Death Sets Sail

by Robin Stevens

  ‘Tucked up around her neck,’ said Daisy, deathly quiet. ‘So, when Miss Doggett saw the body, Mrs Miller was dead, but the sheet had not yet been taken off it and hung up in the doorway. And who would have seen that image, apart from the murderer?’

  5

  ‘So we know who committed the crime!’ cried Mr Mansour, relieved.

  ‘We do,’ said Daisy. ‘We absolutely do. I am not quite finished, though. Miss Wong and I have mentioned how we discovered the evidence of the sheet, and the curtain rail. We know that Theodora was murdered, then the sheet taken off her body and hung up in the doorway so that Heppy would walk into it. It was diabolically clever – and very difficult to pull off – but it must have happened that way. The evidence of the cabin proved it. To test it, we attempted one last re-creation, and I discovered some things that showed me the answer to this puzzle. Miss Wong, please lift that cloth up and bring me the items under it.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Wells,’ I said. All eyes were on me as I leaned forward and twitched Daisy’s scarf off the little side table. Under it was Alexander’s book and the wire May had found. I handed them both to Daisy, and she lifted them up like trophies.

  ‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘And now, Miss Wong, tell us what you saw during the re-creation.’

  ‘Er,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Well – there was a small mix-up at the end of it. I was Miss Doggett, and when I arrived in the cabin we were using as Theodora’s I got confused with the person playing Heppy, and the person playing Mr DeWitt.’

  ‘Exactly!’ cried Daisy. ‘And since we are seasoned detectives, and we always know exactly what we are doing, we realized that this mistake was, in fact, nothing of the kind. It was telling us that some of our suppositions were incorrect. But what were they? This book, and this wire, provided the answer.’

  ‘I want to protest!’ said Miss Doggett. ‘You are impugning MY reputation! I never – I would never commit murder! I have no need to stoop to such a thing!’ Her jaw was set. ‘I am a magical practitioner! My spells work!’

  ‘Now that’s a lie,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s very clear that a spell didn’t kill Joshua: arsenic poisoning did. You are guilty of that murder, I think, though as you have just said I don’t have proof. And a spell didn’t kill Theodora, either. She was stabbed in the heart. But do wait and listen before you jump to conclusions. You haven’t heard what these things are yet.’

  ‘So what are they?’ cried Daniel. ‘Get on with it!’

  ‘A good detective is never rushed,’ said Daisy. ‘And as to what they are – this is a book of famous American trials. Did you know that in 1846, Albert Tirrell was found not guilty of murdering his girlfriend, Maria Bickford, because he was sleepwalking when he did it? And this – why, this wire could be used for anything, but I have bent enough hairpins out of shape in my time to know that they make the most cunning little lockpicks. Mr DeWitt, you didn’t murder Theodora Miller, and neither did you, Miss Doggett. Your stories, that you went into Theodora’s cabin and found her dead, are quite true. What you didn’t know is that you both interrupted someone else’s murder.’

  Everyone started slightly.

  ‘But – but—’ Mr Mansour stuttered. ‘But you’ve ruled everyone else out already, Miss Wells! So do you mean that Miss Miller did sleepwalk into her mother’s room and kill her?’

  ‘Ah, not quite,’ said Daisy. She was enjoying this, I could see. My heart was beating fast in my chest. I think I saw what Daisy was getting at, but—

  ‘That wouldn’t fit the facts!’ said Alexander. ‘She couldn’t have done that!’

  ‘Alexander is quite right,’ said Daisy. ‘Heppy Miller didn’t sleepwalk into her mother’s room last night. Heppy Miller didn’t sleepwalk at all. Because she was quite wide awake when she stabbed her mother to death.’

  6

  Several people gasped.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Daniel. ‘Heppy could never do that. She’s a basket case, but she wouldn’t stab anyone in cold blood.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s quite nonsense,’ said Daisy, flicking her fingers dismissively. ‘That’s what you all think, though, isn’t it? Heppy the Breath of Life’s scapegoat, Heppy the pathetic child, who can take heaps of insults without breaking. And that’s what we thought too, didn’t we, Hazel? We thought that she was a poor girl who was the victim of a frame-up. It all made sense – why, the murder was far too elaborate to have been committed by a sleepwalker, and we know Heppy sleepwalks almost every night. We knew that her door had been locked from the outside, at Heppy’s request, and then we discovered that it was later unlocked from the outside again. So we were sure: Heppy was being set up. And we ruled her out.

