Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (10 page)

When we came into the dorm, Lavinia was sitting on her bed. Her eyes were raw at the edges. ‘I’m all right,’ she said gruffly. ‘But when we find who did this, I shall …
eat
them.’

‘Don’t do that!’ said Beanie.

‘She’s speaking metaphorically, Beans!’ said Kitty.

‘Am I!’ said Lavinia.

Daisy sighed. ‘Metaphors are not important. What happened at dinner—’

‘What happened at dinner?’ asked Beanie.

‘Florence,’ Daisy and I said together. I felt the click between us and I knew, just then, that she was thinking the same thing as me. ‘Clementine heard her talking to Elizabeth about the hockey team. What if that’s connected to Florence’s secret? She might be hiding something to do with the team, or her hurdles training.’

‘Yes, but … how are we supposed to know for sure?’ asked Lavinia. ‘We can guess all we like, we still won’t rule anyone out.’

‘But their secrets must be written down on bits of paper, like the other girls’!’ said Beanie suddenly. ‘All we need to do is find them.’

Daisy beamed. ‘Very true! And I believe I know the perfect place to begin the hunt,’ she said. ‘The Five’s dorm. If they have any secrets in their possession, they are most likely to have hidden them there.’

‘But didn’t we say the secrets were coming from a younger girl?’ asked Kitty. ‘This doesn’t make sense!’

‘Cases never make sense until you have made sense of them,’ snapped Daisy. ‘We must continue to investigate.’

‘Oh, I don’t want to go into the Five’s dorm,’ said Beanie. ‘It’s terribly dangerous. And against House rules!’

‘If you think it’s dangerous, then you needn’t have anything to do with it,’ said Daisy. ‘Hazel and I will deal with it together.’

My heart jumped. I had been thinking – well, that Daisy might have been able to tell how distracted I had been at dinner, and why. But now she was smiling at me, and I could feel myself smiling back. We lit up at each other, like an electrical circuit clicked into place.

‘You really do commit a lot of crimes, for detectives,’ said Lavinia.

‘I don’t commit crimes,’ said Daisy. ‘I
catch
the criminals. Don’t get confused.’

Lavinia rolled her eyes – but before she could say anything else, the Prep bell went, and we had to rush away without discussing exactly
how
Daisy expected us to get into the Five’s dorm.

During Prep, I wrote to Alexander again.
Dear Alexander, I think we are making headway with the case …
I wrote and wrote, my arm curled to hide the fact that what I was doing was not a History essay or a Maths problem at all.

I looked up once, and saw Daisy looking at me. Her lips were pursed, and she flicked her eyes from my face to the casebook, and then up again. I froze, and I felt my face giving me away. Did Daisy … know?

As always, one of the Five was taking our Prep, but luckily for me, it was Enid. As I have said before, Enid is our best hope for a university place this year (you see, not all of our Big Girls go to university. Most are only presented at Court and go on to marry Lords with no chins). She works without stopping, always head down in a book, and that means that you can get away with almost anything when Enid is on Prep. It did make my heart race, though, to be so close to one of our suspects. What if Enid was the murderer? What if she decided to hurt us too? I got shivers all over my body, thinking about it.

But then I looked at Enid with my eyes, instead of with my imagination, and saw how small she was, and how pale, and how her brow wrinkled as she read. Could Enid really lift that heavy rake, and bring it down on the back of Elizabeth’s head hard enough to kill her?

There was a History book in front of her this evening. I had heard her mentioning an important test earlier, and from her look she was concentrating hard on it. I frowned at her, and she blinked up at me with unfocused eyes and then looked back down at her page.
Distracted
, I thought, and then,
by her work
. And I felt a connection between us, for although I have learned to hide it at school, I do love to learn as well.

Then I felt a nudge in the small of my back. I put my hand out automatically and felt the bit of paper passed into it by Kitty’s hand.

Midnight feast
, it said, in Daisy’s writing.
Top Secret. You know what to do.

This was a cover, I understood at once. Daisy would not simply suggest a midnight feast at a time like this without good reason. But why had she not told me beforehand? What did it mean? I felt confused.

I went back to the dorm, and changed, and went to toothbrushes, but I could not think of anything but Daisy. I was still trying to understand why she had planned a midnight feast without telling me. Why would she do such a thing? It could not have anything to do with Alexander’s letter, could it?

