Party Girls Die in Pearls

by Plum Sykes

  “Listen, I think you can help solve this case. No one will know what you say to me. But you’ve got to start being truthful with someone.”

  “I know,” Claire said, hanging her head. “But not here. I don’t want to run into him.” She beckoned to Ursula to follow her.

  A few minutes later she found herself in the student laundry at the bottom of the neighboring staircase, watching Claire angrily unload a large tumble dryer full of clothes.

  “I’ll fold,” offered Ursula when she saw Claire flick the iron on.

  “Thanks. Look, you can’t tell anyone,” the girl entreated, laying out an ugly salmon pink nightdress on the ironing board. It looked like the kind of thing a great-aunt living in a retirement home would wear.

  “You have my word,” Ursula promised, shaking out a pair of jeans.

  “I’d spent ages getting everything ready for the club. I was wearing a lovely white dress, my old confirmation dress. I had photocopied tons of crosswords from the Times newspaper. I had quite a few little tubs of ice cream already dished out for the guests. I put everything on the big table in front of the window in the JCR. It looked really nice. I thought everyone was really going to enjoy themselves, only . . .” Claire bit her trembling lip. She hiccuped. “Only, ugh, well, the thing is . . . no one c-c-c-a-aaaame.”

  A fat tear rolled the length of her nose, and perched there, wobbling as she spoke.

  “I thought you said the club was really busy when we talked at the boathouse yesterday,” said Ursula.

  “That wasn’t exactly true,” Claire admitted, tapping a finger on the metal base of the iron to test its heat. “I mean, I was busy, but the party wasn’t.”

  Ursula frowned. “How?”

  “Like I said, no one showed up. I tried to stay cheerful, you know, trying a couple of the crosswords by myself, but after a couple of hours I just felt like such a loser,” Claire moaned, pressing the hot iron onto the nightdress. “The ice cream was melting, it was such a waste. But I felt as though I had to stay all evening, in case someone showed up. So I sat at that big table in front of the window and watched to see if anyone would come. After ages and ages of nothing, there was that big argument in Great Quad at midnight. And then I saw India dashing towards the JCR staircase. I was so excited that someone was finally coming to the party! I went to the door, opened it a crack, and listened. I heard someone coming up the stairs, peeked round the door, and sure enough, there was India. I think she was quite drunk because she was stumbling a bit. Her dress was so long that she kept tripping on the hem as she walked, and she was steadying herself against the wall of the staircase. She didn’t even notice when her tiara fell off while she was on the landing . . .”

  So that’s what happened to the tiara, thought Ursula to herself. But that didn’t tell her where it was now.

  “India didn’t notice me. But then no one ever does. When she got to the landing, she didn’t turn left to come into the JCR. She went and knocked on Dr. Dave’s door.”

  “Did he answer?”

  “No. She knocked a couple of times, but no one came. Then she turned the handle of the door and went in. I heard her call out ‘pudding’ once she was inside the room.”

  “‘Pudding’? You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I was weirded out. What was India doing calling a don ‘pudding’ in the middle of the night?!”

  “Did anyone answer her?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I didn’t hear Dr. Dave’s voice. Just hers. Anyway, he’d already gone.”

  “You saw him leave the room?”

  “No, I didn’t, but it was so strange. A few minutes after India had gone into his rooms, I sat back down at the table by the window, and I looked out over Great Quad, and there he was, walking along the path. It looked like he was heading from the Kitchen Quad towards Monks’ Cottages.”

  Ursula racked her brain. Hadn’t Ms. Brookethorpe said something similar? About seeing Dr. Dave out in the quad after the argument? Why had he gone outside at that particular moment?

  “Did you notice him go down the staircase that night?” she asked Claire.

  “That’s the weirdest thing. I didn’t hear anyone go down that night, they only came up.”

  “They?”

  Claire looked away.

  “This is the embarrassing bit,” she mumbled, sounding ashamed. “I was sitting back in the JCR, and then—it must have been about half an hour, or more, after India had gone into Dr. Dave’s rooms—I heard footsteps on the staircase again. This time I was determined to recruit a club member. I put on a big smile and went and stood out on the landing. And then, this is really bad . . .” Claire’s voice faltered.

