Death in the Spotlight

by Robin Stevens

  ‘What?’ I asked, taken aback. ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘I don’t care whether you want to or not,’ said Daisy. ‘We must know how much time it took for the murderer to commit the crime. She was a small woman and you’re small – let’s see how quickly I can force you across the room and then into the well.’

  I sighed and told myself it was all for the good of the case.

  I took up a position a few steps from the ladder. No sooner was I in place than Daisy lunged at me. She got me about the shoulders and began to drag me towards the well.

  I yelped and fought back, much more fiercely than I’d been intending to. There was something frightening about this room, and feeling Daisy’s hands gripping me. We stumbled and went over into the mud and dust. I was short of breath, my eyes dazzled, and I really did feel panicked. I kicked out and Daisy shrieked.

  ‘Goodness me!’ she gasped. ‘Stop wriggling, Hazel! Why don’t you let me kill you!’

  That broke the spell. I was no longer Rose, struggling with her killer. I was Hazel Wong again, and this was all a play.

  ‘I don’t want to!’ I puffed back at her. ‘That wasn’t nice. You’re not supposed to really hurt me!’

  ‘Good, Hazel, very good!’ said Daisy, sitting back on her heels. ‘Do you know, I think we have proved an interesting point. You are little, but you are fierce. It was rather hard to get you towards that well! I think our murderer would have done something to stop Rose struggling.’

  ‘But – there weren’t any hand marks on her body, the coroner said so.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Daisy, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘But that really means very little if the murderer used something wide like a scarf. I read about it in one of Uncle Felix’s books.’

  ‘That is disgusting!’ I cried.

  ‘It’s a fact, Hazel!’ said Daisy, hurt. ‘The book said strangulation usually takes four or five minutes. Once Rose was dead, it would be quite easy to pitch her into the well. Imagine!’

  I thought. It was horrible – but it made sense. ‘It’s clever,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I think you might be right.’

  ‘Good,’ said Daisy. ‘I know. So … four minutes to kill Rose, and then at least one more to put her down the well and leave the room again. That does rule out Jim, doesn’t it? And you know who else it rules out?’

  ‘Annie!’ I cried. ‘The argument was at five past nine, and she was seen by Jim at nine fifteen. There wouldn’t be enough time, even if she went straight from Wardrobe. But Lysander is still in, and Simon, and Inigo and Miss Crompton – although they have to be in it together, or not at all. And – Martita too.’

  I saw Daisy flinch.

  ‘Hazel—’ she began, but at that moment, the door to the well room was flung open. A square of brightness sprang up on the wall above us, sending light shooting down across us.

  We both raised our hands against it, squinting as the light was blocked by two figures.

  ‘I thought I might find you here,’ said the Inspector’s voice in amusement. ‘You do get into the most interesting places.’

  It was awful, but not too surprising, that he should have caught us – but the voice that spoke next made me gasp.

  ‘My dear niece,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘You told me you were going to stay out of trouble.’

  I put out my hand and seized Daisy’s. She did not even squeeze back. She was frozen, like a rabbit in front of a surging car.

  ‘I suppose we ought to have known better,’ Uncle Felix went on. ‘At this stage, I should almost be prepared to suggest that you have been causing the crimes. How else can you explain being present at so many murders?’

  ‘I—’ stammered Daisy. ‘Uncle Felix, listen—’

  ‘I am not interested in your excuses, Daisy,’ interrupted Uncle Felix. ‘Now, come along, if you please. We are going home, and that is where you will be staying for the foreseeable future. Amateur detection hour is over.’

  1

  Uncle Felix rushed us to the stage door, hardly giving us time to collect our things from our dressing room. I felt nervous and upset, and I knew I was feeling those things because Uncle Felix was too. He might be a most interesting grown-up whose job was really quite similar to our detective missions, but he was also Daisy’s uncle, and so I knew there was a part of him that couldn’t bear the idea of her getting into any trouble at all.

  Daisy held her head high and refused to be hurried, but I hung my head as hot shame flooded through me. I felt little and silly – really, what good could we do?

  Daisy nudged me. ‘Chin up, Hazel!’ she whispered in my ear. ‘He shan’t cow us! He’s only playing a part, anyway. He knows he ought to be cross.’

