“Where was it?” he asked. “Gosh, what an idiot I’ve made of myself, accusing Mr. Eppy of having it. Where on earth was it?”
“We don’t know,” answered Dinah. “We all came in here a few minutes ago after we left you on your way to tackle Mr. Eppy — and the first thing we saw was the ship!”
“There it was, on the shelf — just where we left it this morning,” said Lucy-Ann.
“Who put it back?” asked Philip.
“Aha — if we knew that we’d know who took it,” said Jack. “I still think it was Mr. Eppy. If you remember, he came in to lunch after we did — he could easily have slipped down here, and taken the ship then. And he could just as easily have put it back whilst we were having our swim. If he saw us in the pool, which was quite likely, he’d know that he had plenty of time to slip down here and replace it.”
“The knob’s a bit loose,” said Dinah. “We think he found how it worked all right, and removed that wooden section, and examined the inside of the ship thoroughly.”
“I see. And when he found there was nothing there he generously brought it back!” said Philip. “I don’t like that man. He’ll be hunting round all our cabins looking for our other bits of paper, if we don’t look out.”
Lucy-Ann felt alarmed. “Oh dear — will he find them, do you think?”
“He might,” admitted Philip. “They seem jolly good hiding-places to us, but they probably would be easy enough for him to discover.”
“I say — are we going to get the other bits deciphered now?” said Dinah suddenly. “You know, we thought we’d ask the little Greek woman who keeps the shop on the ship, and the deck steward. Suppose Mr. Eppy gets to hear we’ve been showing other people more bits of paper. He’ll soon be after them.”
“Yes, that’s a point,” said Jack. “But if we don’t get them deciphered, we’re no better off than we were. Hidden treasure is no use to anyone if they don’t know in the least where it is. Anyway, we don’t even know if the plan does show hidden treasure — all we know is that it is a genuine old document, and that Mr. Eppy is distinctly interested.”
“I think we could trust the little shop-woman not to say a word,” said Lucy-Ann. “She’s nice, and she likes us. If we told her it was a secret, wouldn’t she keep it? After all, we’ve got to ask somebody!”
They debated whether the shop-woman was trustworthy or not. They decided that on the whole she was.
“She said she’d show me some photographs of her children,” said Lucy-Ann. “She’s got three on some little island or other. She leaves them with her grandmother when she goes on the ship. Couldn’t we all go and see the photographs, and then ask her about the parchment?”
“Trust Lucy-Ann for knowing everyone’s life-history,” grinned Philip. “It beats me how she does it! She already knows the names of the second officer’s children, and she knows everything about the stewardess’s old mother and what illnesses she suffers from, and she even knows how many dogs the captain himself has kept during his whole life!”
“I don’t,” said Lucy-Ann indignantly. “I simply wouldn’t dare to ask him about dogs. Anyway, he can’t have had any on board ship.”
“I’m only pulling your leg, Lucy-Ann,” said Philip. “Actually I think your idea of looking at the shop-woman’s photos, and then springing our parchment on her — or a bit of it — is a good one.”
“Let’s go now, then,” said Lucy-Ann, looking at the clock. “Everyone always has a sleep in the afternoon at this time — no-one is ever in the shop. She’ll be alone.”
They went off together. Philip had the idea of first finding out where Mr. Eppy was — just in case he should be snooping round!
He came back and reported. “He’s asleep in his deck-chair on the promenade deck. His head’s well back, and he’s not reading or anything.”
“How do you know he’s asleep?” demanded Jack. “You can’t tell if his eyes are open or shut behind those awful dark sun-glasses.”
“Well — he looked asleep,” said Philip. “Sort of limp and relaxed. Come on — we’ll go to the shop now.”
They went to the little shop. The Greek woman who kept it showed all her white teeth in a pleased smile when she saw the children with Kiki and Micky.
“Ah, Kiki, Micky, and what mischief have you done?” she asked, tickling the little monkey and poking Kiki in the chest. “One, two, three, GO!”
Kiki immediately made a noise like a pistol-shot, which was just what the little Greek woman meant her to do. She was quite familiar with Kiki’s ways, and always screamed with laughter when the parrot hiccupped, coughed or sneezed.
“Tell him to snizz,” she begged. “I like when he snizzes.”
So Kiki obliged with a fine variety of “snizzes,” much to Micky’s amazement. Then out came the photographs and the children were treated to a life-history of each of the three little girls she possessed. Dinah thought that surely never in this world had there lived such children before — so sweet, so good, so loving, so religious, so incredibly beautiful — and so extraordinarily boring!
Then Jack thought it was their turn to talk. He nudged Philip, who at once brought out his piece of the map. “Look,” he said to the shop-woman. “Can you make head or tail of this for us? It’s an old old document we found. What does it say — and what does it show?”
The Greek woman looked at it sharply with her bright black eyes. “It is a plan of some sort,” she said. “But you have not got the whole of it here — what a pity! It shows part of an island called Thamis or Themis, I cannot tell which. See, here is its name, in Greek — but you will not understand the letters, of course. Your alphabet is different. Yes, it is part of an island, but where it is I do not know.”
“Can’t you tell anything else from the map?” asked Dinah.
“There is something of importance on the island,” said the woman. “Perhaps a temple? I do not know. There is a building marked here — or maybe it is meant to be a city. Again I do not know. I could tell you more if I had the whole of the map.”
The children had been so engrossed in all this that they had not heard the soft footsteps of someone coming. A shadow fell across them. They looked up and Lucy-Ann gave a gasp. It was Mr. Eppy, his dark glasses hiding his eyes as usual.
“Ah — something interesting. Let me see,” said Mr. Eppy coolly, and before anyone could stop him he had twisted the parchment out of the Greek woman’s fingers and was looking at it himself!
Philip tried to twist it out of his fingers, but Mr. Eppy was on his guard. He held it aloft and pretended to joke.
“He won’t let Mr. Eppy see! Bad boy!”
“Bad, naughty boy!” echoed Kiki at once. Micky, thinking it was a game of snatch, suddenly leapt up in the air, and lunged out at the paper. He got it in his little paw, fell back to Philip’s shoulder — and then, still with the parchment in his hand, leapt to the top of the shop and sat there, out of reach, chattering excitedly.
Mr. Eppy knew when he was beaten. “What a funny little creature!” he said, in an amiable voice that managed to sound quite angry too. “Well, well — we’ll have a look at the paper another time!”
And with that, he left the dumbfounded children, walking off rapidly, back to his deck-chair.
Chapter 13
GOOD-BYE, MR. EPPY!
“Well!” said Dinah, finding her voice first. “Of all the cheek! Philip, he couldn’t have been asleep when you saw him in his chair! He must have seen you looking at him and guessed you were up to something — and looked about till he found us.”
“Blow him,” muttered Philip. “Now he’s seen two of the bits. He knows what the island is too because the name was on that second bit. That’s an awful bit of bad luck.”
They left the surprised little shop-woman and went moodily up to the bow of the ship, glad to feel the wind in their faces. Micky had come down as soon as Mr. Eppy had left them, and Philip had his bit of paper back in safety. But the damage was done — Mr. Eppy had seen it!
“If there is anything in our idea, Mr. Eppy has seen enough to cotton on to it already,” said Jack gloomily. “I can’t say that we have been at all clever over this. Anything but.”