The Devil's Feast

by M. J. Carter

  “The radicals intended to lure the middle to their side, edging out the Whig leaders. They underestimated that the middle had plans of its own, namely the repeal of the Corn Laws, and were happy to defer to the Whigs. Some of the radicals are considering, with the new Chartist petition coming in May, to combine with some ghastly working-class rump. Not, of course, that there is any chance of the petition succeeding.” He smiled his lupine grin.

  “As far as I can tell, all the poisoned men were Whigs,” I said.

  “Were they, indeed? Something to consider. Moving on, what do you know of the ‘international angle’?”

  “I know that the committee are desperate for the banquet to proceed, partly for the club’s reputation, but also because Lord Palmerston hopes to prevent an alliance between Egypt and Russia and a possible war in the Middle East.”

  “Avery, you do surprise me. You know, I used to think you were quite stupid,” he said affably.

  “Do I have to listen to your insults?” I said.

  “I cannot help making my own entertainment.” He smirked. “A little indulgence of mine. I assume, then, that you know about the negotiations, that the Russians are highly suspicious of the prince’s visit and that, if they have come to know about Palmerston’s intentions, they will certainly do their best to subvert them.

  “Perhaps I should also point out that Ibrahim Pasha has plenty of other enemies who would not be sad to see him dead: factions at the Turkish court, groups within Egypt. Especially as his father, Mehmet, who is eighty and sick, cannot last much longer. Should Ibrahim Pasha expire, it would suit his enemies very well if responsibility were laid at the door of a famous French chef or a British political party. It could be in the Russians’ interests, too: it would certainly destroy any possibility of an accord among Britain, Egypt and Turkey. And what a fine case they would have if it were known that, in the weeks before the dinner, there were several poisonings at the club. Shock and horror, thunder and blood, the Reform Club dissolved, the party in ruins. Ibrahim Pasha conveniently dead.”

  “Is this your own view, or one more widely held?”

  “It is, let us say, a view. I merely put what I hear and surmise before you.”

  “It certainly makes it all a good deal more confusing. But none of this matters, as the banquet has been canceled.”

  “My spies tell me you have already made a rather clumsy attempt on the embassy. I think the best policy would be to leave it to us. Baron Brunnov, the ambassador, is, like all Russian nobility, very grand. He certainly would not receive you. I suspect, in any case, that he is ignorant of any felonious goings-on. He is, however, most displeased by Ibrahim Pasha’s visit. There is a Russian spy at the embassy, the military attaché—the Russians have little imagination in these matters—and a number of secret police whose purpose is to watch certain Russian émigrés report to him. But we already have eyes on them.

  “You and Blake will keep to the Reform. In my opinion, the Russians’ most likely stratagem would be to have an agent on the staff. Look at any Germans, in particular.”

  I did not say that Blake had already thought of this.

  “I cannot do anything while I am stuck in here.”

  “As I said, I am about to have you released. We shall both return to the Reform. I have a meeting arranged with the committee. Then you will pass my message on to Blake. Now be a good boy, and help me out of this chair.”

  “I am not a boy, nor yours to command in everything.” The words felt particularly bitter in my mouth.

  He let it pass. “Then I ask you as a gentleman, and the younger man, since I find myself unable to get up.”

  • • •

  I FOUND BLAKE in my room at the Reform.

  “Christ! Where have you been?” I had rarely seen him so animated. “Morel said you were there one minute and gone the next. I went all around St. James’s. Searched every tavern and gambling hell.”

  I explained.

  “That bastard shaver,” was all he said.

  I could not look at him. “Blake, you should leave, take the boat to America.” I turned the faucet and watched the hot water course into the basin. “I must wash and change; there is a meeting with the committee. Then, I’m damned if anything is going to keep me from Duncombe and Molesworth.”

  “I’ve news, too,” he said soberly. “Loin took Matty for questioning. He hasn’t arrested her, but she spent the night at Vine Street station.”

  “But there is no evidence!”

  “Loin thought there was enough to keep her in.”

  “The committee would be delighted if she was arrested,” I said gloomily. “Have you seen her?”

  He shook his head. “Mrs. Relph went with her. If she’s not been released, we’ll visit her later.”

  Then he said, “Collinson must have something up his sleeve that he thinks I truly won’t stomach. He wouldn’t have come down on you so hard otherwise.”

  What it was, we were very soon to find out.

  • • •

  DOWNSTAIRS, Collinson’s hefty presence dominated the golden-lit saloon.

  “Gather them in, gather them in, Mr. Secretary, as fast as you can. You had better make a good showing, or I cannot vouch for anything. And I require coffee and some spirits. I assume you can provide them without poisoning me?”

  Mr. Scott nodded vigorously, his expression slightly appalled.

  “Captain Avery, you finally honor us with your presence,” said Collinson.

  Lord Marcus Hill and Molesworth were waiting, looking very disgruntled. I wondered if they even knew I had been gone. I gave Molesworth my particular attention, as covertly as I could. He was clearly displeased. Collinson, having ignored them up to that moment, suddenly arranged his features into a silkily reassuring smile.

