First Class Murder: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery

by Stevens, Robin

  ‘Now, lights out, girls. I’ll be back in the morning – and I shall be listening hard tonight. No talking!’

  ‘Yes, Hetty,’ said Daisy. ‘Of course.’

  But as soon as she had gone I felt a knocking on the wooden slats underneath my bunk. It only took me a moment to recognize the Morse Code pattern: I-n-v-e-s-t-i-g-a-t-i-o-n-b-e-g-i-n-s-t-o-m-o-r-r-o-w!

  Y-e-s, I knocked back, light as a whisper.

  D-e-t-e-c-t-i-v-e-s-o-c-i-e-t-y-f-o-r-e-v-e-r, knocked Daisy, and then I heard her sigh happily, and roll over, and fall asleep. Life, for Daisy, is never better than when we are on a case.

  I, however, could not sleep. I wrote everything up, until my wristwatch, hanging on its hook next to my bunk, said 12.20, and the stopped train, slowly at first and then faster and faster, began to huff and churn and gallop forward again through the night. Daisy rolled over in bed and muttered, ‘Unhand me, criminal, I know the truth!’

  I jumped, then giggled. Of course, she was only having a dream. I lay still a while longer, feeling the train jolting about beneath me, and then my eyes began to drift closed. I shut them properly, and saw the floating blackness behind my eyelids and then nothing at all.

  1

  I woke with a jump. I thought I’d been dreaming something horrid about the night before – but then I realized that the jumping was carrying on even though I was awake; an awful loud howling and juddering, as though the Orient Express itself were being tortured.

  ‘Lord!’ said Daisy from below me. ‘Why are we stopping?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ I said, my teeth chattering. ‘It isn’t morning yet!’

  It wasn’t. My wristwatch said 5.14, and the light filtering through our blind was still pearlish.

  I climbed down from my bunk, the rungs pressing coldly up against my bare feet, and then splashed water from the basin onto my face and neck (I missed the bit behind my ears, but decided that it was allowed, under the circumstances). Daisy was hopping from foot to foot, desperate to get out of the door. Her hair was brushed and her robe was neatly tied. I reminded myself for the hundredth time that Daisy Wells does not really have magical beautifying powers.

  ‘All right!’ I said, pulling on my own pale blue robe. ‘All right, I’m coming!’ and we pushed the door open and peered out into the corridor.

  Other doors were opening now too, and guests were appearing, all wrapped in robes and slippers. The Countess, leaning on her cane, was majestic in an eau-de-nil silk creation, and Mrs Vitellius was draped in a beautiful duck-egg blue kimono. Alexander, in surprisingly childish pinstriped pyjamas which he was slightly too tall for, began to smile at us, but then the Countess said, ‘Alexander! Do not look at the ladies, if you please!’ and he blushed until his ears went red. Daisy dropped a curtsey in the Countess’s direction, and I saw them eyeing each other approvingly.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ growled Mr Daunt, in a velvety purple robe like an emperor. ‘Where is that man – Jocelyn! Why have we stopped?’

  At the sound of his voice, Jocelyn came hurrying up, fully dressed even though it was so dreadfully early. His face was creased with concern.

  ‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘gentlemen – my apologies. There has been a sudden stop – it is quite necessary – you are all safe, let me assure you—’

  ‘Safe?’ said the Countess as Madame Melinda appeared in a black dressing gown as fringed and fanciful as her day dress had been. ‘Why should we not be safe?’

  ‘Ladies – gentlemen – let me assure you . . .’ There was something Jocelyn did not want to say to us, I could tell.

  ‘SPIT IT OUT, MAN!’ roared Mr Daunt.

  Jocelyn took a deep breath. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Do not be alarmed.’

  I heard another door opening, and Mr Strange poked his head out. His face looked drawn and pale, and his thin fingers gripped the edge of his door. Why did he seem so afraid all the time? I wondered. What was going on inside his head? Seeing Mr Strange made me realize who was missing – once again, Il Mysterioso’s door remained firmly closed. Where was he? It was impossible that he had failed to hear all the commotion in the corridor.

  ‘We are still in Jugo-Slavia, I’m afraid. Near Vincovci, just this side of the border. I cannot tell you when we’ll be moving again. There’s been . . . Ladies and gentlemen, a device has exploded on the line up ahead.’

