Party Girls Die in Pearls

by Plum Sykes

  “Have you told them about cutting your hand washing up?”

  “Of course. But they’re trying to get me to confess to India’s murder. Flowerbutton, do you believe me?”

  Ursula reflected that, logically speaking, if one were to invent a story about one’s movements on a particular night, it would be unlikely to be one that painted as shabby a picture of one’s moral character as Wenty’s tale did. On that basis, she had to assume his story was true.

  “I do.”

  “So you’ll help?”

  Wenty might be a Hollow Cad of a cucumber sandwich, Ursula thought to herself, but he was very possibly innocent. However insufferable his treatment of that poor St. Hilda’s girl was, it didn’t make him a girlfriend killer.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’ll try and help you.”

  “Thank you, Flowerbutton. I’m worried that now the police have got me, they’re going to stop looking for the real culprit. You’ve got to find the murderer before they bang me up for good.”

  “I must go,” said Ursula. She was freezing cold in her damp towel.

  “Okay. Just make sure to go to the funeral tomorrow. I can’t believe I’ll be stuck in here when my poor India is buried. God,” Wenty said, sounding terribly saddened about his girlfriend. “That was my last ten-p. Try and get in to see me here if you can and—”

  Pip-pip-pip. Pip-pip.

  “And?” cried Ursula.

  But she didn’t hear Wenty finish his sentence. The line had gone dead.

  Chapter 30

  The humble red brick workman’s cottage on the corner of Cranham Terrace and Jericho Street, festooned with now-yellowing autumnal wisteria, looked like the kind of place Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle might have lived. It had a pretty sash window looking onto the street, covered on the inside with a fine antique lace curtain, and the white-painted porch was shrouded in tumbling ivy.

  “This has gotta be it,” said Nancy. “Talk about a love nest.”

  The girls leaned their bicycles against an iron railing and made their way up through the tiny front garden along a moss-covered path.

  “I just hope he doesn’t answer the door,” Ursula said, realizing she had no idea what she’d do if Dr. Dave turned out to be at home. Nervously, she banged the brass knocker three times.

  “Pronto!” came a singsong Italian voice from inside the house.

  The door opened to reveal a petite girl, barefoot and dressed in a lilac silk kimono edged with gold embroidery. Her hair was wrapped in a navy-blue towel, and her enormous dark eyes were framed by ludicrously long eyelashes. She had tan, gleaming skin, and the delicious scent of tuberose perfume emanated from her. No wonder Dr. Dave wanted to marry this enchanting creature, thought Ursula, spotting an engagement ring on her left hand. The girl smiled curiously at them.

  “Can I ’elp you?” she asked.

  “We’re students, from Christminster,” said Ursula.

  “You looking for Davide? ’E not here. Am sorry,” the girl said, shaking her head. She started to close the door.

  “Wait,” said Nancy, stepping towards the threshold. “We’re looking for you, we think. Are you Fiammetta?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m writing a story for Cherwell,” explained Ursula. “I wondered if you may be able to help . . . with background stuff. Have you got a few minutes to talk?”

  “Sure. Come in.”

  Fiammetta led the girls along a narrow passage towards the back of the house. They had to squeeze past a pile of suitcases with luggage tags attached, topped by a violin case.

  “I’m sorry. I been traveling. Am in chaos!” she laughed. “I ’ave not an idea even what day is.”

  The threesome had now arrived in the modest yellow-painted kitchen, whose French doors led out to a stretch of rambling cottage garden. Piles of sheet music, books, and magazines covered most of the work surfaces.

  “So, you writing about music?” asked Fiammetta, unfurling her turban to reveal her almost waist-length, damp, dark hair, and gesturing for them to sit at the small café table in the middle of the room.

  “Not exactly,” said Ursula.

  “We’re investigating a student’s murder,” said Nancy boldly.

  “In Oxford?! ’Ow awful,” exclaimed Fiammetta. She pronounced “awful” ow-full. “What ’appened?”

  “You haven’t heard yet?” said Nancy, sounding astonished.

  “’Aven’t ’eard what?”

