Arsenic For Tea: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (A Wells and Wong Mystery) (24 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ said Uncle Felix softly. ‘I can’t do that, old thing.’

He thought Lord Hastings was guilty, I realized. Everyone thought he was guilty. But how could I blame them? I had thought so, deep down in my bones, until just a few minutes ago.

We had to say something, and quickly, but Daisy seemed to be stuck. I jabbed her hard in the ribs, and she came unstuck in a rush.

‘No!’ she said. ‘STOP! Daddy didn’t do it!’

‘I know you think so,’ said the Inspector calmly, ‘but unless someone in this case can give me some
evidence
to the contrary—’

‘But we
do
have evidence!’ cried Daisy. ‘Lots! And we know who the real murderer was too! It wasn’t Daddy, it was Stephen!’

Stephen staggered back against the library door. He looked frantically around the hall – and then stared straight at me. His eyes were huge and he shook his head pleadingly.

I felt dizzy, as though I were teetering on the top of a very high cliff. I thought I’d already made my choice, but here I was, having to choose all over again. Knowing that I never could choose anything else didn’t make it any less horrible.

I was always going on at Daisy for letting her imagination run away with her – and here I was, ignoring evidence because it didn’t suit me, because I’d liked Stephen so much. I couldn’t do it any more. ‘It’s true,’ I said. It came out in a whisper, and I had to clear my throat and try again. ‘It’s true. We’ve got evidence.’

‘Please!’ said Daisy to Inspector Priestley. ‘
Listen
to us. We helped you before, didn’t we?
Please
.’

I never thought I’d hear Daisy saying
please
to anyone. But even so, it might not have been enough – if Stephen hadn’t made a break for it. He scrabbled for the library door, panting, and quick as a slap the Inspector rapped out, ‘Hold him.’

Rogers dived forward and wrapped his skinny hands around him, and Stephen gasped and sighed and stopped moving.

‘Come downstairs. You have five minutes to present your evidence,’ Inspector Priestley told us. ‘I shall be timing you.’

‘It isn’t true,’ shouted Stephen in the background. ‘It isn’t true – it isn’t—’

‘Shh,’ said Rogers sternly. ‘Don’t interrupt the Chief.’

‘We don’t need five minutes,’ said Daisy. ‘We’ve got a piece of evidence from Mr Curtis himself – a notebook that shows that he tricked Stephen’s parents and stole all their nice things and his father’s watch. That’s why Mr Bampton killed himself, and
that’s
why Stephen killed Mr Curtis, to get his revenge. We found the watch in Stephen’s bathrobe, and the notebook on the upstairs landing – and we’ve even found the bit of paper he used to wrap up the poison before he put it in Mr Curtis’s cup. It was torn out of one of his school books. They all prove that Stephen is the murderer.’

Everyone was staring up at us with exactly the same expression – as though they couldn’t understand what their ears were telling them they’d heard. Aunt Saskia gaped like a fish. Chapman sat down on the nearest chair with a heavy thump. ‘Good heavens!’ said Uncle Felix to Miss Alston. ‘I thought you were supposed to be keeping them busy with lessons?’

‘All right,’ said Daisy. ‘Let me begin.’

We were all sitting in the library – Inspector Priestley had ushered everyone in there after we dropped our bombshell. All the chairs and tables were still shifted about, so that Lady Hastings could have space to convalesce, and seeing them in different places, with Lady Hastings sitting up like a queen in the middle of the room, suddenly made the whole scene feel very unreal. It was as though we had stepped sideways into another house entirely, where a different Wells family lived.

The Inspector still had his cuffs on Lord Hastings – but Noakes was standing over Stephen, one heavy hand pressing down on his shoulder. Stephen looked like he wanted to weep – and I felt the same. I kept on thinking of him as my friend, and then remembering with a jolt that he was not my friend at all.

It made me sick, and angry, as though I had been tricked. All the nice memories I had of him twisted up and went sour. I felt as though the person I was staring at was someone I had never met before.

I suppose, in a way, he was.

I was brought back to the present by Daisy elbowing me not very nicely. ‘Hazel!’ she said. ‘I need you for the dénouement.’

‘It’s not a
dénouement
,’ I said. ‘We’re not in a book. We’re only explaining what happened.’

‘Well then,’ Daisy said, ‘I need you for that. Help me explain.’

‘Where are we?’ I asked. As usual, Daisy was enjoying this part far too much. She is happiest when she is standing up and talking, and everyone else is sitting down and listening.

