At first glance, their room was exactly as they had left it, but Mr Doyle’s keen eyes soon spotted a note on his bed.
‘Ah ha,’ he said. ‘This is very encouraging.’
Jack read the note. ‘It says, Your lives are in danger. Turn back while you still can. Mr Doyle, you have a strange idea of what is encouraging.’
‘It means we’re making progress,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘This is the same handwriting as the note Amelia received and the one about the British Museum.’
‘How does this relate to Phillip?’
‘I still don’t know. We started investigating the reappearance of a watch and now we’re on a hunt to find New Atlantis.’
‘Maybe the robbery at the museum was a coincidence.’
‘It would be an enormous coincidence.’ Mr Doyle shook his head. ‘No, I believe it is connected, but we don’t have all the pieces yet.’
That night they ate dinner with Phoebe, Scarlet, Charles Spaulding and his men. Their meal was prepared by Sandra Clegg, the ship’s elderly cook.
‘That was lovely,’ Mr Doyle said.
‘I’m glad you enjoyed it, sir. Steak and kidney pie is one of my specialties.’
Mr Doyle asked Spaulding about his previous adventures.
‘I’ve been to every continent except Antarctica,’ he said. ‘Mind you, some I’ve only passed through. White men have barely explored Africa or South America.’
‘It’s incredible that we haven’t fully explored our own world,’ Scarlet said. ‘Yet we’ve reached into space with the metrotowers and they’re even talking about sending a ship to the moon.’
‘After the war, the League of Nations created treaties to protect native peoples,’ Mr Spaulding said. ‘And a good thing too, otherwise they would have been ruthlessly exploited by colonial powers.’
Mr Doyle turned to Kip and Tan. ‘And what about you? Where have you travelled?’
Kip recounted their extensive expeditions through the South Pacific. Tan had lived in England for a time, but found it too cold.
‘People should not live with white rain,’ he said.
‘You mean snow?’
‘Snow is bad. Too cold.’
Mr Doyle turned to Kip. ‘You said earlier about magic,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me more?’
Kip’s eyes shifted. ‘Should not speak of such things. Bad luck.’
‘Surely not. You mentioned a woman.’
‘She was a witch,’ Kip said. ‘Powerful woman.’
‘A witch!’ Jack cried. ‘You mean with a broom and a—’
‘Probably not that kind of witch,’ Mr Doyle said gently.
‘She lived alone,’ Kip continued. ‘Made medicine for people when they were ill, but she wanted payment.’
‘And if someone did not pay?’
The man’s face darkened. ‘My friend had no money. She cursed him. She took a chicken bone and pointed it in his face and told him he would die.’
‘And what happened?’ Jack asked.
Kip shrugged. ‘He died.’
Jack had heard about people dying from chicken bones before, but usually when they got stuck in their throats.
‘There is no such thing as magic,’ Mr Doyle said as Jack and Scarlet took a stroll with him around the deck the next morning. ‘But the mind is a very powerful tool. An individual can lose the will to live.’
‘Have you come across such a thing before?’ Scarlet asked.
Mr Doyle sighed. ‘I didn’t want to live after Phillip’s death,’ he said. ‘I went through a bad patch on my return to England.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir,’ Jack said. ‘It must have been very hard for you.’
‘I was shell shocked from the war and I spent time in a soldier’s hospital. Arriving home, I tried speaking to Amelia, but she blamed me for Phillip’s death. I sank into a despair that lasted months.’
Jack found it hard to believe that such an exuberant man as Mr Doyle could be affected by such unhappiness.
‘What finally brought you out of it?’ Scarlet asked. ‘How did you—’
‘Come back to life? A woman approached me because her brother had been murdered. After hearing her story, I realised her life was also in danger. I tracked down the killer and was able to stop a further tragedy.’
‘So helping someone else also helped you.’
‘Precisely. I often think we do not exist for ourselves, but for each other.’ Tears pricked the corners of Mr Doyle’s eyes. ‘The woman I helped was Gloria.’
No-one said anything for a moment. Jack knew Gloria was more than a receptionist to Mr Doyle. She cared for him like a mother. Now Jack began to appreciate how much Gloria must mean to him. Her presence had literally saved his life.
Phoebe arrived, dressed again in her trousers and a shirt. Jack wasn’t sure he would ever get used to it.
‘We’re due to arrive in Morocco soon,’ she said. ‘The Captain intends to stock up on our supplies.’
‘Hasn’t he already done that?’ Mr Doyle said. ‘The hold seems full.’
‘It’s just a precaution. We don’t know how long we’ll be away.’
Jack could tell that Mr Doyle was keen to keep moving. Every moment wasted meant that Gloria and Professor Clarke’s condition would continue to deteriorate.
‘And we have an additional mystery,’ Phoebe went on. ‘It seems there is a thief on board. Last night Sandra, the cook, discovered food missing. She saw someone running away down the passageway. She gave chase, but they escaped.’
‘Interesting,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘We will investigate. It will keep our mental muscles limber.’
Mr Doyle thanked Phoebe, and they all went to find Sandra in the kitchen preparing vegetables.
‘He was small,’ Sandra told them, describing the thief. ‘It was very dark so I didn’t get a good look at him. He was headed towards the stern.’
Mr Doyle nodded thoughtfully. ‘Have you worked for Mr Bradstreet long?’
‘This is my first voyage,’ the woman said. ‘But I’ve been a cook for several years.’
They approached Tobias Bradstreet next, who confessed to being equally puzzled by the incident. Most of the crew had worked for him for years. They had no reason to steal food: the rations were generous.
‘All this reminds me of a Brinkie Buckeridge story,’ Scarlet said when they returned to Mr Doyle and Jack’s cabin.
‘Doesn’t everything?’ Jack asked.
She glared at him. ‘Brinkie’s adventures are so true to life it’s inevitable we should come across similar situations ourselves. Anyway, Brinkie was on a ship heading to Brazil to visit a cousin.’
‘The cannibal cousin?’
‘No. Another cousin. Abernathy.’
‘This one has never eaten human flesh?’
‘What’s this fixation you have with cannibalism?’
‘I’m just checking.’
‘Food was being stolen on board the ship. The captain was ruthless, making his crew walk the plank as he tried to determine the identity of the secret eater. Finally there remained only the captain and Abernathy.’
‘Bazookas.’
‘You’ll never guess who it turned out to be,’ Scarlet said smugly.
‘Allow me,’ Mr Doyle intervened. ‘There was a stowaway.’
Scarlet looked at him in amazement. ‘Have you read the book?’ she asked. ‘I know you’re a purveyor of fine literature.’
‘I haven’t read that particular volume, but it seemed likely that once all the other possibilities were eliminated—the other crew members, that is—then what remained was most likely.’
Mr Doyle removed an odd-looking rock from his pocket and, dusting it off, decided it was a lump of cheese. Popping it into his mouth, he said, ‘We must remain alert. A stowaway could damage the engines, or the balloon, or some other vital piece of equipment. They could even bring about the destruction of this airship.’