The Case of the Deepdean Vampire: A Murder Most Unladylike Mini Mystery Page 2

  ‘She woke up because Amy sleeps in the bed next to hers. She was tossing and turning, muttering things – things about being watched. She kept on saying go away. That made Eloise sit up, and then she saw the truly awful thing. There was a figure at the head of Amy’s bed, looming over her in the dark. Camilla! Eloise called out – she didn’t know what to do – and Camilla got up, and came over to her. Eloise says that she floated across the dorm, like a ghost. She stood over Eloise’s bed, and held out her hands, just as though she was about to choke Eloise. Eloise must have fainted then – and she woke up the next morning, feeling dreadfully weak. It was as though something had been taken from her in the night. Her memory – or her blood!’

  ‘If Camilla took her memory, how could Eloise tell you the story?’ asked Kitty scornfully.

  ‘Well, who knows, with vampires?’ asked Clementine. ‘Anyway, that must have been when Camilla climbed out of the window – probably to hunt for more victims! I’m lucky to be alive, really I am.’

  ‘We’re not!’ said Lavinia, making a horrid face at Clementine. ‘Anyway, I don’t believe it.’ But she was frowning, which I knew meant that she was afraid. Clementine’s story was rather alarming – or at least it would have been, if I had believed in ghost stories.

  But then I looked at Hazel, to see if she was upset, and I saw that although she was pale, she looked pleased. I suddenly understood what she had done in encouraging the stories. Just in the same way that I used an Ouija board last year to help solve the case of the murder of Miss Bell, Hazel had been hoping that the ghost stories would come round to Camilla – and, indeed, they had. We had heard more facts in the case. Despite myself, I was rather impressed with my Watson.

  Now, I am excellent at keeping myself awake – it is one of my most useful detective talents. It proved particularly useful on this case. Over the next week, we kept watch on Camilla and Amy’s dorm. By we, I mean me – Hazel is not excellent at keeping herself awake. She believes she is, and then she falls asleep over her casebook, snoring so peacefully that I see no point in waking her.

  I observed Amy sleepwalking twice – both times she was caught by Camilla, and dragged back into the dorm. They continued to appear very tired, and both only picked at their food. Amy’s cut did not heal, and her fingers strayed to it often.

  ‘Daisy!’ said Hazel on Tuesday morning. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m perfectly excellent!’ I said, blinking. ‘Why?’

  ‘You put the butter knife in your tea,’ said Hazel. ‘I think your strange night existence is telling on you.’ Then she laughed, as though she had made a joke. I glared at her. Of course, she was wrong. I could have carried on for as long as I liked – but I was lucky. The event I had been waiting for occurred the following night – exactly a week after Clementine had first seen Camilla climbing.

  As usual, I stayed awake until everyone else in the dorm was asleep, and then at one o’clock precisely – I looked at my watch – I got up, climbed out of bed and leaned over Hazel.

  ‘Watson,’ I whispered. ‘It is time to detect.’

  Hazel opened her eyes with a snort. She really has much to learn about subtlety still.

  Now, Camilla and Amy’s dorm is on the other side of House, above the other fourth form dorm, so we had to pad very carefully through House so as not to make any sound. I took Hazel’s hand – she does tend to stand on noisy floorboards if she is not directed properly – and we crept together, down the corridor and up the stairs, to the door of the fifth form dorm. Just to the left of it is a large bay window that is perfect for our purposes. Its long curtains blew in the breeze – Matron likes to keep windows open at all times, for our health – and they hid us perfectly, while still giving us a view of both the window to the fifth form dorm, and its door.

  We both tucked ourselves into the window, and settled down to wait. I concentrated on House, the noises it made – and that was why I noticed what was happening before Hazel did.

  Out of the dorm window came a figure. It was dark-haired, wrapped in a long dark cloak. It came out headfirst, and there was a moment where I thought it was about to climb towards the ground face down – but then it turned, and began to shimmy hand over hand down the drainpipe. I saw immediately how Clementine, squinting through the darkness – or anyone else not watching as carefully as I was now – might think that they had seen someone climb facing downwards. Camilla’s hair was as dark as her clothes, and the wind blew her cloak upwards, hiding her pale face – but although she climbed well (not as well as I can), she climbed in the usual way.

