The case of the drowned.., p.1
The Case of the Drowned Pearl, page 1
About the Author
Robin 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.
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 she worked at a children’s publisher.
Robin is now a full-time author, and her books are both award-winning and bestselling. She lives in Oxford.
CELEBRATE STORIES. LOVE READING.
This book has been specially created and published to celebrate World Book Day. World Book Day is a charity funded by publishers and booksellers in the UK and Ireland. Our mission is to offer every child and young person the opportunity to read and love books by giving you the chance to have a book of your own. To find out more, and for loads of fun activities and reading recommendations to help you to keep reading, visit worldbookday.com
World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is also made possible by generous sponsorship from National Book Tokens and support from authors and illustrators.
World Book Day works in partnership with a number of charities, who are all working to encourage a love of reading for pleasure.
The National Literacy Trust is an independent charity that encourages children and young people to enjoy reading. Just 10 minutes of reading every day can make a big difference to how well you do at school and to how successful you could be in life. literacytrust.org.uk
The Reading Agency inspires people of all ages and backgrounds to read for pleasure and empowerment. They run the Summer Reading Challenge in partnership with libraries; they also support reading groups in schools and libraries all year round. Find out more and join your local library. summerreadingchallenge.org.uk
BookTrust is the UK’s largest children’s reading charity. Each year they reach 3.4 million children across the UK with books, resources and support to help develop a love of reading. booktrust.org.uk
World Book Day also facilitates fundraising for:
Book Aid International, an international book donation and library development charity. Every year, they provide one million books to libraries and schools in communities where children would otherwise have little or no opportunity to read. bookaid.org
Read for Good, who motivate children in schools to read for fun through its sponsored read, which thousands of schools run on World Book Day and throughout the year. The money raised provides new books and resident storytellers in all the children’s hospitals in the UK. readforgood.org
Also available by Robin Stevens:
MURDER MOST UNLADYLIKE
ARSENIC FOR TEA
FIRST CLASS MURDER
JOLLY FOUL PLAY
MISTLETOE AND MURDER
A SPOONFUL OF MURDER
DEATH IN THE SPOTLIGHT
TOP MARKS FOR MURDER
Tuck-box sized mysteries:
CREAM BUNS AND CRIME
THE CASE OF THE MISSING TREASURE
Based on an idea and characters by Siobhan Dowd:
THE GUGGENHEIM MYSTERY
To my brother Richard and my sister Carey, who know what beaches are supposed to be like.
Contents
Chapter 1 – HAZEL
Chapter 2 – DAISY
Chapter 3 – HAZEL
Chapter 4 – DAISY
Chapter 5 – HAZEL
Chapter 6 – DAISY
Chapter 7 – HAZEL
Chapter 8 – DAISY
Chapter 9 – HAZEL
Chapter 10 – DAISY
Chapter 11 – HAZEL
Chapter 12 – DAISY
Chapter 13 – HAZEL
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Being an account of
The Body at the Seaside,
an investigation by the Wells and
Wong Detective Society, with assistance
from the Junior Pinkertons.
Written by Daisy Wells
(Detective Society President), aged 15,
and Hazel Wong
(Detective Society Vice-President and Secretary),
aged very nearly 15.
Wednesday 29th July 1936.
My name is Hazel Wong, and I never expected a murder on my summer holiday – but then nothing about the English seaside was as I’d imagined it.
Two and a half years ago I was sent from my home in Hong Kong to Deepdean School for Girls, a very English boarding school. Before I arrived, I hoped I might have polite English boarding-school adventures, with midnight feasts and jolly pranks, and a best friend who looked like a character from an English children’s book. And I did – but somehow the midnight feasts and the pranks became the least exciting parts of my life in England. For my best friend Daisy Wells and I have been caught up in several real-life murder mysteries during the last few years, and we are now seasoned detectives, with horrid murders, kidnappings and midnight chases as ordinary to us as Geography lessons.
I am not the girl I was when I first arrived in England – but all the same she is still there, underneath everything that has happened, and some things never change. No matter how hard I try to understand the English, I never quite succeed. And this trip was no exception.
When Daisy and I were invited to the seaside by Daisy’s mysterious Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy, and instructed to bring our friends (and rival detectives) Alexander and George, I was delighted. A beach to me is a soft, smooth stretch of sand, between pure blue sea and high green mountains. The water, when you dip your toe into it, is as warm as a bath, and the sun beats down beautifully hot.
I know now that I ought to have been prepared. I have suffered through two chilblainy English winters, three blustery springs and three drizzly summers, but somehow I still saw that soft white beach in my mind.
And then we stepped off the train at Saltings yesterday, and a seaweed-strong gust of wind slapped my face and rain spattered against my cheeks, and Daisy took in a huge breath and said, ‘Oh, heaven!’
I stared at her in shock. My teeth were chattering and my bare legs were goosepimpled. This was not the beach holiday of my imagination. This was hardly a holiday at all. This was torture.
George burst out laughing at the look on my face, and I glared at him.
