The Moody Case

by Diana Xarissa

  “This is nice,” Joan said. She was standing next to a car that was very similar to the one they’d just left with Mack. It was a useful car that was boring in every possible way, exactly like every car they’d ever owned.

  Janet shook her head. “It’s only for an hour. I want to try something a little more exciting.”

  Joan sighed. “Cars aren’t meant to be exciting. They’re meant to get us from one place to another.”

  Janet didn’t bother to argue; instead she turned her focus to a different car. “This is nice,” she said. It was a small car with fun curves but five sensible seats. “There’s plenty of room in the back for a lamp, even if the boot is pretty small.”

  Joan looked at the car and then shrugged. “It’s very red,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Janet agreed. “That’s one of the best parts.”

  While Joan stood and frowned at the car, Janet went inside to get the keys.

  “Oh, that’s a nice one,” Mack told her. “It has really low mileage because the original owner spent half his year in Portugal and only drove it when he was here. I can give you a good price on it, if you really like it.”

  “We don’t really need a second car,” Janet said, even though she’d been thinking about getting one for months. “Joan and I have always shared a car, ever since we learned to drive.”

  “I suppose that makes sense, since you live together. Have you always lived together?”

  “We have. We bought a small cottage together right after we finished university and we just sold it when we bought Doveby House. We always taught at the same primary school as well, until we retired.”

  “Maybe you’re overdue for a car of your own,” Mack suggested.

  Janet took the keys from him and smiled. “Maybe.”

  The drive into the centre of Doveby Dale didn’t take very long at all in the little car. Janet parked in the car park for the small row of shops there.

  “It’s too small,” Joan complained as she climbed out of the passenger seat. “It’s not nearly as comfortable as our car.”

  “No, but it’s a lot more fun,” Janet retorted.

  They crossed the car park to the antique shop at one end of the row. It seemed unlikely that they’d find an inexpensive lamp there, but it was worth trying, just in case. If William didn’t have what they wanted, they would have to drive into Derby to shop, and neither sister felt as if they had the time for that at the moment.

  “Good morning,” William Chalmers said, smiling brightly at the sisters as they walked into the shop.

  William was a grey-haired man in his sixties. He was always impeccably dressed, and today was no exception. His dark grey suit appeared to have been tailor-made for him and his black leather shoes were brightly polished. When he’d first moved to Doveby Dale to open his shop, he’d been rude and prickly. Janet and Joan later discovered that he was doing his best to hide a past that included time in prison for misrepresenting the antiques he’d been selling at his former shop in London.

  Over time, William had let his guard down and become a good deal nicer, not just to Janet and Joan but to everyone in Doveby Dale. When he’d suggested that he might like to pursue a romantic relationship with Janet, she’d cautiously agreed to spend some time with the man, getting to know him better. They were taking things very slowly, which suited them both, but Janet couldn’t help but feel a rush of affection for the man as he crossed the room to greet her with a hug.

  “What can I do for you today?” he asked after he’d given Joan a somewhat less enthusiastic embrace.

  “One of our guests managed to break the lamp in her room,” Joan told him. “It was a large floor lamp and I’ve no idea how she was able to knock it over and step on it, but that seems to be what she did.”

  “I hope she will be paying for the replacement,” William said.

  “Unfortunately, she seemed to have forgotten to mention the damaged lamp when she was leaving. In fact, she didn’t bother to let us know she was going, she simply packed her things and went several hours before she was due to leave. I’ve sent her a note telling her that I’ll be sending her a bill for a replacement, but I doubt she’ll ever send a cheque.”

  “She didn’t use a credit card?” William asked.

  “No, she paid cash. She was a last-minute booking for one night only. She simply turned up on our doorstep rather late at night and I couldn’t bring myself to turn her away. I don’t even know if the name and address she gave me were genuine.”

  William sighed. “What a shame. I hope it wasn’t a valuable lamp.”

  “I don’t think it was. It came with the house, of course, as did all of the furniture,” Joan said.

  “It was an ugly lamp,” Janet interjected. “I never liked it, but it stood in the corner and did its job reasonably well, so there was no need to change it.”

  “But now you need something new, or rather something else, as something new would look out of place among all of the antiques in Doveby House,” William said. “I don’t have a lot of lamps here, but I do have one thing that might work. Wait here a minute.”

  Joan and Janet wandered around the shop, looking at various things while they waited. When William came back, he was carrying a large floor lamp that looked old.

  “That’s an almost exact match for what’s in the other guest room,” Joan said. “In fact, it may be an exact match.”

  “Does that mean you like it or not?” William asked. He set it down and plugged it into a nearby outlet. When he switched it on, it seemed to give off a reasonable amount of light.

  “I do like it,” Joan said. “Much more so than the one that was broken, anyway. How much do you want for it?”

  William shrugged. “Ten pounds, maybe?”

  “Ten pounds? That isn’t nearly enough, surely,” Joan questioned.

  “I’ll be honest with you, because, well, because we’re friends,” he said, blushing and glancing at Janet. “This was in the little office in the back of the shop when I bought the place. There was a desk and chair, too, but I had them hauled away with the rubbish. They were terrible. The lamp isn’t bad, but it isn’t to my taste. I was just thinking last week about putting it out with the rubbish.”

