Arsenic For Tea: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (A Wells and Wong Mystery) (19 page)

‘Oh, family,’ said Lady Hastings rudely. ‘
Bother
family. Now, Chapman, stop gaping like an idiot and go and see to dinner.’

Everyone retreated upstairs – except Uncle Felix, who went towards the billiard room, and Miss Alston. She narrowed her eyes at us, tapped her wristwatch and said, ‘Almost time, girls. Be in the music room in
five
minutes.’ Whether or not she was guilty, she was certainly menacing. ‘I must just get something from my room. Don’t be late.’ She turned and went striding purposefully up the stairs, handbag swinging on her arm as always.

The air felt thick – or perhaps I was just not breathing very well. I couldn’t do it, I thought in a panic. I couldn’t behave as though everything was normal, when Miss Alston might have murdered Mr Curtis – and want to murder us all.

‘Buck up, Watson!’ whispered Daisy, and she squeezed my hand sharply. ‘She shan’t hurt us! Detective Society for ever!’

No matter how frightened I was, I couldn’t let Daisy down. I took a deep breath and nodded.

‘Kitty, Beanie!’ called Daisy. ‘Time for lessons!’

Her voice didn’t shake at all. Sometimes I think Daisy is quite marvellous.

Kitty and Beanie popped out of the kitchens again, both looking as worried as I felt.

‘Buck up!’ said Daisy.

Kitty seized hold of Beanie’s arm and marched her forward, but before we were halfway across the hall Beanie gasped, ‘No! I won’t! I don’t want to!’ and made a frantic dive for the library. We rushed after her, and found her huddled behind a sofa, whimpering.

‘
Honestly
,’ said Daisy.

We were still trying to decide what to do about her when the door opened again, and Bertie barged in.

‘Hello!’ he said, frowning. ‘Forgot something. What’s all this then, Squashy?’

‘Beanie’s being silly,’ said Daisy, not looking at him. ‘Go
away
, Bertie – it’s a girl thing.’

‘She’s not upset about Mr Curtis, is she?’ asked Bertie. ‘You know there wasn’t really a murder, don’t you? Mummy’s just being an ass. Mind you, if someone
did
kill Curtis, we all ought to thank them.’

‘Stop it,’ snapped Daisy. ‘Don’t be an idiot. You’re making yourself sound fearfully guilty.’

Bertie glared at her for a moment, and I was afraid that he was going to do something awful, like shout, or strike her. But instead of that, he opened his mouth and roared with laughter.

‘Squashy!’ he howled. ‘What on earth –
me
,
guilty
? You infernal little idiot! Why would I kill a bounder like Curtis? He was mud on my shoe! I’d never . . . imagine risking the noose just to bump off Curtis!’

‘But Mummy—’ cried Daisy, her front quite down for a moment. ‘She and Mr Curtis—’

‘Mummy,’ said Bertie, ‘can do whatever she chooses. I’ve given up long ago, and if you had any sense you would too. Daisy, if I was to bump off all Mummy’s idiotic boyfriends, I’d be a murderer ten times over by now.’

‘That isn’t true!’ said Daisy. I put my hand on her arm. How awful. Poor Daisy!

‘Of course it is,’ said Bertie. Footsteps came from the room above us, beating out his words terribly. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

‘You go away, Squinty, you awful beast!’ Daisy shouted. ‘Don’t you say that to me!’

And it was at that precise moment that we heard the most awful shriek from the first floor, and then a terrible thudding sound.

It hung in my ears like a blow. We stood still, and I counted ten beats of my heart in my head – the only noise in the whole silent house.

Then there was another shout. ‘HELP!’ roared Uncle Felix’s voice from the hall. ‘QUICK! HELP!’

‘Oh, what is it?’ cried Beanie, clutching at Kitty’s sleeve.

‘Don’t ask!’ said Daisy. ‘Hurry up! Something’s
happened
!’

We raced out of the library, all five of us together. At the same time up popped Aunt Saskia at the turn of the stair, like a rabbit out of a hat, and then Lord Hastings came rushing down to join her, shouting, ‘Good Lord, what is it? What’s happened?’

