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

arrived to find that several of the Muses were no more. Something had smashed into the lower panels, hard. Six-toed Clio was gone, and what had been a painting of Terpsichore being attacked by blue lilies was now just a jagged hole. Jones had started to hammer bits of board over the archway.
    ‘Hallo, Jones!’ said Daisy.
    ‘Hello, Miss Daisy,’ said Jones. ‘Not in lessons, then?’
    ‘I came to see you , Jones,’ said Daisy in her most friendly voice. ‘I heard there was a burglary and I wanted to help.’
    Jones frowned. ‘Ah, but I don’t think it was burglars now,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s missing, you see. There’s just chaos everywhere. And poor Miss Henrietta’s hurt her foot! I blame those shrimps.’ And he launched into a long complaint about the state of the school during the past few days. ‘But when I spoke to Miss Griffin about it, she told me not to worry! Not worry, I ask you! The only consolation is this – come and look!’ He beckoned Daisy over to one of the panels. ‘See this?’ he asked her. ‘This says to me that whatever vandal did it is already getting their comeuppance.’
    He pointed, and Daisy bent in to see. There, on a bit of blue glass, was a long rusty stain.
    ‘Blood!’ said Jones triumphantly. ‘They cut themselves good and proper. Well, I hope it hurt, because I shall be cleaning up their mess all day at this rate.’
    It was at this point that Miss Griffin came striding down New Wing stairs, her neat pale legs encased as usual in her silk stockings and grey tweed skirt. She was coming from her office, which is on the upper floor of the wing, and she looked very annoyed when she saw Daisy standing there.
    ‘Daisy Wells!’ she said, pausing majestically halfway down. ‘Whatever are you doing out of lessons?’
    ‘Taking a message to Mr Reid,’ said Daisy promptly. ‘From Miss Lappet. She wants to know if he could take her second-form class next lesson, because she has to cover Science now that, you know, Miss Bell has gone.’
    Miss Griffin was not impressed. ‘Well, you had better not waste any more time talking to Jones, had you?’ she snapped.
    ‘Yes, Miss Griffin,’ said Daisy, then, ‘No, Miss Griffin. Sorry, Miss Griffin!’
    ‘Run along then,’ said Miss Griffin, waving her hand like the Queen. Daisy ran along.
    If there is one thing that makes Daisy such a good liar, it is that when she lies, she lies thoroughly . By the time she came back to where I was waiting for her in San – with my left ankle well wrapped up and two extra biscuits from Nurse Minn in my pocket – The One had agreed to Miss Lappet’s phantom request, and five minutes after I hobbled into our History lesson Daisy had Miss Lappet convinced that she had actually asked Daisy to take the message in the first place. ‘You are a treasure, Daisy,’ said Miss Lappet, folding her arms over her massive bosom (her cardigan had been buttoned up wrong that day, and it made her look even more misshapen than usual) and blinking down at Daisy through her little glasses. ‘Whatever would the school do without you?’
    ‘I don’t know, Miss,’ said Daisy primly. ‘I’m sure everyone would manage somehow .’

6
    ‘I don’t understand,’ I said to Daisy, on our way up to House at the end of the day (slowly, because of my ankle), ‘what Jones’s broken window has to do with the murder.’
    ‘Well,’ said Daisy, stepping aside to let Lavinia rush past after a second-form shrimp, – ‘first of all, it’s out of the ordinary. And isn’t the first rule of detection to consider everything out of the ordinary as potentially important?’
    I thought of Miss Hopkins, but I knew that even if I reminded Daisy of her odd behaviour, it still wouldn’t count.
    ‘And secondly, there’s what hasn’t happened. No one apart from King Henry has gone to Minny’s with a cut that could have been caused by that glass.’
    ‘How do you know?’ I objected.
    ‘Hazel,’ said Daisy, ‘have you