“Never mind,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll get around to making an honest woman of Mrs. Timms in your own good time, but don’t forget that you still owe me a hundred dollars for getting that crack-pot, Seth Burrows, out of your hair.”
The End
Robbery at Roseacres
A Jane Carter Historical Cozy
Book Six
By Alice Simpson
In this Series:
Peril At The Pink Lotus (Book One)
Sinister Goings-On in 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.
Robbery at Roseacres: 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
When my dearest friend, Florence Radcliff, announced that her mother, Mrs. Reverend Sidney Radcliff, was insisting that Flo should take charge of the running of the Palette Club—an art club for teenaged girls and young women—I’d been convinced that Old Flo was talking out of the side of her hat.
My friend Florence is not artistic. I’ve seen children of the tender age of five or six come up with more sophisticated works of art. Nevertheless, Flo’s mother prevailed. Mrs. Radcliff generally prevails, particularly when it comes to strong-arming her only daughter into doing the things she would rather not. That is how Florence came to be the official chairwoman of the Palette Club.
With Florence as Chairwoman, it was inevitable that I would become Vice-Chairwoman. I am far from being womankind’s answer to Monet, but at least when I paint something, there’s an elephant’s whisker’s chance of other people knowing what it’s meant to be without a lengthy explanation coupled with standing back from the canvas several car lengths and squinting just so. At least that’s what I like to tell myself.
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon—the usual meeting time of the Palette Club—and I should have been at home, ensconced in my upper-story bedroom, sitting at my typewriter and toiling away at my latest novel: Lady Ramfurtherington’s Revenge.
Instead, I was in the rather niffy-smelling basement of St. Luke’s—Reverend Radcliff’s headquarters—attempting to reproduce in oil paint a wilted basket of daffodils accompanied by assorted bruised fruits and a smattering of motheaten silk foliage Flo had dug out from under a pile of disused hymnals stored in a recess behind the baptismal font.
“Don’t forget,” I whispered to Florence, who occupied the easel next to me. “We start for Roseacres the very second these girls are done insulting their canvases.”
“Insulting their canvases? Speak for yourself,” Flo hissed back. “I can’t tell if that’s a basket of daffodils you’re painting or a pile of old rags.”
“I’m just blocking in the main colors,” I said. I looked at my painting with a more critical eye and gave up defending it. “You’re right,” I said. “Out of us all, Abigail Whitely is the only one who’s any good.”
Abigail Whitely was new to Greenville. She was only a sophomore in high school, but already nearly seventeen. Even though the school year would be over for the summer in another month, Abigail had been enrolled at Greenville High school for only a couple of weeks.
Abigail lived with a large family in a rent-by-the-week cottage at a tourist camp on the outskirts of Greenville. I’d wondered more than once how many times she’d been moved from place to place. I expected that frequent moves must account for her being unusually old for her grade.
“About Abigail—” said Flo, lowering voice even further.
“What about her?”
“Some of the girls don’t seem to like Abigail very much.”
I had noticed, but I wasn’t sure why Abigail hadn’t been accepted by the other girls nearer her age. Of course, Flo and I had been friendly to her, but we were ancient ladies of twenty-six, and most of our club members were still in high school or barely out.
“Why do you think the girls dislike Abigail?” I whispered back to Flo.
“There doesn’t seem to be any special reason for it.”
“Her poverty, perhaps?”
“I don’t think it’s that. Abigail is so quiet that the other girls have not yet become acquainted with her.”
At the other side of the room, Abigail Whitely was putting on her hat and picking up her handbag in preparation to leave. She was a sober-faced girl who wore a faded blue dress which seemed to draw all color from her thin face. I noticed that she avoided meeting anyone’s eye. She never said a word unless spoken to first.
I stood up.
“Abigail, don’t go yet,” I said loudly. Heads swiveled behind easels and brushes stopped moving. “I propose that we get out of this stuffy old basement. How about we adjourn the Palette Club meeting to Roseacres. Flo and I were planning on going there this afternoon anyway. Why don’t you all come along? What does everyone think? Abigail, what about you?”
A smile of surprise and pleasure brightened Abigail’s face.
“Oh, I should love to go, only I don’t think—” She hesitated, looking around the room waiting for someone else to second the invitation. No one did.
I gave Florence a little pinch.
“Yes, do come, Abigail,” Flo said. “We plan to sketch the old wishing well.”
“I have enough drawing material for both of us,” I added.
“If you really want me, of course, I’ll come,” Abigail said. “I’ve heard all about Roseacres and would very much like to see it.”
All twelve members of the Palette Club boarded a bus outside St. Luke’s, and we rode it all the way to the end of the line. From there it was a quarter-mile walk along a country road. Florence and I chose Abigail as our companion, trying to make her feel at ease. Conversation became rather difficult, however, as the girl was wont to answer every query with a solitary “yes” or a “no.” I was relieved when, after what seemed an eternity, we came within sight of Roseacres.
