Free Mr. Monk Gets on Board by Hy Conrad Page A

that.”
    “What? You’re saying the balcony railing broke?” I slapped him on the arm. “Adrian.”
    “Ow.” He massaged the arm. “Now you have to hit me on the other one.”
    “Gladly.” And I did. “What the hell were you thinking?”
    “Ow. It wasn’t my fault. The man was snoring.”
    “Did he fall?” My mind was reeling. “Did he fall into the ocean?”
    “He fell onto the balcony below. Eight and a half feet, by my calculations.”
    I breathed a sigh of relief. The third-level balconies, as I knew from the ship’s map, jut out farther than the ones above them, almost like terraces. “Was he hurt? Did he break anything?”
    “I don’t know,” Monk said. “I ran before I could find out. I’ve been here in your doorway for hours and hours. Honestly, I expected you to be up before now. You’re being a bit of a slugabed.”
    “Slugabed?” I let that one go, having more important things to worry about. “Okay. Did Darby see you last night when he came in? Did you speak to each other?”
    Monk thought for a second. “No. He was skunk drunk, and I was behind a wall of Fiji Water, pretending to be asleep.”
    “Good,” I said. “Adrian, you stay here. If anyone comes and asks, tell them you were here in my room all night.”
    “You mean I can stay here? Where are you going to stay?”
    “No, you cannot stay here. Just say you did.”
    “Can I rearrange your room? It really needs it. You’ll thank me later.”
    “No.” I said it firmly, then grabbed my little ship’s map from the end table before scooting out the door. Infirmary, infirmary . . . Ah, there it was.
    The
Golden Sun
’s infirmary was on level two, a small windowless room outfitted with an examining table, a few locked cabinets for supplies and drugs, and an alcove with a cot-like bed. The door was open when I got there. I didn’t know quite what I was going to say, so I went with the first thing that came to mind.
    “Excuse me,” I said, knocking on the edge of the open door. “I was wondering if you had anything for sea sickness . . . Oh, Mariah. Good morning.”
    Mariah Linkletter and the ship’s doctor, Dr. Aaglan—according to the tag on his white coat—stood by the examining table and seemed to be in the middle of a serious discussion. Mariah’s face lit up when she saw me. “Natalie? Do you know where your friend is? Mr. Monk?”
    “Yes,” I said. “He stayed in my cabin last night. On the other bed.”
    “So, he wasn’t in his cabin.”
    “No. He and Mr. McGinnis don’t get along. Why? What happened?”
    Mariah looked to Dr. Aaglan, who nodded and took over the story. “The couple in cabin 357 found Mr. McGinnis on their balcony at around three last night. He had apparently fallen through his balcony railing in a heightened state of inebriation.”
    “Oh my God,” I said with convincing shock. “Is he all right?”
    “No bones broken,” the doctor continued. He was a relatively young man, not much more than a boy, with the hint of some European accent. “Mr. McGinnis was mumbling something about being gagged, but I think that was a reaction to the vomiting.”
    “Mr. McGinnis vomited quite a bit after his fall,” Mariah said. “Probably gave him the sensation of being gagged.”
    Well, that was one piece of good news. But I wasn’t going to tell Monk about the vomiting. Even the mention of the word
vomit
has been known to make him vomit.
    “I kept Mr. McGinnis here for an hour or so, for observation.” The doctor smiled sheepishly. “Truth is, he was snoring so loudly, I walked him up to his room and put him back in bed.”
    “We were hoping to learn more from Mr. Monk about the fall,” said Mariah. “But I guess he wasn’t there.”
    “No,” I assured them. “He wasn’t.”
    I was so relieved that I completely forgot my seasickness. Dr. Aaglan had to remind me and give me a small packet of Bonine from his drawer of pharmaceutical samples.
    Mariah and I left the infirmary