The Moonlit Murders: A historical mystery page-turner (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 3) by Fliss Chester (best ereader for pc .txt) 📗

know.’ Fen held up her hand, reassuring James that she wasn’t as myopic as Mrs Archer. ‘But we need to check so we can cross her off the list. Tell you what. I’ll go there first, to her cabin, and then ask her to come with me as we search some more of these places.’ She tapped her pen on James’s page of scribbled-down locations around the ship.

‘Do you think she’ll want to trawl the ship with you? Especially if you plan to interrogate her while you investigate.’

‘Probably not, but I’ll have to convince her.’

‘Why the “have to”?’ James couldn’t follow Fen’s train of thought.

‘Because I’m worried that, if I’m not with her, Mrs Archer might make enough noise to have the poor girl clapped in irons and thrown in the brig before she’s even had the chance to ring for her tea.’

James blew a long breath out of the side of his mouth. ‘Fair point. And good idea. Right, where shall we start then?’ He ran his finger down the list of places in front of him. ‘Cabins or public areas?’

‘You go and check the engine room – which might be very interesting actually, do let me know what it’s like down there – and after that the lower decks. I doubt you’ll have time to check cabins, but you could start by listening in to any chatter in the smoking rooms or by the billiards tables. I’ll check the kitchens and then head up to the lifeboats, once I’ve dug out Genie. Perhaps you can find a few trustworthy chaps from the officers on board and set them off searching too?’

‘Right you are, Fen.’ James gave her a small salute and she shook her head in derision. ‘See you back here later. Hopefully by then one of the troops will have found the tiara and we can all relax for the rest of the voyage.’

‘Hope so. Cheerio.’

Fen left the saloon and thought it best to hunt down Genie. As she had said to James, she worried that Mrs Archer might cause such a fuss that the poor girl would be banged up in the brig purely to quieten the older woman down. She headed to the cabin where she’d had a jolly fun time the night before and, sure enough, Genie opened the door when Fen knocked on it.

‘Stolen?’ Genie gasped as Fen told her of the morning’s news. ‘Gosh, poor Mrs A.’

Genie’s shock over the theft and pity for the rich older lady seemed genuine enough to Fen, and she ignored the voice in her head that reminded her that Genie was an actress-in-waiting. If this was a crossword though, she thought to herself, I would jot that down to remind me…

‘Anyway, James and I have volunteered for search-party duty. Whether or not we find the tiara, it will give us something to do while we’re on board. Fancy joining me?’

Genie looked less than impressed with Fen’s suggestion, even going so far as to make a point of opening her cabin’s curtains and commenting on the grey, damp drizzle outside.

‘Can I say no?’ she asked, hesitantly.

‘Of course you can,’ Fen replied, and then chewed on her lip as she tried to find the right thing to say. ‘The thing is, Mrs Archer has rather got it in for you. And I don’t agree with her for one minute, but I think joining me on the hunt might award you a bit of tick as far as she’s concerned.

‘Oh, I see.’ Genie looked deflated. ‘She thinks I stole her rotten diamonds?’

Fen sighed. ‘I know it’s not fair, and it’s sheer snobbery on her part, but I think she’s upset and lashing out. She tore strips off poor Bisset and the captain, too, if that soothes the sore spot.’

‘Not you though?’ Genie asked, reluctantly shrugging on her coat and reaching for her boa.

‘No. Not yet at any rate, though if we don’t find the tiara and earrings and what have you, I shouldn’t imagine I’ll be far down the list.’

‘Fine, where are we heading to on this search then?’

‘Ah, so…’ Fen advised that due to the steaminess of the kitchens and the dampness of the lifeboats, she might want to leave the feather boa behind. ‘Thank you, Genie. I’m rather glad to have the company if I’m honest. As intriguing as this jewellery theft is, this isn’t how I’d envisaged spending our days at sea!’

Before too long, the two women, having had a rather fun look around the steamy kitchen and eyed up what was on the lunch menu, and, in Genie’s case, also having eyed up one or two of the chefs, found themselves on the topmost deck of the De Grasse. It was up on this highest deck that the twelve lifeboats were stored, six on each side, lashed to the railings and supported by what Fen realised were the roof struts of the covered promenade deck below.

Each lifeboat was about twenty foot long and covered in a thick canvas, bound and slashed to the boats with tar-covered ropes to keep the rainwater out of them.

‘Right then,’ Fen took a deep breath. A fall from here wouldn’t land you in the ocean, which churned mercilessly beneath them, but it would be a bone-breaking drop to the wider deck far below.

The wind had dropped and the sleet with it, but it was still hard work unpinning the very edges of the thick canvases and Fen shivered and cursed the fact that she had spent her money and used her coupons on a pretty dress and stockings and not a pair of sensible thick gloves.

It didn’t help that even the ever-perky Genie didn’t seem too keen on putting her back into it. ‘Come on, Genie, only a couple more,’ Fen coaxed her and together they unhooked the thick rope that held one of the canvases to the side of a lifeboat.

Half an hour of bitingly cold work later, they had managed to lift the canvas and shine a torch