A Country Catastrophe: A Jane Carter Historical Cozy (Book Five) (Jane Carter Historical Cozy Mysteries 5)

by Alice Simpson

  A Country Catastrophe

  A Jane Carter Historical Cozy

  Book Five

  By Alice Simpson

  In this Series:

  Peril At The Pink Lotus (Book One)

  Room Seven (Book Two)

  The Missing Groom (Book Three)

  The Oblivious Heiress (Book Four)

  A Country Catastrophe (Book Five)

  Robbery at Roseacres (Book Six)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Country Catastrophe: A Jane Carter Historical Cozy©2018 Alice Simpson. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Inspiration for this series: This series is an adaption of Mildred Wirt’s Penny Parker Mysteries which have fallen into the public domain. Although the author has made extensive alterations and additions to both the plots and characters, readers familiar with Ms. Wirt’s books will recognize many elements of both from the originals.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter One

  As I walked through the dimly-lit newsroom of the Greenville Examiner, my rubber heels made no sound on the bare, freshly mopped floor. The final night edition of the paper had gone to press half an hour earlier, and only the scrubwomen remained at work. One of the women arrested a long sweep of her mop just in time to avoid splashing me with water.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t look for someone to come so very late.”

  “Oh, curfew never rings for me,” I said, side-stepping a puddle of water. “I’m likely to be abroad at any hour.”

  At the far end of the long room, a light glowed behind a frosted glass door marked: “Anthony Fielding—Editor.” I paused, opened the door a tiny crack, and rumbled in a deep voice:

  “Hands up! I have you covered!”

  Taken by surprise, my father swung quickly around, his swivel chair squeaking a loud protest.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that!” he grumbled. “You know it always makes me jump.”

  “Sorry, Dad,” I grinned, slumping into a leather chair beside his desk. “A young woman is allowed so few amusements, you know.”

  “Didn’t three hours watching moving pictures at the Pink Lotus Theater satisfy you?”

  “Oh, the show was worse than awful. Not even Florence liked it, and you know she’ll generally go back six or seven times to see anything with John Gilbert in it. She’s in love with him now, you know.”

  “I thought your friend Flo fancied herself madly in love with that Randolph Valentine,” my father said.

  “Rudolph. Valentino. And yes, the old infatuation still lingers, but it’s hard to keep a crush of that caliber going since Mr. Valentino hasn’t starred in a picture in ages. No, now Flo fancies herself the ideal woman to reform Mr. Gilbert.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, her being the daughter of a member of the clergy and all. She says she’s the ideal person to administer spiritual succor and prop up Mr. Gilbert’s weather-beaten soul.”

  “Is Mr. Gilbert’s soul weather-beaten?” my father asked.

  “His second marriage just went caput,” I said. “By the way, I brought up a delivery for you.”

  I removed a sealed yellow envelope from my purse.

  “I met a Western Union boy downstairs,” I explained. “He was looking for you. I paid for the message and saved him a trip upstairs. One dollar and ten cents, if you don’t mind.”

  Absently, my father took a crisp dollar bill from his pocket and reached for the telegram.

  “Don’t forget the dime,” I reminded him. “It may seem a trifle to you, but to a lady novelist who has to live on the pittance eked out from hours of grinding labor at the feet of the muse, a dollar and ten cents is not to be sneezed at.”

  “How is the sequel to Portia’s Premise going?” my father asked.

  “Perpetua’s Promise,” I corrected him. “It’s coming along in fits and starts.”

  Just last April, after years of dabbling in light serial fiction for the masses for such fly-by-night rags as Pittman’s All-Story Weekly, I’d finally sold my first novel.

  The first printing of Perpetua’s Pride had sold out, but I’d barely made back my advance, so even though the powers that be at Litchfield Press had seen fit to print a second run and advance me five-hundred dollars on the sequel, Perpetua’s Pride, I still felt the need to economize.

  “Why must you scrip and pinch?” my father said. “You earned more last month with your advance than what the Greenville Examiner took in from its three largest advertising accounts combined.”

  “I must scrip and pinch,” I said, “because the life of a lady novelist is fraught with peril. Plenty may rain down upon her in the spring of her career only to end in tears come the drought of summer. A young destitute widow must be always on her guard to keep the wolves of poverty at bay.

  “Well, looking at the condition of your shoes,” said my father, “I’d say the wolves of poverty have already been having a good gnaw on them. If Mrs. Timm’s catches you going about in public wearing shoes in that condition, she’ll die of embarrassment.”

  “Speaking of Mrs. Timms, “I said. “When are you going to take me up on my offer of financing your honeymoon cruise, cabin class, of course.”

  My father turned the color of beetroot, his perpetual habit whenever I mention his only-recently-exposed clandestine romance with our housekeeper, Mrs. Timms.

  I’ve been hoping for years that they will someday center-aisle it, but ever since I discovered that my father and Mrs. Timms have been hotsey-totsey since I was barely out of pinafores, they’ve both been remarkably resistant to making it official. Whenever I bring up the subject, my father finds a way to transition to another topic.

