Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5) by Madalyn Morgan (ebook reader ink txt) 📕

‘What was that all about?’ Claire asked when Bess returned to the dining room.

‘Kitchen gossip and temperaments,’ she said. The chef came out of the kitchen to do a walk-about, which he did on special occasions. What the man thought was special about tonight, Bess had no idea. ‘Chef?’ Bess called, after he had asked several of the guests if they had enjoyed their meal, and name-dropped the Savoy Hotel in London a couple of times. ‘Everything all right with Mrs Sharp, now?’

‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Donnelly. And thank you for letting the staff know who’s the boss in my kitchen.’

Bess gritted her teeth for fear she would say something to burst the man’s inflated opinion of himself. ‘So, my sisters and I are let off the washing up now Mrs Sharp has been reinstated?’

Chef gasped and put his hands up to his fat cheeks. ‘No!’ he said. ‘She dashed off to tell her husband she’d got her job back before he left for work. He’s on nights at a factory in Lowarth, you see.’ With that the chef puffed out his chest and strolled out of the dining room smiling and waving his podgy hands as if he were royalty.

To Bess’s informed knowledge, Joan Sharp’s husband, Sid - a bookend to the chef in stature - had never done a day’s work in his life.

Ena and Claire, who had been listening to the conversation, left the table and began to clear it. ‘We have to work for our supper,’ Bess said to the inspector. Picking up several plates, she followed her sisters.

No sooner had the women started washing the dishes than Inspector Masters came into the kitchen with another bottle of wine. Scurrying behind him was Sylvie with four glasses. She put them down and giggled at Bess. The inspector had won Sylvie over. ‘Budge up girls,’ he said, grabbing a drying up cloth. ‘I am a bachelor, and therefore an expert at this sort of thing.’

Bess, Ena, Claire and Inspector Masters laughed their way through the washing and drying of every dish, pan, pot, plate and glass that had been used that night. When they had finished, Bess threw a dozen or more tea towels into the laundry basket and led the way to the office, where the four red-handed skivvies kept laughing while they drank the inspector’s wine.

Inspector Masters was the first to leave, saying he had an early start and would see them at breakfast.

‘Well?’ Ena said, ‘Who’d have thought a detective inspector from the Metropolitan police would be staying here and eating and drinking with us?’

‘And washing up for the privilege,’ Bess said, laughing with her sisters. ‘He was also the bearer of good news, for a change. He told me earlier that he now knows that neither Margot, Frank, or I, had anything to do with David Sutherland’s death.’

‘What a relief,’ Ena said.

‘About time,’ said Claire.

Bess gave Claire the key to her and Frank’s rooms and, after checking with Mr Potts that all the guests were in the hotel, she made him a cup of hot chocolate and checked the back door was locked. Chef lived in, his room was a couple of doors along the corridor from Bess and Frank’s. He was meant to be the last person to leave the kitchen at night, put out the lights and lock the door. On one occasion he had been on the cooking sherry and went to bed leaving the kitchen lights blazing and the door wide open. Bess hadn’t trusted him since.

There was no need to go back and check the kitchen tonight, because she had been the last to leave after the washing up marathon. Satisfied that all was well downstairs, and delighted that neither she nor anyone else close to her would be badgered again by the odious Sergeant McGann, Bess started up the staff stairs.

She paused half way. If the inspector knows it wasn’t Margot, Frank, or herself who killed David Sutherland, who did kill him?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Beckoning Bess and shushing her at the same time, Claire stood in the corridor outside Bess and Frank’s rooms. ‘Come and see Frank and Aimee,’ she whispered, leading Bess through the sitting room and into the bedroom.

Aimee, snuggled up against her Uncle Frank with her thumb in her mouth, was fast asleep. Frank, also asleep, was lying on his back fully dressed, clutching one of Aimee’s story books and her old teddy bear to his chest.

‘They’re both out for the count,’ Claire whispered. ‘Aimee looks so content cuddled up to Frank, it would be a shame to wake her.’

Frank doesn’t look comfortable though,’ Bess said. Taking the book and teddy out of his hands, Frank stirred and let out a long sleepy sigh. Claire looked at Bess and they both held their breath. Frank rolled onto his side, didn’t wake, and was soon breathing rhythmically again. Aimee, as a small animal would do, wriggled forward until she was leaning against Frank’s back.

Bess didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the sight before her. Her husband would have made a wonderful father. ‘We’ll leave them,’ she said. Taking a blanket from the chest at the bottom of the bed, Bess put it over them, turned out the light and crept out of the room behind Claire.

Bess dropped onto the settee. ‘I’ll sleep in here.’ She swung her feet up, but wasn’t able to straighten her legs, and when she tried to turn over she almost fell off.

‘Come and sleep with me. It’ll be like when we were kids.’

Bess laughed. ‘All four of us had to bunk together, top to tail, when Granny visited.’

Claire pretended to shiver. ‘She used to scare the life out of Ena and me, always dressed in widow’s weeds.’

‘She was all right. She was just Victorian in her ways, that’s all.’

‘Come