Jolly Foul Play

by Robin Stevens

  Until they find her, I thought. We had to hurry.

  ‘D’you know,’ said Lavinia as we walked through Old Wing Entrance, ‘there’s something that hasn’t happened.’

  We all looked at her.

  ‘There haven’t been any more secrets released, not since yesterday. So Binny really must have been behind them.’

  ‘Assistant Temple,’ said Daisy, surprised, ‘you are quite right!’

  ‘Gosh!’ said Beanie, rather sadly. ‘So it really was her!’

  ‘We already knew that!’ said Daisy. ‘After all, why else would someone take her? We must work on the assumption that the person who killed Elizabeth has Binny, and keep watch on our remaining three even more closely this morning. It’s Elizabeth’s memorial service, after all, the perfect opportunity to observe them. Are you agreed?’

  We all nodded.

  ‘What I want to know, though,’ said Lavinia suddenly, ‘is why no one heard Binny yelling when she was taken. She’s terribly loud, isn’t she? Why didn’t she scream?’

  It was exactly what Daisy and I had been wondering last night. I felt ill, and Kitty turned positively green.

  ‘I expect they muffled her when they took her,’ I said quickly. But in my head, I was coming to think something different. What if Binny really was the second victim?

  The memorial service was horrid. It took place in the Hall – we all filed in for Prayers, and then stayed, in awkward, shuffling rows. Elizabeth’s parents were there, her mother very small and mousy and her father very large and unnervingly like Elizabeth, with a square face and clenched jaw. Neither of them cried, although her mother looked as though she might break at any moment. No one else from outside the school came.

  ‘No one,’ whispered Kitty wonderingly. ‘Imagine!’

  I imagined. No one else caring whether you were dead or not. No uncles and aunts, or nursery friends, or servants. Suddenly I remembered what Florence had said, that gathering secrets was the only way Elizabeth knew to be close to someone, and I felt desperately sad. Poor Elizabeth.

  I also watched our three remaining suspects. Enid looked pale, and cross, and harassed. She had her hands folded to her chest as though she still thought there was a school book there, and she did not look at Mr and Mrs Hurst once. Una, though, seemed not to be able to look away from them. She stood tall, her knuckles clenched around the chair in front of her, and stared and stared at the Hursts. Florence, three seats away, leaned against a pillar and looked ashen. She really did look ill, and I felt concerned. She had to read a poem, and I thought she would not be able to bear it.

  ‘They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old …’ Florence read, with shaking hands and short breath, and for a moment it looked as though she would crumple.

  ‘Touching,’ muttered Miss Lappet behind us, and I caught Daisy rolling her eyes. I knew what she was thinking: that grown-ups can be so trusting sometimes.

  Then I craned round a little more, and felt a little jump, like a shock from a woollen jumper. There was a man standing at the back of the Hall, hands folded respectfully over his hat and his head bent. I knew that coat, and that crumpled forehead. I knew the man very well indeed. It was Inspector Priestley. He was here! Even though I had guessed he would be one of the policemen here to help with the search for Binny and Rose, it was still a shock to see him. The last time I had encountered him was at Fallingford, after what happened to Mr Curtis. I wondered if he knew about Elizabeth’s death, and whether he also suspected there might be more to it than just an accident – and if not, would Daisy and I get the opportunity to explain things to him?

  The organ blared for one more hymn, and then we were filing out of the Hall at last. ‘Daisy!’ I hissed, nudging her and nodding my head – but the Inspector was already gone.

  3

  The rest of that morning was terribly tense. We followed our three suspects as best we could. At bunbreak (squashed fly biscuits) Una went to the Hall to tidy the hymn books, and Florence disappeared to talk tactics with the hockey team, but otherwise we didn’t let them out of our sights.

  In Prep I could not work. I composed a letter to Alexander that simply said, A girl has been kidnapped. We are on the trail of the murderer, her kidnapper, but I am not sure that we will be in time. It felt soothing to admit this to someone who was not Daisy, and at that moment I really saw how I could be both Daisy’s friend and Alexander’s. I could be honest with both, but I did not have to give them the same part of myself. There were some things that Daisy did not need to know, and plenty that Alexander could never understand.

