Arsenic For Tea: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (A Wells and Wong Mystery)

by Robin Stevens

  The three of us got into a huddle beside the table.

  ‘Who does it?’ hissed Kitty. ‘Me? I’m sure I could do it – do let me, it’s most awful fun—’

  ‘No,’ I whispered back. Beanie was wriggling desperately, eyes wide, and I could tell that she was itching to do something important. ‘Let Beanie.’

  ‘Me?’ gasped Beanie. ‘Oh, goody!’

  ‘Do keep it down,’ said Daisy from my bed – or rather, Mr Curtis’s chair. ‘I’m trying to hum, but you’re nearly drowning me out.’

  ‘Yes, you!’ I whispered. ‘You can do it! I know you can! And think, you’d be able to say that you’d tricked Daisy!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think I like the sound of that,’ said Beanie unhappily. ‘It’s not very nice. Are you sure . . .? Oh – oh, all right. Don’t pinch me, Kitty. I’ll try.’

  ‘We’re ready,’ I called over to Daisy. Then Kitty and I began to jostle and elbow each other and Beanie; we reached across the little table, using both hands to scoop up imaginary cream buns and slices of cake. It was surprisingly good fun, and even Beanie, who squeaked at first, got quite carried away. The tooth mug was just by Kitty’s hip, and I was so busy fighting with her over a particularly delicious muffin, dripping with butter (I wouldn’t have minded a real muffin or two, if it came to it), that I hardly noticed the moment when Beanie unrolled the little piece of paper in her fist and held it over the mug.

  Daisy kept on humming, and when we turned to her a minute later she looked cross. ‘Haven’t you done it yet?’ she asked.

  ‘I have!’ cried Beanie. ‘Ooh, didn’t you see me? How exciting! It was quite easy . . . Oh dear, I’ve just pretended to murder someone.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Beans.’ said Kitty, patting her comfortingly on the shoulder. ‘You did excellently well. It wasn’t real, you know.’

  ‘Did you really do it?’ asked Daisy. ‘Heavens! Then it must have been easy. Do you know, I didn’t see a thing. There was such a scrum.’

  ‘And I hardly noticed either,’ I put in, ‘even though I knew it was going to happen. So we’ve proved that it isn’t odd at all that none of the other people noticed the poison going in the cup.’

  ‘This is all going extremely well,’ said Daisy, satisfied. She stood up and went over to the doll’s house. ‘Now, the next step is to really think back to that crucial moment, and for this we do need the house. Let’s put all the suspects in the places they were on Saturday afternoon. This ugly doll is Mr Curtis, and this little one can be Stephen. We don’t need dolls for the three of you, because it’s quite obvious that you were standing next to me by the door into the hall.’

  We all crouched round the doll’s house together. It was very strange – like a silly childish game but at the same time deadly serious. The Mr Curtis doll (who really was hideous) went in the chair, away from the tea table. Daisy put Chapman back against the wall, on the other side of the room from Mr Curtis. Then we positioned Lord and Lady Hastings, Uncle Felix, Bertie, Stephen and Aunt Saskia around the tea table, just where they had all been.

  ‘Chatter chatter chatter,’ said Daisy, bouncing the Bertie doll up and down in her hand. ‘Scuffle scuffle – Aunt Saskia goes for the tarts . . .’ She made Aunt Saskia doll lunge for them, and I nearly laughed. ‘Mummy says, “I’ll be Mother,” but everyone ignores her’ – Kitty made the Lady Hastings doll wobble – ‘then she says, “Someone fetch Mr Curtis a cup of tea,” and then—’

  I suddenly had a rush of memory – of Lord Hastings’ round red face, and the expression on it, and of his hand holding out a teacup.

  I was holding Lord Hastings doll, his little face as jolly as it usually is in real life. But it hadn’t been jolly then. His expression had been . . . sly, odd, as though he had done something wrong, and he knew it. I didn’t want it to be true, but I knew I had to be honest about what I’d seen.

  ‘Then Lord Hastings hands a cup of tea to Mr Curtis, and he drinks it,’ I said.

  The Bertie doll froze. Daisy had gone quite still.

  ‘Ugh!’ said Beanie in a little doll voice, prodding Mr Curtis. ‘This tea tastes foul!’

