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

by Robin Stevens

  ‘The facts of the case are these. At just after five p.m. (we know the time, because Miss Alston had just called us for that five o’clock lesson she’d been threatening) someone pushed Mummy down to the hall. From her account we know that she didn’t see who did it – the top of the stairs was dark, and whoever it was came up behind her and shoved. Hazel, write all that down.

  ‘Now, this new crime was of course awful for Mummy, but it does finally give us the evidence we need to absolutely rule out some of our suspects.’

  ‘Bertie,’ I said, scribbling.

  ‘Exactly! We can give Bertie an absolutely watertight alibi. He was with us when we heard Mummy fall – there simply isn’t any way that he could have pushed her down the stairs unless he has magical powers, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t. Of course, whoever hurt Mummy might not necessarily be the person who killed Mr Curtis – but really, it’s quite impossible to believe that there are two murderers running about the house. So I think it’s safe to assume that they are one and the same. And that means that Bertie simply couldn’t have done the poisoning.’

  I crossed through Bertie’s name gladly.

  ‘And if we wondered about Mummy before, she is quite obviously out of the picture now. I’m sure there are some people in the world who would throw themselves down the stairs to make them appear innocent of a previous crime, but Mummy isn’t one of them. She absolutely hates being hurt, and she’s always terribly worried about becoming ugly. So she’s out too.

  ‘Next is Aunt Saskia. Hazel very cleverly used the key she dropped to rule her out of shoving Mummy – well done, Hazel, top detectiveing – so although we know that she’s got dreadfully sticky fingers, we can be quite sure that, this time, she is innocent of murder.’

  I crossed out busily. ‘And, Daisy, we heard Stephen come running down from the top floor just after the push. If you add that to what I told you about him being on a scholarship – you have to admit that it’s not just me sticking up for him because he’s nice. He can’t be a suspect.’

  I could feel my cheeks growing hot again – which was silly. I was only being logical.

  Kitty grinned at me (I looked away), but Daisy nodded. ‘Yes, all right,’ she said. ‘We’ve got rid of Stephen’s motive for the first crime, and his opportunity for the second, so we can take him off the list. That means we’re down to three. Miss Alston, Uncle Felix . . . and Daddy.’

  ‘But didn’t you tell us that we shouldn’t suspect your father?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘Yes, and I also told you that the clodhoppers wouldn’t understand that at all. They’re such sillies, they won’t listen to us without real evidence. So we must give it to them.’

  ‘But if he loves your mother, why would he try to hurt her?’ asked Beanie, eyes wide.

  ‘Exactly!’ said Daisy. ‘Excellent point, Assistant Beanie. If Daddy wanted Mummy back so badly that he was willing to kill Mr Curtis, then why would he push Mummy off the stairs? But the police might think he was cross with Mummy and wanted to punish her – so even that doesn’t let him off.’

  We all sighed.

  ‘And we did see him standing on the landing with Aunt Saskia afterwards,’ I said.

  ‘I know. Bother! He keeps on managing to make himself look so guilty! He’s already got Chapman covering for him because of something that happened at tea yesterday, and now this. Knowing Daddy – and I do know Daddy – there’s something else going on in his head, but to an outsider he looks like the absolute perfect suspect. If we don’t help him, he’ll end up being arrested and thrown in jail. Poor Daddy, the Lords will be furious with him. He’ll have to go on trial – oh, it’ll be just like the poor stupid Duke of Denver in that book. And then . . .’ Daisy paused. She was sunk in gloom, and we all understood why. If Lord Hastings was thrown in jail and put on trial, and if there was no evidence that he was innocent – he would be found guilty, and then nothing could save him.

  ‘But what about Miss Alston and Uncle Felix?’ I asked, to divert her thoughts. ‘They weren’t just on the stairs when we came out of the library; they were next to your mother. Miss Alston said that when she went out onto the first-floor landing there was no one else there – and there wouldn’t be, if she was the one who’d pushed Lady Hastings.’

  ‘And your uncle Felix was being suspicious again,’ put in Kitty. I could tell that she’d had the same idea as me. ‘He didn’t want anyone else touching your mother.’

