Murder Most Unladylike: A Wells and Wong Mystery (18 page)

There was a frozen silence, and then everyone began to talk at once. Miss Griffin opened her mouth, closed it again with a wince, signalled to The One at the organ and marched off the stage. The One dropped his hands onto the keys with a smash and everyone had to shriek at each other to be heard through the din. A few of the shrimps were crying.

I cannot have been thinking straight, because it took me a moment to realize what Miss Griffin really meant.
No longer with us
was just a very nice way of saying
dead
. And as soon as I realized that, I felt cold all over. Was it really true? An accident? It seemed simply too convenient. What if – my heart sank – Miss Tennyson had not been able to face lying in her confession to the police (for by now I was quite sure that she would have been lying, although I had no idea why), and had taken another way out? People did it in books all the time, heroically and beautifully, and I knew that Miss Tennyson believed in books.

Daisy seized my arm. Her eyes were glittering.

‘How can you look like that?’ I asked. ‘Miss Tennyson’s killed herself – oh, Daisy, I think it’s our fault!’

‘Killed
herself
?’ said Daisy blankly. ‘Oh no. She didn’t kill herself. And she didn’t suffer an accident either. She’s been murdered. Just like you thought, someone helped her with Miss Bell’s murder, and now her accomplice has killed her.’

‘No!’ I gasped.

‘Yes,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense.’

‘But Daisy, even if someone else killed Miss Tennyson, it’s still our fault. If we hadn’t told Miss Tennyson to go to the police, then she’d be alive!’

Daisy snorted. ‘Well, it’ll teach her to go about murdering people,’ she said. ‘Is it our fault that she helped kill Miss Bell?’

Strictly, of course, she was quite right, but I still felt vilely responsible. Daisy does not understand this sort of thing because it is not logical, but I knew perfectly well that somehow we had caused Miss Tennyson’s death.

‘But what shall we do?’ I asked.

Daisy looked at me as though I was mad. ‘
Do?
’ she asked. ‘The only thing we can do. Keep on until we catch Miss Tennyson’s accomplice and solve both murders, of course.’

3

We were lucky that our conversation was lost in the roar of noise from the rest of the school. The masters, mistresses and prefects were trying to hush us up and shoo us out of the Hall, but they could not possibly quiet all of us. King Henry was not even trying. She was leaning against the back of a wooden bench, her face pale, and I was more certain than ever that she had something to do with the mystery.

The whole school was in a panic. What had happened at our séance came back into everyone’s minds with a vengeance. No matter what Miss Griffin had said about accidents, everyone decided that this was yet another murder.

No one did any work all morning. In French, after struggling with us for ten minutes, Mamzelle threw up her hands, put a French composition on the board, took out
Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal
and left us to it.

‘I can’t believe that Miss Tennyson’s been murdered too,’ said Kitty. ‘Just like Miss Bell. Two in two weeks!’

‘They’re both going to come back and haunt the school,’ said Lavinia loudly, to frighten Beanie. ‘Just you wait.’

Beanie burst into tears. ‘But I liked Miss Tennyson,’ she wailed. ‘I don’t want her to be
murdered
.’

‘Girls,’ shouted Mamzelle, her French accent back with a vengeance, ‘Mees Tennyson ’as
not been murdered
! Please go back to your compositions and let us have no more of zis!’ Then she shook back her dyed hair, turned to ‘The Fashion in Furs’ and ignored us again.

The next lesson was Maths. As we went into the room, I stared at Miss Parker nervously. Was she displaying any new signs of guilt? I couldn’t see any, exactly, but her cropped hair was sticking up like a brush so I knew she must be troubled.

She bawled at us to sit down in her most sergeant-major-ish voice, and then we went through maths problems rigorously. None of us could pay attention. We made the most fearful mistakes, and that made Miss Parker bawl at us even harder. At last, just before the end of the lesson, Beanie put her head in her hands and burst into tears – but Miss Parker didn’t tell her to be quiet. Indeed, she suddenly looked as though she was about to weep herself.

‘Miss Parker,’ said Kitty, as Beanie sobbed, ‘what happened to Miss Tennyson?’

‘I’m sorry, Kitty,’ said Miss Parker in a husky voice, ‘I don’t know.’

I realized that I believed her. Miss Parker, for all her raging, was truly upset about Miss Tennyson’s death – and not just upset, but
confused
. She didn’t know what had happened any more than we did. And if that was true, it meant that Miss Parker was not the murderer. But how was I going to prove it to Daisy?

I looked over at Daisy. The small crease across the bridge of her nose had appeared again. I knew she was not upset about Miss Tennyson in the same way I was. Guilt slides straight off Daisy like butter; I don’t imagine she’s ever felt it properly. I could tell that she was planning something.

‘Put your things away, girls,’ Miss Parker told us, still in the same lost voice. ‘You may go to bunbreak early today.’

Immediately, Daisy leaned down to pick up her bag – and straightened up again with a very loud, ‘OH!’

Several people jumped. ‘What is it, Daisy?’ asked Miss Parker.

‘I think I’ve found your earring, Miss Parker,’ said Daisy. ‘It was lying on the floor, next to my bag. Look!’

Miss Parker barely glanced at it. ‘Not mine, Daisy,’ she said without interest as she swept our exercise books into a stack. ‘Although it looks like one of the ones Mr—’ She stopped halfway through her sentence. ‘Oh, never mind. Off you go, girls!’

As soon as we were out of the room, Daisy seized my arm. ‘She didn’t do it!’ she said.