I heard Stephen come hammering down the main stairs from the nursery floor, and then he appeared too, looking plain terrified – I think the same look must have been on my face. There was an odd silence at the very middle of everything, something hot and terrible, like a fire covered over but still burning away.

Uncle Felix was kneeling in the middle of the hall, hunched over something piled up at the foot of the stairs. Miss Alston was standing behind him, very still. She was holding both hands pressed together in front of her, so tightly that they looked like twisted vines. I wondered what would make her hold herself like that. But she was only staring at the bundle of clothes in front of Uncle Felix. His shouts must simply have been a mistake.

I felt dreadfully relieved.

Then the clothes moved.

It seemed as though the whole house gasped, but really I think it was only me. Aunt Saskia screamed, ‘MARGARET!’ which sounded terribly false and out of place, and made my ears hurt.

‘Good Lord,’ said Lord Hastings emptily. ‘Good Lord! What’s happened!’

‘Margaret’s fallen down the stairs,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘She’s badly hurt. She needs a doctor – quick!’

He looked at Miss Alston, but it was Bertie who answered. ‘I’ll call!’ he snapped. ‘She’s
my
mother.’

The door from the kitchens opened, and Chapman came out. ‘What’s happened?’ he cried. He saw Lady Hastings lying on the floor, and went quite grey with horror. He began to look up, towards where Lord Hastings was standing, but then he dragged his gaze back down with a jolt.

Daisy surged forward, but Uncle Felix held his hands out against her like a shield. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Don’t look.’

‘Really!’ said Daisy. ‘Am I allowed to do anything this weekend?’

‘Daisy!’ said Uncle Felix fiercely.

‘Oh, all right!’ said Daisy, a shrill note in her voice. ‘If you’re going to be a
grown-up
about it.’

I put my arm round her as Bertie shouted for the operator to get him Dr Cooper
at once
, and Aunt Saskia swayed and wailed, clinging to Lord Hastings. I could feel Daisy shivering as though she had a fever.

Uncle Felix was kneeling over the bundle that was Lady Hastings, while Miss Alston spoke short, quiet words in his ear. Once again they were behaving as though they knew each other very well. I thought of what Uncle Felix had said a few minutes ago –
Margaret’s fallen down the stairs.
I couldn’t believe that. Someone must have pushed her. Uncle Felix seemed to be helping her now, but he had arrived on the scene awfully quickly – and so had Miss Alston. What had she gone to collect, after all? Had it been a ruse to get us out of the way for a moment?

Then I looked up at the main stairs. They were dark and twisting and shadowy – the day had faded, and the electric lamps had not yet been put on. It was just the place for an ambush. Someone must have pushed Lady Hastings down from the very top – exactly where Aunt Saskia and Lord Hastings had come from. Once again, I thought with a feeling of hopelessness, Lord Hastings
seemed
very suspicious. I believed Daisy – I
did
, I told myself firmly – but the police wouldn’t. The only thing that made me feel even the smallest bit glad was that, at last, we had ruled out one of Daisy’s family. Bertie had been with us the moment we heard Lady Hastings scream – there was no possible way, even with the most cunning of plans, that he could have been the person who pushed her.

We were banished to the drawing room, with the door shut and a box of dominoes in front of us. Toast Dog and Millie were there too, whining and grumbling and aching to be let out. None of us quite knew what to do with them – or ourselves.

Beanie was crying. ‘Your poor mummy!’ she wailed. ‘Will she be all right? Will she?’

‘I don’t know!’ said Daisy ferociously. She had posted herself just inside the closed door, and was listening to the noises outside. Toast Dog waddled over to stand beside her, and it was almost funny to see how alike they looked – golden and hopeful, ears pricked. ‘Can’t you be quiet for a bit? I want to think.’

‘I’m sure she will be,’ said Kitty, trying to be helpful. ‘My aunt knows someone who fell from the very top of a block of flats – all the way down the stairs – and she lived. She broke every bone in her body, of course, and she walked very oddly afterwards, but—’

‘Kitty,’ I said. ‘Be quiet.’

Kitty closed her mouth, scowling. ‘Rude,’ she muttered to herself.

For a moment Beanie was quiet too. Then she said, ‘D’you think the police really will be here tomorrow?’