  Daisy frowned. ‘Uncle Felix was probably trying to look after her,’ she said. ‘She is his sister, after all. But I admit, when added to his other behaviour this weekend, it is concerning. Oh, I don’t like it! It doesn’t seem . . . Why would Uncle Felix spend time with someone like Miss Alston? We know she’s lying about who she is and what she’s doing here! Oh, I wish we could get into her handbag and discover what it is she’s hiding! But how are we to do that? We don’t have much time – the police will be here terribly soon, and we must be able to lead them to the murderer as soon as they arrive.’

  ‘We could ask her for it,’ said Beanie.

  ‘Beanie, really, be sensible. If she’s the murderer, she’s not likely to agree, is she? In fact, that’s just the sort of idea that’s likely to end with us getting bumped off. Try again.’

  ‘We could all scream that there’s a fire, and hope that she drops it?’ suggested Kitty.

  Daisy glared, and the meeting disintegrated into a rather loud argument.

  * * *

  SUSPECT LIST

  Miss Alston. MOTIVE: Unknown. But we suspect that she has some sort of secret history which Mr Curtis knew about. OPPORTUNITY: Was at the tea table at the crucial time. Could have stolen the poison from the hall. NOTES: Was seen being threatened by Mr Curtis outside the maze by Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong. Who is she really, and what is she doing here? We know that her letters of reference are false.

  Aunt Saskia. MOTIVE: Wanted Mr Curtis’s watch. OPPORTUNITY: Was at the tea table at the crucial time. Could have stolen the poison from the hall. NOTES: Has been behaving suspiciously. Does not want the police to get involved – although this could be because of other misdemeanours in her past. Search her room for the watch? RULED OUT! She was in Mr Curtis’s room – looking for the watch, we believe – when Lady Hastings was attacked.

  Uncle Felix. MOTIVE: Rage at Mr Curtis over Lady Hastings. He was heard in the maze threatening Mr Curtis by Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong. OPPORTUNITY: was at the tea table at the crucial time. Could have stolen the poison from the hall. NOTES: We know he has lied about Mr Curtis’s cause of death. Why?

  Lord Hastings. MOTIVE: Jealousy. OPPORTUNITY: Was at the tea table at the crucial time. Could have stolen the poison from the hall. NOTES: Seen shouting at Mr Curtis on Saturday morning and telling him to leave Fallingford. Seen handing Mr Curtis’s cup to him at Saturday’s tea. The return of the teacup proves to the Detective Society that Lord Hastings is not the murderer, but we will need more concrete evidence to convince the police. Chapman appears to be covering for him for some reason. Was seen after the second crime at the turn of the stairs – in the right place at the right time.

  Bertie Wells. MOTIVE: Rage at Mr Curtis over Lady Hastings. OPPORTUNITY: Was at the tea table at the crucial time. Could have stolen the poison from the hall. RULED OUT! He was with the Detective Society at the moment Lady Hastings was attacked.

  Stephen Bampton. MOTIVE: He is not well-off. Could he have stolen Mr Curtis’s watch to sell it? OPPORTUNITY: Was at the tea table at the crucial time. Could have stolen the poison from the hall. RULED OUT: He does not need money – he has a full scholarship to Eton and then to Cambridge, so he has no motive for the crimes. We also heard him coming down from the nursery floor just after Lady Hastings was pushed down the stairs.

  Lady Hastings. MOTIVE: Mr Curtis threatened her. She might have killed him to stop him carrying out his threat. OPPORTUNITY: Was at the tea table at the crucial time. Could have stolen the poison from the hall. RULED OUT: She was the victim of the
second attack.

  * * *

  4

  I left them to it and went to the bathroom to get a drink.

  And there was someone on the landing.

  A dark shape was lurking in the shadows next to the window at the front of the house. My heart stumbled, and I gasped, backing away towards the nursery door. I wanted to scream, but just as in my nightmares I couldn’t make any sound at all. The murderer was here, and was about to catch me alone.

  The shape shook itself loose of the shadows and came creeping towards me. ‘Hazel,’ said Stephen’s quiet voice. ‘Hazel, stop! It’s me!’

  My voice came back with a gasp. ‘What are you doing there?’ I said. ‘You – I thought you were—’

  ‘Terribly sorry,’ said Stephen. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I only wanted to find a place to think.’