‘I’ve just told them about how Mr Curtis stole the Bamptons’ things,’ said Daisy, ‘just like he was trying to do here! He was nosing around our antiques, and then we heard him trying to persuade Mummy to come away with him and bring her jewels.’

‘Stephen must have recognized Mr Curtis – and if he didn’t at once, he would have as soon as he saw him flashing his father’s watch around,’ I agreed. ‘And then, when we were playing Sardines, he saw Mr Curtis trying to make Lady Hastings run away with him after tea. He must have felt as though everything was happening all over again – I could see that he was terribly upset. We ran down to the ground floor and— Oh! While I went into the library to look for Beanie and Kitty, he must have gone into the cupboard and scooped some of the arsenic powder out into the piece of paper ripped out of the book in his pocket.’

I remembered Stephen running into the library after me on Saturday afternoon, flushed and out of breath, and felt sick with fury.

‘It would have been easy for him to get it – it would only have taken a minute at the most,’ Daisy explained. ‘Then all he needed to do was wait for everyone to gather around the tea table before slipping the arsenic into a cup of tea.

‘Stephen must have thought that his luck had come in when Mummy actually
asked
for tea for Mr Curtis. He passed it on, knowing that it would still get to Mr Curtis without him actually having to hand it to him. And of course, the person he handed it to was Daddy.’

Something suddenly occurred to me. ‘But what was Lord Hastings doing, if he didn’t put the poison in?’ I asked. ‘I saw his face straight after he had handed the cup to Mr Curtis – he looked so guilty! That’s what Chapman thought too.’

‘An excellent question,’ said Inspector Priestley, ‘and one that I have certainly been wrestling with. Lord Hastings, would you care to explain your actions?’

Lord Hastings coughed. ‘I . . .’ he said. ‘I . . . I hardly think I need to explain myself! Er – could you simply take my word that what I did had nothing to do with the, er, murder?’

‘Unfortunately not,’ said the Inspector.

‘Oh, come on, Daddy, don’t be an idiot!’ said Daisy. ‘Just tell us. We know that you do some terribly stupid things – we’re all quite used to it.’

Poor Lord Hastings!
I thought. Sometimes I do think that Daisy is terribly cruel to her parents.

A red flush spread across Lord Hastings’ plump cheeks. ‘I . . .’ he said again. ‘I . . . er – well, if you must know, I tipped salt into Mr Curtis’s cup before I handed it to him.’

Chapman put his hands over his eyes.

‘George, whatever were you
thinking
?’ cried Lady Hastings.

‘Daddy!’ shrieked Daisy.

‘It seemed quite funny to me at the time,’ said Lord Hastings, trying to look dignified. ‘Of course, I see in retrospect that it might not have been quite . . . well – quite the thing to do. But there are some things that a man simply can’t take lying down, and someone coming into his house and stealing his wife is one of them.’

‘Good heavens, George, nobody
stole
me,’ snapped Lady Hastings. ‘I’m not a rug or a vase. I can do what I like.’

‘I know,’ said Lord Hastings. ‘I do
try
to understand. But . . . it was rather difficult, this time. I hope you’ll forgive me.’

Lady Hastings sniffed.

‘But, Daddy, if that was it – you’ve had everyone thinking you were guilty of
murder
! Look, Chapman’s
crying
, poor thing.’

‘I certainly am not,’ Chapman said quickly, wiping the wet off his face. ‘Do forgive me – I was yawning. I must be tired.’

‘Er . . .’ said Lord Hastings again. ‘Yes. Well. I – I apologize.’

Daisy rolled her eyes. ‘
Anyway
,’ she said, ‘then Mr Curtis drank the poisoned tea and expired. Stephen must have felt pleased. But then he realized that he’d forgotten something. The teacup was still in the dining room, full of arsenic, and if the police were called in, they’d find it at once – with his fingerprints on it. The watch was also there, and of course he wanted that too, as it was his by rights. He waited until the house had gone quiet, pinched the keys from the umbrella stand, and then went into the dining room to clear up the cup and steal Mr Curtis’s watch. Quite by mistake,
we
disturbed him while he was still in the room.’

I looked over at Stephen and shuddered.

‘When we ran out, he must have stuffed the cup and watch into his dressing-gown pocket, locked the door again, put the keys back in the stand and gone upstairs. Then all he had to do was slip into the kitchens the next day, while Mrs D and Hetty were out of the room, and put the cup back with the washing-up. They noticed it, which wasn’t part of the plan, but of course they had no idea who had put it there. And we didn’t either.

