Ship of Secrets Read online

  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.”

  4

  The Six Ws

  Mr. 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 Ws: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. They called this list the six Ws, 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 o
ne steward in only two days?

  5

  The Mystery Man

  The 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.

  The boys walked away, trying not to feel too discouraged. “It’s hard to just tell people what he looks like,” Joe tried. “It would be so much easier if we had a picture of him.”

  That’s when Joe saw it. Off in the far corner of the game room was Max, the man who had drawn the picture of them just the day before. He had spiky hair and was mostly hidden behind a large easel. He sat on a stool, drawing on the easel in front of him. A little girl with brown pigtails was having her picture done.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Joe asked. “We could have Max draw a picture of our suspect. Didn’t Dad say that’s what he sometimes does when he doesn’t have an actual photo?”

  Frank smiled. “You’re right!” He’d seen those drawings on the news many times before. If they had a drawing of the man they were looking for, they’d be able to show it to people. It might not work, but it was worth a try.

  When Max was done with the little girl’s picture, they told him what had happened. “Do you think you could help us?” Joe asked.

  “You betcha. Just tell me a few things about him.” Max held his black marker in the air, waiting for them to give him the steward’s description. Frank told him about the man’s eyes and hair, and how he had a beard and big ears. Joe told him about the earring and bushy eyebrows. They tried to describe the man exactly how Andrew and Sir Reginald had.

  “Maybe you could draw him in a steward’s uniform too,” Frank said.

  Within minutes Max gave them a picture of their suspect. “This is perfect,” Joe said. Max had drawn a more serious-looking picture than any of the ones they’d seen so far. The man had a weird expression on his face. He kind of looked like the type of person who might steal a pocket watch.

  “Now we just have to find the real guy. Thanks!” Frank cried over his shoulder as they ran out the side doors. They scanned the hall, looking for the first steward they could find.

  With the picture it took them only ten minutes to find someone who recognized their suspect. A waiter on the fourth floor said the guy’s name was Ralph and that right now he was working as a gladiator at the Colosseum pool. “No wonder we couldn’t find him,” Joe said as they ran up the ship’s stairs. “He was in disguise!”

  When they got to the ship’s back deck, they spotted two gladiators talking by the edge of the pool. They had silver helmets on that came down the sides of their faces. They each had plastic armor on their chest, and a shield strapped onto their arm.

  Frank looked down at the picture, then up at the men. He looked back and forth, back and forth, until he was sure. “That’s definitely him!” he whispered, pointing at the guy on the left. He looked exactly like the picture. The only difference was his nose, which was much bigger in person.

  As they walked toward the two men, Joe looked up at him. “Are you Ralph?” he asked.

  Ralph nodded and smiled, but he looked a little confused. “Yes. . . . What can I do for you? Did you boys want your picture taken with two of Rome’s fiercest gladiators?” He held up his sword. His friend, a shorter man with black hair, flexed his muscles.

  “Actually, we wanted to talk to you about Sir Reginald Heartpence,” Joe said. “We heard you two got into an argument yesterday in his room.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ralph said. He’d stopped smiling as soon as he’d heard Sir Reginald’s name.

  “He said you brought bags to his room yesterday morning. Is that true?”

  Ralph shifted on his feet. “Why do you ask?”

  “Sir Reginald’s antique pocket watch has been stolen. We’re investigating what happened,” Frank said. He studied Ralph’s face as they spoke. His dad had taught them to always watch people’s expressions. If the person’s expression changed or seemed odd, it might be a sign that the person was lying.

  “I didn’t do anything, okay?” Ralph said. “I knew I was going to get blamed for this!”

  “No one’s blaming you,” Frank said. This was always the trickiest part about questioning suspects—they would get angry if you thought they had something to do with the crime. “We’re just trying to check everyone off our list. Where were you yesterday between four o’clock and eight o’clock?”

  “I’m tired of answering questions,” Ralph repeated. His cheeks were bright red. Frank and Joe looked at each other. They could barely say a word without Ralph getting upset. Why was a simple question bothering him so much?

  “Reginald said you told him you’d get back at him . . . that you wanted revenge. Is that true?”

  “I only said that because I was angry!” Ralph said loudly. A few people lounging in pool chairs turned around, trying to see why he was yelling. “He yelled at me. All I did was bring the wrong suitcase to his room.”

  With that, Ralph took his helmet off and tossed it onto the ground. “I don’t have to stand here and be questioned by you two,” he huffed. Then without another word he stormed off.

  Frank and Joe watched him leave. “He wouldn’t answer any of our questions,” Joe whispered under his breath. “What do you think it means?”

  “He’s hiding something,” Frank said. “But what?”

  6

  A Secret Prank

  Joe pulled out the notebook and began writing everything down. First suspect leaves while being questioned, he wrote. Seems upset. Doesn’t want to talk about where he was when the watch was stolen.

  Frank looked over Joe’s shoulder. “We need to find Dad,” he said. “Ralph wouldn’t even talk to us. And now he knows he’s on the list of suspects. If he did take the watch, we’re giving him time to get rid of it.”

  “I know. It’s all very suspicious. Where was he yesterday? He doesn’t have an alibi,” Joe added. Their dad had taught them that word. No person could be in two places at the same time. If Ralph could prove he was somewhere else during the four hours when the watch was taken, Frank and Joe would know that he couldn’t have stolen it.

  They took off for their cabin, the notebook tucked in Joe’s back pocket. “Wait!” a voice called out behind them.

  Ralph’s friend was running after them. He was much shorter than Ralph, and when he spoke, they noticed he had a gap between his two front teeth. “Don’t go,” he said. “Please don’t tell the ship’s security officers.”

  “What’s wrong?” Frank asked.

  “I shouldn’t tell you this, but Ralph had nothing to do with that watch going missing.”

  “Then why wouldn’t he talk to us?” Joe asked. “We just wanted to know where he was yesterday afternoon.�
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  “He was here, working with me. He was standing right by that deck,” the man said, pointing to a podium on the other side of the pool. “You can check the schedules. He worked the pool with me from two in the afternoon until eight at night.”

  Joe was confused. “Why wouldn’t he just say that, then?”

  The man took off his helmet. He scratched his head like he was thinking about something. “This is the hard part. Can you keep a secret?”

  Frank wasn’t so sure. They were happy to keep secrets for friends, but they’d just met this man. They didn’t even know his name! “We can try,” he said.

  “The thing is . . . Ralph sometimes plays pranks on the guests he doesn’t like. This one time, he put a slug in a woman’s hat. She was sitting right by the pool. He dropped the slimy thing into her hat and then just waited. Sure enough, a few minutes later she started screaming.”

  Joe couldn’t help but laugh. He knew it wasn’t right to play pranks like that, but it was kind of funny. “He did that?”

  The man laughed. “Yup! And he’s played other pranks too. Sometimes he’ll put a bar of fake soap in the person’s soap dish and it’ll turn their hands blue. Anyway . . . he was planning a prank on Sir Reginald. And he asked around, wondering if he could get the key to Sir Reginald’s cabin. He wanted to put cottage cheese in his shoes.”

  “So that’s why he’s worried?” Frank asked.

  The man nodded. “Yup. He never got a key, but now he’s scared everyone will think he stole the watch.”

  Joe wondered if the security guards had already heard about this. Did they know Ralph was a suspect? Had someone reported that he wanted the key to Sir Reginald’s cabin? “More people might have questions for him,” Joe said. “But he should try to tell them the truth. Otherwise he could be in big trouble.”

  “I know,” the friend said. “I know. But believe me, Ralph just wanted to scare Sir Reginald. He would never steal anything. He’s just a big goofball.”