A Burial at Sea

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?

Tonight, probably; and yet his fatigue was so great that when he went into his room and McEwan appeared, he did not ask the steward even to pack.

“Wake me early,” was all he said. “It will be a busy day.”

“Yes, sir. Would you like a glass of wine, or perhaps something to eat, before you retire?”

“Perhaps I would like a glass of that red—but no, no, I think not. You filled my water pitcher? Good, then I shall have that. Better for a clear head. Oh, and while I have you—you posted that letter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, McEwan.”

He sat at his desk for fifteen minutes or so, drinking a glass of water and thinking over the events of the evening. The next morning he would ask Chowdery about any French delegation in Port Said, and perhaps he might hear word of Sournois’s official duties in that fashion. Beyond that he saw little that he could do.

He changed into his nightshirt and went to bed then, restless in his mind but also tired, or somewhere beyond tired. Soon he was asleep.

He woke because he felt something sharp at his neck.

He tried to jerk away but a strong hand had him by the shirt.

“Who is that?” he said.

“I knew I’d get my penknife in you,” a voice close to his ear said.

A chill coursed through his body. “No,” he said. “It cannot be. Billings.”

A match struck against the wood along the side of the bed, and the candle on Lenox’s nightstand flared up into light. The knife still to his throat, Lenox saw, in the flickering light, the face of the former first lieutenant of the Lucy.

He was dark from the sun now, rather like Lenox. His expression was neutral. There was nothing in it of the fiendish madness the detective had seen on that lifeboat. But this calmness was in itself a fearsome thing.

“How did you get here?”

“We were prepared,” said Billings. “Coin, water, food. What sort of fool do you take me for?”

“Where is Butterworth?”

“I left him.”

“You killed him.”

“If you prefer. He didn’t want me to come here.”

“He was wise.”

The knife pressed into Lenox’s throat. It must have been drawing blood, by now. His horror of knives had awakened. “Was he wise? I suppose he may have been. Just like Halifax. Just like Martin. Just like … you.”

“Me.”

“I told you I’d put my penknife in you, didn’t I, Lenox?”

“We were friends aboard the Lucy, Billings.”

A look of bitterness snarled the younger man’s lip. “Friends,” he said with heavy scorn.

Lenox considered shouting, but knew it would mean his instant death. “You have gone mad. Come back to sanity, I beg of you. Give yourself up.”

But Billings was too far gone. His eyes were wild and angry; the sane part of himself, the one that had allowed him to act as a competent naval officer these many years, seemed to have receded once the secret of his other side was out. It was often the way, Lenox knew. When the veneer had fallen away, it was hard to put it back up, for men like Billings.

“I’ll give you up,” said Billings.

“Did you even mean to carve up Halifax?”

“What?”

“You meant to kill him—but your gruesome little surgery. You couldn’t help that, I suppose, but it wasn’t part of the plan, was it?”

“Shut up.”

“Take your knife from my throat and I’ll let you leave.”

“Ha.”

“Billings, I warn you—”

“You warn me! I ought to—”

And then, to Lenox’s very great shock, he discovered that his own warnings were more potent than either he or Billings had imagined. There was an extremely soft footfall, and an instant later something heavy and black swung through the air and knocked Billings in the back of the head.

The murderer stared at Lenox open-eyed for a moment, and then fell, his knife tumbling harmlessly from his hand.

“Who is that?” said Lenox.

“It is I, McEwan, sir.” The steward was breathing heavily. “I came because you have a guest.”

“At two in the morning?”

“Yes, sir. And if I say so, it couldn’t have happened at a better time.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

A man came in through the door.

“Mr. Lenox?” he said in a French accent.

Lenox blinked twice and pondered the scene in his room, which now bore a more than passing resemblance to King’s Cross Station at the rush hour.

“Who are you?”

But he scarcely needed to ask. “I am Sournois,” the man said. “What has happened here? Is this related to … to our business?”

“No. It’s an old business—an ugly one, I’m sorry to say. McEwan, do you know this man?”

“No, sir. He woke the butler and the butler woke me.”

Lenox, still in bed, though now up on his arms, looked at the Frenchman. “How do I know you’re … Sournois?”

“In front of him?” the Frenchman said, gesturing to McEwan.

“He just saved my life. It’s fair to say that he has earned my trust.”

“Thankee, sir.”

“The kitchen is always closed when one is hungriest,” said Sournois.

“There’s never a meal to be had in Port Said after ten,” Lenox replied. “Show me your hands?”

“Eh?”

“Your finger.”

“Ah, of course.” Sournois held up his left hand, and it was, as expected, missing a single digit. “That is settled, then.”