Jane Hetherington's Adventures In Detection Read online
Jane Hetherington’s Adventures in Detection
Books 1 -3
Nina Jon
Copyright © 2013 by Nina Jon
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Cat and Mouse Publishers
A Game of Cat and Mouse Cover image: Mouse Trap (board game) by Hasbro Inc
Contents
THE NIGHT OF HARRISON MONK'S DEATH
Jane Hetherington’s Adventures in Detection: 1
CHAPTER 1 Jane Hetherington’s First Case
CHAPTER 2 First Things First
CHAPTER 3 Inspector Hubris
CHAPTER 4 Chinese Tea and Dumplings
CHAPTER 5 Spinsters in Peril!
CHAPTER 6 The Case of the Missing Engagement Ring
CHAPTER 7 Sam
CHAPTER 8 Phil
CHAPTER 9 Mrs Gray’s Lonely Little Boy
CHAPTER 10 Mr Kim
CHAPTER 11 The Coolest Boy in School
CHAPTER 12 Suckling Pig at Hamilton Hall
CHAPTER 13 Tea with the Grays
CHAPTER 14 The Snake Charmer
CHAPTER 15 Mrs Kim
CHAPTER 16 Jane Receives Good News
CHAPTER 17 The Police Drag the Lake
CHAPTER 18 Stanman
CHAPTER 19 Sigmund
CHAPTER 20 When Want Comes in the Door…
CHAPTER 21 The Answer Phone Message
CHAPTER 22 Cold Feet
CHAPTER 23 Dead Man Driving
CHAPTER 24 Callum MacCallum
CHAPTER 25 The Body on the Beach
CHAPTER 26 Mr Kim
CHAPTER 27 The Night of Harrison Monk’s Death
CHAPTER 28 The Scene in Court
PANDORA’S BOX
Jane Hetherington’s Adventures in Detection: 2
CHAPTER 1 February
CHAPTER 2 Spinsters in Peril!
CHAPTER 3 The Failsham Wool Shop
CHAPTER 4 Pandora’s Box
CHAPTER 5 The Rectory
CHAPTER 6 Spinsters on the Warpath!
CHAPTER 7 The Search for the Poison Pen Pal
CHAPTER 8 Spinsters Fight Back!
CHAPTER 9 Graham Burslem
CHAPTER 10 Can it Be?
CHAPTER 11 Spinsters Spill the Beans!
CHAPTER 12 The Good Bergers of Failsham
CHAPTER 13 Neighbours Divided
CHAPTER 14 Sailles
CHAPTER 15 Time to put aside Childish Things
CHAPTER 16 Hilda Lawley
CHAPTER 17 The Poison Pen Pal
CHAPTER 18 The History of the Failsham Wool shop
CHAPTER 19 May the Best Man Win
CHAPTER 20 The Case of the Philandering Husband
CHAPTER 21 Peter Wilson
CHAPTER 22 Opportunity Knocks
CHAPTER 23 National Treasures
CHAPTER 24 10 Upper Alan Street, Sheffield
CHAPTER 25 Top of the Morning to you
CHAPTER 26 Book of Lies
CHAPTER 27 Five Thousand Best Friends
CHAPTER 28 Man of God
CHAPTER 29 Fifteen Minutes of Fame
CHAPTER 30 The Long Arm of the Law
CHAPTER 31 Fifteen Minutes of Infamy
CHAPTER 32 Angela
CHAPTER 33 The Duties of a Public Servant
CHAPTER 34 Blue Moon Arts and Crafts
CHAPTER 35 The Oldest Trick in the Book
CHAPTER 36 The Letter
CHAPTER 37 Read All About It
CHAPTER 38 Closure
CHAPTER 39 Pandora’s Box
A GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE
Jane Hetherington’s Adventures in Detection: 3
CHAPTER 1 Sisters! Sisters!
CHAPTER 2 Mad March Hare
CHAPTER 3 The Mouse in the Summerhouse
CHAPTER 4 Gone Fishing!
