A Burial at Sea Read online

  “What is its official function?”

  “It is our customs house, sir.”

  “Ah, of course.”

  They walked across a handsome lobby and then down a dark corridor. “Is the canal this way?” said Lenox.

  “If you would permit me the pleasure of surprise, sir.”

  Chowdery, Arbuthnot, and Chowdery’s wife were well behind them now, giving the two men space. As they went down still another corridor, the Egyptian said, “Your visit occurs at an excellent moment, sir. We have every hope that the diplomatic and financial relationship between our nations will flourish.”

  “As do we. The prime minister has instructed me to convey to your wali our pleasure that your relationship with France has not precluded exchange between our nations.”

  “Indeed, now that the canal is built you are a better friend to us than France, Mr. Lenox, sir. Here, if you will permit me the pleasure—through this door.”

  Kafele flung a pair of doors open, and the great glittering canal was only steps away, laden with ships bearing goods, just as busy as the port.

  Closer at hand was a reception, which Lenox thought for a brief moment he must be interrupting, until he realized it was for him; and yet its splendor was such that he doubted it until the wali’s emissary bowed and said, “We welcome you to Egpyt, sir.”

  A hundred soldiers in military uniform stood at attention in lines of ten, and behind them ten men on horses. A great white pavilion stood to one side, and through an open door Lenox could see tables and men inside. On the water behind the soldiers was a waiting ship.

  Standing before them all was a massively fat Egpytian man in traditional dress. This proved to be one of the wali’s nephews, who looked as if he would rather be anywhere else, but who went through the forms nicely. He led Lenox to the pavilion, where a dozen men were waiting, some of them government functionaries, others in trade.

  With this retinue Lenox reviewed the soldiers, nodding appreciatively at their movements, complimenting their uniforms, their bearing, and their agility.

  “They are the sultan’s army?” he asked.

  “His personal guard,” Kafele answered. “The very finest soldiers our nation has ever produced.”

  From this review of the soldiers the sultan’s nephew led Lenox to the waiting ship. It was low in the water, burdened with great crates on its decks. A captain waited, smiling, by a gangway.

  “These are the crops that will make both of our nations rich,” said Kafele, and led Lenox to a pallet at the ship’s edge. “Here you see a bale of cotton and a bag of rice. Please, take them as our gifts, as tokens of our commercial friendship, back to your country.”

  “Thank you,” Lenox said. “I accept them on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.”

  The wali’s nephew came forward, behind him two men bearing pillows with boxes on them.

  “We have these gifts, too, for you,” he said. “For your own august personage, an ancient cup of Egyptian marble, held in my family for many generations, and representing the comity of our nations, which share bread and water.”

  One of the men bearing pillows stepped forward and showed Lenox the cup, whose marble was so thin it was nearly translucent, sand-colored and veined with red. It was beautiful. “I thank you,” he said.

  “And for your prime minister, we offer this gold dagger, chased with dragons, inlaid with opals, as a representation that our strength belongs to you.”

  The second pillow-bearer stepped forward, and again Lenox offered profuse thanks, along with a promise to give the dagger to the prime minister.

  “The wali himself will present you with a gift for your queen, Mr. Lenox,” said the wali’s nephew. “Until then, may I invite you to a feast in our pavilion?”

  “With great pleasure,” said Lenox.

  It had been an interesting morning. The superficialities—the soldiers, the wali’s nephew—Lenox could take or leave. But the cotton and the rice were real. The hundreds of ships on the water were real. The economic potential of the canal, already partially realized, was so immense that with any luck Africa might soon be as great, as powerful and rich, as Europe. For the first time Lenox considered the idea that this pretext for this trip might, in the end, be just as important as his true reason for coming to Egypt.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  That evening as the sun fell, Lenox sat alone at his desk in the consulate, making notes for his colleagues in London about the state of Port Said and the Suez Canal. Following the feast there had been a long, detail-heavy meeting with the wali’s emissary, Kafele, and the officials and businessmen who wanted Lenox’s ear. These men were surprisingly quick to reveal what the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish had offered them, and what they needed to maximize the revenues the canal could produce. A prudent investment from Victoria’s treasury, Lenox argued in his memorandum, might repay itself a hundred times over in the next fifty years. So much of the British Empire—the Indies, parts of Africa, once upon a time the Americas—had been won by brute force. Now intelligence and money might do more to increase England’s power than her military could, in this new world that the construction of the Suez had created.

