8 Top Marks for Murder

by Robin Stevens

  ‘But, Daisy …’ I began, looking down at the black tunic and trousers I was wearing, the set I had brought back from Hong Kong. It was not exactly a maid’s outfit, even with the addition of a white apron, or at least not the outfit of a maid in England, but I realized that, as usual, Daisy was quite correct. We would look all right, just about – and it was a very clever idea.

  4

  Which was how I came to be padding through the corridors of the Majestic Hotel, holding a pile of towels, on my way to Mrs Rivers’ room.

  Daisy had found a list of rooms and guests on the service corridor’s wall, heavily marked up with notes, master keys hanging next to it. ‘Time is of the essence,’ she had snapped, her eyes blazing blue. ‘Hazel, you go to Mrs Rivers’ room first and find out all you can from it before the police arrive – for arrive they will. Once you’ve done that, go to Mr Stone’s and Mr Turnbull’s. I shall take Dow, Thompson-Bates and El Maghrabi. Remember, if you’re stopped, say you’re new and you’re going around turning down the sheets in all the rooms. Understood?’

  ‘Understood!’ I said. ‘Daisy, I know all this as well as you do.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Daisy. ‘That is why I am allowing you to search the room of our murder victim alone. It really is quite an honour, Hazel. You should be pleased.’

  I sighed. Only Daisy could make something so nice seem somehow rude.

  But here I was outside Mrs Rivers’ room, and it was time to detect. I took a deep breath and thought of Hetty, and Bridget, and Ping. I had to pretend to be them – and our time at the Rue Theatre had taught me that I could pretend to be someone else.

  I knocked on the door and, as confidently as I could manage, unlocked the room and stepped inside.

  The lamp was on, and the bed was made, but there were papers scattered across the desk.

  I looked at the desk first. It had several photographs on it – and they must be important, I thought, if Mrs Rivers had brought them with her to the hotel.

  There was one in pride of place, of Mrs Rivers standing next to an old, white-bearded man, her wedding ring glinting on her finger. Mrs Rivers looked happier than I had seen her this weekend. This, I thought, must be her husband – and if it was, I was not sure he looked much like a murder victim, or she a murderer. He was beaming at her, and she at him.

  Next to that photograph was another, much older – a school photograph labelled ‘1919’ of a group of serious girls in uniform, the mistresses next to them in old-fashioned clothing, their hair rolled. From the blurry building behind them, I saw that this was Deepdean, and when I squinted closely at faces, Miss Barnard and Mrs Rivers both jumped out, slender and pretty, standing with the older girls. I looked at the lower forms, and there was a plump, sad little girl that could have been Mrs Dow; a solid fair-haired third former who had a look of Ella Turnbull about her; and a beautiful fifth former who, clutching a tennis racket like a pet, must be Mrs Thompson-Bates. The only face I could not find was Mrs El Maghrabi’s, although there were two tall girls with darker skin, their arms folded, looking as uncomfortable as I had felt when I first arrived at Deepdean.

  I moved on to the papers. There was a letter, half written: Dear Sir, it began, I am aware that I am not my husband, but I certainly am his replacement at the Rivers Corporation and will therefore act in accordance with his wishes. Given that I will certainly not reconsider your removal … Apart from the letter, there were several pages of accounts, neatly annotated; a note from a Lord Hill about the next meeting of the Deepdean Council (20th July); and a telephone message from Miss Barnard to invite Mrs Rivers to lunch on Monday. Poor Miss Barnard! I thought suddenly. Monday lunch would never happen.

  That bit of paper had been torn off the pad next to the telephone. I looked at the pad itself, and saw the indentations of words on the blank page – deep scores and scratches that did not correspond to the words of Miss Barnard’s message. Something else had been written, something not on the desk.

  I took the wastepaper bin and tipped it up. Little bits of paper came scattering out, settling on the carpet like leaves. Whatever the message had been, Mrs Rivers had taken care to tear it up. So I turned back to the pad on the desk. I picked up the pencil next to it and carefully shaded over the paper. Words began to appear, white against the grey – and what they said made me catch my breath. They looked like attempts at a note, begun again and again and crossed out every time.

