“I am sad because my husband is imprisoned here, most unjustly,” she said.
Tewfik frowned. “It is not unjust if he has killed another man. He will be put to death for it.”
Tewfik might as well have run Violet through with a sword for how badly his words cut her. “But he did not do it,” she insisted. “My husband had no motive for it, nor did any of the others he is with.”
“Then who did do it?”
“I don’t know.” Violet’s unhappiness rode on the wave of those three perpetual words rolling off her tongue.
Tewfik shrugged. “Then this subject no longer interests me. Come, I have a treat for you.”
Violet was still grappling with his dismissal of her situation when he led her to a grove of palm trees, which had large bundles of finger-shaped, molasses-colored fruit dangling from their branches, too high to be reached by hand. “Here,” he said, pointing to a large urn that was attached to one of the trees. A tap was inserted into the tree, and thick juice from the tree was slowly dripping into the urn.
They approached the urn, where Tewfik dipped his finger inside and pulled it out, sucking the amber juice that dripped from it. “You must try.”
Violet obediently followed suit, and found the sap to be sweet and delicious.
“You like?” Tewfik asked, his delighted expression revealing that he already knew the answer.
“It is very good,” Violet admitted.
“We cannot reach the dates, but the sap is in some ways even better. In the Qur’an, Allah instructs Maryim to eat dates when she gives birth to Isa. Therefore, in Egypt we always recommend them for pregnant women.” Tewfik’s gaze was suggestive.
Oh dear.
Violet thought quickly, and decided to appeal to his pride as heir to the khedive. “Which means you should have plenty of dates on hand when your father arranges what will surely be a brilliant marriage for you.”
“My father.” He said this flatly. “He cannot die soon enough.”
The words made Violet shiver. Was she safe here with this boy about to become a man?
“Why are you at odds with him?” she asked.
Tewfik offered the typical woes of son versus father, which apparently changed neither from generation to generation, nor from culture to culture. Pasha was controlling, vindictive, and condescending; Tewfik was smart, honorable, and visionary. Pasha’s view of Egypt’s future was brainless; Tewfik’s made sense.
“What is your view for Egypt?” Violet asked.
“Egypt must be for Egyptians, of course. My father has permitted far too many foreigners to come in, not only to work on the canal but to set up permanent encampments. Not even the fellahin have the opportunity to do the lowliest jobs because of them.”
Violet was reminded of what de Lesseps had told her after she had overheard Tewfik’s argument with his father. “There is a Colonel Orabi who agrees with you, isn’t there?”
Tewfik seemed pleased that she knew this. “Yes. He tries to carry this message of nationalism about, but he needs money to build his enterprise, which is hard to accumulate with the waste my father has brought upon the country.”
“Waste of money is better than waste of life, is it not?” she said.
“Is this about your husband again, my lady? I can find you another one. In fact, once I am married to an Ottoman princess, I can add you to my harem of women. You would be well cared for. It would please me to have an exotic woman like yourself. I have my eye on a few others, too.”
Violet was aghast at what he was suggesting. This required tact. “I’m afraid I would be a poor companion to you, as I would mourn my husband too much. As I mourn him now.”
“Why do you mourn him now?” Tewfik reached into the urn for another fingerful of sap.
This was her final opportunity. “Because he is being held in terrible conditions. All of the men are heaped into one cell with no light and the most unsanitary conditions and little food,” she said in a rush.
He considered this as he wiped his finger across the front of his jacket. “How do you know about their conditions, my lady?”
In her anxiety over Sam, Violet realized she had made a foolish, foolish mistake. “I—ah, I overheard some men talking about it.”
Fortunately, Tewfik was still young enough that he couldn’t quickly think through the unlikelihood of Violet’s statement, and he accepted it as is. However, his next statement nearly made Violet slap him, no matter that he was the khedive’s son.
“I don’t see that their circumstances are poor at all. My father has not given any order for torture or beatings, so their treatment has been exceedingly gentle. Besides, I would be a half-wit to want him released, wouldn’t I?” Tewfik’s smile was almost wolfish. “Enough of this talk about your husband. Would you like to see my collection of stuffed gorillas at the palace? I am thinking of expanding into antelopes, although they are a little harder to obtain.”
What Violet wanted was a place away from this silly, spoiled boy. Presumably he would mature in the coming years, but right now the thought of him taking his father’s place as khedive over Egypt was nauseating.
“I’m afraid I must see to some things before the flotilla leaves again for Port Said. I am grateful to you for offering to show me what I’m sure is a fascinating array of animals.” Violet couldn’t get away from Tewfik quickly enough.
He was yet another failure in her effort to see Sam released.
Violet managed to find Hassan again and begged him to escort her to Sam once more. The cultural attaché was hesitant.
“My lady, you know that this could mean great trouble for me.”
“I promise that I will only be moments with my husband. Please, sir. I cannot leave Ismailia without having seen him again.” If Hassan denied her, Violet swore to herself that she would dig a tunnel into the jail with her own two hands.
Hassan sighed. “Very well, but quickly, my lady.”