  “Lady India Brattenbury was murdered on Sunday night in Christminster College,” Nancy told her gravely.

  “She was studentessa at Christminster?”

  “Yes,” said Ursula.

  Fiammetta looked appalled. “That is orribile story. But I don’t know ’ow I can ’elp. I’ve never met ’er. Or ’eard of ’er.”

  Was she lying, wondered Ursula, or was she really as naive about her new fiancé as she claimed? There was no doubt that Dr. Dave would have wanted to keep tales of his previous affairs with students from his future wife. But not to tell her about a murder in his own rooms—that was not just odd; it was, Ursula decided, deeply suspicious. Still, she didn’t fancy being the one to break the news to Fiammetta that the most beautiful girl in Oxford had been found dead on her future husband’s chaise longue.

  “I’ve only really got one question, Fiammetta,” Ursula said, her tone deathly serious.

  “Yes?” replied the girl, now seeming jittery.

  “Did your fiancé spend the night here on Sunday?”

  “Please-mother-of-God, do not tell me you are suspecting ’im of this?!”

  “Of course not,” Ursula reassured her. “We’re just trying to figure out everyone’s movements in college that night.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Fiammetta, sounding slightly less alarmed. “I was in Salzburg on Sunday night. We were playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A. I was soloist.”

  “Wow,” said Nancy.

  “Thank you.” Fiammetta smiled graciously. “Then, another concert on Monday evening. I fly back yesterday, Tuesday evening. Is why we in chaos.”

  “So, any idea where Dr. Dave was on Sunday night?” Nancy persisted.

  “I know for sure ’e wasn’t ’ere,” replied Fiammetta decisively. “’E would have stayed in college. ’Ates it ’ere when I am gone.”

  Why had Dr. Dave lied about where he spent the night on Sunday? If he hadn’t spent it at home, as he’d said, the only logical place to stay would have been in his rooms. But Ursula had seen him arrive at the threshold the next morning well past nine a.m., and after she had discovered India’s body. Where on earth, she wondered, had he spent the night if he wasn’t either at home or in his rooms? And why was he being so deceitful? Was he, she wondered, aware of rather more about the murder than he was letting on? Had he, in fact, been in his rooms much of the night? Perhaps, frustrated by India’s refusal to stop harassing him, he had killed her himself, and “arrived” late for Ursula’s tutorial to make it appear as though he had not been in the room overnight.

  “You’re sure he wasn’t here?” Nancy asked Fiammetta.

  “I suppose ’e could ’ave come ’ome on Sunday night. After all, I wasn’t ’ere, but—non. It would be very unlike ’im.” The Italian girl shook her head. “’E likes company.”

  “Thank you, Fiammetta,” said Ursula. “You’ve been really helpful.”

  “You’re welcome. She wasn’t ’Istory student, this India, was she?” asked Fiammetta while showing the girls out.

  “No,” said Nancy, shaking her head. “English Literature.”

  Fiammetta opened the front door, gasping with surprise as she did so. There on the front step stood two policemen.

  “May we come in?” one of them asked.

  “Well, I suppose,” she said resignedly, showing them in.

  “Good-bye,” said Fiammetta as Nancy and Ursula stepped onto the path. “Good luck with your article.” Then she added, as though to herself, “I suppose that’s why Davide didn’t mention it t
o me. ’E probably didn’t know ’er.”

  “Probably not,” agreed Ursula.

  * * *

  “We’re gonna have to go back to Dr. Dave,” Nancy said as soon as she and Ursula were out of earshot of the house.

  “I know,” Ursula agreed, clambering onto her bike. “But how do you accuse your own tutor of being a liar without being Sent Down?”

  As soon as they were back in college, the girls zipped into the porter’s lodge. Ursula found a handwritten note in her pigeonhole that read:

  Darling Ursula,

  Your Cherwell editors look forward to reading your copy on Sunday—have you discovered whodunit yet?

  No, I jolly well haven’t discovered whodunit, she said to herself, and scanned the rest of the note.

