Murder Most Unladylike: A Wells and Wong Mystery (17 page)

The next morning, after Kitty and Lavinia ran off as usual and left me alone, I was careful to walk down to school very slowly, scuffing my clean, shiny shoes along the dirty path with every step and then knocking the mud against the outside of my bag. By the time I arrived late at Old Wing Entrance I was left with a perfectly weathered-looking bag and a pair of shoes that were more mud than polish.

At bunbreak I sat on the low wall next to the lawn and worked on my shoes a little more by kicking them against the crumbling stonework. This gave them some very artistic scratches, which I was rather pleased with. I rubbed my fingernails across them, smearing my fingers about to catch all the dirt I could, and then held my hands up in front of me. They might, I thought, looking at the grime round my cuticles, almost be the hands of an English girl.

My plan was going very well so far, and after lunch I decided to proceed with the next stage. Until then I had answered every question as soon as I knew it, but now I resolved to take a leaf out of Daisy’s book. In Maths, I added up a sum wrong three times in a row, and in my French composition I told Mamzelle that I had brown eyes and a long black horse.

When I read this out, I got my first ever giggle from the second form, and after lessons Lavinia walked all the way back up to House with me – silently, but without leaving me behind at all. The next day I found the book I had asked Kitty if I could borrow weeks before lying on my bed, and at bunbreak, after I had confused my tenses four times in Latin, Beanie sympathetically gave me some of the spare Chelsea bun she had found lying on the floor.

Two days in to my new act, I was feeling very smug with myself. In Science, I wiggled down in my seat and tried to look as don’t-care as possible – copying Lavinia, who was hunched over with her arms crossed and her feet curled round her chair legs in a way that, according to Miss Lappet, was extremely dangerous and could lead to broken limbs or worse. When Miss Bell came in I began to sit up straight before I remembered I mustn’t. To make up for it, I dropped a Bunsen burner and then said that Newton shot an apple at his son, which made Beanie squeal with laughter.

‘Whatever has happened to you today, Hazel?’ asked Miss Bell, raising an eyebrow. ‘I think you’ve been spending too much time around Beanie.’

Beanie flushed deep red and looked down hurriedly at her textbook, and most of the second form glared at Miss Bell.

There was one person, though, not looking at Miss Bell – when I glanced over at Daisy, I saw that her blue eyes were fixed on me, in an all-over searching way that made me turn almost as pink as Beanie and look down again as quickly as I could. I carefully spent the rest of the lesson fixing my eyes on everything but Daisy’s bench, and answered no more questions at all.

As punishment for the Bunsen burner, Miss Bell made me tidy the lab at the end of our lesson. By the time I was finished I thought everyone would have hurried away to Latin, but the door banged to behind me and when I turned round, there was Daisy, leaning against a bench and waiting for me.

I tried to walk past her.

‘Stop there,’ said Daisy, and she stuck her foot out in front of me. She had mud on her sock. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’m going to Latin,’ I said, rather weakly.

‘Not what I meant,’ said Daisy. ‘Look at your shoes. Until two days ago you might have been in the military, and now it looks as though you’ve been rolling in mud.’

‘I fell over,’ I said, more weakly still.

All of a sudden, Daisy launched herself off her bench and crouched down at my feet. Her breath made my ankle itch, and I wriggled. ‘You’ve cut this shoelace,’ she declared after a moment, squinting up at me accusingly. ‘And all the scratches on your shoes are new as well. Before this week I’d never seen you with a button out of place. I was beginning to think they hadn’t heard of dirt in the East. So, what are you playing at?’

That upset me. ‘I’m fitting in!’ I snapped. ‘Just like you do!’

Daisy bobbed up again. She was taller than me, and she looked down on me ferociously. I backed away, thinking she was about to do something awful.

‘Whatever do you mean?’ she asked.

‘I’ve seen you!’ I said. ‘You pretend not to know the answer when I
know
you do, all the time, just to make sure no one calls you a swot. Really, you’re cleverer than any of us. I’ve been watching you and I know it’s true. And if you tell anyone that I cut off my own lace I’ll tell everyone about
you
.’