CHAPTER 5 A Game of Cat and Mouse
CHAPTER 6 Mousetrap
CHAPTER 7 The Case of the Sister Behaving Strangely
CHAPTER 8 Think Out of the Box
CHAPTER 9 Dabney Farm
CHAPTER 10 Lucy Erpingham
CHAPTER 11 Jill
CHAPTER 12 Stella Barnes
CHAPTER 13 The Bin Woman
CHAPTER 14 Tricky Mickey
CHAPTER 15 The Fig Leaf
CHAPTER 16 Hell’s Angels?
CHAPTER 17 The Chase
CHAPTER 18 There’s Only One Emma Greenlee
CHAPTER 19 Monty
CHAPTER 20 Patio-man
CHAPTER 21 Stan the Man
CHAPTER 22 The Mouse Catcher General!
CHAPTER 23 The Underwear Model
CHAPTER 24 Charlie Moon
CHAPTER 25 The Real McCoy
CHAPTER 26 Cauliflowers and Cabbages
CHAPTER 27 Mantrap
CHAPTER 28 Jane Sets her Trap
CHAPTER 29 The Bait is Taken
CHAPTER 30 Pete Lambert
CHAPTER 31 The Olive Branch
CHAPTER 32 Will No One Rid Me of this Turbulent Mouse?
CHAPTER 33 The Whine of the Mosquito
CHAPTER 34 That Old White Magick
CHAPTER 35 Saffron and Silk
CHAPTER 36 Mr Jonathan
CHAPTER 37 Month’s End
CHAPTER 38 Shine On Charlie Moon!
CHAPTER 39 An Ode to the Artful Dodger
APRIL
Jane Hetherington’s Adventures in Detection: 4
THE NIGHT OF HARRISON MONK'S DEATH
Jane Hetherington’s Adventures in Detection: 1
CHAPTER ONE
JANE HETHERINGTON’S FIRST CASE
I
In the church hall Carolyn King stood up. She knew many in the hall disapproved of her marrying a man a lot older than her, who she’d met waitressing at his daughter’s wedding, but she couldn’t spend the rest of her life worrying about what others thought of her. She was here to support her husband at his charity event and no more. She clapped her hands to quieten every- one down and said, “The winner is…wait for it… Milly Fletcher!” Penny Orlick, already on her feet, looked rather taken aback at this statement and abruptly sat back down at the card table where she had spent the afternoon playing bridge, whilst twenty-year-old Milly Fletcher leapt up yelling, “I’ve won! I’ve won!” as though she’d won the lottery rather than a print valued at a few hun- dred pounds at most. Young Milly ran up to collect her prize. It should have been presented by Carolyn’s husband, Jon, but he made no attempt to hand Milly the prize. Instead he just stared at the pile of money on the table in front of him (which he’d just counted out from the sweet-jar still on the table), muttering, “Too much money. Too much.”
With her husband apparently unable to move, Carolyn King handed the prize to the young woman, to applause from the audience. While Milly Fletcher held up her print for the others to admire, Carolyn leant towards her husband and said, “What on earth is wrong?”
“There’s too much money. That’s what,” he said. “There was two thousand and forty-one pounds in the jar this morning and now t
here’s three thousand and twenty-two pounds. Where’s the rest come from, for pity’s sake?”
“You must have miscounted, Jon,” she said.
Her husband looked at her in disbelief. She realised her comments were foolish. Sixty-one-year-old Flight Lieutenant Jonathan King was always sure of his facts.
“I’ve a good mind to get a private detective on to it,” he said to Carolyn on the way home.
“You?” she asked him – her husband wasn’t one to spend money, even when absolutely necessary.
“No choice. The plodders aren’t going to be interested, are they?”
“They all advertise online nowadays,” his wife replied.
II
At home, Jon King made his choice of detective, and then set about e-mailing her.
‘Let me begin by saying that I am always quite sure of my facts. I am quite certain that whilst my wife and I were out, someone let themselves into our house and broke into our safe which contained a sweet-jar full of money. Now this is where the story gets odd – the culprit, or culprits, didn’t steal the money – no! They deposited more money, as though my safe was a bank and my sweet-jar their account, locked the safe and departed, leaving our house and our belongings otherwise untouched.’