  ‘I heard that, Daisy,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘I assure you I am cross with you. I am also cross at the world, which seems determined to turn my niece into a hard-boiled private eye.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be a detective?’ asked Daisy. ‘I’m not a child!’

  ‘You certainly are a child; the most annoying sort who thinks she’s an adult,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘And you’ve taught Hazel to think the same way.’

  ‘I haven’t taught Hazel anything. Why do you always assume it’s entirely my fault!’ cried Daisy.

  ‘It really is my fault just as much as Daisy’s,’ I agreed. ‘I am sorry, though. We didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ said Uncle Felix, sighing as he nodded to Jim and wrote down all our names in Jim’s book in black pen. I hoped he would not see that my name was there twice. ‘But the fact is that everyone’s talking about this crime, which means that everyone will be talking about you. Outside are a pack of reporters, just waiting to get our pictures. And we don’t need any more of that, not after the Trial last year. Tip your hats down on your heads and cover your faces with your free arms.’

  ‘Why should I?’ asked Daisy brazenly.

  ‘Bertie,’ said Uncle Felix.

  I saw Daisy flush. Uncle Felix had said the magic word. Apart from her feelings for Martita, there are only four people Daisy truly cares about in this world, and one of them is her brother. She put her arm up to cover her face with her cuffs. I hid my face with no persuading – I do not want to be any more famous than I already am.

  Then Uncle Felix bent his head so that his profile was hidden in the collar of his greatcoat and shoved us forward, through the stage door.

  My eyes were dazed by sudden brightness, and for a moment it was as though we had stepped out into the Hong Kong noonday sun. But then the light faded and I saw a crowd of cameras with flashbulbs pressing in on us, all held by men and women with hard, eager faces and open mouths.

  ‘Are you connected to the murder of Rose Tree?’ they shouted. ‘Are you suspects? Are you the police? Who are you?’

  Uncle Felix simply shouldered past them silently, trailing us behind him like the tail of a comet. Then we were out on Shaftesbury Avenue, the traffic flying by us. It was only early afternoon, but fog was already creeping in, turning the lights of the taxis dim and mysterious. A car screeched up to us and I saw Bridget at the wheel, grim-faced. Uncle Felix opened the back door and shoved us in.

  I stumbled, my palms against the car’s wooden floor, and then dragged myself upright to see Aunt Lucy sitting in the back seat, waiting for us with her arms crossed and a stern expression on her face. Daisy piled in behind me, and Uncle Felix slammed the door on us and leaped into the front seat.

  ‘Bridget, drive!’ he cried, and Bridget, in a smart chauffeur’s cap and gloves as well as her usual neat black-and-white maid’s dress, pressed her foot down on the pedal and sent us flying away from the herd of reporters.

  ‘You are in trouble,’ said Aunt Lucy to us quietly. ‘How do you always manage it?’

  ‘We get into trouble because we notice things,’ said Daisy. ‘Just like you! Honestly, I don’t know what you’re both so cross about. You would have done exactly the same thing if you’d found a dead body when you were our age.’


  Aunt Lucy’s expression flickered. ‘That isn’t the point, Daisy dear,’ she said. ‘Whether I would have or not, I am not your age any more, and Felix and I have a lot of dreadful knowledge about all the nasty things that might happen to curious little girls.’

  2

  The car was silent all the way home. I felt a little calmer, but I was still rather worried about what our punishment would be. I could see that we had made our position rather worse by trying to hide what had happened at the Rue from Uncle Felix. I wanted to tap out a Morse code message to Daisy, but I knew that there were three grown-ups present who would understand it more quickly than she would.

  Just as we were walking through the front door, Aunt Lucy leaned forward and hissed, ‘Don’t say anything about our lessons!’ in our ears.

  Daisy looked back at her, unblinking, and Aunt Lucy cleared her throat rather uncomfortably.

  Uncle Felix settled himself in the living room, and Bridget and Aunt Lucy stationed themselves on each side of him. Daisy and I sat on the sofa, shoulders touching for moral support. It was a little like an interview with a group of terrifying schoolmistresses.

