All at Sea

by Liz Hedgecock

  ‘Stop her!’ bellowed the colonel, running to the rail. ‘Do something!’ Maisie hurried to join him. The stewards were hastily putting down the trappings of dinner and dashing towards Miss Jeroboam, but she was already flinging open the door leading to the deck.

  ‘Where is she going?’ cried Mrs Fortescue. ‘She might escape!’

  ‘She can’t,’ the captain replied. ‘We are far from land.’

  ‘But she could get into another part of the ship, or —’

  ‘She can’t,’ he repeated. ‘I have men stationed ready.’ He walked to the window and looked out. ‘There she is.’ He pointed.

  Miss Jeroboam had gained the promenade deck, and scrambled onto the rail. Carefully, she stood upright. Then, with a wave of her hand, she dived into the sea.

  ***

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Mr Smythe. ‘What an evening. I need a drink after all that.’ He glanced at the captain and the inspector. ‘May we go?’

  ‘You may,’ said the inspector. ‘All except Mr Randall, of course.’ He pulled a set of handcuffs from the pocket of his dinner suit. ‘I didn’t think I would require these on voyage, but I was wrong.’

  Colonel Fortescue approached Maisie looking shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry I misunderstood, Miss Frobisher,’ he said. ‘I apologise.’ He stuck his hand out.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Maisie, shaking it.

  ‘So were you in league with Inspector Hamilton all along?’ asked Mrs Fortescue.

  Maisie considered. It would be so easy to say yes, and enjoy her new status as a secret operative. ‘No, I wasn’t,’ she admitted. ‘I noticed a few things, and between us the inspector and I worked it out.’

  ‘And a good thing you did,’ said Mrs Jennings. ‘Perhaps now I can get my earrings back.’ She glared at Mr Randall, who quailed.

  ‘Do you know what I did, Miss Frobisher?’ asked Miss Jennings, quietly.

  ‘No, Miss Jennings,’ said Maisie, ‘and I don’t want to.’

  ‘And I don’t care,’ said Mr Merritt. ‘Not one bit.’ He offered his arm to Miss Jennings, and they strolled away.

  Lieutenant Barry came in to take Mr Randall to his new quarters, and the inspector and Maisie were left alone.

  ‘That’s why you insisted on the music room, isn’t it?’ said the inspector. ‘You knew she would try to escape.’

  ‘I had a strong suspicion,’ said Maisie. ‘I didn’t know.’ She shivered. ‘I thought Charlotte Jeroboam would prefer death to captivity, and I was right.’

  ‘There is a slim chance of survival,’ said the inspector.

  ‘One in a thousand, or less,’ said Maisie. She remembered Miss Jeroboam laughing at the dinner table in her royal-blue gown, dressed as a gay Harlequin, and, her face screwed up in concentration, retrieving her own lost earring.

  She opened her eyes to find Inspector Hamilton looking at her with some concern. She smiled at him, and he took her arm. ‘Shall we?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, and they followed the others.

  Chapter 21

  Maisie Frobisher and Inspector Hamilton stood together at the rail as a pinpoint of light grew larger in the hazy sky.

  ‘The ship will come to life soon,’ said the inspector. ‘Captain Carstairs tells me that we should reach Bombay by ten o’clock.’

  Maisie sighed. ‘I suppose so,’ she said, watching the sky lighten.

  ‘Are you sad that you are almost at journey’s end?’ asked the inspector. ‘I thought you would be glad to set foot on dry land again.’

  ‘I’m sure I shall, once I am back on it,’ said Maisie. ‘If nothing else, there is the Merritts’ wedding to look forward to.’

  Inspector Hamilton laughed. ‘You can’t call them the Merritts until they are married, you know.’

  ‘They might as well be,’ said Maisie. ‘They have managed to become even more inseparable.’

  ‘Journeys end in lovers meeting,’ said the inspector. Maisie glanced at him. ‘Or so I’m told,’ he added.

  ‘You really are the strangest policeman I have ever met,’ said Maisie.

  ‘Youngest son,’ the inspector replied, leaning more firmly on the rail. ‘Had to do something.’ He looked sidelong at Maisie. ‘How many policemen have you met, Miss Frobisher?’

  Maisie laughed. ‘Not many,’ she admitted.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ remarked the inspector, ‘given your escapades.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Maisie indignantly. ‘I’m sure at least half of those were instigated by you.’

  ‘And you hated every minute,’ he said, nudging her arm gently with his.

  ‘You’re right, Inspector,’ Maisie said. ‘I’ve never had as much fun as the time I was dragged into the dining room by the colonel, wearing Ruth’s dress. And then there was the ball, where I was covered in sticky white paint, and drugged, and treated like a sack of potatoes by that horrible clown —’

  The inspector raised his eyebrows. ‘That clown was very careful, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘He wasn’t,’ said Maisie. ‘I can’t even tell you where he put his hand —’

  ‘I did not!’ He clapped a hand to his mouth.

