‘The gala weekend case was our eighth,’ said Daisy, speaking up at last. ‘And see here – we’re only telling you this because we have to. Our detective societies are secret, and they must remain that way. You have to swear not to compromise us! Promise! Can you do that?’
Suddenly I saw real worry in Daisy’s eyes. She was very still, watching Amina ferociously. This was a test, I knew it – and I hoped quite desperately for both their sakes that Amina would rise to meet it.
‘I swear not to tell anyone,’ said Amina. ‘I promise, honestly – I’m only smiling because I’m nervous. There was really a murder! You’re really detectives! This is really real! Brilliant!’
For one unguarded moment, Daisy glowed with happiness. She caught Amina’s eyes and they beamed at each other. Then she snapped back to her usual self.
‘Of course it’s real. And now we must stop chattering and get down to business. A murder has occurred, and we must detect it. There’s no one else onboard who can, after all. This crime may look quite simple – but is it really? For we have heard not one but two confessions. Is there more to this case than meets the eye? And is this the first murder that has occurred in the Breath of Life, or the second?’
2
‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ said Alexander. ‘Usually all of our suspects say they haven’t done it. I don’t think we – or you – have ever had a case where they all say they have.’
‘It isn’t funny,’ said Daisy, sniffing. ‘And it’s not all of them – as I said, it’s only two. It is fascinating, though, I must admit. Now, Hazel, casebook out, please! We need to write down the facts in the case. Amina, you see this is what we always do: logically put down everything we know, so we can begin to see the pieces of the puzzle we don’t yet have.’
‘We always do it a bit differently,’ said George. ‘And Alex is our stenographer. He knows shorthand.’
‘Shush!’ said Daisy. ‘Irrelevant. Hazel, CASEBOOK.’
I bent down beneath my bed and pulled open my little travelling case, more battered than ever, and with several shiny new customs stamps overlapping one another on its surface. These days, I never go anywhere without a new casebook ready and waiting in my bag. It seems a superstition to do that – as though by it, I am inviting death in – but I would not dream of doing anything else, for every time I think we have finished with our detective lives and become nothing more than ordinary fifteen-year-old girls, the world tilts and suddenly we are facing the problem of yet another body.
‘The Case of the – what are we calling this one, Daisy?’
‘The Murder on the Hatshepsut!’ said Daisy. ‘No, the Death on the Nile? That does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?’
‘The Case of the Death on the Nile,’ I said. ‘Present: Daisy Wells, Hazel Wong, Alexander Arcady, George Mukherjee and Amina El Maghrabi.’
‘See here,’ said Amina, ‘am I a proper detective, then? And, if so, which society am I joining? I quite fancy being a Pinkerton.’
‘You are absolutely not a Pinkerton,’ said Daisy decidedly, just as George said, ‘You’re always welcome to join us, isn’t she, Alex?’
‘No, you are a Detective Society member, thank you very much,’ Daisy went on, shooting George a dark look. She is always so funny with George – they are really so similar that sometimes she cannot bear him. ‘You can be an assistant detective for this case, just until you find your feet. Now recite after me: I swear to be a good and clever member of the Detective Society …’
I looked at her sideways as Amina said the words with a smile in her voice. Daisy only stared back at me, eyebrow raised, as though daring me to say anything.
Once the oath was complete, I began.
‘Facts in the case: Theodora Miller was discovered dead in cabin seven on the port side of the saloon deck of the Hatshepsut at ten past six this morning.’
‘Really, Hazel, that’s too late!’ said Daisy. ‘Heppy’s screams began at exactly five past six. We got to the cabin at six minutes past, and I saw you check your wristwatch at ten past. Now that’s the time of the discovery – but not of the death, I should say, from the old appearance of the bloodstains.’
At this, I could not avoid making a face of disgust, and Alexander said, ‘Ugh!’
‘I noticed that too,’ said George, as unfazed as Daisy. ‘The blood all looked quite rusty.’
‘It was at least a few hours old,’ said Amina unexpectedly. ‘Don’t look like that – I know bloodstains too! I spent a lot of time when I was younger getting into scrapes and having to be patched up. When you properly cut your arm or something, it comes out all bright, and then it dries and goes that dull colour. So she must have been dead for a while.’
