Despite myself, I felt a prickle of real excitement. This seemed very suspicious indeed. Here was Miss Bartleby, still convinced that she was behind not one but two murders, and Miss Doggett, gloating over Theodora’s death. I looked around and saw that the others were as fascinated as I was.
‘We have to let her in,’ said Alexander. ‘Come on! She could be really useful.’
‘Temporarily,’ said Daisy. ‘Like we did in our Hong Kong case. She’s been useful before, after all.’
‘Oh, all RIGHT!’ I said. ‘But you have to do what we tell you to, May.’
‘Obviously,’ said May, and I had the suspicion that she was crossing her fingers behind her back. ‘So, what are we doing first?’
5
‘YOU,’ said my father furiously, throwing open the door to our cabin, ‘aren’t doing anything at all, Wong Mei Li! Come here at ONCE, and if I catch you out of my cabin one more time you – shall go without dinner for a week.’
‘No, I won’t,’ whispered May to me, as she was seized by the shoulder and dragged away. ‘He wouldn’t!’
Remembering the times I went without dinner when I was May’s age for being far less naughty, I had to bite my tongue at the unfairness of being the oldest.
‘Do this WITHOUT May, Hazel Wong!’ snapped my father, and he slammed the door behind him.
‘Er,’ said Alexander, glancing at me. ‘What – what are we doing first?’
‘It’s quite obvious,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s still chaos outside if May could escape so easily. While everyone’s running about like frightened rabbits, we need to get back to the body and the scene of the crime – and we can look into the other rooms too, while we’re at it. We only have a limited amount of time before Mr Mansour takes control of the Hatshepsut once again – or until Miss Beauvais and Mr Young start bothering us – and we need to use every second of it! All right, to arms! Detectives, ready?’
I nodded at her.
‘Ready,’ said George and Alexander.
‘Ready,’ said Amina, tossing her hair.
‘Then let’s go and solve a murder,’ said Daisy.
Outside our cabin, the sun was rising behind the east bank of the river, birds calling from the dark palm trees on the shore, the sky lifting and brightening. I looked at my wristwatch and saw it was almost seven o’clock. Above us the moon was still high, and in front of us the ship was still in chaos. The crew were pelting up and down in a panic, and the Breath of Life were huddled round Heppy as she sobbed.
‘Heppy, please don’t cry. It’ll be all right. You just have to explain what you did to the police,’ said Daniel. I watched him – his panic of earlier seemed to be almost gone. Was he too calm, I wondered? His sister had apparently just murdered his mother, after all.
‘It was not your fault,’ said Mr DeWitt solemnly. ‘You didn’t know what you were doing.’
‘It was the gods!’ cried Miss Doggett. I saw that she had her free hand on Miss Bartleby’s shoulder, and as she said this she squeezed so tightly that Miss Bartleby flinched and gasped, tears starting in her eyes. ‘It was punishment from the gods.’
‘Absolute nonsense—’ Daniel began, just as Mr Mansour marched onto the deck.
‘Please! Everyone! Please! A word!’ he said.
‘Let’s leave them to it,’ whispered Daisy. ‘Come on! To Mrs Miller’s cabin!’
But we were stopped by the trembling figure of Mr Young, still in his pyjamas and dripping with nervous sweat.
‘Boys!’ he called in a shaking voice. ‘Boys! Come here! It isn’t safe! You must come with me!’
George groaned. ‘He’s such an annoyance,’ he murmured to the rest of us. ‘Here, hold on a moment, I’ll deal with it. Mr Young! Mr Young, you need to get back in your cabin immediately.’
‘What do you mean?’ quavered Mr Young. ‘I’m here to take care of you!’
‘But it’s you who are in danger,’ said George, leaning forward confidentially. ‘We’ve heard that Heppy killed Theodora because of her knowledge of Egyptian history and myth. The murder – why, it was committed by someone with intimate knowledge of Egyptian lore, that’s clear enough – done because of Mrs Miller’s connection to ancient Egypt! She was stabbed in the heart – and, as you know, the heart was most important to the ancient Egyptians in their afterlife. That proves that Heppy was punishing her mother for her connection to the pharaohs – and she is a danger to anyone who knows too much about ancient Egypt! She may seem subdued now, but you never know when she might strike again!’
