by Plum Sykes
“His clothes are full of holes and he’s got hardly any hair,” Nancy told her.
“Sounds just like a duke-in-waiting to me,” said Ursula, unlocking the door to the wardrobe.
“What are you doing?” screeched Nancy.
“He didn’t kill India,” said Ursula as a scruffy-looking boy stumbled out, glasses and champagne bottle in hand. “You were right about Alice. She is Mary Crimshaw. She tried to suffocate me this morning.”
“No!” gasped Nancy.
“Don’t worry,” said Moo. “I saved the day. That’s the whole point of being head girl.”
Ursula recognized the boy from the wardrobe immediately. He was the rather country-bumpkinish young man who’d been standing by the fireplace when Nancy had been flirting with the tall, dark, handsome undergrad she’d assumed was the next Duke of Dudley. Ursula had wondered at the time whether the handsome guy had been a little too good to be true—no one was that good-looking and the heir to a dukedom. How devilish of Otto to allow Nancy to carry on thinking he was!
“Hello,” said the scruffy boy. Horatio was right. Next Duke did have a Paddington Bear quality about him.
“Hi,” said Ursula. “Are you okay?”
“I was expecting the next Duke of Dudley,” said Nancy.
“Well, I am the next Duke of Dudley,” replied the boy. “Who did you think I was?”
Slowly, the truth started to dawn on Nancy.
“I’m so . . . sorry,” she stuttered, completely mortified. “There’s been a terrible mistake. I thought the next Duke of Dudley was someone else.”
Next Duke looked bereft.
“I thought you were . . . you,” he said, downcast.
Nancy smiled at him, charmed. “But your idea for a sunrise date in a meadow was very cute.”
“It’s going to be a beautiful dawn,” said Next Duke. “Awful shame to miss it.”
Ursula saw Nancy flush a little.
“Yes . . .” she said.
“Would you like to see it . . . with—with me?” he mumbled.
“Actually, I would,” she replied, a dreamy smile coming over her face.
Next Duke looked overjoyed by Nancy’s response. Then he said, taking in her equestrian look, “I’m afraid we’ll be walking. We could ride another time.”
“I’m psyched!” said Nancy. Then she turned to Ursula and added, “You will remember to make an excuse for me when you get to the river, won’t you?”
“Actually, I need someone to make an excuse for me,” said Ursula, who now looked pleadingly at Moo.
“Just this once,” she agreed. “I suppose being attacked by a bloodthirsty scout is an acceptable excuse for getting off games.”
“No, it’s not that, I’m not hurt,” Ursula insisted.
“What is it then?” asked Moo.
“I’ve got an article to write. I’ve barely started it and I’ve got to hand it in first thing tomorrow. Everyone, will you guard Alice in my room while I go to the pay phone? I need to call the police.”
As Ursula rushed down the stairs, she thought about India’s tragic end. Murdered for nothing more than money. Killed for being a Yar. How sad that no one would ever see her perform Shakespeare. What were those famous words the ghost of Hamlet’s father had said? “Murder most foul.” Indeed, thought Ursula as she dialed 999, India’s murder was most foul. The phone rang only once before someone picked up.
“Hello,” said Ursula, “I’d like to report the capture of a murderess.”
the end
(almost . . . )
Champagne Set Murder, cont.
Champagne Set Murder
cont. from Page 1
By Ursula Flowerbutton
After I telephoned the police on Saturday morning, I returned to my room, where Algernon Dalkeith, aka the next Duke of Dudley, and Nancy Feingold (now holding hands), as well as Felicia Evenlode-Sackville were guarding Alice Blythe. The scout, whose real name is Mary Crimshaw, claimed that she had never intended to commit murder. Her plan had been to blackmail India Brattenbury.
She said, “I was going to tell India about Nicholas. I’d threaten to tell the college authorities about her affair with a famous don if she didn’t promise to cut him into her inheritance.”
Crimshaw thought her moment had arrived on Sunday night. After overhearing Wentworth Wychwood commiserating to Otto Schuffenecker that India had gone to the aforementioned don’s rooms, the scout realized that if she caught India and the don together she could put her blackmailing plan into effect.
Having cleaned up Wychwood’s party and bidden Mrs. Deddington good-bye, Crimshaw removed Wychwood’s bloody towel from his laundry basket and put it in her apron pocket. (She claims she was planning to wash it at home to prevent staining.)
Around three a.m., Crimshaw snuck into the don’s rooms, where she found India alone, passed out on the chaise longue. Noticing a broken champagne saucer in the girl’s left hand, she went to clear it up. As she picked up the sharp, broken piece of the saucer, she was convulsed by a terrible thought.
Crimshaw says, “I thought, wouldn’t it be simpler for Nicholas if India was gone altogether?”
