The Visitors (13 page)
‘I have never seen anything so silly and uncivilised in my life,’ Poppy said, addressing both men in a clear voice that carried to all corners of the dining room. ‘What on earth are you thinking of? This is breaking my heart. Come away and stop upsetting people. I can sort this out in five minutes.’
She was carrying that dark fur. Tossing it over her shoulder and tucking her tiny bauble of a handbag under her arm, she stalked out of the room. There was a last flash of shocking pink from her dress, and then she was gone. After an uncertain pause, when it looked as if hostilities might break out again, the two men were forced apart and finally disappeared after her, surrounded by a flurry of
safragis
. At once the dining room came alive: an electric excitement crackled and flickered from table to table; laughter broke out among one or two groups and then was drowned by the buzz of revelation, the rising din of scandalous delight, the roar of claim and counter-claim.
‘Gracious!’ Miss Mack said, in a low voice to Helen Winlock. ‘My dear, who were those two men – whatever was that about?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Helen replied, her face troubled. She spoke so quietly that I had to strain to hear. ‘But the man with dark hair and blood on his shirt front… I’m pretty sure that was Mr d’Erlanger.’
‘Oh, Helen!’ Miss Mack gave a gasp. ‘Quickly – let’s get the children safely to bed.’
The following morning, it was discovered that Poppy d’Erlanger had left the hotel. When it was reported that her bed had not been slept in – and whether that was true or not, everyone seemed to believe it – the smouldering gossip took fire. Poppy did not reappear that day, was absent from the hotel the next, and was still absent the day after. By then, Shepheard’s was an overheated hive of furious buzzing rumours.
‘She’s disappeared,’ said Frances, who was electrified by these developments. ‘What can have happened, Lucy? It’s a mystery – we must solve it.’
We tried. Lord Carnarvon and Evelyn were the people in the best position to confirm or deny the rumours – as was Poppy’s devoted maid Wheeler; all three of them remained tight-lipped, refusing to say anything. This silence did nothing to quell the talk – it created a vacuum that new rumours rushed to fill, as Frances and I quickly learned. The word was – though no one could say from whence it came, or on what authority – that one of the two pugilists had indeed been her estranged husband, d’Erlanger, and the other a young British officer well known at the Gezira Sporting Club. Poppy had bolted again, that was generally agreed, though whether with d’Erlanger, or the officer, was disputed. She was now in the South of France, or Italy, or – some claimed – Kenya. She’d left by train, said some; no, by private plane, said others, asserting she’d been seen boarding one at Cairo aerodrome. She’d planned it and gone for good, said her detractors, of whom there were many, their numbers growing by the hour. No, it had been a spur of the moment decision, said those who championed Poppy. The fact that she’d left her children behind
proved
this was yet another of her maverick exploits; Poppy would remember them, return repentant and bundle them up again as she always did; why, she adored Rose and Peter, and although she could be neglectful of them, no man would ever persuade her to part from them.
Eventually, on the fourth day, both Lord Carnarvon and Eve attempted, in a discreet but ineffective way, to quell the talk. Reluctant to dignify this tittle-tattle by comment of any kind, yet seeing that their silence had been counter-productive, they took to saying that Poppy would return any day now. They had to say that, I suppose; as was widely known, the following week was fixed for their departure to Luxor, and Poppy and her children were supposed to be travelling with the Carnarvon party.
It was during this incendiary period that I first became truly aware of Minnie, wife to Harry Burton, the photographer on the Met’s team of archaeologists. Both he and his wife were English; they lived in Florence when not in Egypt. I’d encountered them before – it was difficult to miss blonde-haired Minnie Burton, who liked to queen it in the hotel dining room. Harry Burton was amiable and universally liked, but his wife was another matter. Helen Winlock detested her, I think, and Winlock himself, who referred to her as Queen Min, avoided her. In the wake of Poppy’s disappearance, Mrs Burton and the haughty Frau von Essen, still at Shepheard’s, had formed an alliance; presented with a first-class scandal, they were now in their element.
Frances and I were partisan and determined to discover the truth, but this proved exceptionally hard, for Miss Mack and Helen were as tight-lipped as Eve and her father. We tried to pump Wheeler and got nowhere; we tried Marcelle, with higher hopes, but even Marcelle, a fount of information on many diverting subjects, refused to be drawn. Time for another tactic.