  I knew at once what course of action we must take. ‘Let’s follow her!’ I whispered to Hazel. ‘We must know where she is going!’ Sometimes detecting is all about deduction, and that is perfectly interesting, but sometimes it is about action, and I do have to say that I prefer the action.

  ‘You go!’ said Hazel. ‘I’ll wait here – in case Amy sleepwalks.’

  At any other time I might have argued, but the moment was already slipping away. I had to give chase.

  I threw up the window, scrambled onto the windowsill, reached out and took hold of the pipe, and just like that I was on my way. I looked up and saw Hazel’s face, pale and concerned, and then she was gone, and I was on the hunt.

  Naturally, I had ensured that I was wearing my darkest dressing gown, and had shoes on my feet. It is always important to be prepared for all eventualities, so I had no real difficulties keeping myself concealed. The only moment’s concern I had was when I put my feet on the ground outside House, and could not at first see which way my target had gone.

  Then I caught a flash of movement at the edge of the lawn, towards the path down to school, and I was in pursuit again. I kept to the trees, in the shadows (I have practised this skill, and was very pleased to be using it at last), and flitted after Camilla just as though I were a ghost. It was excellently done, and I almost wished she would notice.

  She did not. In fact, she seemed most distracted. I could really have been walking five paces behind her, and she would not have seen me. She was constantly patting something in her pocket, and I deduced that it must be very important to her. She did not seem to feel the cold, and walked through the night without a shiver.

  But where was she going? Her steps faltered by the gate to the sports field. She paused – she turned – and in that moment, I knew what Camilla and Amy’s secret was.

  Camilla walked across the hockey pitch and stood in the centre, waiting. I had to hang back by the gate, for there is no cover on the fields, apart from the Pavilion and the tall oak tree. And out from behind the tree itself came another figure.

  My eyes were used to the dark, and I saw with perfect ease that it was a man, with shaggy hair and a ragged beard. His clothes were old and torn – he was one of those men who are everywhere on the roads, tramping from place to place. He raised his left arm, and I saw that his right was only a stump.

  ‘Give it over,’ he said to Camilla.

  ‘Here,’ said Camilla, taking her hand out of her pocket. I saw that she was holding money, in shilling notes – I could not tell exactly how much, but from the crackle it must have been several pounds. ‘Now won’t you go away?’

  ‘Where else would I go? Not to her mother,’ said the man desperately. ‘Look at me! I’m a monster. She won’t want to see me.’

  ‘But you’re destroying Amy!’ said Camilla.

  ‘Well, I’ve been destroyed as well,’ said the man, raising the stump of his arm. ‘I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else to be done. I have nowhere else to go.’

  Camilla made a hissing noise, and then she spun around and stormed away, out of the gates. She passed me without noticing a thing.

  Now I was alone – alone with Amy’s father. For, of course, he could not be anyone else. I saw the chain of events in my head quite perfectly. He had not died after all. I had heard about men like him – who had been broken up by the war, and did not want to go back to their lives. Perhaps he h
ad even run away from his post, and been too ashamed to go back home. So he had stayed away from Amy and Mrs Jessop, and let them believe he was dead – until he came across Amy’s essay in the newspaper. It would have told him she was at Deepdean, and so he had come to see if he could get money from her. He must have been utterly desperate – I could see from his ragged clothes that he must be homeless now, with not enough to eat.

  Of course, he was the werewolf man Clementine had told the story about. He must have hung about on the sports fields, waiting for his chance to speak to Amy, and to demand money from her. Amy was used to looking after her mother, Violet had told us so – she would want to protect her from the truth about her husband, and would have agreed to get the money to him.

  And that first time they met, at the beginning of term – Camilla must have been walking with Amy. She had become part of the secret, protecting Amy just as Amy was protecting her mother, and that was why she and Amy were friends.

