‘Don’t be po-faced, Hazel. Why shouldn’t we wish for danger and adventure and excitement? Unravelling mysteries is the most important thing we do. Why, we’re only half ourselves when we don’t have a crime to solve. Hazel, school – even Deepdean – is not quite enough for us any more. I would do anything for it, but we need adventure, danger, action. Thank goodness we only have two and a half years left.’
‘But then we’ll go to university,’ I said.
‘We will NOT!’ said Daisy. ‘As I’ve told you before, we can’t wait any longer to accept our life’s mission, Hazel. There’s so much to do! We can’t mess about with learning things for ever, not if we want to become the world’s greatest consulting detectives before we’re old and dull. Don’t you feel it? We need to do things with our lives now. We need to be – big.’
‘I think I’m going to stick at this height,’ I said.
‘Don’t be facetious. I mean the other sort of big. The sort that gets us into books. You know, like Alexander the Great, or Napoleon.’
‘Except we’re not men, or kings.’
‘Now I know you’re teasing me!’ said Daisy, getting up and throwing herself on my bed. She sat on my stomach, squashing the breath out of me. ‘If you want to get silly about it, then like Cleopatra, or – or Lucrezia Borgia. Heroines.’
I almost pointed out that both of those women were, strictly speaking, poisoners, but thought better of it, not with Daisy squeezing me so crossly. ‘So we’re going to be heroines,’ I said, slightly breathlessly.
‘Yes!’ said Daisy. ‘We’re going to be famous, so people in one hundred years’ time will say, “I wish I was like Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, the greatest detectives ever!” Of course, we will still be alive in one hundred years to hear them say it. I have promised never to die or leave you, and I mean to keep that promise.’
She said it with such conviction that I really believed her, then. Daisy and I would be detectives together, for ever, and we would never die. Perhaps it was Egypt, or the Breath of Life and their strange beliefs – or perhaps it was Daisy’s clear blue gaze staring me down with absolute confidence.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘We will.’
Of course, I was quite wrong.
8
We woke up the next morning to screaming.
I remember it backwards somehow. I had thought I was having a nightmare where I was struggling against hands that were holding me as I tried desperately to get to the screamer – who might have been Daisy, or one of my sisters, I was not sure. But then I sat up with a tearing jump and a gasp and discovered that the screaming was outside me, outside our little cabin, high and shrill and terrified, and filling the air like black ink spilling over a white sheet.
‘What is it!’ I said. ‘Who is it?’
Daisy, of course, was up on her feet, pushing open the white curtains and our door, braced and ready to run. She was still wearing her floating white nightie and her feet were bare. Behind her I could see the wide, misty river, and the far streak of darkness that was the greenery of the west bank of the Nile. The rest of the world looked very far away.
‘Come on!’ she snapped at me, holding out her hand and beckoning. ‘We have to find out what’s happened. Oh, hurry up, Hazel – come on.’
And I scrambled out of bed, head still blurry and afraid, caught hold of Daisy and stumbled out onto the deck after her. The moon was still high and pale in the sky, and the sun was not up. Everything was a soft haze of pinks and blues. White birds took off from the river like elegant ghosts, and the air was cold enough to make me flinch.
Heads were popping out of cabin doors all along the starboard side – there was Rose, my father, George, Alexander, Amina and Miss Beauvais. The screaming was coming from the port side, and I breathed out in relief. But Daisy, of course, was not interested in people who were all right.
‘Come ON!’ she hissed. ‘Don’t dawdle, Hazel! Something’s HAPPENED!’
I glanced back at the boys’ cabin. Alexander’s blond hair was rumpled with sleep and his striped pyjamas were, I noticed, slightly too short for him. He looked at me, and I was suddenly very aware that my pyjamas were fraying at the cuffs and slightly greyish after a term being put through the Deepdean wash.
‘Hazel, come here!’ said my father.
‘HURRY UP!’ Daisy bawled over her shoulder, and I got a shot of boldness. I turned away from my father and followed Daisy as she went running across the wooden deck floor. I heard feet behind me, and knew that George and Alexander were coming after me.
