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

“Ah, but you
aren’t Maggie,” the man who was standing on the small porch said when Janet
pulled the door open.
 
“But never
mind, I guess the important thing is that I’m here.
 
I can wait a little while longer to see
my Maggie.”

Janet opened
her mouth and then snapped it shut again as she studied the new arrival.
 
He appeared to be somewhere in his
sixties, with short grey hair and light grey eyes.
 
He was taller than Janet, but most
people were.
 
This man was maybe five
feet seven or eight.
 
His dark grey
suit looked to have been tailor-made to fit his still athletic build.
 

Janet took all
of this in as quickly as she could, all the while ignoring the one thing that
her brain was most concerned about.
 
Next to the man on the small porch were a number of large suitcases.

Chapter
Two

While Janet
stood there, trying to figure out what to say to the man on the doorstep, he
grabbed one of his cases and smiled at her.

“This is the
heavy one.
 
Grab whatever you can
manage and then I’ll come back for the rest.”

With that, he
stepped around Janet and strode into the house as if he owned the place.
 
Janet grabbed the smallest of his bags
and followed him into the sitting room, suddenly finding her voice.

“Oh, but you
can’t, that is, we aren’t open for business yet,” she told him.

He ignored her
and returned to the porch where he picked up the last of his bags.
 
He stopped and carefully shut and locked
the door before returning to the sitting room.

“Am I to stay
in the purple room again?” he asked brightly.

“No, that is,
you aren’t to stay at all,” Janet said in her firmest voice.
 
“We aren’t open for business, you see.”

“Oh, but
Maggie will sort it all out,” the man said with a wave of his hand.
 
“She always has room for me.
 
I’m sure she has something in mind.”

“I’m rather
certain she doesn’t,” Janet said coolly.
 
“Mrs. Appleton passed away some months ago.”

The man stared
at her for a moment, the
colour
draining from his
face.
 
“Maggie’s, but, Maggie’s
dead?” he muttered.

Janet found
herself pushing him into a chair.
 
“I’m sorry if this comes as something of a shock,” she said, not really feeling
sorry for him in the slightest.

“It’s a huge
shock,” the man told her.
 
“I think
maybe a cup of tea….” he trailed off and gave Janet what she assumed was a
hopeful look.

“I think you
need to figure out where you’re going to stay before you worry about tea,”
Janet said, unwilling to leave the man alone while she fixed the tea.
 
She was worried he might start unpacking
if she turned her back.

“Well, I’ll
stay here,” he replied.
 
“Maggie was
expecting me.
 
All of the
arrangements were made.
 
If you’ve
taken over the bed and breakfast, surely you have to
honour
existing reservations?”

“We don’t,
actually,” Janet replied, hoping she was right.
 
“We aren’t open for business.
 
In fact, we don’t even know if we are
going to reopen.
 
My sister and I
have purchased the house and we might just choose to live here by ourselves.”

“But if it’s
just you and your sister here, you must have spare bedrooms,” the man said
softly.
 
“I’ll pay well for a few
nights in one of them.
 
You don’t
even have to provide breakfast.
 
I
just need a place to stay for a few days.”

Janet shook
her head.
 
“We simply can’t,” she
said firmly.

The man
reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet.
 
“Two hundred pounds a night for three
nights,” he said, taking note after note out of the wallet.
 
“I’ll pay the lot in advance and if I
decide to stay longer, I’ll pay three hundred pounds a night after that.”

Janet looked
at the pile of twenty-pound notes the man had put on the coffee table.
 
Six hundred pounds was a lot of money,
but she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of a total stranger staying in the
house.

“Do Stuart and
Mary Long still live across the road?” the man asked.
 
“I’m sure they’ll vouch for me.
 
I used to stay with Maggie quite
regularly.”

Janet took a
deep breath, wishing Joan were there to help with the decision.
 
“We really aren’t equipped for guests,”
she told the man.

“Look, there’s
Stuart now,” the man said, jumping up from the sofa.
 