  We all looked at her, and I felt quite heart-sick. ‘He did say that!’ she told us defensively. ‘I was only remembering.’

  ‘I know he did,’ said Daisy, jumping back into life. ‘I— Excellent memory. And Hazel. Yes. You too. What a . . . What I mean to say is—’

  It was one of the few times I had ever seen Daisy stumbling.

  ‘But perhaps the poison was already in the cup by then,’ she said at last, blinking. ‘Someone else at the table must have put it in and then handed the cup to Daddy to give to Mr Curtis.’

  ‘Lord Hastings did look funny, though,’ said Beanie. ‘All shifty, like he’d been naughty.’

  I knew she was telling the truth – I remembered it too – but all the same I suddenly wanted to shake her. How could she not see what this meant for Daisy?

  A heavy feeling had settled on my chest. I really and truly liked Lord Hastings, even if he did tell dreadful jokes. He was kind, and he was nice to me, and he was Daisy’s father. I didn’t want him to have killed horrible Mr Curtis. But there it was. We had discovered that he had handed Mr Curtis the cup of tea that had killed him.

  ‘Well,’ said Daisy, and her voice was very tight. I saw her hands clench in her lap. ‘Well . . . it . . . I tell you, it simply must have been someone else who gave it to him to pass on. Daddy knows perfectly well not to murder his own guests, however rude they are. Look – what about Chapman? Hazel, you said yourself that he’d been behaving oddly. Just look where he’s standing. He would have been able to see the table, and people’s hands. He must have seen something – which means that we must go and speak to him. He’ll be able to rule Daddy out. If Daddy was looking shifty, I’m quite sure it was for another reason altogether.’

  I could hear the relief in her voice as she said it, but I was not so sure. I was terribly afraid that, if Daisy spoke to Chapman, she was not likely to enjoy what she heard.

  4

  At first, Chapman proved difficult to find. ‘He ought to be around here somewhere,’ said Daisy crossly, popping in and out of doorways on the first floor like a jack-in-the-box. ‘Oh! Hello, Chapman!’

  Chapman was in Lord Hastings’ bedroom, standing on wobbly tiptoes at the window and dusting. He jumped at Daisy’s voice, and the duster fell out of his hand and clattered on the floor.

  ‘Hello, Chapman,’ said Daisy. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Very well, Miss Daisy,’ he replied automatically.

  ‘We want to ask you a question,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s about Mr Curtis.’

  Chapman swayed, his face creasing up as though he had been hurt – he looked just as frightened as he had in the kitchens earlier. ‘Who else have you been talking to?’ he cried. ‘What have they said?’

  ‘Why, no one!’ said Daisy. ‘It’s only that Daddy’s been in such a funny mood since . . . you know – and I’m terribly worried that he’s got a silly idea in his head that he had something to do with what happened. Of course, I know he didn’t! You must have seen it – can’t you reassure him?’

  Chapman went bone-white. He was shaking too; he looked as if he were about to break apart.

  ‘I didn’t . . . see . . . anything,’ he whispered. ‘Not a thing! I didn’t look and I couldn’t have seen.’

  Daisy looked puzzled. ‘But, Chapman, don’t be so silly! You must have!’

  ‘I didn’t . . . see . . . anything,’ Chapman repeated, ‘and if I did – well, that man was purely wicked. Sometimes the truth doesn’t make things better. Now, out of this room at once.’

  Daisy flushed with annoyance. ‘It’s not fair of you, Chapman!’ she cried.

  ‘I’m not saying anything more,’ said Chapman resolutely. ‘Go on, go away. I’ve got work to do.’

  Daisy went pink, then white, then pink again, and she turned and rushed out of the room.

  We hurried after her, but we were barely
halfway across the first-floor landing when Lord Hastings himself came panting up the main stairs, exactly as though he had been summoned. He gave us all a distracted wave, then darted off into his bedroom.

  ‘Ah, Chapman!’ we heard him say. ‘Just the man I wanted to see.’

  Daisy paused. Then she turned to me. ‘Quick!’ she hissed. ‘We have to listen in!’

  ‘Ought we to?’ asked Beanie in concern.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Daisy. ‘But I’ve told you before, that’s the point of detection.’

  She crept closer, right up to the door – which, in his hurry, Lord Hastings had not managed to close properly. I wanted to back away again, but Daisy’s hand was round my wrist, and I knew I had to stay, to hear what she was about to hear.