‘Very good,’ said Daisy approvingly. Amina twinkled at her, and Daisy glanced away. ‘What else can we deduce?’
‘She was stabbed,’ said George. ‘Obvious, but we might as well say it.’
‘And stabbed by the knife that was on the floor next to her,’ agreed Alexander. ‘Pretty obvious too. I mean, it’s all pretty obvious, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ asked Daisy.
‘I think it is!’ said Amina. ‘Isn’t this all’ – she gestured round at us, and then pointed at me with my casebook – ‘a little unnecessary? We know who did it! She was standing there, covered in blood, and she confessed.’
‘That’s what I was going to say!’ said Alexander. ‘I’ve heard about this kind of thing before. People sometimes commit crimes while they’re sleepwalking, and they don’t know it till they wake up again. My mom told me about one case that happened in Boston, a hundred years ago. A man killed his girlfriend while he was sleepwalking – he didn’t wake up till the morning.’
‘It’s psychology,’ said George, nodding. ‘You know – buried wishes. Mrs Miller was horrible enough to Heppy, wasn’t she, for Heppy to resent her and want to hurt her?’
‘You really think Heppy was telling the truth?’ I asked. ‘She’s the one whose confession is the real one, and Miss Bartleby was making it up?’
‘Isn’t it the simplest possible explanation?’ asked Alexander. ‘Miss Bartleby gets confused sometimes – we saw that last night. But I believed Heppy. Her confession was the real one.’
‘STOP, all of you!’ said Daisy. ‘You are not being rigorous!’
‘But I think they’re right, Daisy,’ I said. ‘She was the only person with blood on her, after all!’
‘Hazel! When it was clear that Mr DeWitt had just put on a fresh pair of pyjama trousers that didn’t match his top? When Miss Doggett was wearing a bathrobe over her nightie? How do we know! You’re not being rigorous at all. And then there’s the knife. Even – even Amina should be able to tell me what was wrong with it!’
‘Rude!’ said Amina. ‘But I’ll bite. The knife blade should have been covered with blood, shouldn’t it?’
I thought back to the scene of the crime. Theodora Miller, lying in bed, her arms at her sides, the bloody sheet on the floor and the knife between them, glinting in the lamplight.
‘OH!’ said Alexander and I together.
‘The knife was clean!’ I gasped. ‘Why would Heppy have cleaned it?’
‘There you have it,’ said Daisy. ‘And, come to think of it, what was that sheet doing on the floor? It must have been on the bed during the murder, or it wouldn’t have been stained with blood. Did Theodora push it off during the crime?’
‘No, she couldn’t have done!’ I said, remembering. ‘I saw Theodora’s hands – they weren’t bloody. She couldn’t have touched the sheet. I suppose she might have kicked it off, but it was so far across the room, I don’t see how she could have.’
‘You see?’ said Daisy. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Are they always like this?’ Amina asked, amused.
‘Always,’ said George. ‘Alex and I are almost as bad, though. But I have to admit that they have a point. Heppy’s confession assumes that she sleepwalked into her mother’s room, murdered her, an
d then went back to her bed, as usual. But would a sleepwalker clean a knife like that? How did the sheet get onto the floor? And why didn’t we hear Theodora screaming last night? Because we didn’t, did we? There were no loud noises like that.’
He looked round at all of us. We shook our heads.
‘I heard people moving about a couple of times,’ said Daisy. ‘A few thumps, at about two. But no screaming. And the cabin walls are thin enough that we would have done. We heard Heppy this morning, didn’t we?’
‘Well then,’ said George, ‘if Theodora didn’t scream, it’s because someone stopped her screaming. And that suggests someone who was very much awake.’
‘So,’ I said. ‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it?’
‘Oh yes!’ said Daisy. ‘I agree. Something is not what it seems at all. And that means that we most certainly do have a case. We cannot simply accept Heppy’s confession until we have ruled out everyone else definitively. Detectives, the game is afoot!’
