8 Top Marks for Murder Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Dedication

  DEEPDEAN SCHOOL

  PART ONE: WHAT BEANIE SAW Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  PART TWO: IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  PART THREE: CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  PART FOUR: PERIL AMONG THE PARENTS Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  PART FIVE: THE LIFE OF THE PARTY Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  PART SIX: SPARKLING ARSENIC Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  PART SEVEN: FOR THE SAKE OF THE SCHOOL Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Daisy’s Guide to Deepdean

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  Read More

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Robin was born in California and grew up in an Oxford college, across the road from the house where Alice in Wonderland lived. She has been making up stories all her life.

  When she was twelve, her father handed her a copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and she realised that she wanted to be either Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie when she grew up.

  She spent her teenage years at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, reading a lot of murder mysteries and hoping that she’d get the chance to do some detecting herself (she didn’t). She went to university, where she studied crime fiction, and then she worked at a children’s publisher.

  Robin is now a full-time author, and her books, The Murder Most Unladylike Mysteries and The Guggenheim Mystery, are both award-winning and bestselling. She lives in Oxford.

  Also available by Robin Stevens:

  MURDER MOST UNLADYLIKE

  ARSENIC FOR TEA

  FIRST CLASS MURDER

  JOLLY FOUL PLAY

  MISTLETOE AND MURDER

  A SPOONFUL OF MURDER

  DEATH IN THE SPOTLIGHT

  Tuck-box-sized mysteries:

  CREAM BUNS AND CRIME

  THE CASE OF THE MISSING TREASURE

  Based on an idea and characters by Siobhan Dowd:

  THE GUGGENHEIM MYSTERY

  For my husband David:

  you’re not in any of my books, I promise.

  Being an account of

  The Case of the Anniversary Weekend Murder, an investigation by the Wells and Wong Detective Society.

  Written by Hazel Wong (Detective Society Vice-President and Secretary), aged almost 15.

  Begun Saturday 4th July 1936.

  DEEPDEAN SCHOOL

  THE STAFF

  Miss Barnard, ‘Barny’ – Headmistress

  Miss Lappet – History and Latin mistress

  Mr MacLean – Reverend

  Mademoiselle Renauld, ‘Mamzelle’ – French mistress

  Miss Runcible – Science mistress

  Miss Morris – Music and Art mistress

  Miss Dodgson – English mistress

  Miss Talent – Games mistress

  Mrs Minn, ‘Minny’ – Nurse

  Matron – Matron

  THE GIRLS

  Daisy Wells – Fourth Former and President of the Wells & Wong Detective Society

  Hazel Wong – Fourth Former and Vice-President and Secretary of the Wells & Wong Detective Society

  Lavinia Temple – Fourth Former and Detective Society Member

  Rebecca ‘Beanie’ Martineau – Fourth Former and Detective Society Member

  Kitty Freebody – Fourth Former and Detective Society Member

  BIG GIRLS

  Pippa Daventry

  Alice Murgatroyd

  Astrid Frith

  Emmeline Moss

  Jennifer Stone

  FOURTH FORMERS

  Clementine Delacroix

  Sophie Croke-Finchley

  Rose Pritchett

  Jose Pritchett

  Amina El Maghrabi

  THIRD FORMERS

  Lallie Thompson-Bates

  Binny Freebody

  Ella Turnbull

  Martha Grey

  Alma Collingwood

  The Marys

  SECOND FORMER

  Betsy North

  FIRST FORMER

  Emily Dow

  THE GUESTS

  Mrs Jean Rivers – Head of the school Council

  Mr Omar El Maghrabi – Father of Amina El Maghrabi

  Mrs Nour El Maghrabi – Mother of Amina El Maghrabi

  Mr Hugh Murgatroyd – Father of Alice Murgatroyd

  Mr Godfrey Dow – Father of Emily Dow

  Mrs Sukie Dow – Mother of Emily Dow

  Mr Hilary North – Father of Betsy North

  Mr Thomas Stone – Father of Jennifer Stone

  Mr James Thompson-Bates – Father of Lallie Thompson-Bates

  Mrs Cordelia ‘Cordy’ Thompson-Bates – Mother of Lallie Thompson-Bates

  Mr Reginald Turnbull – Father of Ella Turnbull

  Mrs Artemis Turnbull – Mother of Ella Turnbull

  1

  I am writing in this new casebook because death has come to Deepdean once again.

  I am not quite sure why I am so surprised – but I am. Perhaps it is because lightning (lightning, in this case, being dead bodies) is not meant to strike twice, let alone several times, in the same place. Perhaps it is because the murder has happened at a time when we have all been ordered to be on our best behaviour, in starched and pressed dresses, as good and polite and law-abiding as schoolgirls can be.