  If you and Nancy-Doodle-Dandy would like a lift to the funeral on Thursday, I can pick you up outside college in my car at 7 a.m. Perhaps catch up at the Gridiron party tonight?

  Mwah Mwah,

  Horatio

  Ursula showed the note to her friend. “Should we go to the funeral?”

  “Sure we should. How else are we going to figure out ‘whodunit’?” replied Nancy.

  “But we haven’t been invited,” protested Ursula.

  “Horatio’s invited us,” Nancy reasoned. “And didn’t you say Wenty said you must go when he spoke to you on the phone this morning?”

  “True.”

  “And India invited me to her shooting party. There’s no way she would have invited me to that and not wanted me at her funeral.”

  “Okay,” agreed Ursula. “We’ll tell Horatio tonight at the party.”

  Just then Deddington beckoned the girls over to his station.

  “Good morning,” he said in an unusually quiet voice.

  “Hey, Deddy,” chirped Nancy.

  “Hi,” said Ursula.

  “I’ve been hearing rumors about you, Flowerbutton,” Deddington said. “Rumors that you are writing about Lady India’s death for Cherwell.”

  “Yes. Can you help?”

  “I’m not sure. But if you were to spend a few moments in the gallery of the Long Room, you may find it very informative. I just saw that police bloke go in there.”

  “You think there’s a clue?” asked Nancy excitedly.

  “Hush!” Deddington tried to calm her down. “Go through the small attic door at the top of the staircase, two floors above the library. It’s unlocked.”

  “Thank you,” said Ursula. “Oh, and one other thing, Deddington. Where were you on Sunday night?”

  “Eagle and Child, the pub on St. Giles. Can’t take that awful Dallas Linda insists on watching. Much prefer a pint or two of ale.”

  * * *

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” High Provost Scrope was saying. “Thank you very much for coming to this postponed—and now emergency—meeting of the Christminster College Fund-Raising Committee. I know how busy you all are, so I’d like to get to the main business right away.”

  Having clambered up the cramped, winding staircase to the attic door, Ursula and Nancy now found themselves crouching on a galleried landing. The Long Room beneath them was almost as large as the library one floor below. The walls were hung with ornate tapestries, and the windows looking onto Great Quad allowed a shaft of sunlight to illuminate the highly polished mahogany table in the center of the room, which was groaning under the weight of the college silver arranged on top of it.

  Ursula counted at least twenty men around the table, most of them wearing suits. The absolute youngest was in late middle age, and they were in general so prosperously corpulent they looked as though they might burst. DI Trott, she noticed, was indiscreetly installed in an enormous tapestried throne at the farthest end of the room. White-gloved college servants were sloshing claret into the men’s glasses, and while Scrope addressed them, the fund-raising committee was becoming rather merrier than he seemed to realize.

  “. . . the main business to be discussed today is the Brattenbury family legacy to the college endowment. As you may know, Lord Brattenbury, who was a student here in the 1950s and went on to make a fortune in Africa—gold and diamond mining—has most generously already given almost a million pounds to the college, but now, with the death of his daughter—the tragic, untimely death of his daughter India, who was an undergraduate here, and was the sole heir to the Brattenbury fortunes—there is no longer an immediate heir to the Brattenbury estate. Which means there may be the possibility of a much larger donation forthcoming to this college . . .”

  Ursula could see that Trott’s eyebrows were raised so high they were almost in liftoff mode, and Nancy whispered, “How about if Scrope killed India for her inheritance?”

  “Wouldn’t it be too obvious?” replied Ursula.

  “. . . funds which could secure the future of Christminster for the next hundred years or so. The key is to find a way to lobby Lord Brattenbury to rewrite his will in favor of Christminster College. If the matter is delicately handled with His Lordship, I imagine we could be extremely successful. Although he is only in his late forties, I have heard that the death of his only child has put his somewhat precarious health at risk. Time is of the essence.”

  “Okay, perhaps we should add Scrope to our list of suspects,” said Ursula, amazed at Scrope’s blatant desire for India’s fortune.

  There was a hubbub while the committee members chatted among themselves. Then Scrope called out to the group, “You are all distinguished alumni of the college. But is there anyone here who was an undergraduate with Brattenbury?”