  “Surely you could simply put it in the shop?” Janet asked.

  “I could, but it isn’t really old enough or special enough for the shop,” he said. “Which sounds awfully pretentious, but I do try to keep the shop to rather high standards.”

  Janet nodded. “And it shows”

  He smiled at her. “Thank you. Anyway, I’ve no use for it, so if you really do like it, you can have it with my compliments.”

  “We’ll pay you the ten pounds,” Joan said, “and be very grateful to get it for that price. I don’t know that I’ll bother billing our careless guest now.”

  “You should,” Janet said. “She’ll probably be so surprised that it was so inexpensive that she’ll pay it without complaint.”

  “Somehow I doubt that, but we can hope,” Joan said.

  William helped them load the lamp into the borrowed car. “Did you buy a new car?” he asked Janet as she shut the boot.

  “No, we’re just borrowing this one from Mack at the garage. He’s writing us estimates for some repairs on ours. We were rear-ended yesterday,” she explained.

  “That seems to be happening a lot lately. More than one of my customers has complained about being in an accident in the area,” William remarked. “Maybe it’s just the summer visitors who don’t know the roads.”

  “That’s probably it,” Janet agreed. “The man who hit us was a summer visitor, anyway.”

  “I hope you got all of his details.”

  “We rang Robert and let him take care of it,” Janet replied.

  “And you’re both okay? No whiplash or anything?”

  “We’re both fine. It was just a little tap, really, although it seems as if it’s going to cost a bit to get the damage repaired,” Janet said.

  Willi
am gave her another hug. “You need to take better care of yourself,” he said in her ear. “I worry about you.”

  “I’m fine,” Janet assured him.

  “I’ve had an invitation to the grand opening of the new antique shop in Little Burton,” he told her. “Would you like to come with me to see it?”

  “I told you about my visit there, didn’t I?” Janet asked. “I didn’t realise that Mr. Hamilton-Burke was having a formal grand opening.”

  “He is, and it’s this Friday,” William told her. “Maybe he wasn’t really expecting customers when you and Stuart dropped in. That might explain why the tags on everything were so badly done.”

  Janet nodded. She and their neighbour, Stuart Long, had been driving through Little Burton and had stopped to visit the antique shop some weeks earlier. While an “open” sign had been displayed in the shop’s front window, the items inside were all simply labeled with single-word descriptions such as “table” or “chair.” Janet had expected detailed descriptions on the tags, but even just prices would have been an improvement. “What time on Friday?” she asked.

  “According to the invitation, the celebrations run from midday until six,” William told her. “Perhaps I could collect you around four and we could drive over and take a look around and then have dinner somewhere in Little Burton?”

  “That sounds nice,” Janet said, “but we’re really busy with guests right now.”

  “Go anyway,” Joan said. “I can deal with our guests on my own for a few hours. You haven’t done anything besides work for weeks.”

  Janet flushed. Joan was right; she had been putting William off every time he invited her out because they were so busy, or at least that was what she’d been telling William. There was more to it than that, of course, but she didn’t want to think about Edward Bennett at the moment. “Are you sure?” she asked her sister.

  “I’m quite sure,” Joan said firmly. “Then maybe you could deal with the guests for a few hours one night so that I can spend some time with Michael,” she added.

  Janet chuckled. “I suppose that’s only fair.”

  “I’m not trying to be horrible,” Joan said quickly. “Only I do miss Michael.”

  “I should have realised,” Janet said. “You haven’t really seen him in more than a month, have you?”

  Joan had never been one for spending time with boys when they’d been younger, so she’d been as surprised as Janet when their neighbour, Michael Donaldson, had started courting her. After some initial awkwardness, the pair seemed to have settled into a comfortable relationship and when things had been quieter at Doveby House, Joan had often gone out with Michael several times a week.

  “I had dinner with him three weeks ago,” Joan said. “Otherwise we’ve only spoken on the telephone.”

  “He should come over and visit more,” Janet suggested.

  “He’s trying to stay out of the way while we’re so busy,” Joan explained. “I’ve suggested he come for lunch once in a while though, and he may try that soon.”

  “Have dinner with him on Saturday,” Janet told her. “I’ll deal with the guests.”

  “We’ll see,” was Joan’s reply.

  It only took the sisters a few minutes to drive back to Doveby House and drop off the lamp. They carried it into the house and put it in the corner of the sitting room until they had time to move it up to the appropriate guest room. Then they made their way back over to Mack’s garage to see if he’d finished their estimates yet.

  Chapter 3

  “Here you are, then,” Mack said, handing Joan a pile of papers. “The less expensive option is on top, but as I said, I can’t be sure if it’s possible until I take the car apart.”

  Joan looked through the sheets and then passed them to Janet.

  “Even the less expensive option is more than two hundred pounds,” Janet said. “Mr. Moody was trying to cheat us.”

  “I doubt he had any better idea what car repairs cost than we do,” Joan said. “Even though he was deeply unpleasant, I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that he was just mistaken.”