‘Hurry up, all of you!’ said Aunt Lucy briskly, leaning into the wind. ‘The hotel’s just down this street.’
She had on a very sensible tweed suit, and looked as dull and respectable as anything. She fitted in perfectly with the other cheerful English holidaymakers piling off the train, clutching buckets and spades and chattering – but I had the feeling that whatever mission she and Felix were on was not respectable in the slightest.
That, of course, was why the four of us were here: to pretend to be ordinary children on holiday while they carried out an important and secret errand for the government. Uncle Felix wiped drops of rain from his monocle, and winked at me.
‘It ought to clear up soon,’ he said.
But it did not.
Saltings was small, bare and white, the houses as flat and featureless as the sky. We arrived at our hotel in another terrific gust of rain. The sea was just behind us, beyond a long, lonely front. It was deserted apart from a rather harassed-looking young woman walking a dog, and a policeman proceeding slowly along, his blank face as blue with cold as his uniform.
I had been hoping for grandeur, something rather like the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, but our hotel was only a white, four-storey house at the end of a terrace of identical white houses, all a little worn, although they did have rather fancy filigree railings and handsome stone pillars round their doorways. The plaque next to the door read THE LAST RESORT, which made Aunt Lucy and Uncle Felix laugh.
‘Won’t we have a lovely holiday here?’ said Uncle Felix.
‘A holiday,’ said Daisy, raising her eyebrow at him. ‘Yes, of course, won’t we?’
Uncle Felix raised his eyebrow back at her, and for a moment they looked intensely like each other, both so tall and golden and blue.
‘Do be a good girl, Daisy,’ he told her. ‘You are here to run about on the beach, eating ices. Who Lucy and I happen to meet while we’re here … well, that is no one’s business but our own. Do you understand?’
Daisy rolled her eyes, and the rest of us nodded. I have seen hints of Felix and Lucy’s secret life – the coded messages they get at all hours of the night; the times they rushed out of their London flat carrying nothing but their hats, and then stayed away for days before coming back in disguise. It is all quite classified, I know, and I try not to be too curious, but it makes Daisy hungry to discover more.
We went inside, into a foyer with worn leather chairs and a rather chipped chandelier, and windswept guests murmuring politely about the weather. The hotel restaurant and bar were on our right, and the lounge was to our left – I could hear the chink of cups and saucers, the rustle of newspapers, the hum of voices. A chambermaid hurried by, fresh folded towels in her arms, and vanished through a doorway behind the front desk. A sign at shoulder-height read: THIS WAY TO ROOMS. GROUND FLOOR: 1–4. FIRST FLOOR: 5–12. SECOND FLOOR: 13–20. THIRD FLOOR: 21–28.
The desk itself was staffed by a round-faced man
All our detective work has taught me to notice everything, even if it does not seem important, so I had already been half listening to two women who were speaking together in low tones in the lounge. Then I turned as a small, slight woman came through the front door of the hotel, staggering under the weight of an enormous, battered suitcase. I felt rather delighted because I saw that she had skin as dark as George’s. It is always a little gift not to feel quite so alone among people who look like Daisy.
At the same moment, a tall, muscular man with a moustache came through the doorway to the rooms, a towel under his arm. He caught sight of the woman with the suitcase, and then looked beyond her at the women in the lounge – and I saw his handsome face change and redden.
‘Now, Toni, we AGREED!’ he shouted, and he went storming past us into the lounge.
The two women stopped speaking. One of them – I saw she was holding a notepad and a pen – had an eager look on her face, while the other folded her arms and set her jaw. This woman was pale-skinned, tall and broad-shouldered, and her hair was cut short, just brushing her earlobes. The woman carrying the suitcase went rushing forward in concern, but the tall woman brushed her aside.
‘It’s all right, Karam. Now, what’s up this time, Reggie?’ she asked the moustachioed man. The journalist – for I was sure this was what she was – began to write again, scribbling and blinking up at the man in great excitement.
‘Oooh, Watson, I recognize that journalist!’ Daisy breathed in my ear. She was watching the action too, of course. ‘She’s quite a famous one – Miss Mottson, from The Times of London. And that lady – why, I know who she’s talking to! Antonia Braithwaite, the swimmer! She’s the woman of the moment – she swam the Channel last year, and she’s been preparing for the Olympics next week!’
I noticed Mr Geck looking suddenly nervous as he watched the scene, his knuckles white on his desk.
‘Didn’t we agree, no press?’ shouted the man Reggie at Antonia Braithwaite. ‘It’s hardly fair! You can’t spend a day out of the papers!’
‘We didn’t agree any such thing,’ she said coolly. ‘I recall you bellowing that at me at the meet in Great Sandmouth earlier this year, but you never gave me a chance to respond. And, if you had, I’d have told you to go away. Why shouldn’t I give interviews? The Games are in a few days, and I’ve a real shot at a medal.’
‘Because – because – look here, why don’t you want to interview me?’ said the man, putting his hand rather roughly on Miss Mottson’s arm.
