Mistletoe and Murder: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery Read online

  But we turned away, along the narrow cobbled street Michael Butler had gone down, and perhaps it was just the high walls surrounding us, but the day suddenly seemed to darken, the shadows coming down around us. The air was chilly, and our breath steamed white.

  ‘Now, we’re passing Maudlin, but I’ll take you back later. We must get to St Lucy’s. Keep along this road.’

  I looked up to the left as we passed high brick walls and a heavy wooden door set into the bottom of a narrow tower. Then we were suddenly out of the cobbled streets, into the open air. In front of us was an arched stone bridge, and below it ran a sleek, dark river. This was the famous Backs, I remembered from my father’s stories. This was where the punts floated in summer, where the students lounged and ate picnics and studied for their exams. I marvelled, to see it. It was all so picturesque and English. Along it on our side rose the stone of the colleges, picked out in lit windows and decorated with curlicues and pillars. I felt that those lights were welcoming me in.

  ‘Amanda should be along soon,’ said Bertie. ‘She’s been working in town. Ah, there she is! On time for once. Hullo, Manda!’ And there was Amanda, slipping out of the shadows behind us with the Horse beside her. She nodded to all three of us, and fell into step beside us as though she had been with us all the time. ‘And now we go over the bridge there.’

  I looked across the river to the other side – and saw a very different picture. The buildings there were raw, new brick, built very square and unromantic. Was this Cambridge University too? It could not be – surely this was where the people from the town lived, not the students! But Bertie was unmistakably pointing at the worst of them, a lumbering low building with several square red offshoots. ‘There’s St Lucy’s. Manda’s college, and Aunt E’s. She’ll be waiting for us – ah, there she is!’

  The main door of the building was visible, and in front of it was a figure. It was a wisp of a person with a shock of white hair. The black gown it was wrapped in made it look like a bird, or a bat, and it turned its head in a birdlike jerk.

  ‘Aunt E!’ cried Bertie. ‘I’ve got them!’

  ‘Hurry up, you silly boy!’ shouted the old lady. As we came closer I saw that she had the same high, fine features and small nose as Daisy and Bertie, only sharper with age. ‘You must all be chilled. Daisy, my dear! And you’re Hazel. Welcome to St Lucy’s College! I hope you’re delighted to be here. Your trunks arrived some time ago – they have been taken up to your rooms. Come in, come in. Would you like some tea?’

  7

  One of the rules of the Detective Society is that we never say no to tea.

  We were led into a room that was panelled in pale wood, with a bare white ceiling and a wood floor with a threadbare rug on it. Everything looked tattered and rather second-hand. This was not at all the grandeur I had been expecting from my father’s stories.

  ‘This is the senior common room,’ said Aunt Eustacia, as a maid in a much-mended apron brought in a pot of tea and a plate of scones. ‘It’s a bit nippy, I know. I would take you into my study, which is always much more pleasant, but it is currently being cleaned. Radiators are on from eight to nine in the morning, and six to seven at night, so we have a few hours before our next burst of warmth. I’m told it’s good for us. Good for the budget, more like. You’ll learn soon enough that although half the brains at Cambridge belong to the women, the women’s colleges have none of the money. Drink your tea, though, and you’ll feel warm in no time.’

  She sat down on a worn green armchair and the rest of us perched on cane chairs around her. Amanda, who had a pen and notebook poking out of the sleeve of her gown and ink stains on her hands, took the seat next to Bertie, ignoring Daisy and me. I sipped on my tea, wrapping my fingers round my cup gratefully, and then picked up a scone. There was only jam to go on top, not cream – but it was warm, and as I cut it open it smelled lovely.

  ‘There aren’t many students staying with us over Christmas, so you’ve almost got the run of the place,’ said Aunt Eustacia. ‘I have put you in one of our first years’ rooms. Trilling – I think you know her? – suggested especially that you stay in her rooms while she’s at home for the holidays. She thought you might be pleased. Are you pleased?’

  I had a moment of confusion – and then I realized. Henrietta Trilling was King Henry’s real name, our Head Girl from the year before this. King Henry! She had been part of our first real case, the case of the murder of Miss Bell, our Science mistress.