  Tom – I won’t

  Tom, you must stop this

  Tom, really, this is

  Tom – I only want to be left in peace

  Tom, I can’t love you

  Tom? My breath caught. I pulled my copy of Miss Lappet’s list, now rather dog-eared, out of my pocket and scanned through it. There!

  Mr Thomas Stone (Jennifer Stone, Big Girl)

  Tom was Mr Stone!

  And Mrs Rivers was warning Mr Stone off, for some reason – something to do with love. She still wore her wedding ring, even though we knew she was a widow, and the photograph of Mr Rivers remained on her desk. I suddenly remembered what Mr Stone had been saying to Jennifer, about getting married again. Mrs Rivers must have been the person he meant! But if she was, it was clear that she was not as interested in remarrying as he.

  What if Mrs Rivers had rejected Mr Stone, and he had been angry at the rejection – so had decided to take matters into his own hands?

  5

  I hurried through the corridors of the Majestic once again – and as I did so I passed another chambermaid. The guests I had seen so far had ignored me entirely, but the maid caught my eye and stared at me in frank confusion. I gave her a little smile, but she did not smile back. Instead she frowned and turned away.

  My heart was pounding as I reached Mr Turnbull’s door, knocked and let myself in.

  And there, sitting at the desk, was a heavy-set, blonde woman. She was on the telephone and, as I came in, she raised her eyebrows at me crossly and waved her left hand, sparkling with a diamond and a fat gold band, towards the bed.

  I startled in surprise – but then, of course, I remembered that it was not odd at all for a chambermaid to tidy a room while someone was in it. I took a deep breath, summoned every shred of housekeeping knowledge I had, and tiptoed forward to turn down the bed. The woman went back to her conversation.

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘Yes … No … I’ve just got in. Three-hour drive! Quite exhausted. Honestly … No, I don’t know where he is. He ought to be back from the dinner by now … Yes! After all that – so rude of him. And it’s not as though I’ve been on tour for a month. We only had breakfast together at Claridge’s yesterday morning, before he set off … Yes! Men … I know he’s cross about the concert, but, really, what was I supposed to do? When Figaroni asks, you can’t say no … Oh yes! It was wonderful! A thousand each night, at least … What …? No, go on …!’

  She was still talking as I tiptoed out of the room. I tried to keep my face calm and straight, but my hands were shaking and I felt wild with nerves. And I knew I had heard, and seen, something very important.

  I had found Mrs Turnbull.

  She was not dead at all, and she did not have dark hair. With that, the last possibility that she could have been the woman Beanie had seen in the woods on Friday vanished. And Mrs Turnbull had just given Mr Turnbull an alibi. If he had been having breakfast with his wife on Friday morning at Claridge’s Hotel in London (even I knew that London was where Claridge’s was), then he could not have been strangling anyone in Oakeshott Woods at the same time. The drive from London, as Mrs Turnbull had said, was several hours at the best of times. The timings simply did not work – and we had narrowed down our suspect list for the strangling in the woods to four.

  But as I walked towards Mr Stone’s room, I was stopped by the chambermaid I had seen earlier. She came hurrying towards me, a man in a smart suit rushing along in her wake, and when she caught sight of me she pointed furiously.

  ‘There!’ she said. ‘Her! She doesn’t work here
! What is she doing here?’

  I backed away in horror. ‘I’m – I’m new!’ I said. ‘I’m just here to—’

  ‘She sounds posh!’ cried the chambermaid. ‘I told you she doesn’t belong.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said the man. ‘Now, you, explain yourself at once. I’m the hotel manager and I certainly didn’t hire you!’

  ‘She’s a thief! I’m sure she is!’

  ‘I’m – I’m not!’ I stammered. ‘I’m really not, I …’

  And then I gave up and simply ran. I tore down the rattling back stairs, the chambermaid and her manager calling out behind me. I scrambled along the service corridor, tearing off my white apron and cap, and burst out of the little black back door into the summer night.

  I crouched in the bushes, panting as shallowly as I could and watching as the chambermaid and the manager stood at the door talking to each other angrily about telephoning the police.

  ‘She won’t be hard to find,’ said the chambermaid, ‘her being foreign and all.’

  At last they stepped back inside the hotel.

