They all glanced around at one another, shaking their heads. “No, ma’am,” said Ross Keating. “We are whiskey men. Can’t say as I’ve ever tried opium myself.” The others shook their heads in agreement that they, too, had never tried it.
“Were you aware that Caleb Purdy was ingesting it?”
Understanding dawned in Mott’s eyes. “That what happened to him at the picnic?”
“I believe so. There was a package of it in his hand when I found him in the cloakroom.”
“What’s that got to do with us, Mrs. Harper?” Keating asked.
She had no idea.
As she exited the cell, Violet had another idea. Obtaining Hassan’s cooperation, she secured a private meeting with Sam in another cell. Hassan promised the guards that he would offer his own life if Sam attempted an escape with Violet.
Still clutching the lantern, Violet set it on the ground and flew against her husband as soon as the door clanked shut on them. Sam’s arms folded around her as he pulled her close.
“All will be well, sweetheart,” Sam said, kissing the top of her head.
Violet pulled back and looked up at him. “You are comforting me? Very ironic.”
He shrugged. “I have every confidence that you will quickly find out who the devil is in our midst.” He kissed her forehead and then pressed the fingers of her right hand to his mouth. “Then we will leave this pestilent place and sit along the edge of Mount Vesuvius. I’m beginning to think a volcano in Pompeii is safer than this shallow canal.”
Violet couldn’t agree more.
Knowing they probably had only a few minutes together, she quickly apprised him of what had happened at the villa, her harrowing experience in the mausoleum, and her suspicions of Julie Lesage.
Sam had an immediate understanding of the twists and turns of the situation, no doubt a reflection of his clandestine work in Great Britain.
“I agree with you that there is probably not a diplomatic solution to be had,” he said. “I know you want to confront Mademoiselle Lesage, but I believe you should also attempt to speak to de Lesseps privately. He and Pasha are the strangest combination of friends and competitors I’ve ever seen. They’re like a bobcat and a coyote working together to hunt a jackrabbit. They will probably secure a good meal, but will also likely kill each other in the process.”
“So you are saying the bobcat and the coyote might each behave differently if I speak to them separately.”
Sam nodded. “Try to meet de Lesseps in a safe public place.”
Violet knew her expression was one of misery. “Sam, there is no longer a safe place for me here. I will stay on my guard as much as I can.”
“I suppose I must be satisfied with that, although I’m not. Meanwhile, I will find out who Keating’s paramour is if I have to . . . Well, never mind what I will do. Be assured that he will tell me.”
Violet nodded. Sam had persuasion skills, both diplomatic and those of a more . . . direct . . . kind.
“Poor Sergeant Keating is better off telling you than facing Colonel Mott’s wrath, I imagine,” she said. “The colonel seems to suffer from a volatile temper, doesn’t he?”
Sam laughed gently. “Thaddeus acts as he does to keep men off balance and paying attention. It is part of his great stage act and is how he gets such good results from men beneath him. Enough about him; when can you return?”
Could she come back? Violet didn’t want to impose upon Hassan’s generosity again, as he was putting himself at great risk in enabling this one visit. “The moment I can,” she promised.
He pulled her to him one more time. “Be safe, wife. To lose you would be far worse than my own death.”
Violet nodded mutely, her eyes filling with tears at the mere thought of Sam’s death becoming a reality. She simply couldn’t allow it to happen.
Chapter 27
Despite Sam’s admonishment that she find de Lesseps in a public location, Violet knew that his villa was the one spot where she could speak privately with him. She returned with the stained shawl tucked inside her reticule, not willing to leave it out of her sight for a moment. She was surprised by her confidence in entering this place where she had been brutally attacked the previous day. Her blood was racing with the driven notion that she would not stop until Sam was released, and it propelled her across the villa’s front garden and through its front door, where a servant escorted her to de Lesseps’s study.
