The Case of the Blue Violet: A Murder Most Unladylike Mini Mystery (2 page)

Graves Estate, 14
^th
August 1935

My lovely Violet,

I miss you every moment we are apart. I know I do tease, but I really can’t imagine a world without you. We mustn’t let anything break us apart. After all,

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Your love,

E

It was very soppy, just as I had been expecting. But there was something in it – only a very little thing, but enough for a keen detective mind like mine to be alerted. I felt my brain race. Could it be? If so – why, the case might be over almost before it had begun.

‘Violet,’ I said. ‘I have had a thought. Can I come with you, while you use the telephone?’

‘But I don’t need to use the telephone,’ said Violet, proving that she was not as clever as me – which, really, is not surprising.

‘
Yes you do
,’ I said. ‘Or at least,
you say you do
.’

‘She’s got a lead in the case. She wants to phone someone to confirm it,’ whispered Hazel to Violet.

‘Oh! Why didn’t you say so before? Meet me at lunch time and I’ll get you into Matron’s office,’ said Violet.

Hazel made a face at me, which I ignored. She is sometimes far too soft with clients for her own good.

At lunch time, Violet took me into Matron’s study to use the telephone.

‘What shall I say if she asks what we’re doing here?’ she kept on asking, terribly worried. It was an awful bother to keep her focused and explain that as she was a Big Girl, Matron would not even ask.

I was exhausted by the time I picked up the receiver and heard the operator’s voice.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Fallingford 243, please.’ It is always good to be polite. It makes people wonderfully willing to give you things. ‘Of course,’ said the operator. There was a click, and a few whirrs, and then our butler Chapman’s voice echoed down the wire to me, saying, ‘Hello?’

‘Chapman!’ I said. ‘It’s Daisy. Can you get Hetty for me, please?’

Hetty is another true brick. If she were not a grown-up she would be an excellent member of the Detective Society – a far more worthy one than
some
people. But despite her age, she can still be useful, especially if one wants to find out some information quickly. I told Hetty what I wanted her to find out and tell me (I will not say it here, because I am building suspense, and also giving you a chance to solve the case. Perhaps you may not be as brilliant a detective as I am, but you may as well try), and she said she would get it to me as soon as she could.

‘Borrow the money from Chapman,’ I said, to punish him for listening. (I knew he was standing next to Hetty, I could hear him breathing.)

‘Miss D—’ Chapman began, offended – but I put the receiver down as quick as anything, so I would not have to hear him scolding me.

‘Why did you want to know that?’ asked Violet, looking troubled. I turned to Hazel, and saw that she understood. Her eyebrows were wrinkled up.

‘A good detective never reveals their methods,’ I said. ‘Not before we give you the answer, anyway. Hazel, don’t tell.’

Hazel pressed her lips together. I did think that the look she gave me was unfair. I am still her president, after all. This year she sometimes forgets that.

‘Do you know?’ she asked me later.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Even before Hetty confirms it. Do you?’

‘Of course. How will you tell her?’

‘I shall think of something,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow.’

To be quite honest, I had not thought – but when Hazel asked, tomorrow was still an awfully long time away. I went over the case in my head, lining the details up like pebbles on a wall. It was all very satisfying. I think some people feel this way when they look at a painting or hear music, which makes me think that some people are awfully strange.

The next morning, at breakfast, there was a telegram waiting for me. It was very brief.

THREE STOP GARDENER VALET CHAUFFEUR STOP BE GOOD HETTY STOP

Hazel and I looked at each other. We both knew that the case was solved.

‘What are you up to?’ asked our dorm-mate Lavinia, chewing on a piece of toast. ‘You look odd.’

‘They look
mysterious
,’ said our other dorm-mate Kitty, grinning. I glared at her. Kitty is dreadful at keeping secrets. It’s really quite offensive.

‘Yes, it’s
fascinating
,’ I said. ‘My parents’ maid, telling me about
staff
.’

That shut Kitty up, as I knew it would. She curled her lip and turned away to talk to our friend Beanie. Of course, it never occurred to her to ask why my maid should be sending an urgent telegram about staff. People never really do see what’s in front of them. It’s terribly lucky – it means that I can do almost anything I like.