  “If you’re so concerned about financial stability,” said my father, “I know of a nice young reporter who’d be happy to offer you his hand and ho—”

  “Dad!” I protested. “Just because Jack Bancroft and I step out from time-to-time to see a picture together.”

  “From time-to-time? I was under the impression that the two of you were practically attached at the hip these days.”

  Dad was right, but I was loath to admit it. Jack and I have become so inseparable that I’m beginning to feel a bit bad for Florence. Flo has been my fast companion since we were toddlers, and now she’s been suddenly relegated to role of third-wheel.

  Dad tossed me over another quarter to pay for the telegram, and I pocketed
it with deep satisfaction.

  Dad ripped open the envelope, and, as he scanned the telegram, his face darkened.

  “Dad, what’s wrong?”

  My father crumpled the sheet into a ball and hurled it toward the wastepaper basket.

  “Your aim gets worse every day,” I said, stooping to retrieve the paper. I smoothed it out and read aloud:

  “YOUR EDITORIAL ‘FREEDOM OF THE PRESS’ IN THURSDAY’S EXAMINER THOROUGHLY DISGUSTED THIS READER. WHAT YOUR CHEAP PAPER NEEDS IS A LITTLE LESS FREEDOM AND MORE DECENCY. IF OUR FOREFATHERS COULD HAVE FORESEEN THE YELLOW PRESS OF TODAY, WE WOULD HAVE REGULATED IT, NOT MADE IT FREE. WHY DON’T YOU TAKE THAT AMERICAN FLAG OFF YOUR MASTHEAD AND SUBSTITUTE A CASH REGISTER? FLY YOUR TRUE COLORS AND SOFT-PEDAL THE FIELDING BRAND OF HYPOCRISY!”

  “Stop it—don’t read another line!” Dad commanded before I had half finished.

  “Dad, you poor old wounded lion,” I said. “I thought you prided yourself that uncomplimentary opinions never disturbed you. Can’t you take it anymore?”

  “I don’t mind a few insults,” my father snapped, “but paying for them is another matter.”

  “That’s so, this little gem of literature did set you back one dollar and ten cents. Lucky I collected before you opened the telegram.”

  My father slammed his desk shut with a force which rattled the office windows.

  “This same crack-pot who signs himself ‘Disgusted Reader’ or ‘Seth Burrows,’ or whatever name suits his fancy, has sent me six telegrams in the past month. I’m getting fed up!”

  “All of the messages collect?”

  “Every last one of them. That nitwit has criticized everything from the Examiner’s comic strips to the advertising columns. I’ve had enough.”

  “Then why not do something about it? Refuse the telegrams.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Dad growled. “Each day the Examiner receives many ‘collect’ messages, hot news tips from out-of-town correspondents and from reporters who try to sell freelance stories. We’re glad to pay for those telegrams. This fellow who keeps bombarding us is just smart enough to use different names and send his wires from various places. Sometimes, he addresses the telegrams to me, and sometimes to City Editor DeWitt or one of the other staff members.”

  “In that case, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” I said. “How about drowning your troubles in a little sleep?”

  “It is late,” my father admitted, glancing at his watch. “Almost midnight. Time we’re starting home.”

  My father reached for his hat, switched off the light, locked the door, and followed me down the stairway to the street. At the parking lot opposite the Examiner building, he tramped about restlessly while waiting for an attendant to bring my car.

  “Good thing I’m driving,” I said, sliding behind the steering wheel of my old Peerless. “In your present mood, you might inadvertently pick off a few pedestrians.”

  “It makes my blood boil,” my father muttered, his thoughts reverting to the telegram. “Call my paper yellow, eh? And that crack about the cash register.”

  “Oh, everyone knows the Examiner is the best paper in the state,” I said, trying to coax him into a better mood. “You’re a good editor too, and a pretty fair father.”

  “Thanks,” my father said. “Since we’re passing out compliments, you’re not so bad yourself.”

  Suddenly relaxing, he reached out to touch my hand in a rare expression of affection. My father has a reputation for courage and fight, and he has only two interests in life—his paper and me. Scratch that. My father has only three interests in life—his paper, me and Doris Timms.

  Mrs. Timms has been our housekeeper for as long as I can remember. She was the one who nursed my late mother through her long—and ultimately fatal—illness. She was also the one who brought my father and me back from the brink of despair after we lost my beloved mother. In short, although Mrs. Timms’ will never take the place of my late mother, she’s become something like a second mother to me. I love her like billy-o despite her tendency to nag and her constant harping on the finer points of the proper grooming and deportment required—in her view—of a respectable young woman.

  I’m afraid Mrs. Timms has failed miserably in her attempt to turn me into a well-behaved and well-groomed lady. I fear she’ll never come to terms with my insistence on carrying a cosh and a pocket-knife in my handbag (the former for purposes of self-defense and the latter for purposes of peeling apples and other such sundry little tasks one so often encounters which are made so much easier by carrying one’s own personal cutting implement).

