Murder Most Unladylike: A Wells and Wong Mystery (12 page)

Unfortunately, Miss Lappet happened to be passing by, and she was still cross.

‘Beanie!’ she snapped. Beanie froze in horror. ‘Enough! If I hear you repeating any more foolish and baseless gossip it’ll be the whole third form in detention for all of next week. Am I clear?’

‘Yes, Miss Lappet.’ Beanie gulped. ‘Sorry, Miss Lappet.’

We walked up to House very quietly, in case we spread any more rumours by mistake, and Beanie stayed with us all the way . . . Yet again, I had no chance to talk to Daisy.

In a way, though, this was a good thing. I was free to think about The One without any interruptions or contradictions. He had shown exactly the sort of behaviour that you might expect of someone who had just been blackmailed. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that there was no other explanation for the row I had overheard. The One knew something about Miss Bell’s murder – from what I had witnessed, it seemed likely that he and Miss Hopkins
both
knew something about it – and Miss Parker knew that they knew. But could The One really be a murderer? Perhaps he was just covering for Miss Hopkins’s crime. Was that why she had gone hurrying down to school on Monday night? So much for Daisy being sure Miss Hopkins was innocent!

I felt quite triumphant about my deductions. At last it was
me
who had come up with the important clue, and Daisy who would have to follow along behind.

But it was Daisy who cornered me.

‘Come with me,’ she ordered, as soon as we had finished lunch. ‘I’ve got the plan ready at last.’

‘Daisy, I have to tell you what I heard at bunbreak. I think Miss Parker is blackmailing The One. Honestly! I think he and Miss Hopkins—’

‘Shh,’ said Daisy. ‘Dorm.’

The dorm room was empty when we arrived. We made straight for my bed and sat down facing one another.

‘Daisy,’ I said again, as soon as the door closed on us. ‘You’ve got to listen. I think Miss Hopkins and The One are in it together. We know that he was down at school, and that she came back halfway through hockey practice. One of them could have done it, or maybe it was both of them, and then Miss Parker found out somehow and now she’s blackmailing them! Miss Parker went into The One’s study at bunbreak and I heard them arguing.’

‘Oh, Hazel,’ said Daisy. I could hardly believe it. She was dismissing me. ‘How do you know she was
blackmailing
him? Did you hear her actually ask him for money?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But—’

‘Exactly. She’s furious about his past with Miss Bell – we know that already. She must have just gone to confront him about it again. Anyway, it hardly matters. I’ve got something much more important to show you!’

She dug about in the depths of her book bag and then pulled out a little glass bottle. She waved it at me, beaming as though I ought to be particularly impressed. I wasn’t. I wanted to shout at her. She
had
to listen to me.

‘What is it this time?’ I asked crossly.

‘Ipecac,’ said Daisy. ‘I got it from Alice Murgatroyd.’ Then, seeing my look, she said, ‘Oh, honestly, where did you come from? Every nursery has it. Nanny used to make us take it whenever we’d eaten something we oughtn’t. It makes you awfully sick. It’s exactly what we need.’

I did not understand, and I was not in the mood to try. I was still cross. Why was Daisy’s idiotic idea more important than my perfectly good clue?

‘Don’t you see?’ asked Daisy, still chugging along on her own triumphant train of thought. ‘If we’re going to go hunting for clues about Miss Bell, we need to get into the school when we can snoop about without any of the mistresses or masters wondering what we’re up to – and more importantly, without the murderer noticing us. That means at night, and the easiest way to do that is to get admitted to San. If we take this we won’t need to pretend at all – we’ll be sick everywhere and Minny will have to keep us in San overnight. Then all we need to do is wait until she falls asleep and we can go wherever we like.’

‘But won’t everywhere be locked?’ I objected.

‘Not if I steal Jones’s spare keys, you chump,’ said Daisy.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘All right, I’ll do it. But only if you explain why Miss Hopkins and The One aren’t guilty of the murder.’

‘Because Miss Tennyson did it, of course,’ said Daisy. ‘Oh, I haven’t told you my findings from today yet, have I?’

