Laurels Are Poison mb-14

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Not in Athelstan you wouldn’t,’ retorted Laura meaningly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Mrs Crocodile is a doctor, fully qualified. She’ll give you the once-over and sling you out into the cold and dreary night as soon as look at you. You’ll be Little Orphan Annie in two shakes of a lamb’s tail if you try that game on with her. Minnie Poppleton, that Second-Year golumph on our floor, tried it on last week to get an essay written for the Deb., and out she came like a bullet. The old girl threatened her with a stomach pump. Yes, as sure as I’m standing in front of this notice-board. You know, that bunch keep cocktails in their hat-boxes, and apparently Mrs Croc. is wise to the goings-on.’

  ‘It isn’t forbidden,’ said Alice, sharply.

  ‘Only because the Principal hasn’t thought of it as being a possible thing to do. Don’t tell me, my dear d’Artagnan, that we cherish a secret drinker in our bosoms.’

  ‘No, of course not. Only I don’t see that Mrs Bradley has any right to interfere when there isn’t a rule.’

  ‘Don’t thump tubs, duck. It don’t become a young woman. After all, if it comes to that, there isn’t a rule to say that you mustn’t go over to Wattsdown after dark and dance on the College dining-table when the boys are asleep in their beds, and yet, strange to say, the Principal sent down, for the duration and without a character, a bright girl named Billings some four years ago for doing just that same.’

  ‘Was she tight?’ inquired Kitty, interested in this exploit.

  ‘Tight? No. She did it to win a bet. No harm in the girl whatever. But the Principal took a Grave View, as, after all, who would not? Anyway, it didn’t matter. She went in for journalism and has never looked back. Billings, I mean. My sister knows her quite well.’

  Alice and Laura did put their names down, and, the College having retained five of its netball team from the previous winter — two Third-Years, one of whom was staying on for a special course in P.T., and three Second-Years — there were only two vacancies, of which Alice obtained one without difficulty, and treated Laura and Kitty to doughnuts and coffee at the College buffet on the strength of it. Laura, whose game was hockey, scraped in, she informed the others, by sheer ability to chuck her weight about, finesse having no place, so far as she had been able to gather, in the operations of the eleven.

  Kitty made one or two abortive efforts to shed lustre on herself and her friends, but without success, her most notable effort being an attempt to become a member of the Twenty-Nine Club, a highbrow society which read Russian plays and discussed the ballet.

  ‘But I can’t see what the devil you would have done if they had admitted you,’ said Laura frankly.

  ‘Why, of course you do! I should have given my impression of Hermione Baddeley giving her impression of a prima ballerina.’

  ‘It’s a wow, as a matter of fact. I’ve seen her do it,’ said Laura confidentially to Alice. ‘And if we have a smoking concert, or its equivalent, in Hall, at the end of the term, we must have it. It’s hardly for a mixed audience.’

  In consequence of Laura’s and Alice’s inclusion in College teams, Kitty was sometimes left to her own devices. It happened that the College had fixtures for every Saturday in October, and it was on the last of these, the Saturday before Half-Term, that the next of what were referred to later by Laura as the Athelstan Incidents took place. There was an optional study-period on Saturday mornings, but it ended at noon. Lunch was at twelve-thirty on Saturdays so that students could get away early for afternoon excursions. As it happened, both Laura and Alice had matches. Kitty — to whom a period of optional study was merely time spent in happy and, in a sense, profitable idleness, for she devoted most of the study-periods to designing those fashions in hairdressing for which, five years later, she became famous — volunteered to sneak out of Hall at ten and make her way snakily into the town in order to purchase doughnuts, ginger-beer, fruit, chocolate and potato crisps. She accepted commissions from about a quarter of Athelstan, and abstracted a small suitcase from the boxroom, which was no longer locked up.

  Alice had no money, except the return fare for the match and her Sunday Church collection, for it was the end of the month. Nearly everybody else was short, but Laura had had a windfall, and had floated a succession of small loans. In response to what she termed a Grade A blood-sucking letter, her people had sent her November allowance in advance, and, in addition to this, a brother who had received promotion and a rise in salary, ‘came up big,’ as his sister observed contentedly, and had sent a couple of pounds.