  As the hours passed—he skipped dinner, having eaten far too much at midday out of politeness—he could feel his heartbeat increasing, his nerves growing tauter. The Frenchman, Sournois, was never far from his mind.

  Chowdery had invited Lenox to his and his wife’s private apartments for a game of whist, but Lenox had declined, simulating regret and promising to join him for a hand the next evening.

  “I thought I might call into Scheherazade’s, in fact.”

  “Oh? I confess myself surprised that you’ve heard the name—a rather dingy place, though popular with many Europeans.”

  “A friend in London recommended it, said the street it was on had a great deal of local flavor.”

  “You might say that—certainly it has the balustrades, those balconies one story off of the ground, you know, that the French have handed down to the Egyptians. Well, I will be pleased to accompany you, Mr. Lenox. Membership is relatively informal, but as far as it goes I am a member.”

  “Thank you, Sir Wincombe, but I couldn’t possibly take you from your hand of cards—Lady Megan wouldn’t like it.”

  “Heh! Well, I don’t deny I like a strong-willed woman. But I would be more than happy—”

  “Please!” said Lenox. “You must indulge me and stay in.”

  With a look of relief, Chowdery nodded and said, “Oh, well, if you’re sure, if you’re sure … my carriage is, needless to say, entirely at your disposal.”

  “Thank you. And the driver knows where it is, this place?”

  “Of course,” said Chowdery.

  So Lenox’s plans were laid. As the minutes ticked on into hours, and midnight drew closer, he began to feel a certain calm that he knew to be indistinguishable, in its essentials, from fear, though rather more useful.

  At ten o’clock he asked McEwan to call the carriage round, and by ten past the hour the horses were warmed and waiting.

  “Would you like me to come, sir?” said McEwan.

  Yes was the answer, badly. “No, thank you. I say, do you think the Lucy is all right?”

  McEwan laughed. “In the past she has generally stayed hearty in my absence, sir.”

  “Carrow, you think, is well enough?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s a good man, Mr. Carrow.”

  As the carriage clattered through the streets, the mysterious smells of the city thick in the warm air, Lenox reviewed in his mind what he had to do at Scheherazade’s. He could picture the diagram of the building perfectly in his mind, and reminded himself which door he would enter the kitchen by and which he would exit by.

  This gentleman’s club was housed in an unprepossessing building of three stories, whose ground floor was occupied by a frankly off-putting restaurant. It was popular, however, filled with Africans and Europeans alike.

  Lenox instructed
his driver to wait, got out, and walked through the restaurant, attracting a number of looks. At the back he found a dim and narrow staircase, at the top of which was a dark door, with MEMBERS ONLY stenciled onto it in gold print.

  He opened this door, and found himself in a tiny entryway. A small Egyptian man stood at a table, and when Lenox entered he bowed his head.

  “Member number?” he said.

  “My name is Charles Lenox, Sir Wincombe Chowdery mentioned—”

  “The president of the club is just this way, in the Trafalgar Room. He will see you.”

  Despite its grandiose name, the Trafalgar Room was nothing much to look at. It held a number of red armchairs, a few chipped tables, and between two great windows, looking out over the street, a small number of books on a shelf. There were also newspapers on a table by the door, in English and other languages, which Lenox saw at a glance were several weeks old.

  A single man was sitting in one of the armchairs, pipe in hand, absorbed in some journal. He rose when Lenox entered.

