Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery

by Stevens, Robin

  ‘We ought to call the police!’ Daisy went on, and the prefects twitched towards each other, as though the invisible string that bound them had contracted suddenly.

  ‘For a stick, Wells?’ said Una, her voice trembling. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Nonsense, Wells. Go up to your dorm immediately!’ said Matron. ‘Prefects, come here. Explain this to me.’

  ‘Yes, Matron,’ said Daisy as Una, Enid, Lettice and Margaret went up to Matron, ‘Sorry, Matron,’ and then she went marching towards the stairs. I followed her.

  But if Florence was the murderer … where was Binny?

  9

  We had to go to Prep, then, but I was so worried about Binny that I could not concentrate on it. Florence was in San. How could we get her to tell us where Binny was? I knew Kitty was stewing over the same problem. I forced myself to write all this up, and I was still writing after Prep, when a shriek suddenly went up from the other fourth-form dorm.

  Daisy was on her feet at once, scrambling for the door, and we rushed after her. My heart was leaping. The other dorm were all spilling out into the corridor themselves, gasping. I saw that Rose looked ill, as did Sophie, but Clementine was glowing with excitement, of a sort that I did not quite like. Her cheeks were flushed, as though she was feverish, and she was giggling. ‘It must be true!’ she said. ‘It has to be! Can you believe it? Ugh!’

  ‘What is it?’ Kitty asked, and I felt a sort of cold flush going through me, like water along my arms and legs. Was this something to do with Binny?

  ‘It’s another secret!’ cried Clementine.

  ‘But I thought those were done!’ said Daisy, sounding as bewildered as I was. The secrets were supposed to be over: Binny had the book, and so no more scandals could come out while she was missing.

  ‘Not in the slightest!’ said Clementine. ‘There’s a new one, and it’s the best yet! When I unpacked my games bag, there it was at the bottom!’

  ‘What does it say?’ gasped Kitty.

  ‘It’s about Margaret!’ said Clementine gleefully. ‘“Margaret Dolliswood has unnatural feelings for Astrid Frith.” Isn’t that shocking! It must be true too, I’m sure I’ve seen her looking oddly at Astrid sometimes. Ugh! Golly! Just think – we’ve had one of those as a prefect! All the times she touched us. How awful!’

  ‘She didn’t touch us, she hit us,’ said Beanie, wrinkling her forehead.

  ‘It’s the same thing, to people like her,’ said Clementine, in fits of giggles. I got a disgusted feeling as she said it. She was being so foul! It was not true, what she was saying, not at all. ‘And the best part – we know who’s been sending these secrets at last! It’s got a name at the bottom. It was half torn off, but I could see it.’

  ‘Who was it?’ said Daisy sharply.

  ‘Why, Florence! Imagine Florence, spreading all those secrets! Oh, gosh, what a wicked girl she is. Hiding her illness, chopping up school property, spreading secrets—’

  ‘Florence put the secret in there?’ cried Kitty, and there were gasps from all around us. Some of the fifth formers had come out to listen, and the third formers, so that the corridor was quite crowded.

  ‘She must have done,’ said Clementine. ‘Odd. I was sure I dug down to the bottom of my bag after the end of the match. I was looking for that brooch I was wearing’ – Clementine always wears contraband – ‘and I had to go through almost everything. But, hah, I suppose I was distracted after what happened. Ugh! Margaret! And Astrid!’

  Next to me, I could sense Daisy tensing up. I turned to her and saw the crinkle at the top of her nose. Something Clementine had said was spinning around Daisy’s head, I could tell, and I thought I knew what it was.

  ‘What’s all this?’ said a voice. We all looked up guiltily, and some of us gasped. It was Margaret herself.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Clementine. ‘We just know a secret, that’s all. A very funny secret. About a girl with blonde hair, and about a prefect who likes her far too much to be safe.’

  Margaret turned brick red. I thought she was angry, and then I saw that all of her, her whole body, was shaking. ‘What do you mean?’ she growled, and her voice shook too. I saw her glaring at Daisy and me. She must have thought that we had something to do with letting out the secret.

  ‘Astrid Frith,’ hissed Clementine. ‘And you. I know what you think about her. It was written down!’