She followed him down the staircase of the prison building once more. All of the men looked as if they had aged ten years in two days, and Violet’s heart broke in pity, but she tried to maintain a hearty outlook. “I believe we will have a resolution soon,” she told them before she once again went with Sam to a private cell to talk.
Once there, Sam spoke first. “Keating confessed to me that it was Louise-Hélène’s maid, Isabelle, that he has been seeing in private. He didn’t want anyone to know because he had promised to take her with him back to America. She is an old friend of Louise-Hélène’s, who hired Isabelle to help her escape an abusive husband. Keating plans to make her escape permanent.”
So Julie wasn’t completely wrong about Isabelle, and Louise-Hélène had been helping her friend in this. That explained a little, anyway, but told Violet nothing about who had killed Caleb Purdy or the other men.
She told Sam what precious little she had gleaned from de Lesseps, Eugénie, and Tewfik, leaving out Tewfik’s boorish behavior.
“What now?” Sam asked, his eyes bleary and his unshaven cheeks scraggly.
“I will solve this, I promise,” Violet assured her husband with a confidence she didn’t feel.
“My lady, it is time to go.” Hassan stood in the cell’s doorway. “I have been notified that the khedive is nearby. I cannot risk this. If he should decide to visit these men . . .”
Violet nodded, embracing Sam for what she prayed was not the last time, and followed Hassan quickly out of the building.
Fortunately, Pasha had instead decided to attend a shadow-puppet play on the other side of the canal, and was hopefully too busy with de Lesseps, Eugénie, Franz-Josef, and the rest to remember that he was planning to issue judgment on the Americans. Violet breathed a sigh of relief when Hassan translated Pasha’s whereabouts to her from one of the guards.
“Tomorrow the flotilla returns to Port Said,” Hassan said, stating the obvious. “What shall you do?”
“I will know who did this before the flotilla sails.
What more is there?” Violet then thanked Hassan for his assistance, but as she turned to leave, she remembered something. “Do you know what happened to the dead American, Sergeant Purdy?”
“No, my lady. The khedive handled it without me. I am sorry.” He bowed formally to her.
Violet returned to the festivities, furious about Purdy, in agony over Sam, and thoroughly bewildered about the evil activities occurring along the Suez Canal.
Violet made her way back to the edge of the pavilion area, where she saw that most of the delegation was focused on the puppet show, while others were drifting toward a stage that had been set for a play. She stayed a distance away, simply observing, for she had no heart for any festivities. Eventually, the puppet show finished to great applause, and everyone attending it made their way to the stage, as well.
Pasha was providing entertainment until the very last minute, to ensure that no guest would have a single moment to consider anything other than personal pleasure. It truly was sheer genius.
Pasha stood on the stage now, and announced that he had a surprise for the audience. Instead of being performed at a future date in the Cairo opera house, Mariette’s opera, Aida, was to be premiered here in Ismailia. Now. Performers and musicians had been working day and night to ensure that the delegation would be the first to see it.
The crowd went wild. Auguste Mariette took to the stage to receive his due, as well.
As everyone else was distracted by the presentation, Violet noticed that workers were actively dismantling the pomp and splendor of Ismailia in the background. She watched idly as several men stripped jasmine garlands from gazebos, fencing, and tent posts.
This is it, then. After the performance, everyone will return to the tents for a final night of sleep in the sweet Egyptian air; then they will board their ships and depart tomorrow morning for a final farewell at Port Said.
Two men carried a trunk that must have been full of bricks based on how much they struggled with it.
The delegation members will then return to their home countries, with no one caring at all about four men in a prison cell.
She turned to one side. More men were tearing down fencing, stacking the pieces in piles, and Violet could only assume they would be used elsewhere.
Pasha, when he finally remembers Sam, Thaddeus, Ross, and Owen, will simply go and pronounce them guilty.
A half dozen workers watched another one knock down tentpoles, while they stood by to capture sections of fabric in their hands and roll them up.
Once they are pronounced guilty, they will be taken to a place of execution. How are executions conducted in Egypt?
Something clicked again in Violet’s mind, like another door opening somewhere in a house. Then another door opened, and another.
She whirled around once more to watch the two men with the trunk, now hefting it onto a cart attached to a patiently waiting horse. Click. Click. Click. All of the doors were opening, revealing to her an answer that was so breathtakingly malevolent that she nearly staggered from the weight of the revelation as various statements and events meshed together in her mind like the gears and wheels of a finely made clock.
The condition of the ship captain’s body . . .
The observation of the American Colonel Mott that the Austrian Dorn had not been in a fight . . .
The playwright Richard Lepsius’s tale of ancient Egypt . . .
The Museum of Cairo director Mariette’s witnessing Mott berate an Egyptian soldier . . .
The hysterical demonstration by Eugénie’s maid, Julie, outside the party at Pasha’s palace . . .
There was only one answer as to who had attempted to kill Violet, as well. Yes, Violet knew what had happened, but she needed to verify one simple thing to be sure.
Sam, keep faith, I have the truth now, and the truth will set you free.