  A middle-aged gentleman dressed in a tweed suit raised his hand. In the upper-crust tones of the country squire Ursula assumed he was, he said, “I seem to recall that I played a bit of rugger with ’im. Knocked ’im out cold once.”

  “Marvelous!” squawked Scrope. “The college would be most grateful if you could approach him about rewriting his will.”

  “Certainly not,” replied the other man. “I only knew Brattenbury well enough to knock ’im out, not discuss money with ’im! Scrope, you’ll have to get ’im to change ’is will yourself. Then knock ’im out and you’ll get the money quicker.”

  A chuckle ricocheted around the table but stopped dead with Scrope, who was not amused. His lips were puckered and white with frustration.

  “Right, let’s put the matter to a vote. Those in favor of me pursuing the Brattenbury fortune on behalf of the college, please raise your hand.”

  Everyone at the table, except for the gent who had knocked out Lord Brattenbury in his youth, put up their hand.

  “Right, that’s settled. The next item on the agenda: funding for a fellowship in Slavonic Linguistics . . .”

  * * *

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Nancy as the girls snuck back down towards the porter’s lodge.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Nancy. So I don’t know if I’m thinking what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m thinking that Deddington sent us up there this morning because he suspects that our dear high provost cut India’s throat himself to steal her inheritance for Christminster. I mean, Scrope would have been in college that night.”

  “Or,” said Ursula, “Deddington sent us up there because he wants us to think that he thinks that Scrope had a motive to kill India.”

  “You’re not saying that Deddington killed India and is trying to frame Scrope? What possible motive would our nice porter have?”

  “I don’t know. But I feel as if there are a squillion sides to this,” Ursula concluded. “There’s a surfeit of suspects, each with a motive to kill.”

  “Let’s go back to Dr. Dave right now,” said Nancy. “We need to find out what he was really up to on Sunday night.”

  Chapter 31

  When the girls reached Dr. Dave’s rooms that Wednesday afternoon, they found the tutor hard at work at his desk. With the great argus finally reinstated, the don, in a state of inspired excitement, was typing ferociously with one finger at a b
rand-spanking-new dark green Monica typewriter.

  “Chocolate bourbon, girls? I was just about to take a break. Now that Panoptes is back, the words are flowing faster than the Euphrates.” He got up and handed the girls an open packet of bourbon biscuits from his desk.

  “Delicious, thank you,” said Ursula, munching away.

  “Great,” said Nancy before taking a bite of hers. “Eeooow!” she erupted. Her face crumpled with displeasure while she forced down the dry biscuit. “Is it just me or do all British cookies taste like sidewalk?”

  “I’m sorry our food isn’t up to American standards, Miss Feingold. Dreadful business about the Wychwood towel, isn’t it?” he said, plopping into an armchair and sipping at a cup of tea. “God knows why he’d want to dispose of his own girlfriend. He adored her.”

  “I’m confused about something,” Nancy declared.

  “Who isn’t, my dear?” chuckled Dr. Dave. “Didn’t the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue clear things up for you?”

  “I’m not talking about the essay,” she replied. “It’s about Sunday night.”

  “Oh,” said Dr. Dave. The don’s ebullience seemed to ebb rapidly away.

  “You see, you said that you were at home that night. At your house in Cranham Terrace.”

  “Indeed. That is where I was,” he agreed.

  “But your fiancée says you weren’t there.”

  Dr. Dave’s face whitened, and he spluttered, “Now look here, you two, you’ve got no right to go snooping around my fiancée for the sake of some article in a student rag.”

  Ursula decided to step in before things got out of hand. “We didn’t tell her anything about India being found in your rooms.”

  Dr. Dave pulled a silk handkerchief from his top pocket and mopped his suddenly clammy brow.

  “Nor should you have,” he retorted. “There is no need for Fiammetta to know anything about the details of poor India’s death. She doesn’t know whether or not I was at home on Sunday night because she wasn’t there. She was in Salzburg. Usually I never go home when she is away, but on this occasion I did.”