Laurels are Poison (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

“Means a Dem. for you, my duck, as soon as we start them,” said Kitty. At these fell words poor Alice turned pale, but her Group noticed, all the same, that she had a crisp word of command and possessed that uncanny sense of being able to have the whole class in her eye which marks the born practitioner. The Group were encouraged, at the beginning of every lecture, to take turns at giving a few commands, and these were criticized, not verbally, but by the reactions of the squad to the voice, manner, personality, and choice of words of the embryo instructor. Thus Kitty had contrived to get a whole Group lying on their backs with their legs in the air, bicycling away to the point of incipient apoplexy, and then had been obliged to turn to the lecturer and observe that that seemed to be that and for the life of her she didn’t know how to get them standing on their feet again.

  “I mean, I could tell them to do it, but that wouldn’t be right, would it?” she had continued earnestly. The lecturer declined to assist her, and the students, after risking heart-failure by carrying on with the exercise as long as they could, one by one restored themselves to an upright position and began to dust themselves down.

  “A well-behaved class. I congratulate you on your discipline, Miss Trevelyan,” said the lecturer, with her usual irony. The students took the hint, raised pandemonium, dusted each other down instead of themselves, and were ultimately called to order by the lecturer herself, who thereupon addressed the crestfallen and perspiring Kitty in these terms:

  “Now I want you to imagine, Miss Trevelyan, that I am a Board of Education Inspector, and that you are on probation at your first post. What have you to say for yourself? Is there any reason why the Government and the ratepayers should support you?”

  “No, Miss Wootton. I’d better learn up the book of words,” replied Kitty with her usual amiability.

  “And so you’d better,” said Laura afterwards. “I might tell you that in the general mêlée—which certainly was of a sumptuous kind—I got home a couple of juicy clouts athwart the beam of that toad in Edmund who swiped my hockey stick last week, so we didn’t lose all along the line. But to get a mob of kids round your neck in a P.T. lesson is no joke, young K., and don’t you forget it. You’d better get Alice to put you through your paces beforehand if ever you click a Dem.”

  “I shan’t click a Dem.,” said Kitty. “It’s only the star-turns that get Dems.”

  “Don’t you believe it. Some achieve Dems., but a darned sight more are apt to get Dems. thrust upon them. One of the Second-Years told me that sometimes they pick the names out of a hat.”

  “I should go sick,” said Kitty with simple omniscience.

  “Not in Athelstan you wouldn’t,” retorted Laura meaningly.

  “Why not?”

  “Mrs. Crocodile is a doctor, fully qualified. She’ll give you the once-over and sling you out into the cold and dreary night as soon as look at you. You’ll be Little Orphan Annie in two shakes of a lamb’s tail if you try that game on with her. Minnie Poppleton, that Second-Year golumph on our floor, tried it on last week to get an essay written for the Deb, and out she came like a bullet. The old girl threatened her with a stomach pump. Yes, as sure as I’m standing in front of this notice-board. You know, that bunch keep cocktails in their hat-boxes, and apparently Mrs. Croc. is wise to the goings-on.”

  “It isn’t forbidden,” said Alice, sharply.

  “Only because the Principal hasn’t thought of it as being a possible thing to do. Don’t tell me, my dear d’Artagnan, that we cherish a secret drinker in our bosoms.”

  “No, of course not. Only I don’t see that Mrs. Bradley has any right to interfere when there isn’t a rule.”

  “Don’t thump tubs, duck. It don’t become a young woman. After all, if it comes to that, there isn’t a rule to say that you mustn’t go over to Wattsdown after dark and dance on the college dining-table when the boys are asleep in their beds, and yet, strange to say, the Principal sent down, for the duration and without a character, a bright girl named Billings some four years ago for doing just that same.”

  “Was she tight?” inquired Kitty, interested in this exploit.

  “Tight? No. She did it to win a bet. No harm in the girl whatever. But the Principal took a Grave View, as, after all, who would not? Anyway, it didn’t matter. She went in for journalism and has never looked back. Billings, I mean. My sister knows her quite well.”

