Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery

by Stevens, Robin

  ‘Hah!’ said Daisy suddenly. ‘Here, look at this. A bottle of pills in Florence’s tuck box. Digoxin.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Lavinia. It sounded as though she had stood up and stopped her search.

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ said Daisy. ‘But I know how I can find out. I’ll telephone Doctor Cooper back at Fallingford and pretend to be Mummy so he’ll tell me what they’re for. Matron isn’t in her office because she’s chasing shrimps, so I can creep in quite easily. This is all excellent. Kitty, anything from you?’

  There was a shuffling noise. ‘Perhaps,’ said Kitty. ‘She’s got some pictures hidden under her blouses of some old people. On the back it says, er, “Oma und Opa, Juni 1934”. That’s German, isn’t it? They must be her grandparents, but I can’t see why … they don’t look Jewish, do they?’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Daisy. I stuck my head inside Enid’s tuck box and dug. There were piles of paper, all revision notes. I began to look through them.

  ‘Kitty! What do you mean, not Jewish? D’you see that candelabra thing behind them? That’s a menorah. It’s part of what Jewish people have instead of Christmas.’

  ‘Why don’t they have Christmas?’ cried Beanie, horrified. ‘Poor things!’

  ‘Beanie, they don’t— Oh, never mind. The point is, Una’s got Jewish grandparents. Excellent work! Now Hazel. What have you found?’

  She sounded accusing, and I was cross, because I had not found anything.

  ‘Here,’ I said, snatching up the first document that came into my hands and thrusting it at her. ‘Here you are!’

  Daisy and I locked eyes, and she glared. I could feel that I was glaring too. ‘This, Hazel,’ she began, ‘is quite—’ Then she stopped. ‘This appears to be a letter from Enid’s father,’ she said.

  ‘Ooh, is it important?’ asked Beanie.

  There was a pause. ‘Yes,’ said Daisy at last, quietly. ‘I think it is. It’s from a few weeks ago. Mr Gaines is talking about universities. He says, “I was sorry to hear of your latest History mark. Remember, Enid, that your mother and I expect to hear that you have been accepted by Oxford at the end of this school year. You are clever enough, if only you apply yourself. We have put so much into your education, and expect to get proper returns. Your sister sends her regards. As always, she wishes she could be with you, but of course finances will not allow it. I hope you are putting in the study that we discussed.” Goodness, it goes on like that for simply ages.’

  She looked up from the page, and I caught her eye. I knew what she was thinking. I could suddenly see from that letter how exam marks might seem like life or death to Enid. If she failed to get into Oxford, after her parents had spent so much money on sending her to Deepdean – why, they would not forgive her. Cheating would seem like a sensible answer.

  My parents have never had to worry about money, but all the same I know what it is like to be expected to do well. I have to prove to my father that I deserve Deepdean, now that he has given it to me – that I ought to be here, and that it is worth sending my first little half-sister, who is eight, here when she is old enough. I am the first, and that is sometimes a difficult thing to be.

  I opened my mouth, but Daisy turned away.

  ‘Well,’ she said to Kitty and Beanie. ‘There we have it. Now, shall we go, before we’re caught? I have a doctor to telephone.’

  13

  Down we went to the main hallway. The shrimps and Betsy were still doing a marvellous job of running riot, and the door to Matron’s office hung open, with no one inside. We had heard her shouting at them somewhere on the first floor, so we knew we were safe. But the clock on the wall gave us only ten minutes until we had to walk down for afternoon school. We had to work fast.

  ‘All right,’ said Daisy. ‘I’m going in to use the telephone. You four, stay out here. If you see Matron, or one of the Five, do your best to distract them, as loudly as you can. I only need a few minutes – if Doctor Cooper is in his office. We must bank on that.’

  ‘Good luck!’ whispered Beanie nervously. I did not say anything at all.

  ‘Thank you, Beanie,’ said Daisy, and then she whisked away into Matron’s office with one glance back at me that, if it had been from anyone else, I would have thought was full of hurt.