  “Mr. Charles Lenox,” said the servant, then bowed and left.

  “Mr. Lenox!” said the man in heavily accented English. “I had heard you were in town. How delighted we are to see you. My name is Pierre Mainton.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance. You’re French, I take it?”

  “Well spotted, sir!” said Mainton and laughed.

  Lenox switched to his sturdy, unhurried French. “I’m surprised to see you so at ease in a room named for the Battle of Trafalgar!” he said.

  “I’m surprised that you speak my language! You are the first Englishman of my acquaintance who has, I assure you.” Mainton laughed again. “We have tried here to reflect our membership, which is multinational, by permitting each faction to name a room. There is the Emperor Napoleon the Third room just over your shoulder.”

  Lenox smiled. “Much more convivial than our nations.”

  “I hope so. I founded her because I was so bored in this city, and missed the conversation of my home city, Marseille. The storytelling. You understand the name?”

  “The thousand and one nights?”

  “Exactly! Scheherazade told a different story to her captor each night, never finishing that she might live another day.”

  “And what brought you to Port Said?”

  “Ah, Mr. Lenox, it’s a boring tale. My father was a ship broker in Marseille, may he rest in peace, and passed his business on to my older brother. To me he gave a small portion and the advice that I come make my fortune here, after de Lesseps started them off.”

  “A ship broker?”

  “Ah, how to define. A ship needs supplies, yes?”

  “To be sure.”

  “When a ship needs a bit of rope, or a wheel of cheese, or a new sail, I sell it to them. Whatever the ship needs. Coal, for instance, or water. Through no genius of my own—through pure accident and some slight knowledge of my father’s business—I became the richest man in Port Said. Now I let my partners worry, and I oversee them. Preferably from this room!” Mainton concluded, and burst into laughter.

  Lenox had half forgotten the French habit of frankness about money. “How interesting,” he said.

  “So you see, I am of humble origins—certainly not fit to greet a member of Parliament—but then Egypt is no great place for our European formalities!”

  “On the contrary, I’m extremely pleased to meet you.”

  “Excellent. Will you take a drink, Mr. Lenox?”

  “With pleasure.”

  Mainton switched back into English. “There are some men who will no doubt wish to meet you, other members?”

  “Of course,” said Lenox. Inwardly he wondered about his conspicuousness. Would it be possible to decline?

  The next room was more sprightly than the Trafalgar Room, and had a row of pen drawings of European leaders along one white wall, Victoria among them. In one corner was a wooden bar with a number of dusty bottles behind it, and Lenox accepted a scotch and soda and took a large gulp of it for his nerves before remembering that his instructions had said: no alcohol. Thereafter he sipped from it sparingly.

  There were five or six other men there, two playing cards, another reading, the others in conversation. Lenox met them all, and with good grace asked questions about their homes in Spain, France, Norway, Holland. There were no other Englishmen.

  He tried not to check his pocket watch too often, but as the hour grew later he couldn’t help it. Twenty minutes till midnight. Ten minutes till midnight. Five. How would he escape?

  Then, to his relief and surprise, at three or four minutes before the hour all the men rose and began to say their good-byes.

  “Do you close now?” said Lenox, shaking hands and smiling.

  “Yes, generally we order our carriages for midnight,” said Mainton. “But perhaps you would like to look through the rest of the club rooms, or if you are restless stay and read? I can ask a man to stay.”

  “Ah, that would be wonderful,” said Lenox, wondering how much exactly this French ship broker knew of his plans. Why hadn’t his directions included information on that?

  The men all said their final good-byes, and lastly Mainton did, too, pressing a coin into the hand of the man at the front desk and shouting a cheerful farewell over his shoulder.