  Lunch was a rarebit, with spotted dick for afters. I thought I could not eat, but then Beanie and Kitty could not either, and I ended up eating both of theirs. I felt rather ill after that, and could not decide if it was nerves or stodge. Every ring of every bell was bringing us closer to the hockey match and our re-enactment of the crime. The hockey team were all gathered on one table, talking. There was Clementine among them, looking rather smug to be with so many Big Girls and with Florence. I thought Florence was looking pale against her red hair, but I could not be sure.

  They all trooped off down to the sports field, and we followed, wrapped up in our House scarves. Daisy held hers up to her face and whispered orders through it. ‘Now, Beanie, Kitty and Lavinia, once the match begins, you must be our three suspects. Beanie, you’ll be Una, while you, Kitty, can be Florence, and Lavinia can be Enid. I want you to follow what we know of their movements on the night. Of course, the bonfire is where it was, and we know that Elizabeth fell between it and the pavilion, just far enough away from the fire to be out of the light.’

  ‘What about you and Hazel?’ asked Lavinia, scowling.

  ‘We shall observe you,’ said Daisy smoothly. ‘Hazel will be Lettice until the moment when she ran away, and then Margaret, and I shall be Elizabeth. But we will both also chart your movements. We must do this scientifically.’

  ‘Last time we used dolls!’ said Beanie.

  ‘I said scientifically,’ hissed Daisy. ‘We are far older now, and dolls were inappropriate last time, anyway. Are we all understood? You will begin as soon as I give the nod, and I want you all to time yourselves carefully. Remember, we think Elizabeth was killed at 7.45, as the fireworks display was in full swing. Do you all know where you are supposed to be at each time?’

  Lavinia, Kitty and Beanie nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Daisy. ‘You’re quite ready, then. And there’s a crowd around you, watching – it’s as close as we’ll be able to get to Tuesday night. I want all three of you to try to see if you can go to the pavilion, collect the stick and the rake and then get to Elizabeth – me – without coming too close to the bonfire. Hit me, steal the book from my pocket and then go back to the fire to drop the stick. Is that clear?’

  I was nervous. It did feel so dreadfully unsafe. What if the murderer should see us and realize what we were doing? But there was nothing else for it. There was no other way we could do this without attracting real notice. We would just have to accept the danger, and hope that everything would be all right.

  We went through the gates together, just as we had on Tuesday night, and I felt, as I always do when we begin a re-creation, that we were stepping back in time, back to the night of the murder. I think I have a little too much imagination for re-creations. I feel it, I don’t just see it. Daisy, though, only sees, and sees everything. The emotion behind it all does not affect her. She is merely watching a play in her head, whereas I feel the horror of what happened, and what the murderer felt – and can almost begin to imagine why they did what they did.

  4

  Though it was early afternoon, not evening (the day was bare and pale, a white sky above us so blank it made me shiver even in my heavy woollen coat and hat), the crowds all around us, chattering so excitedly, really did drag my mind backwards to the Tuesday of Bonfire Night. I could still see the burned-out pile of blackened sticks beside the pavilion, and I knew without looking the s
pot where Elizabeth had fallen.

  There were crowds of Deepdean girls, in their grey coats and striped House scarves, and smaller clumps of Fareham girls in the purple and yellow of their school. Out of the pavilion jogged the teams, and a cheer went up.

  ‘Go it!’ shouted Kitty, getting into the spirit at once. ‘Play up!’

  Our team looked cheerful as they waved their sticks – they had been training hard, I knew, and great things were expected from them this year. Only Florence was serious. She looked as impressive in her sports kit as ever, but under her blaze of red hair her face was now undoubtedly pale and drawn. She turned to her team, though, and spoke to them just as a captain ought, and I could see that they were all ready to do their best. The captains’ sticks cracked against each other (I flinched a little at that) and then the team took up their positions on the field. Daisy nodded at the four of us, and we knew, as much as Florence turning to her team, that that was our cue. We clasped our hands together – Lavinia’s rough and rather pinching, Kitty’s firm and slender, Beanie’s small and fluttering and Daisy’s easy and familiar as my own – and then slipped away to our positions. We had agreed to begin our re-creation with the moment Miss Barnard began to speak, at 7.30.

