Room Seven
A Jane Carter Historical Cozy
Book Two
By Alice Simpson
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
First Chapter of The Missing Groom
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.
Room Seven: 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 elements of both from the originals.
CHAPTER 1
“You know, I’ve been doing a lot of wondering lately,” I said to my friend Flo.
We were riding in my ancient Peerless Model 56, otherwise known as Bouncing Betsy. Betsy was bouncing more than usual for the pavement was bumpy in this section of Greenville.
“Wondering what?” Florence asked.
“Wondering if maybe there isn’t something wrong with me,” I said. “My appetite doesn’t seem to be normal.”
“Oh, why beat about the bush, Jane? Why not come right out and admit you’re hungry again? Or maybe ‘again’ is the wrong word. I should have said ‘yet.’”
“Well, I could do with lunch. How about Ridley’s? We’re close there now.”
“Ridley’s would suit me. They have perfectly gorgeous sandwiches. Ham and cheese, olives, lettuce and mayonnaise on a toasted bun—all for a dime.”
“What, no mustard? Well, that sounds good to me. Suppose we try it.”
I parked Bouncing Betsy by the curb and dropped two pennies into the parking meter.
“If we’re not back here before that old machine clocks off an hour, I’ll get a parking ticket,” I warned Flo as we started toward Ridley’s Café. “We’ll have to work fast on those sandwiches.”
“Oh, your father knows all the policemen in town,” Florence said. “He could get the ticket fixed.”
“He probably could fix a ticket, but he wouldn’t. You don’t know Dad, Florence. He’ll stoop to all manner of heinous skullduggery to get a scoop, but he draws the line at corrupting the police force.”
My father, Anthony Fielding, owns the Greenville Examiner, the largest newspaper in the city. He and I often don’t see eye-to-eye, especially when it comes to the newspaper. I have no desire to go into the newspaper business, my literary talents running more to the mass production of vapid serials for Pittman’s All-Story Weekly with titles like “Evangeline: The Horse Thief’s Unwilling Fiancé” and “Marcia Makes Good: A Vamp Finds Her Soul,” written under the nom de plume of Miss Hortencia Higgins.
My literary interests may run more to popular fiction, rather than serious journalism, but I do respect how my father—unlike so many newspapermen—keeps to the straight and narrow when it comes to not throwing his weight around with local government.
It was three in the afternoon, and Ridley’s was quite deserted. Flo and I found a booth in the back and waited for a waitress to bring us a menu.
“What are you doing the rest of the afternoon?” I asked Flo. “I suppose your mother has marked out a list of chores for you.”
Even though Flo is a grown-women in her own right—twenty-four years old to be precise—she still lives at home with her parents, the Reverend Sidney Radcliff and Mrs. Radcliff. Flo’s mother takes her role as a minister’s wife very seriously and is involved in every civic organization in the city of Greenville. All this community-mindedness leaves very little time for Mrs. Radcliff’s other major hobby: the dispensing of charity. When it comes to charitable works, they inevitably fall to Flo.
Flo has a three-day-a-week job as children’s librarian at Greenville City Library, but I keep telling her that she should apply for a stipend from the parish, seeing as she spends almost as much time doing good works for members of her father’s church as the Reverend Radcliff spends in composing his weekly sermons.
“My mother is knee-deep in planning the Daughters of the American Revolution’s annual bazaar,” said Flo, “so she hasn’t had the energy to come up with any little jobs for me to do today.”
“How fortunate for the Daughters of the American Revolution,” I said. “I hope she doesn’t start another.”
A waitress in a neat, starched green uniform, had arrived with water glasses and the menu cards.
“Why, Emma Brown!” I said.
“Hello, Jane. Jane Fielding?”
“Jane Carter, actually.”
“Oh, you got married.”
“And widowed.”
“Oh,” said Emma.
No one ever knows what to say after I tell them I’m a widow. I’m only twenty-four and, outside of wartime, which is now blessedly behind us, no one expects a young woman to be a widow.
“I didn’t know you worked here,” I said, trying to smooth over the awkward moment.
“I’ve only had the job a week,” Emma admitted. She spoke quietly and glanced over her shoulder at a large man who stood behind the lunch counter wiping it down with a dingy rag.
I remembered Emma from high-school, but couldn’t decide where, or even if, I’d run into her since. She was thinner and much older-looking than I remembered her. Emma had been one of the brightest girls in our class. I wondered how she’d come to be working as a waitress at Ridley’s.
“How do you like it here?” I asked.
Emma glanced again toward man behind the lunch counter.
“I hate it! Mr. Ridley works me so hard. He never has enough waitresses, and he’s always berating me for mistakes.”
“Why don’t you leave?” I asked her. “Couldn’t you find other work?”
