Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery

by Stevens, Robin

  ‘Of course I’m sure!’ I said. ‘Straight after Prayers! All of us!’

  ‘All of us!’ said Beanie.

  ‘All of us,’ sighed Kitty.

  ‘I suppose,’ grumbled Lavinia, and the hymn ended.

  3

  As soon as Prayers was over, and the lines of us were streaming out of the Hall, we ducked and dodged from form to form, Daisy in the lead, on our way to find Jones. We were heading towards the North Lawn, but we did not have to go so far – we came upon him in Library corridor. He had on his usual stained old overalls, but the scowl on his wrinkled face was unusually heavy, and his lazy right eye was more off-true than I had ever seen it. There was a bag on his back, and a rolled-up bit of canvas in his arms, and he was wearing his hat indoors.

  Daisy blinked at him. ‘Jones!’ she cried. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m leaving, Miss Daisy,’ said Jones, his shoulders hunched, and his lazy eye shifted uncomfortably. ‘Headmistress’s orders.’

  ‘But … you can’t!’ said Daisy shrilly, not worried about being overheard, although we were in the middle of a stream of girls, and speaking to the handyman so familiarly is a terrible breach of Deepdean etiquette. ‘It wasn’t your fault that the rake was there!’

  ‘I’m afraid it was,’ said Jones.

  Beanie gasped, and I felt upset, as though a rug had been pulled from under me. Was Jones admitting it had been his mistake after all? Had Elizabeth’s death been an accident, and had we merely been imagining the murder?

  ‘I don’t remember leaving that rake there,’ Jones went on sorrowfully. ‘I used it to sweep up some leaves on the field yesterday afternoon, before I built the bonfire, and I could have sworn I left it leaning against the pavilion before you all arrived. But then, there it was, next to Miss Elizabeth. I must be going cracked, and there’s no use for a cracked handyman at Deepdean, is there? Like Miss B says, perhaps I oughtn’t to be around you all. So I’ve agreed to go quietly. No hard feelings.’

  ‘No hard feelings!’ Daisy cried. ‘But … Jones—’

  ‘Now, Miss Daisy, don’t fret,’ said Jones. ‘You won’t even notice I’m gone. It’s kind of you to pretend, but I must be getting on. Miss Daisy. Girls. Er.’ He tipped his hat at Daisy, nodded at Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia, and stared awkwardly at my ear, and then he carried on down the corridor, towards Old Wing and the way out of Deepdean.

  Daisy was left gasping in shock. For once she was not even pretending. Jones matters to her, both as part of Deepdean and (I know, although she has never said it) in his own right.

  ‘This is dreadful!’ she burst out. ‘This – it isn’t right! It wasn’t his fault – how can he be punished for it?’

  ‘Daisy, do you have a heart after all?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘I have a conscience, and so should you,’ said Daisy.

  ‘But if he didn’t move that rake,’ I said, because I could not stop myself, ‘and he really did leave it propped up against the pavilion, then—’

  ‘It was the murderer who took it!’ Daisy finished triumphantly. ‘Again, it all points to one of the Five! They were going between the pavilion, where the firewood was, and the fire, all the way through the evening, to stoke it. Any one of them could have picked up the rake along with a stack of firewood and hit Elizabeth with it. No one else could have been carrying that rake about without attracting notice, and we know that no one did notice, because no one’s mentioned seeing it in an odd place before it was found next to Elizabeth. It fits! It has to be one of them!’ We grinned at each other. ‘But – oh, how horrid. By using the rake, instead of just a bit of wood, the murderer must have known that Jones would be blamed. They did it on purpose – to frame him!’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Beanie in horror. ‘Would they really?’

  ‘They did murder someone, Beans,’ said Kitty. ‘Framing someone isn’t even half as bad.’

  But it was, I thought. Why, Jones might have been sent to jail for it. It was a horrid thing to do. This murderer, whoever it was, truly was dreadful. We had to catch them – it was our duty.

  ‘Now—’ Daisy began again.

  Una came down the corridor suddenly, at the end of a trail of first-form shrimps. ‘You lot!’ she snapped. ‘Fourth formers! Why are you out of your lines? Get back in at once, or you’ll be punished!’

  All of us flinched automatically. But then Lavinia shook back her hair and glared at Una. ‘No we won’t,’ she said.

