Arsenic For Tea

  Shaking, we crept back into the little nursery bathroom; it really was becoming our headquarters for this case, I thought. Daisy bolted the door, and we both sank down against it. For a while we were silent.

  ‘I can’t believe you screamed, Hazel,’ said Daisy at last. ‘You nearly gave the game away!’

  I opened my mouth indignantly, and then closed it again. Daisy was just being Daisy, and did not mean it in the least.

  ‘It was quite a quiet scream,’ I said. My voice came out all wobbly. ‘No one heard.’

  ‘Hazel,’ said Daisy, after another little while, ‘I think our case has just become exceedingly interesting. There is only one reason why someone who isn’t us would be creeping about in the dining room in the dark, stealing the cup that Mr Curtis was drinking from: because they murdered him, and they want to hide the evidence.’

  ‘But how did they unlock the door?’ I asked. ‘Hardly anyone else knows about the keys in the umbrella stand, do they?’

  ‘Daddy and Bertie do,’ said Daisy. ‘And anyone else might have crept into Uncle Felix’s room while he was out of it and pinched the dining room key from his jacket pocket. The bother is that they’ll have put it back by now – either in the umbrella stand or by sliding the key under Uncle Felix’s door – so we won’t be able to discover anything that way.’

  ‘So they really do have to be from Fallingford House! And they know we’re after them.’ I gulped. I was beginning to feel as though I had been sucked back into last autumn. It was all happening again: a hidden murder, and a murderer who knew that we were investigating the case.

  ‘Well, that can’t be avoided,’ said Daisy. ‘Sometimes detectives have to face terrible danger. Buck up, Hazel, and think about the important things. We’re right about this being a case of murder!’

  Something else occurred to me. ‘If they were there for the cup, why did they take the watch too?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, exactly, Watson!’ said Daisy. ‘That’s an important line of investigation to follow. It’s obvious why the murderer would take the cup – fingerprints and incriminating white residue, of course – but why would they take the watch? I—’

  Someone rattled the doorknob. We both jumped to our feet in panic. My heart was in my mouth. How could the murderer have found us so soon?

  ‘Squashy!’ said Bertie’s voice. ‘What are you doing in there again? Come out and stop being such an idiot. I need to, er . . .’

  We were safe after all – but there was nothing for it: we crept out sheepishly to find Bertie standing there in his dressing gown, looking cross.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said to him.

  ‘Not sorry,’ said Daisy, sticking out her tongue. Bertie made a horrible face, and swept past us into the bathroom.

  We crept back to our beds again. I lay there, thinking. Why would the murderer steal the watch? Was it important somehow? Or was it simply valuable?

  I remembered the way Aunt Saskia had looked at it the day before. Surely she wouldn’t kill anyone for a watch, no matter how beautiful it was? But I couldn’t be sure about anything. After all, someone in this house – perhaps even one of Daisy’s family – must be the murderer.

  It was becoming clear that this was a case where the truth might be even more awful than what we were imagining.

  5

  The next morning it was still raining; it poured and poured as though it would never stop. I knelt up on my bed and peered through the window bars at a countryside that was brown and heaving with water. It was as if, up on Fallingford’s hill, we really were on a boat, sailing through a hostile ocean.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Kitty, coming over and kneeling beside me. ‘At this rate we shan’t be able to leave for days. Ugh. What if Mr Curtis begins to rot?’

  The thought of that made me feel ill. We were dealing with bodies again, and I know that, despite what Daisy’s detective novels say, bodies are horrid things even when they are quite new. But the body, nasty though it was, was not the worst thing about being stuck at Fallingford. We knew now that we were trapped in a house with a murderer.

  We had breakfast in the drawing room, as the dining room was still out of bounds. There was a mountain of food, as usual – toast and eggs and bacon and sausages – but the change of room made everything feel odd and wrong, and everyone was subdued. At least the food tasted the same.