At toothbrushes, Lettice and Florence were supervising, and I could feel the distrust in the air. There was so much that was not being said, and I understood as never before that every moment of unity between the Five was only a front. Behind that, they were divided.

‘Hurry up, you horrors, or you’ll send Lettice quite potty!’ said Florence, and Lettice flinched, then took a step backwards.

‘Don’t shout, Florence!’ she said in a furious, scratchy little voice. ‘You’ve got to be careful of yourself, you know.’ Florence cast an absolutely hateful look at her, and I felt thankful that we could escape to our dorm. But all the same, I wanted quite desperately to know what Lettice and Florence would say to each other when they were alone. And at that moment, as though the thought had jumped straight from Daisy’s head to mine, I knew what she was planning to do.

We crept back to our dorm almost unnoticed (the other fourth-form dorm were having a row about Sophie’s exam results), and turned off our light.

‘What do we do now?’ whispered Beanie.

‘Wait!’ hissed Daisy. ‘Wait until things go quiet!’

So we waited. I heard the House hum around me, pipes and shouts and thumps as doors slammed and windows were hauled open (as I have said before, Matron is very fond of fresh air, even in winter). It made a living rhythm, and I was soothed by it.

The House sighed, one more door hushed shut, and there was quiet. ‘All right!’ hissed Daisy, and she sat straight up in her bed like a rocket. Kitty sat up too.

‘Ooh, is it time for the feast?’ whispered Beanie, bouncing into a sitting position and clicking on her torch enthusiastically.

‘It is indeed,’ said Daisy. ‘Or at least, it is time for you to provide cover for
me
. You shall be holding the midnight feast while
I
am detecting. I am about to put myself in terrible danger for the good of this investigation.’

‘Ooh!’ said Beanie, digging through her tuck box and unearthing an enormous box of Sharp’s creamy toffees and another of Turkish Delight. ‘On your own?’

‘Oh, I don’t want to put any of you in danger,’ said Daisy, and there was a funny flicker in her voice.

My heart stuttered. What was Daisy doing? First she had not told me about her plan, and now she seemed to be deliberately leaving us – me – out of it. Earlier today, Daisy herself had said that we would handle this bit of the investigation together. What had changed?

‘But what if
I
want to put myself in danger?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been in at least as much danger as you have. Let me come with you.’

There was that funny flicker again. And then … ‘Oh, if you must,’ said Daisy quickly. ‘You can stand at the window and watch for me.’

‘No!’ I said. ‘I want to come with you, all the way up to the Five’s dorm. That’s where you’re going, isn’t it?’

Daisy scowled. ‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘I’m going to climb up to the Five’s dorm. I’m going to spy on them. I’ll bet anything they’ve been waiting all day to talk to each other safely. Now is the perfect time, and I mean to be there to hear it.’

Beanie gasped, and even Kitty’s mouth fell open a little way.

‘You know I ought to be there,’ I said. ‘I know shorthand, after all, and you don’t. I can take notes.’ I am proud of the fact that I have become quite good at shorthand over the last few months.

‘True,’ said Daisy. ‘But … I’m not sure the drainpipe will take two.’

I felt that jibe. I know I enjoy bunbreaks, but so does Daisy, only she shows it less.

‘Well, I shan’t fall,’ I said.

‘I shan’t either,’ said Daisy, rather stiffly. It was very odd – it almost felt as though we were arguing. Where had that come from? ‘Now, are you ready? You three, get out your midnight feast things at once. We are relying on you to provide cover. If any of the other girls come in, tell them that we’re off creating a prank, and if it’s Matron, she’ll be too busy confiscating things to notice that we’re gone. We’ll be back as soon as we can.’

We eased up the window. The night was very dark and rustling. Behind us, Beanie was arranging the midnight feast things on the rug, dropping them nervously and saying, ‘Oh! Sorry. It’ll go back together again … look—’

‘Beans, that fruit cake’s Fortnum’s!’ said Kitty reproachfully. ‘It’s from Granny, you can’t just
drop
it.’

