The Bennett Case (A Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Book 2) (10 page)

The sound of
the front door opening made her snap her mouth shut.

“And he’s
back,” Joan hissed.
 
“At least I
hope it’s him.”

The two
sisters headed for the sitting room, with Joan in the lead.

“Ah, it is
you,” she said loudly as she walked into the room.

“It is me,”
Edward said with a bright smile.
 
“I
hope you haven’t sat up waiting for me to get home.”

“Of course
not,” Janet said too loudly.
 
“We
were just having a snack and chatting.
 
It’s only.” she trailed off as she glanced at the clock, “…midnight,”
she added in a surprised tone.

“Where did the
evening go?” Joan asked.
 
“I guess
Michael never managed to get away.”

“Clearly not,”
Janet said.
 
“Anyway, as it is so
very late, I’m off to bed.”
 
She
headed for the stairs as quickly as she could, not wanting to get caught alone
with Edward.
 

“What would
you like for breakfast tomorrow?” Janet heard her sister ask the man.
 
Clearly Joan had
realised
the reason for Janet’s haste and was helping her sister get away.
 
Janet didn’t wait to hear Edward’s
reply.

In her
favourite
nightgown, with her teeth brushed and her face
washed, Janet climbed into bed.
 
She
was just finding her place in her book when someone knocked on her door.
 
It had be Joan, she decided.
 
Edward wouldn’t visit this late at
night.
 
She crossed the room and
opened the door a crack, frowning as she
realised
she
was mistaken.

“Janet, we
really need to talk,” Edward said quietly.
 
“And I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“I thought you
were staying a few more days,” Janet hissed back.

“I thought I
was, but my plans have changed again.”

“Well, this
isn’t the time to discuss things,” Janet said firmly.
 
“We can talk over breakfast.”

Edward
frowned.
 
“I don’t want to talk in
front of your sister,” he objected.

Janet shook
her head.
 
“Then you’ll have to find
time for a short conversation after breakfast,” she said.
 
“I’m going to bed now.”

She shut the
door in Edward’s face, feeling fed up with the man.
 
Cosy
midnight
chats were exciting when she was in her twenties, but now she needed her sleep
if she were going to be able to function the next day.
 
Tomorrow she was determined to figure
out who Peter Smith was, although Edward’s recent
behaviour
seemed to suggest that he might be the man Robert Parsons was looking for.

She climbed
back into bed and burrowed under the covers.
 
Half an hour later she threw back the
duvet and sat up.
 
I should have
just had the stupid conversation, she said to herself.
 
There was no way she was going to be
able to sleep without knowing what Edward wanted.
 
She paced around her bedroom, debating
what to do.
 
Creeping downstairs for
a cup of tea held some appeal, but, having sent Edward away so that she could
sleep, she really didn’t want to run into him now.
 

The book on
her nightstand didn’t appeal in the slightest, but she forced herself to read a
chapter from it.
 
When she’d yawned
for the tenth time, she slid back down in the bed and shut her eyes
tightly.
 
Counting backwards from a
thousand, she finally fell into a restless sleep around twenty-seven.
 
Joan was knocking on her door only a
short time later.

Chapter Ten

“You look
terrible,” Joan greeted her.

“You don’t
look so great yourself,” Janet retorted.
 
She knew she was a mess, with uncombed hair and tired eyes, but Joan
looked as if she hadn’t slept either.

“I couldn’t
sleep,” Joan replied.
 
“This Peter
Smith thing is starting to bother me.”

“I’ll just
take a quick shower and then I’ll be down to help with breakfast,” Janet said,
yawning.
 
“And while we’re cooking,
we’ll figure everything out.”

Joan
grinned.
 
“I hope we do,” she
replied.

Janet shut the
door behind her and then raced into the bathroom.
 
After another very quick shower, she got
dressed and fixed her hair and makeup.
 
She frowned at her reflection as she added her lipstick.
 

“You don’t
need to look your best,” she told herself sternly.
 
“The man is leaving.”

With that
depressing thought echoing through her head, she made her way down to the
kitchen.
 
Joan was pottering around,
doing nothing much as she waited for Edward to arrive.
 

“I’ve put the
coffee on,” Joan said.

Janet inhaled
the heady scent and smiled in spite of her mood.
 
She filled a mug and took a sip, feeling
the hot liquid rushing through her system.
 
“I needed that,” she told her sister.

“We both did,”
Joan replied, lifting her own mug to her lips.

Janet heard
Edward’s footsteps approaching the kitchen, and her heart raced.
 
Before he actually came through the
door, the bell on the conservatory door rang.

“I’ll go,”
Janet said, rushing out of the room.
 
She passed Edward on her way and shouted a quick “good morning” at
him.
 
He replied in kind, sounding a
bit bewildered.