  ‘But we didn’t ask ourselves one key question – how did we know that the murderer and the person who unlocked Heppy’s cabin door were one and the same? Then I saw this piece of wire, and I wondered … what if that was the wrong way round? What if Heppy had unlocked her own cabin door from the inside?

  ‘We believed that somewhere between half past twelve and two a.m. someone crept into Theodora’s room, stabbed her to death through her sheet, took the sheet, hung it up, left the cabin, went to Heppy’s cabin, unlocked her door and knew that she would very soon get up and sleepwalk at two a.m., as she usually did, into her mother’s cabin soon enough to step through the blood while it was still wet, and leave again before anyone else came in. When you lay it out like that, it’s absolute nonsense. It relies on so many things happening that would be absolutely out of any murderer’s control – or out of their control unless they were Heppy.

  ‘But, if it was Heppy, why, it would be the easiest thing in the world to commit a fake sleepwalking murder. Kill Theodora, wipe the knife, drop it and simply walk back out onto the deck. Like Albert Tirrell, she would be arrested, tried and let off, since she was a known sleepwalker and she had apparently committed this crime while asleep. I ought to have realized that it was odd that she was so insistent that she had done it. She was quite sure – because she had to be. She wanted a quick, simple arrest, and she was more and more frustrated when we kept on trying to prove that this crime was anything but simple. I also ought to have noticed how resourceful Heppy is. All of the ways she tried to prevent herself sleepwalking, the string she tied over her door – it’s the mark of a restless, frustrated, clever kind of mind, the sort of person who might have planned such a diabolically brilliant crime.’

  ‘But I don’t understand how the sheet fits with all of this!’ said Daniel.

  ‘Well, I assume it wasn’t part of the original plan. Miss Doggett’s surprise appearance must have ruined things somewhat. Heppy had just stabbed her mother, holding a pillow over her face to muffle her voice, when she heard a noise outside. She fled to the bathroom, leaving Miss Doggett to find Theodora’s body. Miss Doggett, in shock, tore off Theodora’s sheet to make sure she was really dead, getting blood on her nightdress – blood I noticed this morning – and throwing the sheet to the floor. Then she ran away to stick pins in her doll and imagine that she had magic powers – and, to Heppy’s quick brain, this seemed an opportunity to be seized. Not only did Miss Doggett have blood on her, meaning that the police might pass over Heppy and accuse her of the crime instead, but she had made the scene of the crime bloody. Heppy could use that to make the sight everyone would see the next morning even more dramatic and shocking. So she hung up the sheet on the door rail and shoved her way through it, pushing it away behind her. This covered her with blood and knocked the sheet to the ground – where it was tripped over by Mr DeWitt. That is why we had three people with blood on them this morning!

  ‘Mr DeWitt said that he saw Heppy’s figure walking out of Theodora’s cabin away from him, and then he went inside and tripped over the bloody sheet, getting stains all over his own hands and feet. That ought to have told us how very fresh the blood still was – and also told us how unlikely it was that there was time for a murderer to commit an entire crime and have Heppy fall into their trap before anyone e
lse went in to see Theodora. The murderer was spotted by one person: Mr DeWitt – yet we at first believed that Mr DeWitt had seen the person being framed for murder, rather than the murderer themselves. We believed the complicated explanation, rather than the obvious one! Or rather we believed the explanation that was put in front of us. But, when you strip all of the complexity away, what’s left is so simple and beautiful. It all makes sense! Oh, I do like it when things make sense.’

  ‘But I – this isn’t right!’ wailed Heppy. ‘I don’t remember anything! I don’t!’

