Arsenic For Tea: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (A Wells and Wong Mystery) (20 page)

‘Oh no,’ said Dr Cooper. ‘She needs expert care – at least for tonight. I’ll stay here at Fallingford and sit with her. None of us would forgive ourselves if anything happened to dear Lady Hastings, would we?’

‘Indeed not,’ said Uncle Felix blandly. ‘Thank you, Doctor. And – have you had a chance to send off those samples yet?’

‘Not yet,’ Dr Cooper replied. ‘As soon as the floods have gone, I shall, I assure you. You’ve called the police – for the body?’

‘They’re on their way,’ said Uncle Felix – and again, his voice gave nothing away.

At last we were released – and made straight for the library, where Lady Hastings had been moved. As Daisy said, we had to collect alibis as quickly as possible – but for a while we learned absolutely nothing of interest. It was very frustrating. All Lady Hastings did was complain very loudly about her headache. ‘Is there a cut on my forehead?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Imagine if I’m scarred! Oh, and my arm! I might never play the piano again!’

‘Don’t talk, Lady Hastings,’ said Miss Alston. ‘Just rest.’

I flinched. Given what we had discovered about her, everything Miss Alston said seemed menacing. Her presence in the room made my back hot, as though her eyes were on it. Did she know that we suspected her? Meanwhile Daisy was watching the handbag like a mongoose after a snake. A few times I had to nudge her to stop her being so obvious. ‘She must put it down!’ she whispered in my ear. ‘She
must
!’ But Miss Alston never did.

‘How can I rest?’ cried Lady Hastings. ‘The most dreadful things have happened to me. Every time I close my eyes I feel it all over again. Those shadowy stairs – the silence – and then those terrible hands, shoving me in the back – so cruel! I remember thinking,
This is the end!
And then something hit my head and there was nothing more. I thought I had
died
!’

‘Incredible,’ murmured Bertie. ‘Thinking while unconscious.’

‘Do be quiet, thankless child,’ snapped his mother. ‘But what I want to know now is, who is responsible for what happened to me?’

‘What do you mean?’ twittered Aunt Saskia.

‘Exactly what I said. I was not attacked by a ghost, now, was I? Someone
did
that to me. Someone in this house! Only imagine . . . what cruelty, what meanness – what have I ever done to deserve it?’

‘That,’ said Bertie, ‘is perhaps not a question you would like us to answer honestly.’

Lady Hastings ignored him.

‘I assure you, Margaret, I had nothing to do with it,’ said Aunt Saskia.

Daisy sat up and poked me. Were we about to hear an alibi?

‘I was in my bedchamber . . . reading, yes, reading a lovely book, when I heard your terrible scream. I rushed out of the room and met dear George, who was already on the landing – we rushed downstairs and saw Felix kneeling over your lifeless body. Or so I thought. Of course, I was
dreadfully
glad that it wasn’t, you know, truly lifeless after all. George, don’t you remember?’ She patted down the front of her dress, rearranging her scarves, and as she did so she gave off a waft of ghostly smell that made my nose wrinkle. Beneath her own sickly-sweet bluebell scent was something else; something dirty and unpleasant. I could almost taste it. Whatever could it be?

Lord Hastings did a funny sort of wriggle. ‘I . . .’ he said. ‘I . . . er, yes, I must have done. I came out of my room, I saw you, I . . . Yes, that’s it. That’s what happened.’

I saw Daisy give him a worried glance. What was he playing at this time? It sounded like another lie.

‘I was also in my room,’ said Miss Alston, ‘fetching a book for the girls’ lesson. I ran out at once, and saw no one else in the hall.’

‘And I was in the billiard room,’ said Uncle Felix shortly.

I thought of something very odd, then. If the servants had been in the kitchens, and everyone else had been in their own rooms, except for Uncle Felix (who had been down on the ground floor – or at least, so he said), Stephen (up on the nursery floor) and Lady Hastings (who had been standing at the top of the stairs, about to be pushed off them by the murderer), then who had I heard walking above us while we were in the library, just before Lady Hastings screamed and fell? The room above the library was Mr Curtis’s, I realized now. And Mr Curtis’s room, we all knew, was locked. I felt a creepy sensation go up my back. I didn’t believe in ghosts any more, I told myself. I was far too grown up. But all the same . . .

I imagined clicking open Mr Curtis’s door and creeping into that dark room – I wondered if it smelled. I wondered if the shadows were tall and creeping. I wondered whether Mr Curtis’s body was still lying on the bed.

