The Chalmers Case (5 page)

“William said
it’s included in our room rate,” Harold replied, clearly trying to whisper, but
failing miserably.
 
He held his hand
over his mouth and leaned in closer to Mildred.
 
“The other sister is supposed to be a
good cook,” he shouted at her.

“Do we get to
order now?” Mildred asked Janet.

“Tonight Joan
has done shepherd’s pie with roasted vegetables,” Janet replied.
 

Mildred made a
face.
 
“But why can’t I pick what I
want?” she demanded petulantly.

“Because this
isn’t a restaurant,” Joan told her as she swung into the room carrying steaming
plates.
 
“William asked if I could
do evening meals for you as part of your room package and I told him that I
could as long as you ate whatever I was already preparing.
 
We aren’t meant to do evening meals at
all.
 
This is a bed and breakfast.”

“I’m sure it’s
going to be won,
er
,
wonner
,
er
, great,” Harold slurred.
 
“Don’t mind Mildred; she’s just all out
of sorts because William wouldn’t take us out for a fancy meal.”

“Well, we came
all this way to see him.
 
I thought
it was the least he could do,” Mildred said grumpily.

“Where have
you come from?” Janet asked casually as the couple began to eat.

“Oh, down
London way,” Harold replied lightly.

“Coffee or
tea?” Joan asked.

“Oh, I want
wine,” Mildred replied.
 
“Coffee or
tea would just make me sober and no fun at all.”

“I’m sorry, we
haven’t any wine,” Joan told her.
 
“We do have water or soft drinks.”

“Just a glass
of water, then,” Mildred said with a sigh.
 
“We’ll go down to the pub after dinner, I suppose.”

“Something
fizzy for me, whatever,” Harold said.

“So you’re
William’s cousin?” Janet asked as Joan left the room to get the drinks.

“Yeah,
somewhere along the way,” Harold said with a shrug.
 
“Our family isn’t close, like, but we
knew each other as boys and then worked together later.”

“Worked
together doing what?”
 
Janet knew
she was being nosy, but she was hoping the pair was too drunk to notice.

“Oh, this and
that,” Harold said.

Joan returned
with the drinks and some fresh bread rolls.

“Oh, those
look tasty,”
Mildred
said.
 
She took a roll and spread a thick layer
of butter inside it.
 

Joan watched
the pair for a moment and then smiled grimly at Janet.
 
“Do let me know if anyone needs
anything,” she said tightly before returning to the kitchen.

I’d like some
food, Janet thought to herself.
  
Clearly Joan was planning for them to eat after the guests had
finished.
 
Janet glanced at the pair
and decided that it shouldn’t be long.
 
They were clearing their plates at an impressive rate.

A few minutes
later Mildred sat back from the table and sighed.
 
“That wasn’t half bad,” she said with a
sniff.
 
She grabbed another roll
from the basket and buttered it generously.
 

“Yeah,” Harold
muttered as he shoveled his last bites into his mouth.
 

Janet forced
herself to smile at them both.
 
“I’ll just get these plates out of the way,” she said.
 
“And see about the Victoria sponge.”

“Oh, just a
very small slice for me, please,” Mildred said.
 
“I must be careful.”

“Huh,” Harold
grunted
 
“Maybe
if you put on a few pounds you wouldn’t flirt with William so much, hey?”

Mildred
flushed.
 
“I wasn’t flirting,” she
said with a giggle.
 
“Only maybe
just a tiny bit.”

Janet was torn
between staying to hear more and wanting to get far away from the disagreeable
couple.
 
Deciding that duty called,
she headed into the kitchen to see about the cake.

“Here,” Joan
said, handing Janet a tray with two large slices of cake on it.
 

“Mildred only
wanted a small slice,” Janet said.

“No, Mildred
said she only wanted a small slice.
 
I bet if you take her a small slice she’ll complain.
 
She can always leave most of that if it’s
too much.”

Janet
shrugged.
 
“I suppose that makes
sense.”

“Of course it
does,” Joan told her.
 
“Now hurry
them along and then we can have our meal.”

Janet smiled
at her.
 
“That sounds good.”

Back in the
dining room, Harold and Mildred were arguing.

“…
always
flirt, and you always have.” Harold said.

“I don’t
flirt,” Mildred said loudly.
 
“I’m
just friendly.”

“There’s a
difference between friendly and acting like you’d like to get naked with...”

“Okay, then,
cake,” Janet interrupted the conversation.
 
“Here we go.”