‘I haven’t heard you spoken about as a medal hope, Mr Victor,’ she said, jerking away from him. ‘You haven’t won a race in months.’
Reggie Victor turned red. ‘See here! I’ve got just as much chance as she – and, besides, how am I to win sponsorships if I don’t get any press? Toni’s taken the Fry’s sponsorship, and the Guinness too – how’s a fellow to live?’
‘Reggie, do go away,’ said Miss Braithwaite irritably. ‘Karam, for heaven’s sake, put that case down and show him out, will you? Or get Sam to do it. Sam! I must finish this interview.’
At that, Mr Geck jumped into action. He strode forward, put his hand on Karam’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. He was not formal with her as he had been with us, and Karam bent towards him and nodded – they seemed to know each other well. I was fascinated.
‘Here, what are you two muttering about?’ asked Reggie Victor.
Mr Geck, ignoring him, went hurrying to the front door to wave into the street. Beyond him I saw the policeman, still proceeding slowly along, notice and begin to move rather more quickly towards the Last Resort.
‘Sir,’ said Mr Geck to Mr Victor, stepping back inside. ‘I’ve just called Constable Neaves over. Now, don’t you think it’d be wise for you to leave the ladies alone, before he arrives?’
Mr Victor wilted. He gave Miss Braithwaite, Mr Geck and Karam one more glare, turned on his heel and stormed back the way he had come. Miss Mottson stared after him, making frantic notes on her pad.
‘Please do ignore him, Miss Mottson,’ said Miss Braithwaite. ‘And Sam – call off Neaves, will you?’
‘If you’re sure, Toni?’ said Mr Geck. ‘You don’t think Reggie will come back and make more trouble?’
‘Of course I am!’ Miss Braithwaite snapped. ‘Oh – I can’t stand it. He never leaves me alone!’ Her face had gone pale with rage.
‘Well, all right,’ said Mr Geck, sighing and waving Constable Neaves away.
The women took their seats again, and Mr Geck came back over to us. Everyone tried to behave as though they had not noticed any argument.
‘Is that lady … local?’ asked Aunt Lucy, nodding at Antonia Braithwaite.
‘She’s my half-sister,’ said Mr Geck proudly, suddenly smiling. ‘Miss Antonia Braithwaite, the Pearl of Saltings! She was born and bred here, like me. She’s a very famous swimmer now, but she still remembers where she came from. And Miss Singh is her assistant – we all went to school together, so she’s family too, really.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘Antonia’s always been a personality, and Karam was always a timid little mouse – if you ask me, Toni takes advantage of her, but then it seems to work. Now, Evans will show you to your rooms.’
Daisy nudged me as we left the foyer, the porter walking ahead with our suitcases. ‘Fascinating, Watson!’ she hissed. ‘A celebrity swimmer, her jealous rival – and her down-trodden assistant. Could be the makings of an interesting case, don’t you think?’
It rained all that afternoon, so heavily that even Daisy could not persuade us to go outside. She fidgeted and grumbled, kneeling up against the tall windows of our room, itching to get out into the wet garden behind the Last Resort. As soon as it began to ease, she wriggled straight out of the window and clattered on to the iron fire escape that snaked up the back of the hotel to pound on the boys’ window and declare that she was taking a walk at once. I was forced to follow her, even though Daisy knows I don’t enjoy heights, a fact which has caused trouble during several of our cases in the past.
‘I’ll come!’ said Alexander, once he had recovered from his shock at seeing us. He opened the window so we could scramble inside.
‘We’ll all go,’ said George. ‘And, honestly, you could have come up the ordinary way.’
Daisy scoffed. Daisy Wells never does anything the ordinary way if she can help it.
And then we were out of the hotel and walking down to the front, in a landscape that was entirely water. There was water in the sky and under our damp feet, and there to the left of us was a grey sea pressing itself up against a grey beach that stretched out as flat as the palm of a hand and then gathered itself up into lumpy, pebbly hills. It was broken up by long wooden walls that began up by the front and vanished into the sea. They looked rather like ribs, as though the beach had a skeleton. Gulls dived out of the dull sky above us, shrieking, their orange feet and beaks the only bright things I could see. A few families played on the beach, children running screaming in and out of the waves. I clenched my fists inside the pockets of my thin summer mac and tried not to shiver.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ sighed Daisy, turning her face up to the drizzle. ‘Ugh, you’re all dreadful. Making me stay cooped up inside when it’s like this! I’m going for a paddle.’
She pulled off her shoes, tucked her socks into them and went scampering away down the beach towards the sea.
‘What’s a paddle?’ I whispered to George – for sometimes I still do not understand English expressions.
‘It’s when it’s too cold to swim, so you just stand in the sea,’ George explained.
‘Oh!’ said Alexander, who is half American, and often as surprised at English things as I am. ‘Nothing to do with boats, then?’
‘You’re all WET!’ Daisy shouted up at us. She was in the sea up to her knees, her skirt in a knot.