  ‘Why yes, Aunt E!’ said Daisy. ‘Of course!’ We beamed at each other.

  ‘Don’t call me that silly name,’ said Aunt Eustacia. ‘I suppose you’ve picked it up from Bertie. Bertie, you are a most dreadful influence. Now, my nephew Felix tells me that you had some more difficulties at that school of yours last term. Quite shocking. Tell me everything.’

  In five minutes Aunt Eustacia had prodded out all the details of the Bonfire Night murder from Daisy (though not, of course, our own involvement). She looked quite fascinated, and I saw very clearly that if Daisy’s Uncle Felix somehow turned into an old woman, this is what he would be like. Amanda was also listening in curiously, blinking and brushing clumps of hair from in front of her eyes. She looked tired, even more than I had noticed earlier.

  ‘Now, Price!’ said Aunt Eustacia to Amanda when we were finished. ‘I hope you’ll look after the girls properly.’ She gave all of us a gimlet gaze. ‘And that you will all behave yourselves properly and be a credit to the family.’ I nodded, feeling myself blush.

  ‘Yes, Aunt Eustacia,’ said Daisy.

  ‘I hope you mean to obey me, Daisy,’ said Aunt Eustacia. ‘I can see you crossing your fingers. Now, you may dress and go to Maudlin for dinner. Price, look after them. I expect them back with no major injuries or defects. Goodbye.’

  We were dismissed.

  ‘All right then,’ Bertie said to us. ‘I’m off to dress and meet the boys.’

  ‘I don’t care about the boys,’ said Daisy, sighing.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ said Bertie. ‘And Hazel’s face is always that colour.’

  I put my hands up to my cheeks in embarrassment.

  ‘Anyway, hurry up and get changed – Manda, you’ll bring them to Maudlin?’

  Amanda nodded shortly. ‘Now come to your rooms,’ she said to me and Daisy. ‘Hurry up!’

  We rushed after her, and I wondered again what on earth was up with her. Whatever it was, I had a funny feeling that the key to it lay in Maudlin.

  8

  King Henry’s rooms were on the same chilly concrete-and-wood staircase as Amanda’s, one landing below hers. They were small, and almost as faded as the senior common room – but there was a homely feel to them, as though we were back at Deepdean. King Henry’s Deepdean cups and trophies were on a shelf in the sitting room, and her hockey colours were pinned to the edge of the small mirror, which was wound about with holly and ivy. In the bedroom a truckle bed had been set up next to King Henry’s single bed (I was in the truckle, and Daisy had the real bed).

  There was a note on the bed’s coverlet. To Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, it said. Daisy pounced on it, and I leaned around her shoulder to read what it said.

  Daisy dropped the letter as though it was a hot coal.

  ‘Hazel!’ she said. ‘Hazel!’

  All the thoughts I had been having about Donald and Chummy – I could tell Daisy had been having them as well – had suddenly been given backing, and from a source we both trusted.

  ‘What shall we do?’ I asked. ‘Get changed for dinner?’

  ‘Get changed!’ said Daisy. ‘I can’t think about that when there’s a mystery to solve!’

  ‘But if we don’t go to dinner we won’t see Chummy and Donald,’ I pointed out, getting her pink taffeta gown out of the wardrobe where it had been hung and handing it to her.

  Daisy sighed, but she put it on – and then she entirely lost interest in clothes, and sat down with a thump on her bed, eyes gazing off into the distance as she
thought. I put on my green velvet dress, and peered at myself in the mirror unhappily. Next to Daisy, I felt rather a disappointment.

  ‘Hazel!’ said Daisy from the bed. ‘Oh, Hazel, it’s another mystery!’

  ‘Chummy and Donald!’ I agreed, glad to turn away from myself.

  ‘Exactly!’ said Daisy. ‘Heirs having accidents and being the victim of so-called pranks is highly suspicious, even if my silly brother can’t see it, and King Henry’s letter proves that. Chummy is determined to inherit the money instead of Donald, and their birthday is only a few days away. Hazel, I think something is imminent!’