  Alice and Laura did put their names down, and the college having retained five of its netball team from the previous winter—two Third-Years, one of whom was staying on for a special course in P.T., and three Second-Years—there were only two vacancies, of which Alice obtained one without difficulty, and treated Laura and Kitty to doughnuts and coffee at the college buffet on the strength of it. Laura, whose game was hockey, scraped in, she informed the others, by sheer ability to chuck her weight about, finesse having no place, so far as she had been able to gather, in the operations of the eleven.

  Kitty made one or two abortive efforts to shed lustre on herself and her friends, but without success, her most notable effort being an attempt to become a member of the Twenty-Nine Club, a highbrow society which read Russian plays and discussed the ballet.

  “But I can’t see what the devil you would have done if they had admitted you,” said Laura frankly.

  “Why, of course you do! I should have given my impression of Hermione Baddeley giving her impression of a prima ballerina.”

  “It’s a wow, as a matter of fact. I’ve seen her do it,” said Laura confidentially to Alice. “And if we have a smoking concert, or its equivalent, in Hall, at the end of the term, we must have it. It’s hardly for a mixed audience.”

  In consequence of Laura’s and Alice’s inclusion in college teams, Kitty was sometimes left to her own devices. It happened that the college had fixtures for every Saturday in October, and it was on the last of these, the Saturday before half-term, that the next of what were referred to later by Laura as the Athelstan Incidents took place. There was an optional study-period on Saturday mornings, but it ended at noon. Lunch was at twelve-thirty on Saturdays so that students could get away early for afternoon excursions. As it happened, both Laura and Alice had matches. Kitty—to whom a period of optional study was merely time spent in happy and, in a sense, profitable idleness, for she devoted most of the study-periods to designing those fashions in hairdressing for which, five years later, she became famous—volunteered to sneak out of Hall at ten and make her way snakily into the town in order to purchase doughnuts, ginger-beer, fruit, chocolate, and potato crisps. She accepted commissions from about a quarter of Athelstan, and abstracted a small suitcase from the boxroom, which was no longer locked up.

  Alice had no money, except the return fare for the match and her Sunday church collection, for it was the end of the month. Nearly everybody else was short, but Laura had had a windfall, and had floated a succession of small loans. In response to what she termed a Grade A blood-sucking letter, her people had sent her November allowance in advance, and, in addition to this, a brother who had received promotion and a rise in salary, “came up big,” as his sister observed contentedly, and had sent a couple of pounds.

  By half-past eleven Kitty was back, and at twenty-five to twelve she encountered the Warden on the back-staircase.

  “Ah, Miss Trevelyan, well met,” said Mrs. Bradley. Kitty, who was making valiant efforts to hide the bursting suitcase with which she was burdened, responded politely and began to make conversation about the weather, the close atmosphere of her study-bedroom, and the probability of the College winning their matches that afternoon. Mrs. Bradley listened attentively. Then she stretched forth a skinny hand for the suitcase, and asked permission to inspect its contents.

  “Doughnuts,” she pronounced. “How many, child?”

  “A—well, I got a couple of dozen, actually,” said Kitty, who, with all her gifts, was no liar.

  “Threes into twenty-four goes eight. Is it wise, do you think, for Miss Menzies and Miss Boorman to eat eight doug
hnuts each before they play games?”

  “Well,” said Kitty candidly, “I shouldn’t think Dog and Alice will have doughnuts. I mean, you see—well, it was for several of us, actually.”

  “I’ll come up with you and see fair play,” said the Warden. So she did, and ate two doughnuts and two-pennyworth of crisps. Of the fact that one of the Principal’s rules relating to Saturday morning leave had been broken, she seemed blandly unaware.

  “You know,” said Laura, later, “I like the old girl, and I don’t care who hears me say so. That was the one o’clock news, loves. In other words, the gong for lunch. And I might tell you that, from what my spies mutter, the Second-Years think the grub here has improved at least two hundred per cent since La Belle Dame sans Merci took it over. Fat Finnigan stated that if Miss Murchan got appendicitis, it was probably from eating college stew.”

  “The improvement may be due to the Deb,” said Alice loyally.