  “Marcus! William! Though I know matters are at a low ebb, may I tell you what a pleasure it is to see you. I am, in this case, not the general but only the messenger. You should know that Lord Palmerston will be here at eleven thirty sharp. He will not require lunch, but I should tell you he is not in the best of moods.”

  “Palmerston?” said Molesworth. “But he never comes here.”

  “The banquet,” said Lord Marcus, frowning.

  “The banquet,” echoed Collinson. “He is displeased with the club’s decision to cancel it. He will not accept it.”

  “He will have to,” said Molesworth.

  “He says it would be too great a blow to the prestige of the party, a diplomatic insult to Ibrahim Pasha, and that it will harm his own position and reputation.”

  “Not all of us would find that so unfortunate an outcome,” murmured Molesworth.

  “He says,” Collinson went on, “that it will make the party and the club a laughingstock.”

  “And what if it kills one or two of his guests? What then becomes of his precious reputation—and ours?” Molesworth drawled.

  “As I say, these are not my words, they are his. And he will be here, I should say, within the hour. Is Soyer about? I think he should be present.”

  “Sir Theo, we cannot host the banquet. Can you not weave your magic?” said Lord Marcus.

  “I am afraid we are too far gone for that. When he arrives, I suggest you have a quorum of the committee and, of course, Soyer. Where is he?”

  Lord Marcus Hill looked at Scott, who looked blank.

  “At home?” I ventured.

  “I suggest you collect him, Avery.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, grateful for an excuse to leave, though I had no idea where he lived.

  • • •

  BLAKE WAS DOZING again on my bed. I shook him awake.

  “Lord Palmerston is coming to the Reform at eleven thirty. He is going to insist the banquet take place. The committee are horrified. I have been deputized to bring Soyer. I have no idea where he lives.”<
br />
  “Palmerston, eh. That’s a facer.”

  “What—no, you cannot know him?”

  “Executed a small commission for him once. Doubt he’d remember me.”

  “A small commission?”

  He let his mouth twitch upward but said nothing.

  “What shall we do?”

  “Go and fetch Soyer.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Soyer’s lodgings took up the first floor of a rambling brick town house on Charing Cross Road, with a battered front door and rackety stairs. Inside, Blake stopped before a solid, if equally battered, black door, at which he knocked briskly. There was no answer. He rapped again, and at last we began to hear sluggish noises. The door was opened eventually by a maid in an apron and a headscarf holding a duster.

  “Begging your pardon, sirs, but he don’t want to see no one.”

  Blake smiled briefly at her as he pushed past and walked to the end of the short, paneled corridor. I felt obliged to apologize for his brusqueness, and followed.

  We came into a cluttered parlor that could not have been less like Soyer’s domain at the Reform. A chaos of clothes, plates, squashed cushions and papers—papers, especially—and general debris littered the floor. On a chair was an elderly plate with a dried-out cheese rind. Soyer’s zoug-zoug hat lay forlornly in a corner. Beneath the disarray the lineaments of an attractive room could be glimpsed: the dining table was a fine piece of walnut, there was a handsome Chesterfield and new curtains hung at the long, small-paned windows.

  In the middle of this, clothed but very crumpled, his hatless head on the Chesterfield, his mouth dribbling slightly, lay Soyer.

  Blake gave him a shake, and he took a great snorting breath and sat up suddenly, blinking several times.

  “Didn’t think you slept, Soyer.”

  “Blake—I mean—” He looked about anxiously, in case someone had heard him.

  “It is just Avery and I, come to fetch you. Lord Palmerston is arriving at the club at eleven thirty.”

  “Lord Palmerston! Merde!” He sprang up, yawning, and rubbed his face. “What have we to serve him?” Then remembrance caught up with him, and he said, “But it is not what you call a sociable visit, is it?”

  Blake shook his head. “Avery says he wants the banquet to go ahead.”

  For a moment, Soyer’s face lit up with hope; almost at once, this was extinguished. “But it is impossible! And I cannot come—I have too much to do.”

  “Too much to do?” I said.

  “I told you yesterday. My soup kitchen. I will not put it off a moment longer. I decided to bring forward the commencement. My suppliers and volunteers are all ready. It will produce its first meals tomorrow night.”

  “The same day as the banquet.”

  “The banquet is canceled.”

  “Palmerston is going to insist that it take place,” I said. “You must be there to make your case.”

  Soyer yawned. “I will clothe myself.” He stumbled across the room and out into the hallway. Blake followed him.

  “Have you written to Emma?”

  Soyer disappeared through another door. “She will return in two weeks, maybe three.”

  “You have not told her about the club?”

  Soyer did not answer.

  “She will not thank you for it, and you need her here.”

  Soyer called out, “I will not fail before her. I promised her success.”

  Blake shrugged. “You are a fool, Alexis.”

  “Sans aucun doute. In many things.”

  Soyer appeared at the door. He was dressed in dark gray—a loose coat with velvet lapels and trousers of the same somber hue. The colors of mourning did not suit him as his peacock duds did. He rubbed his eyes.

  He went into the parlor, picked up a small enamel box, extracted from it a grain and placed it on his tongue. The box disappeared into his pocket.