3
I could feel the tension humming in the air, sparking between us like an electrical charge. Daisy’s, George’s, Alexander’s and Amina’s faces were all bright with excitement – although in Alexander’s case it was mixed with uncertainty, and Amina’s with open curiosity. Daisy’s and George’s, though, were sharp and purposeful, their minds on nothing but the case.
‘So what are we saying?’ I asked. ‘That we don’t think it’s Heppy? All right, then, what did happen? How did she get all that blood on her?’
‘Whatever did happen, it convinced her she did it,’ said George. ‘Which is a problem! She’s already confessed, and she’ll confess again as soon as the police get onto the ship. Amina – what are the police like here?’
‘They’re all right,’ said Amina. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say exactly – they’re good enough, and so are the people who control them, the Parquet. They’re the ones who question witnesses and decide whether a case should go to trial. They’re not stupid or backward. But, if they got a confession, I don’t know that they’d look much further. The Parquet are in every big city – let’s see, I suppose we’re in Aswan Governorate now. Well, that’s good for us, I suppose.’
‘Why is that good?’ I asked.
‘Mr Mansour will order the ship to keep heading for Aswan,’ said Amina. ‘I would, if I was him, and I was surrounded by Europeans. They’ll want high-ups, not just town policemen, and they’ll want the Consul too. That’s all in Aswan. And Aswan’s hours away yet, almost a full day’s sailing.’
‘So we’ve got time!’ said Daisy, eyes sparkling. ‘Oh, wonderful! Now, Detectives, before we move forward with our investigation, we must consider our suspects, and do so rigorously. No one on this ship can be ruled out, not even us.’
‘Of course we can rule ourselves out!’ said Alexander. ‘We don’t have to waste time on us. George couldn’t have got out of our cabin without waking me, and I couldn’t have got out without waking him. And I bet you two are the same.’
‘We are,’ I said, thinking back to Daisy and the Deepdean rooftop.
‘Well, what about me?’ asked Amina, shaking back her hair and quirking her lips into a smile. ‘I hated Theodora Miller, and I know how to get past Miss Beauvais without her waking up. What if I’m a murderer?’
I saw Daisy freeze, and I knew why. ‘Don’t joke,’ she snapped.
Amina’s smile faltered. ‘I was only teasing! Look – my cabin’s next to yours. You said earlier you heard thumps. Wouldn’t you have heard me leave? Check my clothes for blood if you like.’
‘That sounds like something a murderer would say!’ said George, and Amina stuck her tongue out at him.
‘All right, so it wasn’t us,’ I said. ‘We didn’t hear you, Amina. And it can’t have been May or Rose, either, as they’re too little to have caused those wounds. But it could have been anyone else on the ship. Mr Mansour or the crew, Mr Young, Miss Beauvais, Pik An – Father even.’ I felt sick to say it, but I had to. It would be poor detective work for me to leave him out.
‘HAH!’ shouted a voice from underneath my bed. It was so loud and sudden that we all jumped, and I yelped. ‘YOU’RE WRONG! I can rule out almost EVERYONE!’
After the initial shock, I discovered that I knew this voice – and the person who owned it – extremely well. I threw myself flat on my stomach and stuck my head over the edge of the bed. I saw an upside-down view of the tidy floor of our cabin, my suitcase and the posts of my bed – and a fierce little face with button eyes and an enormous grin.
4
‘HELLO!’ said my sister May.
‘What are you doing here, Monkey?’ I hissed at her. ‘I thought Father had you and Rose safe in his cabin!’
‘I escaped while he was out talking to you! Rose is reading again – boring. Father hasn’t found me yet so he must still be looking. And your door was open. You shouldn’t leave it open, especially when there’s been a murder. Anyway, I know something important, something that you don’t.’
‘It’s May,’ I said furiously, twisting my head to look up at the others. ‘She says she knows something important. May, come out here and speak English!’
‘ALL RIGHT!’ said May, wriggling out from under the bed and beaming round at everyone. ‘In English, I still know something important. Do you want to know what it is?’
‘Yes,’ said George.
‘No,’ said Daisy.
‘I’ll tell you if you let me be a detective,’ said May.
‘NO,’ several people said at once.
