8 Top Marks for Murder Read online

‘Oh, there’s NO need to take us out of Deepdean, Miss Lappet!’ trilled Daisy.

  ‘I can hardly trust you, Wells,’ said Miss Lappet. ‘Come along – I’ll walk with you.’

  And, just like that, Miss Lappet escorted us out of the Hall.

  Daisy took my hand and squeezed it, and I knew she was boiling over with indignation. Once again, it felt as though we were losing our grip on Deepdean.

  2

  ‘Lappet’s still watching,’ said Daisy grimly to me and the Inspector, as we began to climb the hill to House. ‘Standing there watching us, as though we’re up to no good! I’d forgotten how diabolical it is to be a schoolgirl!’

  I agreed. We had been watched in Hong Kong, quite intensely, and in London we had been stuck in the enclosed world of the Rue for most of the time – but there is a special quality to the way we are monitored at Deepdean, as though we are hovering on the edge of wickedness at all times, and only a careful grown-up eye can stop us falling prey to it.

  ‘But we are up to no good, I suppose,’ I said.

  ‘Everyone else is up to no good!’ snapped Daisy. ‘But we are detectives, and detectives attempt to stop bad things happening! We are quite different from the rest of humanity, Hazel, and I wish you would remember that.’

  ‘An interesting point of view, Madam Super,’ said the Inspector.

  The road to House curves a little as it winds upwards, like Kitty’s hair when she puts it in curlers. There are rows of tall white houses on each side of it, and rows of smart dark cars parked up and down it.

  ‘Daisy … Hazel …’ said Inspector Priestley, ‘walk more slowly, if you please. I believe we have until we reach the top of this hill to talk.’

  ‘What do you want to speak about?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘The case, of course,’ said the Inspector. ‘Don’t you want to know what happened to Mrs Rivers?’

  That caught Daisy’s attention at once.

  ‘Poison! Arsenic, we think.’

  ‘Well, they’re still testing that,’ said the Inspector. ‘But between you and me, it looks as though the coroner will agree with your assessment. Good work, Madam Super. That’s the what. The how is more puzzling.

  ‘I saw your associate Miss Martineau hovering on the balcony above the Hall last night, while I was interviewing suspects, so I would guess you already know something about last night’s events. What you may not be aware of is that none of the other guests on Table Four, or any other table in the Hall, have shown any ill effects. This does seem to have been a random mistake. No, this was quite specifically targeted at Mrs Rivers.

  ‘As well as that, I want to tell you I was being truthful with your mistress earlier. I am now a part of this case, for both good and bad. Good, because, after Mrs Rivers’ death, the local police at last believe that something is going on at Deepdean School. Bad, because, now they have the bit between their teeth, they have no interest in being delicate. They would like to shut the entire school down while they investigate – I have only just persuaded them that this would be unwise.’

  ‘Shut it down?’ Daisy and I both cried in horror.

  ‘Indeed. And that is – well – only one problem that we face. They also believe that one of the maids is behind the poisoning. Now, I’m certain that they are not. I spent many minutes speaking to Beryl and Nancy, the girls who served Table Four last night, and I am convinced that they have no idea what happened. They harbour Mrs Rivers no ill will, nor were they paid by anyone else. They had nothing to do with this crime, I am certain of it.’

  ‘Of course they didn’t!’ said Daisy. ‘Hazel and I proved that in our reconstruction just now – they couldn’t have done it, and nor could anyone pretending to be them. It has to be someone else at Table Four!’

  ‘You and I agree. But until we can prove who the culprit really is, Nancy and Beryl will suffer. They are currently being held at Deepdean police station, and although I am doing my best to have them released as soon as possible, I doubt I will succeed.’

  I was horrified. Yet again, a crime at Deepdean had been pinned on innocent people.

  ‘We’re working as fast as we can! We already know that Mr Turnbull can be ruled out,’ said Daisy. ‘He wasn’t at Deepdean on Friday morning and there’s no way he could have passed poison to Mrs Rivers without poisoning someone else. So we’re down to four suspects: Mr Stone, Mr Dow, Mr Thompson-Bates and Mr El Maghrabi.’

  We quickly told him what we had learned about each of our suspects.