  I was quite sure that I had misheard him. After all, it seemed too dramatic to be true – just like something out of one of Daisy’s spy novels. But then the Countess sucked in her breath, and Mrs Vitellius shrieked, and I knew that they had heard the same words I had. A device. A bomb.

  ‘This is too much!’ cried Sarah. She went pushing through the crowd to Mr Daunt’s side. ‘First murder, now explosions – I shall hand in my notice!’

  ‘Quiet, Sarah,’ snapped Mr Daunt, catching hold of her arm. I noticed them staring at each other; he did not let her go straight away.

  ‘It’s the Soviets!’ shrieked the Countess, clutching her throat. ‘Alexander! Quick!’

  ‘Madam!’ cried Jocelyn, waving his arms so that the buttons on his Wagon Lit uniform flashed. ‘It is not the Soviets! It is merely rebels, trying to make trouble in their country! You are in no danger. Please listen to me!’

  ‘DESIST!’ my father roared suddenly, and everyone else fell silent and froze, shocked.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Jocelyn. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please. Do not fear. You are perfectly safe. This is something we were warned of – this was the matter I was discussing in the other carriage last night when the, ah, very unfortunate incident occurred – but we had hoped to avoid an explosion. Luckily, however, although the bomb was meant to destroy the line, the actions of our scouting party caused it to have only minimal damage. We are now fixing this, and we shall be on our way in the next day or so.’

  ‘The next day or so!’ cried Madame Melinda. ‘But—’

  The grown-ups all began to panic. Sarah was threatening to hand in her notice again, and Mr Daunt was shouting at her in a way that really was very rude. I wondered if I had imagined the arm-holding moment.

  ‘If there really was a bomb on the line,’ whispered Daisy to me, ‘then we’re stuck here until it’s fixed, and that means we can’t get to the police. We’re all alone again, which makes it far easier to detect, even if we do have Mrs Vitellius and your father trying to stop us. Hazel, this case may not have got off to the best start, but things are looking up at last!’

  2

  Unfortunately, she had spoken too soon.

  Still in our night things, we were all asked to gather at our tables in the dining car, sitting just as we had the evening before (the gap where Mrs Daunt had been loomed so large that no one could look at it). Jocelyn stood at one end, and next to him stood the doctor from the Calais–Athens coach. He looked just as confident as he had last night – not, as I knew Kitty would have said to me if she had been there (I had a sudden moment of missing her), that he had much reason for it. He was a thin man, with rather a large head and ears that stuck out, and his suit did not fit.

  Il Mysterioso had at last been ferretted out of his compartment. He did not explain why he hadn’t emerged earlier; in fact, he did not speak at all. He sat with his shoulders hunched beneath his cloak, playing a coin to and fro between his fingers. He looked pale and pointed, and his beard was quite uncombed. I supposed that he was upset that we’d been prevented from reaching Belgrade, so he couldn’t hand over his documents. I reminded myself that he could not know that Daisy and I knew his secret, but all the same I shivered when he happened to raise his eyes and stare at me.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Jocelyn, smoothing down his jacket. ‘As you know, the train is not moving at present. This is for your safety.

  ‘In light of the events of last night, we are in a rather delicate situation. The, er, body has been moved into the guards’ van, and will be safe there until we arrive in Belgrade, but the fact remains that a crime has bee
n committed, and of course it must be looked into. Luckily I have discovered that we happen to have a – well – someone with experience of these matters on board.’

  Mrs Vitellius coughed daintily into her handkerchief and I glanced at her in shock. Had she revealed her identity to Jocelyn?

  Daisy sat up very straight and pinched my arm, pink-cheeked. I realized what she was thinking. She was quite obviously ready for the Detective Society to be officially given the case. ‘We’re it, Hazel!’ she murmured. ‘Buck up!’

  ‘I am bucked,’ I said. ‘It’s only that I haven’t eaten breakfast yet. And are you sure—’

  ‘Of course I’m sure!’ hissed Daisy – and then her mouth dropped open as Jocelyn turned, not to Mrs Vitellius’s table, or ours – but to the doctor beside him.

  ‘This,’ he said, ‘is Dr Sandwich, graduate of medicine – and, it emerges, an amateur detective of some repute. He solved last year’s Satterthwaite murder – you must recall?’