“There’s the old house,” I said, pointing out a steeply pitched roof-top which rose above a jungle of tall oaks. “It’s been vacant for at least ten years now.”
The Covington estate—picturesquely referred to as Roseacres—was a handsome dwelling of pre-Civil War days. It had long had been Greenville’s most outstanding architectural curiosity. Only in a vague way was I familiar with its history. Its last mistress, Mrs. James Covington, had moved away from Greenville ten years ago, and ever since, the house had stood unpainted and untended. Once
so beautifully kept, the grounds had become a tangle of weeds and untrimmed bushes. Even so, the old house with its six graceful pillars retained a measure of dignity and beauty.
We entered the yard through a space where a gate once had stood and looked around. I caught a glimpse of the Grassy River which curved around the south side of the grounds in a wide bend.
“Where is the old wishing well?” Abigail asked. “I’ve heard so much about it.”
“We’re coming to it now,” I said, leading the way down an avenue of oak trees.
Not far from the house stood the old-fashioned covered well. Its base was of cut stone, and on a bronze plate had been engraved the words: “If you do a good deed, you can make a wish, and it will come true.”
“Some people around Greenville really believe that this old well has the power to make wishes come true,” Florence said looking down at her reflection mirrored in the water far below. “In years past, when Mrs. Covington still lived here, it developed quite a reputation.”
“The water is still drinkable if you don’t mind a smattering of good old green algae,” I said. “I see that someone has replaced the bucket. There was none here the last time I came.”
I lowered the old wooden bucket and brought it up filled with water.
“Make a wish, Mrs. Carter,” Madeline, one of the livelier girls of the Palette Club, urged. “Maybe it will come true.”
“Everyone knows what she’ll ask for,” teased Florence. “Her desires are always the same—a diamond engage—”
I flung a dipper of water at Flo to shut her up, and the girls laughed when Flo neatly sidestepped the splash.
Flo’s suggestion that I was angling for a diamond engagement ring was a spurious and wholly unfounded accusation. Jack Bancroft—a longtime friend of mine—and I had indeed grown a trifle hotsey-totsey of late, but the implication that I was dying to marry the man—well, Florence Radcliff was clearly in the grips of an overactive imagination, something she’s always been quick to accuse me of.
I smiled in what I hoped passed for an unperturbed air as I drew a second dipper of water from the wooden bucket.
“How about the good deed?” I said. “I’ve done nothing worthy of a demand upon this old well.”
“You helped your father round up a group of Night Riders,” Florence reminded me. “Remember the big story you wrote for the Greenville Examiner about the Moresby Tower clock striking thirteen?”
“I did prevent Clark Bronson from tricking a number of people in this community,” I acknowledged. “Perhaps that entitles me to a wish.”
Drinking deeply from the dipper, I poured the last drops into the well, watching as they made concentric circles in the still water below.
“Old well, do your stuff and grant my wish,” I entreated. “Please get busy right away.”
“But what is your wish, Mrs. Carter?” demanded another of the girls. “You have to tell.”
“All right, I will. My wish is that Roseacres could be restored to its former beauty.”
“You believe in making hard ones. You’d have been a lot closer to success if you’d just been honest and wished for an engagement ring.” Florence laughed. “I doubt that this place ever will be fixed up again—at least not until after the property changes hands.”
“It’s Abigail’s turn now,” I said, ignoring Flo’s loose talk of engagement rings and offering the dipper to Abigail.
The girl stepped to the edge of the well, her face very serious.
“Do you think wishes really do come true?”
“Oh, it’s only for the fun of it,” Florence said. “But they do say that in the old days, this well had remarkable powers. Rumor has it that many persons came here to make wishes which they claim came true. I’m not sure I believe in it myself.”
Abigail stood for a moment looking down into the well. She drank from the dipper and then allowed a few drops to spatter into the deep cavern below.
“I wish—” she said in a low, tense voice— “I wish that someday Pop and Mrs. Sanderson will be repaid for looking after my brother and me. I wish that they may have more money for food and clothes and a few really nice things.”
An awkward, embarrassed silence descended. Everyone knew that Abigail and her younger brother, Ted, lived in a tiny cottage at a tourist camp with a family unrelated to them by blood, but not even I had troubled to learn additional details. From Abigail’s wish, it was apparent to all that the Sandersons were in dire poverty.
“It’s your turn now, Florence,” I said quickly.
Florence accepted the dipper. Without drinking, she tossed all the water back into the well and said, “I wish Jane would grow long ears and a tail! It would serve her right for playing hard to get with that lovely Jack Bancroft who is completely devoted and hopelessly besotted—”
“Your turn, Maryann,” I said, wrenching the dipper from Flo’s grasp and handing it to one of the giggling members of the Palette Club.