“I doubt I could find anything better. I tried everywhere before I accepted this position. It seems no one wants to hire anyone without experience these days.”
I wondered what she’d been doing in the six years since we’d graduated.
“You’re living with your parents, I suppose?” Flo said.
Emma just looked at us. Flo had said something wrong, but I had no idea what.
“Didn’t you know?” Emma said. “My parents were kill
ed in an auto accident just a month after I left Greenville High.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Florence said. “We hadn’t heard.”
“Father always was so careless in his driving. I guess the accident was his fault. I—I can’t tell you about it now. Mr. Ridley is watching. Your orders please?”
“A number three special with hot chocolate,” Florence said.
“Make mine the same.”
Emma nodded and disappeared through the swinging doors to the kitchen.
“No wonder she seems so changed,” Flo said.
“If the accident was her father’s fault, I suppose not a cent of compensation was paid,” I said. “Poor Emma!”
“I’ve always heard this was a hard place to work. I don’t think Emma is strong enough to be a waitress.”
“No, she’s delicate.”
Emma returned from the kitchen, carrying a tray of sandwiches and two cups of chocolate. She handled her burden awkwardly. I could see Mr. Ridley watching from behind the coffee urn. While Emma was easing the tray onto a nearby table, he came from behind the counter and said, “Try to work with more speed, Miss Brown. Our customers expect quick service.”
“Yes, Mr. Ridley,” Emma said and started to place one cup of chocolate at my elbow. In her nervousness, she set it too close to the edge of the table. When she reached across the table again to put down the plate of sandwiches, her arm brushed against it. I saw the cup sliding and tried to rescue it, but I wasn’t quick enough.
The cup of steaming liquid crashed to the floor, splattering Emma’s shoes and uniform. She was not burned, but the chinaware smashed into a dozen pieces. Mr. Ridley descended upon us.
“You’ve broken another dish,” he said. “The second this week.”
“I—I’m terribly sorry—”
“It really was my fault,” I said. “My hand brushed against the cup.”
“I saw exactly what happened,” Mr. Ridley said. “Miss Brown, clean up this mess. The cashier will settle with you.”
“You’re discharging me?”
“You are through here,” Mr. Ridley said. “And don’t ask me for a recommendation.”
Emma went away to the kitchen. When she came back with a cloth to wipe up the spilled chocolate, her face was very white.
“Don’t you worry, Emma,” Florence whispered. “You’ll find a better job. Mr. Ridley is an old slave driver anyway!”
Emma didn’t reply. She kept her head bent low as she mopped at the floor.
“Emma,” I asked, “how long will it take you to change your uniform?”
“About five minutes.”
“Then meet us outside as soon as you’re ready to leave.”
Emma nodded and returned once more to the kitchen. A minute later, Mr. Ridley brought me a fresh cup of chocolate.
“I am sorry you have been annoyed. Is everything quite satisfactory now?”
“No, it is not, Mr. Ridley,” I said. “I don’t care for the flavor of your chocolate. In fact, I don’t care for the flavor of anything about this place!”
I slammed a quarter down on the table, stood up, and walked out of the café.
Florence followed me, but once we were outside, she protested.
“We might at least have eaten the food since we paid for it,” she said.
“I’d starve before I’d touch anything at that place, Flo. I’ll never set foot in there again—not after the way he acted.”
We waited in Bouncing Betsy. Emma came out wearing her hat and carrying a paper bundle under her arm. Florence made room for her in the front seat.
“It was kind of you to wait.”
“We’ll take you home,” I said, starting the car.
Emma said that she lived at a rooming house on Bancroft Street, and I turned the car in that direction.
We rode along in silence until Flo said, “Have you any idea what you’ll do, Emma?”
“I’ll try for another job. If I don’t get one, then I may starve.”
“Oh, surely it’s not that serious,” I said.
“Well, not quite. I have about ten dollars saved. And if the worst came, I could go to Chicago and live with a cousin—if she’d take me. But Ann has four children, and can’t afford to help me much.”
“Maybe Dad could use you at the newspaper office,” I said. “Can you run a typewriter?”
Emma shook her head.
“It’s very kind of you, Jane, but I am not trained for newspaper work.”
“Perhaps you could find a position as companion to someone,” suggested Florence. “Didn’t you study French and music.”
“I’d like such a job,” said Emma. “Unfortunately, I can’t locate any. I do know of a place where I might find housework.”
She opened her purse and withdrew a clipping torn from the morning edition of the Greenville Examiner.
“Wanted—girl for general housework,” Emma read aloud. “Board, room, $2.50 a week. Apply at Old Mansion, White Falls.”
“The pay isn’t very high,” I said.
“No, but with my room and board, I’d not have many expenses. Unfortunately, I can’t apply for the place because the bus doesn’t run down that way.”
