Ship of Secrets (3 page)

“Fenton, you’re supposed to be on vacation,” Mrs. Hardy whispered. “No work, remember?” Mr. Hardy just smiled and shrugged.

The cruise director and the security guards left, and Ricardo went back onstage and told a few jokes to make the audience laugh. Within minutes it seemed everyone had forgotten about the watch. Everyone except Sir Reginald and Mrs. Heartpence.

“What are we going to do?” Mrs. Heartpence asked. “That watch has been in the family for years. And if we don’t auction it—”

“Shhh,” Sir Reginald said, holding up his hand. Whatever she’d been about to say, he didn’t want her to mention it in front of everyone.

“It’s okay, Dad,” their son said. Their daughter had pulled her hair in front of her face. She looked embarrassed that her parents were still yelling about the pocket watch.

Mr. Hardy and the boys stepped forward. “Did you see anyone suspicious?” Joe asked, looking around at the nearby tables.

Sir Reginald shook his head. “No one that I can remember.”

“I’m sure they’ll be able to help you tomorrow,” Mrs. Hardy said, looking at the couple. “Whoever took it couldn’t have gone far.” She shot Mr. Hardy a look that said,
Let’s leave this up to someone else.

But just then Mrs. Heartpence’s eyes filled with tears. “I know I shouldn’t say this, but I’m sorry, Reg. We need to find that watch. If we don’t—” Her bottom lip trembled. She started to cry.

“What is it?” Mrs. Hardy asked. She held the woman’s hand. Frank and Joe could tell their mother felt bad for her. Mrs. Heartpence seemed like she really did need their help.

“That watch belonged to Reg’s great-grandfather,
then his grandfather, then his father, and now us. And we need to auction it to help pay for our house . . . and Melinda’s and Andrew’s education. If we don’t get it back, we’ll be in serious trouble.” At that, a few more tears fell down her cheeks.

Sir Reginald looked crushed. Frank and Joe knew then that it wasn’t a question: They had to help the Heartpences find the watch. If they couldn’t solve the case before the boat docked in the harbor on Monday morning, the watch might be gone forever.

“Please, Mom?” Frank whispered. “Can’t we help them?”

Mrs. Hardy nodded, knowing it was the right thing to do.

Mr. Hardy offered Sir Reginald his hand to shake. “I’m Fenton Hardy, and I’m a private detective. These are my boys, Joe and Frank. We’ll get working right away.”

Sir Reginald looked at Joe and Frank, then at their dad. For the first time since the watch had gone missing, he smiled. “You’d do that for me?”

“Sure, we would,” Frank said. “You just need to tell us where to start.”

M
r. Hardy looked around the giant ballroom. There was a security camera hanging in one corner. “See that? We might be able to find some clues on there,” he said. “I’ll go check with the ship’s security people. Frank and Joe—you know what to do.” He passed the boys his notebook and pen.

As his father headed out of the ballroom, Frank flipped to a clean page. Their father had taught them to start every case by listing the six
W
s: Who, What,
When, Where, Why, and How. They called this list the six
W
s, even though “How” didn’t begin with the letter
W
. The What was the easiest part.
Antique pocket watch
, Frank wrote across the top of the paper.

“What exactly does the watch look like?” Joe asked. He knew it was good to have a very detailed description. That way they could tell the watch from any other one they might find.

“It’s gold. There’s a chain, and on the back the name ‘Heartpence’ is written in script,” Mrs. Heartpence said.

Frank wrote down everything she said. “And when was the last time you saw it? Is there a reason you brought it to dinner tonight?”

“I told him not to,” Mrs. Heartpence said, “but he was determined not to let it out of his sight.”

“I made a mistake. . . .” Sir Reginald ran his hand through his thick white hair and frowned. “I saw it this afternoon. I was polishing it. I like to do that sometimes—give it a good polish. Then I put it right back into the case.”

“About what time did you polish it?” Joe asked.

“Four o’clock,” Sir Reginald’s son said. “I remember because I’d just come back from the pool.”

“That’s right! Andrew had just come back from the pool, and Melinda was there with us, watching
television,” Mrs. Heartpence added. She pointed to their daughter, who was sitting, curling her long brown braid around her hand. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the stage. A couple was salsa dancing. “Reginald and I stepped out for a snack at some point, but that was only for ten minutes or so. The kids were in and out of the room.”

“It was nearly eight o’clock when we heard you shouting,” Mrs. Hardy said.

“So the thief took the watch somewhere between four o’clock and eight o’clock,” Joe added.

Sir Reginald nodded. “That’s right.”

Frank wrote “When” right below “What,” and then put down the times. “So the pocket watch disappeared either from your room or from somewhere inside the ballroom.”

“It was sitting right under the table by my feet!” Reginald said. “I had one foot resting next to it practically the whole time. Then, in the middle of
dinner, I just had this funny feeling that I should check on it. Sure enough, it was gone.”