  “The Deb my foot!” said Laura. “All personalities aside, and allowing fully for Samivel, my son, my son, bevare o’ the vidders, the improvement noted by our revered seniors is due simply, solely, wholly, and completely to Mrs. Crocodile. Besides, we’ve kept the same servants in Athelstan for nearly half a term, and that, it appears, not counting Cook, of course, is a college record.”

  After lunch she and Alice went off, and Kitty decided to go down to the field to watch the Second Eleven match. The match ended and the teams went in to tea. Kitty returned to Athelstan to get her own tea from the Servery, for on Saturdays and Sundays no evening meal was provided, and the students supplied their own suppers at half-past nine.

  Hall was deserted except for a couple of Second-Year students who were spending Saturday working. One was a tall, thin girl with round shoulders who appeared to have no friends; the other was a rather too popular member of her year who had been told by the Principal at the end of the previous term that unless she did some work she would be sent down for good. Her name was Cartwright. The thin student’s name was Giggs. Both were already at the Servery when Kitty arrived, but neither spoke to the other. Kitty spoke to both. As she was fond of explaining to Alice and to Laura, she was not proud, and would much rather talk to seniors than to nobody.

  To Miss Giggs she said: “Well, what’s the pot of poison this time?”

  Miss Giggs laughed dutifully, but did not supply any information. To Miss Cartwright Kitty said: “Anybody else staying in this afternoon?”

  “Shouldn’t think so,” replied Miss Cartwright. “I say, can you lend me a bob until Thursday?”

  Rather reluctantly Kitty permitted this inconvenient loan to be floated out of money she herself had already borrowed from Laura.

  “Thanks tremendously,” said Miss Cartwright. “Do the same for you later. I must say,” she continued, scanning her plate with an indulgent and even slightly enthusiastic eye, “that the old serpent does us a lot better in Hall than Miss Murchan used to. By the way, when you take your crockery back, look out where you put your feet. There’s a kind of creosote or something all over the boxroom floor. I went there to get another frock out of my trunk…Why, what the devil has Giggs got on her feet?” she added, staring at the retreating form of the friendless student as, having come out from the Servery, she walked along the passage towards the stairs.

  Kitty, who often acted upon impulse, put down her plate and hurried after her.

  “The footwear,” she said. “How come?”

  “Oh, my slippers?” said Miss Giggs, looking at a pair of scarlet satin evening shoes in an embarrassed manner and tilting her full plate dangerously. “I—well, it was just to rest my feet while I did my Advanced English essay.”

  “Very tasty,” said Kitty; and, before Miss Giggs knew what had happened, she had left her and was tearing up the front staircase as hard as she could go. She knew Miss Giggs’s room. It was on the same floor as her own. Miss Giggs occupied Number Thirty-Three, next to the bathrooms.

  Actuated, she stated later to the grinning Laura and the scandalized Alice, by the highest motive of all, that of pure detective fever, she burst into Miss Giggs’s room and dragged open her hat-box. These receptacles were large and square, and were made of wood, forming an extra seat in each study-bedroom. In Miss Giggs’s hat-box was a pair of shoes so sticky that the newspaper on which they had been placed came up with them. The smell given off by the hat-box was undoubtedly that of strong disinfectant.

  Kitty knew that it would be some seconds before Miss Giggs, carrying a full plate, could reach the cubicle, so she stole, with her prize, back to the front staircase, and descended to the first floor. She knew that Mrs. Bradley and Deborah were both out, so she nipped round the first corner she came to, entered the Warden’s bathroom, and placed the shoes, still on their newspaper, at the far end, underneath the bath. Then she descended the front stairs to the Servery, retrieved her plate, and went pensively into the Common Room. Once there, she ate the food as quickly as she could, did not go back to the Servery for cakes or a cup of tea, but paid a hasty visit to the boxroom.

  At about half-past six Alice came back to Athelstan, and a quarter of an hour later Laura arrived. Both were tired; Laura disgruntled.

  “Got a goal; a beauty,” she began.

  “Offside,” concluded Alice and Kitty in chorus. Laura grinned.

  “Win?” inquired Kitty of Alice.

