The Appleton Case (A Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Novella Book 1) (6 page)

“Indeed,” Joan
said.
 
“And how nice of you to help
out future generations.”

The sisters
climbed into their car.
 
Before
Janet shut her door, Gavin grabbed it.

“I really want
the rest of my letters,” he told her intently.
 
“Why don’t I stop over tonight and see
if I can find them myself?”

“That’s not
necessary,” Janet answered.
 
“If
they’re there, we’ll find them eventually.”

Gavin frowned
and for a moment Janet felt a flash of fear.
 
Before anyone spoke, Joan started the
car’s engine.
 
Gavin opened his
mouth and then snapped it shut.
 
He
pushed Janet’s door shut and stepped away from the car.

Joan pulled
away, back onto the road, headed for home.
 
For several minutes neither woman spoke.

“I thought we
were going grocery shopping,” Janet said eventually.

“I was afraid
that if Gavin thought the house was empty, he might try to find whatever it is
he’s after himself,” Joan told her.

“Good
thinking,” Janet said.
 
“He scares
me a little bit.”

“He scares me
a lot,” Joan told her.

“You don’t
think he killed his mother, do you?” Janet asked.

“We don’t have
any reason to believe that she was murdered,” Joan pointed out.
 
“But if she was, he’d be my first
suspect.”

“I guess
there’s nothing wrong with them taking a break from working on that black car,”
Janet said after a moment.

“I’m not sure
it’s strictly legal to be playing poker with your apprentices in the middle of
the afternoon,” Joan suggested.

Janet laughed
in spite of her unease at the man’s
behaviour
.
 
“There seemed to be an awful lot of
money on the table.
 
I didn’t know
apprentices were that well paid.”

“So what do
you think Gavin’s really after?” Joan asked.
 
“More letters or something else?”

“He seemed
excited when we said we’d found some letters,” Janet replied thoughtfully.
 
“But then disappointed when he saw what
we’d brought.
 
Maybe there’s
something in one of the letters that gives Gavin a motive for murder.
 
I wish I’d read them now.”

“Whatever your
suspicions of the man, reading the letters would have been wrong,” Joan said
firmly.

“But maybe it
would have helped us figure out what Gavin is looking for,” Janet replied.

“Maybe Stuart
will have some idea of what Gavin’s after,” Joan suggested as she pulled into
their car park.

“Why don’t you
run to the grocery store while I talk to him?” Janet replied as she too spotted
the man, who was busily watering the flowering shrubs along the side of
Doveby
House.

“Okay,” Joan
agreed.
 
“There are a few little
things I really wanted to get today.”

Janet smiled
to herself as she got out of the car.
 
Her sister would be baking up a storm before lunch.

Chapter
Six

“Another
lovely day,” Stuart said as Janet joined him in the garden.
 

“It’s so nice
to have all this sunshine,” Janet agreed.
 
“I hope it isn’t too much extra work for you.”

Stuart
laughed.
 
“I love watering the flowers,”
he told her.
 
“I don’t get to do it
very often.
 
We usually have plenty
of rain.”

“Everything
looks gorgeous,” Janet told him, taking a moment to truly enjoy the beautiful
flowers that seemed to be blooming everywhere in their garden.

“It’s come a
long way in the last few years,” Stuart told her.
 
“When I took over there was nothing here
but grass and mud.”

“Do let us
know what we need to pay you for looking after all of this,” Janet said.
 
“I just hope we can afford you.”

“I’m sure we
can come to some sort of agreement,” Stuart said with a wave of his hand.
 
“I love the job.”

Janet smiled
and then tried to think of a way to gradually bring the conversation around to
the various things she wanted to ask the man.
 
After a moment, she shrugged.
 
It would be easier to simply be blunt.

“We found a
few letters in the house from Gavin to his mother,” she said.

Stuart stopped
watering the roses and looked at Janet, clearly interested in what she was
saying.
 
“Did you now?”

“Yes, we’ve
just dropped them off to him at his garage,” Janet replied.
 
“But he seemed quite disappointed with
them.
 
I gather he was looking for
something other than those particular letters.
 
Do you have any idea what he might be
after?”

“I never
believed it was letters he was after,” Stuart said in a quiet voice.
 
“I think his mother left something
really valuable in the house, but only Gavin knows what it is.”

“Like what?”
Janet asked.

“I don’t
know,” Stuart shrugged.
 
“She
married a succession of very rich men.
 
Maybe there’s some
jewellery
or a vase from
ancient Egypt or something.”

“I haven’t
seen anything that looks valuable,” Janet said.
 
“Although we haven’t been through every
drawer in every room yet.”