  The bushes rustled next to me, and then Daisy’s voice said, ‘Wotcher, Watson. You’ve been compromised, I see.’

  I gasped a little. There had simply been too many surprises, too close together. ‘They didn’t catch me!’ I said at last, rather weakly. ‘Anyway, what are you doing out here?’

  ‘I am here because I completed my mission quickly!’ said Daisy. ‘No one saw me, but they did see you, and that is not good at all. Well, we shall have to hope that they don’t bother the police about it. What did you find?’

  I told her about Mrs Turnbull, and about Mrs Rivers. Even in the darkness, I could see Daisy’s eyes going wide.

  ‘I didn’t manage to get to Mr Stone’s room, though,’ I finished.

  ‘Well!’ said Daisy. ‘Under the circumstances, I think you can be forgiven. Good heavens! So, we have ruled out one suspect – and we have a very interesting new motive for Mr Stone! Now, about the others … I went to Mr and Mrs El Maghrabi’s room first, and that was interesting. There was a whole stack of old newspaper clippings about Mr El Maghrabi’s company – and the Rivers Corporation was mentioned in some of them! There was a trade deal that went wrong, and Mr El Maghrabi clearly blames Mr Rivers personally. His name’s circled and some quite rude things are written about him in the margins. Most of the notes are in Arabic, of course, but enough of them are in English for me to be able to tell.’

  I remembered the business letter Mrs Rivers had been writing, and told Daisy about it. ‘It sounds like Mrs Rivers was doing what she thought her husband wanted,’ I said. ‘So what if the vendetta against Mr Rivers became one against Mrs Rivers?’

  ‘Oh, very interesting!’ said Daisy, nodding. ‘Good, Watson. Then there’s Mr Thompson-Bates. Betting stubs and cigarette packets in all his jackets. He’s a smoker, and a gambler! I went through the wardrobe and it’s clear they’ve both been to Paris recently. Mrs Thompson-Bates has plenty of clothes from this season with Parisian labels on them – as well as some gorgeous pieces of jewellery. They look like family heirlooms – she really does come from money! There are some spaces in her jewellery box, though … I wonder whether Mr T-B pawned the pieces to pay off his debts? He must have got the money from somewhere creative, because I found the book he records his tournament progress in, and he’s been on a losing streak. He hasn’t got beyond the third round since January, which is not good at all, Hazel.

  ‘And finally, Mr Dow. He’s like a grown-up schoolboy! He’s got the 1919 Weston school pin on his desk, and a school photograph from 1915, with Mr Temple, and Mr Thompson-Bates, and Mr Stone in the photo too. And remember, Mr Dow was wearing a Weston Old Boys’ tie at dinner! They were all at school together.’

  ‘Isn’t that odd?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really,’ said Daisy, shrugging. ‘Weston is one of the only schools that matters, just like Deepdean.’

  Something else had occurred to me. ‘1915 …’ I said thoughtfully. ‘That’s almost the same time as Mrs Rivers was at Deepdean. Do you think they all knew each other?’

  ‘Oh, very good, Watson!’ said Daisy. ‘Now, that’s clever. What if they did? Most interesting! All right, I think we have made very successful inroads into the case. Now it is time to hurry back to House, before anyone misses us!’

  SUSPECT LIST

  Mr Turnbull. His wife Artemis (an opera singer with an international reputation) was supposed to perform at the concert on Friday night, but she did not attend! MOTIVE: Possibly worried about Ella’s music scholarship? We must discover more. NB Where is Mrs Turnbull? He was a suspect before the poisoning! RULED OUT from the strangling! Mrs Turnbull is safe and sound – and she has given her husband an alibi for the altercation Beanie saw in Oakeshott Woods on Friday morning!

  Mr Stone. According to Uncle Felix, he is a smuggler! He has also recently been to Paris. MOTIVE: None yet – but he was observed staring angrily at Mrs Rivers on more than one occasion. We have observed him smoking and at dinner he got up and spoke to her. He was a suspect before the poisoning! He seems to have been in love with Mrs Rivers, but she was trying to rebuff him. Did he take revenge?

  Mr Thompson-Bates. MOTIVE: Possibly worried about Lallie’s tennis scholarship (he seemed upset at her exhibition match), but we must discover more. He has a gambling addiction, he smokes and he also has been on a losing streak in his tennis games. Has he been pawning his wife’s jewellery? But how does this fit in with the murder? NOTES: He has been to Paris recently!