She put the
slices of cake in front of each of them and then gave them the biggest smile
she could summon up.
 
“Did you want
coffee or tea with your cake?”

“We’re fine,”
Mildred told her.

Janet waited a
moment and then returned to the kitchen.
 
Joan was busy filling two plates with shepherd’s pie and
vegetables.
 

“Did they want
anything else to drink?” Joan asked.

“They didn’t,
but I want a glass of wine,” Janet answered.

“I’m not certain
we should be drinking with guests in the house,” Joan replied with a frown.

Janet thought
about arguing, but Joan was right.
 
At least with these particular guests in the house, she thought to
herself.
 
With a deep sigh, she
turned and walked back into the dining room, bracing herself for the unpleasant
conversation she was sure she was going to interrupt.
 

Instead, she
found Harold sitting with his head on the table, fast asleep.
 
He was snoring quietly while Mildred was
just spooning up the last of his slice of cake.
 
Her own plate was already scraped
clean.
 

“Oh, dear, I
do hope he’s okay,” Janet exclaimed.

“Oh, he’s
fine.
 
Just had a few too many,
like.
 
He’ll sleep it off by
morning.”

“Not at our
dining room table,” Janet said firmly.

“Oh, I suppose
not,” Mildred shrugged.
 
“Help me
get him upstairs, will you?”

“Help
you?
 
I’m not certain...
”
 
She trailed
off, feeling totally out of her element.

“Harold, wake
up,” Mildred said loudly.
 
She gave
him a push and he nearly toppled off his chair.

“What?
 
Huh?”
 

“Come on up to
bed,” Mildred told him.
 

“Oh, yeah, hey,
did you eat my cake?”

“You ate it
before you fell asleep,” Mildred told him as she stood up.
 
“Now come on.”

She grabbed
his arm and the pair stumbled their way out of the room, with Janet following
behind.
 
It seemed to take them ages
to get up the stairs and Janet wondered at one point if she ought to try giving
Mildred a push, but eventually they struggled their way to the first
floor.
 

Mildred
managed to spill the entire contents of her handbag all over the landing while
looking for the key to their door.
 
Janet swallowed a sigh as she helped the woman collect her things and
then opened their door for them.
 
Giving Mildred the keys back, she practically shoved the pair into their
guest room and shut the door behind them.
 
Leaning against it, she took several deep breaths before rejoining her
sister in the kitchen.

Chapter
Five

“Don’t say
it,” Joan greeted her sister as Janet walked in and sat down at the small
kitchen table.
 
“I’m so sorry about
all of this, I can’t even tell you.”

Janet looked
at her sister and then began to laugh.
 
“I must say, teaching was far easier than running a bed and breakfast,”
she told her sister.

“It isn’t the
least bit funny,” Joan snapped.

“No, but we
might as well laugh,” Janet replied.
 
“It’s better than crying.”

For a moment
Joan looked as if she might argue, but then she smiled and then chuckled
softly.
 
“I suppose you’re right,”
she said.
 
“We need to be far more
particular about our guests.”

“I don’t
know,” Janet said.
 
“A little bit of
variety is always interesting.
 
They’re only here for a few days.
 
I’m sure we’ll survive their stay and laugh about it in years to come.”

“You’re being
very understanding about all of this,” Joan said.
 
“I don’t know that I deserve it.”

“Nothing
disastrous has happened,” Janet pointed out.
 
“Having a couple of unpleasant guests
goes with the job.
 
Anyway, it’s
entertaining in a train wreck kind of way.”

Joan shook her
head.
 
“I’m not entertained,” she
said.
 
“I’m starving.”

“Me, too,”
Janet said with alacrity.

The pair
quickly ate their meal and very generous helpings of Victoria sponge with
vanilla ice cream, a special treat.

“I don’t
suppose either of them said anything about breakfast,” Joan said as she and
Janet loaded up the dishwasher.

“No, but I
don’t think they’ll be up very early.”

“Harold said
when they arrived that they’d probably lie in and that I shouldn’t worry about
breakfast,” Joan said worriedly.
 
“But I don’t want them complaining about it if they change their minds.”

“Like they did
with dinner,” Janet finished the thought.

“Exactly,”
Joan replied.

“I think we’ll
have to get up and have things ready early, just in case,” Janet said with a
sigh.

“I think
you’re right,” Joan said sadly.

“Before we go
to bed, we need to hide all of the alcohol in the house,” Janet told her
sister.
 
“I wouldn’t be surprised if
one or the other of them came down looking for a drink later.”

