A Grave Celebration Read online

  “Madame Harper, you may be more comfortable resting aboard Newport while your husband assists us.”

  While the man had no idea how true his statement was, Violet was determined otherwise. “I would not, monsieur, but thank you for your concern.”

  The Frenchman adopted the tone of a parent talking to a child. “It may seem very exciting what we are to do, madame, but it is work dangereux, not fit for your delicate sensibilities.”

  Violet had faced this same patronizing attitude in many situations many times over, yet it still rankled.

  “Monsieur,” she said, adopting the same air of exaggerated patience, “you may recall that I have just examined a burnt body, that of a man who was unfortunately taken away before I could properly attend to him.” She flashed a look of irritation at Pasha. “I have also witnessed my husband’s use of dynamite and can assure you it holds no terror for me.”

  “Nevertheless, I do believe—”

  Sam held up a hand. “Monsieur de Lesseps, my wife will stay with me.”

  With that finality, they boarded a small boat with two sails in an odd V-shape, which was quickly loaded with the necessary tools and explosives. Would that Violet’s hearse could be loaded up with a coffin, flowers, and draperies in such quick order.

  They quickly sailed the fifteen miles to the scene where the ship was lodged. Workers had already arrived there, traveling by land along the canal’s shoreline, and brightly burning torches illuminated the ship, a brig. It listed to one side like a drunken sailor, its sails dangling unhappily in the water.

  “Interesting,” Sam said quietly to her. “Brigs are a favorite of pirates.”

  After disembarking, the men sloshed their way onto the hull of the ship, scrambling onto it like half-drowned monkeys. Violet couldn’t argue that she should be allowed to follow them, as drenched skirts would have been lead weights on her. She paced nervously while the men thumped around on the ship, wondering how they would decide to break the ship away from where it was.

  Several Egyptians remained on shore with Violet, their eyes downcast and avoiding contact with hers.

  The air was chilly now, making Violet wish she had gone aboard Newport first to retrieve her wrap, but there was little to do about it now. She continued pacing and rubbing her arms, much to the obvious discomfort of the khedive’s workers, who were nervously avoiding her as though she were plague-ridden.

  Sudden shouts in Arabic from aboard the ship captured both Violet’s attention and that of the workers. The khedive’s figure appeared as he stood on the hull, barking instructions and pointing at the two men nearest Violet. They reacted instantly, and she realized they were Hassan and Rashad, the ones who had probably carried off the lumberyard owner’s son earlier.

  The two men scrambled into the water and onto the ship, and soon disappeared as they followed the khedive belowdecks.

  To Violet’s great dismay, the two servants soon emerged, struggling with a body that was clearly not that of just a drunken sailor.

  Not again.

  Gritting her teeth against the jostling indignity being served to the corpse, Violet was about to shout her own admonishment at the men when—splash!—the body left their grip and tumbled into the water, sinking below the surface.

  Muttering oaths, Violet instinctively ran to the edge of the embankment, frustrated that she could find no way to easily enter the water shy of diving in, soaking her heavy skirts, and possibly drowning herself.

  The other workers, realizing what she was doing, were now yelling at her, their Arabic clearly expressing their displeasure. One even approached her, angry and red-faced enough that he forgot to avoid eye contact.

  “Lady, shore. Shore!” This was followed by a string of Arabic Violet couldn’t understand but, combined with his insistent hand gestures, took to mean that he would forcibly restrain her if necessary.

  She backed away, having no desire to cause an international incident, but paced and fretted as the men clumsily dragged the body out of the water and shoved it up the embankment. Gritting her teeth, she ran to the body, ignoring the outraged chattering of the men behind her.

  “Mr. Salib?” Violet asked of the man who had spoken English to her earlier at the lumberyard. He flashed his smile again. Good Lord, the man was handsome, Violet thought, then was immediately stricken with guilt over such a disloyal idea.