  “What happened?” Ursula asked her.

  “It just looked so pretty, I couldn’t help it.”

  Ursula had no idea what Claire was talking about but tried to look encouraging, hoping the girl would continue.

  “I picked up India’s tiara. I was going to give it back to her the next morning. But it was so lovely and I thought I’d just try it on for a moment. I’d just put it on my head when Otto appeared. He was carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses. He saw me! He saw me. And he said all these really nice things to me.”

  At this memory, Claire wept copiously, so much so that snot started dribbling from her nose onto her top lip. She wiped at it, unsuccessfully, with the back of her hand.

  “Like what?” asked Ursula, wondering, again, where the tiara had ended up.

  “He said I was the m-m-most—uu-ggg-hh—exquisite girl he had ever seen.”

  “Are you sure?” Ursula pressed her. Hadn’t Otto said he had told India she was “exquisite”?

  “Of course I’m sure. No one’s ever said anything like that to me before. I’ll never forget it. Then he took my hand, and we went into the JCR. We each ate a melted ice cream. He poured champagne for both of us, and once I’d finished it . . . I don’t know, it was all so romantic . . . I fell in love with him! I thought he was in love with me. We kissed. It’s the first time I’ve kissed a boy. It felt as though we were floating, in a lilac cloud.”

  “Claire, have you ever heard of LSD?”

  “What does that stand for?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Ursula. Poor Claire. She didn’t have a clue what had happened to her. “What did you do with Otto?”

  “Oh, it was marvelous. We didn’t do any crosswords. But we ate ice cream together.”

  “You’re saying Otto ate a tub of ice cream?”

  “Yes. He had the chocolate chip.”

  Finally, the identity of the mystery ice cream eater had been revealed—Otto—and the fate of the other half tab of acid. Ursula knew Otto’s story had been messy, that he had been trying to cover something up—and it was this. He’d spent the night on Sunday not, as he must have wished, entwined with India, but tangled up with Claire Potter on the JCR sofa, and he was thoroughly embarrassed about it. Unless, of course, Claire was making the whole story up. But how would Claire know all the details Otto had mentioned if she were lying? She seemed sincere enough. Ursula had to believe that Claire was the honest Welsh lass she appeared to be.

  “So how did the night end?”

  “He fell off the sofa. I helped him get up and put him in the wing-backed chair. He said all these lovely German-y words to me. Like ‘libb-ling,’ something like that. Then he passed out. So I went to my room. Now he’s acting like nothing happened. He walked straight past me in the porter’s lodge the next day. Didn’t even say hello, let alone ‘libb-ling.’”

  “I am so sorry,” said Ursula, sensing the other girl’s deep pain and disappointment. “Men can be awful.”

  “I just want to die,” sniveled Claire. “I’ve been a fool, haven’t I? Why would someone like him want someone like me? I’m just some Welsh turnip.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Claire. Perhaps you both just . . . made a mistake,” Ursula told her, wondering how Otto would react when confronted with the error he had mad
e. “Claire, did you visit Otto late on Monday night?”

  “How do you know?!” she gasped, mortified.

  “I saw you, from the library window.”

  “I went to his rooms, but he wasn’t there.”

  That was certainly true, thought Ursula. He had been bawling his eyes out in Nancy’s room at the time.

  “Then he ignored me again this morning at breakfast. So I decided to take my revenge.”

  “Revenge?” said Ursula, feeling alarmed.

  “You saw the note. I’m banning him from the crossword club. Hopefully that’ll hurt him as much as he’s hurt me.”

  With that, Claire flicked off the iron, grabbed her pile of clothes and put them in a basket, and started to head out of the laundry room.

  “Claire, wait,” Ursula called out. “What did you do with the tiara?”