  Mr Dow. MOTIVE: Unclear – but Mrs Dow seemed very unhappy at the dinner. He was at Weston at the same time as Mrs Rivers was at Deepdean – did they know each other?

  Mr El Maghrabi. MOTIVE: Possible that he wants to stop Amina from being expelled? He seems to be obsessed with Mrs Rivers’ dead husband and his business deals – does he have a vendetta against the Riverses? Did he murder her to get revenge?

  PLAN OF ACTION

  Find out whether Mrs Rivers is truly dead.

  Find out more about Mrs Rivers! Why would someone want to murder her?

  Discover more about our five suspects.

  Discover how the murderer got hold of the arsenic.

  Stage a reconstruction, to work out how the poison was given to Mrs Rivers.

  Speak to Inspector Priestley to confirm that the poison was arsenic – and that no one else was affected.

  6

  Sunday morning dawned bright and clear.

  I know because I saw it.

  I woke up in the soft, pencil-hued hush that comes before the sun to find Daisy prodding me. She was crouched next to my face, her hand over my mouth, her eyes fever-bright and the colour high in her cheeks.

  ‘Hazel,’ she said, ‘something is Up.’

  ‘Have you been to sleep?’ I asked, once my heart had stopped beating so wildly. ‘And I know something’s up. There’s been a murder.’

  ‘I don’t need sleep – none of the greatest detectives have time for it. Anyway, someone has to keep watch on the situation, since you fell asleep.’

  ‘I was awake half the night writing up the case!’ I said indignantly. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The doorbell keeps ringing,’ said Daisy. ‘I took it upon myself to listen in from a safe hiding place – I had to be cunning because awful Amina woke up too and was sniffing about – and it’s not good at all. Mrs Rivers is definitely dead, and parents have been arriving asking to take girls away because of it. Matron wouldn’t let them at first, but then Rose and Jose’s mother Mrs Pritchett raised an enormous stink and Matron gave in. They’ve gone from our year, and Astrid Frith from the Big Girls, and Alma Collingwood from the third form. And then Miss Barnard came by. She’s been crying, you can tell – I didn’t think she was capable of being so rattled. She’s usually utterly serene.’

  ‘Her sister died, Daisy!’ I pointed out. ‘Imagine if it was Bertie … imagine what you’d do!’

  ‘Don’t even think it, H
azel. I should kill anyone who even tried to hurt Bertie. But this is quite different. Anyway, Barny was terribly upset, but she told Matron that she wanted the Anniversary to carry on. Chapel this morning is going to become a service of remembrance on the lawn, because the Hall is the scene of the crime – the police absolutely think this was a murder; it’s not like Fallingford – but the garden party and the play will go on quite as normal. Still, it’s going to be odd if half the girls and their parents have left by then.’

  ‘But what if our suspects leave too!’ I cried.

  ‘They won’t,’ said Daisy confidently. ‘The Inspector won’t let them. They’re suspects, after all! But that is not important, Hazel. The point is that if we don’t hurry up and solve the case, it won’t just be this weekend that’s ruined. Deepdean is in trouble. If girls don’t come back next term – if there aren’t enough pupils – the school might close.’

  ‘It wouldn’t!’ I said. ‘Last time—’

  ‘Last time Barny pretended there hadn’t been a murder until the case was over,’ said Daisy. ‘She can’t lie like that again this time, and she obviously doesn’t want to either. And remember the time before that, with Miss Bell? Deepdean barely survived it. I don’t know if it can again, Hazel. And if it doesn’t …’

  We stared at each other, and I felt sick to my soul. If Deepdean closed, we might be sent to different schools. I might even be called back to Hong Kong. I had been feeling as though we might be growing out of Deepdean, but I was not ready to say goodbye to it yet, and I knew Daisy needed Deepdean even more than I did. Without it, she lost the heart of who she was.

  ‘We have to solve this case,’ Daisy said fiercely. ‘And we have less than two days to do it. As soon as Leaving Prayers is over on Monday, we’ll have to leave, and we’ll lose our chance to observe our suspects.’