‘But – but—’ Mr Young stammered.
‘Of course, we’re quite safe,’ said George. ‘We hardly know anything, do we? But you – why, you’ve studied it for years! The only thing you can do is keep your door locked until we arrive in Aswan.’
‘But boys – I can’t just leave you!’
‘You must, sir, please. We’re only thinking of you. We’re going to look after the girls, and make sure they’re safe—’
‘Oh yes,’ said Daisy, nodding. ‘We’re terrified. In fear. Helpless.’
I nudged her. This seemed to be laying it on a little too thick – but then I saw Mr Young’s face. It was papery with terror.
‘— but you can’t risk being outside for a moment longer!’
‘She doesn’t look dangerous,’ faltered Mr Young, peering along the deck at Heppy’s slender figure.
‘That’s the trick she uses!’ said George. ‘It’s always the most unhinged criminals who look the most ordinary. Please, sir – you must get inside!’
Mr Young nodded and fled. We heard his lock being turned, and something heavy being moved in front of the door. Alexander covered his mouth to stifle a laugh, and George winked at us. ‘That’s him dealt with,’ he whispered. ‘It’ll take him ages to start to realize that what I said made absolutely no sense at all.’
‘But are you sure?’ I asked. ‘That thing you said about the heart – what if it’s right? That would help prove that only a member of the Breath of Life could have done it, wouldn’t it?’
I saw Alexander look at me admiringly, and blushed.
‘Not bad, Watson,’ said Daisy. ‘A very interesting thought! But now for the body! Hurry up, everyone, come on!’
We went rushing round the side of the ship, and down the port side. It was quiet here, doors left hanging open, curtains blowing in the slight breeze. The sky was hot yellow and pink, the sun just behind the tops of the trees.
But when we reached Theodora’s cabin, number seven, and looked inside, it was quite empty. Only blooming halos of red left on the white undersheet and the pillow to show where the body had lain, scuffed footprints and kicked-aside furniture.
Theodora Miller’s body was gone.
6
Daisy hissed. ‘It’s gone!’ she cried. ‘Those clodhoppers! How dare they move it before the police have even had a chance to examine the crime scene!’
‘At least Mr Mansour is doing something,’ George said. ‘He’s moved the body before it has a chance to heat up and spoil its evidence. That’s rather better thinking than most of the English policemen we’ve met.’
‘That is hardly relevant!’ said Daisy, who hates to have the truth pointed out when it is inconvenient. ‘You – we – oh bother!’
‘Alex and I will go and look for the body,’ said George. ‘They’ll have it downstairs in the cold-storage room, where the food is kept. You know they won’t like it if you girls are wandering about on your own – but they won’t worry as much about boys.’
From the look of pure annoyance on Daisy’s face, she knew as well as I did that this was revenge for the trick she had played on the Pinkertons during our last investigation with them. ‘Oh, all right!’ she snapped at last. ‘But take Amina. She can speak Arabic, after all. And Hazel and I will look at the crime scene. We’ll move on to Mr DeWitt’s in cabin nine and Miss Bartleby’s in cabin eleven once we’re done. If you get back in time, take a look at Heppy’s in cabin one, Daniel’s in cab
in three, and Miss Doggett’s in cabin five. Of course, if any of our suspects are in their cabins, exercise caution. Don’t let them know what we’re doing!’
‘Wait,’ said Amina. ‘But can’t I—’
‘Detective Society President’s rules,’ said Daisy. ‘Go on, go!’
I saw Amina’s face as she followed the Pinkertons away – it was hurt and confused.
‘Daisy!’ I said. ‘She wanted to stay with – er – us.’
‘I have no time for that!’ snapped Daisy. ‘We have a murder to solve!’
I sighed. Daisy, I saw, was coping with her feelings as well as she ever did. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let’s look at the scene of the crime.’
