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

by Diana Xarissa

  By the time she’d eaten the last bite of her chocolate mousse, Janet couldn’t quite remember why she hadn’t like the man. He was charming and erudite as well as quite handsome. She held his arm a little more tightly as he escorted her back to his car.

  “It’s a lovely night for a drive,” Edward said after he’d climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Janet burst out laughing. The wind had picked up and it was raining heavily. The sentiment was romantic, but it was a crazy idea.

  “Yeah, okay, maybe not,” Edward said with a chuckle. “I’m just having such a wonderful time, I don’t want the evening to end.”

  “It’s getting late,” Janet said, glancing at her watch. “I have to get up early to help Joan get breakfast for our guest.”

  Edward frowned. “Don’t worry about breakfast for me,” he told her. “Not if it means you have to get up early.”

  “I always get up early,” Janet told him. “Joan and I have always been morning people.”

  “I’m a night owl,” Edward replied. “And right now I’d like nothing more than to sit up all night getting to know you better.”

  Janet blushed. “I’m flattered, but I’m also very tired,” she said. “I think I need to call it a night.”

  “I guess I shall have to simply extend my stay,” he said as he put the car into gear. “I was only going to stay one more night, but that isn’t nearly enough time to get to know you properly.”

  Janet sat back in her seat and thought about his words. She’d enjoyed the evening far more than she thought she would, but thinking about getting to know Edward better was worrying. Not only was he rather more sophisticated than the men she had dated when she was younger, there was also still the remote possibility that he was the escaped fugitive Robert Parsons was chasing.

  She thought about their conversation and the ease with which the man used various accents. Was it possible that he hadn’t heard about Maggie’s death because he’d been in prison for the last year?

  Chapter Six

  Once Edward parked the car, Janet climbed out quickly.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening,” she called, heading towards the house before he’d even finished getting out of the car.

  “You’re very welcome,” he answered smoothly, catching up to her with a few long strides. He took her arm and helped her up the steps to the front door.

  Before Janet could find her keys, the door swung open.

  “There you are,” Joan said. “I was just heading to bed and saw the car lights.”

  Janet grinned and then stepped into the house. “We had such a wonderful meal,” she told her sister. “Come up to my room with me and I’ll tell you all about it while I get ready for bed.”

  Joan locked the front door and the two sisters headed for the stairs, leaving Edward standing in the middle of the sitting room.

  “Thank you again,” Janet said with a small wave as she exited the room.

  Upstairs, Janet told her sister about the evening, focussing on the food but also repeating a few of Edward’s stories about his travels.

  “So do you think he’s Peter Smith?” Joan asked when Janet had finished.

  “I don’t know,” Janet answered anxiously. “I suppose he could be, but he’s so very charming as well.”

  “But con men have to be charming, don’t they?” Joan countered.

  “I guess that rules Leonard Simmons out, then, doesn’t it?” Janet asked, giggling.

  “You could be right,” Joan said with a smile.

  After Joan left, Janet locked her door and got ready for bed. She climbed into bed and grabbed the book that was on her nightstand. Feeling far too restless to sleep, she decided to read a few chapters before she turned out the light. Ten minutes later she was fed up with the book and feeling even more unsettled than she had before she’d crawled into bed.

  “There’s a whole library full of books just downstairs,” a little voice in her head whispered. Janet told the voice to be quiet and read another paragraph, but it was no good. The book was one she had read before and it couldn’t hold her interest. All she could think about was the shelves and shelves of books on the floor below her.

  “It’s my house,” she said loudly to no one. “If I want to go and get a book, I can.”

  She opened her door as quietly as she could and then looked up and down the short corridor. Nothing was moving, so she slipped out of her room and shut her door behind her. She locked it carefully and then crept to the stairs. Stepping carefully to avoid making any noise, she made her way down to the ground floor. It was dark, but there was enough light from the moon streaming in various windows that Janet felt fairly confident that she could move through the house without turning on any lights. She reached the television room without incident and was relieved to find it empty.

  Just as she was about to cross to the library door, she heard a faint creaking noise. Stepping back into the sitting room, she slipped behind the door between the two rooms. The library door opened slowly, creaking again as it did so. A moment later Edward emerged from the room. He turned and did something to the door that he’d closed behind him. After glancing left and right, he made his way through the television room and then through the sitting room.

  Janet held her breath as he walked past her and then headed up the stairs. She listened to his footsteps on the stairs as they faded away. Making her way to the library, she checked the door. It was locked. Did Edward have his own key or had he somehow broken in and then managed to lock up behind himself, she wondered. She stood at the door, debating what to do, for several minutes. The sound of a car driving slowly past the house spooked her just enough to send her back up the stairs to her bedroom.

  She climbed the stairs as quietly as she could, slipping into her room. As she pushed her door shut, she was certain she heard the door to the west room across the hall opening. Turning her key in the lock as quietly as she could, Janet stood for several minutes listening. When she heard nothing at all, she sighed to herself and headed for bed. It seemed only a few moments later that the alarm she’d actually remembered to set for a change woke her.