  Amy was pale and ill because she was afraid of what might happen if she did not keep on paying her father. That was what her sleep-talking had meant: she did not want Camilla to leave her alone, but her father. And, of course, Camilla’s behaviour was explained as well. She was not cross, and secretive, and creeping, because she was turning Amy into a vampire, but because she was trying to help her. She climbed out of House every Wednesday night (and it was always Wednesdays, I realized) to give him the money, to save Amy having to do it. Even the cut on Amy’s neck made sense. She had cut herself on something – her brooch, perhaps – and in her distress she had worried at the wound until it opened again. Camilla had been holding her wrists at bunbreak to stop her making it any worse.

  I thought all of this out at once, but then I was faced with a rather more difficult problem. What ought I to do, now that I understood the story? There was a blackmailer who must be stopped – but he was also a man who must be sent home, where he belonged. Perhaps I have been around Hazel too long, but I knew that she would expect me to do more than simply turn about and come home.

  I pondered (very quickly, the way I do everything) and then I saw what I must do. Ghosts, werewolves and vampires are made up – but people believe in them. Perhaps I could use that. I remembered what Eloise had said, too, about Camilla gliding across the floor – of course, Deepdean nightdresses are pale grey, and in mine, and my dark shoes, I would look just as much a ghost as Camilla had.

  Still in the shadows of the gates, I slipped off my dressing gown and wrapped it about my head, so that my face was covered. The clouds had been scudding past the moon, but now there was a break in them and the whole field was bathed in a ghostly light. I took my chance.

  I glided out of the shadow and moved forward, twinkling my feet just as though I was dancing.

  I saw Amy’s father catch sight of me. He started, and turned. It was time for the second part of my plan.

  ‘Jessop!’ I cried, making my voice very loud. ‘JESSOP! I SEE YOUR WICKED SOUL! WHY DO YOU TORMENT YOUR FAMILY?’

  ‘Who are you?’ gasped Mr Jessop.

  I paused. ‘I AM YOUR CONSCIENCE!’ I cried.

  ‘No!’ cried Mr Jessop. ‘No!’

  ‘Why have you become so cruuuuuuuel, Jessop?’ I asked, trying to talk the way ghosts do in stories.

  ‘I – I have to! I need money!’ gasped Mr Jessop. ‘Everything’s been taken away from me! I can’t get a job, and I can’t go home – what if Connie won’t have me back after what I’ve done? I ran away from my regiment! I cracked up!’

  ‘Of course she’ll have you back!’ I said. I had rather stopped being a ghost, but I could tell the spell had already worked. ‘Once you love someone, you don’t care at all about how they look, or how they behave, or the things they’ve done. People are dreadfully stupid, but there it is. Connie will forgive you if you go back to her properly, and explain yourself. And stop asking your daughter for money! It’s all backwards, and not very nice.’

  ‘I will!’ Mr Jessop cried. ‘I promise!’

  ‘Good!’ I said. ‘And if you don’t, I shall haunt you at night until you die.’

  It was a very silly touch, but it did the trick. Mr Jessop turned and ran.

  I waited until he was gone, and then I unwound the dressing gown from my head and took a deep breath. I felt that I had done rather well. I had solved the mystery, and helped Amy Jessop. Even Hazel could not fault me.

  I got back to a House in chaos. Amy had sleepwalked again, and Matron had caught her at it – and then caught Camilla as she climbed back in through the window. I crept in under cover of the shouts, and found Hazel lurking in the second floor corridor.

  ‘Did you find out anything?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes!’ I said. ‘I know everything, Hazel. I’ve solved the case!’

  And I told her. She was impressed – but she would not let me tell Amy and Camilla what I had done. Apparently, although I thought I had done well, I had been rather teasing to a man who was down on his luck, and it was not nice to gloat.

  I was rather cross at first about that, because would have been terribly useful to have been owed a favour from more fifth formers, but I do have to admit that Hazel understands people far more than I do. I let it go.