He’d been sitting facing towards a side
window.
 
Now Janet looked and saw
their tall and dark-haired
neighbour
walking along
the side of the house.
 

Stuart had
been a professional gardener, and since he had retired he looked after the
extensive gardens at
Doveby
House in exchange for a
small fee and a great deal of tea and biscuits.
 
  

The strange man
was walking through the house towards the conservatory and the glass French
doors that opened into the garden.
 
Janet rushed after him, angry at his overconfident
behaviour
.
 
He had the doors open before Janet
reached him.

“Stuart, how
are you?” he called to the man who was just opening up the coach house.

Stuart spun
around.
 
“Edward?
 
This is a surprise.
 
I thought you and Maggie parted ways
ages ago.”

The stranger
shrugged.
 
“You know how it is,” he
said with a chuckle.
 
“We had a
disagreement, but we’d been writing again and I told her I’d come see her this
month.
 
It was all arranged.”

“You heard
she, well, she passed?” Stuart asked.

“I did,” the
man said sadly.
 
“I’ve been out of
the country for most of the year and I came straight here when I got back.
 
It was a huge shock.”

“Well, I’m
sure the Markham sisters will make you feel welcome,” Stuart said
heartily.
 
“Joan, the older sister,
is brilliant in the kitchen.
 
Maggie
was a great person, but she wasn’t a very good cook.
 
Joan is much better.”

“Excellent,”
the man beamed.
 
He turned to
Janet.
 
“I assume you’re not Joan,
then?”

“Haven’t you
introduced yourself?” Stuart asked.
 
“All the travelling around the world hasn’t improved your manners.”
 
Stuart turned to Janet.
 
“Janet Markham, this is Edward Bennett.
 
He was a dear friend of Maggie’s for
many years.
 
Edward, this is Janet
Markham, the younger of the two lovely sisters who have just recently purchased
Doveby
House.”

Edward bowed
deeply.
 
“It is a great pleasure to
meet you, Ms. Markham.
 
I do hope
you’ll be able to find a room for me.”

Janet opened
her mouth, not entirely certain how she was going to say “no,” but she was
interrupted.

“Janet?
 
What’s going on?”

Joan was
coming down the steps from the conservatory, the pile of banknotes that Edward
had left in the sitting room clutched in her hand.

“Ah, this must
be the lovely Joan,” Edward said.
 
He turned and bowed to Joan, offering his hand when he
straightened.
 
“I’m Edward Bennett.
 
I was a friend of Maggie’s and I had a
booking for this week for the purple guest room.
 
I was just asking Stuart if he’d vouch
for me, as your charming sister seems reluctant to accommodate me.”

Joan looked
from Janet to the collection of notes in her hand.
 
“I’m sure we can work out something,”
Joan told the man.
 
“Although I’m
afraid the purple room is out of the question, as that’s Janet’s room now.”

“Ah, of
course, but that’s no problem.
 
I’m
happy anywhere.
 
Maggie used to have
me sleep on the couch in the sitting room if the guest rooms were all full,”
Edward replied.

“Well, that
certainly won’t be necessary this time,” Joan said.
 
“We have two perfectly lovely empty
guest rooms.
 
You can have your
choice between them.”

“I think he
should go in the west room,” Janet said loudly.
 
Not only was it the smaller of the two
rooms, it was further from her room.

Joan looked as
if she might argue, but Janet didn’t let her.
 

“Come along,
then, I’ll show you to your room,” Janet said to Edward.
 
She headed off towards the house, not
caring if the man was following or not.
 
Behind her she heard him saying a few words to Stuart.
 
When she reached the French doors, he
jumped ahead of her.

“Allow me,” he
said, holding the door while she walked through it.

Janet muttered
“thanks” under her breath and then walked back to the sitting room.
 
She grabbed the lightest of the man’s
bags and headed for the stairs.

“I take it you
don’t have any staff around to help with bags?” Edward asked as he looked at
the other three bags that remained.