  “I was going to get it back to Lady India, honestly. But then, when it turned out she was dead . . . I was so terrified . . . I hid it. I couldn’t tell the police I had the tiara, could I? They might have thought I’d killed her for it . . . and if my parents found out I’d stolen something—a tiara belonging to a murder victim—my dad would go mad. I wouldn’t be allowed to stay at Oxford. I don’t know what to do with the tiara now. It’s still in my knicker drawer.”

  “Oh, right.” Ursula was rather surprised by this news.

  “Don’t say a thing,” begged Claire. “And thanks for listening.”

  With that, Claire stomped out of the laundry. Ursula sat for a few moments, still astonished by the story she’d heard. She tried to order her thoughts by writing them down in her reporter’s notebook.

  —It’s not impossible to imagine that while on LSD Otto could have mistaken Claire in her white confirmation dress for India, particularly as she had India’s tiara on.

  —Cannot quite believe that Claire thought it was good idea to hide India’s tiara with knickers.

  Ursula decided to go back up to Otto’s room and leave him a note asking him to come and find her this afternoon in the library. When she reached his door, she noticed that Claire’s note had gone. Otto must be inside. Before she knocked she couldn’t resist trying the handle of India’s room opposite, police tape or no police tape. Unsurprisingly, the room was locked. Ursula crossed back to Otto’s side of the landing, knocked on his door, and called out his name.

  “Enter,” a voice called out weakly from inside.

  Ursula pushed open the door. Otto’s room was small, untidy but cozy, whitewashed, with medieval oak beams in the ceiling. Two tiny dormer windows on the far side of the room overlooked the Monks’ Garden. Otto was standing, face like a tomb, in the middle of the room, dressed in black trousers and a black frock coat embellished with elaborate gold frogging.

  “For the funeral. It’s on Thursday, at the church at Bratters. I just heard,” he said gloomily when he saw Ursula. “I shall turn myself in to the police immediately afterwards. My only question is whether it is appropriate to wear the Austro-Hungarian imperial sash at a wake.” He held up a ravishing strip of red-and-white brocade against the coat. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to be turning yourself in when I tell you my news. Or should I call it your news?” said Ursula.

  Otto threw down the sash on his unmade bed and grasped her by the shoulders. “Tell me,” he said.

  “Otto, you can’t remember killing Lady India because you didn’t do it.”

  “How can you be so sure? I have done many things I can’t actually recall doing. When I was fourteen I was found drunk in the schnapps cellar at the Schloss dancing the polka with a chicken at three in the morning. I was wearing nothing but shooting socks. I don’t remember a thing about it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do it.”

  “Otto, you weren’t with India on Sunday night. You were with someone else.”

  “What?”

  “You were snogging a Fresher all night.”

  Otto’s face brightened.

  “I knew it was you!” he cried. “When I awoke that morning and there you were, standing before me. Your kilt felt so familiar against my cheek. Liebling!”

  He grabbed Ursula by the waist and started nuzzling her shoulder.

  “Ugh!” she said, pulling away.

  “You have gone off me already?” He looked terribly upset.

  “I was never on you in the first place. I wasn’t the Fresher you were with that night. It was someone much more . . . interesting.”

  “Ah! You mean Lawnmower! The Dollar Princess. Yes, she would be wonderful for the Schloss. She could fund the rethatching of the medieval barns.”

  “Otto, the girl in question is a lovely Fresher named Claire Potter.”

  “I know no one of that name.”

  “But you do, Otto.”

  “I do?” He looked blank.

  “She was at the History drinks with us. She’s on my staircase.”

  “Describe her.”

  “Okay. She’s quite pale. Dark brown hair—”

  “She sounds just like India,” he interrupted. “No wonder I mistook her for my true Liebling.”

  “Anyway, dark brown hair, cut very short. Glasses. She usually dresses in woolen skirts and brogues.”

  Otto frowned. “I hope you’re not talking about who I think you’re talking about.”

  “She’s very upset. Says you keep ignoring her.”

  “Don’t be absurd!” he exclaimed. “Even without my glasses I would never exchange saliva with a girl like that one. I would rather have killed my darling India than kissed that toadlet. She is not rich. She is not from a great family.”

  “Otto, how can you be such a terrible snob?”

