Arsenic For Tea: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (A Wells and Wong Mystery) (23 page)

I felt sick. There was no getting out for any of us now. We had to see it through to the end. Poor Lord Hastings! Poor Daisy!

We were alone on the landing with the Inspector. Daisy was refusing to look at him, but Beanie was gaping up at him in awe, and Kitty was considering him quite admiringly. I realized that he was looking at me.

‘The Detective Society certainly seems to have increased in size since the last time I saw it,’ said Inspector Priestley. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ve been keeping your noses out of police business this time?’

‘We don’t have anything to say to you.’ Daisy glared over at the stuffed owl on its plinth. ‘Apart from to remind you that
we
solved the murder last time, not you, and you should be grateful.’

‘I
am
grateful,’ said the Inspector. ‘It’s only that murders are quite dangerous, and I don’t think your parents would like to lose you.’

That made us all think of Lord Hastings, of course.

‘
Parents!
’ cried Daisy. ‘Much you know about it! Oh, go away. I wish you had never come.’

‘I come when I’m called, even through fire and flood,’ said Inspector Priestley, and gave us a wrinkled-up smile. ‘I don’t mean to upset you. But if you do know anything, now’s the time to say it. My men and I will be interviewing everyone this morning. We shall soon get to the truth.’

‘Oh no, don’t!’ said Beanie.

‘
Beans!
’ said Kitty, and kicked her shin.

The Inspector raised his eyebrows. ‘I take it that you do know something, then?’ he asked. ‘Something not very nice?’

‘None of your business,’ said Daisy – quite rudely, I thought. ‘We shan’t say anything more. And we shan’t be helping your investigation this time. You can’t make us!’

‘I wouldn’t dream of making you do anything, but I am beginning to have a good idea of what is going on.’ The Inspector’s eyes went to the stairs down to the hall, and of course I knew exactly who – and what – he meant.

‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Don’t.
Please
.’ I wasn’t quite sure who I was pleading for, Lord Hastings or Daisy.

‘Unfortunately, the law is the law,’ said the Inspector. ‘It can’t be stopped because someone asks me to, no matter who that someone is.’

I stared into his face, long-nosed and serious. Then – ‘Come on, everyone,’ said Daisy. ‘We’re going upstairs. Let’s leave the
Inspector
to his investigation.’

We sat in the nursery, miserably silent. Downstairs I could hear the police at work. There were loud footsteps, doors opening and slamming and heavy voices. ‘Get Rogers to do it!’ I heard. ‘No, the fingerprints . . .’

Fingerprints, photographs, measurements and statements – all the things the police could do, and we could not. What was the point of the Detective Society?

Daisy was sitting with her face to the wall, refusing to look round even when I poked her. Kitty and Beanie were leaning together, looking as exhausted as I felt. I wondered whether they were glad to be part of the Society now.

The nursery door opened, and we all jumped. ‘Come downstairs, girls,’ said Miss Alston. ‘The police want to see you.’

‘Kitty and Beanie can go,’ said Daisy, still not moving. ‘But if they know what’s good for them they won’t say anything. Hazel will stay here. We’re protesting.’

Miss Alston raised her eyebrows – but she didn’t argue. Kitty and Beanie went. I stayed. Hetty, looking distracted, brought us up a late breakfast on a tray. I ate mine, and then, when she didn’t move, Daisy’s as well. It would only have gone to waste otherwise.

I lay on my back on my hard lumpy bed and stared up at the peeling paint on the nursery ceiling. I felt horrible – wiggly and wrong – but all the same I could not help poking away at the case in my mind. It was like having a tooth that aches every time you prod it with your tongue – it hurts, but somehow you cannot stop doing it. I thought about Miss Alston being a policewoman, hired to catch Mr Curtis. I thought about Mr Curtis’s nasty little book, with a record of everyone he had stolen from. And of course, I thought of Lord Hastings – shouting at Mr Curtis on Saturday morning, handing him that teacup on Saturday afternoon, and standing on the stairs on Sunday, looking down at Lady Hastings lying on the floor. Had he
really
done it? It was him or Uncle Felix. There was no one else.

The nursery clock chimed midday, and all of a sudden I couldn’t stay still any longer. It was a very Daisy-ish feeling to have – but Daisy wasn’t being very Daisy-ish at the moment, so I had to take her place.

