8 Top Marks for Murder

by Robin Stevens

  ‘But not so easy to make sure that the whole table wasn’t poisoned!’ I said.

  ‘Well, we know that the people on the other side of the table didn’t eat their food, so wouldn’t want to salt it – but how lucky! Otherwise it might have been like the MacDonalds of Glencoe’s feast where everyone died.

  ‘Let’s look at the garden party next. We know the poisoned glass was his, and we also know that he was holding both of their glasses while his wife sneezed. But, Hazel – how risky! What if she had refused to take the glass back, or identified hers as the other one! It’s an odd plan, I must admit that, but it worked.

  ‘Now, that’s the how. But we ought to dig deeper into the why. What made Mr Thompson-Bates so eager to kill his wife?’

  ‘He’s off his game,’ I said. ‘He’s not winning prizes, and he won’t get much money because of that. We know he’s a gambler too, so he needs lots of it. Mrs Thompson-Bates – her family’s rich, aren’t they?’

  ‘Indeed they are,’ said Daisy. ‘Yes, if Mrs T-B dies, Mr T-B stands to inherit. And there’s something else! Remember how Lallie used to be a day girl but now she’s a boarder? Mrs Thompson-Bates used to stay at home and look after her, so she couldn’t travel with her husband. But this year she’s left Lallie at Deepdean so she could follow Mr T-B about. I bet that’s put a strain on their relationship. Perhaps she discovered the gambling, or – or simply spent enough time with him to hear stories like Patricia’s about him and her friend Phyllida! She’s angry with him, he’s angry with her – after all, there’s no one more annoying than the person you spend the most time with. Just look at you and me! Sometimes I think that I could quite cheerfully murder you.’

  ‘Daisy!’ I cried. ‘Never!’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Daisy. ‘Of course, I’d never go through with it.’

  I ignored that. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Daisy, it all makes sense. So why do we feel that we’ve missed something? Lavinia was right earlier – something seems odd. What is it?’

  7

  We sat still and thought. Even though the last tangles of the case refused to clear away, I felt suddenly calm. We were together, after all, perhaps for one last time.

  ‘We’ve run out of time,’ said Daisy, and all my peace vanished. ‘He’s outwitted us.’

  ‘We’ve done everything we can!’ I said, trying to be grown up and sound more sure than I felt.

  ‘Have we, though?’ said Daisy. She sounded quite bleak. ‘We’ve been tricked by this case, Hazel; tricked again and again. My powers of deduction – I must admit, they have been weakened. It’s coming back here and thinking about school things. It’s not good for my detective mind! And now, because we can’t solve the case, Deepdean will have to close, and Hazel – Hazel, I cannot have you living on another continent to me. That is unacceptable!’

  ‘I’d come back!’ I said, my throat tight.

  ‘But what if you couldn’t? There’ll be no fun in being the world’s greatest consulting detective if you’re not there to help me!’

  ‘We help each other!’ I said, feeling a little spark of crossness through my sorrow. ‘And stop it, Daisy. I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Not if I can help it!’ said Daisy. ‘Oh, if only we had proof! Or if I could only remember – this is stupid stuff, this is stupid stuff, this is stupid—’

  We both froze. We had heard the same thing – soft footsteps on the roof behind us.

  ‘Oh, hello!’ said Amina, as though she had come upon us in the common room rather than on top of a roof. Her long dark hair was tied back in a swinging plait, and her regulation pyjamas looked unutterably fashionable.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Daisy, astonished and rather put out.

  ‘I come up here sometimes,’ said Amina, shrugging. ‘To get away from people, you know. And I wanted space to think, after what happened this afternoon. My parents are so cross with me they’re threatening to take me away from Deepdean. They don’t understand that I did all that for them!’

  I gasped, but Daisy appeared unmoved.

  ‘So? This is our spot, you know. We found it first! You ought to go away and leave us to it.’

  Amina narrowed her eyes. ‘I won’t!’ she said. ‘Why should I? This is my school too – for the moment, at least.’

  ‘No it isn’t!’ cried Daisy. ‘It – it’s mine!’

