It sounded crazy. I went to the doctor who looked at me steadily and said: “I’ll get him back to his cabin.”

I nodded and went with him. I saw Mrs. Malloy running to Johnny demanding to know what he was doing out there and what all the fuss was about.

Dr. Gregory laid Edward gently on his bed and bent over him; he lifted his eyelids and looked at his eyes.

I said: “He’s not ill, is he?”

The doctor shook his head and looked puzzled.

“What on earth could have happened?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer. He said: “I think I’ll take the child along to the sick bay. I’ll keep him there for a bit.”

“Then he is ill?”

“No … no. But I’ll take him.”

“I don’t understand what could possibly have happened.”

He had thrown off his burnoose when he laid down the child; when he went out I noticed it lying on the floor.

I picked it up. There was a faint odor of musk about it, the perfume several people had bought in the bazaar. It was so strong and pungent that it seemed to cling to anything that came near it.

I dropped the thing and went out on deck. Johnny had been taken to his cabin by his mother and Mrs. Blakey. Everyone was talking about the incident. What on earth had happened? How had the sleeping child got out there? And what was this wild story about a Gulli-Gulli man carrying him along the deck and putting him down when Johnny called?

“It’s some prank,” said Chantel. “We were having fun, so they thought they would, too.”

“But how did the child get out?” asked Rex, who was standing close to Chantel.

“He came out and feigned sleep. That’s easily explained.”

“The doctor didn’t seem to think he was awake,” I put in.

“That’s nonsense,” said Chantel. “He wouldn’t have walked out in his sleep would he? But perhaps he did. I’ve had patients who did the oddest things when asleep.”

Miss Rundle was well to the fore. “All this talk about the Gulli-Gulli man. Pure fabrication! They should be whipped both of them.”

Claire Glenning said softly: “I imagine it was just a bit of fun. We don’t want to make too much of it.”

“Still, it gave some of us a fright,” put in Chantel. “I suppose that’s what they wanted to do.”

“A storm in a teacup,” said Gareth Glenning.

“All the same,” Miss Rundle announced, “children have to be taught discipline.”

“What do you want to do?” asked Rex. “Clap them into irons?”

Rex had set the tone as he so often did. Quiet as he was, no one ever forgot that he was that Rex Crediton, industrialist, financier, millionaire — or he would be on the death of his mother. His gravity, dignity and almost self-effacing manner implied that he did not have to call attention to his personality. It was enough that he was Rex, if not yet ruler he would be in due course — of the great Crediton kingdom.

“On with the dance!” he said, and he was looking at Chantel.

So we went back to the lounge and we danced, but it was impossible to forget that strange scene on the lower deck and though we did not continue to talk of it, I was sure it was still in our minds.

I left early; and when I reached my cabin it was to find a note from Dr. Gregory on my dressing table. He was keeping the child in the sick bay for the night.


* * *

Early the next morning one of the stewards came to tell me that the doctor would like to see me.

I went along to his quarters in some alarm.

“Where’s Edward?” I asked.

“He’s in bed still. He’s been a little sick … nothing to worry about. He’ll be perfectly well by midday.”

“You’re keeping him here?”

“Only until he gets up. He’s all right … now.”

“But what happened?”

“Miss Brett, this is rather grave. The child was drugged last night.”

“Drugged!”

The doctor nodded. “That story Johnny told … he wasn’t imagining it. Someone must have gone to the cabin and carried the child out.”

“But whatever for?”

“I don’t understand it. I’ve questioned Johnny. He said that he couldn’t go to sleep because he was thinking about all the dancing and the costumes. He had drawn a picture of his mother and he wanted to show it to Edward, so he put on his dressing gown and slippers and came out to look for him. He lost his way and was trying to find his bearings when he saw what he calls the Gulli-Gulli man hurrying along carrying Edward.”

“The Gulli-Gulli man. But he came on at Port Said and left.”

“He means he saw someone in a burnoose.”

“Who?”

“Almost every man on board was wearing one last night, Miss Brett.”

“But who could have been carrying Edward?”

“That’s what I should like to know. And who drugged the child beforehand?”

I had turned pale. The doctor’s eyes were on my face as though he thought that I was responsible.

“I can’t believe it,” I said.

“It seems incredible.”

“How could he have been drugged?”

“Easily. Sleeping tablets dissolved in water … milk …”

“Milk!” I echoed.

“Two ordinary sleeping tablets would have sent a child into deep unconsciousness. Did you have any sleeping pills, Miss Brett?”

“No. I daresay his mother has. But she would not …”

“It would be the easiest thing in the world for anyone who wanted to get hold of sleeping tablets to do so. The mystery is … with what object?”

“To drug the child so that he did not give the alarm when he was picked up, to carry him out to the deck. For what purpose? To throw him overboard?”

“Miss Brett!”

“But what else?” I asked.

“Such an idea seems quite preposterous,” he said.

We were silent for a while. And I thought: Yes, of course it is preposterous. Am I suggesting that someone was trying to murder Edward?

I heard myself say in a voice that was high pitched and unnatural: “What are you going to do?”

“I think the less this is talked of the better. It will be exaggerated. Heaven knows what will be said. At the moment most of them believe that it was a game the boys were playing.”