  “Eighteen, three. Good game, though. Better than it sounds,” Alice replied. “Have you enjoyed yourself?”

  Kitty seized the opportunity.

  “Is Mathers back in Hall yet?” she inquired.

  “No. Why?” inquired Alice; but Laura, who had been acquainted with Kitty for some years, seized her by the sleeve and said: “Spill.”

  “Somebody’s been assing about in the boxroom again.”

  “What? Not more clothes chewed up?”

  “Not this time. At least, I don’t think so. I want to get hold of Mathers, though, and tell her to shove up a notice warning people not to go paddling about down there. It’s in the most frightful mess.”

  “Blood?” asked Laura, rolling her eyes at Alice.

  “No; as a matter of fact it is that creosote stuff the odd man uses for disinfectant. Somebody has kicked a tin of it over, deliberately I should think, and what’s more, I know who, and she doesn’t want it known, so I’ve swiped her shoes as evidence.”

  “Be yourself, dear,” urged her friend. “You befog me. Does she befog you, Alice?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” replied Alice seriously. “She means someone’s been assing about again, and this time she knows who it is.”

  “Considering that in the Matric. paper she didn’t know Hamlet was the hero of Hamlet, I doubt that very much indeed,” retorted Laura. “But, come on, K. Don’t leave us agonizing like this. Tell us all. Come on upstairs, anyway. Why are we wasting strength propping up this beastly Common Room?”

  “I can’t tell you anything upstairs, because it’s Giggs,” returned Kitty. “Come closer. I don’t want to shout.”

  “But we ought to find out more about it,” said Deborah. “After all, if it isn’t carelessness it’s some more of this horrible destructiveness, like those clothes belonging to the twins, and I do think we owe it to the innocent students to find out the guilty ones, don’t you?”

  “I suppose so,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I want you to come with me to have another look at it, now that they’re all in bed—or, at any rate, upstairs.”

  The inmates, as Laura preferred to call herself and her fellow-students, had been duly warned about the state of the boxroom floor, and had been particularly requested by the Warden not to tread the disinfectant about the house. The warning and the request had been observed, and the boxroom was in about the same condition as when Kitty had seen it.

  “And now,” said Mrs. Bradley, stepping delicately, “for our most interesting exhibit, which is not, as you seem to imagine, the dark and treacly fluid which is crawling over the floor, but the reason for its
egress from the tins.”

  The tins were large, green, and rectangular. Each had a small handle on top, after the style of those on petrol cans. There were six tins. Each one had a small circular perforation in the middle of one side.

  “Quite deliberately done, you see,” Mrs. Bradley went on. “No fumbling; no having several shots, as many people do when they attempt to open a tin; just a neatly-drilled hole expressive of a determined and bold personality.”

  “Expressive of a man, not a woman,” suggested Deborah.

  “I don’t know. Some of the games-playing young are surely capable of a smack like that on a tin.”

  “Do you think Miss Giggs is our man?”

  “No, child. But it would be interesting to know, all the same, why Miss Giggs, instead of complaining bitterly about the damage done to her shoes, should have gone off and hidden them in her hat-box.”

  “I think one of us ought to interview her. After all, several of the students know about the shoes. We ought to accuse her and let her make an explanation.”

  “Very well, child. Suppose you interview her tomorrow morning immediately after breakfast?”

  “I thought perhaps you’d be the better person.”

  “Yes, I should be. But you are more sympathetic,” said Mrs. Bradley grinning. “Well, Oates will have a very pleasant task cleaning up all this mess tomorrow. Come along, child. Time you went to bed.”

  Deborah interviewed Miss Giggs in the morning, as Mrs. Bradley had suggested. Although in a sense she felt sorry for the friendless girl, she could not shake off a feeling of acute dislike, an unpleasant impression of repulsion, when the student came into her room. She appeared armed with the Book of Common Prayer, Hymns Ancient and Modern, and was wearing gloves and a hat.

  “Oh, I’m going to make you late for church,” said Deborah, apologetically, afflicted immediately by a sensation familiar to her at her last post, that of being, somehow, put in the wrong by a culprit before she could begin an unpleasant interview. It was one of the reasons why she had given up a teaching post.