  ‘Is that why you hate me?’ asked Amina suddenly. ‘I’ve been wondering. I know you’re in the other dorm and we’re supposed to hate each other – what a stupid rule, I don’t know why you all obey it! – but it’s more than that. I keep trying to be nice to you, but it only seems to make you more angry with me. It’s not – how I look, is it?’

  I felt covered with shame and horror. Did we really seem as though we hated Amina? I remembered my own early days at Deepdean, and how difficult it had been. If I hadn’t found Daisy to be friends with …

  ‘I – I—’ Daisy spluttered. ‘I don’t hate you! And I don’t care how you look. That is – you’re beautiful, everyone says so. That’s not important. It’s only dorm loyalty. It’s the rules!’

  ‘That won’t wash,’ said Amina, shaking her head. ‘You break plenty of rules when you think no one’s looking. Try again.’

  There was a pause. Then –

  ‘Deepdean is different this term,’ said Daisy, very reluctantly. ‘I don’t exactly— It has changed. You are part of that, and I don’t quite like it. But I don’t hate you.’

  ‘Neither do I!’ I said. ‘I’m sorry if it seemed as though we did. That’s horrid of us, and we ought not to have behaved that way. Especially as I know – I know how beastly it can be here at first, when you come from far away.’

  ‘Yes, it can,’ said Amina. ‘I thought you’d understand, and I couldn’t work out why you didn’t seem to. I thought pulling the alarm-clock prank might finally bring you on side.’

  I could feel my face burning, and I was glad it was night. ‘I did understand,’ I said. ‘I ought to have showed it. And – well, the alarm clocks were clever, but I liked what you did today better. The banner, I mean. That was brave.’

  ‘I had to say something! My parents didn’t do it, and I won’t have any more gossip about them. I love making up stories, but some things are too important to tell stories about. It’s – well, it’s worth being taken out of school over, if it comes to that.’

  ‘Do you think your parents will do that?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. They want to, but I’ve talked them out of worse things. I hope they don’t. I like this place.’

  We really had been wrong about Amina, I thought. She was determined, and clever, and I wished dreadfully we had not snubbed her this term.

  ‘Here – can we begin again?’ I asked. ‘Be friends? Whether or not you stay.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Amina.

  ‘No!’ said Daisy.

  ‘YES,’ I said, elbowing her. ‘She means yes. You’re a good person, and so am I, and so is Daisy, even though we haven’t been behaving like it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Amina, her lips quirking into a smile. ‘I’ll hold you to that. Oh, and by the way – it’s poetry.’

  ‘What’s poetry?’ asked Daisy suspiciously.

  ‘That thing you were saying, over and over. Stupid stuff. It’s from that composition Miss Dodgson gave us by accident, remember? The poetry by that man with an English name that we didn’t know. Home – no, House. House-something.’

  ‘Housman!’ shrieked Daisy. ‘HOUSMAN! I – you – Amina El Maghrabi, that does it. I forgive you for everything. Friends it is. Hazel, come with me at once.’

  We scrambled back down the drainpipe into the dorm. We had to find a copy of that poem.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ asked Kitty, astonished at our faces. ‘You were miserable just now.’

  ‘We have had an important breakthrough in the case,’ said Daisy. ‘We need two things from the three of you. First, we need you to remain on high alert during L
eaving Prayers tomorrow. We can’t stop being detectives yet, do you understand? And second, we urgently need you to help us get into the Library, first thing in the morning.’

  8

  We had only a few minutes. As we crept through the big doors from Library corridor into the high, leather-bound Library itself on Monday morning, we could hear the rumble of the organ through the walls, and thumps and shuffles as everyone took their seats in the Hall.

  Gossip was that Mr Thompson-Bates had been released without charge, and the mood on the way down to school had been sombre. Everyone seemed to be looking about themselves for murderers in the bushes or among the smartly dressed huddles of grown-ups. There is something particularly terrible about imagining a mother or a father as a criminal. They ought to be dull, safe, rather embarrassing and really hardly human, not criminals plotting dreadful murders – but as Daisy and I had discovered in the course of our adventures so far, no one is immune from suspicion, and anyone in the world might be driven to do something awful. But now here we were, and the answer to the mystery was at last almost within our grasp.