  ‘Now,’ said Uncle Felix, ‘what are we to do with you? You persist in finding dangerous crimes!’

  ‘You don’t need to do anything with us!’ said Daisy at once. ‘We’re perfect.’

  ‘A murder happens, and you choose not to tell us about it!’ cried Uncle Felix. ‘You had ample opportunity. You could have telephoned the moment you found the body, Daisy. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘We didn’t want to upset you,’ said Daisy smoothly.

  ‘We knew you’d bring us home,’ I said in a quiet voice.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Uncle Felix.

  ‘Now, Felix, the girls made a poor decision today. But none of us could have known this morning that there’d be a murder!’ said Aunt Lucy. ‘This isn’t about blame.’

  ‘Lucy, while they are in our care, we’re supposed to make sure they are safe!’ said Uncle Felix rather wildly. ‘We can’t hand them back to their parents chopped up in a bag!’

  ‘No one is chopping anyone up,’ said Aunt Lucy, at exactly the same moment as Daisy said, ‘In five years I shall be twenty, and then you’ll see!’

  ‘I’m sure we will all see. The world is hardly ready. But you aren’t twenty yet, and I can’t treat you as though you are. There have to be consequences. Whether you like it or not, you are not to be allowed back at the Rue until this mess has been cleared up – and I mean cleared up by Inspector Priestley, not by you. You will remain here, in the flat, and Bridget will simply have to look after you, even though it is terribly inconvenient. Do you understand?’

  ‘No!’ hissed Daisy. ‘You’re – you’re such a grown-up! Ugh, come along, Hazel! Let’s go to our room.’

  ‘And you can have dinner in there too!’ Uncle Felix shouted after us.

  I think that was supposed to be a punishment – which shows again that Uncle Felix does not have much understanding of children.

  ‘Bother Uncle Felix!’ said Daisy, sitting down on her bed with a bump. ‘Trying to be responsible and sensible! Ugh!’

  ‘I think he did understand,’ I said, sitting next to her. ‘I mean, he’s not really cross with us, just worried. And he’s right that your family … have been mixed up with the press quite a lot this last year.’

  ‘He’s clever,’ said Daisy gloomily. ‘He knew that Bertie was the only thing he could say to make me play along. And, now that he’s banned us from the Rue, he’ll stick to his guns like anything. Oh, this is infuriating!’

  ‘Do you think he really won’t let us go back?’ I asked. ‘Will we have to drop the case?’

  I felt panic rising in my throat. The Detective Society had faced difficulties in the past, but never anything like this. We were far away from the scene of the crime, and the pieces of our puzzle were not yet complete. Could we solve the case with what we already knew? What if something else were to happen at the theatre while we weren’t there?

  ‘We certainly will not drop the investigation!’ said Daisy, setting her chin. ‘We have plenty of evidence, and we understand the case far better than anyone else. And we have to help Martita, Hazel. She has nothing to do with this, I know it, and we have to prove it.’

  There was a knock on the door. Bridget came in, carrying a tray piled high with food: a rich stew, with lemon meringue pie for afters. We ate balancing plates and bowls on our knees, talking over everything we knew about the case, and it did feel rather like having a midnight feast at school, not a punishment at all.

  We did not know that something truly terrible lay just around the corner.

  3

  I woke on Monday morning – today – and wrote down everything that had happened. I remember feeling rather more cheerful. I had even begun to think that Daisy might be right about Martita’s innocence. The evidence pointing to her seemed too theatrical to be true; something an actor in a play about murder would do, not a real person.

  I thought about Lysander, and how frightening he had been yesterday. A man like that really might hurt a woman who had upset him …

  And then there was Simon. He seemed friendly on the surface, but I got a sort of double feeling when I thought of him. He was hiding something, I knew it – but what he had not hidden was his hatred of Rose. He had wanted to play Romeo, and had been prevented by Rose’s cruelty.

  From what we had overheard Inigo and Simon saying, Inigo seemed to be just as angry at Rose, and willing to protect Simon by any means necessary. We also knew that the Rue was struggling after a bad production earlier in the spring. Could Inigo and Miss Crompton be working together to bring publicity to the theatre by getting rid of one annoying actress?