  And, although in the world outside I had begun to feel quite grown up and bold, it is funny how easy it was to fall back into school life once we returned to Deepdean. Over the last two days, it has almost been an effort to behave like a detective again, rather than just a schoolgirl, and I can see that Daisy has struggled with that as well – although she knows even more than I do that this weekend we must detect. This case matters terribly, and if we do not solve it the consequences will be dreadful. We may even lose Deepdean, the home we all share.

  Of course, Deepdean has been in danger before, and we have always saved it, but now I really do worry that this mystery may be too much for the school. How can it stay open, now that it is the lo
cation of a third crime – and what will Daisy and I do if it does not?

  This case has twisted itself into the most confusing thread Daisy and I have ever had to unravel. I feel as though anything might happen next.

  While these thoughts are whirling about in my head, and while the answer to the mystery dances frustratingly out of my reach, I shall try to explain how everything happened, and how this case began when our friend Beanie told us that she had seen a murder.

  2

  I ought to say what has happened since our last murder investigation in London – which was really only two months ago, although it seems longer. I thought it might feel odd to be back at Deepdean after all the wild and grown-up adventuring we have done this year, but instead I feel as though we never left, not really. Daisy and I are Deepdean schoolgirls, and – no matter where we go – this school is in our blood and bones, the one constant place in all the wandering we do.

  I had barely finished writing up the story of the murder at the Rue Theatre, and everything that happened with George and Alexander and Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy and Bridget, when it was time to wave goodbye to them all and rush through the smoke of Paddington Station to catch the Deepdean train.

  A car met us at Deepdean station, and when it pulled up outside House on the afternoon of Sunday 31st May, everywhere else in the world vanished like a dream. It could not possibly be true that just the week before we had been actresses, solving a terrible crime. As Daisy and I stepped through the front door into the dingy entrance hall, I knew that this was the only reality – the big clock and the dinner gong and the chipped, ugly staircase going up to the dorm rooms, every mark and dent and rip in the wallpaper familiar.

  ‘Good old Deepdean,’ said Daisy grandly, staring about at it. ‘Home at last!’

  I stood next to Daisy and felt both too big and too small, delighted and bewildered all at once – and then I heard a chorus of shrieks, and Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia, our dorm mates, friends and fellow Detective Society members, came rattling down the staircase and flung themselves on us. After that, all I felt was overjoyed.

  ‘HAZEL! DAISY! YOU’RE BACK!’ Beanie shouted in our ears, and then we were squeezed in an enormous six-armed hug. They smelled of soap and pencils (Beanie) and grass (Lavinia) and perfume (Kitty, contraband), and I breathed in happily.

  ‘We missed you, we missed you, we missed you!’ Beanie shrieked, jumping up and down and jostling the rest of us. ‘We’ve been watching from upstairs, waiting for you to arrive!’

  ‘It’s not been much fun without you,’ agreed Lavinia. She said it grudgingly, but Kitty pinched her and she blushed, so I could see she meant it.

  ‘Oh, there’s so much to tell you!’ cried Kitty. ‘Come upstairs, come on, come on!’

  Matron came out of her office and glared at us in a welcome-back way, as we left our bags for the maids and rushed up the stairs to our familiar dorm. Except—

  ‘We moved the beds round while you were gone,’ explained Kitty. ‘It’s fearfully cold by the window, you know, and since you weren’t here to feel it—’

  ‘We can move back!’ said Beanie anxiously. ‘We’re sorry!’

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ I said. ‘We’ll be all right, won’t we, Daisy?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Daisy, shrugging.

  Kitty gasped, and looked from me to Daisy and back again. Beanie was wide-eyed. Lavinia suddenly grinned.

  ‘You’ve changed, Hazel,’ she said. ‘Look at you, telling Daisy what to do!’

  ‘I have not!’ I said, blushing, because I thought she might be right.

  ‘Hazel and I haven’t changed!’ said Daisy. ‘That’s nonsense. I simply happen to agree with her assessment on this occasion. YOU, on the other hand – look at the three of you! Look at Beanie!’

  ‘Um,’ said Beanie, wriggling uncomfortably. ‘It isn’t my fault, it just happened.’

  ‘Beanie grew,’ said Kitty gleefully. ‘She’s not tiny any more! We’re still calling her Beanie, though, but now it’s short for Beanpole.’

  It was true. Beanie’s hair was still done up in the same straggly plait, and her large eyes peered out of her face in the same shy way, but in the five months since we had seen her last she had shot up like a plant. She was now quite as tall as Kitty, but much thinner, and she stood as though she did not know what to do with all her arms and legs.

  ‘And Lavinia has bosoms.’

  ‘SO?’ said Lavinia furiously, crossing her arms over her now rather pronounced chest. ‘I hate them.’

