Dead Man's Nettle

  Here is the third book of The Series Of Murder!

Dead man’s nettle

Contents Page

Chapter 1 Bets, Amy, Iona and Hannah

Chapter 2 So many nettles!

Chapter 3 The disappearing mirror

Chapter 4 Holidays are the perfect type of break, until…

Chapter 5 Murder!

Chapter 6 Why them?

Chapter 7 I think I know who it is!

Chapter 8 The murdered stranger

Chapter 9 Now I am sure!

Chapter 10 Oh Mrs Syrup!

 

Chapter 1

Bets, Amy, Iona and Hannah

Bets, Amy, Iona and Hannah were all nineteen and two years ago, two series of murder had happened. They were glad that now it had all stopped; it was a week ago that, being best friends, they had moved in together. Like when you move in a flat with someone but only, this was an old house in a lane called Humble Berry Lane in a village called Damson Dale. “Do any of you fancy a drink? I’m making myself a hot chocolate any way,” Iona asked one day,

“Yes, I’ll have one please Iona.” Bets replied,

“Oh Ernie!” said Hannah as their dog started chewing a newspaper, “Stop that Ernie!” Amy said and Ernie, being a well trained dog, left the newspaper alone. Iona came and sat down; giving Bets her drink as she did so. “Well I’ve got to go to town to buy some material for my next card I’m making for my aunt.” Amy said as she had a sort of hobby of making professional celebration cards. “I need some compost for some flowers I’m going to plant in the garden so I’ll come with you Amy.” Iona was a keen gardener,

“That leaves me and Hannah to walk Ernie,” Bets said. Sometimes she felt quite left out as she was the only one who didn’t have a hobby. Amy created cards, Iona liked gardening, Hannah played the violin, and Bets did nothing. But this didn’t stop her from liking the others; they had all met at the start of secondary school and had been friends from then. Iona wouldn’t usually make the hot chocolate but Chubs (their cook) was out shopping.

 

Chapter 2

So many nettles!
Mrs Suji was out with Mabel Tesco and Emma Alps; they were looking for some nice flowers to put in vases at their homes. Since it was only just March their vases were quite empty. “There’s some lovely blue ones here, I’ve seen people picking them before but I’ve never known what they were called!” Mabel said,

“They’re phlox Mabel, you can pick some if you like, I think they’d look nice in your living room.” Emma replied,

“I quite like these tulips, but they’re in Bets’ and the others garden, I’ll ask them if I can have one or two later.” Mrs Suji said, “I think I’ll pick some of the daffodils in my garden for my house.” Emma said, they walked through Frosty Woods, heading back to their houses when, at the other side of the wood, they found that the exit was completely covered in nettles! Long ones short ones, big ones small ones, they had never seen so many nettles! There really wasn’t a nettle-free gap anywhere, it was maddening! Slowly they started to walk through them, lifting their legs up high. Mrs Suji and Emma were ok as they were wearing long trousers, but Mabel had picked a skirt and was getting stung all over her legs. When they finally got out of the nettles they all went back to Mabel’s house where Mabel found some cream to put on her legs. Emma had also managed to get stung a few times on her ankles as there was a tiny gap between her shoes and her trousers. “Well I wonder where all those nettles have come from!” Mabel said as she rubbed some cream onto her left leg. “Yes I’ve only ever really seen one or two nettles there before and they can’t have spread that quickly! That means that someone must have planted them,” Emma explained.

“I don’t know if you noticed but there were two long stalks with no nettles on, they looked as if they had been picked, did any of you two see them?” Mrs Suji asked, “I only spotted them because the stalks were so long,” Mabel and Emma shook their heads, but they had been going a lot slower than Mrs Suji as they had been being stung. “I wish that I’d put my jeans on today, then I wouldn’t have got stung at all!” Mabel sighed,

“Well I’m not usually the lucky one, but it looks like I am here!” Mrs Suji laughed and got up, “I must be off, got lots of shopping to do. Lovely walk up until the nettles though, bye,” Emma got up and said goodbye about ten minutes later so Mabel was left on her own. Well, not quite on her own, there was no other person left but she still had her cat Mabelle to keep her company!

 

Chapter 3

The disappearing mirror

Mrs Syrup was having a cup of coffee at Stan’s Café; she meant to go on her own to read the paper but had met Patrick Lucas there. They recognised each other so sat down together and started talking, “Hello, it’s nice to have no more murders of mysterious affairs happening,” Patrick started. “Thanks to you there’s been no more horrid people murdering anyone.”

