Read Arsenic For Tea: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (A Wells and Wong Mystery) for Free Online Page A

really be on to something!’
    Daisy sniffed. There was a short silence. ‘Hazel,’ she said in a very small voice, and she crawled out from behind the curtain, ‘I think you may have a point.’
    The library door crashed open again.
    ‘THERE you are!’ cried Kitty crossly. ‘See, Beanie? I told you they’d be hiding down here! You beasts! Come on, Miss Alston says we have to go to bed.’

11
    Daisy climbed the stairs to the nursery – but her mouth was pinched and her fists were clenched, and I could tell that she was still going over and over what we had seen in the library.
    ‘Are you all right, Daisy?’ asked Beanie, peering at her. ‘Your face is red.’
    ‘I’m quite all right,’ said Daisy, snapping to attention. ‘The library was hot, that’s all.’
    ‘We saw Mr Curtis just now,’ said Kitty. ‘He was looking awfully cross about something. Is
he
all right?’
    ‘Hah!’ said Daisy, before she could stop herself. ‘I mean, I’m sure he is.’
    ‘He had that glorious watch of his out again,’ Kitty went on. ‘Your Aunt Saskia was there too, and she was simply ogling it. It was quite funny to watch. She was like a cat staring at a bird!’
    ‘But it’s Mr Curtis’s!’ said Beanie, shocked.
    Kitty sighed, and even Daisy grinned briefly. Beanie is so beautifully honest that she thinks the rest of the world must be too.
    ‘Excited about your birthday tomorrow?’ asked Kitty. ‘I simply adore birthdays. So many presents!’
    ‘I suppose so,’ said Daisy vaguely. ‘The birthday party, though – ugh! A children’s tea! I don’t know how old Mummy thinks I am.’
    Of course, she wasn’t really cross with her mother because of the birthday tea. It was the library, I knew – and I felt awful for her. She couldn’t even breathe a whisper about it to the others – if Kitty knew, we would be hearing about it all weekend, and the whole school would know as soon as summer term began.
    So I was not at all surprised when Daisy made an excuse to leave Kitty and Beanie changing in the nursery while we went to brush our teeth in the upstairs bathroom.
    The upstairs bathroom is just as faded as the rest of Fallingford. Its white porcelain is all cracked, and there’s a rusty ring around the edge of the clawed bath. The tap drips, and a green stain wriggles all the way down from the top of its chain into the hole where the water runs away, like the ghost of a worm.
    ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, as soon as we had pushed the bolt to behind us and turned on the water. It gulped and hissed, and quite drowned out our voices to anyone trying to listen.
    Daisy waved her hands and sat down on the edge of the bath tub. ‘Of course I am,’ she said. ‘Don’t concern yourself about
that
. I’ve been considering what we have discovered so far, and it seems to me that since Mr Curtis is in this house for nefarious purposes, what we saw in the library today is simply more evidence of his wicked plans. He has clearly decided to trick my mother into falling in love with him so she’ll believe that all our nice things are worthless – and as I said before, Mummy is often not at all bright about people. We must consider her the victim, and Mr Curtis the very cunning criminal.’
    ‘But, Daisy,’ I said. ‘It still
happened
.’
    ‘Well, yes, it
happened
, but it doesn’t
mean
anything, Hazel. As soon as we unmask Mr Curtis for the villain he is, Mummy will come to her senses – what she has of them – and go back to Daddy. So, you see, it’s more imperative than ever that we uncover enough evidence to show to Uncle Felix, and we do it as quickly as possible.’
    I looked at Daisy. Her eyes were glittering and her cheeks were pink. This was Daisy with a Plan. But although I agreed with her about Mr Curtis, I was still terribly worried. I could see that she was up to her old tricks again – trying to make the evidence fit the way she hoped it would. No matter the reason why Mr Curtis had kissed