Page 40 of Dauntless

“Someone took the diary from my house,” I said.

“Mmm,” Short Clary said, nodding.“Young Hawthorne must’ve come looking for it, and hit John Coldwell over the head!”

“No,” I said, sharply enough that Nipper Will gave me a raised-eyebrow look and Mavis looked delighted.I cleared my throat.“Eddie was angry, but he wouldn’t do this, even if it was John Coldwell who stole it.”

I didn’t mention Eddie thought I was the thief.I wasn’t, so they didn’t need to know about that.And perhaps I also didn’t want them to look at me with pity—at least those of them with the sharpest gazes, like Mavis and Nipper Will—if they knew he’d accused me.What would that say about me, about the man I was, if Eddie could think so badly of me?

I ignored the twist in my gut and the weight in my lungs and tried to work through what might have happened here.It must have been John Coldwell who’d taken the diary, just like he’d intended to the night he’d attacked Eddie in his tent.Had Eddie realised it too?Had John taunted him with it when he’d come into the museum?It might have made sense, except I came up against the same rock wall I had when I’d first seen the blood: Eddie was not a violent man.

And even as I thought it, I felt a bitter stirring within me, laced with a faint thrill of self-righteousness.It was unfair that here I was, thinking the best of Eddie, when he thought I was a thief.He might have walked out, butIwas the better man.

I didn’t like the angry satisfaction I felt.I didn’t like the spite behind the sentiment.I didn’t want toberight; I wanted to make it right.

“Hmm.”Short Clarry clicked his tongue.“But what if it wasn’t just stolen?What if it was ripped up or thrown in a fire?”

Well then.I hadn’t considered that, but I could see that other people might think that would make Eddie angry enough to strike John Coldwell.A crime of passion over a dusty old book seemed ridiculous to me, but it wasn’t just a book, was it?Not to Eddie, who was making it his life’s work, and not to whoever had attacked Eddie for it in the first place.

“It wasn’t him,” I said, again.

Another knowing glance from Nipper Will.

“We can ask them what happened when we find them,” I said.“For now, we need to send out a search party for John Coldwell, and also for Eddie Hawthorne.And we need to call the police.”

Short Clarry looked for a moment as though he was going to argue, but then he nodded and squared his shoulders.“Righto, then.Let’s get this started.”

The last time the islanders had formed a search party it had been for Verity Barnes’s youngest, Baby John, who’d wandered off in the night when he was three, leaving nothing but an open door behind him.He’d been found hours later curled up asleep with one of Big Jim Corporal’s goats.Lost John was now eight years old, and the new nickname had stuck.Still, when he was an old man, he might prefer it to Baby John.

Dusk was settling over the island by the time the search parties were ready to start out, and it promised to be a cold night.

I stood back while Short Clarry issued instructions.

“We don’t know what’s happened, though it looks bad,” Short Clarry finished up with.“Mind you all remember that if you find him, Hawthorne or no, he’s still atourist, even if he is descended from a bloodthirsty tyrant.”

“Okay,” I said, before Short Clarry could accidentally talk the islanders into forming a lynch mob.“Thank you, Short Clarry.”

Short Clarry smiled and nodded.

“I’m going up to the lighthouse to call the police,” I told him.“After that I’ll join the search on the point.”

“Righto,” Short Clarry said, and checked his watch.He spoke to the crowd again.“We’ll meet back here at nine.It’s going to be a cold one.Watch yourselves out there.”

Murmuring vaguely, the crowd dispersed into smaller groups and set out.

As I walked up the street, I passed Sarah Hooper stepping inside her house.I was close enough to hear the dull thunk of the lock as she turned it.

A locked door on Dauntless Island.

That was a first.

It didn’t bode well for what the islanders thought of Eddie Hawthorne, did it?

I headed up toward the point with Hiccup, unease biting at me.

* * *

Eddie’s yellow tent was still lying at the base of the lighthouse when I got back.

I went into the cottage and stood in front of the radio in the kitchen.Then, drawing a deep breath, I turned it to the channel for the water police, and made the call.

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