“I’m ahead of
you on that one,” Joan said with grim satisfaction.
 
“While you were helping them up the
stairs, I moved all of our wine into my bedroom.
 
If you need it when I’m not here, it’s
in the very back of my wardrobe inside the hat box.”

Janet shook
her head.
 
“If I need it and you’re
not here, I’d better not drink it.”

“You’re
probably right about that,” Joan agreed.

In her room,
Janet made certain that she locked her door before she got ready for bed.
 
She slept more soundly than she expected,
until stomping footsteps outside her door at midnight woke her.
 
She listened as someone stumbled down
the stairs, wondering if she needed to get up and deal with whoever it
was.
 
After a few minutes, she heard
someone coming back up the steps.

She heard the
west room door open and then:
 
“No
booze anywhere,” Harold said in a disgusted voice.

“We could go
to the pub,” Mildred replied.

“Too tired,”
Harold said.
 
“We’ll stock up
tomorrow for the rest of our stay.”

Their bedroom
door slammed and Janet slid down under her duvet, hoping the pair might decide
to cut their holiday short.

Janet and Joan
were up and ready to fix breakfast before eight the next morning.
 
Janet went back to work on the library
while Joan fussed in the kitchen, wondering exactly what she ought to do.
 
It was nearly midday before they heard
movement from the first floor.
 

Janet could
hear the shower turning on and then off as she dusted shelves and books.
 
About half an hour later, she heard
footsteps on the stairs.
 
Locking up
the library, she headed towards the kitchen to help Joan.

Harold and
Mildred were standing in the kitchen doorway.
 
They both looked as if they felt
miserable.

“Good morning,”
Janet said brightly.
 
“How are you
this morning?”

“
Oooh
, could you keep your voice down?” Mildred asked,
wincing.
 
“I took tablets, but they
haven’t started working yet.”

“Oh, dear, I
hope you’re okay,” Janet said, maybe just a tiny bit more loudly than she
normally would.

“I’m fine,”
the woman said through gritted teeth.

“So what about
breakfast?” Harold growled.
 
“I just
want lots of black coffee and maybe some toast.
 
What about you?” he asked his wife.

“Coffee,
that’s all,” she muttered.

“I’ll set a
pot brewing,” Joan told them.
 
“You
can take seats in the dining room and I’ll bring you some toast and jam while
you’re waiting.”

“We don’t need
to sit down,” Mildred told her.
 
“Just pour some coffee in a couple of take-away containers and we’ll be
on our way.”

“I don’t have
take-away containers,” Joan told her.
 
“This isn’t a take-away.”

Mildred opened
her mouth to argue, but Harold interrupted before she managed to speak.

“Let’s just
get something on our way to the shop,” he said.
 
“I don’t want to wait for the pot to
brew anyway.”

“But breakfast
is included,” Mildred argued.
 

“I don’t
care,” he snapped at her.
 
“I need
coffee now.”

He stormed out
of the room with Mildred following somewhat more slowly.
 
Janet walked behind the pair, happily
pushing the door shut behind them and locking it tightly.
 
She leaned against it for a moment,
savouring
the feeling of having the house to
themselves
again, if only for a short while.
 

Deciding that
it must be time for some lunch, she turned and headed towards the kitchen.
 
She hadn’t gone more than a few steps
when someone knocked on the door.
 

I wonder what
they forgot, she thought to herself as she turned back, expecting to find the
Stones on the porch.
 
Instead, when
she pulled the door open, she found a pair of strangers smiling brightly at
her.

“Good
afternoon,” the man said, giving Janet a slight bow.

“Hello,” the
woman with him said.

“Um, good
afternoon,” Janet replied, studying the pair.

They were
neatly dressed in clothes that looked well made but weren’t new.
 
The man appeared a little bit older than
the woman, maybe in his late sixties to her early sixties.
 
They both had grey hair and glasses and
looked thoroughly respectable.

“We’re awfully
sorry to just turn up on your doorstep like this,” the man said.
 
“But we used to stay here once in a
while when Margaret Appleton owned the house, and, well, we have such pleasant
memories of our stays.
 
We were
driving though the area, planning to stay in Little Burton, and we thought we
might just stop and try our luck with you.”

“Oh, I, well,
that is,” Janet took a deep breath and started again.
 
“We aren’t really taking guests yet,”
she told the couple.
 
“My sister and
I just bought the house a few months ago and we’re still getting settled in.”

“I quite understand,”
the woman said in a kindly tone.
 