Wearing her rubber gloves, Crimshaw cut the girl’s throat with the shard of glass. She claims that India was so drunk that she didn’t stir, despite the violence of the injury inflicted upon her.
Crimshaw then dabbed Wychwood’s towel in the blood on India’s neck and concealed it in the chimney, believing she could use it later to frame fellow scout Mrs. Linda Deddington. When the towel was found, suspicion would initially fall on Wychwood. But Crimshaw would tell the police that Mrs. Deddington was the last person seen with the towel, thereby placing her at the scene of the crime. As the adoptive mother of the illegitimate heir to the Brattenbury fortune, Mrs. Deddington would appear to have motive and opportunity. Crimshaw planned to plant the piece of broken glass that she had used as the murder weapon among Mrs. Deddington’s effects, but never found the opportunity.
“Nicholas would have inherited one day. He’d never have known what really happened,” insisted Crimshaw. “I would have disappeared. Just like I had when I was fourteen. I was ‘dead’ then. I could be dead again.”
Moments later, DI Trott and a constable arrived and arrested the scout.
As Crimshaw was led away by police, Nancy Feingold said tearfully, “So sad. I’m really gonna miss Alice. Those hospital corners she did on our beds were totally awesome.”
John Evelyn’s Diary
John Evelyn’s Diary
by Horatio Bentley
Freshers—Where did they come from? Why didn’t they stay there? I am usually unsympathetic to Oxford’s scarf-wearing, kettle-wielding newbies. But after an eventful 1st Week in which the University was shaken by the murder of Christminster beauty Lady India Brattenbury, I can reveal that the delightful pair of Freshettes who unraveled the identity of the murderess have turned heads.
The crime-busting duo are as beautiful as they are brainy. American student Nancy Feingold (affectionately known to her (new) friends as “Lawnmower”—her cash comes from her parents’ gardening-tools empire) was spotted dressed in saucy riding kit on Saturday morning, cuddling up to Algernon Dalkeith on a mossy knoll in Port Meadow. He is said to be infatuated with the New Jersey native, who has changed his nickname from “Paddington” to plain old “Next Duke.”
Nancy Feingold’s bestie, Ursula Flowerbutton, author of the riveting article on the preceding pages, also found time to dabble in romance on Saturday night. Despite the attempt made on her life earlier that day, this diarist noticed Miss Flowerbutton boogying enthusiastically to the romantic twang of “The Love Cats” at the Playpen, the Saturday evening nightclub favored by the Champagne Set. She started the night dancing with Christminster disco diva Eghosa Kolokoli, but Cherwell editor Jago Summers cut in, stealing her away as soon as was politely possible.
When Lord Wentworth Wychwood arrived at the club, just after being released from Oxford police
station, he was overheard asking Ursula to dance. Flowerbutton refused the dishy earl, saying she had to leave. When he asked her why, Ursula only answered, mysteriously, “To write my essay.”*
Acknowledgments
Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me research, write, edit, and publish this novel. I would like to thank especially: Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Bevan; John Smith, chief executive officer of police and crime commissioner at Avon and Somerset; Tom Bailey; Tara Lawrence; Lisa Wheden; Miranda Elvidge; Caitlyn Rainey; Miles Guilford; Dr. Hugh White, retired forensic pathologist; Professor Peter Frankopan; Romain Reglade; Roberto Wheedon; the staff of the Oxford Union Library and the Codrington Library; Professor Marcus du Sautoy; Max Long; all at Cherwell Newspaper; Katie Bond; Christine Knight-Maunder; Kara Baker; Jonathan Burnham; Emily Griffin; Alexandra Pringle; Rebecca Carter; Luke Janklow; Jonathan Bate, Paula Byrne, and all at Worcester College Oxford; Eve MacSweeney; Crispin Jameson; Zac Posen; Jo Allinson; my brothers and sisters, Lucy, Fred, Alice, Josh, and Tom; my early readers, Victoria Elvidge, Catherine Ostler, my husband, Toby Rowland; our daughters, Ursula and Tess; and my mother, Valerie.
A very special thanks to my great aunt Rosey Goad, who was the great P. D. James’s editor. When I asked her advice about writing crime, she told me: “Plum, don’t have more than two bodies—it will confuse the reader. And never have more than one secret staircase.”
About the Author
Plum Sykes is a novelist and fashion journalist who frequently contributes to American Vogue. She studied modern history at Worcester College, Oxford, which inspired her memoir Oxford Girl, and is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Bergdorf Blondes and The Debutante Divorcée. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters.
