chapter 12 the second piece of the map

it was true — the beautiful little carved ship was no longer in its place of honour on the shelf. it wasgone.

the four children stared at one another in exasperation. blow mr. eppy! what right had he to"borrow" things like this? would he give it back?

"what's he borrowed it for, anyway?" wondered dinah. "if he goes so far as to suspect that we foundthe paper there, i still don't see why he should borrow it. he's got the paper, anyway!""a bit of it, only — and he knows it," corrected jack. "he probably thinks the rest of it is still in thelittle carved ship — either that we haven't noticed it, or that we have kept it there. and he's borrowedit to see."

"stolen it, you mean," said lucy-ann scornfully. "horrid man! i think he's awful.""shall i go and ask him if he's got it?" said philip. he was feeling very angry — quite ready to beardany lion in its den!

the others considered this. "suppose he didn't take it?" said jack. "it would be jolly awkward,accusing him of it."

"who else would have taken it?" demanded philip. "nobody!""look — let's go and have a swim in the pool and forget it for a bit," said dinah. "if you still feel likebearding the lion afterwards, you can go. it's so awfully hot. i'd love a swim.""all right," said philip reluctantly. "but i might not feel so keen on going after mr. eppy afterwards."however, he was still of the same mind after his swim. the others couldn't help admiring him —they really thought it was a brave thing to do, to go and tackle mr. eppy and accuse him of"borrowing" their ship!

he went off to find mr. eppy. he wasn't in his cabin. he wasn't in his deck-chair. where could he be?

philip began to hunt over the ship for him, determined to find him. he saw him at last coming out ofthe radio office.

"mr. eppy," said philip, marching boldly up to him. "what have you done with our ship?"mr. eppy stopped. philip wished to goodness he didn't wear those dark glasses. he had no idea if mr.

eppy was surprised, angry or what.

he soon knew. mr. eppy spoke in a very snappy voice indeed. "what do you mean, boy? what shipdo you speak of?"

"the little carved ship we showed you — the one in the bottle — called andra," said philip, wishingmore than ever that he could see mr. eppy's eyes, and read what was in them. "what have you donewith it?"

"i think you are mad," said mr. eppy coldly. "quite mad. as mad as lucian, who comes to me with afairy-tale about a little girl, a gull and a piece of paper. what nonsense, what fiddlesticks! and nowyou come to me with a question about a toy ship! you think i have taken it to float in my bath,perhaps?"

"did you take it, mr. eppy?" persisted philip.

"no! and do not dare to insult me with your fairy- tales and your crazy questions any more!"thundered mr. eppy.

he strode off, his mouth very grim. philip was a little shaken. well — he hadn't got much change outof mr. eppy, that was certain. blow the man! philip felt absolutely certain he had got the ship. hewent down to meet the others in his cabin. they would be waiting for him there.

he opened the cabin door and went in. "well," he said, "it's no go. he says he hasn't got the ship —but i bet he has. i feel it in my bones!""then your bones tell you wrong," said jack, and he pointed across the room to the shelf on the wall.

"look there."

philip looked, and gasped. the little carved ship of adventure was back in its place again!

"where was it?" he asked. "gosh, what an idiot i've made of myself, accusing mr. eppy of having it.

where on earth was it?"

"we don't know," answered dinah. "we all came in here a few minutes ago after we left you on yourway to tackle mr. eppy — and the first thing we saw was the ship!""there it was, on the shelf — just where we left it this morning," said lucy-ann.

"who put it back?" asked philip.

"aha — if we knew that we'd know who took it," said jack. "i still think it was mr. eppy. if youremember, he came in to lunch after we did — he could easily have slipped down here, and taken theship then. and he could just as easily have put it back whilst we were having our swim. if he saw usin the pool, which was quite likely, he'd know that he had plenty of time to slip down here andreplace it."

"the knob's a bit loose," said dinah. "we think he found how it worked all right, and removed thatwooden section, and examined the inside of the ship thoroughly.""i see. and when he found there was nothing there he generously brought it back!" said philip. "idon't like that man. he'll be hunting round all our cabins looking for our other bits of paper, if wedon't look out."

lucy-ann felt alarmed. "oh dear — will he find them, do you think?""he might," admitted philip. "they seem jolly good hiding-places to us, but they probably would beeasy enough for him to discover."

"i say — are we going to get the other bits deciphered now?" said dinah suddenly. "you know, wethought we'd ask the little greek woman who keeps the shop on the ship, and the deck steward.

suppose mr. eppy gets to hear we've been showing other people more bits of paper. he'll soon beafter them."