In the bunbreak queue that morning, I nodded at Violet. She went pale, but she nodded back, and as soon as we were all out on the lawn, she came to find us, doing a very good impression of a Big Girl condescending to speak to two fourth formers.

‘We know the answer,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ said Violet. ‘Tell me!’

‘We shall,’ I said. ‘We want paying, though.’

‘Of course,’ said Violet. ‘Anything! Only – tell me what’s wrong with Edward!’

‘Nothing’s wrong with him,’ I said. ‘Only – the person you know as Edward isn’t Edward
Eastham
at all. He’s the Easthams’ chauffeur. That’s who you’re in love with. You’ve never met Edward Eastham, and he’s never met you. Isn’t it obvious? And that’ll cost you those nice cakes that you’ve got stored in your tuck box, all four of them – oh, and two favours, one for each of us, whenever we need them.’

Violet dropped her biscuit.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I say! It can’t – it can’t be true!’

‘Of course it is,’ I said. I felt frustrated. Why don’t people understand, when I speak to them clearly? ‘Hazel, explain!’

‘It does make sense,’ said Hazel gently. ‘Edward wasn’t in the house with Lord Graves when you arrived, was he? The first time you ever saw the boy you think of as Edward was when he got out of the car – and you never saw him with any of the Graves family, because you were meeting in secret. And you never told us he introduced himself as Edward Eastham. How did you
know
that’s who he was?’

‘But he said – he – oh!’ said Violet. ‘I asked him if he was Edward, and he said yes, but – oh, never his last name!’

‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘You only assumed. You thought that he was driving
his
car – but again, how could you
know
? How could you be sure that what you were seeing wasn’t something else – a chauffeur who had just come back from taking his master to an event?’

‘But – he didn’t
say
he was!’

‘Of course he didn’t! Why would he? He didn’t want to contradict a lady – and then it was too late.’

‘
Too late
?’ repeated Violet. Her eyes had gone very wide.

‘He had already fallen in love with you, of course,’ I said. ‘Of course he loved you – look at his letter! Oh, Hazel, explain again.’

‘He copied down poetry for you,’ said Hazel. ‘All of those nice words! He was afraid that when you found out you’d be cross, and leave him – that’s what he meant by
We mustn’t let anything break us apart
. And it wasn’t just what he said, but what he did – he spent all summer with you. He must love you very much.’

‘Of course, when it was your maid going to the Graves estate, he could stop her and take the letters from her before they ever reached the real Edward,’ I went on. ‘Then, when he wrote back, he disguised his handwriting to look like Edward’s – just in case. He would have seen plenty of samples in notes and so on, and really, it wouldn’t be hard. That copperplate of his – every schoolboy in the world learns how to write like that. And these days, even chauffeurs are very educated. The only difference between the way the boy you’re in love with and the real Edward write their letters is very small – but, of course, I noticed it at once.’

Violet’s mouth was hanging open.

‘
The date
!’ I said impatiently. ‘Didn’t you see? Now, the real Edward Eastham went to America when he was already quite old, so we know he doesn’t have an accent. But he went to
school
there, and so he would have picked up certain American habits – like writing the date all wrong, with the month first. In the most recent letters you got, the date was like that. But in the romantic one you showed us, that your boy-friend had written to you during the summer, the
day
was first, and then the month. Two different ways of setting out a letter – two different people, with two different backgrounds.’

‘But if – but how—’ Violet began, and I saw she was still struggling with the problem.

‘The
real
Edward Eastham only began to write to you because when you went back to Deepdean—’ Hazel began.

‘—your letters went through the
normal
post!’ I finished for her impatiently. ‘Your boy-friend had no chance to intercept them – the postman would give them straight to the valet every morning. That’s how we knew that your boy-friend wasn’t the valet, by the way. There are three young men on the estate apart from Edward Eastham: the gardener, the valet and the chauffeur. The gardener was all wrong, because the boy you described wasn’t dirty or scruffy. It could have been the valet or the chauffeur – but your letters from school went to the
real
Edward, and if it had been the valet, he would have taken them, not given them to Edward. And, of course, the valet wouldn’t have been very likely to be driving about in a car. No, it all fits. You’ve fallen in love with Lord Graves’s chauffeur, not his son. What do you think about that?’