“Well I couldn’t have done it without help, do you remember, in the first ‘happening’ Mabel reminded me of something, in the second it was her cat. Hopefully there won’t be another one or there’ll be nothing left of Damson Dale at all!” Mrs Syrup laughed, “Oh I’m sure there won’t be another one for a long time!” Patrick said, but that’s where he was wrong… “Have any of you seen my mirror? You know, the one on the wall in my bedroom, the one mother gave to me from when she lived in Africa.” Bets said,

“No, come to think of it your mirror wasn’t there yesterday either, but I thought you had taken it down.” Iona said, Bets went and asked Chubs but she hadn’t seen it either. “No, I haven’t taken it, why would I want a mirror?”

“It’s a funny thing to take, I mean it must have been stolen, mustn’t it? There’s no reason to take it, it’s probably only worth a few pounds!” Bets explained. “It was three days before Albert Topps was murdered actually, that mother gave it to me I mean.”

“I’m just going to put a plaster on my finger, oh no there’s no more in the cupboard I looked yesterday, can I use one of the ones on your dressing table Bets?” Amy asked, “Yes of course Amy, the wall behind it looks terribly bare at the minute though, now that the mirror’s gone.” Bets replied, Amy went upstairs and came down a minute later with a nettle in her hand (being held by the stalk.) “I found a nettle on your dressing table Bets, do you know why it was there?” she asked, “Maybe it’s the thief that took Bets’ mirror’s present!” Hannah laughed. Bets told Mrs Syrup about the mirror and the nettle, “Hmm, I think that we’d all better look out. There’s still one more danger to come, yes we all need to look out. Tell everyone in the village to look out Bets, there’s going to be three series of happenings, not just two. Two have gone and one at least, I’m afraid, is still to come…”

Chapter 4

Holidays are the perfect type of break, until…

“So then, has everyone got everything?” Mabel said to the rest of the village who were waiting at the bus stop with her. They were all going to Norfolk for a holiday, they were to catch the bus to the train station and then walk to their holiday house which looked over the sea. “Yup, I made sure before I left,” Patrick said. Everyone else nodded just as the village bus drove up. Everyone got on and sat down, “This is the first proper holiday I’ve had in four years!” Mabel exclaimed to Hannah, “The last one I had was 1988

 which was twenty years ago!” Mrs Suji said from the opposite side of the bus. The bus drove up to Linkentine Train Station, everyone picked up their luggage and bought their tickets. “We’ll catch the 9:45, we should get there by twelve with a bit of luck,” Bets said as they started walking towards the platform. The train chuffed up and everyone climbed on, they found their seats and sat down. Their luggage was in a different carriage so they only had their hand or small bags with them. After two hours and fifteen minutes and one stop for water, they arrived outside a small village. “We’re looking for Silken Lane, I think that when I phoned up they said it was left of the small woods, apparently you can see it as soon as you enter the village.” Amy explained, they started walking into the village and as they did, they saw small woods and just to the left of it, was Silken Lane. They entered the lane and saw a large, Tudor house, “This is it! I’ve got the keys so we can go in straight away; there are seven rooms but a sofa bed in a study upstairs.” Iona said,

“I’ll sleep in it,” Patrick said. Iona unlocked the door which opened into a huge hallway. There were three big doors in the wall, an opening into a large living space and a staircase. Everyone had a look downstairs and then took their bags upstairs; each person had a large bag as they were staying at their house for three weeks. On the landing there were nine doors, seven bedrooms, a study and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms had an en suite and another had a large window seat. Everyone chose a bedroom, Hannah choosing the one with an en suite and Bets with the window seat. The bags were all unpacked and lunch was served. Seeing as they had only just got there lunch was not huge, a small salad and ham was all that was served. The rest of the day was spent sunbathing on the sand or swimming in the sea.  At exactly 10:00 that night Mabel announced that she was going to bed, “I’ll come with you Mabel,” Hannah said as she had been yawning all day. Everyone was in bed by 11:00pm and fell asleep happily; Patrick went upstairs at 10:30pm but stayed writing a letter until 11:00pm and fell asleep at the desk in his room, but didn’t wake up…

Chapter 5

Murder!