  “What’s that?” asked Blake.

  “Dr. Alighieri’s proprietary powder tonic.” He took a deep breath, thrust out his chest, squared his shoulders and seemed in an instant to slough off his former fatigue and sobriety.

  • • •

  WE LEFT BLAKE in Trafalgar Square, then Soyer and I went on to the Reform. Lord Marcus and Molesworth were in the Strangers’ Room. Ellice and Beare had now joined them. Collinson had remained in the saloon. Molesworth had positioned himself before the window.

  “Lord ‘Pumice-stone’ arrives,” he observed. Ellice shook his wobbling chops disapprovingly.

  Lord Palmerston, former Whig Home Secretary and architect of the recent war with China (which his supporters said was a triumph for free trade, his enemies that it had forced a nation into dependence on the demon opium but which everyone agreed was about to end in British victory), drew up in a fashionable phaeton, his coat of arms painted on the side. He emerged from the carriage at a leisurely pace, sauntered up the steps of the Reform, as a footman raced to open doors for him, into the porter’s lobby and on to the saloon.

  He was old—he was, after all, fifty-seven—if well kept, and exceedingly sure of himself. He was generally held, even now, to be handsome. I did not see it myself, though his features were very defined. A high forehead and luxuriant curly hair, gray at the temples, side whiskers running down almost to his collar. Straight brows, the eyes brown and knowing, the skin beneath bunched and lined. A thin, pointed nose—no doubt his supporters called it aquiline. The mouth composed into a supercilious almost-smile. It was clear he considered himself the superior of everyone around him. A tight-fitting black frock coat with velvet lapels, a just-glimpsed gray silk waistcoat. A silver-topped cane and a top hat in his hands. He was, of course, famous for his amours and dalliances, and his wife, the former Lady Cowper, was said to be no better. They had no children, but it was widely rumored that he had fathered three of hers while she was still married to Lord Cowper.

  I wondered what my father would have made of him. Something upon the lines of “Get him in yer sights, shoot him ’twixt the eyes.”

  “Lord Palmerston, it is a great pleasure to welcome you to the Reform Club,” said Lord Marcus, coming forward to greet him.

  “A pleasure to be here, Marcus,” said Lord Palmerston noncommittally, at the same time looking around as if he owned the place. “How is your delightful young bride?”

  “She does very well, and asked that I remember her to you.”

  “Lovely creature. Sir Theo,” he said, catching sight of Collinson, “I see you preceded me. As in so many things.” He gave a small, dry smile. Collinson bowed and gave one of his own.

  Palmerston turned again. “Monsieur Soyer, always a pleasure.”

  Soyer smiled his brightest, liveliest smile and bowed deeply, his hat once again miraculously failing to topple off. “Ah non, milord, the pleasure is all mine.”

  “May we show you into the library?” said Lord Marcus. “And provide you with some tea, or spirits? As you may know, our offerings at the moment are, unfortunately, rather limited . . .”

  “Thank you, Lord Marcus, I should like a glass of port but I am rather short of time. We must speak. Monsieur Soyer, Mr. Ellice, Captain Beare, and you, too, Collinson. At once.” Molesworth, I realized, he had not summoned. Molesworth looked confused.

  “Of course, sir,” said Lord Marcus.

  “If I may, Your Lordship,” said Collinson smoothly, “you might also wish to interview the young man who has been looking into the, ah, circumstances at the Reform, Captain Avery.”

  Palmerston nodded absently. “Him, too, then,” he said.

  The doors of the library began to close. Molesworth was left standing outside. Before they had shut entirely, I watched his face move from incomprehension to absolute fury.

  A number of chairs had been set out informally, but it was clear that Lord Palmerston planned to stand, while we we
re expected to sit like schoolboys, and so we did. The half smile had disappeared; now, he was all cold-eyed business.

  “I shall be brief. The Ibrahim Pasha banquet must go ahead. No ifs, no buts.”

  “Your Lordship,” said Lord Marcus patiently, “the matter was debated at length by the committee, and it was decided that, under the circumstances, it would be too dangerous—”

  “The banquet will take place,” Palmerston interrupted. “The party’s dignity requires it, the country’s security demands it. If it is canceled, Ibrahim Pasha will take it as a personal slight, and all our careful diplomacy will be undone. Egypt will go with Russia. We will be obliged to back Turkey. There will be war, an ugly one. We will have to participate to maintain the balance of power, to protect our land routes to India. And we cannot afford it; matters are difficult enough in England. We must win Ibrahim Pasha over. Then there is the shame the party will face—I need hardly say what the papers will make of it—if the banquet is canceled. Whatever divisions there are among us just now, they must be reconciled. We must show a united front at a time when the Tories would see us fall apart. Any and all obstacles must be overcome, and these absurd rumors must be laid to rest. We are, after all, British.”

  “What rumors?” Lord Marcus asked carefully.

  “This nonsense about someone dying at the club.”

  “But, milord,” Soyer said, “men have died and—”

  “One man—and, as I understand it, it may well have been his own fault.”

  There was a silence. Incensed, I looked over at Lord Marcus, who did not meet my gaze.