To her chagrin, though, she discovered that de Lesseps was not alone. Pasha and Tewfik were with him, and the three appeared to be reviewing plans and diagrams spread out on a large table. With its brass surface resting atop at least a dozen carved legs set in a complicated pattern, this piece of furniture was like nothing Violet had ever seen.
Smoke hung in the air like a wafting shroud as the three smoked cigars. They pointed and made notes about what Violet quickly realized was tomorrow’s event at Bitter Lakes, the last waypoint before the flotilla reached Suez, turned around, and returned to Port Said, with an intermediate stop back in Ismailia.
Violet gently cleared her throat, and the three looked up at her in unison.
“Madame Harper,” de Lesseps said flatly, with as much welcome in his voice as a patient for a saw-wielding surgeon.
Now that she was here, Violet wasn’t exactly sure what to do. With de Lesseps and Pasha together, she wasn’t going to get far. How could she get the Frenchman to speak with her in private?
“Monsieur de Lesseps, I—”
A look passed between de Lesseps and Pasha that she didn’t understand; then Pasha interrupted her. “You have not met my son Tewfik. My son, this is the British woman who is also the undertaker.”
Recognition dawned in Tewfik’s eyes, as though he hadn’t remembered Violet from last night outside the palace but all of a sudden knew her by reputation. She exchanged brief pleasantries with the young man, then turned her attention back to de Lesseps.
“Monsieur de Lesseps, if I might have a moment of—”
“Again, Madame Harper? You have become like the blood-sucking moustique, flying about, whining shrilly, then biting the unsuspecting to satisfy your temper.” De Lesseps looked at his company for approval, and received it in polite chuckles from Pasha and Tewfik.
Clearly the Frenchman was not going to grant her a private audience. Well, that certainly wasn’t going to stop Violet Harper.
“Monsieur, I plead on behalf of my husband and the other Americans. Surely you realize that they are not deserving of the rough treatment they are receiving.”
“What rough treatment is that, madaam?” Pasha asked her suspiciously, and she realized that she was dangerously close to revealing that she had visited the men.
“The fact that they are being unjustly held, while we know that it is very likely that someone else is behind the murder of Caleb Purdy and the others.”
“Like the mosquito that bites the wrist, then continues to drone around looking for an opportunity to bite the neck,” de Lesseps said, clearly pleased with his ability to drag out a metaphor. Soon Violet would hear that she was responsible for a malaria outbreak.
Pasha, too, expressed his irritation with Violet. “Madaam, you do not understand that there is more at stake here than the lives of a few foreign soldiers. Besides, they did not help to build the canal.”
Violet tamped down her impatience. What difference did it make whether or not Sam’s friends had operated a dredge or hauled away dirt?
With bitter words on her tongue aching to be set free, Violet swallowed them with great difficulty and said as pleasantly as she could, “I shall remain behind, as well, then, to wait for my husband’s release.”
Pasha’s expression was one of amusement. “No, madaam, you will continue on with the flotilla where you can be watched. If I let you stay behind, who will make sure you don’t seduce my guards and help your friends escape?”
De Lesseps nodded in agreement, and Violet knew she h
ad made a huge mistake in attempting to intervene on Sam’s behalf while in the presence of both of these men. Pasha had essentially just told her she would be a prisoner for the remainder of the journey. How would she be able to assist Sam now?
“Tewfik will escort you out.” Pasha turned back to de Lesseps, and together they went back to their papers.
Violet had just been summarily dismissed.
Blinking back her rage and frustration, she did not expect kindness from Pasha’s son. “My lady, if you will . . . ?” He gestured toward the door and followed her out, then indicated that she should follow him. Violet’s heels clicked along on the white marble flooring, which had a fleur-de-lis pattern scattered on various tiles. She assumed it must be the latest Parisian rage. Stylish or not, it was clearly taking her farther into the villa, not out.
“Tewfik, this is not the correct way,” she said.
“Please, into here,” he said, holding open a door for her.