  ‘Aren’t people funny?’ Hazel asked thoughtfully. ‘The ones you think are the worst are really the nicest. Camilla was being a good friend, and we all thought she was wicked. It’s a bit like Lavinia, I suppose. Or—’

  ‘Don’t say Clementine,’ I said. ‘She really is horrid.’

  ‘I was going to say you,’ said Hazel. ‘Don’t look like that! I don’t mean you’re horrid. I mean – you’re not the way I thought you’d be, when I first met you.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have disappointed you,’ I said.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Hazel. ‘I like the real you much better.’

  I looked at her suspiciously, and thought how glad I am that Hazel is my best friend. She knows far too much about me to be anything but.

  ‘Hazel,’ I said. ‘I have an idea. Camilla being a vampire was just a rumour – but I think we ought to spread a rumour of our own.’

  I spoke to several people the next morning – just a few words, nothing more. There is an art to such things. By the morning after that it was well known all around the school that Camilla Badescu was a princess. That was why she was so haughty, and why she could not sleep or eat – because she feared assassins coming for her in the night. Amy Jessop was in on the secret, and that was why she had been so beside herself. Suddenly, everyone looked at Camilla with the sort of awe that comes from a title – and they looked at Amy kindly, because she had cared so much for her friend. It was a little backwards, but it was close enough.

  The next Monday morning brought a letter for Amy. She opened it at lunch, and we watched her. She gasped – she turned red and white – and then she began to cry in happy confusion. Camilla rushed to her, looked at the words on the page, and then threw her arms around Amy.

  ‘What is it?’ cried Kitty.

  ‘I’ll find out!’ said Clementine, and she went marching over to Eloise. She was back three minutes later with all of the details. Amy’s father, Mr Jessop, was back. It seemed he had hit his head, just before the end of the war, and only remembered who he was a few months ago. He was broken up inside and out, and seemed to have been tramping for a long while, but now he was home, and Mrs Jessop had welcomed him. It seemed that Mr Jessop’s fears had not been realised, and nor had Amy’s. Mrs Jessop did not need to be protected after all. Hazel looked delighted, and I realised that I was as well.

  Today is Wednesday again, and I have just finished writing all of this up. It does take a while – perhaps I understand now what Hazel means when she tells me she is busy with her case notes. I am sitting on the wall beside the lawn, eating my bunbreak, and Camilla and Amy have just walked by arm in arm. They were laughing at something Eloise had said, and there was colour in both of their cheeks. I am pleased that I have proved that there really are no such things
as vampires, and I am quite ready for our next case. Who knows what we might find when we arrive in Cambridge for the holidays?

  About the Author

  Robin Stevens was born in California and grew up in an Oxford college, across the road from the house where Alice in Wonderland lived. She has been making up stories all her life.

  When she was twelve, her father handed her a copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and she realised that she wanted to be either Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie when she grew up. When it occurred to her that she was never going to be able to grow her own spectacular walrus moustache, she decided that Agatha Christie was the more achievable option.

  She spent her teenage years at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, reading a lot of murder mysteries and hoping that she’d get the chance to do some detecting herself (she didn’t). She went to university, where she studied crime fiction, and then worked in children’s publishing. She is now a full-time writer.

  Robin now lives in London with her pet bearded dragon, Watson.

  Also by Robin Stevens:

  Murder Most Unladylike

  Arsenic For Tea

  First Class Murder

  Jolly Foul Play

  Mistletoe and Murder

  Read on for an extract of Daisy and Hazel’s next mystery, MISTLETOE AND MURDER!

  1

  ‘No one is dead – yet,’ said Daisy darkly.

  It was two days before Christmas, and we were sitting in Fitzbillies tea rooms in Cambridge. It was just Daisy, Alexander, George and myself, and as we sat there, I wondered if we would look odd to the grown- ups around us. Although Daisy is nearly fifteen now, tall and slender and with a most fashionable new fur-collared coat, my face is still round, and I am still disappointingly short. I suppose the grown-ups at the other tables thought we were only children, playing at being business-like – but if they knew what we were really talking about, they would be terribly surprised.