At precisely 11:00pm somebody crept into Patrick Lucas’ room where he was writing, they crept up to him and… A yell was heard at 11:02pm and everyone rushed up to the study or Patrick’s room as that was where the yell came from. Mabel banged on the door and shouted Patrick’s name, “Patrick! Are you in there?” there was no answer, in a hurry she opened the door and looked around; a bunch of other people looked over her shoulders. “Aah!” Iona fainted as what she saw was gruesome; Patrick Lucas was lying there, stabbed. Emma ran downstairs and rung for the doctor and police. Within minutes the doctor rode up on his bicycle and the police drove up in their car. “Hmm, dagger in chest, we’ll have it checked for finger prints. The ink pot is knocked over and the quill pen on the floor.” The police were noting things down. Patrick had been identified by the doctor as dead, Iona had been put to bed and was being checked on every now and then. “I don’t know about you but I think that we’re dealing murder,” PC Jolter had just happened to be on duty in Norfolk. He had been put in charge of the case, Mrs Syrup was also helping in the case. She had meant to be going on holiday with the rest of the village but her sister had come down with flu so she had to go and look after her. Now that her sister was better, she could stay with the rest of the village. It sort of worked better as Mrs Syrup could have Patrick’s room. (Don’t think I’m saying it was good that Patrick was dead.)  Iona finally woke up, “Is he dead?” she asked Bets, “Yes, he’s dead alright. Now there are only girls in the village,” Bets replied. The next morning breakfast was simply toast. Nothing fancy or delicious, just toast.

 

Chapter 6

Why them?

“Hmm,” Mrs Syrup thought as she sat at the desk in her ‘bedroom.’ She was thinking about Patrick Lucas’ death, it was being treated as murder. “I don’t see how it can be suicide, if it is then it was certainly a funny way to commit it and accidental death is out of the question!” Was Jolter’s view of it. Nobody really spoke or ate much; there was one question, a question that was bothering everyone, why them? Patrick was an innocent man so why kill him? I mean, you’ve got the perfect right to not like him but wasn’t it going a bit far to kill him? The rest of the village certainly thought so, no-one said so, but it was obvious that everyone thought so. The next morning Bets was talking to Jolter on the phone, “Yes, yes, well I’ve phoned to talk to you about something that I think is linked with the death of Patrick Lucas. Daphne? Who’s Daphne? Oh, yes I’ve told Mrs Syrup, it’s about nettles…”

“Did you say that there was a nettle by Patrick Lucas’ body?” Amy asked Bets five minutes later, “Yes, I’ve just told PC Jolter.” Mrs Syrup was sitting down talking to Mabel Tesco in her room. They were both quite tired and stammered a lot in their speech; everyone was like that, even Chubs who is usually cheerful of grumpy, not scared or sad. 

 

Children at the school next to the house were singing the nursery rhyme,

“Flowers grow, yellow, no black,

Once they’re gone they’ll never grow back,

Look at the petal, the pretty pink petal,

Never as deadly as Dead Man’s Nettle.”

Chapter 7

I think I know who did it!

Edward Kipling was reading a book in bed at 10:00 clock pm, he lived at 116 Oposing Lane, Polter. Mrs Suji was also reading a book at the time, or so she said… “Da da da ta ta ta pa pa pa la la la!” Chubs was singing whilst boilng eggs for breakfast, Miss Golding was behind her scowling, just to annoy Chubs she started whistling, “Ta peep, la peep!” Amy walked in, “Oh! I thought it was the fire alarm!” She said laughing and walked back out, “Do stop whistling Lily!” Chubs said five minutes later, annoyingly ‘Lily’ or Miss Golding, carried on whistling. But louder and a more annoying sound this time, by a ‘more annoying sound’ I mean like the siren of a fire engine or police car etc. Ten minutes later everyone was eating breakfast, some had toast, some had boiled egg, some had bacon and some had cereal. “I do hope that no more murders happen!” said Mabel,

“Yes, it’s all so sad, and confusing,”

“Confusing, confusing, yes it’s all very much confusing!” Mrs Syrup said to herself, “Are you feeling alright Mrs Syrup?”

“Oh yes, quite alright. Said Mrs Syrup, who suddenly seemed in everyone else’s world again. The rest of breakfast was eaten in silence, until Mrs Syrup thumped the table and said, “I think I know who did it!” with that, she walked off.

Chapter 8

The murdered stranger

“Well if she knows who did it why didn’t she just tell us?” Mabel asked confused, “She needs proof,” Mrs Suji answered. “Without evidence you can’t be sure of anything.” The postman delivered a letter through Mabel’s letterbox. It had a red envelope and read ‘Mabela Tesco’ instead of Mabel Tesco.’ Mabel opened the letter and read out the sheet inside,

‘Flowers grow yellow and black,

Once they’re gone they’ll never grow back,

Look at the petal the pretty pink petal,

Never as deadly as Dead Man’s Nettle.

E.k’

Actually, Mabel wasn’t the only one to have got a letter from ‘E.K’ Mrs Syrup had had one as well, but it said a completely different thing,

‘You’ll never solve this mystery,

However hard you try,

So don’t try to solve this mystery,

Because you’ll fail and then you’ll cry!