I expected Daisy to be furious. Instead, she laughed.

‘I doubt anyone would listen to you,’ she said. ‘
You
ought to be more careful, by the way. You’re making a dreadful job of it. You can’t just launch into this sort of thing with no warning. People don’t change character like that outside of silly made-up stories. If you’re going to do it, you need to be more subtle about it. You don’t want people to look at you unless you’re very good at acting.’

‘But people look at you!’ I said.

‘I,’ said Daisy, ‘
am
very good at acting. But you mustn’t tell anyone or I shall have to have you killed. Now hurry up, or we’ll be late for Latin.’ And with that she put out her hand, hooked her arm through mine and dragged me out of the laboratory.

And that was how Daisy Wells and I became best friends.

1

Daisy and I are still not talking, and I have been wondering whether this case will be the Detective Society’s last. Seeing King Henry yesterday made me certain that justice has not yet been done, and now I feel sure that something has gone very wrong with Miss Tennyson’s confession. I am worried.

Today is Sunday, and this morning we woke up to find the day as grim and grey as I have been feeling. We all filed off to Sunday service in the Hall under spattering dark clouds. Everyone cringed and scurried, and Daisy and Kitty darted between the drops together, arm in arm. Evidently, Daisy did not mind that she and I were not speaking.

Miss Tennyson was not at Sunday service.

That was not odd. If she had gone to the police after we left her yesterday, she would still be there now – arrested, in her cell, and waiting for the trial, I suppose. Or for the police to find Miss Bell’s body. (When I try to imagine what happens after someone confesses to murder, I can’t seem to do it properly – I suppose because Daisy’s books are so coy about it.)

But the really worrying thing was that the rest of the masters and mistresses were still behaving perfectly normally. It was as though they had not heard about Miss Tennyson confessing to a murder. Miss Hopkins, for example, was still wearing her smug, happy expression, while Miss Parker was still sizzling with bottled-up rage.

Mr MacLean’s Sunday sermon was exactly as dull as it usually is, all about friendship (I thought of Daisy, bitterly), good works and the importance of beautifying the world. I listened to it and felt as though I had come into the wrong sermon by mistake and if I looked at the date I would see that it was five weeks ago, or years and years in the future.

The One began to play the hymn, and as she stood up Miss Lappet swayed.

‘Drunk again,’ whispered Kitty to Daisy, loud enough for me to overhear. ‘Hasn’t she been bad this week? Rumour has it that she’s in mourning for the Deputy job. I heard from one of the Big Girls that she went to confront Miss Griffin about it on Monday evening. They had an appointment straight after socs, and Miss Griffin finally told her that she hadn’t a hope. Miss Lappet ran straight out of Miss Griffin’s office, apparently, and has been on the demon drink ever since.’

‘What?’ I said, much too loudly. My heart had suddenly started pounding so hard that I could feel it through my pinafore.

‘
Seeeng
, girls!’ snapped Mamzelle, without turning round.

I could not believe what I had just heard. Miss Lappet had only been in Miss Griffin’s office for a few minutes. Her alibi had been wiped out, just like that, and now there was nothing to say that Miss Lappet had not been in the Gym at the crucial time, pushing Miss Bell off the balcony.

I slid a look at Daisy out of the corner of my eye and saw that she was very determinedly not looking back at me. But there was a worry-line creasing the top of her nose, and I could tell – just as certainly as if she had said it – that Daisy had finally realized just how wrong she was.

After the service we walked back up to House behind Matron, two by two. I was next to Lavinia – who was being her usual lumpish, moody self – and all at once I decided that I could not bear arguing with Daisy any longer. We had to solve the mystery together. As soon as we were back up at House, and safe in the noise of the common room, I ran up and seized her arm. ‘Daisy!’ I cried. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been behaving like a beast.’