  ‘Ooh!’ someone squealed. ‘Astrid’s here!’

  My heart sank even further, for Astrid Frith had appeared at the other end of the corridor. She looked about her, bemused, as girls fell back, giggling and rustling, and then she put her hands up to her hair automatically. But of course, it was much worse than that.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Astrid and Maaargaret,’ hissed a third former. ‘Sitting in a tree.’

  Astrid looked up at Margaret and her face cleared and changed. I could see her understand. She spun on her heel, flushing, and rushed away.

  ‘Wait!’ cried Margaret, and she dashed after Astrid. Of course, the corridor erupted, and I heard more than one girl repeating the third former’s words.

  I felt rather sick. I know what it is like to be teased about being different, and I know I hate it. I do not think anyone else would hate it any less. I hoped Margaret had realized that we had nothing to do with what Clementine had said.

  Daisy seized my arm, and I turned to look at her. She was pink-cheeked, and her nose was still wrinkled.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Margaret?’

  ‘Oh, never mind that!’ said Daisy, surprisingly forcefully. ‘It’s what Clementine said. About the secret! Much as I hate to admit it, Hazel, I have realized something. Florence could not have put the secret in Clementine’s bag, and she did not put the stick in her own. She is being framed, and there is only one person left who could have done it. Una!’

  10

  We all rushed back into the dorm. Daisy had the look on her face that I knew meant another Detective Society meeting was on its way, and sure enough—

  ‘Hazel, casebook!’ she cried. ‘Quickly!’

  ‘Oh, what is it?’ cried Beanie.

  ‘It’s Florence,’ I said, getting out this casebook and making a new heading. ‘The new secret.’

  ‘She wrote it!’ said Kitty. ‘Her name was on it—’

  ‘Goodness, don’t you know that doesn’t mean anything?’ asked Daisy. ‘Anyone might have written Florence on that bit of paper. But the important thing is that—’

  ‘She couldn’t have left it in Clementine’s bag,’ I finished for her.

  ‘She couldn’t?’ gasped Beanie. ‘But how do you know?’

  ‘Because of what Clementine said, that she looked in her bag after Florence had already fainted, and didn’t see the secret there then. I think it wasn’t put in until later. Florence couldn’t have done it!’

  ‘Ooh!’ said Beanie, enlightened. ‘I see!’

  ‘And Clementine wouldn’t have missed it?’ asked Kitty, half questioningly.

  ‘She isn’t that idiotic,’ said Lavinia. ‘I mean, she is quite idiotic, but not that bad.’

  ‘Florence is being framed!’ said Daisy. ‘And there is really only one person who it could be. Una!’

  ‘We have to make her tell us where Binny is!’ cried Kitty. ‘Quickly!’

  ‘She’ll never do it,’ said Daisy. ‘No, we have to think! Now that we know it’s Una, where would she hide someone, if she had kidnapped them? Not Oakeshott Woods, it’s too dirty. Somewhere in school. But where have we seen Una going … Oh. Oh!’

  ‘The Hall!’ cried Kitty suddenly. ‘She went that way at bunbreak, didn’t she? What if—’

  We all jumped to our feet. We knew exactly the place she meant. Daisy and I had discovered it last year during our first case. The tunnel.

  ‘We have to go down to school!’ said Kitty frantically. ‘Now! At once!’

  ‘But we can’t just leave House!’ said Beanie. ‘We can’t! Mat
ron will catch us!’

  ‘I’m going, and that’s that,’ said Kitty. ‘I’ll escape. I’ll run away. You can come with me or not.’

  I looked at Daisy.

  ‘We can get into school easily,’ she said, ‘once we’re out of House. Everything’s been in chaos since Jones left. Things aren’t locked up properly. The side door to Old Wing Entrance – you know, the little one – the gardener who’s been locking up this week doesn’t know that the lock doesn’t catch properly. It’ll give if we shove a bit, and then we’ll be in.’

  ‘But how do we leave House?’ I asked.

  Daisy grinned at me, and I could tell that I was about to not like her answer.

  ‘Drainpipes work both ways, Hazel,’ she said.

  1

  The drainpipe was painful under my hands, and the brick of the wall scratched against my legs, and my arms felt as though they were being dragged out of their sockets.