‘Hah!’ said Daisy. ‘What can they do? I hope they never come at all. They’ll only ruin everything.’ I knew she was thinking about Lord Hastings.

‘But if the police don’t come,’ said Beanie nervously, ‘how will we stop the murderer? I know you say the police can’t help, but won’t they protect us? Two people have been hurt now!’

‘Daisy,’ I said, because I had to, ‘she is right. We want the police to come, don’t we? And it’s Inspector Priestley. Remember Deepdean? He’s clever. He’ll know it isn’t your father!’

‘Will he?’ asked Daisy.

Outside, the front door slammed, and we heard a new voice, tidy and carrying. Dr Cooper had arrived. The dogs went wild, and Toast Dog flung himself quite heavily against the closed door.

‘He may be a nice clodhopper, but he’s still a clodhopper. He’s got to stick to the rules.’

‘But if he catches the real murderer—’ said Kitty.

‘He may not!’ snapped Daisy. ‘And anyway, we’ll be perfectly all right. We must just stick together – and bar the door to the nursery before we go to bed tonight. They can’t kill all four of us.’

As usual when Daisy tries to reassure people, this was not at all comforting. Beanie wailed, and I silently agreed with her. If the murderer was going to strike again, we were surely next. How could we think we were safe? Even if we ran, we would be brought back – within easy reach of the murderer.

I imagined Inspector Priestley wading through the receding floods towards us, his greatcoat swishing behind him, and willed him to hurry up. For all that Daisy did not trust the police, he had saved us once before – and now, I felt, it was time for him to do so again. I wanted to get away from Fallingford and never come back. I missed my Hong Kong home, where everything was hot and light and safe. And despite what had happened there last year, I missed Deepdean. I felt a rush of remembering it – for a moment I thought I could almost smell it, chalk and not-clean socks and cold water. It washed over my memory of home, which was only very faint now, like my mother’s perfume on my clothes. I wasn’t sure which place I wanted more.

Daisy was still talking, faster and faster, a river of sound that I struggled to make sense of: ‘. . . but we must be vigilant. As soon as we’re let out of this silly room we must remember to check our suspects’ alibis for the time Mummy was pushed. Pay attention to everything – not just what they say, but how they say it. Modern detectives need to be psychological, because you see, today’s criminal mind is cleverer than ever – it says so in my books – and—’

But just then she was interrupted by the most dreadful noise. It was a groaning; a horrible howl that started very low down and rose up through the scale, so that it seemed to go twisting up my spine in coils.

‘Ugh!’ cried Kitty. ‘What’s that?’

‘Oh!’ wailed Beanie. ‘Is she dead? What’s wrong? Oh dear!’

Daisy’s head jerked up and her eyes went wide.

‘What is it?’ I asked her. I was very afraid of the answer.

Daisy took a deep breath. ‘That,’ she said composedly, ‘is Mummy. It’s the noise she makes when she thinks she’s dreadfully hurt – generally after she’s bumped her elbow. And if she’s making it now, it means that she’s going to be all right. She’s not going to die after all – not that I ever thought she would. And if you’ll all excuse me for one moment, I must just . . .’

And she got up from her chair, walked carefully over to the ornamental plant on the sideboard and was very neatly sick into the pot.

‘Oh, it was dreadful,’ said Lady Hastings. She was lying on a sofa in the library, her head swaddled in a pillowy white bandage and one arm strapped to her chest. The rest of us were gathered round her like an audience.

Before we were let out of the drawing room, we had managed to overhear Dr Cooper talking to Uncle Felix in the hall. Apparently it was a wonder that Lady Hastings wasn’t more severely injured. ‘She must have hit her head on the banister as she went down,’ he said (rather crossly, as though Lady Hastings had no right to her good fortune). ‘She was concussed, and that made her go limp and roll. Most falling cases try to stop themselves, and that’s when the damage is done. All I can find here is a fracture of the tibia, and extensive bruising. And the concussion, of course. She’ll have to be watched closely. How did it happen?’

‘Carelessness,’ said Uncle Felix briefly. (
Lying again!
I thought. He must surely know that this was no more an accident than Mr Curtis’s death!) ‘My sister is a liability. Now, please don’t worry yourself – we shall take very good care of her.’