  A moment later, we heard her voice, sounding very crisp and grown up. ‘Hello? Operator? Fallingford 214, please. Yes, Doctor Cooper’s practice. Yes, I can hold.’

  There was a pause. Then Daisy’s voice again: ‘Oh, good afternoon, Doctor Cooper! No, no, you must have been given the wrong number. This is Lady Hastings, and I just have a little query for you—’

  ‘Fourth formers!’ said a voice. ‘What are you doing here?’

  We all whirled round. We had been paying attention to Daisy, and had forgotten to watch out, as she had told us to. But the front door of House had opened, and now Enid was standing before us.

  Kitty coughed, I cleared my throat, and Lavinia stuck out her chin and said, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was looking for the missing girl,’ said Enid coldly. ‘I was sent back. There are branches covering the path and I’m not strong enough to lift them. Why are you all standing about? Are you waiting for someone?’ Her head turned towards Matron’s office.

  ‘Yes!’ said Beanie suddenly, so loudly it was almost a shout. Enid started, and we all stared at her. ‘We … we were waiting for Matron! Because … because’ – we all heard Daisy’s voice again – ‘BECAUSE I’m so terribly UPSET! POOR ELIZABETH, and all the HORRID things that have happened since then. It’s AWFUL!’

  ‘Oh, it IS!’ cried Kitty, sniffing and wiping crocodile tears off her face. ‘DREADFUL!’

  They were making such a lot of noise now that Daisy was quite drowned out. Enid looked nervous, and when Beanie stepped forward, holding out her arms to be comforted, she backed away in horror. She was too preoccupied to notice the moment that Daisy slipped out of Matron’s office, looking very cheerful. She was beside Lavinia before Enid noticed her, and then she nodded her head in greeting and said easily, ‘Leaving a note for Matron. After all, it’s time to go down to school now, and she isn’t back yet.’

  Enid looked uncertain for a moment, but then the bell did ring, and she had to let us go. She was still standing in the hallway when we rushed out of the door, feeling as though we had had quite a few lucky escapes for one lunch time.

  ‘What did you discover?’ whispered Kitty to Daisy as we walked down to school in a fine drizzle. ‘Did you find out what Dig— whatever is?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Daisy. She was glowing with excitement. ‘I pretended to be Mummy, and told Doctor Cooper I’d found it in my cabinet and wondered whether I could take it for my headaches. He got most dreadfully upset and told me absolutely not, that it was heart medication, for people with very serious heart diseases.’

  ‘No!’ cried Kitty.

  ‘Yes!’ said Daisy. ‘Oh, it was the easiest thing in the world. And there you have it. Our last motive, confirmed! Florence really is ill, and hiding it. If this got out, she’d never be allowed to go to the Olympics. Isn’t this marvellous?’

  ‘But we still haven’t ruled anyone out!’ I said. I suppose I was trying to needle Daisy – but all the same, it was true. All our hunting for motives did not really seem to have got us anywhere.

  ‘That,’ said Daisy airily, ‘will come. If you have faith in the Detective Society. Do you, Hazel?’

  There was nothing I could say to that.

  14

  In History I scribbled down our escapades at lunch time, and then I settled down to read my letter at last.

  Weston School, Thursday 7th November, morning

  Dear Hazel,

  I’d only just sent that last when I got your second letter. Things are moving so quickly. I wish George and I were there. Has the handyman been arrested? Or do all the grown-ups still think it was an accident? And have you found out any more about who is spreading those secrets, and why? Have the Five’s
secrets been shared yet? Who was the person running away into the woods?

  I’m sorry for all these questions, but this is the most exciting thing that has happened to us all term. Nothing has happened here, you really do have all the luck. We ought to come to Deepdean, then we’d have some fun. Although they’d never let boys in, which is a real pity.

  George and I have been putting our heads together to think about how we can help from where we are. We’ve not been much use. All I can say is, don’t worry too much about the motives. You know all your suspects had them, and that’s enough. The important thing isn’t why, it’s how, isn’t it? They all could have done it, but only one of them did. It’s a simple logic problem – who was in the right place at the right time. Maybe a re-creation would help you work it out. Have you done one yet?