‘I know!’ I said in great relief. ‘Thank goodness you proved it, I didn’t know how I would. And did you hear what Miss Parker said when you showed her the earring? Something about it looking like “one of the ones
Mr
” – I’ll
bet
she meant The One. He’s the only Mr at Deepdean who might be giving out earrings.’

Daisy clapped me on the back. ‘Watson,’ she said, ‘your detective talents continue to amaze me. I may end up promoting you.’

I nearly pointed out that since there was no one in the Society but the two of us, it was quite difficult to see how I could be promoted.

‘But for now—’

The bell rang for bunbreak. Miss Parker came out of the classroom behind us and hurried away.

‘Oh, quick, follow her! She may not be a suspect any more, but I have a hunch that she may still be important!’

4

Daisy and I followed Miss Parker at a breakneck pace, through the struggling, gossiping (and often weeping) crowds of girls thronging the corridors, all the way to The One’s cubby. Luckily for us, she did not look back once, not even after she had knocked on his door.

‘Come in!’ called The One, and Miss Parker practically threw herself inside.

Giving each other deeply significant looks, Daisy and I positioned ourselves one on each side of the steps, leaned as close to the closed cubby door as we could and listened with all our might.

Luckily for us, it wasn’t long before both of them began shouting. Miss Parker shouted first.

‘This has gone far enough!’

There was a rumble from The One.

‘No, I won’t have it! This isn’t a game any more! Amelia Tennyson is dead. Dead! Do you blame me for worrying about what’s happened to Joan?’

‘I certainly blame you for being a BLOODY MADWOMAN,’ said The One, loud enough to be heard through the door.

I flinched and gasped. Daisy giggled in excitement.

‘Why won’t you tell me where she is? You must know!’ Miss Parker sounded desperate now.

‘Will you GET OUT OF MY OFFICE?’ roared The One.

Daisy and I dived away from the door, just as Miss Parker came slamming back out, red-faced and furious.

‘GET OUT OF MY WAY!’ she shrieked at a group of innocent second formers. She pushed past them blindly and hurried off towards the mistresses’ common room.

‘Arguing again,’ said one of the second formers to her friends, rolling her eyes.

‘What do
you
know about it?’ asked Daisy.

The second formers looked quite excited to be addressed by such a glamorous third former.

‘Miss Parker’s cross,’ explained the ringleader, Kitty’s little sister Binny. ‘It’s because Miss Hopkins is engaged to The One, and Miss Parker hates them both.
You
know why.’

‘They
can’t
be engaged!’ gasped Daisy. I was thunderstruck. I’d guessed that The One and Miss Hopkins were in league, but I had never thought that things might have gone so far between them.

‘Of course she is,’ said Binny. ‘That’s why Miss Hopkins has been so pathetically happy. It happened last Friday. They’re keeping it secret so Miss Griffin doesn’t fire them. Isn’t Miss Hopkins lucky? He’s so
dreamy
.’

Daisy’s face had gone as red as Miss Parker’s.

‘You’re an infernal liar, Binny Freebody,’ she snapped. ‘Come on, Hazel, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.’

‘I am NOT!’ Binny shrieked at us as we marched away. ‘IT’S TRUE! You’re just BITTER!’

Of course Binny was quite right. Daisy hates to be outdone on knowledge of Deepdean goings-on. And missing something as important as an engagement! I could tell she was kicking herself about it.

We found a safe space to talk by the pond at the edge of the north lawn. ‘I was wrong about Miss Parker blackmailing The One,’ I said, to cheer Daisy up. ‘All she was asking him to do was tell her where Miss Bell was.’

Daisy nodded. ‘When Miss Bell disappeared, Miss Parker thought that The One knew something about it. Of course,
we
know that Miss Bell didn’t run away with him, because she was dead, but the fact that Miss Parker doesn’t know means that we have to rule her out once and for all.’

‘What if Miss Hopkins and The One
did
do it together?’ I asked. ‘If Miss Bell discovered their engagement – you know how Miss Griffin hates it when her mistresses get married, she thinks they’ve betrayed her. She’d have dismissed them both on the spot – so perhaps they killed her to keep it a secret? After all, we’ve as good as heard Miss Parker say that the earring we found looks like some The One gave to Miss Hopkins – and aren’t you supposed to give jewellery to the person you’re in love with?’

I said it without thinking, and then winced, remembering that my accusation of Miss Hopkins had caused our argument in the first place. But Miss Tennyson’s murder really must have done something to Daisy. She opened her mouth to shout at me, but then she closed it again and frowned thoughtfully.

‘No, you’re right,’ she said at last. ‘We can’t discount Miss Hopkins any more. I don’t want her to have done it, but we must follow the clues wherever they take us. The only question is, why would she and The One rope Miss Tennyson into it? He’s got a car, after all, and he’s strong enough to help Miss Hopkins move the body.’

‘Perhaps they wanted to use her as . . . as a scapegoat,’ I suggested. ‘So if someone
did
discover there had been a murder, they could blame Miss Tennyson for it. But then they started to worry that she would tell someone the truth, so they decided to get rid of her.’

‘And run away to begin their new lives together!’ said Daisy. ‘Not bad, Watson. Not bad at all! I’m more and more certain that we’re very close. Only a few real suspects left! We need to have a proper Detective Society meeting about it at lunch time, though, just to make sure we’re doing everything we ought.’

We gave each other the Detective Society handshake just as the bell rang, and I went off to lessons with the remaining suspects swimming about in my head.

Either Miss Hopkins and The One had done it, or Miss Lappet had.

And we had some new information to add to our suspect list too.