  “Please, my lady, you will call me Hassan.”

  “Very well. Hassan, did you not tell me you are the khedive’s cultural attaché? Why are you here, doing such work?” She knelt down before the body, knowing instinctively she wouldn’t like whatever it was she would find.

  Hassan’s expression was suddenly pained. “The khedive is a very, er, mistrustful master. He trusts me, and therefore asks me to do things of a . . . politically sensitive nature . . . that he would not ask of others. That is why I am here now. You can imagine the inferno of gossip that ordinary servants would start over this. As it is, I will have to sternly rebuke and threaten all the men standing here before returning to Port Said.”

  “I see,” she said, flicking a glance at Rashad.

  Hassan responded immediately to her unspoken question. “He is merely a porter, but he is also my brother, so the khedive extends trust to him, as well. It is good that he doesn’t speak much English, you understand.”

  Violet nodded and turned her attention to the second body she had encountered in mere hours. “What happened to him?”

  “We do not know, my lady. We found him curled around the wheel on the quarterdeck. The ship’s mates have run off, I imagine to avoid any blame in the situation.”

  “But if the captain was inebriated, why would they be incriminated?” Violet asked.

  Hassan smiled grimly. “There must always be someone to blame, my lady, and my master is quick to blame the wrong people when something goes wrong. It is wise not to be in Pasha’s sight when blame is assigned. May I assist you in what you are doing?”

  “Not yet.” How poetic was it that the first body had been burned and this one was now drenched? She ran expert hands over the man, obviously the captain by the look of his jacket, with its shoulder epaulets containing an anchor design. Presumably this was meant to imitate a naval uniform. He was a middle-aged man with a full head of dark hair, sodden and disarrayed, and also a very full paunch, so certainly a man who enjoyed his beer. Violet gently ran her fingers through the man’s waterlogged hair, feeling his scalp. Hmm, there were several lumps on his head. She knew he had fallen while drunk, so they were probably from his head hitting the deck, combined with more injury when the ship ran aground.

  Still . . .

  “Hassan, will you have a torch brought over here so I can examine this man more closely?” she said.

  The man frowned and looked back at the ship, where the khedive and the others still worked. “My lady, please, this man must be removed as quickly as possible. You understand?”

  Violet was beginning to understand too well. “Yes. But I must finish what I am doing first. This man deserves to be properly prepared for burial.”

  “The khedive, he—he does not necessarily care about this man’s disposition. He wishes to please de Lesseps. Besides, you do not know Egyptian burial customs . . .” Hassan’s words faltered as he glanced nervously at the ship again.

  “Actually, I have visited a mausoleum since my arrival and I know—”

  “That may be, my lady, but I cannot impress upon you urgently enough that Pasha will have his way in all things. You know nothing of our culture, my lady, and I must insist that we—”

  “Enough, sir,” Violet snapped, determined to finish her examination. “I realize the khedive is the most important man in your country, and I will be most happy to explain to him why this second man was not immediately whisked away for anonymous burial. But for the moment, I will be left alone to my task.”

  The khedive’s man opened his mouth to say something else, then bowed his head and stepped away, taking his brothe
r with him. He issued instructions in Arabic to a man standing nearby, and in moments Violet had two torches flaring nearby.

  The illumination from the torches was, well, most illuminating.

  The captain had an expansive and protuberant bruise on his face, covering half of one side of it. Violet placed her hands on either side of his face. Yes, the lump was very large and mottled. “You took a terrible tumble, sir. A most unfortunate outcome of your activities.”

  She quickly unbuttoned the brass buttons of his jacket, hoping the others were too focused on the khedive’s movements to observe her own actions too closely. The jacket was heavy from its soaking, but she pushed the sides apart and pulled up his loosely constructed shirt over his considerable girth.

  What Violet saw caused her to immediately sit back up as she suppressed a gasp. The captain’s chest was a mass of blue and purple bruising, too.