  By half-past eleven Kitty was back, and at twenty-five to twelve she encountered the Warden on the back-staircase.

  ‘Ah, Miss Trevelyan, well met,’ said Mrs Bradley. Kitty, who was making valiant efforts to hide the bursting suitcase with which she was burdened, responded politely and began to make conversation about the weather, the close atmosphere of her study-bedroom, and the probability of the College winning their matches that afternoon. Mrs Bradley listened attentively. Then she stretched forth a skinny hand for the suitcase, and asked permission to inspect its contents.

  ‘Doughnuts,’ she pronounced. ‘How many, child?’

  ‘A — well, I got a couple of dozen, actually,’ said Kitty, who, with all her gifts, was no liar.

  ‘Threes into twenty-four goes eight. Is it wise, do you think, for Miss Menzies and Miss Boorman to eat eight doughnuts each before they play games?’

  ‘Well,’ said Kitty candidly, ‘I shouldn’t think Dog and Alice will have doughnuts. I mean, you see — well, it was for several of us, actually.’

  ‘I’ll come up with you and see fair play,’ said the Warden. So she did, and ate two doughnuts and two-pennyworth of crisps. Of the fact that one of the Principal’s rules relating to Saturday morning leave had been broken, she seemed blandly unaware.

  ‘You know,’ said Laura, later, ‘I like the old girl, and I don’t care who hears me say so. That was the one o’clock news, loves. In other words, the gong for lunch. And I might tell you that, from what my spies mutter, the Second-Years think the grub here has improved at least two hundred per cent since La Belle Dame sans Merci took it over. Fat Finnigan stated that if Miss Murchan got appendicitis, it was probably from eating College stew.’

  ‘The improvement may be due to the Deb.,’ said Alice loyally.

  ‘The Deb. my foot! ’ said Laura. ‘All personalities aside, and allowing fully for Samivel, my son, my son, bevare o’ the vidders, the improvement noted by our revered seniors is due simply, solely, wholly and completely to Mrs Crocodile. Besides, we’ve kept the same servants in Athelstan for nearly half a term, and that, it appears, not counting Cook, of course, is a College record.’

  After lunch she and Alice went off, and Kitty decided to go down to the field to watch the Second Eleven match. The match ended and the teams went in to tea. Kitty returned to Athelstan to get her own tea from the Servery, for on Saturdays and Sundays no evening meal was provided, and the students supplied their own suppers at half-past nine.

  Hall was deserted except for a couple of Second-Year students who were spending Saturday working. One was a tall, thin girl with round shoulders who appeared to have no friends; the other was a rather too popular member of her year who had been told by the Principal at the end of the previous term that unless she did some work she would be sent down for good. Her name was Cartwright. The thin student’s name was Giggs. Both were already at the Servery when Kitty arrived, but neither spoke to the other. Kitty spoke to both. As she was fond of explaining to Alice and to Laura, she was not proud, and would much rather talk to seniors than to nobody.

  To Miss Giggs she said: ‘Well, what’s the pot of poison this time?’

  Miss Giggs laughed dutifully, but did not supply any information. To Miss Cartwright Kitty said: ‘Anybody else staying in this afternoon?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ replied Miss Cartwright ‘I say, can you lend me a bob until Thursday?’

  Rather reluctantly Kitty permit
ted this inconvenient loan to be floated out of money she herself had already borrowed from Laura.

  ‘Thanks tremendously,’ said Miss Cartwright. ‘Do the same for you later. I must say,’ she continued, scanning her plate with an indulgent and even slightly enthusiastic eye, ‘that the old serpent does us a lot better in Hall than Miss Murchan used to. By the way, when you take your crockery back, look out where you put your feet. There’s a kind of creosote or something all over the box-room floor. I went there to get another frock out of my trunk… Why, what the devil has Giggs got on her feet?’ she added, staring at the retreating form of the friendless student as, having come out from the Servery, she walked along the passage towards the stairs.

  Kitty, who often acted upon impulse, put down her plate and hurried after her.

  ‘The footwear,’ she said. ‘How come?’

  ‘Oh, my slippers?’ said Miss Giggs, looking at a pair of scarlet satin evening shoes in an embarrassed manner and tilting her full plate dangerously. ‘I — well, it was just to rest my feet while I did my Advanced English essay.’