  Bertie chewed furiously through a mountain of toast, while Stephen only stared at his plate. Aunt Saskia hunched over and gulped down poached eggs without even glancing at the silver butter-knife next to her plate, and Miss Alston cut a pear into smaller and smaller segments until it practically vanished. Uncle Felix bit into his napkin instead of his bacon, and seemed not to even notice. Lord Hastings only picked at his kedgeree, looking grey, and shifted about in his chair as though he were sitting on a spider. Chapman was behaving oddly too. He kept glancing at Lord Hastings, and then looking away again, as though desperate to say something but unable to get it out.

  The rain was lashing down against the windows, and the drawing room, which is always cold, looked unpleasant in the grey light. All attempts at conversation seemed to end up at death, like those houses you walk through in dreams where every door you open leads to the same nasty place.

  At last Lord Hastings stared up at the ceiling and said, ‘Church this morning, of course.’

  ‘I shan’t be going,’ said Lady Hastings tightly. Her eyes were red and her hair was uncombed, and she had not even touched her bowl of bran. ‘I – I’m going to call the police.’

  Aunt Saskia dropped her fork.

  ‘Mother!’ said Bertie. ‘Why on earth . . .?’

  ‘Denis is dead!’ cried Lady Hastings. ‘What do you mean, why?’

  ‘I mean that police aren’t generally interested in food poisoning!’ said Bertie. ‘Honestly, Mother, that’s not what they’re for.’

  ‘Dr Cooper doesn’t think it was food poisoning,’ said Lady Hastings. ‘I heard him say so to Felix. And Felix doesn’t think it was an accident.’

  At this bombshell, everyone froze.

  ‘Margaret,’ said Uncle Felix sternly, ‘didn’t I tell you that I would handle this?’

  ‘Yes, you did, but I want the proper police,’ said Lady Hastings. I wondered again what exactly Uncle Felix did when he was not being Daisy’s uncle. ‘Denis is dead, and after what I heard you say I don’t think I can trust anyone in this house, not even my own brother. I’m going to call up that lovely police officer who came to the house after . . . well, you know, after the unfortunate thing that happened at Daisy’s school last year.’

  Beanie squealed, Daisy twitched, and I had to dig my fork into my leg to stop myself gasping. The Deepdean murder seemed to keep on coming up! The thought of seeing Inspector Priestley here, again, made me feel sick and excited, all at once. He had saved us once before – would he have to do it again?

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Lord Hastings mournfully. ‘I knew that there would be a lovely police officer involved somehow.’

  ‘Oh, do be quiet,’ snapped Lady Hastings. ‘I’m calling him, and that’s that. You can go to church and pretend to be sorry.’

  But there was to be no church for any of us. Chapman came over and whispered something in Lord Hastings’ ear.

  ‘The road to the village is flooded,’ said Lord Hastings, looking up and clearing his throat. ‘O’Brian had to be brought over by boat this morning, and now the cows in the long field are stranded. They need to be rescued. I shall go and supervise – but I’m afraid there’s no chance of the boat being free before church.’

  ‘Well, in that case there’s no point in calling the police,’ said Uncle Felix to Lady Hastings. ‘If Fallingford’s flooded, the whole Nussington Road’s down. They won’t be able to get through.’

  ‘Which means we’re trapped!’ said Bertie. He sounded quite excited about it. ‘Trapped with a dead body.’

  Daisy’s eyes lit up. Beanie burst into tears.

  ‘Beans!’ said Kitty. ‘Buck up, co
me on!’

  ‘I – just – don’t – like – death!’ sobbed Beanie.

  ‘Death!’ said Lady Hastings. ‘It’s not just death. It’s murder, and one of you did it!’ In one graceful movement she threw down her handkerchief, pushed back her chair and rushed out of the room, sobbing.

  Beanie clutched Kitty; she was white with fear. Even Kitty looked rather pale.

  ‘This is nonsense,’ said Uncle Felix, standing up and screwing in his monocle. ‘The man had dysentery. That was what I was saying to Dr Cooper. Margaret must have misunderstood me. We don’t need the police.’

  I couldn’t understand why Uncle Felix was pretending to be so ignorant. We had heard him tell Dr Cooper his suspicions. That was why Daisy and I had been able to work out that it was poison in the first place. Was he just trying to make sure that everyone stayed calm? Or did he have another reason to lie?

  Daisy turned a rather suspicious glare on him. ‘Dysentery?’ she asked.