  ‘. . . wanted to, er, clear up any misconceptions that might have . . . that is . . . Chapman, old thing, what I’m trying to say is that, if you did see anything at the tea that might have given you cause for concern, anything that I—’

  ‘It never happened, sir,’ said Chapman. ‘There was nothing to see.’

  ‘Yes!’ said Lord Hastings, his voice warm with relief. ‘That’s it exactly. Nothing happened. Nothing to see. And that’s what you’ll say, should anyone ask?’

  ‘That is what I will say, sir.’

  ‘Good man. Excellent man! That’s . . . It’s above and beyond, Chapman, simply above and beyond everything. This shan’t be forgotten.’

  ‘Sir, if I may, I shall forget it immediately,’ said Chapman. ‘May I go, sir?’

  We all jumped back automatically; all except Daisy. She simply stood there, eyes blank.

  ‘Hide!’ I hissed, because someone had to do something, and Daisy seemed to have frozen up completely.

  We all dived in different directions, and I ended up in the alcove behind the stuffed owl, right arm linked with Daisy’s and dizzily breathing in dust from the curtain.

  Lord Hastings’ heavy feet went thundering across the landing, and then down the stairs – followed, a few moments later, by Chapman’s soft, precise steps. We were alone.

  I thought again about what we had just heard: Lord Hastings asking for Chapman’s help, making sure that he didn’t tell anyone what he had seen. It fitted – horribly – with our re-creation. Had Chapman seen Lord Hastings slipping something into the cup before he handed it to Mr Curtis? I did not want it to be true, but what else was I to think?

  ‘Daisy,’ I said, thickly because of my heart and the curtains, ‘your father—’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Daisy whispered, coming back to herself with a twitch. Her voice was falsely bright. I could tell that she had decided to keep on pretending. ‘The old silly’s done something, and he doesn’t want to be found out. Isn’t Chapman a brick?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Oh goodness,’ said Daisy. ‘It won’t be about the murder, Hazel! Don’t be a chump. I’ve said before, Daddy wouldn’t do it!’

  I realized that Daisy’s incredible calm about the case was really just another front. She could pretend to suspect her brother, and her mother, and her uncle – and I don’t think she even minded about suspecting her great-aunt. But she was only playing when it came to Bertie and Lady Hastings and Uncle Felix; she wouldn’t even play about her father. There were some thoughts that she refused to let in – and although I was achingly sorry for her as a friend, as a detective I knew that she simply had to face up to them. Daisy, I thought to myself, was not going to ruin this case because she didn’t like the way it was going.

  As I decided that, something pinged loose inside me, like a button popping off a tight skirt. I took hold of Daisy’s shoulders and pulled her round to face me.

  ‘Yes he would!’ I cried. ‘He would just as much as anyone! We know he didn’t like Mr Curtis, and he knew about Mr Curtis and your mother – we saw him arguing with Mr Curtis yesterday morning. And I saw him, Daisy. I saw him hand the cup of tea to Mr Curtis! He’s the most likely of anyone to be the murderer! I didn’t want to believe it – but now, after what we heard, we have to!’

  Daisy opened her mouth. There was an angry flush across her cheeks. ‘How dare you, Hazel!’ she said.

  ‘I’m your Vice-President!’ I said. ‘I have to say it – no one else will! And if you don’t listen to me, you’re not being a proper Detective Society President!’

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew that I had said something very wrong.

  ‘Get out of my way,’ hissed Daisy. ‘Take your hands off me.’

  ‘But don’t you know—’

  ‘OF COURSE I KNOW, YOU IDIOT!’ she shrieked. ‘WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE LET ME PRETEND?’

  She threw herself at me. I staggered, the curtain ripped and I fell backwards, heavily, onto the landing, Daisy half on top of me.

  ‘I’m going to the nursery,’ she said. ‘Don’t bother to follow me.’ Then she scrambled to her feet and dashed away up the stairs, golden plaits bouncing behind her.

  Beanie and Kitty had crawled out of their hiding places, and they were staring at me with almost identical expressions of horror.

  ‘What happened?’ whispered Beanie. ‘Is Daisy all right?’

  ‘I told her that Lord Hastings might be the murderer,’ I said.

