Stevens - Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery

Contents

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong have returned to Deepdean for a new school term, but nothing is the same. Theres a new Head Girl, Elizabeth Hurst, and a team of Prefects and these bullying Big Girls are certainly not good eggs.

Then, after the fireworks display on Bonfire Night, Elizabeth is found murdered.

Many girls at Deepdean had reason to hate Elizabeth, but who might have committed such foul play? Could the murder be linked to the secrets and scandals, scribbled on scraps of paper, that are suddenly appearing around the school? And with their own friendship falling to pieces, how will Daisy and Hazel solve this mystery?

To my parents.
Everything I write is really for you
this book especially so.

Miss Barnard Headmistress

Miss Lappet History and Latin mistress

Mr MacLean Reverend

Mademoiselle Renauld, Mamzelle French mistress

Miss Runcible Science mistress

Miss Morris Music and Art mistress

Miss Dodgson English mistress

Miss Talent Games mistress

Mrs Minn, Minny Nurse

Mr Jones Handyman

Matron Matron

Daisy Wells Fourth Former and President of the Wells & Wong Detective Society

Hazel Wong Fourth Former and Vice-President and Secretary of the Wells & Wong Detective Society

Elizabeth Hurst

Florence Hamersley

Lettice Prestwich

Una Dichmann

Enid Gaines

Margaret Dolliswood

Pippa Daventry

Alice Murgatroyd

Astrid Frith

Heather Montefiore

Emmeline Moss

Jennifer Stone

Elsie Drew-Peters

Lavinia Temple Assistant and Friend of the Detective Society

Rebecca Beanie Martineau Assistant and Friend of the Detective Society

Kitty Freebody Assistant and Friend of the Detective Society

Clementine Delacroix

Sophie Croke-Finchley

Rose Pritchett

Jose Pritchett

Binny Freebody

Martha Grey

Alma Collingwood

The Marys

Betsy North

Emily Dow

Charlotte Waiting

Being an account of

The Case of the Murder of Elizabeth Hurst,
an investigation by the Wells and Wong Detective Society.

Written by Hazel Wong
(Detective Society Vice-President and Secretary), aged 14.

Begun Wednesday 6th November 1935.

We were all looking up, and so we missed the murder.

I have never seen Daisy so furious. She has been grinding her teeth (so hard that my teeth ache in sympathy) and saying, Oh, Hazel! How could we not notice it? We were on the spot!

You see, Daisy needs to know things, and see everything, and get in everywhere. Being reminded that despite all the measures she puts in place (having informants in the younger years, ingratiating herself with the older girls and Jones the handyman and the mistresses), there are still things going on at Deepdean that she does not understand well, that has put her in an even worse mood than the one she has been in lately.

And, if I am honest, I feel strangely ashamed. The Detective Society has solved three real murder mysteries so far, and yet we still missed a murder taking place under our noses, in our very own Deepdean School for Girls the place where we began our detective careers one year ago.

It really is funny to think about that. It seems in a way as though we have not moved at all or as though we have made a circle, and come all the way back to the beginning again. I suppose I still look almost exactly like the Hazel I was when I ran into the Gym and found Miss Bell, our Science mistress, lying on the floor last October. I am not much taller, anyway. When I measured myself last week, I found I have hardly grown at all or at least, not upwards. My hair is still straight and dark brown, my face is still round, and I still have the spot on my nose (I suppose it must be a different spot, but it does not look that way). Inside, though, I feel quite different. All the things that have happened the past year have made me quite a new shape, I think one who has faced up to the murderer at Daisys home, Fallingford, and defied my father to solve the Orient Express case. On the other hand, sometimes I think that even though Daisy keeps on shooting upwards, and becoming blonder and lovelier than ever, she has stayed the same inside. She bounces back from things, like a rubber ball not even what happened at Fallingford could truly alter her.

Before the fifth of November, I had not been enjoying Deepdean much this term. Just like the changes that have taken place in me, the school has felt different from last year, and not at all in a good way. It has felt as though something awful were rushing towards us all term. Last night was dreadful, but now it has happened I feel almost relieved. It is like the difference between waiting to go in to the dentist and sitting in his chair.

And now that there is a murder to solve, Daisy and I can be the Detective Society again. It is sometimes difficult being Daisys best friend, but being her Vice-President and Secretary is much more simple. This case, though, will not be simple at all.

You see, the person who has died who we think has been murdered is our new Head Girl.

This case began yesterday, on Tuesday the fifth of November, but all the same, to explain it properly I must wind backwards, all the way to the end of summer term.

That was when Daisy and I were preoccupied with our upcoming holiday on the Orient Express, but although we were not paying much attention to them at the time, extremely important things were happening with Miss Barnard and the Big Girls.

For the purposes of this new casebook, I must mention who Miss Barnard is. You see, after the case of Miss Bell was over, there were almost no mistresses left at Deepdean. This means that everyone except red-haired, dramatic Mamzelle, old Mr MacLean, and Miss Lappet with her big bosom, is entirely new since last December. Miss Barnard is our new Headmistress. She is slender and tall, and I think quite young at least, there is still brown in her hair. She is also calm, and kind, and sensible, and she has a way of making you feel safe something Deepdean badly needs, after last year. But sometimes kindness is not the best thing. As Daisy always says, it is no good being nice if the people you are being nice to are not nice themselves.