  Last spring, when I returned home one evening hours before expected and found Mrs. Timms and my father canoodling on the couch, they were far more horrified than I.

  When the truth came out, Mrs. Timms took great pains to assure me that they’d only lit a fire under a pot together after my mother had been gone for years. It had never occurred to me to suspect otherwise, but the oh-so-conscientious Mrs. Timms was mortified that I might believe her to be a woman of low morals. No amount of assurance that I couldn’t be happier that my father thought Mrs. Timms was the tree from which his life’s happiness hung could put her mind at rest.

  I looked over at my father sitting in the passenger seat. He looks older when he’s tired. I considered pointing out that if he and Mrs. Timms wanted to enjoy their golden years together as man and wife, they’d best not put it off too long, but instead I said. “Hungry, Dad? I know a dandy new hamburger place not far from here. Wonderful coffee too.”

  “Well, all right,” my father said. “It’s pretty late, though. The big clock’s striking midnight.”

  As we halted for a traffic light, I listened to the musical chimes which preceded the regularly spaced strokes of the giant clock. I turned my head to gaze up at the Moresby Memorial Tower, a grim stone building which rose to the height of seventy-five feet. Erected ten years before as a monument to one of Greenville’s wealthy citizens, its chimes traveled for nearly a mile on a still night. On one side, its high, narrow windows overlooked the city, while on the other, the cultivated lands of truck farmers.

  “How strange,” I said as the last stroke of the clock died away.

  “What’s strange?” my father asked.

  “Not much, just that the Moresby Tower clock just struck thirteen times instead of twelve.”

  “Bunk and bosh.”

  “Oh, but it did,” I insisted. “I counted each stroke distinctly.”

  “And one of them twice,” scoffed my father. “Or are you spoofing your old Dad?”

  “I am most certainly not.” As I pulled forward, I craned my neck to stare up at the stone tower. “I know I counted thirteen. Dad, there’s a green light burning in one of the windows. I never saw that before. What can it mean?”

  “It means we’ll have a wreck unless you watch the road,” my father said, reaching over and giving the steering wheel a quick turn. “Where are you taking me, anyhow?”

  “Out to Hodges.” Reluctantly I centered my full attention upon the highway. “It’s only a mile into the country.”

  “We won’t be home before one o’clock,” my father complained. “But since we’re this far, I suppose we may as well keep on.”

  “Dad, about that light,” I said. “Did you ever notice it before?”

  My father turned to look back toward the stone tower.

  “There’s no green light,” he said. “Every window is dark.”

  “But I saw it only an instant ago, And I did hear the clock strike thirteen. Cross my heart and hope to die a million deaths—”

  “Never mind the dramatics,” my father cut in. “If the clock struck an extra time—which it didn’t—something could have gone wrong with the mechanism. Don’t try to build up a mystery out of your imagination.”

  The car rattled over a bridge and passed a deserted farmhouse that formerly had belonged to a strange man named Paul Firth. My gaze fastened momentarily upon an old-fashioned stor
m cellar which marred the appearance of the front yard.

  “I suppose I imagined all that, too,” I said, waving my hand toward the cement hump. “Mr. Firth never had any hidden gold, he never had a secret pact with tattooed sailors, and he never tried to burn your newspaper plant.”

  “I admit you did a nice piece of detective work when you uncovered that story,” my father acknowledged. “Likewise, you brought the Examiner one of its best scoops by getting trapped underneath an alligator pond.”

  “Don’t forget that old witch doll, either,” I reminded him. “You laughed at me then, just as you’re doing now.”

  “I’m not laughing,” Dad insisted. “I merely say that no light was burning in the tower window, and I very much doubt that the clock struck more than twelve times.”

  “Tomorrow, I shall go to the tower and talk with the caretaker, Sam McKee. I’ll prove to you that I was right.”

  “If you do, I’ll treat to a dish of ice cream decorated with nuts.”

  “Make it five gallons of gasoline to slack the unquenchable thirst of Bouncing Betsy, and I’ll be really interested,” I said, as I affectionately patted the dashboard of my rickety, unreliable and much-beloved Peerless Model 56.

  Bouncing Betsy—so named because her suspension is shot to bits—has recently sprung a leak in her fuel tank, and I’ve not been in a position to take her in for the required first-aid.

  But now I’m a bonafide lady novelist with a luxurious advance on her second and yet-to-be-actually written novel, a sequel to Perpetua’s Promise (a timeless tale of love, redemption and containing a thrilling scene in which the heroine engages the dastardly villain in hand-to-hand combat armed with only a parasol and a trio of hat pins and from which our brave heroine naturally emerges unscathed and victorious).

  Now that I’m a respectable woman-of-letters, I can afford to have all Bouncing Betsy’s ailments tended to promptly and thoroughly by any one of a number of reputable Greenville garages familiar with Old Betsy’s various quirks and complaints, but, what with one thing and another, I’ve been too busy to have her perforated fuel tank tended to.