  We hurried past the bookshelves far too quickly, our feet drumming against the wooden floor. It seemed so rude to disturb the soft library hush – but this was a crucial matter of detection.

  ‘Housman, Housman, Housman,’ muttered Daisy. ‘Here it is, in Poetry! Well, it must be this Shropshire Lad thing. Heavens, there are lots. Hazel, let’s both take copies. You begin at the beginning and I’ll begin at the end and we’ll work towards each other. Scan each page for the stupid stuff line and once you’ve found it keep reading. QUICK!’

  I began scrambling through the copy I was holding, the words leaping out at me almost without meaning. It was a strange poem, very long and obscure. But it was Daisy who discovered what we were looking for.

  ‘Here, here!’ she cried. ‘Terence, this is stupid stuff – it’s poem sixty-two, at the very back.’

  As I hurried to catch up with her, she began to read, brow furrowed.

  ‘It’s all about being drunk – and then there’s some stuff about a dead cow, but …’

  She trailed off, and then she let out a shriek. ‘HAZEL! The last verse! LOOK AT IT!’

  My eyes flew down the page, and my heart stopped.

  ‘Read it to me,’ said Daisy. ‘Read it, so I don’t think I’m making it up.’

  So I began:

  ‘There was a king reigned in the East:

  There, when kings will sit to feast,

  They get their fill before they think

  With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

  He gathered all that springs to birth

  From the many-venomed earth;

  First a little, thence to more,

  He sampled all her killing store …

  They – they … PUT ARSENIC IN HIS MEAT

  AND STARED AGHAST TO WATCH HIM EAT!’

  ‘Daisy!’ My hands were shaking, and I felt short of breath. Daisy and I stared at each other, thrilled and horrified in equal measure.

  ‘Hazel – Watson – this the answer. The king in this poem – he wanted to protect himself against poisoning: he knew that lots of people would want to murder him because he was in power. So he took poison on purpose, for ages, to build up a tolerance to it. Then, when his subjects put arsenic in his meat, he could eat it up without it affecting him. THIS is why the poisonings didn’t make proper sense to us!’

  ‘But – is it really possible?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t you just die if you ate poison?’

  ‘Not if you were careful not to have too much, and your body was used to it!’ said Daisy. ‘I’ve heard about this before, once, but I wasn’t paying proper attention. Oh! This explains everything. We couldn’t get over how much uncertainty there was in the poisoning plans, could we? Why give your wife a drink when she might refuse it and force you to drink it instead? How could you be sure that poisoned salt would only kill its intended victim? The answer to both of those questions is: you wouldn’t. You couldn’t.

  ‘No one but Mrs Rivers and Mrs Thompson-Bates felt the effects of the poison, but NOT because they were the only people poisoned. Oh no! Hazel, we know now why Mr Thompson-Bates was quoting Housman at us. He’s been taking arsenic on purpose!’

  ‘But if – if Mr Thompson-Bates has been dosing himself with arsenic for long enough to build up a tolerance – why?’

  ‘As to that,’ said Daisy. ‘AS TO THAT, it’s really rather obvious. Stop thinking just about this weekend, Hazel. We mustn’t assume that the murder had to happen now. Who would Mr Thompson-Bates be guaranteed to see, again and again? And think, too, about the salt trick. If Mr Thompson-Bates was already sitting right next to Mrs Rivers, why would he need to employ something so risky? We know he could just have scattered arsenic over her plate – he didn’t need to complicate things by sending a poisoned salt cellar along the table. But someone else, sitting further away, would need to. Beanie suggested it, remember, only for the wrong person. We ought to have listened to her – it’s infuriating how clever she’s become!’

  ‘Mr Thompson-Bates picked up the salt from the table when Mrs Rivers collapsed,’ I said, thinking through it. ‘Mr Stone saw him do it. But that doesn’t mean that he was the person who brought it to dinner.’

  ‘Once again, we’ve been looking at this all wrong,’ said Daisy. ‘Everything in this case – the woods, and the dinner, and the garden party – they were all linked, but not in the way we thought. And Beanie did see a couple, a victim and a murderer. But our mistake was that we got them mixed up.’