We stood in the doorway, staring at the cabin in front of us. The door was opened outwards, and the white curtains that every cabin had behind its door, tinged a little pink from the rising sun, moved gently on their rail. There were a few smears of something dark on their edges, and I nudged Daisy. We both bent forward and peered at them. They were only little smudges, as though someone or something had brushed against them.
‘D’you think this happened just now?’ I asked. ‘When they were moving the body?’
‘No, it couldn’t have!’ said Daisy, reaching out delicately and tapping one of the marks. ‘This blood is dry. It’s been here for hours. It must have happened at the same time as the murder! Draw it, Hazel, draw it at once!’
She was back to being Daisy, I thought as I sketched, as though Amina had never existed. It always made me marvel, the way she could do that. No matter how interested in a case I am, I can never forget the other parts of my life.
Then we stepped into the crime scene itself, looking about at the damage done by the crew. The mattress of the bed was half off its frame, and there were dusty boot prints on the floor.
‘Clodhoppers!’ snarled Daisy. ‘Moving the victim! Destroying evidence! What nonsense!’
‘We are in Egypt, Daisy,’ I said. ‘It gets warm here so quickly – as soon as the sun’s up. George was right – they did have to move the body. And they didn’t exactly know we’d be coming to investigate, did they?’
‘Well, they should have done. I suppose it’s just lucky we saw the room earlier. There’s the sheet, and the knife – oh, Hazel, they’ve left the knife! Look at the way it’s been wiped – its blade is quite clean of blood. I suppose we can agree that it is the one used in the ritual last night?’
‘Yes!’ I said, kneeling to peer at it. ‘Mr DeWitt was holding it, I remember, and then Mrs Miller took it away. So she must have brought it back to her room – wait, does that help Heppy or harm her case? After all, if it was already here, she might have just picked it up in her sleep.’
‘I wonder if it has fingerprints on it?’ asked Daisy. ‘Here, there’s a powder compact and brush on the side table. We can dust it for – oh!’
For the brush, as she shook powder over the knife’s handle and twirled it expertly, revealed nothing at all. The handle was quite clean – smeared, as though it had been wiped, but with no prints whatsoever.
‘There should have been at least four sets of prints on it, if it was Heppy sleepwalking!’ I gasped. ‘Mrs Miller’s, Miss Bartleby’s, Mr DeWitt’s – and Heppy’s. We saw Mrs Miller and Mr DeWitt holding it during their ritual last night. But someone’s wiped them all off!’
‘Which certainly does not seem like a thing someone would do in their sleep,’ said Daisy, eyes shining with excitement. ‘Now, Hazel, onto the next clue. Let us observe this discarded sheet on the floor. What can we say about it?’
We were both crouched down, heads together over the crumple of white. It had been kicked to the opposite side of the room to the bed, on the right of the door, and it was bundled up quite tightly. The drips and stains of brown blood across it made it stiff, resisting us as we carefully tried to pull it apart.
‘There are cuts in it,’ I said quietly. ‘Look, there, there – and there again. Three stab wounds. It must have been tucked round Mrs Miller when the crime happened, just as we thought. How horrid!’
‘Don’t be a weakling, Hazel!’ said Daisy, unmoved. Her nose was so close to the sheet that it was almost touching it, her eyes narrowed. The truth is that the body is always the worst part of an investigation for me. I hurt for the victims, so much so that my mind goes almost white with pain and I cannot act like a rational, calm detective. But Daisy can see even the worst gore and be unmoved.
‘Hazel, look at this. What does it look like?’
I stared where she was pointing. ‘Bloodstains,’ I said.
‘Hazel! Don’t be silly or I shall replace you. Look properly!’
‘You can’t replace me!’ I said. ‘You couldn’t detect without me!’ But I looked again, and then I had it. ‘Those stains look like – well, like drips.’
‘Which is odd, isn’t it?’ asked Daisy, breathing carefully, still not looking at me. ‘The blood has dripped in long, straight lines down the sheet. And I’m quite certain that scientific principles do not allow for long, straight drips on a sheet that has been crumpled on the floor in a heap.’
‘So perhaps the sheet was on the bed, and the blood dripped down there,’ I suggested – but I knew, as I said it, that this could not be right.