III
“Is this one of the more unusual cases of safe-breaking you’ve been asked to investigate, Mrs Hetherington?” Jon King asked, showing Jane Hetherington into his front room, where Carolyn was waiting for them.
“It certainly seems an unusual set of circumstances,” Jane replied, making no mention of the fact that this was her first case.
Jane would have put Jon and Carolyn’s age gap at twenty years. She didn’t want to speculate how the two met – it was none of her business, and they seemed happy enough. Carolyn invited her to sit down.
“Are you quite sure nothing is missing?” Jane Hetherington asked.
“Quite sure,” Jon said.
“Nothing at all?” Jane said.
“Not even a single peppercorn. I counted,” Jon replied.
“My husband is always quite sure of his facts, Mrs Hetherington,” Carolyn said.
Jane wasn’t sure when the sofa on which she sat had been purchased, but judging by the spring she could feel pressing into the small of her back, it wasn’t within the last thirty years. That didn’t surprise her. When she’d arrived at the address, she’d found a gate hanging off its hinges, a potholed driveway, a garden of clover, molehills and nettles and a house which even an estate agent would be forced to describe as being in need of some attention. My goodness, she’d said to herself, as she parked outside the dilapidated house. Paint peeled off the windowsills, sticky tape repaired cracked windowpanes, roof tiles were missing, a drainpipe had almost come away from the wall entirely, and on her way through the hallway, she’d nearly tripped over a bucket placed beneath a water-stained ceiling.
She looked around the living room. Its carpet and curtains were almost as threadbare as the clothes worn by the Flight Lieutenant himself. It was only January and the lack of central heating was getting more and more noticeable by the minute. She wasn’t sure if this stemmed from poverty or parsimony. But whichever it was, Jane was shivering with cold. Maybe this was the reason behind the anonymous act of benevolence – well wishers had had a collection for them?
“You can understand my reluctance to go to the police in such circumstances,” Jon King said.
“I can,” Jane said.
“Can’t have them wasting man-hours chasing after someone who goes around putting money in other fellows’ safes, hey?”
“We certainly can’t,” she said.
“And you can also understand why I require your services? Got to get to the bottom of it.”
“Indeed you must, and we will, Mr King I promise you that. Would you be so kind as to give me those figures once again to allow me to make a note of them?” Jane asked, flicking open her notepad and using a pencil to take notes.
“There was two thousand and forty-one pounds in the sweet-jar when I put it in the safe. I didn’t open it again until the count, when the pot had mysteriously increased to three thousand and twenty-two pounds. Of that, I am absolutely certain.”
“My husband is always absolutely certain of his facts, Mrs Hetherington,” Carolyn King said.
“Quite extraordinary. May I see the safe?” Jane asked, just as the lights went out.
“Oh that fuse box,” said Carolyn, standing up. “Excuse me a moment.” She made her way to the door with the words, “One day I’ll electrocute myself changing the fuse.”
The safe in question turned out to be in Jon King’s study. Jane followed him there; passing Carolyn King balanced precariously on a chair in front of an old-fashioned fuse box, high up on her kitchen wall.
The safe was concealed behind a drinks cabinet. To get to it, Jon King had to squat on his haunches and remove bottles of brandy, port and Grand Marnier from the cabinet, before pulling the cabinet out, and sliding it to one side. This revealed a small wall safe, slightly smaller than the cabinet and which, until the drinks cabinet had been removed, had been completely concealed behind it.
“If you don’t mind turning your back,” Jon King instructed, waiting to open the safe. “Even Carolyn doesn’t know the combination.”
Jon waited until Jane obediently turned her back, before he opened the safe. When she was allowed to turn around, she found the door to the safe wide open and the safe itself empty except for a few hard-backed exercise books, lying on its floor.
“I do the household accounts in them,” he said of the exercise books. “Old-fashioned, double-entry book-keeping. The jar containing the money sat on top of those books. The screw lid was still in place. Someone must have taken the jar out of the safe, opened it, put the extra money into it, screwed the lid securely back on, put it back in the safe and locked-up the safe again. But who would want to do a thing like that?”