“My bus does,” I said. “I’ll take you to White Falls if you want to go there.”
“I’d be grateful.”
“How soon can you be ready?”
“Not more than twenty minutes. It won’t take me long to pack my suitcase.”
I dropped Emma off at her rooming house on Bancroft, promising to return for her in a very few minutes.
If we were heading off as far as White Falls, we really ought to let somebody know where we were going. I’ve learned from hard experience that even though I may be a grown woman of twenty-four when I don’t turn up for meals on time, Dad—not to mention Mrs. Timms, our housekeeper—tends to fear the worst. I stopped off at home intending to inform Mrs. Timms, but she was out, so I telephoned my father at the Examiner office.
“What time do you expect to get back from White Falls?”
“Probably not until after dark,” I said. “Please let Mrs. Timms know I’ll not be home for dinner, Dad.”
“You’ll be missing out on her black pepper chicken, you know,” Dad said, “and who knows what other assaults on the stomach lining. Mrs. Timms got another package from her sister in Calcutta today, and I’ve no doubt it was packed to the brim with spices.”
Mrs. Timms, who hasn’t traveled outside a fifty-mile radius of the city of Greenville more than a handful of times in her fifty-three years of life—and then only to go as far away as Chicago—has a sister Henrietta who married a diplomat. Henrietta has made it her mission in life to make Mrs. Timms’ vicarious experience of her own world travels as vivid as possible. This is how our household came to—as Dad puts it—consume more spices per annum than the entire subcontinent of India. I’ve grown to love Mrs. Timms’ curries, but my father has never adjusted. The odd thing is, I’ve been expressly forbidden to breath a word of the discomfort my father endures on account of his over-spiced diet. I suspect my father harbors feelings for the widowed Mrs. Timms which are far deeper than ordinary friendship.
But then Mrs. Timms is no ordinary housekeeper. My mother died when I was ten, so she’s practically raised me since. They have a lot in common: Mrs. Timms and Dad. My father is disappointed in me because I refuse to become a member of staff on his newspaper, and Mrs. Timms is disappointed in me because she never managed to turn me into a proper lady who doesn’t go out with tears in her stockings and remembers to apply a conservative coating of lipstick.
Dad and Mrs. Timms did somehow succeed in marrying me off—despite my apparently slovenly ways—to a lovely newspaperman by the name of Timothy Carter. That’s how I came to be Mrs. Carter, relict of the late Timothy Carter. We only lasted a year before Timothy committed the unpardonable sin of going down a dark alley in hot pursuit of a scoop and subsequently coming between a mafia hitman’s bullet and his intended victim
. Now I’m a widow and absolutely determined that if I do end up center-aisling it a second time it won’t be with another newspaperman.
“I’ll tell Mrs. Timms that you won’t be home for supper,” my father promised. “Drive carefully, Jane.”
After that, we stopped off at Flo’s. Her mother was still out, ostensibly maintaining order and decorum amongst the ranks of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The Reverend Sidney Radcliff was in his study, knee deep in wadded up writing paper and cigar butts.
“When are you going to break down and get a typewriter to compose your sermons?” I asked by way of greeting.
Revered Radcliff just laughed. I think that now, even if he saw the light and wanted a typewriter, he’d refuse to modernize just to spite me.
“Where are you going again?” he asked absently, even though Flo had already told him twice.
“White Falls.”
“Oh, yes,” said Reverend Radcliff. “Used to have an aunt who lived there. Nice little hamlet, at least the bit of it that hasn’t yet washed into the river.”
When we returned to Bancroft Street, we found Emma waiting on the front porch with her suitcase. The luggage stowed the back seat, we drove out the south road which led through fifteen miles of rolling country to the town of White Falls, located on the bank of the Grassy River.
During the ride, Emma was by turns talkative and morose. I supposed Flo and I were sympathetic listeners because Emma told us all about her difficulties since graduating from school. Her parents had left her with more debts than money, and after the estate had been settled, nothing had been left. She had worked in a drug store, in a restaurant, and as a nanny, but none of those positions had proven satisfactory.
“I haven’t been very lucky,” she said. “It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if this housekeeping job is gone before we get to White Falls.”
“We’ll hope not,” I said.
I worried we might be delayed by a rainstorm. Clouds scudded like sailboats across the sky. I called Florence’s attention to them, but she said, “Oh, the sun is shining. It won’t rain for hours.”
However, before we had covered two-thirds of the distance to White Falls, the gathering clouds blotted out the last patch of blue. Florence rolled up the car windows to protect us from the chill wind. It grew darker, and flashes of lightning crackled across the sky.
Sinister Goings-on in Room Seven: A Jane Carter Historical Cozy (Book Two) (Jane Carter Historical Cozy Mysteries 2) Page 1