Now Violet was suspicious. She crossed her arms. “I’m perfectly well here in the corridor,” she insisted.
Tewfik smiled, and it struck Violet that this young man—a boy, really—might have an infusion of charm that was not apparent when he was busy sulking next to his father.
Still, she refused to move. Charm did not make a man innocent.
“You believe you will come to harm with me, lady? This is not so. I merely wish to ask you questions.”
Violet considered this. If he could ask her questions, then perhaps she could ask him questions, as well. She followed him into some sort of sitting room, which had a feminine look to it, done in pastel blues, creams, and pinks.
Now she and Tewfik Pasha sat across from each other on matching settees with a low, marble-topped table between them and a romantic scene painted above them on the ceiling. Tewfik jumped in without preamble or the offer of refreshment. “My father said you are an undertaker in your home country.”
“This is true,” she replied. Most people were morbidly fascinated and repulsed at the same time by her profession.
“How does a woman do this? It is not seemly.” Tewfik’s question was genuine, and Violet took no offense, for it was commonly asked of her.
“It is not always easily done,” she said, “for it can be difficult for me to move literal dead weight. But I manage.” An image flitted through her mind of Sam helping her with Karl Dorn’s body, along with the question of whether he might want to be more involved with her business. Of course, that could only happen if she saw him freed, which wasn’t looking likely at the moment.
One step at a time.
“You speak English well,” she said to Pasha’s son.
He brushed aside the compliment. “My father insists that I be tutored in both English and French, as he believes I cannot be the future khedive without easy communication with our European counterparts. I should like to know about your burial rites. Do you bury bodies or burn them?”
“Heavens!” Violet said, taken aback by his bluntness. “We do not burn bodies in Britain. We bury them.”
“In mausoleums like ours? In sand?” Tewfik was like an eager schoolboy in his curiosity.
“Not exactly,” Violet said carefully, not wishing to insult his country’s customs. “Our crypts hold multiple bodies, but they are more . . . separate . . . from each other.” She cringed inwardly, thinking about yesterday’s inadvertent and inconsiderate crawling over bodies inside the mausoleum. “And there is not this much sand in Great Britain. We bury people in soil.”
Tewfik frowned, as if that were a strange notion. “But sand preserves the bodies; dirt decomposes them, does it not?”
True. But they decomposed privately, and with markers to denote the soul’s previous existence, not loosely commingled with other bodies.
“Tewfik, I am baffled as to your interest in my work. Is this a sudden passion you have for the dead?”
Pasha’s son seemed genuinely surprised by her question. “You are not pleased that I am interested in you? Do not all women like attention?”
“Well, certainly, but—”
“You are very unusual. I like it that you are so strange. Egyptians used to ritualistically embalm bodies, now it is just sand. But you say you do not do any preservation.” What was strange to Violet was how interested a young man was in funerary customs.
“Not usually, no. The Americans have become very fond of embalming”—her heart skipped a beat to think of any American she knew being embalmed anytime soon—“but in Great Britain there is great resistance to it. I confess that I approve of it myself, but only rarely have the opportunity to do it.”
Tewfik nodded. “Well, we don’t embalm anymore because it is against Islamic custom. But the way we bury today in mausoleums is not so different from burials in pyramids from thousands of years ago. This has been most interesting, my lady, thank you. I trust I will see you again, but for now I have to return to my father and his grand plans.”
Tewfik stood and departed abruptly, leaving Violet alone in the room. She hardly noticed his absence, for her mind was whirling over what he had said about mausoleum burials being quite similar to those in pyramids. Something clicked in Violet’s mind, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was, almost as if she had just heard a door unlocking in a distant room of a house.
She needed to go to her tent and think. As she made to leave the villa, Violet noticed a flash of lavender dress furtively scurrying down a hallway and was certain that it was the retreating figure of Julie Lesage. What was she doing in the villa? Violet stopped at the grand entry door that a servant was opening to see her out.