“It’s an unusual thing for anyone to do, I’ll warrant,” Jane said. “The safe was still concealed behind the drinks cabinet when you next opened it, I presume?”
“Not only that, each bottle in the cabinet was exactly where it should have been.”
“I see,” Jane mused. “I presume you didn’t leave the sweet-jar unattended at any time, other than when it was in the safe?”
“You presume correctly.”
She glanced around the room for a few minutes but she didn’t notice anything untoward. She didn’t want to stay there for any longer than was necessary. The study wasn’t heated and she was freezing cold. The living room at least had a fire burning, although not very brightly.
“Do you mind if we return to the living room?” she asked.
Once they were back in the living room, Jane asked Jon to talk her through the days which led up to the safe break-in. While he talked, Jane moved to stand in front of the fire, holding her hands over the faltering flames in an attempt to keep warm.
Jon explained that the money in the safe had been raised from the sale of raffle tickets at the bridge club, of which he was president (and had been for the past ten years). The bridge club met weekly and throughout the year there were various charity events, including raffles. The particular raffle, for which the money had been raised, was enjoyed greatly by everyone who took part in it. It took place annually, and tickets for it were on sale throughout the year. The idea behind it had been Jon’s own. Worried that people might be becoming bored by conventional raffles, he hit upon a novel idea, namely that each time a raffle ticket was purchased, the person buying it would estimate the total sum they thought the raffle would raise by the end of the year. This figure they wrote on the back of the ticket. The person whose guestimate was closest to the sum actually raised won. They didn’t win the pot of money raised by the raffle - that went to charity - instead they won a separate prize. This year’s prize had been a print by a well-known local landscape artist, signed by the artist himself.
“As I always say when reque
sting donations, a decent prize ensures we keep the prize money up,” Jon said.
Jane was having difficulty concentrating, because she was so cold. She was wondering if it would be impolite to stoke the fire, or even put some more coal on it. In the end she wrapped her jacket tightly around herself and put her hands in her pockets. Jon didn’t appear to notice. Jane wondered how many times he didn’t notice a guest freezing to death. Maybe they didn’t get many visitors she thought, at least none who ever came back.
“I keep the money collected in an old sweet-jar for convenience. You know the big plastic ones they have in old-fashioned sweet shops full of lemon drops and the like. I close the raffle five days before the result is announced. This gives me time to count out the takings and work out who the winner is. I must have counted the money out two dozen times or more,” he explained. “I knew to the penny how much money was in that jar. Vincent Orlick was the winner. He was remarkably close – two thousand and forty-seven pounds – to the actual two thousand and forty-one pounds we’d raised. He isn’t very well, and so I let his wife Penny know he’d won, to make sure she came along to collect his prize.
“The count always takes place on a Sunday afternoon. It’s a ritual. Carolyn and the other ladies put on a good spread, and while everyone helps themselves to the refreshments, I tip the money from the jar out on to the table. I count out the money on stage, pound by pound, in full view of everyone. I put a microphone on the table, that way people can keep score. It’s all very good natured. As always, I began the count at the stroke of six p.m. By five after six, I was beginning to panic – something was wrong. I counted out two thousand pounds, and there was still masses of money still uncounted. When I got past two thousand and thirty-five pounds, I lost count – something I’ve never done before. There was far too much money left on the table. There were piles of notes, where there should have been a few coins left at most. Carolyn was worried I was having a heart attack. I thought I was. She asked me if I was all right. I was literally staring at two piles of money, unable to continue. I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. I struggled on, but had to stop. Someone in the audience shouted that I’d reached two thousand and forty-eight pounds. Carolyn agreed. She was acting as invigilator. I carried on. The final figure was three thousand and twenty-two pounds – three thousand and twenty-two pounds! Where on earth had the extra money come from, I wanted to know? Young Milly Fletcher was jumping up and down in the air, squealing, ‘I’ve won! I’ve won!’
Jane Hetherington's Adventures In Detection