‘I’ll ask again in five minutes and you’ll say yes,’ said May. ‘All right, here’s the first thing I know. I spent all of last night out on the deck, being a pirate.’
‘Mei!’ I gasped. ‘So that’s why – you mean you were there all night? I thought you’d just got up a bit before us.’
‘Yes, all night. I waited until Father said goodnight to us and then I got out – just like you did the night before! I know you did! It was colder than home is at night, so I had to bring my blankets, and I had to hide once because Mr Young was walking about, talking to himself, but he didn’t see me. Anyway, being a pirate is difficult. Decks are hard to sleep on, even with blankets. I woke up every time I heard a noise, and I woke up four times. The second-to-last time there were lots of noises, and a few people moving about, and the last time there was a splash, like someone throwing something into the water. But it was all on the other side of the boat to our cabins. After the splash, I fell asleep beside the chairs, and that’s where you stood on me.’ May glared at me accusingly.
‘I didn’t do it on purpose!’ I said – and then I realized what she was telling us. She had heard more than Daisy or I had, and she had been watching the starboard side of the ship. ‘May, are you saying that, if anyone had gone out of their cabins on the starboard side, you’d have seen them?’
‘Yes!’ said May. ‘And I didn’t, so they didn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t go and look on the other side now, because I might have seen the murderer, but I was worried about being told off. But that’s only half of what I wanted to tell you. When I decided to sleep outside, I didn’t want to risk silly Pik An beginning to feel better and coming up to our deck during the night to tuck us in. So I set up an alarm. I tied strings over the top of the stairs to the other deck below us, and I hung a bell on them, so that if anyone came up the stairs the bell would go off and wake me. The strings were extra-thin thread, and no one going up in the dark would see them before they walked into them. So, you see, it was perfect. And it didn’t go off! Not once, not until after the screaming. I heard it just now. That’s how I know that none of the other guests came up, and it can’t have been any of the sailors, either.’
I hated to admit it, for May is my little sister, and I still half see her as an angry, wriggling red baby and not a real person, but I realized that this was very clever of her (the thin strings especially), and she had done two very useful things. I remembered the bell I had heard when Daniel had r
un to get Mr Mansour, and I knew she was telling the truth. I also knew that she had helped narrow down our investigation significantly, and helped give us a timetable for the murder.
‘The only people who could have killed Theodora are the ones with cabins on the port side of the saloon deck,’ I said. ‘That’s Heppy, Daniel, Miss Doggett, Mr DeWitt and Miss Bartleby. But, May, you shouldn’t have done that! It was dangerous!’
‘Hah!’ said May. ‘It helped you, didn’t it? Now, do you want to let me be a detective? I helped you on a case before, didn’t I?’
She had, but – ‘No!’ I said. ‘This is different!’
‘Oh, let her!’ said Amina.
‘You don’t have any little sisters,’ I said. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘I am a little sister!’ said Amina.
‘And so am I,’ said Daisy. ‘Or have you forgotten about Bertie, Watson?’
‘Well – she’s too young!’ I said, floundering. ‘Why should we, May?’
‘Because I’m little!’ said May. ‘You’re all too big now, like grown-ups. You can’t creep any more. But you didn’t notice me coming into the room, did you? And nor will anyone else. See, I’ve already been doing some detecting, and I found out something else important – which I’ll tell you about only if you let me be part of your Detective Society!’
We all looked at each other. At last George sighed. ‘She’s right about us being too big to hide anywhere and listen,’ he said. ‘May, what did you hear? If it’s good, we’ll say yes.’
‘There were two people standing on deck when I was coming to your cabin,’ May said. ‘The bony woman and the old fat one.’
‘Miss Doggett and Miss Bartleby,’ I translated. ‘So?’
‘Well, the bony one said something like, “As Joshua, so Theodora!” And then the old fat one said, “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean to hurt either of them!” Then the bony one said, “Well, now she’s gone, we can take our rightful places. We must be ready. We can’t let a man take over!” And then the old fat one started crying. You see? I can be useful – you wouldn’t have heard that if it wasn’t for me!’
Death Sets Sail Page 8
