Murder Most Unladylike: A Wells and Wong Mystery (11 page)

I had closed my eyes and was trying to go back to sleep when there was a sudden creak, the side of my mattress dipped and someone slid under the covers next to me. In spite of myself, I gasped.

‘Wotcher,’ hissed Daisy in my ear.

‘Ow!’ I whispered, wriggling over. ‘You’re lying on my arm.’

‘Never mind that,’ Daisy whispered back, as quietly as she could. ‘What did you think? Wasn’t I good?’

‘I think you were awful. Whatever did you do it for?’

‘Don’t you see? It was the only way. It doesn’t matter what Miss Griffin said about Miss Bell having resigned; by tomorrow the news about her murder will be all over the school. The murderer will simply be hopping with panic – they’re bound to do something that’ll lead us straight to them. And anyone who knows anything, or saw anything, or knows of an alibi for any of our suspects will come forward. All we need to do is watch. And the best bit is,
I
won’t look like I had anything to do with it at all. If you must know, I feel really rather clever.’

6

I didn’t like the idea of the murderer panicking at all. What if they came after me because of it? I had another awful, sleepless night, and got up on Friday morning feeling sick to my stomach about the day to come.

Moments after the wake-up bell rang, while we were all sitting up in bed, we heard squeals ringing out from the washroom. It was the other third-form dorm, of course, running straight into our cold-water trap. Which reminded everyone of what had happened at the séance. We had hardly sat down to breakfast before Kitty had told five different people the story of Miss Bell’s ghostly appearance. It went round the room like wildfire, and Daisy, listening to its progress, puffed up with pride. I wanted to shake her. She was putting us both in danger – but of course, she could not see it. She only thought she was being clever, and helping to solve the murder. I was almost glad when something happened to spoil her good mood.

‘Ready for the match against St Chator’s this weekend?’ Daisy asked Clementine as she chewed a slice of toast. I think it was Daisy’s way of making peace for the bucket of water. ‘I heard Hopkins was awfully helpful at the tactics session in the Pavilion on Monday evening.’

Clementine sniffed. ‘If we
are
ready, it’s no thanks to Hopkins,’ she said. ‘The session wasn’t even halfway through when she dodged down to school with some silly excuse about needing to write a letter. A letter! When we haven’t beaten Chator’s for four years! We had to finish the discussion with only the prefect to help us.’

I gasped out loud, there at the breakfast table. I couldn’t help it. Miss Hopkins’s alibi, which had been so secure all the way through our investigation, had just been smashed to pieces. She had been down at school at the time of the murder. All her suspicious behaviour suddenly began to look rather sinister.

Daisy must have been as shocked as I was, but she only blinked. ‘Miss Hopkins went back down to school on Monday evening?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ said Clementine, through a half-chewed mouthful of toast. ‘Honestly, we were all furious about it. Can you imagine?’

The rest of the table made sympathetic noises. I wanted to jump up and down and shriek like Beanie.
Miss Hopkins might be the murderer!
What if she had been afraid that The One might leave her for Miss Bell, just the way he had left Miss Bell for her? She was very strong too (I thought of her swinging a hockey stick in Games) – she could easily have shoved Miss Bell off that balcony. I couldn’t decide if I were pleased that my suspicions about Miss Hopkins might still be proven right, or frustrated to have our case made more messy . . . or even frightened; but I could tell that Daisy was simply annoyed.

‘Why do you care if Miss Hopkins doesn’t have an alibi?’ I asked as we walked down to school. ‘If she’s got a motive and she’s been behaving extremely oddly, why shouldn’t she be a suspect?’

Daisy glared at me. ‘You
know
why!’ she said. ‘Because she didn’t do it, I know she didn’t. And now we have to rule her out all over again. It’s simply not tidy!’

‘You only want to clear her name because you like her and you don’t want her to have done it!’

‘I don’t see what’s wrong with that!’

‘Daisy, you can’t be a proper detective if you don’t follow the clues!’ I said. ‘What if she
did
do it?’

‘She didn’t! Anyway, I’m the President of the society. Have you forgotten?’

‘What does that matter? I thought you said that I was the cleverest person you knew in the whole school?’

‘Apart from me! And
I
say that I don’t think Miss Hopkins did it!’