I stuck my face outside, into the cold breeze, and wished very much that I could go and sit down next to Beanie and eat that cake. I would not even mind the little bits of floor dust on it. But Daisy, hair done up in fresh plaits and socks rolled down, was putting her hand on my shoulder and hoisting herself up onto the sill. She crouched there for a moment, legs bent and fingers still gripping the cloth of my pyjamas, and wobbled, so I gasped and put out my hand to steady her.

‘Do let go, Watson,’ said Daisy sharply. ‘I’m quite safe. I’ve done far worse than this before. Why, last year I climbed to the very top of the Secret Tree. Not even Bertie’s ever done that and he’s supposed to be good at climbing. You know he’s joined some sort of midnight climbing society at Cambridge? Why, he’s not half as good as I am. Just because he’s a boy!’

‘Daisy!’ I said, letting go of her.

‘Do stop fussing!’ said Daisy. She turned her head to look at me, and I saw her face blazing with excitement. She seemed to have forgotten to be annoyed at me for a moment, but I had not lost the upset in my stomach. There was something wrong between us, I knew it. ‘Now, are you ready? We are about to embark on a most exciting and important mission.’

I swallowed, and nodded.

‘Hazel,’ said Daisy, and she leaned forward until her nose was almost level with mine, staring into my eyes intently. ‘Watson – Detective Society for ever, yes?’

‘Detective Society for ever,’ I said, and my heart jumped with guilt. It felt like a test, but I did not know if I had passed.

‘Good,’ said Daisy, pulling away. ‘I’ll go first. Wait five minutes, and then follow. All right, wish me luck.’

And in one swift movement she stood up on the windowsill, spun, bent forward and launched herself out onto the drainpipe. I had one sheer dreadful moment when I thought she had not done it, but then there was a small ladylike clank and I saw that she was gripping onto it, arms and knees wrapped around it like a monkey. Then she began to climb.

Up and up she went, the white from her socks flashing like semaphore. I had a heart-in-my-throat second as she reached the place where the roof turns out, but she was up and over like a cat. Then I could not see her any more. The prefects’ dorm is at the very top of the House, and its window is hidden from us down below by the lip of the roof. So there was nothing for me to do but wait. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but what was ahead of me. For once I could not even draft a letter in my head.

I waited for what felt like five years, which were only five minutes by my wristwatch, and then it was time for me to follow. I tucked this casebook into my pyjamas, took a deep breath, and leaned out of the window.

I craned upwards. Daisy had made it look easy and not perilous at all, as though it was quite ordinary to be clambering up the side of a building in the middle of an English winter night, on the way to spy on five murder suspects. It was not. When I launched myself at the drainpipe, I nearly missed it, and had to scramble and clank, shaking, for what seemed an endless minute. I began climbing, and my legs ached and my arms twisted and my fingers scratched against the peeling paint of the pipe. I felt my whole body tremble, but I could not stop or let go, so I hauled myself upwards, inch by grim inch, trying not to make too much noise, or slip, or cry. At last, and I thought the moment would never come, my hands found the lip of the roof and I dragged myself over it to safety, washed through with nerves.

I had only ever seen the roof of our House from the road before, and I had only the vaguest impression of it as being rather normally roof-shaped. Now that I was up on it, though, it seemed as though there was not a flat place on the whole roof space. It was all peaks and dips and turrets, and I was tremblingly certain that if I let go my hold for even a second, I would simply roll off again. I also knew that Daisy would have had no difficulty with it at all. She does have quite marvellous balance. That is why she is so good at Deportment.

Once I straightened up (shaking) I looked for her, but found myself quite alone. Daisy had not waited. The prefects’ dorm was on the other side of House, and so I had to creep my way across the roof on my own; it seemed suddenly as large as the world and twice as confusing. I was trying desperately not to breathe too loudly as I inched round a particularly pointy outcrop – and there in front of me was the peak of the window of the Five’s dorm. Crouched over it, like a gravestone angel, was Daisy. She was bent away from me, her head inclined downwards, so I could see the edge of her hair, paler in the darkness, and the outline of her fingers gripping the tiles. I crept over to her and nudged her shoulder, and she nudged back automatically, without looking at me. She was already listening, and so I pulled this casebook out and began to listen too.

We were helped, once again, by Matron’s obsession with fresh air. Like every window in House, the Five’s dorm window was open, and the blowing wind that raised the hairs on my arms and made me shiver (Daisy held still as a statue) also whipped their conversation straight past our waiting ears.