The Illusion of Murder Read Free

rugs and “even a camel if the captain will let you bring it aboard.”
    Accompanying us will be Lord and Lady Warton, a British couple who have business ties with Von Reich, an engineer and inventor who once worked in Egypt.
    There are sounds of discord when I’m back on deck to meet my companions at the accommodation ladder. Arab boatmen below are shoving and shouting at each other in a mad haste to be the rowboat closest to the platform that passengers step off of at the bottom of the stairway.
    Von Reich grins down at the chaos. “We need only one boat and there are six warring to serve us. Lord Warton and I will clear the way with our canes. You ladies should keep your umbrellas handy.”
    Both men carry Penang lawyers, thick walking sticks with bulbous, leaded heads.
    As I follow the two men down the nearly vertical, narrow stairway on the side of the ship, Lady Warton, coming behind me, says, “You’ll find that a sharp blow from a cudgel is the language these natives best understand.”
    I glance back at the cost of nearly losing my footing, and make a gasp instead of a retort. Having been formally introduced to the woman only last night, and in light of their generous acceptance of my presence, it would be ill-mannered for me to point out that a stick beats more ugliness into a person than it ever beats out.
    The steep stairway sways and scrapes against the side of the ship and I hold on tight, wishing I was wearing trousers instead of a long dress that makes it likely I will take a neck-breaking tumble. For sure, it was an inconsiderate man who made up the rule that only men can wear pants.
    At the bottom platform I bite my lip as the canes swing right and left to drive back all but one boat. Lady Warton lashes out at a grabbing hand with her umbrella, but I have no intention of using mine in such a rude manner against fellow human beings. It’s obvious that rowing passengers ashore is the only way these boatmen have of earning their bread and it’s a small loaf at that.
    Having been a factory girl living hand-to-mouth until I was eighteen because I had been forced to leave high school due to a heart condition, my sympathies lie with the poor wretches. *
    Von Reich and Lord Warton board a boat to assist us ladies and I step aside so Lady Warton can go on first. Swells lift the platform and I step back, reaching for the support of the railing when a boatman on the other side grabs my arm and I am literally dragged into his rocking boat. It happens so quickly I only get out a “Well!” after I’m seated.
    Von Reich shouts, “We’ll see you on shore, Nellie,” and I give a brave little laugh and hold on to the sides of the boat for dear life, finding myself a prisoner of four Arab rowers who are naked except for loincloths.
    This is an adventure, I tell myself, a mantra I repeat when it appears I am going to hell in a handbasket and have no control over the situation.
    I smile at the man who had dragged me aboard. “Get me to shore dry and I shall be very grateful.”
    He unleashes a long statement in Arabic and I just smile and nod. I have no clue as to what he is saying, but I am sure he understands and is agreeable to my needs. I wish I could tell him how sorry I am that my companions found it necessary to administer the cane so freely and lavishly, and that I marvel at their stubborn persistence even while cringing under the blows.
    I am reflecting upon the unkind attitude I heard expressed aboard the Victoria by Europeans and Americans about people of less fortunate nations when I realize the rowers have stopped rowing and we are rising and rocking in swells a hundred feet from shore.
    The man I had spoken to gives me a nasty smirk, holds out his hand, and says in perfect English, “More money or you swim.”
    I stare at him— gape at him —thoughts and emotions convulsing in my head like the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope. Manhandled, kidnapped, and now I’m threatened and blackmailed by