We glared at each other.

‘Well, you can do what you want,’ said Daisy at last. ‘Follow Miss Hopkins as well as Miss Parker this morning, if it’ll make you happy. And you can do The One and Miss Lappet too, just for being so difficult.
I’m
going to follow Miss Tennyson.’

‘All right, I
will
follow Miss Hopkins,’ I said angrily, thinking how absolutely infuriating Daisy could be at times. ‘Just you see . . . I’ll follow Miss Hopkins and all the others and I’ll show you what a good detective I am.’

‘If you
must
,’ said Daisy with a sigh. ‘But when I discover that Miss Tennyson did it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

We both stormed through Old Wing Entrance.

7

Unfortunately, it was impossible to ignore Daisy and her annoying ideas. By the time Prayers was over, her séance story was all over the school. Miss Bell, everyone was telling each other, had not been kidnapped at all. She had been
murdered
.

It was very strange hearing other people say it, and for some reason it made me even more cross. It was
our
case, and Daisy had given it away to the rest of Deepdean.

The only way to show Daisy that she was going about the investigation the wrong way, though, was to concentrate on my own detective work. So after Prayers, when I saw Miss Lappet and Miss Parker heading to the mistresses’ common room, I joined a line of second formers following Miss Hopkins. Miss Hopkins bounced along cheerfully and even patted a shrimp on the back – once again, she seemed far too happy. But was I just being prejudiced against her?

As I was wondering this, though, The One came striding round the corner in the other direction. He saw Miss Hopkins, and his face turned a deep, shameful shade of red. Miss Hopkins stopped so quickly her hair bounced, and she made a funny, shrill noise, like someone killing a mouse. The second formers stared between the two of them in fascination, and I was fascinated too. Was this behaviour evidence of some guilty secret? Just then the bell for the beginning of lessons rang, and I ran for our form room.

I bumped into Daisy just outside.

‘I followed Miss Tennyson to the mistresses’ lavs,’ said Daisy coolly. ‘She’s hidden in there, and of course I can’t get in, but I can hear her crying. It’s extremely suspicious.’

‘Miss Hopkins is being suspicious too,’ I said. ‘She saw The One and she went all
funny
.’

Daisy, I could see, was not interested in the slightest.

I spent the rest of the morning feeling as though I was trying to be in twenty places at once. Shadowing one person, let alone four, is an unexpectedly sweaty business. Between each lesson I went rushing about, trying to keep Miss Hopkins, The One, Miss Parker and Miss Lappet in sight at all times, and trying not to pant too heavily while I was doing it.

Miss Hopkins continued to be enormously cheerful, and to skip about the school like a bouncy ball. As she did so, I became grimly sure that she must be doing it on purpose. She did not run into The One again all morning, but to
me
, that one meeting had proved enough.

Miss Parker was far easier to follow – and, I had to admit, much more obviously disturbed by something. She stalked about scowling terribly and dragging her hands through her hair. Was she upset because of what had happened on Monday evening (I was nearly certain that she must at least have argued with Miss Bell), or was there something more to it? Was she worried by the new rumours?

Miss Lappet moved slowly, peering down at girls after she had nearly tripped over them. Her hair didn’t look as though she had brushed it that morning, and once again her cardigan was mis-buttoned over her bosom. I realized that she had been showing signs of this sort of thing for days – ever since Tuesday, in fact. What was wrong with her? I knew she was doing the secretarying for Miss Griffin that Miss Bell usually did, but surely that extra work could not have been enough to tip her over the edge?

At bunbreak, Miss Hopkins and Miss Lappet went to ground again in the mistresses’ common room. Miss Parker, though, swept straight past and on down Library corridor. I chased her small figure in its jumper and brown skirt as she wove between groups of girls, and then hung back, just in time to see her climb the steps to The One’s cubby door, knock on it and step inside.

Here was something interesting.

I edged through a crowd of second-form shrimps, checked my wristwatch as though I was waiting for someone, sighed deeply and plumped down onto the top step. Staring ahead of me vaguely, I let my head lean backwards until it was resting as near as possible to the door hinge. For added camouflage I pulled
Swallows and Amazons
out of my bag and opened it on my lap as though I was reading. Then I let my eyes unfocus from the text and listened with all my might to what was happening in the room behind me.