  ‘Oh, do stop lying and pretending to be silly,’ snapped Daisy. ‘I believe that you are a sleepwalker, but you made sure not to fall asleep last night. You committed this crime when you were quite awake. You had motive – all of those horrible things that Theodora shouted at you all day long – you had opportunity and you had the means too. You were very clever about it – if I was any less brilliant a detective, I might have missed what was going on. But, unfortunately, I did not. You are the only person who could be guilty.’

  ‘No,’ said Heppy. ‘No, no, NO. I – I can’t – I can’t let you do this. I can’t be found guilty like this, I can’t, I CAN’T! Leave me ALONE!’

  ‘We can’t do that,’ I said. ‘We have to tell the Aswan police.’

  Heppy screamed.

  I clapped my hands over my ears, and people stepped away in horror. I keep on remembering that moment. I think that if only I had been quicker – if I had taken hold of her – but whatever I imagine I know what the truth is. That no one was quick enough to stop Heppy as she flung herself forward, snatched up my little sister May, and rushed through the open saloon door out onto the deck.

  7

  Daisy cried, ‘STOP HER!’ and darted after Heppy. I had one foolish moment when I could not move at all – and then I went running after them both in a whirl. I only remember jagged glimpses – May beating at Heppy with her little fists; Heppy’s curly hair under one of the deck lights; the water swirling below us; the glitter of the approaching city.

  My father was bellowing at Heppy, and Mr Mansour was pleading with her, but Heppy dragged May along the deck to the very back of the ship, where the paddles were stirring up white water. She hooked her fingers in May’s collar and swung her up, dangling her out over the churn.

  She did not look like Beanie at all now, I thought – she never had, really.

  ‘Don’t come any nearer!’ she choked out. ‘I’ll throw her in! I swear it!’

  ‘LET ME GO!’ screamed May. ‘I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL BITE YOU! I HATE YOU!’

  ‘Quiet, Mei!’ called my father, his voice thin with terror. ‘Please, Miss Miller – please put my daughter down. She can’t swim.’

  ‘Then you mustn’t come any closer!’ called Heppy. ‘If you do, I’ll throw her in. I’m – I’m sorry, but all I want is for you to tell the police that I was asleep. That’s all. It’s easy!’

  ‘We can’t do that!’ cried Daisy. ‘We have to tell them the truth!’

  Mr Mansour and my father were frozen, and so was I. I could not risk it – I could not be the reason May was hurt. And I could not even llow myself to imagine something worse than May hurt.

  ‘Hazel! Hazel!’ whispered Rose, tugging on my arm. ‘What if – what if we distract her, and May and I swap places?’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ I said. ‘She’ll see you! We can’t get close to her, Ling Ling.’

  ‘Yes, but we look alike, especially to European people,’ said Rose. ‘I know May thinks she’s brave, but I can be brave too, I swear it, and I can almost swim. It’s like in The Twins at St Marian’s, when the twins swap so that the one who isn’t good at Games can still win glory for her school. Only not twins, or Games exactly. Please, Big Sister.’

  ‘No!’ I said, louder than I meant to. ‘It won’t work, and anyway I won’t let you. I – if anyone needs to swap with May, I will.’

  While we were whispering, the light had dropped still further. Everyone’s figures were dim now, the water dark and the last streaks of colour leaving the sky. A bat swooped overhead, and there was the shocking roar of a train from the far bank. Heppy startled a little – and, before any of us knew what was happening, Daisy was on her, reaching out for her arm, poised against the thin polished wood of the railing. I remember seeing her hair down around her shoulders as she struggled, her face fierce and intense.

  ‘Get down!’ cried George. ‘She’ll fall!’

  But, even as he said it, Daisy had her fingers round May’s dress, and had hurled her onto the boards of the deck.

  ‘You coward!’ she shouted at Heppy. ‘Kidnap me if you must kidnap someone! May is a child! This is absolutely unsporting!’

  ‘Get BACK!’ wailed Heppy. ‘Please!’

  And then Daisy turned to us.

  She may have been about to ask for help – though that would not have been very Daisyish. She might only have been doing it for effect. She might have been looking to see whether Amina was watching.

  But that movement made Heppy jump, and overbalance, and drag Daisy over with her.