  ‘Very tasty,’ said Kitty; and, before Miss Giggs knew what had happened, she had left her and was tearing up the front staircase as hard as she could go. She knew Miss Giggs’ room. It was on the same floor as her own. Miss Giggs occupied Number Thirty-three, next to the bathrooms.

  Actuated, she stated later to the grinning Laura and the scandalized Alice, by the highest motive of all, that of pure detective fever, she burst into Miss Giggs’ room and dragged open her hat-box. These receptacles were large and square, and were made of wood, forming an extra seat in each study-bedroom. In Miss Giggs’ hat-box was a pair of shoes so sticky that the newspaper on which they had been placed came up with them. The smell given off by the hat-box was undoubtedly that of strong disinfectant.

  Kitty knew that it would be some seconds before Miss Giggs, carrying a full plate, could reach the cubicle, so she stole, with her prize, back to the front staircase, and descended to the first floor. She knew that Mrs Bradley and Deborah were both out, so she nipped round the first corner she came to, entered the Warden’s bathroom, and placed the shoes, still on their newspaper, at the far end, underneath the bath. Then she descended the front stairs to the Servery, retrieved her plate, and went pensively into the Common Room. Once there, she ate the food as quickly as she could, did not go back to the Servery for cakes or a cup of tea, but paid a hasty visit to the boxroom.

  At about half-past six Alice came back to Athelstan, and a quarter of an hour later Laura arrived. Both were tired; Laura disgruntled.

  ‘Got a goal; a beauty,’ she began.

  ‘Offside,’ concluded Alice and Kitty in chorus. Laura grinned.

  ‘Win?’ inquired Kitty of Alice.

  ‘Eighteen, three. Good game, though. Better than it sounds,’ Alice replied. ‘Have you enjoyed yourself?’

  Kitty seized the opportunity.

  ‘Is Mathers back in Hall yet?’ she inquired.

  ‘No. Why?’ inquired Alice; but Laura, who had been acquainted with Kitty for some years, seized her by the sleeve and said: ‘Spill.’

  ‘Somebody’s been assing about in the boxroom again.’

  ‘What? Not more clothes chewed up?’

  ‘Not this time. At least, I don’t think so. I want to get hold of Mathers, though, and tell her to shove up a notice warning people not to go paddling about down there. It’s in the most frightful mess.’

  ‘Blood?’ asked Laura, rolling her eyes at Alice.

  ‘No; as a matter of fact it is that creosote stuff the odd man uses for disinfectant. Somebody has kicked a tin of it over, deliberately I should think, and what’s more, I know who, and she doesn’t want it known, so I’ve swiped her shoes as evidence.’

  ‘Be yourself, dear,’ urged her friend. ‘You befog me. Does she befog you, Alice?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ replied Alice seriously. ‘She means someone’s been assing about again, and this time she knows who it is.’

  ‘Considering that in the Matric. paper she didn’t know Hamlet was the hero of Hamlet, I doubt that very much indeed,’ retorted Laura. ‘But, come on, K. Don’t leave us agonizing like this. Tell us all. Come on upstairs, anyway. Why are we wasting strength propping up this beastly Common Room?’

  ‘I can’t tell you anything upstairs, because it’s Giggs,’ returned Kitty. ‘Come closer. I don’t want to shout.’

  ‘But we ought to find out more about it,’ said Deborah. ‘After all, if it isn’t carelessness it’s some more of this horrible destructiveness, like those clothes belonging to the twins, and I do think we owe it to the innocent students to find out the guilty ones, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I want you to come with me to have another look at it, now that they’re all in bed — or, at any rate, upstairs.’

  The inmates, as Laura preferred to call herself and her fellow-students, had been duly warned about the state of the boxroom floor, and had been particularly requested by the Warden not to tread the disinfectant about the house. The warning and the request had been observed, and the boxroom was in about the same condition as when Kitty had seen it.

  ‘And now,’ said Mrs Bradley, stepping delicately, ‘for our most interesting exhibit, which is not, as you seem to imagine, the dark and treacly fluid which is crawling over the floor, but the reason for its egress from the tins.’

  The tins were large, green and rectangular. Each had a small handle on top, after the style of those on petrol cans. There were six tins. Each one had a small circular perforation in the middle of one side.