  ‘Cruel,’ said Kitty, ‘but true.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. I was in no mood for Kitty’s nasty side.

  ‘Ooh, all right, Hazel Wong,’ said Kitty, holding up her hands. ‘What do you propose your precious Detective Society does, now that Daisy’s gone off in a sulk?’

  I took a slightly wobbly breath. What were we to do?

  ‘We . . .’ I said. ‘We’re going to—’

  And then we heard the most terrible crash.

  5

  The three of us went running down the stairs (me wondering if it was particularly wise to run towards a noise when there was a murderer on the loose). There were no more smashes after the first one, but I realized that it had come from the kitchens. Beanie hung back, shaking her head in fear, and I knew that with no Daisy, I would have to give the orders.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to her encouragingly. ‘We have to see what it is.’

  We went into the kitchens. Hetty was standing there, arms up to her chest. Broken crockery lay scattered around her feet, and Mrs Doherty was next to her, open-mouthed. They were both staring fixedly at the pile of dirty china beside the washing-up bowl.

  ‘I’m not going mad,’ said Hetty to Mrs Doherty. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You certainly are not,’ said Mrs Doherty firmly.

  ‘Oh, what is it?’ whispered Beanie. ‘Is it something awful?’

  Mrs Doherty turned and saw us. ‘Girls!’ she said. ‘Goodness, isn’t Daisy with you?’

  ‘She’s not feeling well,’ I said hurriedly. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s . . .’ said Hetty. ‘Well, all the teacups from the good set, they’re still in the dining room, and the dining room is locked, and has been since yesterday. But . . . look at that.’ And she pointed to the pile of washing-up.

  We all squinted. The cups resting on top of each other looked very much like cups to me – until I saw that one of them was thinner than the others and fluted, with a fine band of gold around its rim and more on its sides.

  ‘It’s one of the good set, in here,’ Hetty said. ‘I don’t understand it! It’s impossible, but there it is. I shouldn’t have dropped my tray – it was the shock. You see, I’d been thinking about what happened all day and then, suddenly, there was a reminder in front of me, and I don’t see how it could have got there!’

  Of course, I saw. There was only one explanation: the murderer must have slipped into the kitchens when Mrs Doherty and Hetty were out and put the cup in amongst the washing-up, where they hoped no one would notice it. Lord Hastings had been downstairs just now, I remembered – we had seen him coming up to his bedroom to speak to Chapman.

  ‘What’s all this, what’s all this?’ boomed a large voice behind us. It was Lord Hastings ag
ain.

  Beanie flinched and stepped back into Kitty, and I clenched my fists at my sides. After what we had overheard, I couldn’t help it. If he really was the murderer, all his jolly goodness suddenly seemed like a lie.

  ‘Is everything all right? What have you broken this time?’ he asked.

  ‘It was another rat, sir,’ said Mrs Doherty composedly. ‘Hetty was startled, and she dropped a tray.’

  ‘Good grief, is that all? I should have thought you’d be used to them by now. Buck up, Hetty.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Hetty. ‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s a phobia.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Lord Hastings. ‘Phobias! Don’t believe in them myself. New-age mumbo-jumbo. But still . . . don’t do it again, eh?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Hetty.

  Lord Hastings withdrew. We all heard him say to someone in the hall, ‘Hetty saw a rat. Says she has a phobia.’

  We all breathed again. ‘Phobia,’ said Mrs Doherty. ‘I agree with Lord Hastings! But it is odd, all the same. I don’t blame you for being shocked. Where is Daisy? It’s not like her to miss a bit of excitement.’

  ‘She’s not feeling well,’ I said again uncomfortably. ‘I’ll . . . go and see her now.’

  I left Beanie and Kitty in the kitchens – they would be safe with Mrs Doherty, I decided – and went upstairs alone. Some talks are for best friends only.

  6

  I climbed the back stairs to the nursery – I’d got into the habit of using them now – with a sick feeling in my stomach and a very leaden feeling in my feet. I didn’t want to see Daisy, and I knew that she didn’t want to see me. What if she never wanted to speak to me again?

  I wondered whether we should give up on hunting for the murderer. After all, no one apart from Lady Hastings was upset about Mr Curtis, and even she would probably get over it in time. I felt terrible for thinking it, but there it was.