  Everyone looked blank.

  ‘I had only a small hand in the matter,’ said Dr Sandwich, wriggling his thin shoulders under his suit. I noticed that his nose bulged, and he had a little moustache and stubby eyelashes that fluttered when he spoke. ‘I . . . was able to advise the police.’

  ‘You told me you solved the case!’ exclaimed Jocelyn.

  ‘Well,’ said Dr Sandwich. ‘Perhaps. I did deduce that the size and position of the wound meant that the supposed murder weapon, a fire iron, could not have been used. Instead, Mr Satterthwaite must have been killed with an antique paperweight from the family collection – and that pointed to only one murderer.’ He paused. ‘It was really quite easy,’ he said, with false modesty.

  Daisy’s grip on my arm had suddenly become painful. ‘Ow!’ I mouthed at her. I do not think she heard.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Jocelyn, ‘I have been allowed by my superiors to nominate Dr Sandwich as the representative of the international police until the train reaches Belgrade. He has already examined the crime scene, allowing the body to be moved to its present position, and he now requests that you allow yourselves to be interviewed in this dining car. After breakfast you will be called in one by one – until you are, we ask you to remain calmly in your compartments. There is no reason to be concerned – on behalf of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, I can promise you that you will suffer no more disruption than necessary. We aim to make your stay with us as secure and comfortable as possible. The one request I must make is that you do not lock your doors – it is important that everything remains open and accessible to Dr Sandwich.’

  ‘And what if we refuse?’ asked Mr Strange quietly. He was very pale and his hands were shaking. He did not look either secure or comfortable.

  ‘You wouldn’t dare!’ said Mr Daunt loudly. ‘You haven’t given any alibi for the moment Georgie was killed, have you? Do you know’ – he turned to Dr Sandwich – ‘that he wrote to Georgie and asked her for two hundred pounds just a week ago? Of course she refused, as I told her she must, and he must have followed us onto the train so he could ask her again!’

  ‘I had no idea you would be here!’ cried Mr Strange. ‘This was a . . . a research trip. I—’

  ‘Please,’ said Jocelyn. ‘Please – wait for the interviews.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Mr Daunt. ‘But I demand to go first.’

  Jocelyn nodded, palms together. ‘Now, if you are amenable, I shall call for the breakfast service. Thank you all – and please, as I said, do not fear!’

  Of course, most people ignored his assurances. Madame Melinda was talking about negative energy and dangerous forces. Sarah was muttering furiously, her arms crossed, and Mr Daunt was glaring at Madame Melinda. Alexander was fiddling with his pyjama cuff. Then he looked up at Jocelyn and Dr Sandwich, and I caught his expression. It was shiningly excited, the same look that Daisy gets when we talk about detection.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Alexander to Dr Sandwich. ‘Excuse me! I’d like to help.’

  3

  ‘Alexander!’ snapped the Countess. ‘Do not be ridiculous!’

  But Dr Sandwich held up a hand. ‘Wait,’ he said, his eyes – like his nose, they were rather large and bulging – fixing on Alexander. ‘Young man, why do you want to aid us?’

  ‘I want to be a detective when I grow up,’ said Alexander. ‘I already have lots of useful skills. I can even almost write shorthand. I’ve been learning it out of a book.’

  ‘That is commendable, but I’m afraid we cannot let you help,’ said Jocelyn.

  ‘No, no, Mr Buri,’ said Dr Sandwich. ‘Wait. The lad wants to help – why shouldn’t he? He ought to be rewarded for his noble offer – and I can already tell that he has great potential. Why, he reminds me of myself at his age. Yes, Mr Arcady, you may be our personal stenographer.’

  The Countess opened and closed her mouth; for once she had no sharp, cutting remark ready. Her fingers in their little bed-gloves clasped the table. I stared at her. Was she upset because she didn’t want her grandson mixed up with a murder mystery? Or was she afraid of what he might discover about her? ‘Alexander,’ she said at last, in a surprisingly small voice, ‘I don’t—’

  ‘My lady!’ cried Dr Sandwich. ‘You must let him! Why, anyone would think you had something to hide!’ He chuckled jovially.

  The Countess swallowed. She had given in.