  ‘Quite deliberately done, you see,’ Mrs Bradley went on. ‘No fumbling; no having several shots, as many people do when they attempt to open a tin; just a neatly-drilled hole expressive of a determined and bold personality.’

  ‘Expressive of a man, not a woman,’ suggested Deborah.

  ‘I don’t know. Some of the games-playing young are surely capable of a smack like that on a tin.’

  ‘Do you think Miss Giggs is our man?’

  ‘No, child. But it would be interesting to know, all the same, why Miss Giggs, instead of complaining bitterly about the damage done to her shoes, should have gone off and hidden them in her hat-box.’

  ‘I think one of us ought to interview her. After all, several of the students know about the shoes. We ought to accuse her and let her make an explanation.’

  ‘Very well, child. Suppose you interview her tomorrow morning immediately after breakfast?’

  ‘I thought perhaps you’d be the better person.’

  ‘Yes, I should be. But you are more sympathetic,’ said Mrs Bradley grinning. ‘Well, Oates will have a very pleasant task cleaning up all this mess tomorrow. Come along, child. Time you went to bed.’

  Deborah interviewed Miss Giggs in the morning, as Mrs Bradley had suggested. Although in a sense she felt sorry for the friendless girl, she could not shake off a feeling of acute dislike, an unpleasant impression of repulsion, when the student came into her room. She appeared armed with the Book of Common Prayer, Hymns Ancient and Modern, and was wearing gloves and a hat.

  ‘Oh, I’m going to make you late for Church,’ said Dehorah, apologetically, afflicted immediately by a sensation familiar to her at her last post, that of being, somehow, put in the wrong by a culprit before she could begin an unpleasant interview. It was one of the reasons why she had given up a teaching post.

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ replied Miss Giggs, ‘It’s about my shoes, of course. Well, I do think the Warden ought to have a rule about people going to other people’s hat-boxes, especially Juniors. I mean to say…’

  ‘Yes,’ said Deborah, ‘that’s what we’re going to talk about. Now, first…’ The student tried to interrupt, but Deborah held on firmly. ‘Now, first,’ she repeated, ‘let me assure you, Miss Giggs, that the Warden has your grievance in hand, and it and the offender will be dealt with. Please don’t let us refer to that again for a while
. What I want to know is what made you put those shoes into your hat-box?’

  ‘There’s no rule against putting shoes into a hat-box. I kept mine there all last year.’

  ‘Miss Giggs,’ said Deborah, beginning to feel desperate, ‘more lies behind this than you seem to realize. Your shoes were dirty, weren’t they? You had been in the basement, hadn’t you? Don’t you think it would be best, if you have nothing to hide, to tell me, just straightforwardly, what your idea was?’

  ‘Nobody likes me here,’ began Miss Giggs.

  ‘I don’t think that can be true. But go on.’

  ‘I got my shoes all messed up, and I thought it was one of their senseless practical jokes. It’s nothing but silly ragging, and I don’t see we’re here to rag. I want to work, and I don’t see why a lot of jealousy should upset it’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Deborah uncomfortably. ‘But it wasn’t — it couldn’t have been — directed at you, don’t you see? It was all over that part of the floor. Anybody might have trodden in it. It couldn’t have been — have been specially meant.’

  ‘I don’t see that. They know I always stay in and work on a Saturday afternoon. And they know I keep — well — biscuits in my trunk. And because I don’t hand them round, I suppose they don’t like it. But my father can’t afford biscuits for everybody. He sends them to me — he can’t afford that, really — but he wants me to keep up my strength. You see, when I leave College and get a job, he’ll be able to give up his job. We’ve got it all planned out. I’m going to have a little country school — you can get those when you first leave College — and he’ll do a bit in the garden, and I shall help him, and…’

  She broke off, looked vaguely at Deborah, and then added:

  ‘Does the Warden think I spilt the paint?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t. She knows you didn’t, and she wanted to give you a chance to make your explanation about the shoes before she speaks to the rest of the students. I feel that you have made your explanation, Miss Giggs, and, if I were you, I shouldn’t think about the ragging and the jealousy. I should just be as nice to the others as I could, and go on working, and — and thinking about the future.’