‘Come on,’ I said to Daisy. ‘Get up.’

‘Go away,’ Daisy said.

I took hold of her shoulder – not very gently – and dragged her backwards off her bed. She tipped over with a yelp and a rather unladylike word. ‘Hazel!’ she said. ‘What’s got into you?’

‘I can’t bear it,’ I said. ‘Sitting here, waiting. Can’t we at least
do
something?’

‘There’s nothing to do,’ said Daisy. ‘But . . . Oh, very well.’

We went out onto the landing, and saw that the door to Bertie and Stephen’s room was open. Because that distraction was as good as anything, we peered inside and found Bertie huddled up on his bed, tinkling away on his ukulele. Stephen was nowhere to be seen.

‘Oh,’ said Bertie when he saw us. ‘It’s you. I’ll play you a song. Look.
Wiiith my little
—’

‘I don’t want a song,’ said Daisy.

‘No,’ said Bertie, stopping mid-jangle. ‘I don’t much, either.’

I could tell that Bertie was almost as upset as Daisy. I had never heard him being so nice before. ‘Where’s Stephen?’ I asked.

Bertie waved his ukulele vaguely. ‘Downstairs. Being interviewed, I think. Rotten weekend for him. Brought up bad memories. You know his father killed himself?’

I nodded.

‘His mother took up with some filthy scoundrel who ran off in the middle of the night with half the things from the house. Jewels and paintings and so on. When Mr Bampton lost his job in the crash, they had no money to fall back on and . . . well, Stephen and his mother were left to pick up the pieces. Stephen thinks his father was some sort of wronged hero, but
I
don’t know. Bad form, I say, leaving your family like that,’ said Bertie, with a flare of his usual temper. ‘A Wells would never do it.’ Then he jumped and looked guilty, as though he’d just heard what he had said. ‘Er . . . sorry. I didn’t mean—’

‘I
know
what you meant,’ Daisy said, scowling. ‘I don’t care. Everything’s
ruined
.’

There was a noise downstairs – shouting. We all stiffened and pretended we couldn’t hear it. I looked around the room desperately for something else to fix on – and then I saw, sitting on the battered old chest of drawers next to Stephen’s empty bed, a book. It was a thin, cheap volume of poetry, and I went over and flicked through it. I was hardly even glancing at the words – until my fingers stumbled over a torn page.

The rest had been ripped out. I put my hand in my skirt pocket and pulled out the piece of paper I’d been carrying about all weekend. I put the two pieces together.

It was a perfect match.

All the things in my head – the jumble of nearly right details that had all been fighting against each other and refusing to add up – suddenly trembled and spilled over and came back together again in a perfectly neat line, like the right answer in an exercise book.

‘Bertie,’ I said very quietly, ‘whose book is this?’

‘What?’ asked Bertie, distracted. ‘That? Oh, that’s Stephen’s. The rubbishy poetry we’re studying next term. Did he tear out a page? He must hate it even more than I do. He’s usually boringly careful with his things.’

I didn’t even need to look over at Daisy to know that she had frozen. My heart was beating fast, fast, and I could hardly breathe.
The page
. The page the murderer hid the poison in before they tipped it into Mr Curtis’s cup. It was a page from one of Stephen’s books.

‘Bertie,’ said Daisy, ‘does Stephen use the servants’ staircase? And does he know about the keys in the umbrella stand?’

‘Eh?’ asked Bertie. ‘You say the
oddest
things sometimes.’

‘Bertie, you prize idiot, will you answer me? Have you shown him the way down the back stairs?’

‘Of course I have,’ he said. ‘I showed him as soon as we arrived. He can get down like a cat. He knows about the keys, too – I used them to get into the kitchens last Wednesday night, after the rest of you were all asleep.’

I remembered how we’d ruled Stephen out of the second crime. We had heard him come clattering down the creaky front stairs from the nursery floor – but of course, of course, he could have crept down to the first floor on the servants’ staircase. They come out just opposite the main stairs, so he could have come up behind Lady Hastings without her noticing, pushed her and then, in those ten quiet seconds, slipped upstairs again, before coming back down the front way, loud enough for everyone to hear. I felt sick. Could it really be? Stephen was so nice, and kind, and good –
and his father had killed himself because his mother ruined them. She took up with a scoundrel who stole all their things
. I remembered what he had said to me last night.
You’re quite safe. Bertie and I – we won’t let anything happen to the four of you. I can promise that.

