Arsenic For Tea: A Wells and Wong Mystery

  ‘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.

  5

  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!’

  ‘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!’

  6

  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 Pr
iestley. ‘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?’

  7

  ‘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.