  We threaded our way through the crowd and all stood together between the bonfire and the pavilion, where Elizabeth and the Five had been on Tuesday; Beanie as Una, Kitty as Florence, Lavinia as Enid, myself as both Lettice and Margaret, and Daisy as Elizabeth. On the field, the sticks cracked again, and the game had begun.

  I stared at my wristwatch. I knew that Daisy would be timing us all. Miss Barnard’s speech had gone on for five minutes, and in that time no one had moved, not even to stoke the fire. I stood still as the noises of play washed over me. The hands of the watch moved. It was 7.35. Miss Barnard stopped speaking. Lavinia as Enid began to walk between the pavilion and the blackened pile of sticks as though she was carrying wood to the fire. Una and Florence (Beanie and Kitty) walked away from Daisy and me towards the pitch and the place where the younger girls had been lined up to watch the fireworks. Of course, Margaret had gone with them on Tuesday, but now I had to be Lettice, and re-enact her final argument with Elizabeth.

  I turned to Daisy, and she winked at me. She positioned herself in the very spot where Elizabeth had fallen, near the pavilion, just outside the circle of the bonfire light. I looked at my wristwatch again – 7.39, and the moment that Lettice ran away into the woods. Enid was still stoking the fire. As Margaret, I moved towards where the Big Girls had been standing, paused for a moment and then walked back towards the woods, exactly what Margaret had done with Astrid. Margaret and Lettice were now both out of the action, and it was 7.40, time for the fireworks to begin.

  As Florence, Kitty moved forward to stoke the fire, taking over from Lavinia. Enid drew back from the fire, towards the pavilion – which of course was what must have happened. If Enid had gone towards the trees, she would have stumbled across Margaret and Astrid. But she was now blocking Florence’s path. Florence had to walk round her to reach the wood pile. Kitty, as Florence, walked back to the bonfire, dropped her invisible wood and turned back to the pavilion. I saw something, then. Although Enid and Una were in darkness, outside the light from the bonfire, Florence would be constantly watching. If someone else had tried to get to the bonfire during the time she was stoking it, she would see them at once. On her second trip to the pavilion, though, Kitty paused for a moment longer, scooping up not just the wood from the pile, but pretending also to pick up the rake and the hockey stick. She began to walk back towards the fire, and then paused behind Elizabeth. In one smooth movement she raised her right hand, the one which must be holding the stick. Balancing the wood and the rake under her left arm, she brought her right down over Elizabeth’s head. Then she bent, put down the rake and went rifling through Elizabeth’s clothes. It was all over very quickly, and she resumed her walk back to the fire, throwing the wood and the hockey stick in quite casually, before turning to go back for more fuel. Florence could have committed the murder.

  After the next trip, Kitty stopped. It was 7.45, and the moment when Lettice should have taken over stoking duty. But, of course, she had not – now was the most likely time for the murder. But who would move first, Una or Enid? Then Lavinia sighed and shrugged. As Enid, she had been standing quite close to Elizabeth, but now she turned and walked the four paces to the side of the pavilion. I counted the seconds in my head as she bent down, picked up an armful of wood, and then picked two objects up from the side of the pavilion. The rake and the hockey stick, of course. Unlike Kitty, she made her arms look rather full, and she moved quite slowly back towards Daisy the way Enid would have, as though she did not want to drop anything. I realized how heavy the armful must have been for Enid, and how difficult to balance. It would certainly have taken a great deal of strength and skill to hit Elizabeth with the hockey stick without dropping the wood and the rake. Tall, well-built Una might have done it, and muscular Florence, as we had seen, but Enid, who had been too weak to lift branches in Oakeshott Woods? It did not seem likely.