  ‘She’s on the tennis team too,’ mouthed Kitty behind her. ‘She’s fearfully good at sport all of a sudden, but she hates it when we tell her!’

  ‘Oh, Lavinia!’ I cried. This was not the Lavinia I knew, the one who hid in goal next to me so we did not have to bother with hockey practice – but I could see that Lavinia was pleased with herself, and I was pleased for her.

  ‘Fancy!’ cried Daisy, with a funny look on her face. ‘Lavinia, a tennis ace!’

  ‘Well, Kitty’s got a boyfriend!’ Lavinia shot back.

  Kitty simpered. ‘I met him at a dance during the Easter hols!’ she said. ‘His name is Hugo. Don’t tell Binny.’

  ‘How is Binny?’ I asked. Kitty’s little sister is in the third form, a year below us, and she played a large part in one of our cases last autumn.

  Kitty scowled. ‘Hideous,’ she said. ‘She’s become quite obsessed with the new girl in the other fourth-form dorm – all the third formers are. They can’t talk about anything else. Her name is Amina, and she’s terribly glamorous. I wish my hair looked like hers!’

  ‘She’s very beautiful,’ agreed Beanie, sighing. ‘Everyone says so, even the mistresses. She can get away with anything she likes.’

  Daisy sat down on the nearest bed, looking odder than ever. ‘New girl!’ she said weakly. ‘Glamorous! But – see here, why didn’t you tell us about all this before?’

  ‘We didn’t think you’d care,’ said Lavinia with a shrug. ‘You’ll see her later, anyway. I don’t think she’s worth much.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Kitty. ‘She’s wonderful. All the shrimps have pashes on her.’

  ‘Well!’ cried Daisy, cutting Kitty off and standing up suddenly. ‘That’s quite enough news. Stop it, please.’

  ‘But Amina—’ Kitty began.

  ‘No more about her!’ said Daisy. ‘It’s unnecessary. There may be a new girl, and you may all have changed, but I am just the same as I ever was, and so, thank goodness, is Deepdean School. I am back, and that is that. And I have changed my mind about the beds. Move them back, if you please.’

  And I understood then what Daisy’s expression meant. Despite what she had said to the others, she has changed this year, in ways that she is not entirely ready to face up to. Nothing is the same as it was – not me, not her family, and not Daisy herself – and I realized then that she had desperately hoped to find Deepdean just as she had remembered it.

  But unfortunately for Daisy, she found the rest of Deepdean just as changed as Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia.

  3

  Since January, without her there at school to keep it up, the myth of Daisy Wells had faltered, its light dimmed – and it was not easy for her to restore its glow now that someone else had stepped into the light.

  It was just as Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia had said. In the middle of the spring term, while Daisy and I were away solving a terrible crime in Hong Kong, Amina El Maghrabi had arrived in the fourth form at Deepdean, from Hampden School for Ladies in Cairo.

  Before Amina appeared at dinner that evening, Daisy and I had heard that she was a princess; the daughter of a sheik; betrothed to the new king of Egypt; the best equestrienne Deepdean had ever seen; and the rightful owner of the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

  ‘It’s all nonsense!’ hissed Daisy. ‘Most of that can’t possibly be true – after all, there aren’t any sheiks in Egypt, and the Koh-i-Noor is most likely from India. Where did you hear this from?’

  The rep
lies were confused but adoring – but one thing was certain: Amina had captured every imagination, in much the same way as the Honourable Daisy Wells had done when I first arrived at Deepdean.

  When Amina came through the Dining Room doors, arm in arm with Clementine from the other dorm, I thought she really did look like a fairy-tale princess from one of the stories my maid Su Li had told me when I was little. She had smooth pale brown skin and a glossy head of dark hair, a proud look on her pretty face, and feet as small as Cinderella’s. Deepdean’s baggy grey uniform hung beautifully on her.

  I could see immediately that she was the sort of person that people make up myths about.

  ‘She was ten minutes late to every lesson for the first two weeks she was at Deepdean, and during those weeks she managed to convince all the mistresses that she had never learned to tell time,’ whispered Kitty. ‘She’s terribly wicked, but no one minds.’

  ‘Hush!’ said Daisy, a furious frown on her face.

  As I watched, Binny Freebody, Kitty’s little sister, went hurrying up to Amina and whispered something in her ear. Amina beamed and blew Binny a kiss (Binny went purple with joy), and then she turned and gestured. Up popped the Marys, holding out their hands – and Amina handed them her hat, scarf and school bag.

  ‘She’s you!’ I whispered to Daisy. ‘She’s making them carry her things just like you used to do!’

  I admit, the sight of Amina had startled me. I am used to being the one girl at Deepdean who does not look like all the rest – and used to being gently looked down on for it. But here was darker-skinned Amina making all the pale English misses fawn around her. Was it simply because she looked as though she expected nothing less?