grew up I wanted to have a bed and breakfast just like hers,” Joan said.

  “And mum and dad said it was a bad idea and that you should be a teacher,” Janet added.

  Joan smiled sadly. “Exactly, but how did you know that?”

  “Because that’s what they told me every time I went to them with yet another idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

  “I remember you wanted to be a pilot during the war,” Joan reminded her. “I think mum and dad were right to discourage you from that.”

  “That was one of my wilder ambitions,” Janet said, smiling at the memory. “I also wanted to disguise myself as a boy and join the army when I was nine or ten, just as the war was coming to an end. Not all of my ideas were foolish, though, but whatever I said, mum and
dad always insisted that teaching was best.”

  “And they were right,” Joan said firmly.

  “Probably,” Janet said after a moment. “But I still wish I’d felt as if I had more choices.”

  “Women didn’t in those days,” Joan reminded her. “And mum and dad were doing what they thought was best, anyway. They wanted to be certain that we’d be able to find good jobs, and be able to look after ourselves until we found husbands.”

  “And we’re still working on that one,” Janet said with a laugh.

  “I’m not,” Joan said tartly.

  “And yet you’re the only one of us who is dating right now,” Janet pointed out.

  “Michael is just a friend,” Joan replied, her eyes not meeting Janet’s.

  “And he’s lovely and smart and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be having fun with him,” Janet told her.

  Michael Donaldson was their neighbour. He lived in one of the pair of semi-detached houses across the road from them. A widower who had once had his own chemist shop, he was retired now. He and Joan had been going out together for several weeks. Joan had never dated before and the pair was taking their relationship very slowly.

  “Anyway, ever since that holiday, I’ve always dreamt of opening my own bed and breakfast, but I never talked about it because it seemed like an impossible idea,” Joan said. “And now, after all these years, my dream might just come true. If you ever finish tidying the library, that is.”

  With that, Joan turned and headed back towards the kitchen. “Lunch is at midday,” she reminded her sister from the doorway.

  “I’ll be there,” Janet assured her. After Joan left, she glanced around the room and sighed deeply. Now that she knew what was motiving her sister, Janet felt as if she needed to hurry. She was standing in the way of her sister accomplishing a dream that was more than fifty years in the making. With one last push in every direction, Janet gave up on the mysterious panel and began to quickly dust books and return them to their shelf. By the time the clock in the sitting room began its twelve chimes, she’d finished the shelves by the door and started on the next set.