  ‘Excuse me! May I point out that my secretary has a shorthand qualification and a travelling typewriter,’ said my father, frowning. ‘Would he not be more useful?’

  ‘Nonsense! We already have our helper,’ said Dr Sandwich. ‘We are not the police – we can afford to employ more unconventional methods.’

  I decided that I disliked him.

  I looked at Daisy to see what she made of him. She was staring off into the distance, her chin in her hand like a pretty portrait. Only I could hear her grinding her teeth. I nudged her and the grinding stopped.

  We were sent back to our compartments to get dressed and wait for breakfast – and of course, Daisy was fuming. ‘This is simply the worst holiday I’ve ever been on!’ she hissed. ‘Alexander gets to hear all about the murder while we’re not allowed to investigate at all.’

  ‘Shh,’ I said. ‘Someone will hear you.’

  ‘No chance of that! We’re surrounded by fools,’ said Daisy. She really was in a mood.

  For once, breakfast lasted far longer than I would have liked. A constant stream of waiters flowed through the dining car with pots of coffee and salvers piled high with good things, but without the noise of the train clacking along the rails everything was eerily silent. No one spoke, and no one dared to look up, in case they caught someone else’s eye.

  And I knew why. One of the people in the Calais–Istanbul coach must be the murderer – that was quite obvious, even to the grown-ups.

  Ours was the very front carriage of the train. There was no carriage beyond ours, so there was no reason for any other passenger to walk through it – it didn’t lead anywhere. And anyway, no other passenger had left the dining car during dinner and gone into our sleeping car – they would have had to walk past our tables, and we would have noticed.

  So who had been absent from the dining car at the moment Mrs Daunt screamed?

  I took a pastry from one of the platters and decided that, while we waited for the right moment to hold our first detective meeting, I could organize things in my head so that I was ready for it. I took a large bite of pastry (with extra apricot jam heaped on top) and stared at the nibblers and sippers and pickers around me. Once again, I could not understand why murder seemed to ruin some people’s appetites. Then I made myself think back to the evening before.

  There had been the four of us at our table: me, Daisy, Father and Maxwell. Next to us, at the Daunts’ table, had been Mr Daunt, alone once Mrs Daunt had left. On the same side, closer to the kitchen, Sarah had gone out, leaving Hetty alone, and next to them, the Countess had left Alexander alone at their table. Between our
table and the door, Mr Strange, Il Mysterioso, Mrs Vitellius and Madame Melinda had all gone – their table of four had been quite empty.

  As I was thinking this, letting the night before fill up my head until I could almost see it when I squinted, I happened to glance down at Daisy’s plate. She had left her final piece of toast, and now she was breaking it up into crumbs and pushing them about in vague patterns. I had never seen Daisy pick at her food – it was most out of character. But then I looked at those crumbs again, and saw that the patterns she was making were not random. The pieces of toast were grouped in three sets of two and two sets of four, arranged just like our real tables. As I watched, Daisy took away one complete four and one from each of the twos. She looked up at me, face very straight, for all the world as though she were bored, and could not think how better to occupy her time – and then she spread her hands out on the tablecloth with both thumbs and two fingers tucked under.

  Daisy was telling me, as clear as day, that we had six possible suspects – and who those suspects were. Il Mysterioso, Mr Strange, Madame Melinda, Mrs Vitellius, Sarah and the Countess. Judging by the evidence of our own eyes and ears, no one else could have done it.

  4

  After breakfast I assumed that we would be left alone to hold our detective meeting – but my father had other plans. ‘Hazel,’ he said. ‘Miss Wells. Why don’t we all sit together this morning? Bring your things through to Maxwell’s compartment.’

  I knew that he was trying to protect us while the investigation was going on, but I burned with shame. He was treating us like little children! How scornful Daisy would be. Why, her parents didn’t— But then I caught myself.

  ‘How wizard!’ said Daisy, with her best enthusiastic face on. ‘We can fill out our puzzle books, can’t we, Hazel!’

  I looked at her and caught her tiny wink.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes. Our puzzle books.’

  ‘Splendid!’ said my father, squeezing my shoulder. I smiled up at him awkwardly. But of course there was nothing to do but bring our things to Maxwell’s compartment, Hetty following along behind with an armful of puzzle books and novels (she was careful to include none of the crime ones).