  Trying to quieten my heart, I went to stand next to him at the window. It is a lovely round one, like a porthole in the sky, and ivy wiggles across it like thin fingers. You can see the drive, and some of the monkey puzzle tree. Outside, it had finally stopped raining, and there was a thin glaze of moonlight over everything that made the monkey puzzle look as if it had been cut out with scissors.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Stephen asked me quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered back. ‘I suppose so. Are you?’

  ‘Sometimes I don’t feel as if I shall ever be all right again,’ said Stephen.

  I wanted to say that this was exactly what I had been feeling too, without being able to explain it.

  ‘I wish this was all over,’ I said miserably.

  ‘I wish it had never begun,’ said Stephen, scowling. He rested his forehead against the windowpane and shivered. When he leaned back again, his hair was damp and sticking up, and there was a little drop of water curling down his cheek.

  ‘My father killed himself,’ he said quietly. ‘Did you know that? This weekend – it’s brought it all back. It feels like it only happened yesterday. It feels like it’s still happening.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I stared out at the tree, and noticed that it made angles in the shadow on the drive; that I could see every single funny leaf. ‘I feel like that sometimes too,’ I said at last. ‘Last year, a mistress at our school . . . died, and I found her. I touched her. It . . . wasn’t very nice. Daisy thinks I should forget about it, but I can’t, somehow.’

  It was Stephen’s turn to nod.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you. Listen, Hazel. You mustn’t worry. What I mean to say is, you’re quite safe. Bertie and I – we won’t let anything happen to the four of you. I can promise that.’

  He paused, and I paused too, looking at him. Everything seemed frozen – until a little gust of wind shook the panes in front us and made us start.

  ‘And the police are coming,’ I said. ‘Inspector Priestley will help us.’

  I hoped I was right.

  It was only after I was back in the nursery that I realized I had forgotten to get that drink. Daisy, Kitty and Beanie were still talking, so I sat up in bed and began to write in this casebook. When there was a knock on the nursery door I nearly jumped out of my skin – but it was only Mrs Doherty, coming up with our dinner. It was eggs and soldiers again – and a jam roly poly.

  We must be very close indeed to solving the crime now – but all the same, I’m still not sure that this is a case that the Detective Society ought to solve. There seems to be something lying just out of reach, waiting for us.

  1

  On Monday morning I woke up with a jolt, and found that I was still clinging to this casebook, and that my pencil had got loose and gone in scribbling snail-trails across my bed sheets.

  Daisy was shaking my arm, and in my ear the house’s pipes were singing and shaking the bed as someone ran a bath in the nursery bathroom.

  ‘Hazel!’ Daisy was saying. ‘Hazel! Hazel! HAZEL, WAKE UP!’

  ‘I’m awake,’ I said. ‘Ow.’

  ‘Hazel, a miracle has happened. Miss Alston is taking a bath.’

  I couldn’t quite see how this was a miracle. Miss Alston was not a particularly dirty person.

  ‘Hazel, don’t be slow. What don’t people take into bathrooms, even if they carry them everywhere else? What is liable to get all steamed up and unpleasant if it sits next to a hot bath?’

  I suddenly saw what she was getting at. ‘A handbag!’

  ‘Indeed, Watson, indeed!’

  We beamed at each other.

  ‘Up! We must work quickly,’ said Daisy. ‘Kitty, I want you standing outside the bathroom, listening for movement. Beanie, you can stand guard just outside Miss Alston’s room, to whisper to us if Kitty gives the alarm, and Hazel, you come into the room with me.’

  ‘But I want—’ Kitty began.

  ‘No arguing!’ cried Daisy. ‘I am the Detective Society President, and in this case you must respect my authority, because I know what I am talking about and I solved a real murder case last year. With Hazel. All right, are you ready?’

  Kitty and Beanie nodded – although Kitty’s nod was slightly reluctant.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Daisy. ‘Ready, Watson?’

  ‘Ready,’ I said. And we crept out of the nursery doorway onto the upstairs landing.