  Don’t give up, Hazel. Of course I know you never would, not like most of the people I know. Perhaps that’s not very British of me to say, but sometimes I think that’s what makes us good detectives – that we’re not quite British. Funny that, of the four of us, only Daisy really is English. Perhaps that’s why you work so well together, and why you’re such good friends.

  Alexander

  I had gone shivery all over, with something that felt halfway between excitement and illness. I was glad to read the letter, of course, but it was not just that. There was something very important in what Alexander had said, something that exactly answered the question I had asked on the way down to school. He was not on the spot, so there was plenty about the case that he could not see (and he was working from my second letter on Wednesday, he was hopelessly out of date).

  All the same, he had seen something that we had overlooked. We had become so obsessed with secrets, and gossip, and motives, that we had forgotten to look at this case as a case, as a logic puzzle. The more we investigated, the more Elizabeth’s death seemed inevitable, a fact. Elizabeth had been a person who had made so many people hate her that her murderer could have been anyone. But it was not. The Five had all had motives, but only one of them had done it. As Alexander had said, it was a simple question of who had been in the right place at the right time. That was what we had to discover. Why had we not done a re-creation of the crime yet?

  It was a crucial thought, I knew, and I had to tell the others. But I did not want to speak to Daisy. I was afraid that she might not listen to my idea at all if I admitted it was from Alexander.

  I was still struggling to think of how to tell her at dinner. I was very carefully looking down and taking great forkfuls of food without really tasting it. I became aware of a buzz all around me, people speaking louder than usual, far louder than they are usually allowed at dinner. I bit down on gluey stew, and then someone tugged at my elbow. I looked round, and there was the little third former Martha Grey.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘but have you seen Binny?’

  1

  ‘Binny’s hiding,’ said Kitty, twenty minutes later. ‘She must be. Ugh, that little beast, I shall kill her when she’s found. Oh, don’t squeak, Beanie, of course I don’t mean it. But I know what she’s done. She was jealous that Rose was getting all the attention, so she’s pulling some silly stunt. She’ll be in the airing cupboard, you’ll see, or under a table somewhere. She’ll have asked Martha to bring her food.’

  But Martha, when questioned further, denied it. ‘It’s been hours,’ she said, pink-eyed and trembling. ‘I haven’t seen her since the end of school. She said she had to meet someone, and that she’d come up later with Alma. Only Alma says she came up with the Marys, and Binny wasn’t in the common room, and she wasn’t at dinner either. Do you think she’s all right?’

  ‘Of course she is!’ cried Kitty. ‘I told you, she’s hiding.’

  Matron seemed to agree with her. She was in an absolute rage. To find that another girl was gone was more than she could bear. She went storming all about House, shouting about ridiculous third formers.

  Only Binny did not appear. We all went looking for her, but she was not in the airing cupboard, nor under the beds, nor even lurking in the washrooms or the cabinets. She was nowhere. And although I began the search feeling rather distracted, I soon started to worry. I could feel Kitty wobbling, something inside her buckling a little more with every new room that was empty. I thought of what the Five had said, that they would find the person responsible for spreading the secrets of the Scandal Book and deal with them, and I began to feel really concerned.

  I was searching in a small alcove on the second floor when a little voice behind me said, ‘Hazel?’

  It was Martha. Her eyes had gone from pink to red, and she looked terribly distressed. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Martha, lip wobbling. ‘I couldn’t say earlier, but I really think something terrible’s happened to Binny!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘She didn’t run away because of Rose!’ cried Martha. ‘That’s what Kitty said, and what Matron thinks, but it isn’t true. Binny’s been acting strangely all week. She kept on telling me that she knew something, that she had a secret, and of course I thought it was just talk, but then – well, I began to think that she was the one spreading the secrets. I tried to tell you at lunch, but you were busy. And now she’s gone! Oh!’

  There was another ‘Oh!’ from behind me. I froze.

  ‘Hello, Daisy,’ I said.