Mademoiselle Lesage had many questions to answer, and she was going to answer them now.
Violet turned on her heel and went down the hall to find Julie, leaving the servant shouting at her in Arabic, undoubtedly an admonishment that she wasn’t permitted in other parts of the villa. De Lesseps could bellow and rage all he wanted about her intrusiveness; Violet was determined to have satisfaction in this matter.
Violet found Julie in a storage room, pretending to arrange a variety of women’s hats and gloves on shelves. As if Violet was to believe that Julie would actually perform such a task for Louise-Hélène.
“Mademoiselle, I wish to speak with you,” Violet said to her.
Julie looked up in feigned surprise. “Why, Madame Harper, I did not know you were here.”
“Indeed. I should like to ask you about the American soldiers that Pasha hired to train his own army.”
Now the surprise was real. “Why should I know anything about them?” She slapped a pair of ivory gloves against one hand and placed them next to a matching hat with layers of lace wrapped around the brim.
“Surely you realize that I noticed you speaking with them during the Dinner of the Sovereigns. I am wondering if you have formed a liaison with one of them.”
“With an American?” she squeaked. “You must be the imbécile, to suggest such a thing. I will marry a Frenchman, and my mistress will see to it that he is of a good family.”
Violet pressed further. “Those may be your marriage plans, but perhaps your heart has led you down a different path.”
Julie straightened out the trailing ribbons of another hat, avoiding Violet’s gaze. “Madame, I did know these rough, slovenly soldiers prior to our canal journey, and it is absurde to believe I would sully myself with one of them. You should ask Isabelle about them. It is much more likely that she would engage in a flirtation with some common American.”
Violet put a hand to her hip. “I’ll thank you to remember that I am married to one of those rough, slovenly Americans.”
Julie reddened. “Of course, madame. Perhaps I should have said that Isabelle is not likely to make as good a marriage as I am, so she would be more likely to engage in the liaison amoureuse. In fact, I have been wondering if it wasn’t she whom I saw outside last night.”
Violet couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Are you sugge
sting that Isabelle stabbed a man?”
Julie shrugged and clasped her hands together, finally facing Violet. “Perhaps you should ask her yourself, madame.”
Violet considered what Julie had said. Although she suspected the maid was either deflecting attention from herself or merely attempting to cast suspicion on another woman she despised, it wouldn’t hurt to ask Isabelle a few questions while she was here.
Violet quietly crept up to Louise-Hélène’s quarters to seek out the lady’s maid, and fortunately did not encounter any servants on her way. To her surprise, she found that Louise-Hélène and Eugénie were taking tea together.
The empress was the first one to notice her. “Madame Harper is here. Ma louloute, you must chastise the servants here. No one announced the undertaker’s presence.”
Louise-Hélène turned to see Violet standing there and quickly stood, her linen napkin edged in gold embroidery slipping to the ground. “M-madame Harper, what are you doing here?”
“I apologize for my intrusion. I have come to see Isabelle. Is she here?” Violet had hoped she might be able to simply find the maid without incurring the curiosity of these two women, but that was a foolish notion.
“Ma louloute’s maid? You wish to talk to her maid?” Eugénie said. “Whatever for? Do you plan to hire her away?”
“No, Your Highness. I would like to ask her some questions regarding last night’s party.”
“Ahhh,” Eugénie said knowingly. “The little incident with the soldiers. De Lesseps told me all about it. You must be aware of it, too,” she said to Louise-Hélène.
De Lesseps’s fiancée was still standing, and looked about awkwardly. “I— Well, I turned in most early last night, and so I—”
“Oh, my dear, there was apparently quite the fuss. The soldiers had some sort of désaccord, and one stabbed the other. Rough, wild men, you know. No breeding. So Pasha locked them all up.” Eugénie snapped her fingers to emphasize Pasha’s decisive action.
Louise-Hélène’s cheeks burned brightly. “This is terrible news.”
A Grave Celebration Page 27
