A Burial at Sea

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Though it was scarcely half past five, the docks were as busy as midday in Portsmouth. Lenox thought of what Sournois had said about the Suez as a possible broker of peace between France and England.

He hired one of the donkey carts that lingered around the wharf to fetch him back to the consul’s house.

When he arrived there were lights in every window and the noise of loud conversations within. He knocked at the door and the butler admitted him.

“Sir, your presence is requested in—”

“There you are, Lenox!” said a man behind him. It was Carrow, his face anxious. “Where in Christendom can you have been?”

Lenox froze, trying to think of a reasonable explanation. “I … didn’t McEwan tell you?”

“He did, and I asked him how could you possibly have been with friends at this hour. Where were you really?”

“McEwan was quite right. With friends.”

Carrow threw up his hands in frustration. “So a madman tries to murder you in your sleep and after escaping with your neck intact, just, you decide to visit with friends? At midnight? For five hours? One might question your judgment.”

“These friends keep late hours. Egyptians, you see. I was working on behalf of Her Majesty.”

These were the magic words apparently. “Oh.”

“In my note I asked you to send someone at eight o’clock, to fetch Billings.”

Carrow smiled grimly. “Well, you have eighteen of us.”

“Where is he?”

The butler, who looked very much like a man who had been woken at irregular intervals throughout the night, answered. “Mr. Billings is secured in the kitchens, under watch.”

“Is Sir Wincombe awake?”

“Oh, yes,” said Carrow. “He and Lady Megan are interviewing Billings at the moment, along with an Egyptian boy who brought Billings here for a few coins.”

Lenox frowned. “Will the boy be punished?”

“Who can say, in this damned strange country.”

“I understood Sir Wincombe to mean that he only wished to speak with the boy, Mr. Lenox,” said the butler.

“Could you fetch me McEwan?” said Lenox.

“Yes, sir.”

When he was gone, Lenox said to Carrow, “What are you planning to do with Billings?”

“Bring him back to England, where they can hang him from a rope by the neck. Is it true he stole into your chambers?”

“Quite true.”

“And that you were with Egyptians all night?” Carrow asked doubtfully.

“Yes, quite true.”

“Well, I can only thank God you’re safe. Halifax, Martin … there’s been too much bloodshed already.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carrow. With your permission I mean to return to the Lucy this afternoon, and have the Bootle ferry me to the docks when I need to be on land. I would appreciate it if you could spare two men to accompany me on my rounds, as well, strong ones.” Sournois might have been sincere when he said that Lenox wasn’t in danger, but for his own part Lenox wasn’t willing to take the chance.

“But Billings is caught. Do you fear Butterworth?”

“Have you not spoken to Billings?”

“Why?”

“I believe Butterworth is dead. Billings said as much. These precautions are for my personal comfort, Mr. Carrow. The situation here is tense.”

“Say no more. Of course you shall have the men.”

Lenox put his hands into his pockets. The dagger was still there. “Thank you,” he said.

McEwan was coming down the stairs now. “There you are, sir,” he said, and he, too, looked as if his night had been sleepless. “I told them you was with your friends, sir.”

“Ah, thank you, McEwan. Thank you. I think I shall go on saying that for many years to come. Thank you for saving my life. Was Billings troublesome after I left?”

“He ordered me to unbind him, sir, as my captain. Which I told him he warn’t a captain of mine. Then he cursed me, and then he asked for some food, but I didn’t dare leave him alone. He got some in the end, though, when Sir Wincombe took him down to the kitchens.”

A feeling of unease stole over Lenox. “And he is still bound?”

“No, but there are men with him.”

“Let’s hope.”

Lenox went downstairs, Carrow and McEwan on his heels. To his relief Billings was seated by the broad hearth of the kitchen table. Over his head was a row of pots and pans, and beneath them a row of bells corresponding to the various rooms of the house.

“There he is!” Billings bellowed when Lenox came into view. “The man who assaulted me!”

Carrow laughed. Sir Wincombe looked at Billings and said, “My dear man, it won’t do, it won’t do.”

But Billings had evidently decided on this as a stratagem. “Invited me to his room and assaulted me! He must have killed Halifax and Martin, too, the bastard!”

If Billings was bothered by the incredulous faces ranged around the room, staring at him, he didn’t show it. He continued to bellow accusations at Lenox.

“Tell me again, McEwan,” said Carrow, “how you found these two men?”

“Mr. Billings had a knife at Mr. Lenox’s throat. And Mr. Billings said he wanted to have his penknife in Mr. Lenox.”

“What do you say to that, Billings?” asked Carrow in a mild voice.

“Lies! They both did it! I’ll get you, McEwan, you great cow!”

Lenox turned to Carrow. “I would feel most comfortable if he were in the brig of the Lucy. Sir Wincombe?”

“I see no reason why he shouldn’t be transported there.”

“Thank you. Now, if nobody minds, I need two or three hundred hours of sleep to feel myself again. Sir Wincombe, I fear I must cancel my appointments this morning.”

“Of course, Mr. Lenox, of course.”

He slept uneasily, starting out of his rest more than once with a terror. Only when McEwan brought him a glass of sherry at two that afternoon did his nerves settle. He ate ravenously of the lunch McEwan fetched in afterward, quail roasted golden with honey and raisins, cooked in the local fashion, mashed potatoes, and some of the red currant jelly Lady Jane had sent along with him. A cup of tea finally restored him to himself. It had been a harrowing week, and there was more ahead. The next morning he would meet with Ismail the Magnificent.

He went back to the Lucy with a feeling of homecoming, her creaking boards and snapping sails. There was a smile from every sailor he saw. His cabin was empty, but McEwan set that straight soon enough, filling his bookshelves and covering his desk.

When he was settled, he asked McEwan to find his nephew.

Teddy came into his cabin with an anxious, distracted air, and though he seemed truly happy about Lenox’s survival—word had spread around the ship already, and the sailors held the life of Billings, who was in the brig, very cheap indeed—and enjoyed a cup of tea and a biscuit and spoke with Lenox about his one trip into Port Said, and what he had seen, his mien of distracted worry never left him. Nor could Lenox elicit the mood’s cause. Age, perhaps.

After he said good-bye to his nephew Lenox took himself to the quarterdeck, where he said hello to the passing officers, including a curt Mitchell and a chatty Pettegree. Strange to think of how the wardroom had changed in only two weeks.

For the rest of the day he stayed in his cabin and read—first by daylight, and after dusk by candlelight—a