“You may not
even
recognise
the thing as valuable,” Stuart
suggested.
 
“But I bet Gavin knows
exactly what it is.
 
I think his
problem is that he isn’t sure where it is.”

“Has he been
in the house since his mother died?”

“Not as far as
I know,” Stuart said.
 
“I’m not
exactly sure what happened to Margaret, but the first we knew about her passing
was when a man from the trust showed up with a solicitor.
 
The trust had the locks changed and the
man asked us to keep an eye out for Gavin in case he came around.”

“Which he did.
”

“Yes, later
that same day he was over there, trying to get in,” Stuart told her.
 
“I rang young Robert and he came and had
a word with him.”

“So he didn’t
know about his mother’s death until that day, either?” Janet asked.

“I guess not,”
Stuart said.
 
“He and Margaret had
had a big fight about six months before she died and Gavin hadn’t been around
to see her after that.
 
Like I said,
I’m not really clear on what happened to Margaret.”

“Surely the
trust had someone go through the house and remove anything of great value?” Janet
asked.

“They did,
that’s why I reckon whatever Gavin’s after is either hidden or doesn’t look
valuable, but is,” Stuart told her.
 
“I don’t know how careful the trust was, anyway.
 
They were so excited at getting the
house, I don’t think they gave much thought to the contents.”

“What does the
Doveby
Trust do, anyway?” Janet asked.

“As I
understand it, they run a scholarship
programme
for
kids from the
Doveby
Dale area,” Stuart told
her.
 
“They encourage young people
to go to university and then come back to the area to work.
 
Doveby
Dale is
too small to give jobs to all of them when they finish, but they try to get the
kids to come back to somewhere in Derbyshire anyway, rather than seeing them
all move to London or some other big city in the south.”

“And Margaret
supported what they’re doing?”

“I didn’t know
Margaret even knew they existed,” Stuart replied.
 
“I’ve no idea why she left them
anything, let alone her entire estate.”

Janet
frowned.
 
The more questions she
asked, the more complicated everything became.
 
“Did you hear someone screaming last
night?” she asked, changing the subject completely.

“It was the
full moon, wasn’t it?”

“The full moon
was screaming?”

“No,” Stuart
smiled at her.
 
“Which bedroom are
you using?
 
I bet I can guess.
 
I bet you’re in the purple bedroom,
aren’t you?”

“I am, yes,”
Janet admitted.

“Every time
there’s a full moon, the ghost in that bedroom screams twice right around two
in the morning.
 
At least that’s
what Margaret told us.
 
After a
while she stopped renting that room when the moon was due to be full.
 
She said it wasn’t worth the bother.”

“There’s a
ghost in my bedroom?”
 
Janet felt a
strange mix of fear and excitement.

“Oh, there are
ghosts all over
Doveby
House,” Stuart replied
cheerfully.
 
“It’s been there for a
long time and lots of things have happened within its walls.
 
You have to expect a ghost or two in a
house that old, don’t you?”

“I guess I’d
never thought about it,” Janet said slowly.

“And the
estate agent wouldn’t have mentioned it,” Stuart said.
 
“He wouldn’t have wanted to risk putting
you off the place.”

“So is the
ghost in my bedroom going to scream every time there’s a full moon?” Janet
asked.

“Apparently
so.
 
As long as you don’t paint.”

“What do you
mean by that?”

“Margaret
tried painting that room blue once, and apparently the ghost cried every night
until she covered the blue with purple again.”

Janet shook
her head.
 
There was a part of her that
didn’t believe a word Stuart was saying and a part of her that was keeping an
open mind.
 
She did hear the
screaming, after all.

“We aren’t
planning on painting the room, at least not for now.”

“Good, so you
only have to worry about full moons,” Stuart said with a grin.

“What about
other ghosts?” Janet asked.

“Oh, well,
there’s one in the coach house, of course,” Stuart replied.
 
“And one in the library.”

“Stuart?
 
Aren’t you done yet?”

Janet spun
around and forced herself to smile at Mary, who was quickly crossing the grass
towards them.
 

“I thought we
were going into Sheffield for lunch,” she said crossly to her husband.
 
“You said you just needed five minutes.”

Stuart
flushed.
 
“Sorry, love, but I got
busy chatting with Janet and lost track of time.
 
Give me two more minutes and I’ll be
ready to go.”

He gave Janet
an apologetic smile and turned back to the flowers.
 
Janet walked back towards the car park
with Mary.

“Sorry about
that,” she told the other woman.
 
“Joan and I had just been to see Gavin and I was curious if Stuart had
any idea what Gavin might want in our new home.”

