The Donaldson Case by Diana Xarissa Page B

he couldn’t change things on that end.   Anyway, apparently he decided to ring
the police, thinking that he couldn’t be blamed as he wasn’t even here when the
drugs went missing.”
    “But you were
able to find evidence,” Joan said happily.
    “Well, no,”
Robert replied.   “After I talked
with you, I started watching him more closely.”   The young man flushed.   “The investigator from Derby was
convinced that someone else was guilty and he was concentrating on that angle,
so I just kept my mouth shut and watched Matthew Rogers.   After a few days I started to notice a
few things about how he was running the shop.   Let’s just say it didn’t take long for
me to catch him doing something illegal.   After that, his story began to fall apart.”
    “Well, that’s
one mystery solved,” Joan said briskly.   “Michael will be pleased that he isn’t a suspect any more.”
    “He was never
a suspect in my eyes,” Robert told her.
    “Yes, well, I
suppose Owen and George will feel better as well,” Joan said.
    “And that just
leaves us with this mysterious key,” Janet said, pulling it out of her
pocket.   She’d taken to carrying it
around with her just in case she happened to find herself at a different bank
where she could ask about their deposit boxes.   So far, that hadn’t happened.
    “Mysterious
key?” Robert said.   “Why is it
mysterious?”
    Janet handed
him the key.   “We found it inside a
piggy bank in a hidden compartment in the library,” she explained.   “But we don’t know what it’s for.”
    Robert turned
the key over his hands.   “I haven’t
seen one of these in a few years,” he told the sisters.   “See the stamp on this side?   It says ‘DDBS’ in very faint letters.”
    Janet took the
key back and studied it.   She
thought she’d inspected the key in great detail, but she hadn’t been able to
make out the very small and lightly etched letters.
    “What does it
mean?” she asked Robert.
    “It’s a key
for the safe deposit boxes at the Doveby Dale
Building Society,” he told her.
    “But where is
that?” Janet asked excitedly.
    “They tore it
down about five years ago,” Robert replied.
    Janet sat back
in her chair, feeling crushed.   “So
it’s a key for nothing?” she asked.
    “The place was
old and in bad repair,” Robert told her.   “By the time they tore it down, everyone was happy to see it go.   If Maggie Appleton had anything stored
there, she moved it elsewhere before the demolition.”
    “At least now
we know,” Joan said.   “Thank you.”
    Janet muttered
something similar, but she wasn’t feeling grateful.   She’d had such high hopes of finding a
great treasure when they discovered what the key was for, and instead it turned
out to be worthless.
    Joan showed
Robert out while Janet tidied up.   She popped an extra biscuit into her mouth in an effort to improve her
mood.   It didn’t help much.

 
    So after all that the key was worthless, which
still irritates me slightly.   Joan
is now convinced that she’s a very clever detective, but we both knew Matthew
Rogers wasn’t a very nice man after all those phone calls to different
women.   Still, she’s claiming all of
the credit for his arrest.   I don’t
really mind as it means she can’t complain when I want to investigate something
in the future.
    Besides, I’ve taken to calling the whole
episode “The Donaldson Case,” which annoys her no end.   She keeps saying that, as Michael was
totally innocent, his name shouldn’t be associated with it.   I just ignore her.
    I don’t think I mentioned the lovely presents
our guests left for us.   Fred made
us a sculpture out of twigs and grass.   Unfortunately, when we tried to relocate it to a suitable location, it
rather fell apart.  
    Molly wrote us a poem:
    Doveby House
    Warm
    Inviting
    Telly
    Bright
    Sneezes
    Tuesday
    Needs a cat.
    I don’t understand it, but I quite agree
with the sentiment.