  Lavinia went walking up to Daisy, moving slowly and carefully (she had been thirty seconds now), then raised her right arm and made a hitting motion towards Daisy’s head. Daisy turned and raised an eyebrow at her, and Lavinia grinned. Then she mimed bending down over the place where Daisy ought to have fallen and putting something next to the body – the rake. She went rifling through Elizabeth’s pockets (she had been seventy seconds now), then straightened up again, as though she had just noticed the time. Indeed, it was 7.49 now, and the final fireworks were going off. Lavinia had to rush towards the fire, but as she arrived, Beanie came over to stand beside her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I heard Lavinia say crossly.

  ‘I’m being Una!’ said Beanie. ‘It’s 7.51 – I have to be here now, don’t I, otherwise Charlotte couldn’t see me stoking the fire a minute later.’

  ‘But—’ said Lavinia. ‘Oh. You’re right!’

  She was, I realized, and that meant something else. Charlotte had not mentioned seeing Enid next to the bonfire after the fireworks, so she could not have been there. Therefore there was no time for her to have done the murder, and no way for her to get back to the bonfire and leave the stick without it seeming suspicious. We could rule her out!

  ‘Then the shout went up,’ I said, my words masked by another cheer. ‘And … there, she’s been found.’

  I turned, and went back to Daisy. There she was, quite unharmed still, standing above the spot on the grass where Elizabeth had been discovered.

  ‘Perfectly on time,’ she whispered. ‘Deductions, please.’

  5

  ‘Enid couldn’t have done it!’ said Kitty and I at the same time.

  ‘Florence stopped stoking the fire at 7.45,’ I explained. ‘You saw Lavinia. She didn’t have time to kill Elizabeth and drop the stick in the bonfire before Una arrived, and if she’d been there at the same time as Una, Binny or Martha would have seen her. And Enid’s not very big or strong. I don’t think she could have carried everything and hit Elizabeth hard enough to kill her.’

  ‘Very good!’ said Daisy. ‘I agree. By that argument, though, Una would have had time. She could have done exactly what we saw Lavinia demonstrate, and then come to the fire with her load of wood. That would perfectly fit with what we know – Una is certainly still a suspect. What about Florence?’

  ‘She could have, while she was stoking the fire,’ Kitty said. ‘She’s so strong. It would have been easy for her. We thought that the murder must have happened at 7.45, but if Florence did it, then it could have happened earlier. Florence can hit things one-handed, I’ve seen her. She would have barely needed to pause, and she had time to drop the stick in the fire afterwards.’

  ‘So we still have two suspects left,’ said Daisy, nodding. ‘Did anyone else have any deductions? I know I have another.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said slowly. ‘There is one more thing. I realized
when I saw Kitty and Lavinia picking up the stick and the rake. The murderer must have left them there beforehand. It wasn’t a mistake, and they can’t have been there by chance. So this murder must have been planned, from the moment the Five arrived at the sports pitch. It wasn’t someone taking an opportunity. It was—’

  ‘Purposeful!’ said Daisy, beaming. ‘Oh, EXACTLY, Hazel! This murderer knew what she was going to do, and waited for the right moment. This murderer is clever. I’ve always thought so, from the moment we found out the truth about the rake. This proves it. Yes, very good. Either Una or Florence has been very clever indeed, and very calculating.’

  But Kitty’s brow had furrowed. ‘That’s all very well, but which one of them was it?’ she asked. ‘We still don’t know who has Binny. What if she’s trapped somewhere? Or what if she’s—’

  She paused, and I looked at Daisy, concerned.

  But Daisy had frozen, staring across the pitch. ‘Just look!’

  The match was still going on – there were five minutes left of the first half – and the ball was furiously in play. Clementine was chasing down a Fareham forward, who was coming dangerously close to shooting distance. Our goalkeeper was crouching, face tense. But of course, Daisy was not looking at the hockey. She was nodding at a man in a greatcoat. I knew who I would see even before I turned – it was Inspector Priestley again.

  ‘Ooh! Inspector Priestley!’ said Beanie. ‘What is he doing here?’

  ‘He’s here to find Binny, of course!’ said Daisy. ‘The police were called in for Rose, and again when Binny went missing. You have to call the police for missing children. And if the Inspector is here for Binny—’