  “She is not beautiful,” he continued. “In fact she is the ugliest specimen of Fresher I’ve ever had the misfortune to set eyes on. I have never knowingly spoken to her, so I can’t tell you definitively that she is not even interesting, but I suspect, were I to converse with her, which I hope never to, that I would swiftly be proved right. I expect she is as dull as the color of her hair.”

  “Otto, I’m afraid you’ve done a whole lot more than converse with her. She’s so upset about it all that she’s banned you from her Crosswords and Ice Cream Society.”

  “That note! On my door. I couldn’t understand it.”

  “Look, find your tailcoat. The one you were wearing on Sunday evening.”

  “Why?” he asked, opening his wardrobe and retrieving it.

  “You’ll see.”

  Ursula took the tailcoat from Otto and put her hand into the right-hand pocket. She was sure that what she was looking for would be there. She grasped something small and hard, took out her hand, and showed Otto what was in it: a small pink plastic ice cream spoon.

  “You didn’t do it, Otto. The night India was murdered, you were eating melted ice cream and snogging Claire Potter.”

  Chapter 26

  Tuesday, 1st Week: Teatime

  “Yeee-uuuuggg-cccchhhhh!”

  Nancy had just bitten into her first ever slice of hot buttered Marmite on toast. Her expression was one of pure agony, though she somehow swallowed what was in her mouth.

  “Sorry!” she said. “People really eat this for fun here?”

  “Most of the students wolf it down,” said Mrs. Deddington sniffily.

  “Honestly?!” replied Nancy, sounding astonished. “Give me peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches any day.”

  “I adore Marmite on toast,” Ursula told them, taking a thick slice from the plate. “Mmmmm!” she sighed, munching away. “Delicious.”

  “Nancy, I’ll make you a cup of tea to wash away the taste,” said Mrs. Deddington, flicking the kettle on.

  The scouts’ mess, located in the original college kitchen next to the Buttery Bar, was a rather dark, spartan room, imbued with a very British air of thrift. A pine dresser was stacked with basic blue-and-white-striped crockery, and a few threadbare armchairs were arranged beside a mean-looking gas fire. Scouts took their mea
ls on schoolroom chairs set around the two wooden tables arranged at one end of the room.

  “Iced tea?” Nancy asked, looking hopeful.

  Pouring the boiling water into the truly enormous sixteen-cup teapot, Mrs. Deddington looked very confused.

  “Okay, maybe not. Hot tea it is!” said Nancy, trying to sound pleased.

  “Give it two minutes to brew,” said Mrs. Deddington. “Here, sit in the warm.” She beckoned the girls towards the armchairs, rubbing her hands together in front of the stove. “Damp today, wasn’t it? Autumn’s really here now. But it’ll be clear tonight. There’ll be a frost in the morning.”

  “I can’t believe you guys think that is a heater,” Nancy commented, looking at the stove’s little flame. “In America we’d call that a cigarette lighter.”

  Just then, Alice bustled merrily in, dumped her cleaning stuff, took off her rubber gloves, and said, “How about a cuppa, Linda?”

  “Just made,” said Mrs. Deddington, pouring four cups of tea.

  She handed a steaming cup to each of the girls and another to Alice, who leaned against the sideboard as she sipped.

  “Do you want to travel up to poor Lady India’s funeral with us on Thursday?” Mrs. Deddington asked her. “We’re driving.”

  “I don’t think I’m invited,” said Alice, looking heartbroken.

  “Don’t be silly, you must come,” insisted Mrs. Deddington. “Everyone knew you were Lady India’s favorite scout. It would be remarked upon if you weren’t there.”

  “I suppose, yes, I would like to pay my respects. Say good-bye.” Ursula thought she saw Alice’s eyes well up a little. Poor thing, she thought, she must be just as devastated as India’s friends. “India was a really . . . special girl.”

  “Terrible really, something like that happening here. On the grounds,” Mrs. Deddington tutted. “The police seem to be spending all their time in the high provost’s lodgings. Why they aren’t speaking to every student who was at that party of Lord Wychwood’s, I’ll never know.”