“Stuart, to
what do we owe this pleasure?” Janet asked as she opened the glass door.

“I was just
hoping that James and I could get a
cuppa
from you
before we get started in the garden,” Stuart said.
 
“Mary’s had to go out first thing and
she’s actually taken our kettle with her.”

“I’m not sure
I want to know why,” Janet said with a laugh.
 
“Do come in.
 
Of course you’re more than welcome.”

“She gone to
help her youngest move house,” Stuart explained as they walked to the
kitchen.
 
“They’ve the movers in all
day and Mary figured the men will need tea at some point, probably after her
son’s kettle is already packed.
 
She
took our kettle, milk, sugar and several packets of biscuits.”

“Very sensible,”
Janet replied.
 
“You do have to keep
the moving men happy, don’t you?”

In the
kitchen, Edward was sitting at the table sipping a hot drink while Joan fixed
his breakfast.

“Stuart and
James need a drink before they start,” Janet told her sister.
 
“I hope you managed to get some
breakfast before Mary left,” she said to Stuart.

“We didn’t,
actually,” Stuart replied.
 
“I’d
love some toast, if it isn’t too much bother.”

“I can do you
both a full English breakfast, if you’d like,” Joan said from where she was
frying eggs.
 

“That would be
wonderful,” Stuart said.

“Yeah, great,”
James said with a grin as he took a seat at the table.

Janet poured
them each a mug of coffee and then tried to figure out how to help Joan without
getting in the way.
 
She gave up
when she heard the knock on the front door.

“Mr.
Chalmers?
 
What brings you here?”
she asked, keeping the door mostly shut.

The man gave
her a fake smile that made her think of a used-car salesman.
 
“I came to
apologise
,”
he said tightly.
 
“I think we got
off on the wrong foot and I wanted to make sure that you and your sister didn’t
have the wrong impression of me.”

Janet opened
her mouth, ready to tell him exactly what she thought of him, and then snapped
it shut.
 
If he really
was
going to be living in
Doveby
Dale, she and Joan would have to be able to get along with him.
 
“It’s fine, I’m sure,” she muttered
instead.

“If I could
just come in for a minute, I have a few things I’d like to discuss with you.”

Janet shook
her head.
 
“I’m sorry, but we’re in
the middle of breakfast,” she said.
 
“Maybe Joan and I could stop by your shop one day?”

“Breakfast?
 
I didn’t get any breakfast today.
 
I’m staying in that horrid little hotel
on the edge of town and they do ‘continental breakfast,’ which so far has consisted
of nothing but day-old bread rolls from some chain supermarket and cold
tea.
 
I’ll happily pay ten pounds
for a hot breakfast and a cup of coffee.”

Janet
frowned.
 
The last thing she wanted
to do was spend more time with the man.
 
But he was offering good money and she would happily sell him her
breakfast.
 
She was too tired to be
hungry.

“Come on in,
then,” she said with a sigh.
 

He followed
her eagerly through the sitting room and into the kitchen.
 
Joan was just starting to fill plates.

“Mr. Chalmers
is starving,” Janet announced.
 
“He’s happy to pay for a hot breakfast.”

Joan frowned
and Janet knew she’d be in trouble later.
 

“Do sit down,”
Joan told their new guest.
 
He
joined the other three men at the table while Joan cracked more eggs into the
frying pan.
 

“Perhaps we
should move into the dining room,” Edward suggested.
 
“Otherwise, you ladies have nowhere to
sit.”

“Oh, stay
where you are.
 
We can eat after you’ve
finished,” Joan told him.

Janet didn’t
dare argue with Joan, who was clearly in a bad mood.
 
Hearing someone knock was a relief.

“I’ll go,” she
called out, turning towards the front door.

“Whatever you
do, don’t invite
whoever
it is in for breakfast,” Joan
called after her.

Janet’s heart
sank when she saw Michael and Leonard on the doorstep.
 
How could she not invite them in?
 

“I just wanted
a quick word with Joan, if that’s okay?” Michael said as Janet invited them in.

“She’s just
making breakfast for, well, everyone,” Janet said with a laugh.
 
“Come on in and join the party.”

“Oh, I don’t
want to be in the way,” Michael protested.

“If you want
to wait in the sitting room for a few minutes, I can send her out,” Janet
suggested.

Michael and
Leonard sat down on the one of the couches and Janet went back to the kitchen.

“Michael is
here and he’d like a quick word with you,” she told Joan.

“I hope he’s
had breakfast,” Joan murmured as she quickly ducked out of the room.
 
A moment later she was back with Michael
and Leonard in tow.

“They haven’t
eaten,” she told Janet, giving her a look that seemed to dare Janet to argue.

“In that case,
we’d better move into the dining room,” Janet replied.
 

The six men were
quickly resettled.
  
The men who’d
already been given plates carried their own breakfast in with them.

