Valued for Murder: A British Cozy Murder Mystery with a Female Amateur Sleuth (A Dotty Sayers Antique Mystery Book 2) by Victoria Tait

Author:Victoria Tait [Tait, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781915413000
Publisher: Kanga Press
Published: 2022-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

As Marion and George were progressing well with the catalogue for the upcoming auction, Gilly Wimsey took the opportunity to ask Dotty to help her in the antiques centre.

In addition to the vast open plan floor space on the ground floor, the conversion of the old mill building had created two upper floors. The second floor was empty, as was the first, apart from a storeroom and Gilly’s office.

The ground floor space was the retail area of the antiques centre and it was divided into booths, some of which were run by Gilly, but most were licensed to individuals who sold a variety of antiques, collectables and bric-a-brac.

Gilly and Dotty stood in front of a stall towards the rear of the building, where a thin layer of dust covered the contents and a vase of dead flowers stood forlornly on an empty table.

Gilly pushed her orange-framed glasses up her nose and said, “It’s a shame Mrs Wade couldn’t make this work. Such a lovely idea, but her prices were too high.”

Gilly picked up a green metal tray decorated with hand-painted flowers, which made Dotty think of canal longboats, and turned it over. “She was charging £100 for this when it’s really only worth £30. Pretty though, like everything else.”

The whole stall had a floral theme. From trays arranged along a shelf, to a collection of biscuit and cake tins, and a delicate tea set on a grimy linen table cloth near the front.

“What shall I do with everything?” asked Dotty.

“I’ll help you. We’ll start by giving everything a thorough dusting. Then we’ll see which items I have space to sell on my stalls now, and everything else can either be packed up to display later, when I have room, or thrown away.”

“That’s rather a waste,” remarked Dotty.

They turned and walked towards the cleaner’s cupboard.

Dotty continued, “I visited a reclamation yard in Scotland once, which also handled house clearances. They had a display cupboard in which everything displayed was £1. I picked up a pretty green and white serving dish. It has a crack on the bottom, but nobody ever notices.”

They paused at the bottom of the wide open metal staircase and Gilly looked up it to the first floor.

“There’s so much empty space up there, but before I can let it to stallholders, I need to prove customers will climb the stairs. A bargain section is a great idea. And much better than being charged by the local council to throw things away. And I hate the way the men at the recycling centre look at me, and rummage around in the boxes and tell me what I can and cannot chuck away.”

She opened the cleaner’s cupboard and removed a couple of yellow cotton dusters.

Dotty picked up a bucket and sponge. “I think some items will need more than a dust.”

Gilly turned to Dotty. “You could take on that project. And I could give you items which I haven’t sold and you can charge what you want and keep the profits.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.