Murder Most Unladylike: A Wells and Wong Mystery by Robin Stevens Page A

pneumonia. You can pop by to get bandaged up or stay there for days if you’re really ill. San sounds like a horrid doctor’s office, but it is much nicer than that. Nurse Minn is lovely, with the kind of comfortable plumpness you want to bury your face in, and she gives out cups of tea and sweets even if your fever is only the made-up sort.
    I thought that visiting Minny would have nothing to do with our investigation, but as it turned out, it gave us our next important lead.
    When we got to San, there was already someone in Nurse Minn’s consulting room. Daisy and I had to hover in the little hallway, waiting, and I realized that the person being looked after was King Henry herself. We could not help overhearing what she and Minny were saying – although Daisy did bump me closer and closer to the half-open door so as not to miss anything.
    The first person we heard properly was King Henry. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me, it’s perfectly – augh – all right.’
    Minny tutted. ‘Oh my love, your poor foot!’ she said. ‘Jones is dreadful for not getting it tidied up quicker.’
    ‘Oh, he’s been so terribly busy lately!’ said King Henry. ‘But he’s working on it now. I only stepped on a stray piece of glass.’
    ‘Hmm,’ said Minny. ‘ What did he say happened, again?’
    ‘He thinks it was burglars,’ said King Henry. ‘It must have happened last night. They didn’t steal anything, though.’
    ‘Oh dear, don’t look so worried!’ cried Minny. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t, and even if it was, Miss Griffin will sort it all out in no time. New Wing corridor, was it? Yes, well, no harm done. None of us really liked those windows, did we?’
    Daisy jabbed me in the ribs, and when I turned round, she was staring at me, eyes wide with excitement. ‘Hazel!’ she hissed. ‘A clue!’
    I did not see why a window broken on Tuesday night had anything to do with Miss Bell being murdered on Monday evening, but I learned a long time ago not to say anything when Daisy gets that look on her face.
    ‘This could be important,’ said Daisy. ‘I must go hunt it down. Say hello to Minny for me!’ And before I could say anything she had rushed away down the stairs in a fearful hurry. By the time King Henry came out into the corridor, limping on her newly-bandaged foot, I was all alone.
    While I was having my ankle bound up by Nurse Minn – which was not a very nice experience – and eating a biscuit – which was – Daisy was running through Deepdean looking for Jones.
    Jones, as I have said before, is the Deepdean handyman. He lurks about in overalls, scowling at everyone and threatening the shrimps, who he seems to think of as a breed of larger and more troublesome mouse. He has been here for as long as old Miss Lappet, and is as much a part of Deepdean as Miss Griffin, though a part that gets tidied away on open days and whenever benefactors are about.
    It was perhaps lucky that I was not with Daisy, since I make Jones nervous. Whenever he speaks to me he uses a very loud voice, as if I were slow, and looks at my left ear. This is particularly odd, since he has one eye that points right at all times. Daisy, on the other hand, is one of Jones’s favourites. I think he sees her the way I used to, as the perfect English Miss, so he gives her slightly pocket-squashed sweets and bashful smiles whenever she passes him in the corridor.
    Daisy found Jones exactly where she knew he would be. Just where New Wing corridor turns into Music Wing, there is a carved wooden archway with painted glass panels set into it. The panels show the nine Muses, in white nightdresses with drooping Pre-Raphaelite hair, dripping bundles of flowers. They all look a bit like Miss Tennyson. An artistic benefactor, who is also an Old Girl, painted the Muses onto the glass herself, which means we all have to be very polite about them and not mention that Clio, the Muse of History, has six toes and only one arm.
    Or at least, she used to. Daisy