‘We have to do something,’ yelled Crauwels, who’d grown increasingly irate the longer Sammy spoke.
‘And I will,’ laughed Sammy. ‘But stupidity isn’t ever the straight line it first appears. As I see it, there are three important questions, and the location of Emily de Haviland is not one of them. The first is what links the unholy miracles: why did our enemy steal The Folly, slaughter some animals and then murder the governor general?’
‘I thought they were random acts,’ said Creesjie, fanning herself.
Sammy peered at her, then dragged his feet from the table, stood up and bowed exquisitely. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met, madam. I’m Samuel Pipps.’
She inclined her head, laughing prettily. ‘Creesjie Jens,’ she said. ‘You live up to Arent’s reports, sir.’
‘It grows ever more difficult with each one he writes. A few more years under Arent’s quill and I’ll be nothing but cleverness and virtue.’ They grinned at each other, a friendship having clearly been struck. ‘To answer your question, the unholy miracles seem to have been random, but very little else in this case has been. I rather doubt Old Tom’s started now. The miracles were planned, which means they were deliberately chosen.’
Now he was standing, he began to pace. His finger stabbed the air as he spoke. ‘My second question is how was the governor general murdered? My third is why the leper killed Cornelius Vos, yet let Arent live? Once I have the answers to those questions, I’m certain the rest of this fascinating puzzle will arrange itself.’
‘That’s it!?’ demanded Crauwels. ‘Solve a murder and you think it will end our torment? Every time that damn Eighth Lantern burns red, my ship rips itself apart. The leper climbed up out of the sea to reach Sara’s cabin, and now Emily de Haviland’s loose on my ship. Sending Arent to fight it was like sending a child to war and now I see you’re no better.’ He scowled at everyone, then stormed out
‘Get to work, Pipps,’ said Van Schooten, staring after him. ‘I’ll calm Crauwels down. Larme, we need to get the lads back to sailing and not worrying about demons. Finding a new boatswain would help.’
‘Candidates usually stab each other until there’s only one left, but I’ll try to hurry it along,’ grunted Larme, who was leaning against the doorway into the helm.
Sammy signalled to Arent, the two of them making their way to the governor general’s cabin. Sammy strode straight in, but Arent couldn’t make it past the threshold. His sense of dread was choking, his eyes lurching away when he tried to look at the bunk.
When he did eventually see his uncle, the pain made him want to howl.
Clamping his jaw shut, he blinked back tears, trying to reason with his grief.
In every way that mattered, this wasn’t the uncle he remembered. Cruelty had replaced the kindness. He’d beaten Sara and locked Lia away, and made a deal with Old Tom. He had turned his back on the ideals he’d espoused to Arent as a boy, and yet … Arent had loved him.
And that love endured. Whether it was earned, or worthy, or right, it sat at the heart of him, and, try as he might, he couldn’t dislodge it.
For fifteen minutes, Arent watched Sammy put his eyes on everything, touching and caressing, lifting and staring, passing through the room like an inquisitive breeze, leaving the objects he inspected precisely in their original place. Once he was satisfied, he tugged the dagger out of the governor general’s body with a sickening squelch, then investigated the wound.
‘Splinters,’ he said, delicately removing a small sliver of wood from the governor general’s chest. ‘Possibly from the hilt of the murder weapon. See what you make of it, Arent.’
Preoccupied, Sammy pressed the dagger and splinters into Arent’s hands. Sammy always asked him to examine the murder weapons in case his insight as a soldier should prove useful, but this was different.
This wasn’t a weapon. It was guilt.
His uncle had been murdered two decks from him. How could that be? Arent had once saved him from the entire Spanish army, so why hadn’t he been able to protect him from a whisper in the darkness?
Deep down, where his grief became blame, a voice suggested that maybe he hadn’t wanted to. Now he was dead, Sara was free of him.
‘Stop it,’ he said to himself.
‘Hmmm?’ asked Sammy, who was creeping along the floor on his hands and knees, his eyes almost touching the wood as he searched for clues.
‘Nothing,’ mumbled Arent embarrassed, examining the dagger. It was shorter than normal, the blade thinner. Much too thin, he realised. It was almost brittle. No smithy would make a weapon this way, it was no good. It would snap when it hit armour.
‘I know this weapon,’ said Arent, weighing it in his palm. ‘The leper threatened me with it in the cargo hold.’
‘That’s interesting, because the leper’s handprints climb up to the porthole, and above it are seven widely spaced hooks. I don’t know what their purpose is, but we’ll need to find out.’
‘Then you’re blaming the leper for my uncle’s murder?’
‘The creature must be considered. By the coldness of the governor general’s body and the degree to which his blood has congealed, I would suggest he had been dead some hours by the time Creesjie and Guard Captain Drecht lit the candle.’
‘So, you think he was murdered during dinner?’ asked Arent. ‘That would exonerate all of the passengers. They ate together.’
‘We should confirm that none of them left the dinner for any reason. If they didn’t, I’m afraid it places Sara Wessel in rather a bad spot.’
Seeing Arent’s objection, he held up a placating hand. ‘I know you’re fond of her, but you were unconscious for a majority of the evening. She could easily have slipped away from your side. For all we know, she saw a chance to murder a devil and blame another devil for the work, and she took it.’
Arent shuddered, remembering how Vos had planned to do the same thing. He would have succeeded had the leper not interrupted them.
‘Now, to the matter of the snuffed candle,’ said Sammy, peering out of the porthole. ‘Sara said her husband never slept without a light. Not a single day in all the years she knew him. Creesjie confirmed this. Apparently he was afraid of the dark, something only those closest to him would have known. Was there a strong wind tonight?’
‘No.’
Sammy placed his body equidistant between the porthole and the writing desk, extending his arms. Even then, he couldn’t reach the candle. ‘And it would be impossible to lean in and snuff it from outside.’
Sammy plucked a scroll case from behind the netted shelf and tossed it to Arent. ‘We’ll have to search everything in this room, so start here,’ he ordered.
Arent took himself to the writing desk and sat down heavily. Removing the cap from the case, he unrolled the scroll within. It was a plan for The Folly, he realised. Or at least one very small part of it.
‘Arent?’ said Sammy, who was gazing up at the porthole with his chin pressed to the floor. ‘How did Isaack Larme feel about your uncle?’
‘He hated the slaughter my uncle ordered at the Banda Islands,’ said Arent. ‘Other than that, I don’t know. Why?’
‘Because with a little wriggling, our dwarf could have got through this porthole.’
Arent eyed it, trying to imagine Larme squeezing through.
‘The clatter would have woke my uncle and brought Drecht running,’ disagreed Arent, picking up the next scroll.
My dearest Jan,
My health is failing. I will not see another summer.
Upon my death, my place among the Gentlemen 17 will fall vacant. In keeping with the vow I made you, and in recompense of our great undertaking all those years ago, I have nominated you for the post and my colleagues have agreed.