  So he had fallen, striking both the side of his face and his chest prior to actual death. Except that his stomach showed no signs of bruising at all. And wouldn’t his protruding midsection have hit the decking first?

  In fact, wasn’t his stomach large enough that his chest wouldn’t have struck the decking at all?

  Greatly disturbed by the conclusion to which she was leaping, Violet quickly closed the captain’s shirt and jacket. There had to be a logical explanation for this, she thought, returning again to her knees and playing out his accident in her mind. Could he have fallen unconscious against the wheel, then dropped to the ground and hit his head? If so, the bruising on his chest would be minimal, and there was still the man’s paunch in the way.

  Could he have fallen to the ground and hit his head, thus being killed, and then been struck in the chest as the ship ran aground? Hassan and Rashad had found him wrapped around the wheel’s shaft, which was surely constructed of a sturdy wood like teak or mahogany.

  She shook her head. If he had been hit in the chest after death, he wouldn’t have bruised. No, there was only one logical conclusion to be reached.

  The captain might have been in his cups, but he had been violently struck prior to death, and Violet was quite sure it was this attack that had killed him.

  Was it merely a coincidence that she had discovered two bodies in a few short hours that both had met horrific ends? She prayed it was so, but years of undertaking experience whispered to her that suspicion was better than optimism in this case. She had to report her conclusions, although she wasn’t sure whether the khedive or de Lesseps would be willing to take any actions. Perhaps she should—

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud screeching noise coming from the grounded ship. She scrambled up, her heart pounding erratically. What on earth had just happened?

  Chapter 8

  It was clear soon enough that the men had somehow managed to dislodge the ship from the embankment and the piercing noise had been made as the hulk had been mostly righted. She was still bedraggled and listing, though, and Violet saw that workers were carrying familiar packaged bundles onto the ship.

  They were planning to blow up the ship rather than try to sail her.

  Violet knew her husband was probably as happy as a lark doing this work. His efforts at bringing dynamite to British coal mining had not gone well, partly because of the location he had chosen for it, but also because of the government’s—particularly Queen Victoria’s—horrified view of the substance. No one seemed to understand what Sam had, that very first time he witnessed dynamite in action. It was powerful but could be controlled more effectively than other explosives.

  Dynamite was still not in common use, so Violet had to give credit to the khedive for actually employing it this time. But perhaps de Lesseps had used it for dredging the canal and so deserved the credit. Either way—

  “Clear! Clear!” Sam was shouting, having emerged onto the deck. He gestured with his hands for everyone to get out of the way as he himself left the ship, which brought Violet back to her own issue at hand, the ship’s captain.

  “Hassan, we must move the captain farther ashore,” she called out blindly, not seeing him among the men moving away from the area near the ship.

  The khedive’s cultural attaché did not respond. Violet glanced at the ground and immediately understood why.

  Once again, a body had been spirited off from right under her nose.

  

  The earsplitting cacophony and brilliant light display of the dynamite put the evening’s earlier fireworks to shame, but could hardly be compared to the fury about to erupt from Violet Harper. Whereas she once had been deafened and startled to near insensibility by a dynamite explosion she witnessed at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor, today she merely reached both arms out to keep steady despite the rocking ground beneath her. The noise couldn’t overcome the blood pounding through her ears, and the sight didn’t obliterate her own vision of personally boxing Hassan’s ears, for surely he was the one who had removed the captain’s body.

  When she next saw him, she would—

  Sam had materialized next to her, proud as a prince. “Did you see it? It was a beauty! They’ll need to dredge the flotsam, but it shouldn’t take long. The canal should be fixed as fast as greased lightning.”

  Violet opened her mouth to tell her husband what had happened and how infuriated she was, but the joy on his face stopped her. Why tarnish his success? She would simply confront the khedive or de Lesseps—or, by heavens, both of them—herself regarding their insensitive treatment of these poor dead men. It was not to be tolerated.