“We aren’t
open for business,” Janet reminded him tartly.

“In that case,
just leave the bags and I’ll take them up one at a time,” he suggested.

“This one
isn’t heavy.
 
I’ll take it up,”
Janet replied.
 
“You can do what you
like with the rest.”

In the short
upstairs corridor, she made sure her bedroom door was shut before opening the
door to the smaller guest room.
 
She
dropped the man’s case on the bed and turned to leave.
 
Edward was right behind her, carrying
the two largest cases.

“I do hope
this is okay,” Janet said, not caring if it was or not.

“It’s fine,”
Edward assured her.
 
“I assume the
door locks and you have a key for me?”

Janet
frowned.
 
“Of course we do,” she
said uncertainly.
 
She knew she’d
seen keys somewhere, but she simply couldn’t remember where as the man stared
at her.

“Here we are,”
Joan said from the doorway.
 
“I’m
fairly certain this is the right key, but let me check.”
 

Janet watched
as Joan tried the key, which turned easily.
 

“Mrs. Appleton
had it
labelled
as “blue room,” but, of course, we’ve
had it painted,” Joan told Edward.
 

“I like the
new
colour
,” he replied.
 
“And you’ve had the furniture fixed up
as well.
 
Maggie was allowing things
to get a bit shabby around here.”

Joan
beamed.
 
“We’ve tried to make
everything as nice as possible,” she said.
 
“I’ve always wanted to have a little bed and breakfast, you see.”

“What did you
do before this?” Edward asked.

“Janet and I
were both primary schoolteachers,” Joan told him.
 
“We retired last year and did some
travelling, but I felt like it was time for a new adventure.”

“How very
fortunate for me,” the man said.
 
He
smiled brightly at both women, but only Joan returned the look.

“We’ll let you
get settled in,” Janet said, walking quickly to the door.
 
The room was definitely too small for
three people, she thought as she hurried out of it.
 
She walked down the hall to her own room
with Joan right behind her.
 
When
she hesitated outside her door, Joan opened the door and pushed her inside.

“Here,” Joan
hissed, handing Janet a key ring.

“What is
this?”

“The key to
your door,” Joan told her.
 
“I
thought you’d want to keep your door locked now that we have a guest.”

“I most
certainly do,” Janet agreed.
 
Aware
that she was nearly shouting, she made an effort to lower her voice.
 
“Why on earth did you tell him he could
stay?” she demanded of her sister.

“Did you see
all the lovely money?” Joan asked.
 
“And besides, what’s the point in having a bed and breakfast if we
aren’t having guests?
 
Stuart knows
him; it isn’t like he’s a total stranger or anything.
 
Besides, he seems charming.”

“He was one of
Maggie’s old boyfriends,” Janet said.

“You don’t
know that for sure.
 
He just said
they were friends,” Joan countered.
 
“Anyway, so what if he was?”

Janet shook
her head.
 
She hadn’t told her
sister about the letters she’d found in the desk downstairs.
 
They were very racy letters that various
men had written to Maggie Appleton over the years.
 
Janet was sure that one of the authors
had been a man called Edward.
 
She
hadn’t read more than a few lines of any one letter, but that had been enough
to make her feel uncomfortable about their unexpected guest.
 

“I’m going to
lock up the empty guest room as well as the library,” Joan told her
sister.
 
“If Mr. Bennett wants to
look at the books, he can ask one of us to open the door.
 
I’ve also locked up my suite, of
course.”

Janet
nodded.
 
She felt better knowing the
library was going to be locked.
 
She
didn’t want the man to find the letters he’d written, if he was indeed the
Edward in question.
 

“How’s your
knee?” Janet asked as she suddenly remembered that her sister had been to the
doctor.

“It’s fine,”
Joan told her.
 
“The doctor did a
bunch of poking and prodding and said he thinks it’s healing fine.
 
I just need to be patient and careful
with it.”