“I
mean
,
taking over a bed and breakfast must be a huge
undertaking.
 
Perhaps you’d be so
good as to take our details and then, when you are ready for guests, you can
let us know?
 
We’d love a chance to
stay in
Doveby
House again.
 
As George says, it has very fond
memories for us both.”

“Of course,”
Janet said, feeling flustered.
 
She
wasn’t sure if she should turn them away or not.
 
“Do come in,” she offered.
 
“Let me get my sister.”

“Oh, you’ve
done such lovely things in here,” the woman said, turning slowly to study the
whole room.
 
“I love the
colour
on the walls.”

“Thank you,”
Janet replied.
 
“We had the entire
house painted.”

“Except the
large bedroom on the first floor, I hope,” the man said.
 
“Margaret always told us that it was
haunted and that she had to leave the walls purple or the ghost carried on
dreadfully.”

Janet
smiled.
 
“I’ve heard the same
thing,” she told them.
 
“Luckily for
us, that’s my room now and I love the soft lilac shade.”

“Janet?” Joan was
standing in the doorway, looking confused.

“Oh, Joan,
there you are,” Janet said.
 
“This
is, well, um, I’m sorry, I didn’t get your names.”

The woman
laughed lightly.
 
“We’re George and
Nancy Harrison,” she said.
 
“We were
just telling your sister how much we love what you’ve done with the house.”

“You’ve stayed
here before?” Joan asked.

“Oh, yes, many
times,”
George
answered.
 
“Mrs. Appleton, well, Maggie, ran an
excellent establishment, even if she was a bit, um, well, different,” he
concluded with a shrug.

“Different?”
Janet had to ask.

Nancy
laughed.
 
“Did you know her?” she
asked the sisters.

“No, not at
all.
 
We bought the house from her
estate,” Janet replied.

“Well, I think
what George is trying to say is that Maggie was much more adventurous than we
are.
 
She nearly always had a
different man living with her, for example.
 
We didn’t really approve, but we’d
fallen in love with the house, you see, and Maggie was certainly fun to be
around.
 
I think we’ll enjoy staying
here even more with you two here, though.”

“Are they
staying?” Joan asked Janet in a surprised voice.

“I was just
going to get their contact details so that we could let them know when we’re
open for business,” Janet replied.
 
“Unless you had another idea?”

Joan looked at
the pair for a moment and then took a deep breath.
 
“The east bedroom is available, if you’d
be interested,” she said.
 
“Unfortunately
it’s the smaller of the guest rooms, but the other room is occupied.
 
How long were you thinking of staying?”

“Oh, maybe
three nights?” George said, looking at his wife for confirmation.

“Yes, I think
that would be about right,” she agreed.
 
“And we really don’t care which room we’re in.
 
We’ve stayed in them all in the past and
they’re all lovely.”

“Our other
guests are having their evening meal here,” Joan told them.
 
She quoted them rates for their room,
including dinner or with just breakfast.
 
The couple exchanged a look.

“I think we’d
rather visit some of the local restaurants for our evening meals,” George said
after a moment.
 
“If that’s okay
with you.”

“It’s fine,”
Joan said with relief in her voice.

“Let me show
you to your room, then,” Janet offered.
 

Joan quickly
found the keys to the east room and the pair followed Janet up the stairs.
 

“You’ve done a
lot of work in here as well,” Nancy said happily.
 

“We have,”
Janet agreed.
 
“The only thing we
haven’t done is put up any pictures, but we’re working on that.”

“Maggie had a
sort of still life on that wall,” George told her.
 
“It wasn’t very attractive, but I suppose
it looked better than the blank wall does.”

“We’ll have
something in place by the next time you visit,” Janet told them.

“I’ll just go
and get our bags,” George said.
 
“And thank you so very much for letting us stay after all.”

“You can thank
Joan for that,” Janet replied.
 
“Do
let either of us know if you need anything.”

“I can’t
imagine that we will,” Nancy said happily.
 
“We’ll just unpack and then do some sightseeing.
 
We won’t be out late.
 
What time is breakfast?”

“Whenever you
like,” Janet replied.
 
“Joan and I
are early risers.”

They both
laughed.
 
“Maggie Appleton wasn’t,”
George explained.
 
“Breakfast was
usually ready some time around ten, if she bothered to make it at all.”

“Oh, goodness,
I can’t imagine,”
Janet
exclaimed.
 
“Joan and I will be up and ready to
serve any time after eight, and we can have breakfast ready earlier if you let
us know in advance.”