‘Hazel! Come HERE!’ Father cried, but I ignored him.
Daisy darted round the back of the boat, dodging the empty cane chairs and little tea tables. In my haste to follow her, I tripped over something on the deck and went sprawling, knocking into a potted fern. It fell over with an enormous clatter, spilling dark soil across the deck.
I looked down at the thing I had stumbled over. It was a small lump, wrapped in blankets. I thought for a second that it might have something to do with the screaming, but then the blankets stirred and a tousled little head popped out of them, glaring at me crossly.
‘OW!’ said my sister May.
I gasped. ‘What are you doing, Monkey?’ I asked her.
‘Sleeping on deck like a pirate,’ said May, as though it was obvious. ‘Or I was until someone started screaming. Make it stop!’
‘May!’ I said in frustration. ‘Go – go to Father. There’s no time to be a pirate. Something’s wrong!’
By this point, Daisy was already halfway up the port side of the Hatshepsut, and I rushed away from May and her bundle of blankets to where she was standing. It was by the cabin the scream was coming from. Daniel Miller was already in front of it, along with Daisy, staring inside. Its door was open, and its white floating curtains were pushed aside, so we could see the whole scene in front of us.
9
We have seen plenty of dreadful things in the past few years, Daisy and I. Being detectives means looking at horror without blinking, not even when you would give anything to. But all the same I was not prepared for what I saw.
Theodora Miller was lying on her bed, and she was dead. That was quite clear, from her waxy pale face and the heavy spread of blood high up on one side of her white ruffled nightdress. Her bedsheet had been cast aside, and lay crumpled and bloody on the floor to the right side of the cabin door as I looked through it.
‘A struggle!’ breathed Daisy in my ear. ‘A stabbing!’
But that was not, somehow, the worst thing.
Next to Theodora, standing in the middle of the cabin floor, was Heppy, and she was the person screaming. She had her hands up to her face, and her hands were rusty with dried blood. There was blood on her cheeks, and blood was spotted and smeared down her sensible, plain pyjamas and on her hands. Next to her feet was the carving knife I remembered from the ritual the night before, its blade gleaming, and Heppy was staring at her hands and the knife, and screaming, screaming, screaming.
‘Heppy!’ shouted Daniel. ‘What did you do, you idiot? What did you DO?’
I suddenly smelled the blood in my nose, hot and iron, and my head buzzed like a swarm of mosquitoes.
‘Breathe through your mouth,’ George whispered. I thought he sounded awfully assured and grown-up, but when I looked back at him his face was as pale as anything.
‘What do we do? What do we do?’ Alexander kept on asking. He had gone quite pale too, and I thought he might faint. George put out his hand to steady Alexander, and they clung together.
Amina came running up, Miss Beauvais still pulling at her and bleating.
‘Do go away!’ cried Amina. ‘Let me see – oh! Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un!’
My father had arrived too, Rose and May by his side. He hung back a few paces as May strained to go forward. ‘Hazel!’ he called to me. ‘Hazel, what is it? Come here!’
‘I – I can’t!’ I called back to him. ‘I – take Rose and May away. They shouldn’t
see this!’
‘Ooh, what is it?’ cried May, surging forward again. Father grabbed hold of her by her pigtail. His look at me was sharp and worried.
‘Are you sure you know what you’re saying, Hazel?’
‘Yes,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Something terrible’s happened. They shouldn’t see.’
And – quite incredibly – my father nodded briefly at me and pulled May and Rose away. I could hardly believe it. It took quite an effort for me to drag myself back to the scene of the crime.
‘She’s dead!’ Amina kept on repeating. ‘Oh! She’s dead!’
Of course, I thought. She had never actually seen a murder before.
Miss Beauvais simply screamed and fainted. She lay on the boards of the deck, and everyone ignored her.
‘Pull yourselves together!’ Daisy snapped at everyone. Her face was white, but I knew that had nothing to do with nerves. It was pure excitement. Daisy manages to think clearly in the worst situations – I sometimes suspect that she likes nothing better. ‘Move out of the way, Hazel, and stop swooning. You aren’t a silly girl in a book!’