“I’ll have
food out to the rest of you in a just a few minutes,” Joan told the others.

Janet was
quick to join her in the kitchen.

“Did you set
this up?” Joan hissed at her.

“What do you
mean?”

“Last night
you were saying that you wanted to get all the suspects together and now you
have,” Joan pointed out.
 
“Did you
plan this somehow?”

Janet shook
her head.
 
“I’m not that clever,”
she protested.
 
“And anyway, we’re
too busy making them all breakfast to ask them any questions.”

Joan shook her
head.
 
“I still think
it’s
Leonard,” she said firmly.

“And I still
think it’s William Chalmers,” Janet replied.

When someone
knocked on their door again, the sisters just looked at each other.
 

“We don’t know
anyone else,” Joan said with a small smile.

“Maybe it’s a
double-glazing salesman,” Janet suggested.
 

“I bet,
whoever it is, he or she is hungry,” Joan added wryly.

Janet laughed
and headed for the door.
 

“Constable
Parsons?
 
What brings you here?”

“I’m very
sorry, but I have reason to believe that Peter Smith is in your house,” the man,
dressed today in casual trousers and a polo shirt, said.
 
“I’d like to come in and arrest him, if
I may.”

Janet
flushed.
 
“Of course you can,” she
said, stepping backwards quickly.
 
“But
who….”

The man held
up a hand.
 
“If you could just show
me where everyone is?”

Janet nodded
and then led him through the kitchen to the dining room.
 
As the pair entered the room, the six
men stopped talking and looked up.

The policeman
cleared his throat just before the chaos began.

William
Chalmers jumped to his feet.
 
“You
called the police on me again?” he shouted.

“He’s the
cop?” James yelled, jumping up.

“Ethel sent
you, didn’t she?” Leonard asked in a resigned tone.

Robert cleared
his throat again, but James pushed past him and ran.
 

“Stop him,”
Robert shouted, chasing after the man.

“Stop him?”
Joan echoed from the kitchen, looking confused as the men ran past.
 
“How on earth am I meant to do that?”

Edward now
followed James and Robert through the kitchen towards the front of the
house.
 
It took James a moment to
get the door open, but then he was down the steps, running full speed towards
the road.

Robert wasn’t
far behind him and Edward had nearly caught up as well.
 
Janet found herself being joined by her
sister and the others on the porch where they all stood silently, watching the
scene.
 

A car turned
onto the street and nearly hit James.
 
The driver slammed on the brakes, and then James ran around and tried to
open the passenger door.
 
When that
failed, he spun away from the car, but by that time both Robert and Edward had
caught up to him.
 
Robert took his
arm and with Edward’s help escorted him to his waiting car.
 
Once the man was locked in the back,
Robert and Edward had a short conversation, and then Robert waved to everyone
on the porch and got into his car.

Edward walked
back towards
Doveby
House slowly while the woman
who’d been driving the car that had almost hit James climbed out.

“What’s going
on?” she demanded angrily of no one.

Janet
recognised
Mary Long and called down to her.
 
“Mary, come on in and have some
breakfast,” she suggested.

Mary pulled
her car into
Doveby
House’s car park and then joined
Janet on the porch.
 
She was short
and slender and she looked as if she was in a bad mood.

Everyone else
had gone back inside as soon as the police car had driven away.
 
Now Edward joined Janet and Mary on the
porch.
 
He gave Janet’s hand a quick
squeeze before the trio turned and went into the house.

In the dining
room, Joan was distributing more plates, each one laden down with delicious
breakfast foods.
 

“I hope
someone can tell me what just happened to my brother-in-law,” Mary said
angrily.
 

“I thought you
were helping Philip all day,” Stuart said.

“Yes, well,
let’s just say Jennifer had other ideas,” Mary said sourly.
 

“Who’s
Jennifer?” Edward asked.

“Philip’s
wife,” Stuart replied.

“Ah,” Edward
hid a grin as he sat back down at the table.

“What happened
to James?” Mary demanded as she sat down in the single empty seat at the table.

“His real name
isn’t James Abbott,” Edward told her.
 
“And he’s a notorious conman.”

“Yeah, I know
that,” Mary replied.
 
“He just got
out of prison and came to stay with us while he figures out what he wants to do
next.
 
So what?”

“Did he happen
to mention how he got out of prison?” Edward asked.

Mary shook her
head and sighed.
 
“He escaped again,
didn’t he?”
 
She shook her
head.
 
“That man will never learn.”

“How are you
related exactly?” Edward asked.

Mary
laughed.
 
“I have no idea,” she
admitted.
 
“We first met about
twenty years ago at a family party.
 
He claimed to have been briefly married to my stepsister who had
emigrated
to New Zealand a few years earlier.
 
He was funny and charming and it didn’t
really seem to matter.”