The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

Set in 1890 in the small English city of Ely, Cambridgeshire, the story follows seven students at Saint Etheldreda's School for Young Ladies on Prickwillow Road. Each girl has been sent away by her family for a different reason and dreads returning home. None has a sister, a detail that deepens their bond. The girls are known by defining nicknames: Dear Roberta Pratley (gentle), Disgraceful Mary Jane Marshall (a flirt), Dull Martha Boyle (considered unintelligent), Stout Alice Brooks (heavy-set and self-conscious), Smooth Kitty Heaton (shrewd), Pocked Louise Dudley (scientifically minded but barred from studying), and Dour Elinor Siever (fascinated by death).

During Sunday dinner, Headmistress Constance Plackett and her visiting brother, Mr. Aldous Godding, collapse and die within moments of each other after eating veal. Louise reasons that both dying simultaneously points to poison. The girls search the bodies and find a folded scrap of paper bearing a triangular mark and two gold coins.

Kitty proposes they conceal the deaths and run the school themselves rather than return to their unhappy homes. They agree, though Roberta voices moral reservations. Evening visitors then arrive for a surprise birthday party Mrs. Plackett had organized for her brother: Admiral Paris Lockwood, a retired naval officer romantically attached to the headmistress; Reverend Rumsey, the vicar; and Dr. Snelling, her physician. Kitty stalls each guest while the others hide the bodies. Dr. Snelling nearly discovers the corpse with his stethoscope, but Alice breathes loudly behind him, creating confusion. Miss Letitia Fringle, the choir mistress, arrives and is accidentally knocked down by Martha, spraining her ankle, and insists on spending the night in Mrs. Plackett's bed beside the supposedly sleeping headmistress.

Kitty concocts a cover story: Mr. Godding has left urgently for India because his nephew Julius has contracted malaria. She drugs Miss Fringle's tea and removes her spectacles. Alice, whose build matches Mrs. Plackett's, takes the dead woman's place in bed while the others move the corpse upstairs. That night the girls find a dead stoat clutching leftover veal near the compost heap, confirming the meat was poisoned.

Before dawn the girls bury both bodies in the vegetable garden and plant a cherry tree over the site to explain the disturbed earth. Henry Butts, the farmer's son from next door, stumbles upon them and helpfully fetches manure. Amanda Barnes, the school's housekeeper, also arrives and nearly exposes the secret before Kitty turns her away.

When Dr. Snelling returns, the girls transform Alice into a convincing Mrs. Plackett using Elinor's skill with charcoal and cosmetics. The disguise fools the doctor, establishing the girls' ongoing strategy: Alice will impersonate the headmistress whenever outsiders appear. Alice-as-Mrs.-Plackett impulsively commits the group to the parish strawberry social, dismaying Kitty.

Over the following days, the mystery deepens. Kitty finds large unexplained cash withdrawals in Mrs. Plackett's financial records. A note from Admiral Lockwood suggests he has been converting something valuable into cash on the headmistress's behalf, and his earlier gift, a carved ebony elephant with a brass trunk, puzzles the girls. The two coins from the victims' pockets prove to be old Spanish doubloons. Louise's chemical tests confirm cyanide in the veal, and Roberta notices the two specimens contain unequal concentrations of poison, a clue whose significance emerges later.

The girls organize self-governance: Kitty manages finances, Louise leads the investigation, and they forge tuition bills in Mrs. Plackett's handwriting. They dismiss Barnes to avoid a daily observer who could expose the deception. Legal papers delivered earlier prove to be a newly signed will leaving everything to Mrs. Plackett's nephew Julius; a letter under her pillow reveals she recently changed the will over her brother's objections. Then Kitty discovers both the will and their cash have been stolen, suggesting the murderer has returned.

Constable Quill, the new young policeman, investigates Mr. Godding's disappearance and reveals the ticket master never saw him board a train. His landlady, Mrs. Lally, discloses Godding's deep gambling debts. A flamboyant stranger calling himself Gideon Rigby visits the school, ostensibly collecting for charity but clearly surveying the furnishings; his distinctive checkered trousers prove significant later.

At the Wednesday evening strawberry social, events escalate. Reverend Rumsey presses Alice-as-Mrs.-Plackett to acknowledge a church bequest in the will. Kitty wanders to the art gallery, where a charming young man she has glimpsed around Ely introduces himself as Julius Godding, Mrs. Plackett's nephew, recently arrived from Bombay, India. He is not a sick child but a grown young man, and his presence threatens the girls' entire deception.

Admiral Lockwood, who had proposed marriage to Alice-as-Mrs.-Plackett that evening, drinks from a glass of punch placed at Alice's seat, chokes, and dies. Louise detects cyanide's almond scent and preserves a stained napkin. Julius's mother, Mrs. Godding, a former nurse and Mrs. Plackett's sister-in-law, tends to Amanda Barnes, who has fainted from shock.

The girls return home to find the school burglarized: windows smashed, silver stolen, the ebony elephant taken, and the girls' puppy Aldous drugged unconscious. Dr. Snelling revives Aldous and pockets checked fabric from between the dog's teeth. Police catch Barnes outside; she claims she came to dig up Mr. Godding's body and reveals she was his secret fiancée. Mrs. Godding recognizes that Alice is not Constance Plackett, and Martha blurts out that the real Mrs. Plackett is also buried in the garden.

Elinor reveals the stolen elephant inside Dr. Snelling's medical bag. Quill explains that Gideon Rigby is actually Gainsford Roper, a surgeon and Snelling's university friend; the checked fabric matches Roper's trousers. Quill arrests Snelling for running an illegal betting parlor.

Louise pieces together the full murder plot. Barnes arranged for the veal to be cooked in two separate small pans and had her nephew, the grocery delivery boy, bring the food to her before delivery, giving her the chance to poison one cutlet with cyanide. The triangular sketch in Mr. Godding's pocket was Barnes's diagram showing which piece was safe for him to eat. Martha's pre-roasting of both cutlets together caused the cyanide to spread, accidentally killing Mr. Godding as well. Barnes also poisoned the punch at the social, intending to kill the woman she believed was Mrs. Plackett; Admiral Lockwood died by drinking from Alice's glass instead.

Mrs. Godding takes charge. Kitty confesses the girls' dread of returning home and their desire to preserve the sisterhood. When Quill arrives to discuss charges, Mrs. Godding outmaneuvers him by referencing his compromising encounter with Mary Jane at the social, implying it could damage his career. The constable agrees to leave the girls' discipline in her hands.

A final delivery arrives: the admiral's last gift, a large carved wooden palace. Louise fits the elephant's brass trunk into its keyhole, releasing hundreds of Spanish gold doubloons. A note confirms the admiral had been safeguarding a fortune in gold left to Mrs. Plackett by her late husband, Captain Plackett, explaining all the financial mysteries.

In the epilogue, Mrs. Godding has renamed the school Prickwillow Place and serves as headmistress. The doubloons provide security, and all seven girls remain as students. Julius lodges in Ely, preparing for Oxford, and visits for Sunday dinners. In a quiet garden moment, he kisses Kitty's hand and insists upon friendship. Kitty, flustered but happy, remains surrounded by her sisterhood.