Daisy turned to look at me with a strange expression on her face. I could not make it out. ‘Hazel,’ she said after a moment, ‘I refuse your apology.’

I gaped at her.

‘Because,’ Daisy continued, lifting her chin proudly, ‘
I
was wrong, and so it should be me apologizing.’

‘But, Daisy—’

‘Hazel, will you let me talk? Whether or not Miss Tennyson did it, there are too many things going on that don’t fit my theory. You knew that, and you told me so, and you were right.’

‘I was thinking . . .’ I said, bracing myself for Daisy to ignore me again. ‘What if someone did the murder
with
Miss Tennyson? She and Miss Lappet, or – or she and Miss Parker. And King Henry’s got to be involved
somehow
, I know it!’

To my surprise, Daisy nodded. ‘It’s possible,’ she said. ‘Oh, Hazel, I’ve been a terrible Detective Society President. I ought to have listened to you instead of rushing about like a fool. Why haven’t we heard about Miss Tennyson going to the police yet?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, beginning to worry all over again. ‘Do you think she’s done a bunk?’

Daisy made a face. ‘I hope she’s done a bunk,’ she said, ‘because all the alternatives I can imagine are even worse.’

We spent the rest of the day swapping theories, and although most of them were utterly silly, it was wonderful to have Daisy finally listening to me for a change.

‘Perhaps Miss Tennyson’s in love with The One too,’ I said. ‘And she found out he’d done it, and helped him cover up the crime.’

‘Or perhaps she’s The One’s long-lost sister!’ said Daisy. It was after dinner, and she was sprawled on her bed with one foot, in its regulation white sock, waving in the air. I stared down at her. ‘All right, all right, I was only joking. What I mean to say is, perhaps King Henry is Miss Tennyson’s long-lost daughter. Ow! No need to hit me like that!’

‘You aren’t being serious,’ I told her.

‘Well, neither are you,’ said Daisy. ‘It’d be far more productive for you to do some secretarying and write up what’s happened today.’

So I did. Going over it like this has made me worried all over again. If Miss Tennyson didn’t go to the police – which seems more and more likely, since none of us have heard about it –
why
didn’t she? Has she simply done a runner, or has something else happened to her?

I am trying not to think about what that something else could be.

2

We know now that Miss Tennyson has not run away.

On Monday morning Daisy and I walked down to school together, friends again, to discover that things had gone badly wrong at Deepdean.

The first sign came at registration: on Mondays it is usually Miss Tennyson who takes our register, but today Mamzelle rushed in two minutes late, looking flustered, and read off our names at such a terrific pace she forgot to roll her Rs. I felt sick with worry.

We filed out of the room for Prayers, Mamzelle pursing her lips in alarm and shooing us along with her hands flapping, and made it into the Hall just as The One gave the organ its last few warning blares. When we passed Miss Lappet on the way to our seats I could smell the drink wafting off her.

Miss Griffin made her entrance while we were still shuffling along our row, and she stood and waited for us, glaring sternly down over the lectern.

At last, when we were settled and there was nothing to be heard but our breathing, Miss Griffin cleared her throat. She leaned her hands against the lectern and stared down at us, and then she began to speak. Miss Griffin’s morning lectures are like Miss Griffin herself – clean and rigorous and slightly frightening. They always make me feel sinkingly inadequate, as though I’m being spoken to by the voice of God. I know I will never be as good as Miss Griffin assumes we all are. She is so terribly good herself that she puts the rest of us to shame.

At the end of the lecture came the weekly match scores (Firsts hockey against St Chator’s, 7-8; Seconds netball against Dee Hill 24-18), and then the general announcements – the Drama Soc was performing
King Lear
, donations were being taken for the RSPCA. Then a pause. We all looked up. Miss Griffin’s serene forehead was creased. ‘And I am sorry to have to announce, girls, that over the weekend Miss Tennyson suffered a terrible accident. She was taken to hospital, but unfortunately there was nothing to be done. Girls, I am so sorry. Miss Tennyson is no longer with us.’