  Janet shook her head. “If he weren’t trying to cheat us, he could have offered to pay for whatever our repairs cost and given us his name and number. That way he could have avoiding involving the insurance companies and still paid for the repair.”

  “Do you want to go ahead and book the car in to have it repaired, then?” Mack asked.

  Janet and Joan exchanged glances. “We should,” Janet said. “How long will it take?”

  “Two or three days for the easy option, maybe a week or so for the full replacement if I need to do that. I’ll have to order the parts, you see.”

  “We can’t be without our car for a week,” Joan said.

  “I’m happy to let you borrow anything you’d like,” Mack said. “I don’t sell enough secondhand cars to worry if one isn’t available for a while. You can even try out a few different ones if you’d like. There’s a little red convertible that you could just take for a short spin, for example.”

  Janet grinned. “Don’t tempt me,” she said.

  “Perhaps we could just borrow the one that is most like ours,” Joan said. “That would be the sensible thing to do.”

  “Or we could borrow the one we had today,” Janet suggested. “That would be sort of sensible and much more fun.”

  “The boot isn’t very large.” Joan objected.

  “It held the lamp. It’s plenty big enough for our grocery shopping,” Janet countered.

  Joan shrugged. “I don’t want to drive it,” she said. “If we borrow that one, you’ll have to do all of the driving.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Janet said quickly. “You’re busy at the house anyway. You won’t even miss not being able to drive.”

  “Is that settled, then?” Mack asked.

  “Yes, I think so,” Janet replied. “I just have to hope you won’t sell that car before you’re ready to start the repairs on ours.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry,” Mack sighed. “No one in Doveby Dale seems to be car shopping at the moment. I suspect if anyone were, he or she would go into Derby to shop, anyway. I’m starting to think that having secondhand cars here is a waste of time.”

  “It’s nice that you can lend them out to people having repair work done,” Janet said. “You should charge a rental fee, maybe.”

  “That’s another business altogether,” Mack laughed. “Anyway, let me look at my book and see what I can do.” He walked into his office and returned a moment later, carrying a large appointment book. “I’ve quite a few little jobs on the books at the moment. There seems to have been a big rise in fender benders in the area lately.”

  “It’s probably all of the summer visitors who don’t know the roads,” Janet said. “That was the excuse the man who hit us used, anyway.”

  Mack nodded. “There are a few unexpected stop signs around, I suppose. Anyway, I had a cancellation tomorrow morning. If you bring the car in at seven tomorrow morning, I can get started. I’ll only be able to put a few hours in on it, but that might be enough for me to work out which repair option will work for you.”

  “Seven?” Janet echoed. While she would have to be up and dressed by seven because they had guests, the thought of driving down to the garage by that time wasn’t pleasant.

  “Unless you want to just leave the car here now,” Mack said. “I won’t be able to do anything with it today, but I’ve plenty of room around the back for it. As I said, I’ll get started on it tomorrow morning.”

  “Only if you’re sure you don’t mind if we borrow the same car again,” Janet said.

  “I don’t mind at all. This way you’re sure you have it, as well,” Mack told her. “I can tell you liked it a lot.”

  “I did,” Janet agreed.

  “As I said before, I can give you a good price on it,” Mack told her.

  Janet looked at Joan and then sighed. “I don’t think we really ne
ed two cars,” she said reluctantly.

  “We truly don’t,” Joan said. “We’ve managed perfectly well for many years with just the one.”

  Janet nodded. In her head she knew that Joan was right, but her heart now belonged to the little red coupe that was parked outside. Joan would never agree to replacing their current car with anything so small and cute, but Janet thought it was wonderful.

  “I know you like this car, but it isn’t terribly comfortable,” Joan said as Janet drove back to Doveby House a short time later.

  “But it’s really fun to drive,” Janet replied. “It’s ours for a few days, anyway. I’m going to enjoy having it while I can.”

  As Janet walked up the steps to Doveby House, she smiled. Whatever she felt about running the bed and breakfast, she did love the seventeenth-century manor house. It was far larger and more elegant than any house she’d ever lived in, and she’d never imagined that she and Joan would ever own such a wonderful home. When they didn’t have guests and only the two of them were there, she loved every inch of it. During these busy summer months, she’d come to feel that her bedroom, with its spacious en-suite bathroom, was probably her favourite place in the house, aside from the library, of course.

  The library at the back of the house wasn’t large, but its walls were completely lined in shelves that were covered in books. The sisters had bought the house fully furnished, including all of the books on the shelves, and Janet had spent months rearranging the titles into an order that suited her, even if she was the only person who understood it. She’d removed a few books as she’d made room for the ones that the sisters had brought with them. She and Joan were in complete agreement that the library should remain locked at all times when there were guests in the house. Joan always reminded Janet that guests were welcome to use the library, they only had to ask, but neither sister ever bothered to mention that to their guests.

  “Meooww,” Aggie said as Janet opened the door.

  “It is time for lunch, isn’t it?” Janet exclaimed. “Aren’t you clever for noticing?”