  Maisie gave him an appraising look. ‘So it was you.’ She tried to remember the clown’s painted face, but it was gone. She remembered being scooped up in his arms, and waking in her cabin, where the inspector cleaned her up and soothed her to sleep. ‘Is that why the cabin was so dark?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, looking out to sea. ‘When I found you on the floor I knew I had to get you out of there. But when I bent to pick you up you looked so frightened. Frightened and disgusted.’ He pushed his hair back. ‘I hoped you hadn’t realised it was me, and — I didn’t want you to look at me like that ever again.’

  ‘That was silly of me,’ said Maisie. ‘In my defence, I had been drugged, but — thank you for rescuing me.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ he said, shortly. ‘So what now, Miss Frobisher?’

  Maisie considered. ‘I shall probably stay in a hotel until I get my bearings, and then perhaps take a house, and enter into society.’ It seemed rather flat, compared to the strange life she had led on board ship. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I shall be working,’ said Inspector Hamilton. ‘Once matters on board ship are dealt with, my new position will demand my attention.’ He looked at Maisie. ‘Will you be joining — acquaintance — in Bombay?’

  ‘Apart from the friends I have made on board ship, no,’ said Maisie. ‘I have some letters of introduction to rely on, and that is all.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the inspector. ‘I rather thought —’ He closed his mouth as if he had said too much.

  ‘You rather thought what?’ asked Maisie.

  ‘I don’t know. Forget I said anything.’ He looked out at the sea, where the pinpoint of light had become a brilliant orange ball, with the rest of the sky emitting a softer glow.

  ‘If you mean what I think you do,’ said Maisie, ‘then the Merritts’ wedding is the only one I plan to attend for the foreseeable future.’

  The inspector studied her, and his face was a little less stern than before. ‘So you are not the marrying kind, Miss Frobisher?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Maisie. ‘but I enjoy my freedom. When I get to India I intend to see something of it, since I missed out on so many of the expeditions on board ship. I still regret the Pyramids.’

  ‘They will still be there when you return, Miss Frobisher,’ said the inspector.

  Maisie studied him in turn. ‘Are you the marrying kind, Inspector Hamilton?’

  He considered. ‘I have reached the age of thirty-three without managing it. Perhaps if the right person came along —’ He looked down at Maisie, and smiled.

  ‘One never knows,’ said Maisie, and smiled back.

  Inspector Hamilton leaned a little closer, and gently took Maisie’s arm. She raised her face to his, and —

  A bell pealed, followed by five more. ‘Damn,’ said the inspector.
‘Cursed by the bell.’ Lieutenant Barry came on deck and passed them, going to the bridge. ‘All hell will be let loose now,’ the inspector said. ‘The kitchen will start up, and people will come on deck for an early stroll —’

  ‘The ship is coming to life,’ said Maisie.

  ‘It’s already alive,’ said Inspector Hamilton, looking into her eyes. He felt in his trouser pocket, and brought out a card case and a pencil. ‘Here.’ He withdrew a card and scribbled on the back. ‘This is where I shall be staying on arrival. You won’t be able to visit, but if you write and let me know where you are, I may have something for you to do.’ He saw Maisie’s look. ‘I can’t promise that you’ll get to dress up and be nearly killed again, but it might be quite exciting.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Maisie. ‘I am sure that whatever mess you require me to get into will be great fun.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’ The inspector took her hand, pressed it, and after a loud cough from Lieutenant Barry, bowed and left her.

  Maisie returned to the sunrise; but somehow it was not quite the same looking at it on her own. Besides, she still had things to pack. She walked slowly back to the door and glanced at the inspector’s card by the light which shone above it. On the back, in his spiky hand, was written Hotel Splendid, Bombay. FH. She ran her thumb across his script, then turned the card over.

  Fraser Hamilton, Esquire

  Flat 7, Kensington Court Gardens, Charles Street, London

  Larkhall House, Lanarkshire

  Maisie almost dropped the card. Then she recovered herself, and, convinced that her thumping heart was noisier than her feet, tiptoed to the library. She pulled Debrett’s Peerage from the shelf, smiling despite herself at the memory of her last contact with it, and leafed through its pages.

  Hamilton, Angus, 2nd Baron Hamilton —

  Maisie’s eyes found the addresses. The one in Scotland matched.

  Sons living; Angus (b. 1851), Hugh (b. 1854), Fraser (b. 1860)

  ‘The rotter,’ whispered Maisie, a huge grin on her face. ‘The absolute rotter!’ She closed the book, replaced it on the shelf, and returned to her cabin to build castles in the air.

  Acknowledgements

  My first thanks are to my beta readers — Carol Bissett, Ruth Cunliffe, Mike Jackson and Stephen Lenhardt, who all did a fantastic job — and this time, an alpha reader! Paula Harmon, my fellow Caster-and-Fleeter, volunteered to read the first draft of All At Sea, which is definitely above and beyond the call of duty!