  This time it was Kitty who gasped.

  ‘Lavinia!’ said Daisy, scandalized.

  Una went scarlet. ‘How dare you!’ she said. ‘Why, haven’t you any respect?’

  ‘Haven’t you?’ asked Lavinia boldly. ‘Elizabeth Hurst is dead. You can’t punish us. You’re supposed to be in mourning for her.’

  For a moment I thought that Una might slap her. She stepped backwards, her whole face flushed and her mouth open. ‘I—’ she said. ‘I— Get to your form room at once! Get out! Go!’

  We five turned and – not ran, because that would be against Deepdean rules, but walked, as quickly as we could, away from Una. I was shaking all over, and Beanie was making little whimpering noises.

  ‘Lavinia!’ gasped Kitty, once we were a safe distance away. ‘Whatever came over you?’

  ‘Well, why should we do what they say any more?’ asked Lavinia, sticking her chin out. ‘Whether or not I believe that one of them murdered Elizabeth, everything’s changed. Can’t you feel it?’

  I knew what she meant. Things had changed at Deepdean. All the rules had bent, and the power had moved. Elizabeth Hurst’s reign was over, and none of us knew what would happen next.

  ‘Well, it was very bold of you,’ said Daisy, frowning. ‘But listen, the important thing is Jones. You saw him just now. He won’t fight for himself, and that means that we need to fight for him. We have to!’

  ‘We will!’ I said, to comfort her, for she looked truly upset. ‘We’re the Detective Society. That’s what we do.’

  4

  At bunbreak (slices of Madeira cake, which was lovely), gossip about Jones was all over the lawn.

  ‘Jones has left!’ said Clementine as we stood in a shivering huddle on North Lawn, peering up at the heavy grey sky.

  ‘We know,’ said Daisy shortly.

  ‘It’s because he was the one who caused the accident,’ said Clementine, full of her news. ‘You heard Miss Barnard. He was the one who left out the rake, that Elizabeth stepped on.’

  My heart chilled. It was true. Poor Jones really was being framed.

  Daisy’s hands were clenched against her skirt. For once, she was struggling to control herself. ‘It’s not right!’ she said at last. ‘Jones belongs at Deepdean.’

  ‘Huh!’ said Clementine. ‘It’s not as though he’s one of us.’ And she walked away.

  ‘Oh, how horrid!’ said Beanie. She had gone quite pale. I did not know whether she meant Jones’s dismissal, or Clementine’s snobbishness. I might have agreed with her about both.

  ‘It isn’t just horrid!’ said Daisy. ‘It’s … why, it’s unbearable.’ She looked straight at me, and I have only once before seen her eyes more blue and more desperate: at Fallingford last spring.

  I opened my mouth, and then there was a shriek from across the grass. A second former, Daisy’s little informant Betsy North, was waving something – a bit of paper – in the air. ‘Listen to this!’ she cried. ‘Oh, just listen to the note I’ve found!’

  Everyone on the lawn turned to her. I looked at Daisy, and saw her shoulders tense.

  ‘Astrid Frith dyes her hair!’ read out Betsy triumphantly. ‘She isn’t really blonde.’

  There were gasps. Everyone turned to look at the group of Big Girls, Astrid among them, who were standing watch in the doorway to the Library corridor to stop us going back in before the end of bunbreak. Her hair sang out, bright blonde. Was it true?

  But Betsy had not finished. ‘And there’s another one on the other side of the paper!’ she cried. ‘
It’s even better! Pippa Daventry’s parents aren’t married. Her father has a first wife in Australia!’ Her friends gasped and squealed, but around them the lawn had gone dangerously quiet. I could hear a rook high up in the trees call, and rain in the distance. Pippa Daventry, another Big Girl, was shrinking away from her friends, shaking her head. ‘It isn’t true!’ she said. ‘Daddy wouldn’t!’

  ‘Mine isn’t true either!’ said Astrid desperately. ‘It’s natural, it is. I wouldn’t ever—’

  Daisy sprang into action. She marched across the grass towards the second formers, who stumbled rather as she approached, their faces dropping. Betsy looked rather nervous.

  ‘Give that to me,’ Daisy said.

  Betsy held it up, but she did not hand it over yet. ‘Someone dropped a bit of paper,’ she said. ‘I found it just by the edge of the grass, there. I’m only reading what it says – it’s nothing to do with me!’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Daisy. ‘Hand it over now.’

