A Burial at Sea

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