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Also by Plum Sykes
Bergdorf Blondes
The Debutante Divorcée
Oxford Girl
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
party girls die in pearls. Copyright © 2017 by Victoria Sykes. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Cover illustration © Donald Robertson, @drawbertson
first edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sykes, Plum, author
Title: Party girls die in pearls : an Oxford girl mystery / Plum Sykes.
Description: First edition. | New York : Harper, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016042149| ISBN 9780062429025 (hardback) | ISBN
9780062429049 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Humorous. |
FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6119.Y54 P37 2017 | DDC 823/.92--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042149
Digital Edition May 2017 ISBN: 9780062429049
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-242902-5
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* Oxford terms begin with 1st Week, ending in 8th Week. Freshers arrive in 0th Week, before term officially starts. Undergraduates refer to dates by week number and day, e.g., “See you Tuesday of 3rd Week” makes total sense. “See you on 29 October” does not.
* The TV version of Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh’s classic Oxford novel, was the Downton Abbey of the 1980s, except everyone was secretly gay.
* There is no Oxford University “campus.” Rather, the city of Oxford makes for an informal campus, with over thirty separate colleges dotted around the town. Collectively these form the university. Each college has its own residential buildings, dining hall, chapel, libraries, grounds, etc., where students live and learn, although they can also study with other tutors in other colleges, many of whom also live in the colleges. The oldest, richest, most famous colleges—Christ Church, New College, Magdalen College, All Souls—are as grand as palaces, occupying their own mini estates within the town.
* Notorious for its poshness, Eton College is now as well known for the hotness of its schoolboys. (Recent Old Etonian, or OE, hotties include Princes William and Harry, Eddie Redmayne, Damian Lewis, Dominic West, and Tom Hiddleston.)
* “Going Up” = beginning term. “Going Down” = ending term. Not to be confused with “Sent Down” = expelled.
* Launched in 1920, Cherwell is the only student rag that can count Graham Greene, John le Carré, and W. H. Auden among its undergrad contributors.
* “Battels” = fees for food and board.
* “Gopper” = from “Gopping Sloane,” derogatory slang used by aristo teens to refer to their slightly less posh upper-middle-class contemporaries, in this case Moo.
* “Subfusc” = black gowns worn for formal occasions at Oxford.
* Blues are awarded for sporting prowess—the most prestigious for rowing, tennis, and cricket. Half Blues are awarded for lesser sports, including gliding.
* The Oxford Union is a ridiculously fabulous university debating society. Past presidents include Benazir Bhutto (1977), Hilaire Belloc (1895), and Prime Minister William Gladstone (1830), whose cabinet desk is in the Union library. Everyone joins.
* Bop = puke-filled college disco.
* Mega-groovy King’s Road boutique BOY was frequented by club kids and pop stars, including Madonna. It was so groovy in there that Billy Idol worked the till.
* Bendicks Bittermints, white fondant mints encased in dark chocolate, were purchased in yard-long boxes at Harrods. Pre-Diptyque candles, they were the only acceptable prezzie at grand English house parties.
* Year groups at Eton are referred to by letter, from F to B. F Block is for the youngest boys, aged around thirteen.
* The Gridiron Club, an all-male dining society, was founded in 1884. Past members include John le Carré and David Cameron. The rule book runs to ten pages.
* “Hooray Henrys” = Sloane Ranger boys. Term often abbreviated to “Hoorays.”
* Cherwell’s longest-running column, named after diarist John Evelyn (1620–1706), makes Page Six look kind.
* Cyndi Lauper, of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” fame, was to Madonna what Meghan Trainor is to Taylor Swift.
* Falcon Crest, which aired from 1981 to 1990, revolved around a feuding wine-growing family in the Napa Valley. Also known as “Dallas with gr
apes.”
* Honda Spree = “It” motorbike for 1980s American college kids.
* The ultimate TV representation of ’80s fashion, Dallas (1978–1991) was a high-glam soap about the Ewings, a backstabbing Texan oil family. Typical looks included sequin-encrusted mohair sweaters, leopard-print cleavage-revealing dresses, and silver knit batwing dresses. Having languished for decades in the depths of uncoolness, such items are now desperately trendy again.
* “Stiffie” = Sloane speak for invitation, derived from the fact that smart invites were once hand-engraved on exceptionally thick, stiff card.
* A shapeless, quilted green shooting coat, the Husky was key Sloane kit. The only person who looks good in one is the Queen.
* The holy word “Om” saves Siddhartha from his own suicide in Hermann Hesse’s 1922 Buddhist novel. Required reading among Oxford students in the 1980s, the book was seen as an antidote to the Thatcherite “Yuppie” decade.
* Pubs and bars closed at eleven p.m. in England in the 1980s. It was impossible to buy a drink after that, except in a nightclub. By midnight, the grounds of Oxford colleges were deserted; the drinking carrying on in students’ rooms.