  There was a pause, and then Betsy scowled, and put the paper in Daisy’s hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ Daisy said coldly to Betsy, and stuffed it in her school bag.

  ‘Come on!’ said Kitty, motioning to the rest of us, and she went rushing over to Daisy. The other girls were watching, fascinated. Daisy’s face as she turned to us was calm, but her fingers were gripping her bag as tight as anything.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘I’ll tell you later!’ said Daisy sharply. That surprised me. Was she stalling? Was it possible that she did not know what she had just been given? Daisy likes to know everything that goes on at Deepdean – she prides herself on it – so for her to have come up against a surprise was truly unusual.

  ‘I say,’ said Betsy. ‘This isn’t fair. I found it. I want it back!’

  ‘No!’ said Daisy. The bell rang. ‘Go to your lesson! Bunbreak’s over.’

  ‘But what does the paper mean?’ Beanie asked again. ‘I don’t understand!’

  ‘Neither does Daisy,’ said Lavinia.

  The look that Daisy gave her then was furious.

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ said Kitty. ‘Move it, Pippa’s coming over!’

  Pippa Daventry was indeed marching towards us, a very cross look on her face, and if the second bell for the beginning of lessons had not gone at that moment, giving us an excuse to rush for Library corridor, away from the worsening rain, I do not know what might have happened.

  5

  The first lesson after bunbreak was French, and Daisy was mysteriously absent. She stores up excuse letters from mistresses to use in emergencies, and before she slipped away she had pushed one into my hand. I gave it to Mamzelle, who spent the lesson convinced that Daisy was carrying out a most important task for Miss Morris, the Art mistress – although, really, I do not think Daisy needed to bother. Mamzelle was far too distracted by what had happened to Elizabeth.

  ‘Morning, giirrrls,’ she said, rolling her Rs in the particularly strong way that I knew meant she was worried. ‘Settle down, settle down, s’il vous plaît! Silence!’

  But we could not be silent after what had happened at bunbreak.

  The handy thing about Mamzelle is that she is good at knowing when she is beaten. After ten minutes of trying to discuss the passé composé in a room of girls buzzing with horror about Elizabeth Hurst’s death and the mysterious notes, she simply shrugged, chalked up Write an essay about your last weekend on the board, and sat down at her desk with the latest copy of Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal. I got a creepy feeling – for, of course, this reminded me of last year, when Miss Bell died, and lessons had fallen apart. I knew, from the way Mamzelle was turning over pages, that she was feeling the same.

  At last the bell rang, and we all sprang out of our seats. I was desperate to know where Daisy had gone, and what she had discovered.

  ‘Slowly, girls! Lentement!’ shouted Mamzelle, and was ignored. We poured out into the corridor, and I craned to look for Daisy, but I could not see her. Then, as girls shoved around us, we heard a shriek. There were two Big Girls, one of them weeping.

  ‘That’s Heather Montefiore!’ hissed Clementine. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘There’s been another note found!’ I heard a third former say next to us. ‘There must have been! Ooh!’

  ‘It isn’t true!’ Heather was saying loudly as we pushed closer. ‘It isn’t!’

  ‘Then why is it on this paper?’ asked her friend. ‘You lied to me!’

  ‘It’s … it was a misunderstanding!’ cried Heather. ‘That’s what Mummy says. Oh, do listen to me!’

  ‘Your uncle is in a loony bin,’ said her friend furiously. ‘You told me he was a war hero, when really he deserted. It’s shameful! I shall never listen to anything you say again!’

  Now, Heather Montefiore is not particularly nice, especially not this year, but at that moment, as her friend stepped away from her in disgust, I felt dreadfully sorry for her. I still did not understand where these secrets had come from, but I knew that Deepdean was full of awful things; things that no one mentioned, that went bubbling away under the surface of life. What was happening? Why were they all suddenly coming to light?

  I turned to see what the others thought of this, and saw Daisy next to me, as though she had never been gone. But she had gone pale, even paler than at bunbreak, with just a burn of colour at the tops of her cheeks. I knew that look – she was quite tearingly angry.

  ‘How dare someone be letting out secrets like this! It’s dreadful! Secrets are … precious, they mustn’t be abused like this! It simply isn’t right! It’s not!’