  The return trip was mostly dark and silent: just a few oil lanterns illuminated their way back to Port Said, and the only sounds around Violet were those of breathing, coughing, and the occasional flaring of a pungent cigar. Sam fairly hummed with satisfaction at her side, while she steamed like a Colchester oyster in a pot of scalding water.

  As they neared the port, Violet knew she had to say something, lest her shell burst open. “Monsieur de Lesseps, may I speak with you privately?” she said, approaching the Frenchman, whose cigar smoke was engulfing the khedive’s head as the two spoke of something concerning the next day’s events.

  De Lesseps graciously nodded his head and followed her several steps away from everyone else. Unfortunately, the khedive seemed to think the invitation included him, and was right on their heels. Well, there was no help for it, and perhaps it was better for the khedive to hear what she had to say.

  “Monsieur, I would like you to know that I inspected the captain’s body when it was brought ashore,” Violet began. “I believe—”

  “This is a peculiarity of yours, Madame Harper,” de Lesseps said, not unkindly. “Inspecting dead bodies. For what, I cannot imagine. How can this work possibly be of interest to a woman?”

  So much time wasted in her life perpetually explaining to people why the dead deserved the living’s utmost respect. Violet started the speech she had uttered so many times before. “We are all destined to be one of those lifeless bodies. It is my sacred duty to ensure that the deceased, who can no longer care for themselves, make their way to their final resting places in a respectful manner. We would all wish to be treated thusly when we die.”

  De Lesseps looked unconvinced. “You are idealistic, Madame Harper. I would wager to say that most people in the world are tossed into anonymous graves, with no ceremony and no lamentation.”

  Violet drew herself up as tall as she could. “That may well be, but bodies under my care will always be buried with dignity.”

  “I see.” De Lesseps’s expression was inscrutable.

  Violet realized that the man had successfully changed the subject. Refusing to be put off, she said, “And because of my interest in the proper care of the dead, I must inform you that I do not believe that the captain died of a fall from being in his cups. He had bruising that was not consistent with falling. I think—”

  Now de Lesseps’s expression was perfectly readable. “This again, Madame Harper? You have a decidedly suspicious mind. Pasha her
e says the man was known to love beer, although how he could tolerate the swill these Egyptians make, I don’t know.”

  Next to him, the khedive made a rumbling noise in his throat, but did not add comment.

  Violet was becoming greatly irritated with de Lesseps’s cavalier attitude toward the dead men. “It is not ‘this again,’ ” she protested angrily. “I tell you that neither of these men died by accident. Each of them was murdered, although why and by whom I cannot begin to fathom. Unfortunately, both bodies were whisked away before I was able to properly inspect them. Whether or not this is deliberate or coincidental, I also cannot say. But these men deserved more than just—how did you put it, monsieur?—anonymous graves and a lack of lamentation. I will see that they have it.”

  Violet huffed as she completed her impassioned speech, and realized that her fists were tightly clenched at her sides. She slowly relaxed them. There was no sense in causing her own apoplexy.

  De Lesseps was quiet for several moments, studying her. She refused to break his gaze, yet was aware that the khedive was waiting anxiously for the Frenchman’s response.

  “Very well, Madame Harper,” he said slowly. “I can see that you are a determined woman. Although I doubt there ees this sinister plot afoot, these deaths do put the festivities at risk. And since you were once helpful to me in my unfortunate blackmail situation, you may quietly—how did you put it?—see that they have more than anonymity. But if your little investigation interferes with the events in Ismailia over the next few days, I’ll have you scuttled back home on the first steamer I can find.”

  The khedive cleared his throat. “My friend, both of these men will be buried by now. What investigation will the lady perform?”

  De Lesseps shrugged in apparent dismissal. “We will allow her to play at this until she realizes that sometimes the most obvious answer ees truly the answer—that men frequently die by accident or through their own stupidity.”