people who were candidates for a pro-Cook celebration?"
"He and Basil intended to convince Smoker and Bailey not to participate in the parade. Their real beef is with the tourism board, and their long-term goal is to bring an end to the festivities entirely."
Knock. Knock, knock.
Groans. Hissing. Eye rolling.
"Why don't you just leave the door open and stick an Open House sign on it?" Bernice suggested. "Save us from having to get up so much."
"I'll get it," said Duncan, returning in a half minute with Etienne at his side. EH! Just what I needed. All the competition in the same room again. I gave Etienne a little finger wave and wondered how many Tums I'd have to swallow to calm my stomach. He gave me a long, lingering look that would have caused internal combustion if I'd been sitting closer.
"I'm glad you're all here," he said, in his beautiful French/German/Italian accent. "I believe I have some information that might be of interest to you. Do you mind, Emily?"
"Please." I allowed him the floor with a sweeping gesture.
"As a professional courtesy, the Maui police shared some of their findings with me this morning, so I have answers to a few of the questions that were still bothering Emily last night after the professor and Miss Howard had been taken into custody."
"What kind of questions?" asked Bernice.
"Questions about Nils Nilsson," he responded. "He was not the Nils Nilsson who was arrested on charges of assault with a baseball bat. That was another Nils Nilsson, one of sixteen former presidents of the World Navigators Club with the same name. Nilsson is apparently as common a name in Norway as Bucherer is in Switzerland, or Smith is in the United States."
So how was I supposed to know that? Heat crept from my throat to my cheeks. "Did Nils or Gjurd tell the police what they found at the Secret Falls?"
"Coins," said Etienne. "Or what they thought were coins. Upon closer examination, they discovered they were actually old tokens from the New York subway system. Still, if presented to the right collector, they could be worth something."
"I wanna know how Jennifer French got hold a our treasure map without buyin' it from Bernice like everyone else done," said Nana.
Etienne smiled. "When she was questioned about her attack on Miss Howard, she mentioned how a significant archaeological find might have worked in her favor at the university. As to how she came by the map, she said someone had forgotten to remove it from the photocopier in the business center, so she simply took it."
Oh, this was cute. Everyone had forgotten to remove the map from the photocopier, even Bernice. That had to make Tilly feel better about her own mental health. But I was still curious about one teensy point.
"Can you explain something to me?" I asked Etienne. "Professor Smoker obviously jumped ship in Kauai. But what did he do until he left? Stay holed up in Bailey's cabin? He couldn't have stayed there the entire time because he would have been found out by the cabin steward, wouldn't he?"
Etienne nodded. "Bailey had a duplicate key made for her cabin so they could both come and go as they pleased, then she shaved his head and rented a disguise for him in the costume shop. A fat suit. Facial hair. Bought him a Hawaiian shirt. I believe you might have run into him the night of the storm in the Anchor Bar."
Oh, my God! The guy in the bar had been Professor Smoker?
"I believe the professor was feeling rather full of himself by then, skulking about the ship incognito. His original plan had been to lie low in Kauai until Bailey sent him his falsified travel documents, but when she contacted him about your grandmother's friends finding the treasure, he decided he needed to help her steal the thing, so he used Ansgar's ship ID card to reboard. He probably would have gotten away with murder if not for Shelly Valentine's and Emily's keen eyes." Etienne glanced at the box in the middle of the table for the first time. "Is this the piece that has been causing all the trouble?"
"You bet," said Nana.
"It's a piece of junk," snapped Bernice.
"It's an item of inestimable worth," pledged Tilly as she opened her journal to the proper page. "Griffin Ring himself says it's priceless. It's right here in black and white."
"You haven't opened it yet?" Etienne asked.
"We don't know how," said Nana. "It's one a them puzzle boxes."
"Do