‘Yes, but this doesn’t help
me
,’ said Lady Hastings crossly. ‘We don’t know who pushed me down the stairs, and until we do I’m quite sure that I won’t be able to sleep. Just think, they might come back! I demand a guard at all times!’

‘Dr Cooper will be here,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘And so will the rest of us.’

‘But it was one of you who did THIS!’ shouted Lady Hastings. ‘Who else could it have been? I didn’t hear the dogs bark, did you? There’s been no one else in this house all weekend.’

Beanie, of course, burst into tears.

‘Margaret!’ said Lord Hastings, looking at her awkwardly. ‘The children!’

‘I think that
some people
ought to go upstairs,’ said Miss Alston, clearing her throat. ‘I shall have your dinner brought up.’

‘But we want to stay with Mummy,’ said Daisy loudly. I grasped her hand and squeezed it. At that moment I could not decide what would be worse – being stuck upstairs in the dark nursery with Miss Alston next door, or being downstairs with Lady Hastings, knowing that the murderer might come back to finish her off at any moment.

‘Don’t be silly, Daisy dear,’ said Aunt Saskia, drawing herself up with all her earrings jingling and wrapping her nasty flat-faced fur stole around her neck. ‘Grown-ups know what’s best for little people. And I confess, I find myself quite tired as well. I shall take a little something from the kitchens and retire to my bedchamber – and I shall lock the door. The murderer shan’t be able to get in!’

She spun about on her flat old-lady heels. Her dress billowed out – and something fell tinkling out of it onto the floor. Quick as a flash, Daisy put her foot on it, and then stared up at the ceiling most innocently.

Aunt Saskia froze. I could tell that she was desperate to bend down and snatch up whatever had fallen – though at the very same time, she knew she mustn’t. She paused in the doorway, twisting her fingers up into her scarves . . . and then the part of her that couldn’t afford to make a fuss won.

‘Oh – goodnight!’ she gasped, and trotted out into the hallway, shoulders all hunched up and hands clenched. It had obviously cost her to leave without whatever it was. I tingled all over with curiosity.

‘Oh!’ I said, as though I had made an interesting discovery. ‘My shoe is untied.’ I bent down, and under cover of fiddling with my left lace I slid my hand next to Daisy’s shoe. She wiggled it aside obligingly, and my fingers closed around something metal-cold and knobbly. What it felt like was a key.

‘There!’ I said, standing up again and palming the key into the sleeve of my cardigan. ‘Done.’

Daisy pinched me appreciatively.

‘All right then, girls,’ said Miss Alston severely. ‘Bed.’

‘Oh, Miss Alston,’ said Daisy. ‘Must we?’

‘You must,’ said Miss Alston, folding her arms across her chest. ‘I shall be up in ten minutes to make sure you have your nighties on – and if you do, then I will send Hetty up with dinner.’

Ordinarily, this would have been enough to cheer me up, but given the circumstances, it sounded most menacing. What if Miss Alston should slip something into the food? There had been one poisoning already, after all.

I wanted to stay downstairs, in the light and warmth of the library, and I could tell the others did too. But with all the grown-ups watching us, we had no choice but to shuffle out of the room and upstairs.

We walked up through the dim and dusty house, keeping very close together. After all that had just happened – and my thoughts about the dinner – my heart was racing. What was the key I had just picked up? Which door would it open? I unfolded my hand and stared at it, and quick as a flash Daisy poked her nose over my shoulder and said, ‘Key!’

‘Ooh,’ said Kitty, staring too. ‘Where does it open?’

As soon as she asked, I
knew
.

We were on the first-floor landing, about to take the main stairs up to the nursery floor. The lamps were on now, but the bulbs were dim and flickering, and in the odd half-light the house looked very chilly and uncertain. I wasn’t surprised that someone could have crept up behind Lady Hastings in the five o’clock half-dark – even now I could barely make out the others around me. I held out the key.

‘Is it . . . the key to the dining room?’ whispered Beanie. ‘Oh no, Aunt Saskia did it!’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Daisy. ‘We told you, the murderer would have put that key back straight afterwards. Uncle Felix hasn’t squeaked about losing it, after all. No, this is something quite different.’

‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘It is! If I’m right, I mean.’

‘You usually are,’ said Daisy. ‘Apart from when I am, of course. So, Watson, what door do you think this key opens?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Mr Curtis’s,’ I said.

Daisy raised one eyebrow (her practice must have paid off). ‘
Explain
,’ she said.