“I expect he’s
got some drugs hidden in there somewhere,” Mary told her.
 
“You need to look out for things that
look like medicine or strange powders.”

“Really?
 
Gavin does drugs?”

“I expect so,”
Mary replied.
 
“He seems like the
type and he and his mum had a huge fight about something.
 
I reckon she found his secret stash in
her house and got mad.”

“Surely if she
found it, she would have made him get rid of it,” Janet suggested.

“Maybe she
only found part of it,” Mary said with a shrug.
 
“Or maybe she was using it to keep Gavin
in line or something.”

“Okay, I’m
ready to go,” Stuart came up behind them.
 
“I’ve left the hosepipe out,” he told Janet.
 
“I’m going to have to water more later.”

“No problem,”
Janet replied.
 
“Thank you both for
taking the time to talk with me.
 
I’m sure I’ll see you soon.
 
Have fun in Sheffield.”

She watched
the pair walk back to their house, wondering what her sister would make of the
different ideas about Gavin that they’d shared with her.
 
She didn’t have long to wait to find
out.
 
Joan pulled into the car park
only a few minutes after Janet had gone inside.
 
Now she rushed back out to help Joan
unload the car.

“Any sign of
Gavin?” Joan asked as they worked together in the kitchen, unpacking the
groceries.

“No, although
Mary and Stuart both had different theories about what Gavin might be after,”
Janet replied.

“Such as?”

Janet told her
sister everything that the Longs had said, except for what Stuart had said
about the ghosts.
 
Joan always said
she didn’t believe in such things and Janet was reluctant to bring the matter
up, at least for now when they had other things to worry about.

“So they both
think there’s something hidden in the house that Gavin wants, even if they
don’t agree on what it might be,” Joan concluded.
 
“I think after lunch we need to search
the place.
 
Maybe we can find what
Gavin wants.”

Joan made a
light lunch and the pair ate quickly.
 
Janet wasn’t convinced that they would find anything, but they really
should have taken the time to go through the whole house as soon as they took
possession.
 
With the lunch dishes
washed and put away, Joan headed to the owner’s suite, while Janet climbed up
to the first floor.

She did a
quick tour of her room, fairly certain that she’d inspected it thoroughly when
she’d moved in.
 
There was nothing
under the bed.
 
The wardrobe was
full of her clothes, and she was positive it had been empty when she’d unpacked.
 
There were no obvious hiding places in
the bathroom, but she poked around anyway, checking the empty medicine chest
and even lifting off the back of the toilet.
 
There was nothing hiding there.

Across the
hall, she checked the smaller of the two guest rooms.
 
There were a few hatboxes in the back of
the wardrobe, and Janet felt her heart racing as she peeked inside the first
one.
 
The large black hat that
occupied the box wasn’t worth the excitement she’d felt.
 
The other two boxes were also,
disappointingly, full of ugly old hats.
 
A quick look around the en-suite bathroom revealed nothing and left only
the final guest room to check.

This time
Janet started with the bathroom, fairly certain that she would find nothing,
which proved to be the case.
 
In the
bedroom, the small chest of drawers and the bedside table were both empty.
 
The wardrobe, however, had a few small
boxes piled up in the back of it.
 
Janet pulled the boxes out one at a time.
 
She was about to open the top one when
she heard her sister calling.

“Janet?
 
Have you found anything
interesting?”
 

“I’m in the
larger guest room,” Janet called back.
 
“We really do have to give these rooms names or something.”

“Yes, well,
I’ll leave that to you,” Joan told her as she walked into the room.
 
“You’ll come up with something far more
interesting than I would.
 
I’d
probably call them the blue room and the green room or something.”

Janet
frowned.
 
“I’m sure we can do better
than that,” she told her sister.
 
“I
just need to do some research.
 
Maybe someone famous once stayed in one of the rooms or something.”

“I rather
doubt that,” Joan replied.
 
“I’m
sure the estate agent would have mentioned it when he showed us around, if that
were the case.”

“Maybe he
didn’t know,”
Janet
answered, unwilling to be
discouraged.

“Anyway, I
found a few boxes in the back of one of the cupboards downstairs,” Joan told
her.
 
“What have you found?”

“A couple of
boxes as well,” Janet replied.
 
Joan
crossed to her and Janet opened the first box.

“Are they car
parts?” Joan asked as they stared into the box.

“I’ve no idea,”
Janet answered.
 
The box was full of
metal plates in various sizes as well as assorted screws, washers, and other
metal parts that the sisters couldn’t identify.
 
Janet poked around inside the box, but
recognised
nothing.