  ‘Buck up, Hazel!’ panted Daisy, and she kicked out at me with her foot. I thought I would let go. I was sure I was about to. But I had to carry on. I could not let her down.

  I came to the conclusion, as always, that things seemed much less difficult in books.

  Below me, Beanie let out a small squeak and dropped into the bushes.

  ‘Shh, Beans!’ hissed Kitty. ‘Quiet!’ Then she was down as well, much more daintily.

  Lavinia said something most unladylike and angry, and fell with a scuffle of leaves and a small crash.

  ‘Assistant Temple!’ hissed Daisy. ‘Did you drop the torches?’

  ‘Not far!’ grumbled Lavinia. ‘And they’re supposed to rattle like that.’

  ‘They are not!’ said Daisy. ‘And they are not supposed to be dropped.’

  ‘Well, why did you give them to me, then?’ asked Lavinia.

  ‘Shh!’ said Beanie nervously. ‘Matron!’

  ‘She’s busy,’ said Daisy. ‘She and the prefects are all trying to get the shrimps in check. Betsy North is a good egg, isn’t she?’

  The younger years had been most agreeable when Daisy had asked them to help us. It really was us against the Big Girls now, open war. Half the shrimps were convinced, as we were, that Binny had been taken. It had not been difficult for Daisy to persuade them that it was one of the Five, and we needed their help to get her back. But all the same, I did worry. We were banking on Una being too busy to notice we were gone. But what if she did? Or what if Enid and Lettice saw that we were missing, and told Una? What if she put two and two together, and came looking for us? The dreadful thing about Big Girls is that they have almost as much licence to move about the world as grown-ups. They are hardly bound by bells and bedtimes; they are on their way to freedom, and that means that Una could quite easily make an excuse to go down to school at eight at night, while we had to creep and stall, and take twice the amount of time we really ought to.

  My fingers scraped quite painfully on one of the pipe joins, and I said, ‘Ow!’

  I said it quite quietly, but of course Daisy heard.

  ‘Oh, Hazel!’ she said. ‘You are not naturally suited to spy work, are you?’

  ‘I don’t see why I have to be!’ I whispered back indignantly. ‘I’m a detective, not a secret agent!’

  ‘These days, the intelligent investigator may need to be both,’ said Daisy, and I knew she had been reading spy stories again. I made a face.

  ‘Don’t make that face, Watson,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s not nice.’

  ‘You don’t know what I was doing!’ I said, blushing.

  ‘I always know,’ said Daisy. ‘That will never change. Now stop blushing and climb down.’

  I struggled on, aching and afraid but with a glad glow at my heart. Daisy and I were together, and we were on the case. Daisy might be dreadfully annoying, but she was my best friend.

  And we were terribly close to the truth. We knew who and why, and when, and how. All we needed now was to find Binny. I felt dirt under my feet. I let go with a gasp and fell to the ground.

  ‘Excellent!’ said Daisy. She shone her torch about our group – at Lavinia, with twigs in her hair and mud on her skirt, at Kitty, brushing a bit of rust from her hands with a disgusted expression on her face, at Beanie, widening her eyes and shivering a little in her thin school pullover, and at me. I knew I was still red-faced from the climb, and one of my socks was torn. Daisy was quite trim and perfect. ‘Now, Detective Society, you know what you must do. Our mission is this: to get down to school and liberate Binny Freebody from captivity.’

  ‘Without the murderer finding us,’ added Lavinia.

  ‘Ohhhh!’ whimpered Beanie. ‘But … Una wouldn’t do anything to us, would she?’

  Daisy rolled her eyes, and I looked at Kitty. Her jaw was clenched, and for once she was not teasing Beanie. I felt then how terribly much this meant to her. It was not just another Detective Society mission, as it was to Daisy and even to me. This was family. If it all went wrong, or if we were too late, her life would quite simply alter for ever. Kitty looked as though she knew it, as though she was staring at two quite separate visions of her future.

  ‘Not if we don’t let her,’ said Daisy. ‘Which is why we must go quietly, and quickly, and not leave anything to chance. All right?’

  ‘But what do we do if we meet Una?’ asked Lavinia loudly.

