Murder Most Unladylike: A Wells and Wong Mystery Read Online Free

has just found our best case yet.’

6
    We heard the Dining-Room doors bang open downstairs. There was a gathering roar and a clatter of feet up the bare sides of the stairs, and thirty seconds later Kitty threw open the dorm door and came rushing in, Beanie and Lavinia at her heels.
    ‘What happened? Why weren’t you at dinner?’ gasped Beanie. ‘I saved you my pudding in case you haven’t eaten – it’s bakewell tart so it was easy to carry and you know I hate it.’
    I knew that was a lie, and felt guilty, but before I could argue Daisy had graciously taken the crumbling slice of tart from Beanie and was breaking it in half. It had been wrapped in Beanie’s handkerchief, so was not entirely clean, but my stomach was rumbling. It tasted heavenly.
    ‘What happened?’ asked Kitty while we were eating. ‘What did you do? I must say, Matron and VO were both looking fearfully enraged about something.’
    ‘No change from the usual, then,’ said Daisy through a mouthful of tart. ‘It was nothing really. Hazel went back to the Gym to get her pullover, and VO caught her in there and decided she was loitering where she oughtn’t. We got into awful trouble with her.’
    Everyone nodded knowingly. Virginia Overton’s rages were legendary.
    To divert attention away from the Gym, and in thanks for Beanie’s offering, Daisy dug into the contents of her tuck box and came up with a bar of Fry’s chocolate. We were all still sitting on our beds munching it when the bell for homework – which we call Prep – rang loudly.
    That evening, even though I had masses of prep, I couldn’t settle down to it at all. I kept on thinking about Miss Bell, and how Daisy and I now knew she had been murdered. For all Daisy’s talk, the Wells and Wong Detective Society had never really detected anything more important than very minor theft. But what if we managed to solve this case? We would be heroines. Miss Griffin might give us medals, and the mistresses, the masters and the Big Girls would all line up to clap us on the back – all, of course, apart from the murderer.
    That thought brought me back down to earth with a thump. I put down my pen, and King Henry, who was taking Prep that evening, said, ‘Come on, Wong, buck up!’
    Murders, unfortunately, always come with murderers attached. In Daisy’s books, they generally get quite angry about being investigated – and, in fact, dreadful things tend to happen to anyone who knows too much about the crime. I had been there, on the spot, straight after a murder had been committed. What if the murderer had seen me?



1
    The thought kept on worrying me, all the way through Prep. I wanted to slip a note to Daisy about it, but King Henry was glaring at me too hard. What if the murderer had seen me? After all, it must have been a close-run thing to make Miss Bell vanish between the first time I had gone into the Gym and the second.
    After we had lined up in the washroom for toothbrushes, three to each porcelain sink, we got into bed. I took advantage of a pillow fight between Kitty and Lavinia to creep over to Daisy’s narrow bed and climb in beside her.
    ‘Daisy,’ I whispered. ‘What if the murderer saw me?’
    ‘Saw you do what?’ Daisy asked, rolling over. ‘Ow, Hazel, your feet are blocks of ice.’
    ‘Saw me in the Gym. After the murder!’
    Daisy sighed. ‘How on earth would they have seen you? They weren’t there when you came in the first time, were they?’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘But what if they were hiding? In the Cupboard perhaps?’
    ‘You’re a chump,’ said Daisy. ‘If they were in the Cupboard, they couldn’t have seen you through the closed door, could they? And you didn’t say anything, did you, so even if they were hiding they couldn’t have known it was you.’
    ‘But we came back! What about then? How do you know for certain that they won’t be after us both now that we know?’
    ‘VO didn’t say our names,’ said Daisy wearily. ‘I’m sure she