  Uncle Felix stared back at her coolly, one eyebrow slightly raised, giving nothing away. It was an expression I have caught Daisy practising in front of the mirror several times lately.

  ‘Of course it was dysentery,’ he said. ‘What else would it be?’

  6

  As Daisy says, it is maddening being a child. We both wanted to stay down with the grown-ups to see what they would do next, but instead, straight after breakfast Miss Alston hustled us back up to the nursery. She seemed desperate to get rid of us – there was no talk of lessons later. In fact, she seemed quite distracted. As we climbed the stairs, she strode ahead, frumpy hair in a tangle and huge handbag over her arm. I studied her and wondered what was going through her head.

  But Daisy had someone else on her mind.

  ‘I can’t believe Uncle Felix!’ she muttered to me. ‘How dare he lie to me!’

  Kitty turned to look at us, and her eyes narrowed. I immediately tried to look as ordinary as possible, so she would not suspect the detective things going on in my head; I thought I had been successful – until we got back to the nursery and the door closed behind us. Then Kitty pounced.

  ‘You two are up to something,’ she said. ‘I can tell. It’s something to do with Mr Curtis, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why would you think that?’ asked Daisy, dead-pan. ‘We were only talking about what a fright Miss Alston looks, weren’t we, Hazel?’

  ‘Um,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were not!’ said Kitty. ‘I’m not an idiot. You were talking about Mr Curtis. You’re playing your detective games again.’

  I have sometimes wondered whether the others knew, but it was still a shock to hear someone else talk about the Detective Society. It felt as though Kitty had kicked something sacred.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean!’ said Daisy. ‘Detective games? Even if we were talking about Mr Curtis – which we weren’t – it wouldn’t be a game, and you wouldn’t be allowed to know about it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t look so shocked – we’ve known about your society for ages; ever since what happened to Miss Bell last year. We all know – well, Beanie and I do. And we think it’s utterly silly, otherwise we would have asked to join.’

  ‘Silly?’ sputtered Daisy. ‘We solved a murder!’

  Kitty sniffed. ‘The police did that,’ she said. ‘That handsome policeman your mother was talking about.’

  Daisy had gone pink. She was so furious that, for once, she was lost for words.

  ‘So is it true, what you mother said at breakfast?’ asked Kitty. ‘Has Mr Curtis really been murdered?’

  ‘No!’ said Daisy, for once forgetting herself. ‘Go away, can’t you? You’ll spoil everything!’

  ‘It is true!’ cried Kitty triumphantly. ‘I knew it! Hah!’

  Beanie’s lip began to tremble.

  ‘No!’ I said desperately. ‘No, listen!’

  ‘No, you listen,’ said Kitty. ‘If there’s something that exciting going on at Fallingford, then we want in on it. It’s not fair you leaving us out. If you don’t let us, we’ll go to your uncle and tell him exactly what you’re up to. And I bet he’ll be furious.’

  ‘You might want to join in, but Beanie doesn’t,’ said Daisy, grasping at straws. ‘Do you, Beanie? It’s terribly dangerous. You might die!’

  ‘You won’t die!’ I said to Beanie quickly. ‘But Daisy is right. It is dangerous.’

  Beanie took a deep breath. We could all see her considering.

  ‘I think . . .’ she said at last. ‘I think that if you’re going to be detectives, then I want to help. Can’t I help?’ Her eyes were wide, and she stared at Daisy like a kitten left out in the rain.

  Daisy was silent. Then she sighed. ‘Bother,’ she said. ‘All right then. But you’re only temporary members of our society. You have to be our assistants.’

  ‘Assistants!’ exclaimed Kitty, making a face.

  ‘What’s wrong with that? Sherlock Holmes had runners, and that’s a sort of assistant. Anyway, you can’t just invite yourself into the Detective Society and expect to become important at once. Why, it took Hazel almost a whole term to become Vice-President.’

  ‘Daisy!’ I said. Like it or not, we had to be nice to Kitty and Beanie now that they were in on the secret.

  ‘Oh, all right, if you prefer it, you can call yourselves secret agents. But you’ll still be assistants really.’

  This was the sort of Daisy compromise that was really no compromise at all.