  ‘Watson,’ said Daisy. I spun about, furious, because it was not fair of her to use that name, and I saw her standing there, nose crinkled and eyes very blue. She gave one small shake of her head, and in a moment, like letting go of a ledge, I understood. It was not the time to argue any more.

  ‘You really think Binny has gone?’ asked Daisy. ‘You aren’t just making things up?’

  ‘No!’ said Martha, hurt. ‘Never!’

  ‘Run away?’

  ‘I don’t know! What if … someone took her?’

  ‘The most likely explanation is still that she is hiding somewhere,’ said Daisy. ‘But – you think she was behind the spread of the secrets?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Martha, tears standing in her eyes. ‘I’m almost sure. She was being so odd about them. Binny does make things up sometimes, but this wasn’t like that. When you’re friends with someone, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ said Daisy. ‘Friends can always tell.’

  Martha ducked her head to swipe her hands across her eyes, and I caught Daisy’s eye. My throat felt full.

  ‘Come with us,’ said Daisy. ‘Come to our dorm. We’ll get to the bottom of what’s been going on, won’t we, Hazel?’

  I nodded.

  2

  ‘Tell us everything,’ said Daisy, sitting down on her bed. ‘When did you last see Binny?’

  Kitty, Lavinia and Beanie were clustered around her, and Martha was standing at the head of the bed. I was at its foot, taking notes.

  ‘Last lesson this afternoon was French,’ said Martha. ‘When we got out, Binny told me that she had to stay down at school.’

  ‘Be more specific,’ said Daisy. ‘Every detail, no matter how small, could be important.’

  Martha took a deep breath and squinted. ‘She said she was meeting someone, and she’d come up later with Alma. But Alma says she never did.’

  I had a sudden horrid memory of our case last year, and of Miss Bell, off to her meeting in the Gym – the meeting that ended in her murder. I shuddered, and Beanie made a little noise. I could tell the others were having the same thought, though none of us wanted to say it.

  ‘All right, so she was meeting someone,’ said Daisy, pulling us back. ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Martha. ‘She didn’t say!’

  ‘Someone from school, or the town?’

  ‘If it was out of school, she’d have had to leave the grounds with me, or Alma, or someone,’ said Martha, showing impressive logic. ‘You know we can’t go out on our own. She didn’t leave with me, or any of us in the year, and so she must have stayed down at school
.’

  She was certain, and I knew she was most likely right. But I could not help imagining Binny being bundled away into the night, long after everyone else had gone. If that had happened, then by now she could be anywhere.

  I thought back, and saw the pattern: the way Binny had been boastful and smug and full of her own secret. She had discovered a crucial piece of the puzzle, and once again we had all been looking in the wrong direction, and missed it. I felt shame flowing through me. I had listened to Kitty, and seen Binny as a little sister, not a person.

  I realized then that I was imagining the worst. Binny had known something important, and now she was missing. It was not much of a leap to assume that the person who had killed Elizabeth really had taken her. But what would happen to her now? Surely the murderer could not do anything, not to a little half-shrimp like Binny. She was foolish, and loud-mouthed, but she was not bad. But … the Five were serious about keeping their secrets, I knew. We had heard Florence and Una promising to hunt for the thief. And the murderer had already killed Elizabeth …

  ‘Binny’s going to be all right,’ said Kitty, after Martha had left, still sniffling. ‘She bounces. She’s like an ant, terribly difficult to kill.’ But her voice sounded wan and wobbly. ‘Mummy will never forgive me if something happens to her,’ she said, and Beanie squeezed her hand.

  ‘We’ll find her,’ said Beanie.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We will.’

  ‘We all will,’ said Daisy.

  I turned to look at her.

  ‘Watson,’ said Daisy. ‘I think we need to talk.’

  3

  Daisy led me through the shouting, running, exclaiming House, everything upside down and inside out (Matron had decided to call the police again, and so Binny was now officially missing), to the long wide window on the second floor that sits just above a little ledge. The older girls sometimes go and sit on it to smoke without Matron catching them, but now it was empty. Daisy pushed open the sash and slipped out onto it, and I followed her.