“But Johnny will insist he saw someone whom he called the Gulli-Gulli man.”

“They will believe he imagined it.”

“But they know that Edward was unconscious.”

“They’ll think he was pretending.”

I shook my head. “It’s horrible,” I said.

He agreed with me. Then he started to ask me questions. I remembered how the milk had come up, how he had not wanted it, how I had gone out to Chantel’s cabin, and how she had come back with me, and had even tasted the milk when she had cajoled him to drink it.

“I’ll ask her if she tasted anything odd.”

“She would have said if she had.”

“You can’t throw any light on this mysterious matter?”

I said I couldn’t.

I went back to my cabin feeling very uneasy.


* * *

I wanted to talk to Redvers. I knew that Dr. Gregory would report to him, and I wondered what his reaction would be when he knew that someone had tried to murder his son. Murder was a strong word. But for what other purpose could the child have been drugged?

The doctor did not want anyone to know of it. Perhaps he would keep it secret from most of the ship’s passengers, but I as his governess must know, and Redvers as his father must; besides as Captain of the ship he must know everything that happened on board.

I would go up to his cabin now and talk to him. I must.

There was a knock on my door and Chantel’s voice said: “May I come in?”

“How’s our nocturnal adventurer this morning?” she asked.

“He’s in the sick bay.”

“Good heavens!”

“He’s all right. Chantel, the doctor doesn’t want this to get about but he was drugged last night.”

“Drugged! How?”

“Why is perhaps more important. Oh, Chantel, I’m afraid.”

“Surely no one meant the boy any harm?”

“But why drug him and carry him out? If it hadn’t been for Johnny what do you think might have happened?”

“What?” she asked breathlessly.

“I think someone was trying to kill Edward. He could have been thrown overboard. No one would have heard anything. The child was unconscious. Perhaps a slipper left by the rail. It would have been presumed he had wandered out and fallen overboard. Don’t you see?”

“Now that you put it like that, yes. The easiest place to commit a murder must be at sea. But whatever for? What possible motive?”

“I can’t think of one.”

“This will get Miss Rundle working overtime.”

“Dr. Gregory thinks it should be kept quiet. It would upset Edward terribly if he thought he was in danger. He knows nothing about it. He must not know.”

“And Johnny?”

“We’ll find some way of dealing with him. After all he had no right to be wandering about at night so he’s in disgrace for that. Thank God he did.”

“Anna, aren’t you dramatizing all this? It could well have been a joke that misfired.”

“What joke?”

“I don’t know. It was after all a special night and we all felt very merry in our Eastern costumes. Perhaps one of our disguised Arabs had too much to drink or had some plan that went wrong.”

“But the boy was drugged, Chantel. I’m going to see the Captain.”

“What, now?”

“Yes. I think he may be in his cabin at this hour. I want to talk to him. I shall have to take special precautions for the rest of the voyage.”

“Dear Anna, you’re taking this too seriously.”

“He is my charge. Wouldn’t you feel the same responsibility if your patient were involved?”

She admitted this and I left her looking dubious. As I climbed to the bridge and the Captain’s quarters I did not stop to think that I might be behaving in an unconventional manner. I could only think of someone’s drugging the child and earning him out, and what might have happened but for Johnny Malloy.

I reached the top of the stairs and was at the Captain’s door. I knocked and to my relief it was his voice that bade me enter.

He was seated at a table with papers before him.

He stood up and said: “Anna!” as I entered.

His cabin was large and filled with sunshine. There were pictures of ships on the walls and on a cabinet a model of one in bronze.

“I had to come,” I said.

“About the child?” he asked; and I knew that he had already heard. “I don’t understand it,” I told him. “And I feel very uneasy.”

“I talked with the doctor earlier this morning. Edward had been given a sleeping tablet.”

“I can’t understand it at all. I hope you don’t think that I …”

“My dear Anna, of course I don’t. I trust you absolutely with him. But can you throw any light on this? Have you any idea?”

“None. Chantel … Nurse Loman thinks it was some joker.”

He looked relieved. “Is it possible?”

“It’s so pointless. Why drug the child? It must have been solely because whoever did it did not want him to know’ who was earning him. It seems a great length to go to for a joke. A terrible suspicion has come to me. What if someone were trying to murder Edward?”

“Murder the child? For what reason?”

“I thought … you might know. Could there possibly be any reason?”

He looked astounded. “I can think of none. And Edward?”

“He doesn’t know anything about it. And he mustn’t. I don’t know what effect it would have on him. I must be more vigilant. I should have been in the cabin, not at the dance. I should have watched over him by night as well as day.”

“You are not blaming yourself, Anna? You mustn’t do that. He was asleep in his cabin. Who would have dreamed that any harm could come to him there?”

“Yet someone put the sleeping tablet into his milk. Who could have done that?”

“Several people might have done it. Someone in the galleys … someone when it was being brought up. It might have been treated before it was handed to you.”

“But why … why?”

“It may not be as you think. He may have found the tablets in his mother’s room and thought they were sweets.”

“He hadn’t been there. He had been a bit seedy all day and had slept most of the time.”

“He might have got them at any time. That’s the most plausible answer. He found the tablets in his mother’s room, put them in his pockets thinking they were sweets, and ate them that night.”