‘When Mummy was pushed, we thought we could rule Stephen out. He had no motive that we could see and he was up on the top floor – we heard him come thumping down after she fell and Uncle Felix raised the alarm. But of course, he must have crept down the servants’ stairs, shoved Mummy, dashed back up again and then come down by the front stairs, innocent as anything. He must have thought that when she talked to the police she would tell them something that might incriminate him . . . But how
could
you?’ she asked, turning suddenly on Stephen. ‘Mr Curtis really was a criminal, but Mummy never did anything to you. She didn’t deserve to be almost murdered!’

Stephen shook his head. ‘I thought . . .’ he said. ‘I thought Lady Hastings was Miss Alston. She’d spoken to me earlier that day – she threatened me, and I realized that she suspected me. It was so dark at the top of the stairs, and she was standing with her back to me. I would
never
have pushed Lady Hastings if I’d known.’

Lady Hastings looked outraged – and, I thought, slightly put out. Just like Daisy, she likes to be the reason for everything. ‘Really, I don’t believe that for a moment. You wanted to murder me!’ she said. ‘And after I invited you into my home!’

‘Never mind all that,’ said Uncle Felix smoothly. ‘I think we’ve heard enough, Inspector, don’t you agree?’

A look passed between them, and Miss Alston caught the tail of it. She straightened her blouse, cleared her throat and said, ‘Indeed.’

Of course, I realized. Miss Alston really
did
know Uncle Felix. If she was a policewoman, and Uncle Felix was – whatever he was – they must both be on the side of the law, with Inspector Priestley. That was why Uncle Felix had not wanted to call in the police. He knew that they were already there. Now they must both be desperate to cover up the truth of who Miss Alston was and what she was doing in the house. Daisy narrowed her eyes, glaring at the two of them and Inspector Priestley, and for a moment I thought she was going to say something. For once, though, she seemed to decide that it was best to stay quiet. I was glad.

‘And that’s really it, you see,’ she went on, turning to the Inspector. ‘That’s how Stephen did both crimes. The evidence is all there – the page, the book and the watch. So, do you believe us? Do you? You must! It all makes sense!’

Inspector Priestley’s forehead was the wrinkliest I had ever seen it. ‘I . . .’ he said. ‘I
do
, as a matter of fact. Mr Bampton, do you have anything to say for yourself?’

Stephen opened his mouth emptily. His voice, when it came out, was empty too, all hollow. ‘I am sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry about Lady Hastings. I didn’t mean to hurt her. And I would never have hurt anyone else.’

I suddenly knew exactly what I wanted to say to him. ‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘You would have let Daisy’s father be punished for what you did. And me – you made me think that you were
a good person
. How could you?’

‘I thought I was,’ said Stephen miserably.

I think that was the first true thing he had said to me all weekend.

After that, Beanie’s father rushed Beanie, weeping, and Kitty, eyes all goggly with shock and excitement, out of the door. He started the car, face thunderous, as Chapman loaded the cases into the boot.

Daisy pulled us all into a huddle for one more hasty conversation. ‘You mayn’t say anything,’ she muttered to Kitty and Beanie. ‘Not
anything
about the Detective Society or its part in this. Deadly secret, remember? We
swore
.’

‘But—’ Kitty began.

‘Kitty Freebody, I have told you before that I know medieval tortures and I will use them
all
on you if you so much as breathe a word of any of this. This is
important
!’

‘Oh don’t!’ cried Beanie. ‘We won’t! You know we won’t!’

‘
You
wouldn’t,’ said Daisy, ‘but Kitty might. She
talks
.’

‘All right, all right,’ snapped Kitty. ‘I won’t.’

‘I don’t ever even want to think about it!’ said Beanie. ‘Poor Mr Curtis! Poor Stephen! Murder is
awful
.’

‘Thank you, Beanie,’ said Daisy, rolling her eyes. ‘So, Kitty. You won’t talk? If you don’t – you can stay members of the Detective Society. Minor members, of course, but it’s an
honour
, see?’

‘I told you I’ll stay mum. But I want a badge.’

‘If there ever are badges,’ said Daisy grandly as Beanie’s father ground the engine and glared at us, ‘you may have one.’

Beanie and Kitty piled into the car; it crunched wetly down the drive, and then they were gone. It made me feel homesick again – though I was still not sure for where. Though I did know that I desperately wanted to follow them away from Fallingford.