‘
Espionage
,’ Frances said. Accordingly, we eavesdropped, we spied, we took to prowling around the terrace at Shepheard’s; there we quickly discovered that the most fertile time was four-fifteen, and the most fertile area was Mrs Burton’s table. A large pillar adjoined that table; lingering in its vicinity several days in succession, we gathered a few scraps of information, but nothing concrete. On the fourth day, when Frances was out with her mother, I escaped Miss Mack’s clutches and returned to the terrace alone; there I found the Burton coterie in full flood, and, sitting alone at a nearby table, concealed by a potted palm and apparently immersed in
The Times
, the spruce figure of Howard Carter.
‘Frances not with you?’ he said, as I backed away, about to turn tail; before I could answer, he gestured to the waiters, who arrived in a rush. In an instant, I found I’d been seated in a chair opposite him, and tea was being poured. ‘So,’ Carter went on, ‘you’re spying unassisted today, are you? My task too. I’m here for Eve. We may as well join forces. Now… ’ He pushed a book across the table. ‘You pretend to read this and I shall pretend to read my newspaper, don’t speak and we’ll get along fine. I have excellent hearing and I’m sure you do too.’
It did not occur to me to disobey him. I bent my head over the book, an account of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, written in 1820 by the great showman of Egyptology, Belzoni. The conversation at Mrs Burton’s table had paused while I sat down amidst the flourish of waiters, but there are advantages to being an unremarkable and charmless little bookworm, and the chief advantage is invisibility.
Within five minutes, the animated discussion took fire again, and I learned the following.
One
: the appalling scene witnessed by everyone in the dining room on the night of Poppy d’Erlanger’s disappearance was
as nothing, my dears
,
to the scene that followed it, which had been of considerable duration, continuing into the lobby, erupting into the Moorish Hall, and finally breaking out anew on the steps outside Shepheard’s, where (as Mrs Burton now had it on
unimpeachable
authority) the men concerned had vowed to kill each other.
Two
: both men, dragged apart by various friends, had eventually gone their separate ways, after which, and not five minutes later, the
sheer nerve
of it, Mrs d’Erlanger was seen leaving Shepheard’s in her disgraceful pink dress and her ostentatious sables, at night,
alone and unescorted
, as Minnie Burton could testify, having at just that second, and entirely by chance, passed through the lobby and thus
personally
witnessed this scandalous departure.
This revelation drew gasps from the coterie, but Frau von Essen felt she could improve on it. She’d been informed today that Mrs d’Erlanger had wired for her luggage to be sent on; this proved that
die Schlampe
had no intention of returning. Furthermore, that very morning her dearest friend, Grafin Mariza von Hollenstahl, had sent her a telegram from the South of France, informing her that the ‘missing’ woman had been seen in Nice, two days previously, strolling along the Promenade des Anglais, without a care for her children or her reputation, on the arm of the man she had shamelessly cuckolded in Cairo, namely her estranged husband,
der Jude,
Jacob d’Erlanger.
‘Well, well. What a nest of vipers,’ Carter remarked when, running out of revelations, the coterie at the next table departed. He put down his newspaper and met my gaze. My face was a hot scarlet and observing this, he added: ‘Speak German, do you?’
‘A little. I’ve had lessons.’
I lowered my eyes. Those Cambridge lessons had made it easy to translate
der Jude.
I didn’t know what
die Schlampe
meant. But then I didn’t know what ‘cuckolded’ meant either.
‘Malice and prejudice need little translation.’ Carter frowned. ‘I’ve endured plenty of gossip, rumour and lies in my time – have you?’
‘Not really, no. I’m too young, I suppose. And I’m – dull. Not promising material.’
‘Now there we differ. I do not find you dull. Quiet, very. Reserved, certainly; but dull, no. You’re an observer. I am also an observer. I’ve observed you observing, Miss Payne, and I made a mental note of it.’ He folded up his newspaper and retrieved his book. ‘So, what do you think – shall we let this kind of talk continue, or put a stop to it?’
‘Put a stop to it – except one can’t. People like Mrs Burton enjoy it too much. It’s meat and drink to them.’
Carter bared his teeth in a smile. ‘That is true, in the long term. But in the short term, something can be done. So, let’s see… Refutation? Retaliation? I always enjoy retaliation. What do you say to that idea?’
‘I say – yes. But have you a plan, Mr Carter?’
