Murder Has No Class Read Free

swift in the head.”
    “P.C. Shipham can be really nasty when he’s cross.”
    “Yeah, well, like I said, he’s got to catch us first.”
    Grace fought back a sense of panic. This was a bad idea, she could feel it in her bones. She knew Olivia, though. Once her friend made up her mind there was no changing it.
    As if reading her thoughts, Olivia fixed her with a determined stare. “You’re not going to let me down now, are you?”
    Grace slowly shook her head. Olivia was not only her best friend, she was her only friend. That relationship rested on Olivia’s expectations of complete and unconditional loyalty. Do what Olivia wanted, or bugger off.
    As always, Grace chose the friendship over good sense. “No,” she said, with a quiver of apprehension, “but I don’t have to like it.”
    “Oh, come on, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. It’s going to be fun.”
    Grace had to wonder how many more days off she’d lose to Olivia’s idea of fun. “Where are we going to hold the protest? We don’t have no town hall in the village.”
    “No, but we have a pub.” Olivia’s smile was triumphant. “Just think about it. All those old geezers sipping beer in the public bar, telling us we’re not allowed in there. Blinking nerve of ’em. Who are they to tell us where we can and can’t go?” She flung out an arm in a dramatic gesture of defiance. “We’ll show ’em. I can just see their faces when we all march in there.” She started pumping her arm up and down. “We want the vote! We want the vote! Equal rights for women! We want the vote!”
    Grace stared down at the fork in her hand. Disaster. That’s what this latest daft idea would bring. She could feel it in her bones.
     
     
    All through her instruction that morning Meredith found herself glancing into the corners of the room, half expecting to see the red glow appear again. When the bell rang for the end of morning class with nothing untoward happening, she breathed a sigh of relief. She must have imagined it after all. No doubt brought on by the stress of Roger Platt’s unquenchable thirst for inappropriate female companionship.
    The midday meal, as always, was a noisy affair. Each of the four tutors sat at the head of the long dining tables attempting to keep order, which was often a thankless and fruitless task. Many of Bellehaven’s pupils were head-strong, displaying a firm preference for the activities of militant suffragettes instead of learning how to conduct themselves with proper decorum.
    Felicity Cross, the spirited, outspoken tutor of languages and literature, always with a heavy dash of modern day politics thrown in, had raised her voice and could be heard above the din admonishing her rowdy students with dire threats and warnings, most of which were blithely ignored.
    Esmeralda Pickard, on the other hand, fair of face and delicate as a newly formed rose, seemed to have her students mesmerized as she addressed them in her soft voice. Essie, as everyone called her, was a firm believer in teaching by example.
    Do as I say and as I do, was her motto.
    The youngest of the tutors, and not too intellectual by academic standards, she had grown up in an elite environment and was well equipped to instruct the young ladies in the finer points of etiquette and social behavior. Being the closest in age to the young women in her charge, she enjoyed an affiliation with her students not shared by the other tutors.
    The fourth tutor and home management expert, Sylvia Montrose, had been handpicked by Stuart Hamilton, and had immediately drawn battle lines between herself and Felicity. The language teacher, in Sylvia’s biased opinion, was contributing to the delinquency of her pupils by encouraging them to follow the dictates of the Women’s Social and Political Union, instead of teaching them how to become refined, dutiful wives, successful socialites, and a credit to their future husbands.
    Meredith did not care for Sylvia’s methods or her attitude.