Waverleigh Manor

Chapter Six


  The next morning, Molly and Mike were woken by a loud, high-pitched scream. Mike leapt up. Molly was close behind.
  They found Marcia in the corridor, in her dressing gown, still screaming. Tears were running down her cheeks. The first thought that came into Molly's head was what a good actress Marcia was.
  "What is it?" Mike asked.
  Marcia couldn't answer him. She just pointed behind herself and cried. There was nothing in the corridor.
  "Marcia, what is it?" Molly took hold of Marcia's arms.
  "Get off me!" Marcia shrieked, and shook Molly away.
  James arrived at the scene.
  "What's happened?" he said, looking at Marcia and Molly, and at Mike, who was standing beside Molly, not really knowing what to do.
  "We just found her out here screaming." Mike said. "She won't tell us why."
  "MARCIA!" Molly slapped Marcia's face. "Tell us what it is!"
  "Simon… Simon." were the only words which escaped Marcia's lips.
  Mike ran off down the corridor to Simon's room. James followed him. Marcia flopped down on the floor, against the wall, and huddled there. Molly thought that it would be safe to leave her for a moment. She hurried after Mike and James. They were stood at Simon's door.
  "What is it?" Molly pushed them aside. She looked into the room. "Oh my God."
  Simon lay on the bed in his dressing gown. He was dead.
  Molly and Mike looked at each other.
  "Well I guess that's my theory out of the window." Mike said quietly.
  "What theory?" James asked.
  "Nothing." Mike said.
  Molly's mind was whirling. Someone – a member of their little group – had murdered Simon last night. She remembered what she had idly wondered when Mike had sat on the bed with her. What had he been doing while she was asleep? Had he stayed and kept a watch on her, or had he crept off down the spooky passages to Simon's room and murdered him? Or had James done it? He hadn't been in his room. He was being very quiet now. Was that because a murderer never knows what to say when other people discover his crime? Marcia hadn't been in her room either. Were her hysterics now just put on? Molly jumped as she felt someone brush against her back. She looked round. Marcia was standing there. She was pale, and was shaking a little. She was clutching at the lapels of her dressing gown with tight fists.
  "If only he'd let me stay with him." she whimpered.
  "He didn't want you to?" Molly asked.
  "No." she said. "He said I'd better not."
  "I wonder why." Molly mused. She wondered if Mike had been right and Simon had been the killer all along. He didn't want Marcia to stay with him because he was planning on sneaking off and killing someone else. She and Mike had even seen him creeping off down the passage! Maybe Marcia found out about him and decided to stop him before he killed anyone else – maybe even her, because she knew. And now she was just putting on a very good act. Another sudden thought struck Molly.
  "I say – has anyone checked to see if the others are OK?" she looked at Mike and James.
  "No." James said. "I'll go."
  "Can I come with you?" Marcia asked.
  "Of course." James put his arm round Marcia's shoulder and they walked slowly off down the passage.
  "Mike, how did he die?" Molly asked, as soon as they were alone.
  "I don't know." Mike said. Neither he nor Molly really wanted to go into the room.
  "Well someone needs to check." Molly said.
  Mike suddenly looked down at the floor by Simon's bed.
  "I think we just found out." he said. He pointed. Lying on the floor beside the bed was a glass. It was almost empty, save for a small amount of milk that hadn't dribbled out onto the floor. "Looks like he was poisoned."
  Molly felt sick. She knew something that Mike didn't.
  "Are you OK?" Mike put his arm round Molly's shoulders. She didn't move away. She didn't feel like she had to any more.
  "No." Molly said. "Mike, after you guys had gone to bed last night, Marcia, Ann and I walked upstairs together. We were just about to go to our rooms when Marcia said that she thought she would go and say goodnight to Simon, and maybe get him a glass of milk. We didn't think anything of it at the time!"
  Mike frowned.
  "But surely if she knew that he was going to be found dead with a milk glass in the vicinity, she wouldn't have advertised the fact that she was going to go and get him one?" he said.
  "Unless she was being clever and guessed that we would think that?" Molly said.
  "I doubt it." Mike said. "It's more likely that Ann decided to frame Marcia! She was with you, wasn't she, when Marcia said she was going to see Simon. And she wasn't in her room last night. What could be easier than slipping along to Simon's room and putting some poison in his milk when he wasn't there?"
  "But where was he?" Molly said. "Where was he creeping off to when we saw him?"
  "Maybe he knew who the killer was and went to try and blackmail them or something." Mike suggested.
  "And where were all the others?" Molly said. "Veronica, and James? And how do we know that David stayed in his room all night? Or that he was really asleep when we found him?"
  James came back along the corridor with Veronica, Ann and David. Marcia appeared a few seconds later. Everyone was silent.
  "How… how did he die?" murmured Ann. Molly looked at her. Had she really tried to frame Marcia and killed Simon?
  "He was poisoned, Ann." Mike said. "Looks like in his glass of milk."
  Marcia squeaked.
  "Didn't you get him that glass of milk, Marcia?" Veronica said coldly.
  "How do you know that?" Marcia turned on Veronica. Molly looked at Veronica. This was interesting. Veronica hadn't even been with them when the three women had gone up to bed together. She had gone to bed a while before. Or had she? Veronica blushed slightly.
  "Oh, erm, I, erm, just happened to be going along the corridor when I heard you all come up. I thought I heard you mention something about getting Simon a glass of milk, Marcia."
  So Veronica had been creeping about after she had been supposedly going to bed!
  "Just happened?" Marcia said. "Just happened to be in the corridor? Why, Veronica? You have an en-suite in your room, so don't tell me you were going to find a bathroom."
  Molly could see that there was going to be a great deal of friction between these two women. Veronica was accusing Marcia because she didn't like her, and Marcia was accusing Veronica because Veronica hadn't liked Simon.
  "I couldn't settle." Veronica said. "I just wanted a walk."
  Marcia looked away.
  "Well I think we should go downstairs and talk about this properly." David said. He had been quiet up till then. "We've got to sort this out."
  James stepped forward, just inside Simon's room.
  "We should find out for definite how he died first." he said. He walked over to the bed. He pulled a couple of tissues out of the box on the bedside table and picked up the glass. He smelt it. "Ugh. There's something in it all right. Smells like bitter almonds."
  "Cyanide." Molly said.
  "Cyanide?" Marcia echoed. "How'd you know that?"
  "I read a lot of murder mysteries." Molly said.
 