  Beanie squeaked again, with joy this time.

  Daisy rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t get too excited,’ she said. ‘If you’re part of the Detective Society you have to solemnly agree to do whatever I tell you to, because I am the President. Hazel is the Vice-President and also the Secretary, which means that she writes everything down and also helps me solve cases. Also, you have to swear yourselves to secrecy with the Detective Society pledge, which means that if you tell anyone about what we do, ever, we’re allowed to hunt you down and punish you with medieval tortures.’

  ‘The medieval tortures part isn’t true,’ I said quickly, because Beanie’s eyes had grown almost bigger than her face.

  ‘Aren’t they!’ said Daisy. ‘You’re such a good Vice-President that I haven’t needed to threaten you, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. In this case, though, I think the warning is needed. Kitty, Beanie, are you ready to swear? If you don’t, you can’t help us.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Kitty, crossing her arms.

  ‘All right,’ said Beanie. ‘I don’t want to be tortured, please!’

  ‘Good. Now, I’m going to say the pledge, and then at the end you have to say I do. Ready? Listen carefully.

  ‘Do you swear to be a good and clever member of the Detective Society, and to logically detect the crimes presented to you using all the cleverness you have, not placing reliance on grown-ups, especially the police?’

  She nudged Kitty, and Kitty jumped and said, ‘I do.’

  ‘I do,’ said Beanie, half a beat behind.

  ‘Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from your Detective Society President and Vice-President, and to do exactly what they say?’

  ‘You’re making this up now!’ cried Kitty. ‘Oh, all right, I do.’

  ‘I do too!’ said Beanie.

  ‘Do you promise never to mention this to another soul, living or dead, on pain of medieval tortures?’

  ‘I do,’ chorused Kitty and Beanie.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Daisy, satisfied. ‘Now we can tell you about the case.’

  7

  ‘So what have you discovered, then?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘Mr Curtis didn’t die of dysentery,’ said Daisy dramatically. ‘He was murdered.’

  ‘Well, we knew that,’ said Kitty. ‘Your mother said so.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ve proved it,’ said Daisy. I could tell that she was cross about Kitty’s response – she hates to have her thunder stolen by anyone. ‘We overheard Uncle Felix talking about it to Dr Cooper, and then w
e did some research to confirm it. Mr Curtis was poisoned, at tea time – we have deduced that someone gave him arsenic from the rat poison tin in the hall cupboard.’

  ‘I don’t see how you can have proof of any of that,’ said Kitty, who was turning out to be a not very obedient assistant. ‘You might just be imagining things.’

  ‘We are not!’ said Daisy. ‘Just listen. We crept down to the dining room last night to look for Mr Curtis’s teacup – and someone had already got in and stolen it, and his watch as well! In fact, they nearly caught us. We had to be very quick.’

  ‘But why would anyone murder him?’ asked Beanie. ‘Poor Mr Curtis!’

  ‘Lots of reasons!’ said Daisy. ‘But the really important one is this: he was here to take our things. When he died, Hazel and I were already investigating him – we saw him creeping about, ogling all the nice things in the house and muttering about how valuable they were, and then he lied to Mummy and said that they were hardly worth anything at all. Then we saw . . . well, we saw something that made it clear he was trying to weasel his way into Mummy’s affections, to trick her into selling him our things for a song.’

  ‘Oh, were they kissing?’ asked Kitty. ‘I wondered.’

  I winced. ‘Lord Hastings, Uncle Felix and Bertie knew what was going on between them too,’ I said quickly. ‘So they were all angry at Mr Curtis. That’s why everyone was so cross yesterday.’

  ‘Not the only reason,’ said Daisy, nodding, ‘but a very good one. Look, before we go any further, we might as well make this a formal meeting of the Detective Society. Hazel, you’ve got your casebook, haven’t you? What have you called this case?’

  ‘The Case of Mr Curtis,’ I said, taking out the book.

  ‘Very good,’ said Daisy. ‘Present at this meeting: Daisy Wells, President, and Hazel Wong, Secretary and Vice-President. Also present: Katherine Freebody and Rebecca Martineau, Assistants and temporary Detective Society members.