  The noise from the pipes stopped as Kitty positioned herself outside the bathroom, and Beanie stood nervously just outside Miss Alston’s door. Daisy and I gave the Detective Society handshake once, for luck, and then Daisy pushed open Miss Alston’s door. We were inside again.

  The bed was made. The drawers were closed. And Miss Alston’s brown handbag was sitting plumply on her pillow.

  ‘View-halloo, Watson!’ hissed Daisy, eyes shining. ‘I knew we’d get it in the end. I knew it!’ She leaped towards it like a cat.

  ‘Careful!’ I said. ‘You’ll spill it – she mustn’t know we’ve been here!’

  ‘Huh,’ said Daisy. ‘There’s no time for that.’

  In one movement, she spun the handbag upside down and everything inside it tumbled out across the covers. It was as though Miss Alston had pinched her bag from Mary Poppins. Out came ruled paper and notebooks and biscuits and maps and set squares and a compass and a bar of Fry’s chocolate and a packet of pins and a needle and thread – and something flat and spiky, made of silver that glinted up at us.

  ‘What’s that?’ I whispered, and ‘What’s THIS?’ hissed Daisy, and she picked it up and peered at it. Then she dropped it as though it had burned her. ‘Hazel,’ she said. ‘You won’t believe this. Look.’

  I looked. The silver thing was a badge, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. It had a little silver crest at the top: METROPOLITAN POLICE, it read.

  ‘But – how did she get this?’ I asked. ‘It’s a police badge!’

  ‘Do you think she stole it?’ asked Daisy. ‘Gosh, what if she’s actually a criminal, just like Mr Curtis was? Oh, we’ve got evidence at last! Miss Alston stole from a police officer – hah! And here, under all that, are the papers that I do believe will finally incriminate her!’ Out of the bottom of the bag, with a flourish, she pulled a crumpled letter.

  ‘It’s from the police!’ cried Daisy. ‘Look at that official letterhead! And it says—’

  I bent over her and read. ‘Oh,’ I said.

  Daisy and I stared at each other in utter shock.

  Dear Miss Livedon,

  You have been assigned to an undercover post at Fallingford House, home of Lord and Lady Hastings. You will pose as governess to their young but not at all impressionable daughter, Daisy Wells, and secretary to Lord Hastings, and you are asked to watch the movements of Mr Denis Curtis, who will be arriving as a guest of Lady Hastings at an upcoming weekend party. Curtis is a notorious thief whose method seems to be to ingratiate himself with the lady of a large country house in order to gain access to the house’s contents. After a brief visit he leaves, and several priceless artefacts, usually including jewels, leave with him. We need you to
catch him at it, to be blunt.

  You have been furnished with the appropriate references, but Lord Hastings is of a trusting disposition, and so you are not likely to be grilled on your life story. Nevertheless, the daughter is another matter, and so it would be advisable to be on your guard around her. The name on your letters of reference is Miss Lucy Alston.

  I wish you good luck, and will, of course, deny all knowledge of you if pressed.

  ‘Young but not at all impressionable!’ gasped Daisy. ‘Hazel, look, I told you I was famous.’

  I felt that she was rather missing the point. ‘But now we know who Miss Alston really is!’ I said. ‘This is the secret she’s been hiding. She didn’t steal from the police, she’s one of them!’

  ‘Oh yes!’ said Daisy, coming back to earth.

  We gaped at each other. Miss Alston a policewoman! She had been watching Mr Curtis because she had been sent to catch him. That was why she had been acting so suspiciously, and why Mr Curtis had threatened her on Saturday morning. He must have realized that she was really from the police. And of course, Miss Alston – Livedon – must have begun her own investigation into Mr Curtis’s death. She must have taken his notebook from his room, and then dropped it – that was why we had found it on the landing outside the nursery. When we overheard her speaking to Stephen, she had not been threatening him, she had been trying to interrogate him, to find out what he knew about the murder!

  ‘Well!’ said Daisy. ‘I said she was too clever to simply be a governess. Oh golly, imagine – we’ve been taught by a policewoman. An undercover one! Hazel!’

  Then I had a thought that wriggled uncomfortably at the bottom of my stomach. ‘But if she’s a policewoman, Daisy, she can’t be the murderer. You aren’t allowed to murder people, are you, even when you’re on undercover missions?’