Laurels Are Poison

‘You’ll want a clean handkerchief, Warden. I brought one in case. See that skipping-rope? The one with my shoe-lace tied round it? I haven’t touched the handles. Those are Cornflake’s prints. Superimposed on a good many others, I expect, but an expert might do something with them. On the top of the wall-bars — here — they ought to be good. Nobody’s used the wall-bars since yesterday, except her, and they get cleaned on Saturday mornings. On the shower-tap, cleaned yesterday with metal-polish, hers again. I wouldn’t let Kitty or Alice touch the tap. Gave them their showers with the fire-bucket and we used the tap from the floor, and I took my shower the same way. We’ve done it before, and it’s more fun, actually, so they didn’t tumble to the true inwardness of the proceedings.’

Mrs Bradley put her hand in her skirt pocket and took out her small revolver.

‘Put it back, Warden. It makes me nervous,’ said Laura. ‘A rounders stick will do twice as well, and makes a lot less noise. Are you going to phone the police?’

‘Why should I?’ inquired Mrs Bradley. ‘However, I am going to send Miss Trevelyan and Miss Boorman to keep you company, and the three of you will keep out all intruders. Here are your shoes again, child. On no account is anybody, even Miss Pettinsalt herself, to come in until I have given permission.’

‘Atta-baby!’ murmured Laura, going off to select the three heaviest sticks she could find.

Chapter 11

THE EVE OF WATERLOO

« ^ »

‘I am quite infinitely obliged to you, Miss Menzies,’ said Mrs Bradley, when the inspector had brought his experts, and Miss Cornflake’s fingerprints, ‘for better, for worse,’ as Laura expressed it, were upon record. ‘Of course, we’ve nothing much to go on, except that a person in unlawful possession of one key may, as I suggested, be in unlawful possession of other keys. And, of course, there does seem something a little odd about her, as you say. And she’s very strong.’

‘ ‘Worst of it is, if she’s got anything to do with the Athelstan Horrors, she’s wise to you now,’ said Laura.

‘Yes. I intended that she should be, child. I now await her reactions.’

‘Golly! But she may take a stab at laying you out, don’t forget. If she did drown Cook, she’s dangerous.’

‘Don’t jump to conclusions, child. I haven’t mentioned Cook, and you must not. Now I should like to show my appreciation of your detective powers. What would you like me to do?’

‘Well,’ said Laura, after a moment’s thought. ‘I wish you’d keep the Deb — keep Miss Cloud out of old Kitty’s literature lesson on Friday afternoon. She wants her to take a poem by Wordsworth, but if she wasn’t coming in, Kitty would be able to read ’em a slab of the latest Tuppenny.’

‘And they would prefer that?’

‘Well, dash it, Warden, of course they would, poor kids. I mean, no one is a greater admirer of Willie Wordsworth than old Kitty. She actually told me this morning that she considers We Are Seven one of the funniest poems in the language. But when it comes to a few poor, innocent offspring, who don’t even want to be in school at all, I do call Wordsworth, as ladled out by old K. on a Friday afternoon, coming it a bit too thick, especially as the poem isn’t We Are Seven.’

‘“Well, child, I can hardly dictate to Miss Cloud which schools and classes she is to visit on Friday afternoon.’

‘No?’ said Laura with a cheeky and confident grin. “Thanks a lot, Warden. Old Kitty will remember you in her will for this, I shouldn’t wonder. I’ll tell her to go ahead, then.’

Strange to say, Deborah did not visit Kitty on Friday afternoon, and that unwilling applicant for professional honours spent a pleasant last hour with a strangely attentive class to whom she had delivered the following homily at the commencement of the period:

‘Now, look here, cads’ — a form of address which the class accepted at its B.B.C. value, and liked tremendously — ‘this is the very latest issue. I only got it at dinner-time, and I haven’t even looked at it yet, so no interruptions, or else I shall jolly well set you some sums or something, and read it all to myself. Now anybody who wants to open a desk, or shut one, or say anything, or fidget about, or drop things, or break a ruler, or any other dashed thing, just jolly well go ahead and do it, and then I’ll begin. All set? Righto. We’re off. Keep your poetry books open at page eleven, and, if anybody comes in, never mind who I mean, mind you’re reading that bally poem like billy-o. I’d better put mine ready, too…’

Some of the children cried when school practice was over and Kitty was compelled to say good-bye. She returned to Hall laden with late chrysanthemums, two hyacinth bulbs vouched for ‘to come up’ in the spring, and a collection of confectionery.

‘Hullo, Kitty? Got a cold?’ asked the slightly obtuse Alice, when she met her.

‘No. I’ve been having a howl,’ said Kitty, frankly.

‘What on earth for? The Deb. didn’t come in, did she?’

‘No. But those blinking kids. You just get fond of them, and then you don’t go any more.’

‘You are an ass!’ said Laura, when she heard it. But the words were comforting, for Laura, in her way, was as acute a psychologist as Mrs Bradley.

School practice having been concluded, and holiday reading having been settled by the various lecturers with their groups, work came to a close and thoughts turned pleasurably to the end of term dance. This was not exciting, in the sense that the summer term dance was exciting for no visitors were allowed, but it was anticipated eagerly by students a little jaded by the exigencies of school practice. The various committees met twice on Saturday and again on Monday morning, to have all the necessary arguments about an orchestra, Christmas decorations, the arrangement of the programme, printing, catering and the vexed question of whether the Principal would allow the proceedings to continue until midnight for once.

Laura was on the programme committee, and was, as she herself expressed it, ‘lost to sight, to memory dear,’