  ‘But – what about the women on the table?’ asked the Inspector, frowning.

  ‘We’ve realized something else as well,’ I explained. ‘We think that what Beanie saw – it must be connected to Mrs Rivers’ murder. What if the strangling in the woods wasn’t a murder, but only an attempted one? What if the killer tried again last night, and succeeded at last?’

  ‘You think Mrs Rivers was the woman your friend saw?’ asked the Inspector, his forehead wrinkled with interest. ‘That would make sense – and it would explain why we found no body on Friday evening. So your theory is that we’re looking for a man – the man seen in the woods, who is also one of the men on Table Four last night? Well! That does put us in an interesting position.’

  I heard him say us, and felt very grown up.

  ‘Why interesting?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘Because I don’t see how to convince the Deepdean police of your theory at this stage. They won’t like the idea that this murder was committed by a wealthy parent – and nor do they acknowledge what Miss Martineau saw on Friday morning. To them, this is a simple case of a maid poisoning a guest.’

  ‘But you believe us?’ I asked. I wanted to make sure – because I had hardly believed myself at first, but I did now, most fiercely.

  ‘I am certainly inclined to. You have been right more times than can be explained away by luck.’

  ‘Luck!’ cried Daisy. ‘We are not lucky, we are excellent detectives. How dare you—’

  ‘I am not doing you down!’ said the Inspector, as crossly as I have ever heard him say anything. ‘Will you stop behaving as though I were about to take the case away from you!’

  We both jumped a little.

  ‘You are doing excellently. You are at least three steps ahead of the police – what you have learned is far beyond what they know. And therefore it would be remiss of me not to congratulate you on what you have discovered so far, and ask you to carry on. I will continue to help the Deepdean police with their official investigation – but, quite frankly, I doubt I can be as efficient as the two of you. I will do my best to help you – I will try to impress upon your suspects that they are still suspects in my eyes, and thus they must stay at Deepdean until the end of the weekend – but the rest is up to you.’

  ‘You want us to solve the case for you,’ whispered Daisy with shining eyes. ‘You see, Hazel? We shall be the world’s foremost consulting detectives by the time we are twenty!’

  I saw that the Inspector was smiling and I knew that he did not mind.

  Daisy’s whole face had gone pink. ‘We accept,’ she whispered giddily.

  ‘So do I,’ I said. ‘But – when will we see you next?’

  ‘When shall we three meet again? Well, I hope to be at tonight’s play, but I will almost certainly miss the garden party due to police business. I assume you know what you are doing next?’

  It was so strange to hear him speaking as though we were equals – or, rather, as though we were the experts. But where Deepdean was concerned, perhaps we were. Daisy and I knew all its nooks and crannies, all its traditions and oddities. We ought to be listened to – and the miracle was that at last we were.

  3

  We arrived up at House to find Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia waiting for us.

  ‘Miss Barnard told us at chapel that Mrs Rivers was dead!’ gabbled Kitty, as soon as she saw us. ‘Everyone’s panicking. And Miss Lappet slipped out halfway through – I think she was looking for you!’

  ‘She found us,’
said Daisy grimly. ‘She is an enemy of the Detective Society for life. But that is hardly important. You must listen to what we discovered! Hazel and I have examined the scene of the crime more carefully, and we are making headway – we have confirmed that Mr Turnbull could not have killed Mrs Rivers, so we are down to four suspects.’

  We explained what we had learned from the Hall, and the Inspector. The others looked impressed.

  ‘But we were stopped before we could carry out a proper re-creation. We must try again, as soon as possible,’ Daisy went on.

  ‘How are we supposed to do that?’ asked Lavinia.

  ‘Ooh, I know!’ said Beanie. ‘We can use lunch, isn’t that right? So that we can see if other people notice what we’re doing?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Yes, exactly that,’ said Daisy. ‘Detective Martineau, you have … hit upon what I was about to say. Which is very annoying, Beanie – when did you get clever?’

  ‘She’s always been clever. You just don’t notice,’ said Lavinia with a shrug.

