Albert put down the tea and biscuits roughly on the dressing table. He put his hands under the tabletop and tried to lift it, straining with his legs. It didn’t move, his bones creaking more loudly in his ears than the wood.
He opened each of the wardrobe doors and peered inside, looking for anything that might hold a door shut, or be wielded as a weapon. All he saw were precisely stacked items of clothing, dresses on hangars, and boxes and boxes of shoes, not a dagger-like stiletto amongst them.
“What are you doing?” questioned Penelope as she rose from the bed, Albert’s rudeness at rifling through her private belongings disturbing her out of her melancholic daze.
“I need a…” replied Albert, “I need a…” The sentence never seemed to complete because he wasn’t sure what he was looking for anymore.
He squatted down beside the bed, rested his back against the mattress and pushed, hoping secret caster wheels lurked under the solid wooden bed frame. He felt something give, but his joy was short-lived when he realized it was just the mattress slipping over the base.
“There’s got to be something,” he said as he stood, scanning the room for weapons.
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
Inspector Crothers listened to what Diane had uncovered, clearly sceptical at first but gaining interest as she explained how the pieces fit together. He interrupted her twice with a question which she rolled over like a tank would a daisy.
She was starting to get a little frantic again, and it made her testy and abrupt. She had expected Albert to call by now, and there had been no word, either good or bad.
When she concluded with the name of the killer, the Inspector paused as if his back had gone into spasms. Then, with a curse word that would have drawn a rebuke from Diane at any other time, he reached for his phone.
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
Albert was completing his second full rotation in an effort to find something weapon-like when he heard a thud downstairs, followed by the sound of falling pottery. He stopped his spinning and wandered to the door, ready to peer out and ask about the noise. There was a commotion on the staircase and a uniformed form stood in the bedroom doorway.
“Well, it looks like the time for subtlety is over,” said Martin Jackson as he raised a long sharp knife from his side.
Albert backed away around the bed, getting between Mrs. Kendall and the knife.
“Don’t be a hero. Just let me deal with her and you can go on home. She’s the last one. I only wanted the three of them.” Martin took a step into the room, twisting the shining blade in the air. “You know what she did, they all did.” His tone was mild, like he was explaining how to tie a shoelace.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Albert, one hand behind him to guide him along the wall of wardrobe doors. “You can’t do this.”
“Of course I can. I’ve already done it twice. One more isn’t going to take much. Do you think they’d ever let me out of prison after the other two anyway? My future is set, so I can take either her or both of you, and it won’t make any difference.”
Martin approached two more steps as Albert backed into the edge of the dressing table.
“So save yourself, old man. I’ll get her either way. Why be in the way when…”
Albert swung a mug he had gripped behind him, the hot tea flashing out of the cup and into the face of Martin.
“Run,” yelled Albert to Penelope as he hurled the mug after the tea at Martin’s face.
Penelope scrambled over the bed and through the doorway. Albert tried to follow, but Martin swung the knife wildly in front of him, cursing as he did, trying to blink his scorched eyelids. Albert grabbed the second mug and threw it at the knife hand, which got another yelp from Martin who hugged the hand to his chest in pain. Albert dropped his shoulder and rammed into Martin’s side, knocking him against the wall, clearing Albert’s path to the stairs.
He stumbled across the landing and down the stairs, expecting a knife to slip through his shirt and into his back at any moment. Penelope was in the hallway below trying to drag an unconscious Dan Jenkins away from the door, his body sitting upright against their way out.
As Albert stepped off the bottom stair, he heard Martin grunt behind him, snarling in rage from the landing above.
Grabbing Penelope’s hand, Albert dragged her into the living room, slamming the solid door shut behind them. There was no lock on the door, so Albert braced himself against it, holding the handle up to try to stop Martin from opening it.
“The window,” he hissed at Penelope, who was standing in the centre of the room, clearly in the grip of panic. “Get out the window.”
A bang shook the door and jolted through Albert’s frame, his muscles and bones protesting at the sharp treatment.
“I’m going to kill you both,” screamed Martin from the hallway, his pretence of sanity shed like snakeskin. He rammed himself against the door again, the wood creaking under the assault.
Albert did his best to brace his foot against a cabinet, his shoes slipping a little further over the carpeted floor with every new assault. Penelope was working on the window latch, but it looked like years of painting over the join had sealed the window to the frame as well as if it had grown as a single piece of wood.
