Laurels are Poison
A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0
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Contents
Chapter 1: OPEN, SESAME
Chapter 2: THE THREE MUSKETEERS
Chapter 3: CLINICAL THERMOMETER
Chapter 4: A MULTIPLICITY OF PROMISCUOUS VESSELS
Chapter 5: INTRUSION OF SERPENTS
Chapter 6: HIGH JINKS WITH A TIN-OPENER
Chapter 7: REVENGE UPON GOLDILOCKS
Chapter 8: SKIRLING AND GROANS
Chapter 9: EVIDENCE OF THE SUBMERGED TENTH
Chapter 10: THE FLYING FLACORIS
Chapter 11: THE EVE OF WATERLOO
Chapter 12: IN AND OUT THE WINDOWS
Chapter 13: HARLEQUINADE AND YULE LOG
Chapter 14: FIELD-WORK
Chapter 15: RAG
Chapter l6: BONE
Chapter 17: NYMPHS AND SATYRS
Chapter l8: IDDY UMPTY IDDY UMPTY IDDY
Chapter 19: ITYLUS
laurels are poison
Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, psychologist and detective, has become the warden of a house in a college so that she can investigate the disappearance of a previous warden. As soon as the term starts, strange things begin to happen: a bath is left to overflow, girls’ clothes are torn to shreds, snakes appear, and a girl’s hair is cut off as she sleeps.
Can Mrs Bradley solve the mysteries of the college?
First published 1942
by Michael Joseph
This edition 2001 by Olivers Press published by arrangement with the author’s estate
ISBN 0 7540 8584 8
Copyright © 1942 by Gladys Mitchell British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
LAURELS ARE POISON
Chapter 1
OPEN, SESAME
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Deborah, who had that true sense of humour — if connoisseurs of it are to be believed — the ability to laugh at herself, felt that she must look rather like Will Hay in
The suitcase, which had seemed light enough at starting, now weighed, she thought, not less than three- quarters of a hundredweight, and she was further handicapped against rough country walking by her handbag and a large bunch of chrysanthemums which her landlady had thrust upon her at parting and which she had not liked to leave in the train. In addition to these other discomforts she was wearing a tiresome hat.
Fortunately the College buildings, once she was clear of the town, formed the dominating feature of an almost treeless landscape, and made at once a landmark there was no escaping and a goal towards which, without fear of error, her steps could be directed.
The moorland road was narrow and stony, and it bore out the description given by people apt at simile that it was ribbon-like. Deborah walked along in the middle of it, and was so much occupied by her physical discomforts and mental fears that she did not hear the car until a respectful sounding of the horn caused her to move aside and glance round.
The car stopped purposefully, Deborah politely, although she knew that it would be of little use for anyone to demand of her any knowledge of the country-side. The chauffeur got out and saluted. He was a stocky, grave-faced, irresistibly respectable man, and he spoke quietly, with firmness.
‘Madam would be honoured if you would accept a lift, miss, if perhaps you were bound for the College.’
‘A lift? To the College? Oh, thank you so much. It’s awfully kind. I’d be very glad indeed,’ she responded