Violet had gone pale. ‘But . . .’ she whispered. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘You ought to be pleased!’ I said. ‘After all, your father will be furious. And as to what you do with your boy-friend – tell him you know, of course. And if he doesn’t mind, you can marry him.’

‘Marry him!’

‘If you go to Scotland you can do it without your parents knowing anything about it,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you read books? I don’t see why you shouldn’t marry him. He knows poetry, and he can drive. He’s probably far better than Edward Eastham.’

‘Daisy!’ said Hazel. ‘She doesn’t even know what he’s called!’

‘Names aren’t important,’ I said. ‘After all,
you’ve
got two, and you were my best friend for years before I found out your Chinese one.’

Violet was crying and laughing at the same time, so I thought it best to leave her to herself for a while. I winked at Hazel and nodded my head, and we slipped away together.

‘Another case solved,’ I said. ‘Rather good work, on my part.’ Hazel sighed. ‘The Detective Society’s part, then! But it really was mostly me.’

‘All right,’ said Hazel, rolling her eyes. ‘This time it was.’

I slipped my arm through hers. Hazel is good to lean against – she may be short, but she is comfortingly solid. ‘Aren’t people soppy when they get old?’ I asked. ‘All this love nonsense. I’m sure I don’t understand it. Don’t fall in love, will you?’

‘Of course I won’t,’ said Hazel.

I was glad we had agreed that. And, all in all, I was pleased with the case. It may have been the Detective Society’s quickest ever. It was all neatly wrapped up – and even more so on the next Monday, when we came up to our dorm after lunch to discover a box of Violet’s delicious-looking cakes on my bed. Next to them was a note. It read:

His name is Ed Higgins. He said yes. Don’t tell Daddy.

Violet

Hazel and I grinned at each other. We are really becoming rather good detectives.

Robin Stevens was born in California and grew up in an Oxford college, across the road from the house where Alice in Wonderland lived. She has been making up stories all her life.

When she was twelve, her father handed her a copy of
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
and she realised that she wanted to be either Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie when she grew up. When it occurred to her that she was never going to be able to grow her own spectacular walrus moustache, she decided that Agatha Christie was the more achievable option.

She spent her teenage years at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, reading a lot of murder mysteries and hoping that she’d get the chance to do some detecting herself (she didn’t). She went to university, where she studied crime fiction, and then worked in children’s publishing. She is now a full-time writer.

Robin now lives in London with her pet bearded dragon, Watson.

Murder Most Unladylike

Arsenic For Tea

First Class Murder

Jolly Foul Play

We were all looking up, and so we missed the murder.

I have never seen Daisy so furious. She has been grinding her teeth (so hard that
my
teeth ache in sympathy) and saying, ‘Oh, Hazel! How could we not notice it? We were
on the spot
!’

You see, Daisy needs to know things, and see everything, and get in everywhere. Being reminded that despite all the measures she puts in place (having informants in the younger years, ingratiating herself with the older girls and Jones the handyman and the mistresses), there are still things going on at Deepdean that she does not understand – well, that has put her in an even worse mood than the one she has been in lately.

And, if I am honest, I feel strangely ashamed. The Detective Society has solved three real murder mysteries so far, and yet we still missed a murder taking place under our noses, in our very own Deepdean School for Girls – the place where we began our detective careers one year ago.

It really is funny to think about that. It seems in a way as though we have not moved at all – or as though we have made a circle, and come all the way back to the beginning again. I suppose I still
look
almost exactly like the Hazel I was when I ran into the Gym and found Miss Bell, our Science mistress, lying on the floor last October. I am not much taller, anyway. When I measured myself last week, I found I have hardly grown at all – or at least, not upwards. My hair is still straight and dark brown, my face is still round, and I still have the spot on my nose (I suppose it must be a different spot, but it does not look that way). Inside, though, I feel quite different. All the things that have happened the past year have made me quite a new shape, I think – one who has faced up to the murderer at Daisy’s home, Fallingford, and defied my father to solve the Orient Express case. On the other hand, sometimes I think that even though Daisy keeps on shooting upwards, and becoming blonder and lovelier than ever, she has stayed the same inside. She bounces back from things, like a rubber ball – not even what happened at Fallingford could truly alter her.