‘We know Aunt Saskia likes to, um, pick up beautiful things,’ I said. ‘And we all saw how she was staring at the watch earlier this weekend. We’ve been hunting for the watch all day – what if she has too? She must have guessed that Mr Curtis took it upstairs with him when he was taken ill – although
we
know he didn’t – so in her mind, it should still have been in his room. So she took this key from the bunch in the kitchens sometime this afternoon and went into Mr Curtis’s room to look for it. Just before Lady Hastings fell I heard footsteps above us in the library. I couldn’t work out how someone could be in Mr Curtis’s room – but if it was Aunt Saskia, looking for the watch, then everything makes sense.’

‘But if she was looking for the watch just now, she couldn’t have been the person who took it from the dining room on Saturday night!’ said Kitty. ‘And if we heard her footsteps in Mr Curtis’s room just as Lady Hastings was being pushed – well, she couldn’t have been the person to push her. She
can’t
be the murderer!’

‘Very true!’ said Daisy. ‘Excellent work, Assistant Kitty!’

‘Urgh,’ Kitty added, wrinkling up her nose. ‘Just imagine. She went into a room with a dead body.’

I remembered the nasty smell that had drifted off Aunt Saskia’s clothes.

‘So?’ said Daisy. I do wonder about her sometimes. She is quite odd in the way she reacts to things. ‘It’s just a dead body. It can’t bite. Hazel, hand me that key. Your theory is very good, and I don’t doubt it’s right, but there’s a way to make quite sure – we need to check that this key really
does
open the door to Mr Curtis’s room.’

‘Ugh!’ said Kitty again.

‘No!’ cried Beanie.

‘But,’ I said, ‘Daisy, the
body
.’ Mr Curtis might not be a ghost, but he had been dead for quite some time.

‘Huh,’ she said. ‘
Key
, Hazel.’

I handed it to her, and we all three watched as Daisy went up to Mr Curtis’s door.

‘She’s very brave,’ said Beanie.

‘She’s quite mad,’ muttered Kitty. ‘Goodness, I never knew.’

But as I stood there, I understood, just a little, what Daisy meant about the body. It couldn’t hurt us. Nothing on the other side of that door could be as terrible as the murderer. Daisy was doing something nasty to make sure we were all safe.

As Beanie protested, and Kitty looked on breathlessly, I stayed quiet – and Daisy put the key into the lock and clicked open Mr Curtis’s door.

A horrid, thin smell came wafting through the crack, making me gulp. It was exactly what I had smelled on Aunt Saskia before.

I was right. Aunt Saskia
had
been in this room at the moment when Lady Hastings had screamed. She couldn’t have pushed her off the top of the stairs – and so she couldn’t be Mr Curtis’s murderer.

Daisy pulled Mr Curtis’s door to again and locked it. ‘What we need to do,’ she said, slipping the key into her pocket, ‘is hold another Detective Society meeting before dinner. This won’t end unless
we
end it, don’t you see? The murderer won’t stop. And they’ve hurt my mother. She may be a silly mother, but she is
mine
, and I won’t have it! I’m going to
do
something, and you’re all going to help me. All right?’

I nodded. ‘All right,’ I said. I knew I was bound to help Daisy all the way to the end.

‘All right,’ said Kitty, glancing at Beanie and then back at us. ‘We’re in too.’

We climbed the stairs to the nursery and then sat in a circle on the old rag rug in the middle of the room. Daisy had set a candle in its old brass holder between us, and it lit us all softly, shadows flickering across our faces. It felt lovely, but creepy at the same time. I had my casebook on my lap, and Daisy, of course, was leading the meeting. If there
had
been a table, she would have been at the head. Beanie kept fidgeting and staring at the closed nursery door. I knew Daisy was fearfully annoyed by her – but it was terribly difficult not to be as wobbly as Beanie. I felt as though the mystery were rushing to its conclusion, and we were being rushed along with it. Would we get to the truth before the police arrived – or before the murderer got to
us
?

‘All right,’ Daisy said. ‘This meeting of the Detective Society is hereby called to attention. Present are myself, Hazel, Kitty and Beanie – write it all down, Hazel, you know what to do by now.

‘The facts of the case are these. At just after five p.m. (we know the time, because Miss Alston had just called us for that five o’clock lesson she’d been threatening) someone pushed Mummy down to the hall. From her account we know that she didn’t see who did it – the top of the stairs was dark, and whoever it was came up behind her and shoved. Hazel, write all that down.