Chapter 30
Violet located Franz-Josef. He sat ramrod straight in his chair next to Eugénie, looking positively bored with Mariette’s story of ancient Egypt. When Violet demanded that she be taken aboard his ship, his expression was one of relief as he stood to escort her himself, when in ordinary circumstances Violet knew he would have been insulted and cold, leaving such a petty task to a servant.
As she and the emperor boarded, the trumpeters started up again. Violet was so agitated by what she had to do that as she was helped down to the deck she snapped, “For heaven’s sake, will you please stop that infernal racket!”
The horn blasts faded into sputters as the shocked musicians actually obeyed her.
Not caring whether Franz-Josef, or anyone else, was behind her, she made her way down to Karl Dorn’s cabin, murmuring prayers that his body would still be there and not whisked away overnight to some watery grave.
To Violet’s relief, Dorn was still there. So was the lingering odor of the makeshift embalming fluid, although it wasn’t nearly as overpowering as it had initially been. She intentionally cleared her mind of its jumble of thoughts to concentrate on Dorn, adopting her usual kneeling pose next to the body and whispering, “Herr Dorn, I see that my husband has done his job most satisfactorily. You have been well wrapped by him, and I believe you are in perfect shape for the remainder of your journey home. Forgive my intrusion on your temporary resting place, but I must check something.”
She dropped down farther to look under his bedstead. The trunk she had tripped over and shoved under the bed when caring for Dorn’s body was no longer there. Violet returned to her kneeling position next to Dorn. “I believe I know why you died, sir, and I am sorry for it. Be assured, though, that I am preparing to accuse a murderer in our midst, and your death was not in vain.”
She patted the man’s shoulder and rose to leave.
“Did you find what you wanted, Frau Harper?” Franz-Josef said from outside the doorway. He hadn’t entered, but then most monarchs, by superstitious custom, were not permitted to be in the presence of death, lest it come and visit the throne itself.
“I did not, actually, Your Highness, and therefore everything I suspected I now know to be true.”
There had been so many liars in Violet’s presence. Some of their lies were irrelevant, meant to cover up love affairs and other foolish activities. But the other lies—the cleverest of the lies—had been intended to throw Violet’s suspicion in every direction except where it belonged.
She had to give credit to the murderer’s calculating flair.
Chapter 31
Violet had never been one for dramatics, leaving that sort of thing to family members who were crazed with grief. Violet’s role was more that of a mere stage manager, ensuring that all went well and that the staging of the funeral was executed flawlessly, while the actors and actresses carried out the sometimes genuine, sometimes affected histrionics that accompanied the mourning play.
On this day, however, Violet mounted the stage where the actors were in their final scene of Mariette’s story. A man and a woman in ancient Egyptian dress sat huddled together in a set that resembled a temple. No, wait, it was meant to be a crypt.
Well, that was certainly an appropriate backdrop for what Violet had to say.
Someone—probably the director—was hissing at Violet from somewhere to depart from his stage, as the musicians slowly ended their playing and the two people onstage trailed off in their singing of the sweet and beautiful death they were about to experience together.
What an ignoramus Mariette was in this story line, Violet thought, even as she was barging in on the sorrowful scene. The dead deserved honor, respect, and sentimental remembrances by those who remained behind and grieved, but death itself was a messy business, and not to be sung of as some alluring and desirable release.
The audience, by now well used to constant entertainments and stunning spectacles, viewed Violet’s intrusion as some interesting new development in the play—despite her modern dress against the ancient Egyptian sets and costumes—and applauded her appearance politely.
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br /> “I apologize for my trespass upon this last of the festivities,” she began, amazed at how the set construction was such that her voice reverberated around her and projected out over the crowds.
“My name is Violet Harper, and I am a member of the British delegation. Queen Victoria honored my husband and me with an invitation to attend the Suez Canal celebrations, and although Monsieur de Lesseps and the khedive have provided unending pageantry and delights, to which most of you have been happy spectators, I have witnessed death and ruin and devastation during our journey along the canal.
“Aida presents the death of two lovers as romantic, but what has been occurring over the past week has been the extreme of evil.” Violet paused, gathering her thoughts and her nerve for the accusations to come.
Hushed whispering rippled through the audience, but at least the likes of de Lesseps and Pasha had not attempted to stop her. In fact, the two men were seated close to the stage, openmouthed in shock.
Tewfik sat two rows back from his father, naked admiration for Violet in his expression.
As Violet continued to speak, she saw more delegation members she recognized. Eugénie sat with Franz-Josef, naturally. What remarkable, almost animal instincts he had for finding Eugénie and placing himself in her orbit.
Crown Prince Frederick sat with a group of other Prussians who were pointing at Violet as they gossiped, but he stared straight at her, smiling enigmatically.
The Russians, Grand Duke Michael and General Ignatiev, looked so bored they might have been corpses themselves in their seats.
Sir Henry Elliot, Asa Brooks, and the Prince of Wales seemed delighted by Violet’s bold interruption of the proceedings. It was as if she were once more Newport bullying ahead of L’Aigle.
Except that Violet was playing no game of cunning subterfuge. She was here for justice.
Prince Henry and Princess Sophie of Holland seemed confused as to whether Violet was a planned part of what must have been the most unusual opera ever or if she was a genuine interruption.
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