  ‘We must use lunch as our opportunity,’ said Daisy. ‘We will each be one of our remaining suspects. I shall be Mr Thompson-Bates. Lavinia, you be Mr El Maghrabi. Beanie, you be Mr Dow. And Kitty, you be Mr Stone. Hazel can be Mr Turnbull, and watch us. Our aim is to get something into the food or drink of Mrs Rivers – played by someone from the other fourth-form dorm – without anyone but Hazel noticing anything.’

  ‘Why Hazel?’ asked Lavinia.

  ‘Because Hazel notices things,’ said Daisy, and I blushed. ‘Position yourselves as they were sitting at the table on Saturday night, and as soon as everyone has begun eating lunch, we shall begin our play.’

  ‘What are we supposed to be putting in fake Mrs Rivers’ food and drink?’ asked Lavinia, just as the lunch gong went.

  ‘Not dirt,’ said Daisy. ‘Nothing they can see – oh, use salt or pepper. It’s easiest! Now, hurry in, before the other dorm come down!’

  The five of us rushed into the Dining Room and threw ourselves down at the fourth-form table. I was at the far end of the table, with Beanie on my left and Daisy next to her. Kitty was opposite Beanie, and Lavinia was opposite Daisy.

  ‘Give me your pullovers,’ whispered Daisy. ‘Here, quick!’

  I thought she was going to put them in the space between her and Beanie, but instead she piled them all on the chair between her and Lavinia (in violation of House rules, of course – pullovers must be worn, or hung on the back of the chair you are sitting in).

  I didn’t have time to ask what on earth she was doing before Clementine walked in, with Amina next to her, and saw us all sitting at the table, carefully separated. ‘What are you queer fish doing?’ she asked. ‘Have you rowed?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Daisy, ‘we can’t bear to be next to each other.’

  Clementine eyed her. ‘If this is a prank …’ she said.

  ‘This isn’t,’ said Lavinia. ‘But just you wait!’

  ‘Hah, you don’t have the brains to think up anything good,’ sniffed Clementine (there is no love lost between her and Lavinia).

  She pulled out the seat between Daisy and Lavinia, threw the pullovers off, and sat down, smirking. She meant it as a slight, of course, but Lavinia coughed to hide her laugh, and even Daisy let a very small smile flit across her face. I put up my hand to hide my grin. I suddenly realized what Daisy had been playing at – of course, if there is one thing a person like Clementine cannot resist, it is the sight of a pile of pullovers keeping a seat free.

  She had just volunteered herself to play the part of Mrs Rivers.

  Amina sat down next to Kitty, in the space where her mother, Mrs El Maghrabi, should have been, and Sophie Croke-Finchley sat next to Beanie.

  The plates were handed round – it was rarebit (I made a face) – and knives and forks chinked as everyone began to eat. It was time to act.

  All I had to do was pay attention. I tried to behave as I would at any ordinary lunch time – passing the salt and pepper and salad cream, leaning over to talk to Beanie and Lavinia, but my eye kept on being drawn to Clementine, and I was not the only one. Kitty got up and bent over her, throwing salt over her shoulder, and Clementine twitched round to look at her. Kitty blinked back at her innocently, and sat back down.

  Clementine looked around at the table, scowling. ‘Why are you all staring at me?’ she snapped at last.

  ‘I think it’s a prank,’ said Amina. ‘They’re playing a prank on you, Clem!’

  ‘That’s not true. You’re just awful,’ hissed Lavinia.

  ‘Shut up, Lumpvinia,’ snarled Clementine.

  ‘Don’t be horrid!’ cried Beanie. ‘Why can’t we all be nice to each other?’

  ‘Because that’s not how people work, Beans,’ said Kitty.

  ‘I KNEW IT!’ shrieked Clementine suddenly. ‘Which one of you just poured salt all over my food? Look, it’s everywhere! Ugh, you’re beasts! Sophie, this wasn’t you, was it?’

  ‘It wasn’t!’ gasped Sophie. ‘I don’t even like salt!’

  ‘That’s not NICE!’ shouted Clementine, and she shoved her chair away from the table and went storming out of the Dining Room. Amina jumped up and rushed after her.

  ‘Clementine’s father didn’t come to the Anniversary after all, even though he promised to,’ whispered Sophie to all of us. ‘She’s terribly upset.’

