Free Arsenic For Tea: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (A Wells and Wong Mystery) by Robin Stevens Page B

us?
    ‘Daisy!’ I said, crouching half out of the chest.
    ‘Oh, there’s no time, Hazel! Quick! We have just been given the most important clue. We must get to the library immediately!’
    I decided that this was one of those times where it was important to let Daisy have her head, so I crawled out of the chest and chased after her. She barrelled down the main stairs and across the hall into the library. Thank goodness, there was no one there.
    When she was inside, Daisy leaped across the room and clawed at the leather-bound books like a tiger. She ripped one off a shelf, threw it to the floor (Daisy adores books, but she does ill-treat them in a most upsetting way) and began to rifle through it. ‘Here!’ she cried. ‘Look at this!’
    I squinted at the open page. It seemed to be from the ‘A’ section of some sort of medical textbook. ‘
Arsenic Poisoning
’, I read.
    Symptoms: numbness, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea (often bloody), convulsions (often violent), severe dehydration, severe thirst, abdominal pain.
    Symptoms first present fifteen to thirty minutes after ingestion, beginning with warmth and tightness of the mouth and throat. Nausea and stomach pains follow, after which violent purging begins. Vomiting should be encouraged at the earliest possible opportunity, but cases where the patient has ingested more than four grains are generally fatal. A mere two grains have been known to kill. Death may occur any time between two and forty-eight hours after ingestion, and is caused by circulatory collapse.
    Note: can often be mistaken for the symptoms of DYSENTERY.
    I went cold all over. It couldn’t be . . . Daisy was imagining things again. Except . . .
    Except that none of the rest of us were ill. Except that all the symptoms I had seen – and Dr Cooper had mentioned – matched those we had just read about. Except that there was a tub of arsenic rat poison in the hall cupboard, and everyone knew about it.
    Except that it all
made sense
.
    I gasped at Daisy, and she looked up at me, her mouth a round O of shocked excitement.
    ‘I’m right!’ she cried. ‘I knew it, the moment Dr Cooper said dysentery. I’ve read about this in a book. Hazel, this is
serious
. Mr Curtis isn’t just ill. He’s been poisoned!’
    I gulped. There was a thick feeling at the back of my throat. The drumming of the rain was so loud that I could hardly hear the inside of my head. It sounded as though it was trying to batter its way into the house. What if we were stuck here? I thought all of a sudden. What if we were flooded, and what if Daisy really
was
right?
    ‘Hazel, this case has just taken a fascinating turn. A real poisoning! And here we are, on the spot, ready to detect it! We must unlock the dining-room door now and—’
    ‘There you are!’ said a voice behind us.
    We both jumped, and Daisy slammed the book shut. Miss Alston was standing in the doorway, her hair bushier and more unkempt than ever. She looked pale and tired.
    My heart began to pound. I glanced sideways at Daisy, but her face was giving nothing away. Sometimes I feel as if I’ll never be able to appear as cool and collected as Daisy.
    ‘Sorry, Miss Alston,’ she said, as though she were apologizing for a torn skirt.
    ‘Come on upstairs,’ Miss Alston said. ‘Your friends are wondering where you’ve got to.’
    ‘Oh, all
right
, Miss Alston. We’re coming.’
    We were taken up to the nursery, and there was nothing we could do about it. Investigating the dining room would have to wait.
    The rain was beating on the roof above our heads, sounding as though it was about to burst through and drown us all, and Beanie was huddled on her bed, shaking, while Kitty comforted her. ‘Honestly, Beans,’ she was saying as we came in. ‘He’ll get better!’
    Daisy and I simply looked at each other.

9
    Hetty, looking just as tired as Miss Alston, her red hair escaping from her cap in a frizz, brought supper up to us on a tray. It was boiled