Henry caught "Monsieur Cloutier's" eye, whose exasperated facial expression likely mirrored his own. The maid—an American with brown skin and black hair—only sobbed when either of them tried to question her. Even the simplest query like, "What startled you?" produced a torrent of tears and a garbled answer that sounded like something about a "haint."
"Perhaps I can help," a young woman said. Henry looked up to see her descending the stairs and approaching the closet, where the maid crouched, wide-eyed. He thought she looked familiar. Ah, right, he'd noticed her when she boarded. Whoever she was, she had no business here. But then, did he? The captain had told him to look for secret pirates, not maids who thought they'd seen ghosts.
"I'm sorry," Henry told her, "but this is captain's busi