  ‘I know!’ I said. ‘And what about Amanda? Why doesn’t she want to go to Maudlin? What essays is she writing – in the holidays – that Bertie doesn’t have to?’

  ‘Bertie,’ said Daisy with a sudden frown, ‘is not studying as hard as he ought. I know he does not have my natural intellect, but he isn’t utterly stupid. He can’t be allowed to throw away Cambridge. I shall have to talk to him properly. But yes, Amanda’s actions – they are odd, and suspicious. Do they have anything to do with Chummy and Donald? Tonight will be the perfect opportunity to meet them, and watch how they behave around one another. We shall have to conceal what we are doing from the Pinkertons, though.’

  ‘Why should we?’ I asked. ‘Alexander helped us with the Orient Express case, and we wouldn’t have solved the Bonfire Night murder so quickly without the Pinkertons either. If we’ve noticed something, they might have as well. They might want to help.’

  ‘Well, they can’t help, and that’s that!’ said Daisy crossly. ‘Aren’t you ready to go yet?’

  I tied my sash (it came out slightly lopsided, but I knew it was no good asking Daisy to fix it in her present mood). There was a smudge on my shoe, and I rubbed at it, which made it worse. I could not wait to see Alexander, but at the same time I was not sure I could bear it.

  9

  There was a sharp knock on our door – it was Amanda, a drawn look on her face. I put on my coat and followed her and Daisy down the stairs, into the stinging cold of the evening.

  The stars were little pinpricks in the black sky, and our breath hung in the air in front of us. We went out of the lodge, over the still waters of the Cam, and I saw the most delicate mist hanging over it – over everything, in fact, blurring the light from the streetlamps and the figures pedalling past on their bicycles, wobbling on the cobbled streets.

  Amanda wrapped her coat tighter around her and pushed her hat down over her ears. ‘Bitter!’ she said. ‘It’ll snow soon.’

  I imagined Cambridge in the snow, a picture postcard, or one of the paintings in my father’s house. It was a lovely thought – warm as well as white. My heart fluttered.

  ‘Now,’ said Amanda. ‘As you know, I’m taking you to the doorway of Maudlin but no further. I will meet you at the end of the evening to take you back to St Lucy’s again.’

  ‘Why—’ Daisy started, but Amanda glared at her ferociously and she stopped.

  ‘As I’ve said, I’ve got essays to do,’ she said. ‘All right – there, up ahead, that’s Maudlin’s porter’s lodge tower.’

  I squinted in the gloom. At first I could only see the high brick walls I had before. Cambridge really was dim – it felt as though the shadows had real weight to them here, or perhaps it was only that the streets were all so narrow, and the walls so very high. But yes – there was the tower I had seen earlier, with a massive heavy wooden doorway set into the bottom of it, like the opening of a castle, only without the moat and drawbridge.

  There was a tiny person-sized door set into the larger, grander doorway, light coming through it brightly, and Amanda motioned us towards it. She stood back, and then she turned away, melting into the shadows like mist.

  Daisy and I walked through the door together and found ourselves in an arched stone space, lamp-lit, with a bank of pigeonholes on one side and a sort of hatch on the other. A man with a bald head and a thick walrus moustache was leaning out of it, and I could see that he was sitting in a little side room, bright and cosy. ‘Goodness!’ he said as he caught sight of Daisy. ‘I know who this is! Why, you’re Wells’s sister!’

  Daisy stood up as tall as she could – which, these days, is really very tall indeed. ‘I am the Honourable Daisy Wells,’ she told him.

  The man gave a chuckle of delight. ‘Of course you are!’ he cried. ‘I’d know you anywhere! You’re the spit of your brother.’

  ‘How awful!’ said Daisy, though I could tell she was pleased. ‘I’m much better than he is.’

  ‘I’m Mr Perkins,’ said the man. ‘I’m the porter at Maudlin. Been here over thirty years, you know – longer than any of the dons, even the Master himself. The college would collapse without me! I’m here from six every morning until I lock the gate at eleven at night. If I’m not here, you don’t get into Maudlin. Nothing gets past me!’

  ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ said Daisy. ‘You sound most important. And this is my friend Hazel Wong.’