Maryann, followed by all the remaining girls, took their turns and made equally frivolous wishes. Thereafter, we abandoned fun for serious work, getting out our sketching materials. Flo and I began to draw the old well, but Abigail, intrigued by the classical beauty of the house, decided to try to transfer that view to paper.
“You do nice work,” I said, looking over Abigail’s shoulder. “The rest of our drawings look liked they’ve been produced by ossified orangutans.”
“You may have the sketch when I finish,” Abigail offered, not bothering to contradict my uncharitable assessment of our collective artistic expertise.
As she spoke, there was a commotion in the bushes behind the house. I heard the cackling of a chicken followed by the sound of pounding feet.
From the direction of the river, a young man darted into view, pursued by an older man who was far less agile. It was immediately apparent why the youth was being chased, for he carried a fat hen beneath his arm. He ran with his hat pulled low, obscuring his face.
“Stop! You filthy chicken thief!” I shouted, springing to my feet. “Come on, girls, let’s head him off.”
Chapter Two
The young man saw us congregated around the wishing well. He swerved in the opposite direction and darted into the woods. Pursuit was futile. I’m a fairly fast runner, but I’d been putting in too many hours on racking up pages on Lady Ramfurtherington’s Revenge and too few hours getting up early, sneaking out of the house and running myself around the block—an activity I was careful to conceal from Mrs. Timms.
Mrs. Timms is officially my father’s housekeeper, but she’s the closest thing I currently have to a mother. She is also a woman of very rigid and hidebound notions when it comes to suitable athletic pursuits for ladies.
Tennis, golf, swimming, archery and riding horseback—when practiced in moderation and eschewing the use of vulgar language—all meet with Mrs. Timm’s approval. Sprinting down the street wearing a pair of my father’s cast-off trousers hacked off at the knee is not the sort of thing I had any wish to be caught doing by Mrs. Timms. It would very likely send her to an early grave.
I will not stand for Mrs. Timms shuffling off this mortal coil before I can convince my father—who’s been carrying a torch (albeit concealed under a bushel) for Mrs. Timms for years now—to gather his courage and ask Doris Timms to center aisle it.
“Who was that boy with the chicken?” I asked the others. “Did any of you recognize him?”
“I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere,” Flo said. “Were you able to see his face, Abigail?”
The man who had pursued the boy ran into the yard. Breathing hard, he paused near the well.
“Did you see a boy come through here? The rascal stole one of my good layin’ hens.”
“We saw him,” I said, “but I’m sure you’ll never overtake him now. He ran into the woods.”
“Reckon you’re right,” the man muttered, seating himself on the stone rim of the wishing well. “I’m tuckered.” Taking out a red bandana hand
kerchief, he wiped perspiration from his forehead.
I thought that I recognized the man as a stonecutter who lived in the back of his workshop at the river’s edge. He was short and muscular, strong despite his age, with hands roughened by hard labor. His face had been browned by wind and sun. His gray eyes squinted as if ever viewing the world with suspicion.
“Aren’t you Truman Kip?” I asked him.
“That’s my tag,” the stonecutter answered, drawing himself a drink of water from the well. “What are you young ladies doing here?”
“Oh, our club came to sketch,” I told him. “You live close by, don’t you?”
“Down yonder,” the man replied, draining the dipper in a thirsty gulp. “I been haulin’ stone all day. It’s a hard way to make a living, let me tell you. Then I come home to find that young rascal making off with my chicken.”
“Do you know who he was?” asked Flo.
“No, but this ain’t the first time he’s paid me a visit. Last week he stole one of my best Rhode Island Reds. I’m plumb disgusted.”
Abigail abruptly arose from the grass and gathered together her sketching materials. As if to put an end to the conversation, she remarked: “It will soon be dark, girls. I think I should start home.”
“We’ll all be leaving in a few minutes,” I replied. “Let’s look around a bit more before we go.”
“You won’t see nothin’ worth lookin’ at around here,” the stonecutter said contemptuously. “This old house ain’t much anymore. There’s good lumber in it, though, and the foundation has some first-class stone.”
“You speak as if you had designs on it,” I said. “It would be a shame to tear down a beautiful old house such as this.”
“What’s it good for?” the man shrugged. “There ain’t no one lived here in ten or twelve years. Not since the old lady went off.”
“Did you know Mrs. Covington?”
“Oh, we said howdy to each other when we’d meet, but that was the size of it. The old lady didn’t like me none, and I thought the same of her. She never wanted my chickens runnin’ over her yard. Ain’t it a pity she can’t see ’em now?”
Jane Carter Historical Cozies: Omnibus Edition (Six Mystery Novels) Page 72