The first thing I heard was The One. If it had been anyone else, I would have said he sounded angry.

‘. . . don’t know why you think I have anything to do with this,’ he was saying.

‘I
know
you do!’ said Miss Parker, cutting across him. She really was angry, nearly raving. ‘Joan
told
me – she said that you and she—’

(For a moment I wondered what someone called
Joan
had to do with anything, and then I remembered that it was Miss Bell’s first name.)

‘I tell you you’re wrong!’ The One
did
shout then, and I jumped and had to pretend I had cramp.

‘No,’ said Miss Parker, and her voice went much quieter, so that I could barely hear her. ‘I know she went back to you, and I want you to admit it. You must give me—’

There was a heavy thump. ‘I will give you
nothing
!’ shouted The One. ‘You have no right to ask! Get out of my office at once!’

‘I shall!’ Miss Parker screamed back. ‘But you’ll be sorry! I’ll come back and— Oh!’

Trying to look as interested in
Swallows and Amazons
as I could, I hurriedly bumped down the stairs. When Miss Parker shoved the door open a few seconds later I was sitting innocently on the bottom step, engrossed in my book.

I needn’t have bothered. She pushed past without noticing me and stormed off down the corridor, nearly crashing into Miss Hopkins, who happened to be coming the other way, her hair bouncing more than ever. Was she coming to see The One? I hung back to see where she would go – and sure enough, she began to climb the steps to The One’s cubby.

Just then, though, the bell to end bunbreak rang. Cursing school bells, I stuffed
Swallows and Amazons
back into my bag and walked away. What did what I had just heard mean? Were Miss Hopkins and The One working together? Had Miss Parker discovered something awful about them? Was she even planning to
blackmail
them now that she had heard the new rumours? Off I went to History, thinking that at last I had something really important to tell Daisy, something so good that even she could not ignore it.

8

I should have known that Daisy would find a way to foil me. She rushed into History when we were already standing up for Miss Lappet to come in.

‘Good of you to grace us with your presence, Daisy,’ said Miss Lappet, who was looking just as flustered and mis-buttoned as she had earlier. Also, I could tell from close to, she had a sickly after-dinner smell wafting about her. Next to me, Kitty mouthed to Beanie,
Tippling again
.

‘Sorry, Miss Lappet,’ said Daisy, pretending to be contrite. ‘It won’t happen again, Miss Lappet. Miss Lappet?’

‘What, Daisy?’ asked Miss Lappet, and steadied herself with both hands on her desk.

‘Miss Lappet, I was wondering if you were the one who went round collecting lost property on Monday evening. You see, I’ve lost my very special pen, and—’

Miss Lappet sighed windily. ‘Enough, Daisy,’ she said. ‘You do speak loudly sometimes. As it happens, that evening Miss Bell was in charge of confiscations and lost property.’ (The whole form stiffened at the mention of Miss Bell’s name.) ‘Not that she ever handed any in before she resigned. I was in Miss Griffin’s office, discussing important matters, for the entire evening.’

‘Oh,’ said Daisy, flashing a private, triumphant look at me. ‘So – you were there the entire evening?’

‘Good grief, Daisy!’ snapped Miss Lappet, clutching her forehead. ‘You never listen, do you? Yes, I was there the whole evening. And what does this have to do with your pen?’

So
, I thought to myself,
that did for Miss Lappet
. I had to admit that it was neat of Daisy to get her alibi like that. But afterwards, it was no good me even attempting to send a note. Miss Lappet kept her eyes focused (with a slight effort) on Daisy through the entire lesson. I had no chance to let Daisy know about the argument I had overheard between Miss Parker and The One, and so when we went on to Music I was the only member of the Detective Society who knew that we had a new reason to watch him.

It was a good thing I did. Wrinkling his handsome brow, The One barely managed to hold a tune on the piano, confused Kitty with Lavinia, forgot to set us prep, fell over a tambourine and then wished us a good evening – at one o’clock in the afternoon. Even Beanie noticed that something was wrong.

‘P’raps he’s in mourning for Miss Bell,’ she said to us on the way out of Old Wing Entrance at lunch time.