  Mr Perkins looked at me, and I braced myself for the usual stare, or gasp, or angry look – the way English people usually behave when they see me for the first time. But for once I was surprised. Mr Perkins took in my brown hair and dark eyes and round face and nodded in greeting, just as though I was not remarkable at all.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you, Miss Wong. Now, I’ve been told that you are expected on Mr Wells’s staircase, staircase nine, in Mr Donald Melling’s rooms. If you go out of here and turn left, it’s the last staircase on the left, before the Library Quad. The men are all waiting for you there – the Mellings, Mr Wells and their guests. Miss Wells, a certain Mr Arcady asked for you especially when he arrived. I think you might have made an impression.’

  He winked, and I suddenly felt as though I had swallowed a frog. Why was Alexander mentioning Daisy instead of me? It was not Daisy who Alexander had been writing to all term. It was not Daisy who was Alexander’s friend. I was reminded once again of how very pink and white and pretty Daisy was, and how unfair that can be. I rubbed at the spot on my cheek and wished like anything that I was not so short.

  We went out of the lodge and found ourselves in a grassy space, squared round with tall stone buildings. It was quite simply beautiful. This, I thought, was much more what I had been expecting at Cambridge; the sort of grandeur and specialness that I had heard in my father’s stories. I loved it at once.

  Only a few windows around us were lit – the college was quiet for the holidays. We turned left and stepped along the stone path at the edge of the green lawn, past several dark archways. Staircase six, staircase seven, staircase eight – and there, at the very end, was the entrance to staircase nine.

  This archway was open and lit with lamps, and looked most welcoming. We stepped through it and I peered upwards at a thin stone staircase that spun up dizzily, with only a narrow metal banister running around the outside edge. There were two doors at our level, one on the left, marked Bathrooms, and one on the right, tucked in under the beginning of the staircase, with a sign on it that read Michael Butler. This door was next to a large notice board covered in bits of paper advertising plays and lectures and entertainments.

  I could hear voices further up the stairs, loud male ones. ‘Come on!’ said Daisy eagerly, tugging at my sleeve. I was suddenly more nervous than ever. I had been seeing Alexander in my head every day, frozen the way he had looked as he leaned out of the carriage when the Orient Express had pulled into Istanbul, his shirt cuffs up above his wrists and his hair untidy, down over one eyebrow. Would he be the same? What if he should be different?

  Up the stairs we climbed. Each set was twenty narrow, steep steps high, with a landing at the top with one room on the left side and another on the right. By the time we reached the third landing, where the sounds of a party were coming from, I was gasping. But there, at last, was an open doorway, and there, inside, was a room lit and festooned with Christmas decorations – boughs of holly and ivy, sprigs of mistl
etoe and bits of tinsel.

  Among all that brightness were several groups of men, all dressed in black and white for dinner. They were laughing and joking together, and it took me a moment, as we hovered in the doorway, to sort out exactly who I was seeing.

  The first person I recognized was Bertie. He looked very debonair in his dinner things. He had put on a turquoise neckerchief, and it made his hair look bright gold. For a moment he reminded me very much of Uncle Felix. Next to him was Alexander. My heart shocked. I could not help staring at him. He was taller again, hair surprisingly darker blond and shorter, but he was Alexander still.

  Next to Alexander were two other people. I barely looked at them at first, but then I did, and I felt everything in me stop short in confusion.

  I had hardly given a thought to George, Alexander’s friend. I had been expecting a small, round, fair-haired English boy, and his older but no less round and English brother – but the boys in front of me were none of those things. They were both quite thin, with big brown eyes, thatches of black hair and brown skin. They were not little and round, and they were not blond. They did not look English at all.

  10

  ‘Daisy!’ cried Bertie, seeing us. ‘Hazel! Hello! Come in! You know Alexander, of course – and this is my friend Harold Mukherjee, and his brother George.’

  I gaped. You see, it has been months since I looked at a face that was not pink and white. Now here were two. It felt almost wicked, how excited I was by it. It gave me a sort of hungry ache, although not the sort that I get over food. I realized my mouth was open, and closed it – but I saw the awkward expression on George’s face. It was the same as the way I look when people stare at me.