"But you might be a little nervous about that. Your opponents might show up, the hospital administrator might be thinking of running for your job, unbeknownst to you .You never know. So what do you do? You create your own event somewhere."
"Really?" I said. "How… ?"
"Disillusioning? You don't strike me as that naive," I said.
"I guess I just never thought about it," I said. "So Jasper wanted an event he could control to make this announcement of his."
"Perhaps," Albert said.
"Picked a good spot, if you ask me," Lewis said. "Thousands of miles out in the Pacific has got to get you some control."
"Except that he's dead," Albert said.
"Yes, and except that he came right to the lion's den, didn't he? Right where someone like Gordon Fairweather is sure to hear all about it."
"True," they agreed.
"Maybe Jasper's ego was such that he rather relished the battle," Lewis said.
"Now about your little excursion into Seth's room," I said.
"Oh dear," the muffin said.
"That would be The Art Forger's Handbook you went in to find, would it?"
"Caught in the act," Albert said. "It really is his book, though. He didn't steal something that didn't belong to him."
"And you brought the handbook to Rapa Nui because… ?"
"Just because it sounded interesting. I picked it up in a rare book shop a few months back, and this was the first chance I had to read it. After Jasper's presentation, Albert had his doubts about the tablet," Poikeman said. "We were hoping to get a close look at it."
"And did you?" I asked.
"I'm afraid not," Lewis replied.
"I think she's asking us if we stole the tablet," Albert said to his pal.
"I see. No, we didn't, but I did have a wee look around for it while I was in the room," Lewis said. "I rather thought that Seth was the most likely person to be hiding it. He was nuts about rongorongo. I figured he had to be the one who stole it. I was just taking a look to see anything the police had missed. If I had found it, I'd have turned it over to the police right away, you understand."
I wasn't sure if that was what I understood or not. "You didn't happen to see a photograph lying about, did you?" I asked.
"A photograph? No," Lewis replied.
"Weren't you there when the tablet was found, Albert?" I asked. "You and Edwina?"
Albert paused for a moment before answering. "I was, dear girl. I was. It was a great moment."
"And he didn't even tell me about it," Lewis said, feigning indignation.
"We were sworn to secrecy. Not allowed to spoil Jasper's big moment. I think I may have mentioned that in my retirement years I volunteer at dig sites. I do whatever menial tasks they give me, but this was very exciting. Jasper was excavating what he thought was a tomb. We'd been working for several weeks, and then he found some mummy bundles, and lo and behold, this tablet that he pronounced to be rongorongo. Not often you get that kind of experience on these digs, you know."
"You do when you go with Jasper. He seems to have an unerring instinct for the spectacular finds," I said.
"Perhaps he's not weighed down by too much education," Lewis said, giggling.
"That does seem to be an issue," I said.
"You can't argue with success," Albert said.
"You can, if the tablet is fake," Lewis replied. "And you did say you thought it might be."
"Jasper was not the easiest person in the world to like," Albert said. "Perhaps my suspicions had more to do with that than the tablet itself. It just seemed very out of place there, I must say. Edwina, however, was enchanted by it, but then she shares Jasper's view of the world, about Rapa Nui anyway."
"Do either of you know who Anakena is?" I asked.
"I was hoping it would be you or your equally lovely friend, Moira," Albert said.
"I was sure you were, that first day on the bus to Rano Raraku," Lewis said.
I left the two of them there, swigging on the brandy, and slipped back into my room. They were both kind of cute, it had to be said, in their underwear and pajamas, but Albert had worked for years in a pretty cutthroat business. He couldn't be nearly as nice as he seemed, and they were, after all, breaking into a room.
The cognac had taken hold, however, and this time I slept. Rob was there as usual. "You're off your game, hon," he said. "It's that vacation thing. You don't do vacations. You have to look for links, for the unusual detail that will reveal the murderer. You have to see what both these murders and Gabriela have in common. You know what it is. It's that niggling detail."
I woke up and thought about it. Rob assumed I knew what this elusive whatever was. I didn't. I went back to sleep. This time Rob wasn't there. Instead I found myself being grabbed by Cassandra de Santiago and dragged along the ground. Someone with a hood over their face watched from a distance. "I am taking you to Hanga Roa to get a tattoo," she said, cackling like a wicked witch. "Anakena is going to give you a tattoo of a little bird."
"No!" I screamed, or at least I tried to. I was trying to get the attention of Moira and the others, but Moira was showing Rory her own tattoo and didn't seem to notice what was going on. The others were all standing with their backs to me, watching for an airplane. I knew with absolute certainty that if I went with Cassandra and got this tattoo, I'd be dead by morning.
"That's it," I yelled, sitting right up in bed.
"What? What happened? Did somebody else get killed?" Moira said, completely confused.
"There's only one murderer," I said.
"That's a relief, I'm sure," she said in a soothing tone. I think she thought I was talking in my sleep just like Seth a few nights earlier.
"I have to phone Rob," I said.
"It's the middle of the night," Moira said, but I was ready trying to use the phone. The trouble was, it would allow me to make a long distance phone call to Canada pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and headed for the reception desk. There was no one there. The lights were dimmed the phone, which I tried to use, was shut off.
"Where are the car keys?" I said, coming back to room.
"You're crazy," Moira said, as I dashed out. I blasted I town, right up to Gordon and Victoria's door, which started to pound on. A very sleepy-looking Victoria open it.
"I've got to make a phone call to Canada," I said. "It's or death."
Question to Rob: Is it possible to poison someone with a tattoo needle?
"Are you all right?" a very confused Rob said.
"I am," I said. "But I have a really important question you."
"It's four in the morning here," Rob said.
"It's four in the morning here, too," I said.
"Okay, just so we have that straight. What's the question?" I told him. I heard Victoria gasp as I asked it.
"Yes, it's possible," Rob said. "There was a very hi profile case a few years back in which some guy claimed he’d been poisoned by someone poking him with an umbrella Everyone thought he was nuts, but he died a while la poisoned, and sure enough there was a puncture hole in leg."