‘No,’ I said furiously. ‘No, you haven’t.’

‘Well, she’s an absolute wreck. She might as well be wandering the corridors muttering,
Out, damned spot
! I think our séance rumour has spooked her. While I was following her one of the Big Girls tapped her on the shoulder and she
shrieked
. But here’s the important bit: there I was, minding my own business in an opportune listening place on Library corridor, when Miss Griffin came up to Miss Tennyson. “Miss Tennyson,” she said, “I need to talk to you. You haven’t quite finished helping me with that little project of ours. You were so late to my office on Monday evening that we barely got a thing done.”

‘“Yes, but I made up for it on Tuesday and Wednesday,” said Miss Tennyson nervously.

‘“Ah, but not quite,” replied Miss Griffin. “There’s still a bit of work that needs to be finished.” Honestly, Hazel, Miss Tennyson went as white as a sheet. She was
shaking
. “Can we perhaps schedule another session?” asked Miss Griffin. “There’s just a little more work I’d like you to do – perhaps this evening?”’

‘So what?’ I asked. ‘Miss Tennyson and Miss Griffin are going to mark books together after school today. That doesn’t have anything to do with the murder.’

‘Hazel,’ said Daisy, rolling her eyes, ‘sometimes you are a bit stupid. Miss Griffin had an appointment with Miss Tennyson on
Monday
night, but Miss Tennyson was
late
. Miss Tennyson takes English Soc until five twenty, so the appointment must have been for after that – for
exactly the time when Miss Bell was being murdered
. And I’m sure the way Miss Tennyson behaved when Miss Griffin mentioned Monday was a sign. Hazel, it’s her guilty conscience! She must have done it!’

‘If you say so,’ I said. I was still annoyed. Here was Daisy again, sure that
her
idea was the important one.

‘Oh, Hazel, don’t be like that,’ said Daisy, butting her head against my shoulder and staring at me wide-eyed. ‘Hazel, Hazel, Hazel, Hazel,
Hazel
—’

‘Ow!’ I said, scowling. ‘I’m not smiling.’

‘Yes you
are
,’ said Daisy, leaping up off the bed and grabbing hold of my arm. ‘Come on, come on, let’s go downstairs before Matron wonders where we’ve got to. Oh, and meet me in the cloakroom before French and we’ll take this disgusting stuff.’ She brandished the bottle of ipecac at me, stuffed it into her book bag and galloped out of the dorm.

9

Daisy can be really insufferable sometimes, but I suppose, given what happened on my first night at Deepdean, I shouldn’t be surprised.

After our first meeting on the games fields I came back to House, shivering and pink with cold, to the tall and chilly walls of the second-form dorm room. I sat on my strict grey bed and stared about me at the rows of identical bedsteads and the dismally scratchy and grey bedspreads. I was quite upset by the sight of it, and I remember wondering whether Deepdean might not be doing so well for itself after all. (I had not yet discovered that in England, the way of showing that you are very rich is to pretend that you are very poor and cannot afford things like heating or new shoes.)

One of the maids had unpacked my trunk, and all my things were folded up in the chipped chest of drawers next to my bed. The trunk itself was standing open and empty on the carpet, still with customs stamps all over it, and I looked at it and felt just as empty and out of place. The other girls in the dorm were ignoring me, huddled into a group at the other end of the room. Then one of them, the girl with the long gold hair who had run into me earlier, turned abruptly and made her way over to me. The others all followed in a gaggle and grouped themselves behind her, like a pack of crows or a monster with four heads and eight hard, staring eyes.

‘Hallo, foreign girl,’ said Daisy – for, of course, that golden-haired girl was Daisy.

‘Hallo,’ I said shyly.

All the girls giggled. ‘She can speak English!’ someone I later learned was Kitty whispered. ‘Lavinia, you owe me five bob.’

‘Foreign girl,’ said Daisy, ‘we’re going to play a game. We’ve decided to let you join in – and that’s unusual for us.’ My heart jumped. ‘It’s a test, really – we want to see who can stick it out longest in that trunk. Kitty thinks no one could do it for more than ten minutes, but
I
think it’d be easy. And we want
you
to go first. It is your trunk, after all. What do you say?’