  I remember Daisy saying, ‘Hazel’ – quite clearly – though no one else says they heard that.

  And then she was gone.

  There was a scream and a splash and someone behind me shouted, ‘They’re in!’

  We all rushed forward to lean over the railing. I saw a hand, the spread of a skirt, a frantic, gasping mouth. Were they caught up in the paddles? Were they safe?

  ‘Someone go in after them at once!’ cried my father. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘Can Daisy swim?’ asked George. ‘Can she?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ I gasped. ‘I don’t know, I don’ t—’

  The truth is that I cannot swim properly, and we have never had lessons at Deepdean. But, I thought, this was Daisy. She knew everything. She was strong, and brave. She had gone paddling on the beach this summer. Surely she must be able to—

  ‘Heppy can swim!’ said Daniel. ‘I taught her myself!’

  And there was a curly head, bobbing up and striking furiously away from the boat.

  ‘GO AFTER HER!’ bellowed Mr Mansour. ‘SHE’S GETTING AWAY! You, there – you dive for Miss Wells!’

  But, although one of the crew tore off his shirt and dived in, and then George followed him, they came up alone again and again.

  After that, things begin to go murky in my memory. I remember Mr Mansour saying, ‘There are crocodiles …’, I remember SS Hatshepsut pulling up in Aswan and everyone being rushed off the ship. I remember being in a hotel, or perhaps someone’s house. I remember being told that Heppy was still missing, and not really minding about that, although I could tell that I should.

  I remember everyone telling me how sorry they were. I remember thinking that no one was sorry enough. I remember getting on the aeroplane, Amina crying and begging to come back to England with us, and her parents saying no, and me feeling both unable to comfort her and awfully glad that I would not have to deal with her grief as well as feel my own.

  And I remember waking up one morning in Fallingford, the day after Daisy’s memorial service, and realizing at last that I really am quite alone.

  Daisy is gone, and she is not coming back.

  1

  And now I have put down almost everything. I could not begin writing up the case properly until yesterday, which is unusual for me. I feel very tired. I keep thinking about the little stone beneath the big oak tree in Fallingford’s grounds. It is so small, but it feels bigger than anything else in the world.

  And I keep reading the note that I found in Daisy’s things, when I was packing them to come back to England. It was only a silly scrap of paper that I had given her a few days before, to make her practise her codebreaking. She must have been about to hand it back to me, for skirting it, curling round my words, were the hasty dots and dashes of Daisy’s Morse code, looking as bold and impatient as her.

  - . . / . / - / . / - . - . / - / . . / … - / . / … / - - - / - . - .
/ . . / . / - / - . - - / . . - . / - - - / . - . / . / … - / . / . - . /

  Detective Society Forever.

  It was as though we were together on the page, like Daisy had put out her hand and taken mine and told me that everything would be all right in the end.

  By now it is Christmas Eve, although, as I have said before, no one feels very festive. My father, who came with us back to England, is trying to behave like an English gentleman. Daisy’s parents are not here – I am not sure if they don’t want to be or they can’t bear to be – but a telegram was sent to say that my father was welcome to use Lord Hastings’ gumboots. He takes Rose, Millie and Toast Dog on long walks around the Fallingford grounds (May refused, and so did I – I can tell that he is trying to cheer me up, and I am not interested in it), and he comes back covered in mud because the gumboots are too big for him.

  Bertie is back from Cambridge with Harold, and he is furious.

  ‘How dare she!’ he says, again and again, his eyes red. ‘I taught her to swim in the (unprintable word) lake myself, that (unprintable word). How dare she!’

  He is even angrier because Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy are not here, either. They missed the memorial service yesterday, which hurt me just as much as Bertie, even though I did not shout about it. They only sent a telegram saying that they would be unavoidably detained in London until tonight.

  ‘This family is finished!’ Bertie said. ‘No one cares!’

  ‘I care,’ said Harold gently. He put a calming hand on Bertie’s arm, and Bertie shook it off furiously.

  ‘YOU don’t make up for the rest of them!’ he said, and he went to his room and played his ukulele until Hetty burst into tears and begged him to stop.