I pulled the crumpled notebook out of my skirt pocket and thumbed through it, back much further than we had been looking before. And then I found it.

Bampton. Visited house 1.10.1928 – a rich lot of jewels, worth hundreds, and some gorgeous paintings. Lovely wife happy to assist, practically handed them over. Took the lot – and husband’s gold watch for luck. In the money!

The whole awful story was in those notes. Poor Stephen, to have that happen to his parents! I felt terribly sorry for him – and of course, when he came to the house and saw Lord and Lady Hastings rowing, and Mr Curtis sliding in between them, he must have felt as though it was happening again. Stephen would have recognized Mr Curtis, but of course, after almost seven years, Stephen would look very different to the little boy Mr Curtis had met. And Mr Curtis had even flashed around Stephen’s father’s watch like a sort of trophy! I imagined someone boasting about hurting my father – and I could see that it might make me desperate to pay them back for what they had done. Right or wrong would hardly come into it. It would be family.

But as I thought that, I realized that there was another family in an even worse way than Stephen’s. Daisy’s mother had almost died, and her father was in the most terrible trouble – and if I was right about what we had just discovered, it was all because of Stephen.

The thought of Stephen being the murderer made me shake all over with horror and confusion – because he was
good
, I kept telling myself,
good
, and how could a good person do something so bad – but Daisy and her family were innocent. They hadn’t done anything. We had to save Lord Hastings, even if it meant hurting Stephen. I had to forget my feelings and be a detective.

‘Daisy,’ I said frantically. ‘
The watch!
’

Of course, she understood me at once. Her nose went up like a dog on the scent, and she leaped forward.

‘What is it?’ asked Bertie, angry and confused, swinging his head from side to side. ‘What’s going on?’

Daisy ignored him. She went rootling through Stephen’s chest of drawers, throwing aside much-darned socks, threadbare handkerchiefs and carefully mended trousers. There was more evidence of what Mr Curtis had taken from him, I thought, and felt sick with despair.

‘Squashy! Hey! Put that down! Squashy, you heathen, leave it!’ Bertie dived towards Daisy furiously. ‘Stephen’s
things
, Squashy! What are you—’

But now Daisy had discovered Stephen’s bathrobe, hanging up at the end of his bed, and wriggling her hands into the pockets, she yelped in triumph and pulled out . . . Mr Curtis’s watch.

There it was, and there was our final piece of evidence.

Stephen was guilty.

And as I understood that, all over, like being pushed into a cold bath, we heard the most furious roaring in the hall below us.

‘Daddy!’ cried Daisy. ‘Quick, oh, quick!’

I didn’t even hesitate. I ran downstairs after her.

We arrived halfway through a struggle. Lord Hastings was wriggling like a fat fish in the grasp of Inspector Priestley and the tall policeman, Noakes, while Rogers stood aside looking nervous. Beanie was crying, and Beanie’s father – who must have arrived while we were upstairs – was glaring about furiously, as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. Aunt Saskia was wringing her hands. Lady Hastings stood with her lips pressed together, leaning her bandaged head against Uncle Felix, who had one hand clenched around her shoulder. Miss Alston stood with her arms crossed, her face impassive. And Stephen . . . Stephen hovered in the shadows beside the library door, face white and drawn. How could I have not seen how suspiciously he’d been behaving? I wondered. How could I not have noticed before?

‘Unhand me!’ bellowed Lord Hastings. ‘UNHAND ME, I SAY! I had nothing to do with this – nothing – why won’t you believe me? I . . . I— Chapman,
help
me!’

Chapman looked as though he wanted to weep. He stood hunched up and shaking. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I . . . I can’t—’

‘Lord Hastings,’ said Inspector Priestley. ‘If you won’t give me another explanation for how you came to hand Mr Curtis a teacup that appears to have been poisoned, just a few hours before he died of arsenic poisoning, I shall simply have to take you into custody. You must see that. I am quite willing to believe that there has been a terrible misunderstanding, but I need the truth.’

‘The TRUTH?’ roared Lord Hastings. ‘I’ve given you my WORD! Surely that means more than . . . I tell you, I had nothing to do with that man’s death. FELIX, can’t you do something? Call your man in London. This is an outrage. HELP me!’