Joe and his brother shared a look. It was hard to say exactly where the watch had disappeared from. It could have been stolen in the room, on the way to dinner, or in the ballroom. Frank decided to write down all three possibilities under “Where.” They knew it was best to narrow the places down later.

Another dance ended, and some of the crowd got up from dinner, and left to go to other parts of the ship. Joe and Frank kept their eyes open for anyone who looked suspicious, but the ballroom was mostly filled with families. People watched the show, or picked desserts from the dessert table. There didn’t seem to be a lot of suspects.

“Who could’ve done this?” Joe asked.

“Anyone!” Mrs. Heartpence said. “Anyone who wants to make a lot of money. The thief could be anywhere.”

“But who was around during that time?” Joe asked. “You, Melinda, Andrew, and Sir Reginald were in the room. Was there anyone else you stopped to talk to along the way? Did anyone else come into the room after you polished the watch?”

“No,” Sir Reginald said. “But now that you say that, I remember that I got into a fight with a steward this morning. He brought the wrong bag to our room. He was terrible! He had no clue what he was doing!”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “What happened?”

“I told him not to yell at the guy, but Reginald has such a temper,” Mrs. Heartpence said. “And then the steward got angry and yelled right back.”

“Where was the pocket watch when this happened?” Joe asked.

“In the room,” Melinda said. She raised her head for the first time since Frank and Joe had started talking to her parents.

“He said ‘You’re going to pay for this’ and ‘You’ll be sorry.’ That seems like a threat, doesn’t it?” Sir Reginald straightened his scarf. “Do you think he could’ve taken it?”

“Possibly,” Joe said.

“We also saw my dad’s friends Ollie and Margaret,” Andrew added. “We ran into them on the way to dinner.”

Mrs. Heartpence covered her mouth with her hand. “There’s no way they would’ve stolen it. They’re our close friends!”

Frank wrote down,
the steward, Ollie, and Margaret
. “It’s good to have a complete list anyway. Maybe they saw something. You never know. Was there anyone else?”

“Not that I can think of,” Sir Reginald said. “Those are the only people we talked to during that time. But now that you say it, I do think the steward had something to do with this. He was so
angry. And he could’ve come by our room when we stepped out. He could’ve taken it.”

Joe scratched his head. There were hundreds of workers on the ship. How would they find this one guy? “What did he look like? Was he wearing a nametag?”

“Not that I remember,” Mrs. Heartpence said. She patted down her stiff red curls, making sure her hair was perfect.

“He was young,” Andrew said. “He had black hair and one earring. And really bushy eyebrows. His ears were kind of big, and I think he had a beard . . . one of those tiny ones.”

“And blue eyes!” Sir Reginald added. “I remember that much.”

Frank wrote down the description as fast as possible. They didn’t have a name, but at least this was a good place to start.

“The motive seems easy,” Joe said. He looked
at his brother. “The watch is really expensive, and someone could sell it for a lot of money.”

“It has to be the money,” Sir Reginald said. “Why else would someone take it?”

“That’s a good question,” Frank said. He paced in front of the table. “We should try to think of other motives just in case. If the steward took it, it was probably because he was angry.” Frank wrote down “revenge” under “Why.” Still, it didn’t seem like a steward would risk his job just because he was mad at Sir Reginald. There could be other motives too. It was just hard to know what they were.

“So, what do you think? Will you be able to find out who took the watch?” Mrs. Heartpence asked. She looked around the ballroom, which was emptying out. Then she dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.

“I hope so,” Frank said. But as he looked down at the notes, he wasn’t so sure. Joe shook his head,
frustrated. Under “Who” they had only three people, and two of them were close friends with the Heartpences. Unless their dad could find out something from the security cameras, their only real suspect was the steward, and they didn’t even have his name. The ship was filled with thousands of people and dozens of stewards. How could they possibly find this one steward in only two days?

T
he next morning Frank and Joe walked through the fifth floor of the giant ship. They looked at the two stewards carrying towels, then at the man wheeling a gold rack full of laundry. “Nope, nope, nope,” Joe said as he studied the men’s faces. None of the men looked like what Sir Reginald and his son had described.

Frank and Joe turned down another hallway, toward the indoor playground. Joe stared at the giant ball pit. Kids were jumping off a diving board
into it. Colorful balls flew everywhere. “That sure looks fun. . . .”

“We can’t give up yet,” Frank said quickly. “It doesn’t matter how many stewards are on this ship. We only have two days to find our guy.”

Joe knew his brother was right. He didn’t want to give up, but so far they didn’t have many clues. Mr. Hardy hadn’t found anything on the security cameras from the ballroom. The cruise ship director had let him watch three hours of the tape, but it didn’t seem like anything unusual had happened near the table. Mr. Hardy was going to spend the rest of the day looking at more tape from the cameras, while Frank and Joe tracked down leads. But their only real suspect wasn’t anywhere to be found.

Frank walked past the playground and into the game room, where a few men in cruise ship T-shirts were standing. “Do you know a steward
with an earring? Big ears? A tiny beard?” Frank asked them. The men all laughed and shook their heads.