She pushed past us into the cabin, stepped over the knife without touching it and very carefully slapped Heppy across the face twice.
Heppy’s screams stopped as though a tap had been turned off. She fixed blurry eyes on Daisy and blinked slowly.
‘I woke up,’ she said in a voice that we had to strain to hear. ‘I woke up in my bed and there was blood – blood all over me! So much blood. And then I came in here, and Mother – there’s so much blood!’
‘Do you mean you came in and found her like this?’ asked Daisy sharply.
‘Yes,’ whimpered Heppy. ‘The blood was already on me when I woke up. And I had a dream, one of my sleepwalking dreams – I had a dream that something terrible happened. I – I think I killed Mother. I THINK I KILLED MOTHER!’
Her voice was rising again, unbearably. It seemed quite clear to me what had happened. We had seen Heppy sleepwalking the night before, after all, and heard Mrs Miller herself say that she did it regularly – and here Heppy was, covered in blood, saying she had sleepwalked again. And I almost felt – disappointed. It was such an easy and obvious explanation. After all the rivalries and jealousies we had witnessed between the Breath of Life Society members, this death was not mysterious at all. Poor Heppy was responsible.
At least, that is what I thought until Miss Bartleby peered round us into the cabin, rubbing her little eyes in panic, and turned the case on its head.
‘This is terrible,’ she said. ‘He’s dead!’
I thought I must have misheard her – after all, it was very noisy, and everyone was in shock.
‘Miss Bartleby,’ I said. ‘Mrs Miller is dead.’
Miss Bartleby’s face crumpled. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Not Theodora too?’
‘Are you all right, Miss Bartleby?’ asked Amina. She had pulled herself together, and looked so earnest and sweet as she said it – like George, Amina is good with grown-ups.
‘No!’ bleated Miss Bartleby. ‘He’s dead! She’s dead! And I think – I think it was me!’
I always assume we have seen everything, Daisy and I. But, all the same, this was the first time we had ever been faced with a murder that not one but two people confessed to as soon as they saw the body.
10
But that was not all. For as we all stood there I turned to see bony Miss Doggett watching what was going on, wrapped tightly in a gorgeous bathrobe. Her expression was horribly wrong somehow. She did not look afraid, or disgusted – on the contrary, she looked almost as excited as Daisy. She peered inside the cabin, her eyes darting about, and I heard her give a little sigh. She clenched her fists and her thin lips twisted into a nasty smile.
‘So it has happened,’ she said. ‘She’s dead.’
It was such a clear, calm thing to say and, after Heppy and Miss Bartleby, I felt dizzily that anything was possible. Were we about to hear a third confession?
‘She was unworthy,’ said Miss Doggett. ‘I have been saying it ever since her ridiculous decision to make Mr DeWitt Thutmose. Last night my ba flew out and witnessed her death, and now it has happened just as I saw it. She proved herself unworthy of being Hatshepsut, and now she has been punished for her overreaching.’
‘Punished by who?’ asked Daisy sharply, coming to stand next to me, one hand on my shoulder.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ asked Miss Doggett. ‘The gods.’
Amina snorted.
‘The gods stabbed Mrs Miller?’ Daisy could not keep the scorn out of her voice. ‘How d’you explain Heppy, then?’
‘The gods work through mortal hands sometimes,’ said Miss Doggett. ‘Ancient magic is strong.’
‘The gods?’ cried Mr DeWitt. He had come out of his cabin and was standing in a pair of mismatched silk pyjamas, wringing his hands. His shiny hair was disarranged, his trouser buttons done up wrong and his wrinkles looked deeper than ever, as though they too had been cut with a knife. ‘Are you calling Heppy a god?’ And he glared at Miss Doggett.
‘At least some people haven’t confessed on the spot,’ whispered Daisy in my ear.
‘She’s not dead too, is she?’ cried Mr DeWitt, noticing with a start that Miss Beauvais was slumped on the deck.
‘She’s only fainted,’ said Daisy.
‘Good grief!’ said Mr DeWitt. ‘She must be moved – she gave me a terrible shock. I think – Ida, your cabin is best. You, boy, help me.’