  Joan was already working on preparing breakfast when Janet joined her at half seven.

  “I thought you might lie in after your late date,” Joan said as a greeting.

  “I didn’t think you’d approve,” Janet replied.

  While Joan did the cooking, Janet went out in the light rain to cut some flowers for the table. She was just arranging them into vases when Edward came into the kitchen.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said with a bright smile. “I hope everyone slept well.”

  “Very well, thanks,” Joan answered.

  “Yes, very well,” Janet muttered as she slid bread into the toaster.

  “Excellent,” he replied.

  Joan and Edward chatted about nothing at all over breakfast. Janet ate her share of everything, but she felt tired and out of sorts as she did so. Joan had made both tea and coffee and Janet found herself drinking cup after cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would make a difference.

  “Are you okay?” Edward asked, his voice full of concern, as Janet began to clear the dishes from the table.

  “I’m fine,” Janet replied. “Just a little tired.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want to have dinner with me again tonight?” he asked quietly.

  Janet glanced at her sister, but Joan was busy at the sink, running water for washing up.

  “I think I need an early night,” Janet replied, hoping he would accept the excuse.

  “Perhaps we should have lunch together instead,” he suggested.

  “I have to help Joan with things most of today,” Janet said, desperately trying to think of a more believable pretext to offer.

  Before Edward could reply, a chime sounded.

  “What’s that?” Joan asked.

  “It’s the bell on the conservatory door,” Edward told her. “You have a visitor.”

 
“I didn’t know there was a bell on those doors,” Joan said.

  Janet headed for the French doors, eager to get away from the conversation she’d been having. Stuart was standing outside the French doors with another man Janet had never seen before.

  “Hello, Stuart, how are you?” she asked after she’d opened the door.

  “I’m very well,” Stuart replied. “I just wanted to introduce you to someone. This is James Abbott. He’s Mary’s brother-in-law and he’s just here visiting for a few days.”

  Janet smiled and shook hands with the man. He looked to be somewhere in his sixties, with short grey hair in an almost military-style cut. His eyes were brown. He was around Stuart’s height, and looked similarly fit and healthy.

  “You’re Mary’s brother?” Janet asked, not sure she’d understood Stuart.

  “No, I’m her brother-in-law from her first marriage,” he explained in a soft voice. “Actually, I’m more like her step-brother-in-law or something like that, but we’ve never worried about the finer details.”

  Janet laughed. “Today’s modern families,” she said.

  “Exactly,” the man replied with a grin.

  “James will probably be helping me while he’s here, just so he has something to do,” Stuart told her. “He worked in the gardens of a few stately homes over the years, so he’s very well qualified. Anyway, I didn’t want you to see him poking around behind your house and worry about who he was.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Joan said from behind Janet.

  After everyone had been properly introduced, the two men turned towards the garden. “We’re just going to check on those weeds,” Stuart told the sisters. “They might need a second treatment.”

  The light rain had stopped and the sun was at least trying to dry things out. Janet and Joan headed back inside.

  “Another man around the right age to be the missing criminal,” Joan remarked.

  “Surely he can’t be if he’s Mary’s brother-in-law,” Janet replied.

  “It seemed a tenuous relationship, from what he said,” Joan said. “If they aren’t close, maybe she doesn’t know about his criminal history.”

  “Or maybe Edward is the man the police are looking for,” Janet suggested.

  “Or Leonard,” Joan added. “Don’t forget to add Leonard to the suspect list.”

  Janet laughed. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

  “Michael called this morning and said he was going to take Leonard into Sheffield for some sightseeing and lunch. They’re going to some sporting event later and having dinner at some pub. He did invite me to join them for the latter two things, but I politely declined.”

  “He’s only here for a few days, right?” Janet asked. “I’m sure Michael will make things up to you once Leonard has gone.”

  “If I give him the chance to do so,” Joan said grudgingly.

  “But where is Edward?” Janet asked, suddenly noticing his absence.

  “He was right behind me when I followed you to the door,” Joan replied. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

  Janet walked into the sitting room just in time to watch Edward’s car driving away from Doveby House.

  “I guess he changed him mind about lunch,” Janet said, feeling hurt.

  “Maybe someone rang him or something,” Joan suggested.

  “Maybe.” Janet shrugged. “I told him I was busy, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “He makes me nervous,” Janet replied. “And he could be a conman. And he was in the library last night.”

  “What do you mean, he was in the library last night?” Joan demanded.

  Janet told her what she’d seen when she’d come downstairs in the middle of the night.

  “Do you think he took anything?” Joan asked.

  “I think we should check,” Janet replied.

  In the library, Janet headed straight to the desk, while Joan scanned the shelves.

  “There don’t seem to be any gaps anywhere,” Joan said after several minutes. “But I suppose he could have switched something on our shelves with a different book and we’d never notice.”