*

  "Well there's nothing in there." Mike put the milk carton back in the fridge. "So it was just the glass that was poisoned."
  The group that was crowded round the fridge looked at Marcia. She stepped backwards.
  "So you all suspect me? Do you honestly think that I would poison a drink that I had told people I was going to get?"
  "Yes, because you'd hope that we would all think it was far too obvious." Veronica said. "A clever way of detracting the attention."
  "Oh, rubbish." Marcia turned her back on Veronica.
  "Well, in my mind, anyone of us could have poisoned him." Mike said. "All you women knew that Marcia was going to get a glass of milk for Simon. Including Veronica. Any of you could have had the opportunity to go to his room and slip some cyanide into his milk. And all of us men could have overheard Marcia as well. I happen to know for a fact that none of you were in your rooms later on."
  "Ah! So you were about too!" James said. "What were you doing creeping about in our rooms?"
  "As a matter of fact, Molly and I were out together." Mike said. "The batteries had been taken out of our phones and we were visiting everyone's rooms to see if any of yours had been taken too. The only problem was, none of you were there. Oh, except David."
  "So I was there when you came in?" David said.
  "Why – weren't you there later?" Molly asked sharply.
  "No – I went for a little walk." David said. "My head was still killing me, you see."
  Molly didn't know what to think. Everyone had an excuse, and yet someone had murdered Simon. Everyone dispersed and followed Mike into the drawing room. They all sat in their usual chairs.
  "Right then." Mike looked round at everyone. "I take it no-one is going to own up?"
  Everyone seemed to be looking at the floor or at the furniture.
  "In that case, we'll have to work this out bit by bit." Mike said. "I would just like to say, to start with, that I do not believe that the glass of milk that Marcia brought up to Simon was poisoned."
  "What? But you were the one that said he'd been poisoned!" Veronica cried.
  "Yes. I did." Mike said. Molly smiled to herself. She knew what he was getting at. "But Molly and I saw Simon walking along the passage later on. If he had drunk poisoned milk when Marcia gave him the glass, he would have been dead by that time, not fit and able to walk around."
  Marcia looked relieved that Mike did not seem to be blaming her.
  "However." said Mike. "Just because it wasn't poisoned then, doesn't mean that Marcia didn't poison it later."
  "What?" Marcia cried indignantly.
  "I think we can safely say that Simon's milk was poisoned during the time that he left his room." Mike said. "Someone knew that he had gone, and took that opportunity to creep in and poison the rest of the milk."
  "Well you and Molly were there." Veronica said nastily.
  "Yes, we were, Veronica." Mike tried to remain calm, even though Molly could tell he was getting angry with Veronica. "But we went straight down the passage, didn't go near Simon's room. No – someone else was lurking nearby, and as soon as Simon, Molly and I were out of the way, they darted in and poisoned the glass."

TO BE CONTINUED.............................