  I nodded, shock and detective excitement thrilling through me.

  ‘We thought that we didn’t have the full story,’ I said. ‘And now we know why.’

  ‘Oh, quick, Hazel, quick, before Prayers begins!’

  And together we ran out of the Library – on our way to resolve our eighth murder case.

  9

  We were just in time. The organ, played by Rev MacLean, was giving one final blare as we slipped through the double doors and into the seats that Kitty had saved for us in the fourth-form row. The mistresses were all on stage, wearing caps and gowns and looking official.

  I glanced about, and saw the Inspector nodding at me, his hat low on his head – I wanted desperately to get to him, but several rows separated us. I saw everyone from Table Four: Mr and Mrs El Maghrabi, Mr Turnbull, Mr and Mrs Dow, Mr Stone, Mrs Thompson-Bates, pale and drawn, and rather hunched over in her seat – and next to her, looking triumphant, Mr Thompson-Bates.

  I gasped, and nudged Daisy. He was already free.

  Miss Barnard, in her billowing scholar’s gown, stood up, and she looked weakened and sad.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Thank you all for being here. As you know, this has become a weekend of tragedy, not celebration. The police have advised me that the truth of what has happened here may never be fully revealed, and so – and so I have taken the decision to close the school after this morning.’

  Her voice trembled as whispers rippled around the room, and her hands gripped the lectern.

  ‘I would also like to stress that these actions have no bearing on this school, or its proud history. Deepdean School for Girls is more than the unfortunate things that have happened within its walls.’

  There was a scattering of applause – but I noticed several concerned looks between parents. I saw Mrs Freebody making a face at Mr Freebody behind her hand, and an answering grimace from him. They could not understand what Mr Thompson-Bates was doing back at school.

  ‘But we cannot end this term – end Deepdean – without acknowledging the efforts of our girls,’ said Miss Barnard. ‘We will begin with the award for first-form singing, which goes to …’

  I was humming with nerves as Miss Barnard gave out plaques and cups and colours. Deepdean would close unless we revealed the truth. But how were we to manage it before the end of the morning?

  I was dragged back to reality when Miss Barnard said, ‘And now, the Huckerby-
Ostler Tennis Scholarship, for a girl who shows true promise in the sport. This year it is awarded to …’

  We all swivelled to look at Lallie Thompson-Bates, who was huddled among the other third formers. She looked utterly miserable, and I felt desperately sorry for her. Poor Lallie – and if only she knew what we were intending to say!

  ‘… LAVINIA TEMPLE,’ said Miss Barnard.

  ‘NO IT ISN’T!’ said Lavinia loudly. Kitty let out a squeal and Beanie flung her arms around Lavinia, who had gone rigid with shock.

  ‘I assure you, it is,’ said Miss Barnard. ‘Please come and collect your award, Miss Temple. Hurry up!’

  Lavinia, absolutely scarlet with confusion, staggered out of her seat and onto the stage, almost dropping the small cup as Miss Barnard handed it to her. We whooped and cheered, and I turned round to see Patricia standing up and clapping frantically, as Mr Temple tried to get her to sit down. ‘BRAVO, LAVINIA!’ she screamed. ‘That’s my … my stepdaughter! She’s won a prize!’

  ‘I’ve had a thought!’ Daisy whispered to me under cover of the clapping. ‘I would never ordinarily suggest this, but I believe these are desperate times. Hazel, the next time any of us wins a prize, we have to tell the school who the murderer really is when we get up on stage.’

  ‘That’s an idiotic idea!’ I gasped. It was so dramatic, and it went against all our Deepdean training. A girl could not simply take over the stage and give a speech at the best of times – much less a speech accusing a grown-up of being a cold-blooded murderer. ‘And what if no one else wins a prize?’

  ‘Of course we will,’ said Daisy, rolling her eyes. ‘We’re all quite brilliant. And anyway – didn’t you hear Barny? She means to close the school after this morning. If we don’t speak now, we’ll lose our chance of proving to everyone what really happened. It’s our last chance!’