She hammered at it with her hands in vain.
Another shock rang through the door, and Albert’s knees buckled, unable to hold against the stress any longer. One more push and there would be nowhere to run.
Martin seemed to sense his imminent victory as he laughed hard and loud.
“You could have lived you, stupid old man,” he cackled.
Albert reached for a solid bronze statuette, either to defend himself or to hurl at the window as he tried to brace himself one final time. Penelope was staring out the window as if trying to capture one last vision of the world beyond.
There was banging behind the door and shouts from outside. Blue lights washed through the living room, and shadows sprang around like fleeing sprites. A smash of glass came from the back of the house in the direction of the kitchen.
Martin bellowed, and Albert heard his feet stomp rapidly down the hallway, the clack of the bead curtains marking his passage. There was a yell, the sounds of a scuffle followed by a series of grunts and snarls that sounded like Martin.
A figure sprang across the living room window silhouetted by the lights outside causing Penelope to squeal and tumble backward onto the settee. The blue light canted and shifted around the eyes as it passed through thick lenses.
“Diane!” cried Albert, suddenly realizing the Police had arrived. He picked himself up off his knees that growled at him for the trouble he had put them through. There was a knock on the living room door.
“It’s Inspector Crothers. You’re safe to come out. We have him.”
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
Diane spent five minutes explaining what had happened to Albert, and he spent five minutes describing his failed plans. Penelope Kendall was tended to in a police car by a paramedic, her quivering lip the only movement on her face where her eyes stared at the headrest of the driver’s seat.
“I’ll take that,” said Inspector Crothers reaching out to Albert, who still held the bronze statuette in his hand. “We don’t need a burglary in amongst all this too.”
“So he was the son of the man that died in jail?” asked Albert.
“Oh yes,” said Diane. “He came back here a few years ago after entering the Police force. His adopted family had changed his name to theirs, but he never forgot the early years of his life. At some point, he must have looked up his father’s case and decided there was some justice to be handed out.”
“But why did he wait so long? He could have spread it out over years and no-one would have been any the wiser.”
“Ah, well,” said the Inspector, “Today appears to have been the twentieth anniversary of his father’s death. It’s odd why criminals wait for such moments, but its approach seemed to trigger something in him that
set him on the path to murder.”
“The sins of the past never really disappear, I suppose,” lamented Albert.
Raised voices came from the alley, feet scuffing against the cobbled ground. Martin Jackson emerged first, a trickle of blood coming from his lip and arms cuffed behind him. He struggled with the two officers that were escorting him, each with a firm grip around a bicep.
“I almost had them all,” he yelled at Diane and Albert, “and now she’s going to get away with what she did. You helped save her from their lies.”
Diane turned her back to Martin, grabbing hold of Albert’s arm and marched him down the street away from the police vehicles.
“Goodbye, Constable,” said Diane as she walked away, raising a single hand to wave at the chained figure that receded behind them.
Get Your Free Copy of "Murder at the Inn"
Don't forget to grab your free copy of Penelope Sotheby's first novella Murder At The Inn while you still can.
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Other Books By This Author
Murder on the Village Green
Murder in the Neighbourhood
Murder on a Yacht
Murder in Bermuda
Murder in the Bahamas
Murder in Jamaica
Murder in Barbados
Murder in Aruba
About The Author
For many, the thought of childhood conjures images of hopscotch games in quiet neighbourhoods, and sticky visits to the local sweet shop. For Penelope Sotheby, childhood meant bathing in Bermuda, jiving in Jamaica and exploring a string of strange and exotic British territories with her nomadic family. New friends would come and go, but her constant companion was an old, battered collection of Agatha Christie novels that filled her hours with intrigue and wonder.
Penelope would go on to read every single one of Christie’s sixty-six novels—multiple times—and so was born a love of suspense than can be found in Sotheby’s own works today.
In 2011 the author debuted with “Murder at the Inn”, a whodunit novella set on Graham Island off the West Coast of Canada. After receiving positive acclaim, Sotheby went on to write the series “Murder in Paradise”; five novels following the antics of a wedding planner navigating nuptials (and crime scenes) in the tropical locations of Sotheby’s formative years.
An avid gardener, proud mother, and passionate host of Murder Mystery weekends, Sotheby can often be found at her large oak table, gleefully plotting the demise of her friends, tricky twists and grand reveals.
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Murder in the Village: A Diane Dimbleby Cozy Mystery Page 7