  “I will organise the books one day,” Janet said. “I wasn’t expecting guests, remember.”

  Joan nodded. “Let’s not argue about that,” she said. “I assumed we didn’t need to worry as we can lock the library. I don’t know how Edward managed to get in, but clearly the lock wasn’t able to stop him.”

  Janet had been going through the desk drawers, but nothing seemed to have been touched. She opened the bottom drawer and pulled out the file folders inside it.

  “What do you have there?” Joan inquired.

  “Some very personal letters that Maggie Appleton received from various suitors,” Janet told her. “I haven’t read them, but I did glance through them all. One set came from a man named Edward. Maybe that’s what he was after.”

  Janet flipped through the folders, but nothing seemed to be missing. The letters from Edward were still there.

  “Is anything missing?” Joan asked.

  Janet shrugged. “I didn’t count the letters or anything. He could have taken a few, I guess, but from what I remember everything is here.”

  “So why was he in the library?” Joan wondered.

  Janet sat in the desk chair and looked slowly around the room. Nothing looked any different to the last time she’d been in there.

  “Once he’s gone, we need to make sure we take a proper inventory of the whole house before we have any more guests,” Janet said.

  “That painting is crooked,” Joan pointed out. She walked over to the small painting that Janet had barely noticed. It was hanging on the wall, sandwiched between shelves, not just on either side of it but also above and below it.

  Joan pushed up on the bottom right corner of the picture, causing it to swing off-centre in the other direction. She tried again, gently attempting to straighten the artwork, but again she failed.

  Janet had joined her by now and she reached over and pulled the picture off the wall. Both women gasped. Behind the painting, built into the wall, was a small safe.

  “I suspect we might have just found what Edward was doing in the library,” Janet said in a whisper.

  “How would he even know this was here?” Joan asked. “And why didn’t anyone tell us?”

  “He and Maggie were very close, apparently,” Janet replied, aware that she sounded quite cross as she spoke. “And perhaps no one else knew about the safe,” she added.

  Joan reached out and pulled on the safe’s door, but it didn’t open. She spun the dial a few times and then sighed. “Want to guess the combination?”

  Janet sighed as well. “We could guess a million times and never get it right,” she said grumpily. “We don’t even know how many numbers are in the combination.”

  “You could ask Edward,” Joan suggested.

  “No way,” Janet replied. “We’ll have to hire someone to open it for us.”

  “That will probably be costly and ruin the safe,” Joan argued. “I’ll ask him if you won’t. I’ll just mention that we found the safe and wondered if he knew the combination, that’s all. He doesn’t have to know that you saw him coming out of here last night.”

  Janet sighed again. She couldn’t explain to her sister exactly how she felt. She wasn’t even sure herself. The thought that Edward might know the combination to Maggie Appleton’s safe just made her feel uncomfortable. It suggested an even greater intimacy than she’d already assumed they’d shared. The letters spoke of physical closeness, but sharing the combination to a hidden safe suggested a more serious commitment.

  Before the sisters could discuss things further, they heard someone knocking on the front door.

  “I’ll tidy up in here,” Janet told her sister. “You go and see who’s at the door.”

  Joan headed out while Janet quickly rehung the painting. She collected the folders full of letters and dropped them into the bottom drawer, sliding i
t shut. After a quick glance around the room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, she switched off the light and shut the door.

  “Hardly worth locking it,” she muttered to herself as she turned the key in the lock.

  She could hear her sister’s voice coming from the sitting room, along with a deeper voice that she didn’t recognise.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think so,” Joan was saying as Janet entered the room.

  Joan was standing in the centre of the room with her hands on her hips. She didn’t even glance at Janet, instead keeping her eyes pinned on the man standing across from her.

  Janet studied the stranger. He was another grey-haired man who looked to be somewhere in his sixties. He was dressed in a dark grey suit that fit him perfectly and he was clearly trying to smile in the face of Joan’s upset.

  Chapter Seven

  “What’s going on?” Janet asked.

  “Good morning,” the man said, giving Janet a smarmy smile. “You must be the other Markham sister. I’ve heard so much about you both.”

  “Really?” Janet replied. “I hope you didn’t believe any of it.”

  The man laughed, an annoyingly grating sound. “I only believed the good things,” he said.

  “Who are you?” Janet asked, tired of being polite.

  “How remiss of me,” the man said. “I introduced myself to your sister, of course. I’m William Chalmers.” He said it as if she ought to know the name. Then he offered his hand and Janet took a few steps towards him to take it.

  “I’m Janet Markham,” she replied. He held her hand for a moment or two longer than she felt was necessary. As soon as he let go, she took a step backwards.

  “I’m sorry, but your name means nothing to me,” she told him, watching him closely. Something like annoyance flashed over his features before his artificial smile slid back into place.

  “I had hoped that the small business owners of Doveby Dale would stick together and support one another,” he replied. “Perhaps that was overly optimistic of me.”