E.K’

Mabel and Mrs Syrup were puzzled, they didn’t quite know what to do, so they didn’t do anything exept tell the rest of the villagers. Emma Alps was walking to the wardrobe in her room at the holiday house, she opened it, she saw something, she rushed to the police station.  ‘Then mix the parsley into the sauce and…’ Mabel Tesco was watching ‘Learn to cook with Lesley Long.’ Suddenly Emma walked in and said something. Mabel and Emma rushed to the landing where everyone else was waiting for them.. “He’s been identified as Edward Kipling, anyone know him?” Emma asked, everyone shook their head.

 

Chapter 9

Now I am sure!

‘Him’ as he had been referred to as was Edward Kipling, and Edward Kipling had been found poisoned in Emma Alps’ wardrobe. Mabel Tesco went up to bed early as she had not slept very well the night before. Everyone else went to bed considerably late, they stayed up watching a film and chatting until midnight. It was quite quiet and when I say the chatted, it was only every now and again. This was because Mabel was usually the one who kept the conversation going. The first to fall asleep was, not surprisingly, Mabel Tesco. Although it did take her a matter of minutes, well, half an hour to be precise. At 1:00 that morning Mrs Syrup woke with a start. She had been having a dream, a quite unsettling but helpful dream, a dream that had made her sure of who had murdered Patrick Lucas and Edward Kipling. She explained all this the following day in full detail.

 

Chapter 10

Oh Mrs Syrup

“So, for our murderer, it was all simple. There were two murders, one of which the victim was Patrick Lucas and the other of Edward Kipling. Anyone could have poisoned Edward Kipling, so I will only talk about the death of Patrick Lucas. Apart from this, Mabel Tesco and Mrs Syrup received letters signed ‘E.K.’ These letters were written by Edward Kipling. Why write these letters? Our murderer paid him to do so. So now, Patrick Lucas. First of all our murderer goes to Patrick Lucas’ room, they gag him and force exactly 20ml of poison down his throat. Then our murderer has a shock, they hear footsteps and the footsteps they hear are close. The murderer stuffs the gag into their pocket and thinks of a way to dispose of the poison bottle. Now, Patrick was always fond of writing with a quill pen which is exactly what he was doing before he was murdered. Our murderer takes the poison bottle and places it on the shelf with all the ink. They get a full ink bottle and pour the tiniest bit of ink into the poison bottle. Then they place the almost full ink bottle on the desk where Patrick Lucas is lying dead. The murderer tips the bottle over and lies it on it’s side with the lid off. They place the quill pen next to the ink bottle. Then they stab the already dead Patrick Lucas to make it look like that it how he was murdered. Now our murderer simply stamps his feet about ten times and yells to create a commotion and runs to their own room in which they appear from a few seconds later. Why did they do it? Because, Patrick Lucas had a secret, he wasn’t called Patrick Lucas, he wasn’t innocent, in fact this man was extremely guilty. His real name was Thomas Morley and Thomas Morley used to live in Spain. He did until he robbed a bank, therefore to not be found out, he changed his name, died his hair and shaved his beard. He had a tad of Spanish accent, our murderer noticed it, they also found his birth certificate. Then, all they had to do was threaten him; “If you do not tell me the whole truth I will kill you!” was along the lines of what they said. Thomas Morley also moved house to here. Mrs Syrup explained,

“Yes but who is ‘our murderer?’” Mabel asked,

“Oh yes, now for our murderer to be able to commit this crime, their room had to be near to Thomas’. So that rules out Mabel, Emma and Bets, their rooms were on the other side of the landing. The murderer also had to be clever, so that rules out Chubs and Miss Golding. So now we are left with four people, Mrs Suji, Hannah, Amy and Iona and of course myself, but it wasn’t me, I wasn’t anywhere near this house at the time. So, now I will explain how it cannot be three of these people. Hannah, you cannot have committed the murder, for you at the time were in your en suite taking a shower. Amy, you were asleep at the time, you woke up when all the commotion occurred. So that leaves us with Iona Curter and Mrs Suji. Mrs Suji, you told us that at the time of the murder, you were reading. That you were not, you were poisoning Thomas Morley.” Mrs Syrup finished, “This woman’s mad! I wouldn’t commit a crime; anyway she still hasn’t explained why it couldn’t have been Iona.” Mrs Suji went scarlet,

“Iona was with me,” Mabel said.

PC Jolter and everyone was silent, until PC Jolter said, “Well done Mrs Syrup, but can I ask you a question, will you ever stop beating us?”