Today, I can’t think how I could ever have fallen for it. But at the time I was simply excited to think that I might be making friends already – and that someone so beautiful should want
me
to be friends with her. So I nodded.

‘All right, then,’ said Daisy, ‘get in.’ And while the rest of the dorm watched breathlessly, I stepped into my trunk and crouched down with my arms about my knees.

‘Now,’ said Daisy, ‘we’re going to shut the lid. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a proper test, would it? Lavinia, you time her. Remember, foreign girl, you’ve got to stick it out for as long as you can. All right?’

I nodded again, squeezing my hands together. I hate the dark, and I hated it even more then, but I didn’t want to say so to someone so obviously faultless.

Daisy bent down over me, so close I could feel her breath warm against my forehead. ‘Enjoy, foreign girl,’ she hissed, and then the lid of the trunk slammed shut and I was left in the dark. I heard giggles, a clicking noise, then squeals of laughter and the thump of running feet, which faded away and became part of a larger clatter of feet going down the stairs. A gong boomed somewhere below me, the feet sped up in a rush, and then at last they died away.

House was very quiet. Crouching in my trunk, I began to suspect that something was not right. I had been told that the gong meant a meal, and I knew I must never be late to a meal. And I was hungry. But, I thought, I had also been told to stick it out, and so that was what I would do. I was in England, and in England, I knew, you kept quiet and endured things.

So that is what I did. It took Matron three hours to find me, and when she finally did, she was almost frying with rage. She asked me who had been responsible – but, of course, I knew I could not tell her without being a rat. For a week I had to spend my lunch breaks sitting beside her and sewing up holes in socks – but it was worth it when Daisy clapped me on the back and said, with admiration in her voice, ‘Not bad, foreign girl.’

I suppose, in a way, I have been getting into trunks for Daisy ever since, without stopping to ask why. This is the first time I have wondered if it is really all worth it.

1

On Friday afternoon I arrived in the cloakroom rather before Daisy. I had decided, for the time being, to forgive her – at least until I had seen more of her plan. I was hunched up behind a thick grey row of coats, rubbing my ankle, and was just beginning to feel nervous about what we were about to do when I heard Daisy’s voice say, ‘Psst! Hazel!’

‘Here!’ I whispered, sticking my head round the end of my coat rack.

‘Well lurked, Watson,’ said Daisy, sitting down next to me with a
thump
. She pulled the little bottle out of her bag with a flourish and held it up in front of us. ‘Now, are you ready to begin investigating?’

We both looked at the bottle. I was quite ready to investigate, but not sure whether I wanted to go to San first.

‘We must be careful not to take too much,’ said Daisy. ‘I remember Nanny saying that it could be dangerous.’

‘How much is too much?’ I asked.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Daisy cheerfully. ‘We’ll just have to swig it and hope. Well, bottoms up!’

She took a gulp, made a face and handed the bottle to me. I sipped at it nervously. It tasted sticky and sugary-sweet, not at all the way I thought it would.

‘Now water from the taps, quick,’ Daisy said. I hurried after her and drank. Afterwards my mouth still felt gluey with sugar.

‘What do we do now?’ I asked.

‘We wait. It shouldn’t take too long. Don’t worry, it’s not so bad.’

2

That was a lie.

I had barely sat down in French before my stomach began to make the most extraordinary jumps and heaves inside me. I clapped my hand over my mouth in horror.

‘Oh, Mamzelle,’ cried Daisy dramatically from next to me, ‘I think I’m going to be sick!’

And she was, spectacularly. After that, so was I, but since most people were already crowding round Daisy it was not so noticeable. We were both rushed to San, leaving nasty splotches behind us as we ran, and when we arrived Nurse Minn took one look at us, stuck our heads over two buckets and left us to it.

‘At least we’re missing Deportment,’ I said between heaves, an hour later. I hate Deportment, which is an hour of walking about with piles of books on your head.