"yes, that's a point," said jack. "but if we don't get them deciphered, we're no better off than wewere. hidden treasure is no use to anyone if they don't know in the least where it is. anyway, wedon't even know if the plan does show hidden treasure — all we know is that it is a genuine olddocument, and that mr. eppy is distinctly interested.""i think we could trust the little shop-woman not to say a word," said lucy-ann. "she's nice, and shelikes us. if we told her it was a secret, wouldn't she keep it? after all, we've got to ask somebody!"they debated whether the shop-woman was trustworthy or not. they decided that on the whole shewas.

"she said she'd show me some photographs of her children," said lucy-ann. "she's got three onsome little island or other. she leaves them with her grandmother when she goes on the ship. couldn'twe all go and see the photographs, and then ask her about the parchment?""trust lucy-ann for knowing everyone's life-history," grinned philip. "it beats me how she does it!

she already knows the names of the second officer's children, and she knows everything about thestewardess's old mother and what illnesses she suffers from, and she even knows how many dogs thecaptain himself has kept during his whole life!""i don't," said lucy-ann indignantly. "i simply wouldn't dare to ask him about dogs. anyway, hecan't have had any on board ship."

"i'm only pulling your leg, lucy-ann," said philip. "actually i think your idea of looking at the shop-woman's photos, and then springing our parchment on her — or a bit of it — is a good one.""let's go now, then," said lucy-ann, looking at the clock. "everyone always has a sleep in theafternoon at this time — no-one is ever in the shop. she'll be alone."they went off together. philip had the idea of first finding out where mr. eppy was — just in case heshould be snooping round!

he came back and reported. "he's asleep in his deck-chair on the promenade deck. his head's wellback, and he's not reading or anything."

"how do you know he's asleep?" demanded jack. "you can't tell if his eyes are open or shut behindthose awful dark sun-glasses."

"well — he looked asleep," said philip. "sort of limp and relaxed. come on — we'll go to the shopnow."

they went to the little shop. the greek woman who kept it showed all her white teeth in a pleasedsmile when she saw the children with kiki and micky.

"ah, kiki, micky, and what mischief have you done?" she asked, tickling the little monkey andpoking kiki in the chest. "one, two, three, go!"kiki immediately made a noise like a pistol-shot, which was just what the little greek woman meanther to do. she was quite familiar with kiki's ways, and always screamed with laughter when theparrot hiccupped, coughed or sneezed.

"tell him to snizz," she begged. "i like when he snizzes."so kiki obliged with a fine variety of "snizzes," much to micky's amazement. then out came thephotographs and the children were treated to a life- history of each of the three little girls shepossessed. dinah thought that surely never in this world had there lived such children before — sosweet, so good, so loving, so religious, so incredibly beautiful — and so extraordinarily boring!

then jack thought it was their turn to talk. he nudged philip, who at once brought out his piece ofthe map. "look," he said to the shop-woman. "can you make head or tail of this for us? it's an old olddocument we found. what does it say — and what does it show?"the greek woman looked at it sharply with her bright black eyes. "it is a plan of some sort," she said.

"but you have not got the whole of it here — what a pity! it shows part of an island called thamis orthemis, i cannot tell which. see, here is its name, in greek — but you will not understand the letters,of course. your alphabet is different. yes, it is part of an island, but where it is i do not know.""can't you tell anything else from the map?" asked dinah.

"there is something of importance on the island," said the woman. "perhaps a temple? i do not know.

there is a building marked here — or maybe it is meant to be a city. again i do not know. i could tellyou more if i had the whole of the map."

the children had been so engrossed in all this that they had not heard the soft footsteps of someonecoming. a shadow fell across them. they looked up and lucy-ann gave a gasp. it was mr. eppy, hisdark glasses hiding his eyes as usual.

"ah — something interesting. let me see," said mr. eppy coolly, and before anyone could stop himhe had twisted the parchment out of the greek woman's fingers and was looking at it himself!

philip tried to twist it out of his fingers, but mr. eppy was on his guard. he held it aloft and pretendedto joke.

"he won't let mr. eppy see! bad boy!"

"bad, naughty boy!" echoed kiki at once. micky, thinking it was a game of snatch, suddenly leapt upin the air, and lunged out at the paper. he got it in his little paw, fell back to philip's shoulder — andthen, still with the parchment in his hand, leapt to the top of the shop and sat there, out of reach,chattering excitedly.

mr. eppy knew when he was beaten. "what a funny little creature!" he said, in an amiable voice thatmanaged to sound quite angry too. "well, well — we'll have a look at the paper another time!"and with that, he left the dumbfounded children, walking off rapidly, back to his deck-chair.