  And finally, what about Annie? We had ruled her out as the murderer – but why had she been so afraid yesterday? Was she hiding something too? Had she seen something important?

  Once Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy had gone to work, Daisy and I ate breakfast – buttered toast and marmalade, and soft-boiled eggs in little china egg cups. Daisy was already fidgety and restless, and watching Bridget closely for any sign that she might be distracted enough for us to slip away from the flat. Without the Rue to give shape to our day, the hours stretched ahead of us, as cloudy and vague as a London fog.

  Although it was May, the day outside was grey and rather raw-looking, with tendrils of last night’s fog still lingering at street corners. People rushed past below, shivering in light spring coats.

  ‘Nasty day,’ said Bridget, hurrying by with her dusting cloth, and I made a polite agreeing noise. Daisy opened Enter a Murderer and began pretending to read.

  ‘Good book that,’ said Bridget, flicking it with her duster. ‘It took me until page forty to work out who did it.’

  ‘I solved it on page thirty,’ said Daisy at once, wrinkling up her nose.

  ‘Well, aren’t you a genius, then, said Bridget, winking at me. ‘You must be related to Mr M.’

  Then the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello? Allô? Ni hao?’ said Bridget efficiently into it. There was a chattering pause. ‘Yes, this is the Mountfitchet residence. No, Miss Wells and Miss Wong are not available. You can give any message to me.’

  Daisy had sat up in her chair like a mongoose seeing a snake. ‘Who is it?’ she mouthed at Bridget, putting down her book. ‘Is it for us? Is it?’

  ‘I assure you, you can trust me with anything,’ Bridget was saying. ‘Yes, Dublin. Is that so? Well, I work with Mr Mountfitchet. He can confirm that if you like.’

  More chattering on the other end of the line.

  I was sitting up too now, and I could feel my heart beating. Who was it? Why did they want to speak to us? What had happened?

  ‘No!’ said Bridget in a very different tone of voice. ‘No – really? Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you. Goodbye.’

  She put the receiver back in its cradle and turned to us. Daisy was blazing with impatience next to me, and my fists were clench
ed. I had one of my detective moments then: I knew, very simply, that whatever Bridget was about to say to us would be very terrible indeed.

  ‘Girls,’ said Bridget. She frowned and twisted her hands together. ‘That was Inspector Priestley. He was calling about the Rue Theatre case.’

  ‘Yes, yes, what did he say?’ gasped Daisy.

  There was a pause that felt long to me, but my wristwatch only counted two ticks.

  ‘There’s been a development in the case,’ said Bridget at last. ‘He wanted me to tell you. Annie Joy never went home to her room last night. Two witnesses saw her walking towards Westminster Bridge just before midnight, and she hasn’t been seen since. Her hat, coat and handbag were found washed up beside the river, with a note inside the bag. A body has been found in the estuary this morning. The Inspector thinks – well, he thinks she jumped.’

  4

  Daisy dragged me back into our room, her cheeks flushed with excitement.

  ‘Detective Society meeting, Hazel!’ she cried. ‘At once! We have had the most stunning development in the case!’

  ‘Do you really think she did – jump?’ I whispered. ‘Poor Annie!’

  ‘Perhaps she did!’ said Daisy, trembling with excitement. ‘Perhaps she’s the murderer and she was feeling guilty. But I don’t think that’s the most likely explanation. Remember when she let us into Wardrobe? She was afraid until she saw who we were, and that tells me that she was worried about someone else finding her, not us. Someone specific.’

  ‘You think she knew who the murderer was?’ I asked. ‘I was wondering … She was behaving so oddly!’

  ‘Yes, exactly, Hazel! She knew something, and that knowledge made her afraid! I believe that her death is likely to be a second murder – made to look like suicide. Our killer has struck again! Oh, I wish we were at the Rue. It’s so annoying not being properly part of the case!’

  ‘Well, we can still work on our suspect list,’ I said. ‘We can rule Annie out, for certain!’

  ‘Very true,’ said Daisy. ‘And, now that we know what has happened, our next steps are clear. We must look into the alibis of our remaining suspects for the time of Annie’s death, just after midnight, on Westminster Bridge, and to do that we must get out of this flat! I say! We could climb out of the window – we’ve done it before!’