‘I always have a plan. I’m methodical to my fingertips.’ He rose. ‘Thank you for joining me. My salutations to your friend Frances. Make sure that both of you are here on the terrace tomorrow at four-fifteen prompt, will you do that?’
The next afternoon, at four-twenty precisely, the thin and elegant figure of Lord Carnarvon was to be seen strolling across the crowded terrace at Shepheard’s. The cynosure of all eyes, he seemed to make for the table at which, among a large party, Frances and I were seated: a strong number of witnesses had been assembled. Eve was presiding, the Winlocks, Lythgoes and Miss Mack were there; Madame had joined us, as had several prominent members of the English and American community in Cairo. Howard Carter was also present, stationed alone at a table near by.
Mrs Burton, unsuspecting, became alert, preening and gracious when Carnarvon, pausing in his amble across the terrace, came to a halt at her table. He greeted her and Frau von Essen, and their party, and then asked in his diffident, courteous manner if he might join them. The two women assented with one voice, and I saw Mrs Burton give several quick covert glances around the terrace, making sure that this tribute to their status was being widely appreciated. Flustered but triumphant, she sent waiters scurrying for more tea, while the more controlled Frau von Essen made a great show of introducing the earl to the other women at her table. Both then embarked on general vapidities, knowing better than to raise the subject of Poppy d’Erlanger in front of Carnarvon; he raised it himself, after a few charming pleasantries.
‘I hear that the gossips have been positively inspired by the subject of my friend Mrs d’Erlanger,’ he drawled, his manner mild and possibly amused. His quiet voice was slightly raised. ‘The malice and inventiveness on exhibit really are remarkable… even for Cairo, which as we all know puts the drawing rooms of London to shame.’
Minnie Burton, who was in the act of raising her teacup to her lips, replaced it in its saucer with a tinkling sound. ‘I abhor gossip, Lord Carnarvon,’ she began, as Frau von Essen nodded regal agreement.
Across the terrace, there was a rustle of speculation, then a perceptible hush. His manner imperturbable, Carnarvon continued: ‘I share that abhorrence, Mrs Burton, and yet I hear that the most fanciful stories – well, I suppose one must call them outright lies – are being bandied about in this very hotel, where one might have thought people would be better informed, or at the very least have higher standards. So unmannerly! So vulgar.’
‘Indeed,’ said Minnie Burton, looking rattled. ‘But then all gossip is vulgar, Lord Carnarvon, as I’ve always maintained. I make a point of––’
‘I am sure you do,’ Carnarvon said, giving her his diffident charming smile – a smile that did not reach his eyes. ‘I certainly hope so, for where you lead, others will follow. Such ill-informed talk is, of course, beneath contempt.’
‘Beneath contempt! So very true,’ echoed Mrs Burton, with enthusiasm.
‘Yet it seems to be believed. It really is distressing for Mrs d’Erlanger’s friends – and I have been her close friend for most of her life, since she is, as you may know, my god-daughter… As I say, it really is most distressing to learn that these vicious lies are being uttered, even accepted as gospel… ’
‘Absolutely, Lord Carnarvon. Wicked nonsense. I have never––’
‘… when the truth of the matter is that Mrs d’Erlanger’s father, a very old and dear friend, fell seriously ill a few days ago. And, being the loving daughter she is, Mrs d’Erlanger left her children in our care and rushed to his bedside the instant she received the wire. Friends of mine stepped in, and they flew her to France that same night.’
‘
Mein Gott,
but this is terrible news,’ Frau von Essen said firmly.
‘Terrible,’ echoed Mrs Burton. ‘I pray she reached him in time. May I enquire… ?’
‘How kind. Yes, he has pulled through. Fortunately, it was not as serious as feared; the doctors diagnosed pneumonia, but it seems they were wrong. You know how alarmist doctors can be.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Minnie Burton broke in, her eyes alight with the wild hope that Carnarvon might be diverted. ‘Doctors
are
alarmist. I’ve often observed that. In my view––’
‘And luckily her father is at his villa in Nice,’ Carnarvon continued unstoppably. ‘The climate there is kind… so the good news is that Mrs d’Erlanger will be returning very soon. Providing her father’s health does not deteriorate, she’ll travel back from France and join my daughter and me at the Winter Palace in Luxor, just as we planned. She hopes to book her passage in the next few days. Isn’t that splendid news? I’m so glad to bring it to you. Should you hear any more of these tales being bandied back and forth, you’ll now be in a position to correct them. I rely on you, my dear ladies.’