  A further thank you to John Croall, who proofread the manuscript for me and saved me from any landlubber gaffes. Any errors which remain are of course down to me.

  My next thank you is to my husband Stephen Lenhardt for his considerable support. He not only reads the output of my creative labours, but also keeps me fed — and as I walked about 75 miles while dictating the first draft of this book, that’s quite an undertaking!

  I did a lot of reading in the course of researching and writing this book. I won’t cite everything, but here are a few highlights:

  P&O Heritage, a repository of historical information about the P&O shipping line

  A P&O Passage To India, a lightly fictionalised account of travelling on a P&O ship

  Philip Dawson, The Liner: Retrospective & Renaissance

  Valerie Grosvenor Myer, A Victorian Lady in Africa: The Story of Mary Kingsley

  Mary Kingsley, The Congo and the Cameroons

  Mary Morris (ed.), The Virago Book of Women Travellers

  William Thackeray, From Cornhill to Grand Cairo (NB this is a tough read because of Thackeray’s attitudes to some of the foreign people he encounters)

  A couple of historical notes: throughout this series I’ve used the place names that were current at the time, e.g. Bombay instead of Mumbai, Calcutta instead of Kolkata. And if you’re wondering how Maisie managed to get a second letter from Connie when she was further on in her voyage, there was also a mail train which cut off part of the journey, so Connie’s letters must have gone that way!

  And finally, big thanks to you, my reader! Thank you very much for trying this first book in a new series, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it enough to embark on more adventures with Maisie. If you could leave a short review or star rating on Amazon or Goodreads, I’d appreciate it very much. Reviews, however short, help other readers to discover books, and that’s really helpful at the beginning of a new series.

  Font and image credits

  Fonts:

  Title font: Limelight by Eben Sorkin. License: SIL Open Font License v.1.10

  Script font: Alex Brush by TypeSETit. License: SIL Open Font License v.1.10

  Graphics:

  Ship (slightly recoloured): Vintage vector created by freepik

  Maisie (dress recoloured and slightly altered): from collection ID 144223779 © Larysa Amosova at dreamstime.com

  Sea: background vector created by freepik

  Suitcases: Poster vector created by macrovector

  Wooden railing: Design vector created by macrovector

  Rope barrier: Banner vector created by macrovector

  Quay: Background vector created by rawpixel.com

  Series frame: frame vector created by alvaro_cabrera

  Maisie cameo (modified and recoloured): Vintage vector created by freepik

  Ship's wheel vignette: Ship wheel clip art by OCAL at clker.com

  Cover created using GIMP image editor.

  About the Author

  Liz Hedgecock grew up in London, England, did an English degree, and then took forever to start writing. After several years working in the National Health Service, some short stories crept into the world. A few even won prizes. Then the stories started to grow longer…

  Now Liz travels between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, murdering people. To be fair, she does usually clean up after herself.

  Liz’s reimaginings of Sherlock Holmes, her Pippa Parker cozy mystery series, and the Caster & Fleet Victorian mystery series (written with Paula Harmon) are available in ebook and paperback.

  Liz lives in Cheshire with her husband and two sons, and when she’s not writing or child-wrangling you can usually find her reading, messing about on Twitter, or cooing over stuff in museums and art galleries. That’s her story, anyway, and she’s sticking to it.

  You can also find her here:

  Website/blog: http://lizhedgecock.wordpress.com

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lizhedgecockwrites

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/lizhedgecock

  Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/lizhedgecock

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  Books by Liz Hedgecock

  Short stories

  The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes

  Bitesize

  The Adventure of the Scarlet Rosebud

  Halloween Sherlock series (novelettes)

  The Case of the Snow-White Lady

  Sherlock Holmes and the Deathly Fog

  The Case of the Curious Cabinet

  Sherlock and Jack series (novellas)

  A Jar of Thursday

  Something Blue

  A Phoenix Rises

  Mrs Hudson and Sherlock Holmes series (novels)

  A House Of Mirrors

  In Sherlock’s Shadow

  Pippa Parker Mysteries (novels)

  Murder At The Playgroup

  Murder In The Choir

  A Fete Worse Than Death

  Murder In The Meadow

  The QWERTY Murders

  Caster & Fleet Mysteries (with Paula Harmon)

  The Case of the Black Tulips

  The Case of the Runaway Client

  The Case of the Deceased Clerk

  The Case of the Masquerade Mob

  The Case of the Fateful Legacy

  The Case of the Crystal Kisses

  Maisie Frobisher Mysteries (novels)

  All At Sea

  Off The
Map (February 2020)

  Gone To Ground (April 2020)

  For children (with Zoe Harmon)

  A Christmas Carrot

  Copyright and Dedication

  For Mary Kingsley (1862-1900)

  explorer, ethnographer and scientific writer

  Copyright © Liz Hedgecock 2019

  All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.