  ‘Scream,’ said Daisy. ‘Hit her. Goodness, Assistant Temple, use your ingenuity! Anyway, she is behind us, in House. We have nothing to worry about if we go now.’

  I was not so sure, but I knew she was right that speed was of the essence. I gripped my torch tightly, and together we began the dark walk down to school.

  2

  The wind rushed around us, and all the trees rattled, and the hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms shivered. My hands felt very cold and clammy. We were walking without torches – we could not risk them just yet – and so I felt that we were swallowed up in darkness, lost in it. I could hear us all breathing, and walking, and Beanie whimpering gently from time to time. She was whispering something to herself, and at last I heard what it was: ‘I’m brave, I’m brave, I’m brave.’

  I wished I was so sure myself.

  We stumbled and stepped, and at last, there was Old Wing Entrance in front of us.

  Daisy went up to the little side door, and gave it a very careful shove with her hip in just the right place, and it swung open quite easily. Beanie clapped.

  ‘Shh!’ said Daisy. ‘Remember, we’re spies! Come on, in we go.’

  She said it, as always, as though it was the easiest and most obvious thing in the world. I wonder sometimes whether Daisy knows how extraordinary she is, and how unusual her life really is – and I think that she does not. She never really pauses to wonder, which is the key to her. She simply is.

  In we crept, stepping over a pile of tools and bits of pipe that had been left from some repair work that day. Without Jones, Deepdean was no longer the tidy place it usually was. Old Wing swam around us, very high and dark with shadows in the rafters. Its wooden floor echoed under our feet for our first few eager steps – and then we went much more slowly and quietly, only half breathing as we placed each foot in front of the other. Daisy switched on her torch, and the beam danced in front of us, making the shadows silkier and the space ahead of us blazingly bright.

  ‘Where are we going?’ whispered Beanie.

  ‘To the Hall,’ said Daisy, leading us past Old Wing cloakroom and then turning down Library corridor.

  Of course, I knew where we were going. The tunnel really was the only place in Deepdean where a girl could be hidden. As I have explained in a previous casebook, there is an underground passage between the Hall and Old Wing. It was bricked up long ago, when Library corridor was built, and the little door leading in to it from the Hall is locked, but it has been used before, in Miss Bell’s murder, and now it seemed likely that it was being used again.

  On we went along Library Corridor, past the mistresses’ common room, the Library itself, and t
he Reverend’s study, and then we turned right at the end. My heart skipped. I felt creepy with déjà vu, as though this really was last year, and Daisy and I were once again on the hunt for Miss Bell’s body.

  But now there were five of us, and we were looking for not a body at all, but a real live girl. Or so we hoped.

  We tiptoed past the Hall, the light from the torch shining upon the lumber of old desks and chairs.

  ‘Oh,’ said Kitty suddenly. ‘Binny! Binny!’ And she broke into a run down the corridor.

  ‘Oh, bother,’ muttered Daisy under her breath. ‘Come back! Shh!’ and she pelted after Kitty. It became an undignified rush: Beanie running after Kitty and Daisy, me after Beanie, and Lavinia lumping along behind, making loud, rude noises.

  We really were all being terribly noisy, but I told myself it did not matter. There was no one to hear now, not like last year.

  We went almost all the way down the corridor to the Gym when Daisy stopped and turned sharply right, to the door of the tunnel.

  ‘It’s locked,’ said Lavinia. ‘Padlocked. You’ll never get in.’

  ‘Hah!’ said Daisy. ‘Don’t you know anything about spying? The best spies can open any lock in the world, and I have been practising.’ She put her hand up to her hair and pulled out a pin, slipping it into the padlock. There was a breathless moment, and then a click. The lock sprang open.

  ‘Una must have oiled it,’ said Daisy. ‘With that bottle, remember? And the pin.’

  I remembered what we had found in Una’s school bag: the hairpin, just like the one Daisy had used to pick the padlock just now, and the bottle of what looked like ink, although Una had had no pens. It must have been oil, of course, to grease the lock. Everything fitted.

  ‘And now,’ Daisy went on, like the ringmaster in a circus, ‘we shall go in, and see what we shall see.’