  I squeezed her hand. I realized that this must be her worst nightmare. She loves to think herself omnipotent, and is terrified that despite all her plotting and information-gathering, she cannot control everything.

  ‘We’ll work it out,’ I said. ‘We always do. And we’ll find out who’s behind it – who wrote the notes, I mean.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Daisy. ‘As to that, that’s not a mystery. That’s where I was, just now. I had a theory, and it paid off.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Exactly what I say,’ said Daisy. ‘I took that page Betsy found and compared it to a detention list that’s pinned up on one of the boards – one that Elizabeth wrote on Monday. The writing matched.’

  ‘You mean the secrets are from Elizabeth?’ I gasped.

  ‘Who else? Oh, come now, Hazel, isn’t it obvious?’

  I did not think so. As we went to Maths, my head was in a whirl. The secrets were Elizabeth’s! But if someone had them now, and was releasing them, how had they got them? And – an even worse thought – it was suddenly as though Elizabeth had not died. She could still spread her poison through the school. We were not free of her after all.

  6

  I could tell that Daisy was now focused on the case like a dog with a bone (she dreamed all the way through Maths, and got all the questions in our test right by mistake), and so was I. I knew we had to break Elizabeth’s spell, and save Jones. But certain other members of the Detective Society still needed persuading.

  ‘You still haven’t told me why I should bother,’ said Lavinia as we walked up to House for lunch. ‘What do I care if stupid Elizabeth is dead, and stupid Jones has been blamed for it? What does it matter if Elizabeth wrote down secrets, and some of them have been found?’

  Of course, I had made Daisy tell the other three about her handwriting discovery.

  ‘It isn’t about whether you care or not,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s about the principle of the thing! And anyway, secrets are private. They oughtn’t to be spread. What if one had been about you?’

  ‘But they weren’t about me,’ said Lavinia. ‘What do I care about the Big Girls? And anyway, if Elizabeth was writing down those things, why should I care that she’s dead?’

  ‘It does make her look even nastier,’ agreed Kitty.

  ‘That doesn’t matter!’ said Daisy. ‘It isn’t about the victim. It’s justi
ce, I said so before.’

  ‘And even if she was horrid, she died!’ cried Beanie, at the same time as Kitty said, ‘Besides, it’s the fun of the puzzle, don’t you see that?’

  I ought to have joined in the argument, but my mind was stuck in the new letter I was composing to Alexander. It was so clear that it almost seemed to float in front of my eyes, instead of the wet grey of the path, and the woolly grey of our uniforms, and the streaked black of the trees. I wanted to tell him everything that had happened, despite Daisy’s prohibition – after all, he was Alexander, and he was my friend.

  I was so busy thinking about this that I did not expect what happened at lunch. It was minced lamb, with sticky toffee pudding for afters, and we were just clearing away the smeary lamb-plates (I was excited about the pudding) when there was a frantic burst of giggling from the second-form table, which Enid was supervising.

  ‘Quiet!’ she said, slapping the table with her open French book – but she was ignored.

  The giggling increased, and then Lettice flew up from where she was sitting with the fifth formers and whirled over to the main giggler, Betsy North. ‘Stop it!’ she shrieked. The second formers all drew in a breath and leaned back slightly. Lettice in a rage is quite chilling. ‘Whatever is it? You – North – what’s that in your hand? Give it to me!’

  ‘But I found it,’ said Betsy, who does not always know what is good for her. ‘Again! It’s the second time today.’ Lettice merely leaned forward and snatched whatever she was holding straight out of her hands. I saw that it was paper – of exactly the same sort as the page from earlier. It was torn too, just like the first piece, and it was not hard to guess that it was from the same place. From Elizabeth.

  ‘Oh!’ said Betsy. ‘Why does everyone keep taking them away from me? I found both bits, I say!’

  ‘Where did you get this?’ Lettice hissed. Her face had drained of colour quite completely. The whole Dining Room had gone still, and everyone was staring at Lettice and Betsy. I looked around at the rest of the Five. Una’s pretty blonde face was stark with panic, Florence looked simply ill, Margaret was gulping like a frog and Enid had gone absolutely pinched. I realized something: like Daisy, the Five all knew exactly who the paper had belonged to. And, more than that, what they knew made them afraid. Did this have something to do not just with Elizabeth Hurst, but with the mystery of her death?