  I got a shock of guilt. Of course, I had used Clementine’s father’s absence to rule him out, but I hadn’t thought about the consequences. In fact, I had never really thought of Clementine that way at all – as a person who was more than meanness and hockey pitches. But of course she must be feeling as miserably incomplete as Daisy and I were. I knew that Kitty and Lavinia were furiously embarrassed by their parents, and Beanie in an agony of despair over hers, but that was still better than not having them here at all. You can be angry at parents when they are in front of you, disappointing you, but you cannot be angry at parents who do not even bother to be here – so you have to take out your anger on everyone else.

  I looked at the other four members of the Detective Society. Daisy nodded at me, and so did Kitty and Lavinia. Then I looked at Beanie. She had not got up at all, and so I was sure she would shake her head. But to my surprise, Beanie beamed back at me and nodded proudly.

  I could not understand it. I had been looking at her. She had not done anything unusual at all. How could she possibly have put salt on Clementine’s plate?

  4

  Pudding (sago) went by in a blur. I was thinking as hard as I could – what on earth had Beanie done?

  At last, chairs squealed backwards as we all stood up.

  ‘QUICK CHANGE FOR THE GARDEN PARTY!’ shouted the prefect on duty. ‘Go on, go!’

  We could not get up to the dorm fast enough. The door slammed behind us, and Daisy barked, ‘Lavinia! Lean on it to make sure the other dorm can’t come in. And listen out for anyone breathing suspiciously – I don’t trust Amina and Clementine not to listen in on us. Now, the results of our test, if you please. I’ll go first. I was being Mr Thompson-Bates, and it was quite easy for me to poison Mrs Rivers, as we thought. I spilled some salt onto her plate as I passed along the salad cream. Lavinia, you’re next. You were being Mr El Maghrabi. What did you find?’

  ‘It was easy for me as well,’ said Lavinia, shrugging. ‘I just threw some salt on her plate when she looked over at you. Anyone could have done it if they were sitting where I was.’

  ‘I did mine when I stood up and bent over her,’ said Kitty. ‘You told us Mr Stone got up, after all.’

  ‘I saw you!’ I said. ‘But I don’t think I would have noticed if I hadn’t been looking for it.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Daisy. ‘Kitty, help me with this button … Beanie, why on earth were you looking so cheerful? You can’t have managed it, even now you have long arms.’

  Beanie, her school blouse over her head, made a noise that sounded like ‘Bhfflwhd!’ Lavinia stepped away from the
door for a moment and tugged at her blouse, and it came free, Beanie emerging rather pink in the face.

  ‘But I did!’ she said. ‘I put salt on her plate, just like you said to.’

  ‘How?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘I passed it to her,’ said Beanie. ‘When Hazel gave the salt and pepper to me, I pretended to put something in the salt cellar while I was pouring it on my food. Then I passed it to my left – to you, Daisy, but I knew you wouldn’t take any.’

  This was very clever of Beanie, and quite true – Daisy, like Sophie, likes the bland school food we are served, and never salts anything.

  ‘Then you passed it to Clementine, Daisy, and she poured it on her food,’ said Beanie. ‘I knew she would – she loves salt. So I did put salt on Clementine’s plate.’

  I was gaping at Beanie. So was everyone else. Daisy paused her struggle to get into her party dress to stare at her.

  ‘How dare you!’ said Lavinia at last. ‘You might have poisoned me – I got the salt after Clementine, after all!’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Beanie. ‘It – it wasn’t really real, you know.’

  ‘I know, idiot,’ said Lavinia. ‘Genius idea, though.’

  ‘But,’ said Daisy, ‘clever as it was, it won’t quite do. Hazel and I have already effectively ruled out the salt as being used to poison Mrs Rivers – and the pepper, for the same reason. Because if something was in the salt cellar, then why wasn’t anyone else poisoned, as we know they weren’t? If Mr Dow did do that, then Mr Thompson-Bates would have been poisoned as well – I saw him pouring salt onto his plate with my own eyes! He loves it as much as I do. Mr El Maghrabi would have been all right, because he didn’t eat anything, so you would not have been poisoned after all, Lavinia. But how would Mr Dow know all that before he put his plan into action? And would he really be able to doctor the salt cellar without anyone else noticing? I should think if Mr Dow had done that, Mrs Thompson-Bates would have asked him what he was playing at.’