‘No!’ cried Miss Doggett, but George and Mr DeWitt were already dragging Miss Beauvais away.
‘I shall go and get Mr Mansour!’ shouted Daniel, who had been standing, wringing his hands. ‘Oh my God, Heppy, you’ve done it this time!’
I saw him running away down the deck so quickly he seemed to be flying, his feet in soft white slippers. He appeared upset – but then I thought of the scene we had witnessed the night before, and felt uncertain. Daniel had seemed quite unrepentant and furious then. Was he simply realizing now that he loved his mother, after all? Or was he trying to cover something up?
Alexander was breathing quickly through his nose – he dislikes corpses even more than I do – and Amina’s eyes were big and her lips were trembling again. In the distance, I heard the ring of a bell.
‘Hazel!’ called my father, and I turned to see him striding towards me once again, alone, his face very serious. ‘Hazel, come here. I need to talk to you.’
My heart was beating as I stepped away from the others and went over to him. I knew he was about to try to remove me from the scene of the crime.
‘You and Miss Wells have a real talent for placing yourselves near dead bodies, Hazel. What am I to do with you? What am I to do now?’
‘Please don’t take us off the ship,’ I stammered. ‘Please. I need to stay here. I need to help.’
‘If you stay, do you promise not to do anything dangerous?’
‘I’ll be good, I—’
Then I heard what he had said and paused in confusion.
‘Pik An is still ill in her cabin. I have locked May and Rose into their cabin for the time being, but you know your littlest sister. She’ll be out through some crack like the monkey she is if I’m not there to watch her. So, as I see it, I have two options: I can forbid you to have anything to do with this mystery, an order I know you will ignore, or trust you to remain out here without me.’
‘Father!’
‘You seem to have solved a number of murders without my consent. It seems tiresomely inevitable that you will investigate this one too. So I choose to give you my consent this time. Only, Wong Fung Ying – promise me you will come to me at once if you ever feel yourself in real danger?’
‘I promise,’ I whispered. My ears were ringing and my mind was spinning. I could not believe what was happening – but my father, when I blinked several times, still stood before me, as solid and sensible as ever.
‘Now go to Miss Wells. I will be in my cabin with your sis
ters, and the door locked.’
And with his astonishing blessing echoing in my head I ran to find Daisy.
1
‘There you are, Hazel,’ said Daisy when I came rushing into our cabin, my mind in turmoil, to find the others gathered in a huddle. ‘You’re late! Really, I do expect more from you by now!’
‘I had to talk to my father,’ I said, still feeling rather disbelieving. ‘He – I don’t think he’s going to stop us detecting.’
‘No,’ said George. ‘Really?’
Alexander beamed at me. I blushed. ‘Really,’ I said. ‘I mean – he still doesn’t like it, but he has to stay with my sisters. I think he’s just going to pretend it isn’t happening.’
‘So he’s finally come round to our brilliance,’ said Daisy, as though she had not been fighting to keep the Detective Society secret from grown-ups for years. ‘How useful. Now, Hazel, can we get on with it, or are you going to have to go and talk to anyone else?’
‘See here, what’s wrong with you all?’ asked Amina. ‘Why aren’t you – why aren’t you more surprised?’
The four of us looked at each other a little guiltily. I saw Daisy freeze in horror.
‘Oh, er, yeah,’ said Alexander. ‘The thing is …’
‘Should we tell her?’ asked George.
‘Tell me what?’ asked Amina.
‘We’re detectives,’ said Alexander. ‘All of us.’
Amina burst out laughing. ‘Of course you are,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘We really are. Daisy and I are the founders of the Detective Society. We’ve solved nine murder cases so far, and Alexander and George have solved—’
‘Well, three murders with you, and lucky Alex did the Orient Express case too – and more mysteries on our own,’ said George, grinning at Amina. ‘The Junior Pinkertons, at your service.’
Amina’s face flickered from doubt to amazement. ‘You’re not joking!’ she said. ‘Is that – is that what happened at the gala weekend at school? I thought that was just a one-off.’
Death Sets Sail Page 7