Daisy, as I had expected, looked at me with a withering glare.
‘Nonsense, Hazel. Where on that bed there can you see drips down the side? Nowhere! The sides of the bed are quite clean. The blood remained on the top of the bed, soaking around the place the victim lay. So that means that at some point, quite soon after it was first stained, this sheet was not positioned like this. It was hung up. But where?’
I looked round the cabin. It had the same tidy white walls and small mirror as ours. The only difference was a small bathroom through a door behind the bed on the left-hand side.
‘The bathroom?’ I suggested. ‘No! Daisy! Look!’
In turning back to Daisy, I had glanced beyond her, to the open door to the deck with its blowing curtains – and the curtain rail on which they hung. The rail was shiny brass, but marring that shine was a long, rusty smear.
‘Blood!’ hissed Daisy. ‘Oh, Hazel, oh, Watson – that’s it! When you combine the evidence of this sheet with the stains on the curtains, and the wiped knife – we have the beginnings of proof that this murder is no mere case of sleepwalking. Do sleepwalkers wipe their weapons and hang up sheets in the doorway to rooms? I think not!’
I suddenly saw it, and I was horrified. Hands carefully reaching up to hang a bloody sheet over an open doorway, and waiting – waiting – for a sleepwalker to blindly push her way through it and implicate herself in a crime she had never committed.
‘Someone did frame Heppy!’ I whispered. ‘And we’re on our way to proving it!’
7
‘Yes!’ cried Daisy. ‘Exactly, Watson! Write it down, write it all down!’
I did, and I drew a plan of the room in this casebook with all of our clues carefully marked. I felt more and more certain that what we were facing was a truly wicked murderer. So many small things did not add up with what Heppy believed had happened – but, if we had not been here to notice them, they would already have been lost. All the Egyptian police would hear, once we docked in Aswan, was that a woman had been murdered, and the murderer had been her sleepwalking daughter.
‘We ought to go,’ I said, staring at the doorway anxiously. ‘Mr Mansour is bound to send someone to guard the cabin soon.’
‘Well, obviously, Watson,’ said Daisy. ‘Time is always of the essence, but in this case even more so. But before we leave this cabin we must make sure we have examined every inch of it. This may well be our last chance to look at the scene of the crime. I shall stay in here. I know you, Hazel – you won’t look at a room properly if a dead body was in it recently. You can go into the bathroom, where it’s less gory.’
This, of course, was Daisy at her most Daisyish – she loves to give orders, the more outrageous the better – but I d
id not complain.
I stepped through the little half-door into the bathroom. Theodora’s cabin was one of the nicer ones, with not just a ewer and basin as in our room, but a proper bathroom. It had shelves for fat glass bottles of pills and tonics, her tooth mug with her toothbrush sitting in it, and a marble sink with gilded taps. And these taps, I saw, were smeared with rusty marks. The white sink itself was spattered with pale pink flecks, and there were prints of hasty fingers on the marble top.
Someone had washed blood off in this sink.
But I remembered Heppy’s bloodstained hands, and I knew that these marks could not have been made by her. She had not washed herself at all. I got a prickle of real excitement. I knew then that we were on the right scent. Someone else had been in here, cleaning themselves in the sink.
‘Daisy!’ I cried. ‘Daisy, come here!’
‘Is it important, Hazel?’
‘Yes! Quick!’
‘It had better be,’ grumbled Daisy, but when she stepped into the little bathroom space she gasped. ‘Blood! Watson, this is fascinating! It means that—’
‘That someone was here who wasn’t Theodora or Heppy! I know! Daisy, this is additional evidence that the case is more complicated than it seems.’
‘Very interesting,’ whispered Daisy, peering deeply into the sink. ‘This is excellent detective work, Watson. We have the evidence of the bloodstained sheet and curtain rail, and now the bloody basin. And, if you come with me, I believe I have discovered more things of note.’
She beckoned me back out into the main cabin, where she had been ferreting through the wardrobe and drawers.
‘Luckily for us, Theodora was very organized, but terribly bad at hiding things. Look, her accounts book was tucked under her stockings.’
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