  With his heart beating rapidly, Lenox turned. The fourth room on the left. A small door. It was time.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The next two rooms were cluttered with, in the first, small card tables, and, in the second, a great number of books. Neither looked particularly lived in. Lenox found his small door and, with a sharp inhale to brace himself, opened it and walked downstairs.

  The door to the kitchen was wide open, though the room itself was dim and empty. Apparently the restaurant on the ground floor was closed, too. Still, there was a flickering light in the far corner of the room.

  “Hello,” Lenox said, staying by the door.

  “Bonjour,” a voice said.

  Lenox waited for the man to go on, but he was silent.

  “What brings you here?” he said at last.

  The other man paused. “I like spending time in a closed kitchen.”

  No. The line was: The kitchen is always closed when one is hungriest.

  “It’s easy to get a meal in Port Said after midnight,” Lenox said. “Ask anyone.”

  A long pause. “Ah. So you know the code. Let us speak.”

  Lenox hesitated for one, nearly fatal second, and then turned and walked through the door and out onto the street.

  “Hey!” a voice called out behind him, and there were footsteps.

  Lenox turned, saw a short, stubby man bearing down on him—he is over six feet, the note had said of Sournois—and began to sprint toward the brightly lit boulevard at the end of the street. He couldn’t risk getting in Chowdery’s carriage; there wasn’t time.

  So he ran. He was twenty paces ahead, but his fitness was still terrible, and already he could feel a sear in his lungs and his legs. Judging from the noise of the man’s footsteps the distance between them was shortening. Perhaps fifteen paces now. The boulevard was just ahead, and with a lung-busting spurt of effort, Lenox reached it and turned left.

  There were men walking hand in hand together, as was the Egyptian custom, and others sitting outside and sipping mint tea. There were still food sellers and beggars, too.

  Lenox turned into the second doorway he saw, thanking God that he had kept a hand by his face in the kitchen, just in case. He saw his pursuer sprint breathlessly past, and then, twenty feet on, stop and whirl around.

  Lenox retreated farther into the doorway.

  A voice behind him said something in an unfamiliar language, and Lenox, his nerves already frayed, now took his turn to whirl around.

  It was a young boy. Lenox raised a finger to his lips, to indicate quiet. The boy, with a look of immediate comprehension, nodded, and waved a hand: follow me.

  There was no other option,
and so Lenox trailed the boy down a mazy corridor, which led into an inner courtyard. From there they found another corridor, and then another. The noise of chatter on the street would get louder and softer as they walked. Finally they took a flight of stairs up, and Lenox, now uneasy, began to wonder what the boy’s plan was.

  When they reached a balcony he saw. There was a line of donkey-drawn taxis below.

  Lenox nearly laughed, and then gave the boy half of the change in his pocket, several shillings. The boy grinned and nodded, then vanished back into the corridor.

  Lenox went down to the taxis.

  “You know the English consulate?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” said the first one, nodding rapidly.

  “Take me there, please.”

  There was Chowdery’s carriage and driver, he reflected; well, it was too bad. He wasn’t going back.

  What had gone wrong? Suddenly he realized: Mainton. Of course. He had been discovered. He could only hope that Sournois was still alive.

  He thought again of his instructions: Should anything go amiss, you must for your own safety immediately make your way to the consulate, and then with all possible haste to your ship.

  There was nothing he could do for Sournois. He would fetch McEwan and his things and go to the Lucy. With the protection of the men and the officers he might still meet with Ismail the Magnificent in two days, but for the rest of the time he would have to cancel all of his other plans and stay aboard the ship.

  So he had failed. It was a bitter thought.

  He gave the driver who brought him to the consulate a handsome tip, and then pressing an additional coin on him asked the man to drive by Scheherazade’s to find the waiting carriage there, and tell its driver to head home.

  He walked up to his room with his lungs and the muscles in his legs burning. The house was quiet and dark, but there were servants still awake. The man he had met in the kitchen could not reach him here, he hoped. Still, it begged the question: should he return to the Lucy tonight or in the morning?