Shadows on the Nile by Kate Furnivall

Author:Kate Furnivall [FURNIVALL, KATE]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2012-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

Monty was careful to be gracious to all who came seeking out the newcomer with the title attached to his name, and the striking girl attached to his arm.

While Egyptian music played softly in the background, he smiled at army generals and captains, he nodded serenely at tedious British government diplomats and listened with attention to a passionate young man, Herr Zimmermann, from the German delegation who advocated the imminent seizure of power in Germany by Herr Adolf Hitler to replace the senile Field Marshal Hindenburg. But it was the Egyptians that Monty sought out. Most had adopted the western dress of suits and high collars, but some came decked out in traditional Egyptian robes that made the Europeans look like drab sparrows by comparison.

He moved smoothly between the different groups, casually inserting the name of Musgrave into the conversation at intervals but each time drew a blank. That struck Monty as odd. Informers should have picked him up, whether for the British or the Egyptian authorities, yet somehow he seemed to have slid through their nets. It sent a shot of cold lead down his spine. On the excuse of tracking down a brandy, he broke free from the chatter around him. Enough was enough, damn it. He headed over to a bald man who was standing near one of the many arched windows, eyeing the gathering balefully over the rim of a whisky glass. To Monty’s annoyance, Jessie had already been spirited away from his side by a couple of the more glamorous evening gowns and now she was barely visible to him, firmly secured behind a phalanx of attentive white evening jackets. A flash of lace, a shimmer of pearl hair-clip, that was all he had of her for himself.

‘Good evening, ambassador,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘We met in London last spring.’

‘Remind me, young man.’ The American accent was smooth as honey, and he tapped his temple with his glass. ‘My mind is too full of names.’

Monty smiled easily. ‘I’m not surprised. Mine is Montague Chamford.’

‘Ah, yes, you’re that new guy causing the women to flutter their silly fans. A lord or knight of the realm, aren’t you? Some darn title.’

‘Something like that. Tell me, sir, how are things out here at the moment?’

Ambassador William Jardine was a rare breed of man: one who was immensely practical, as well as immensely academic. A farm boy from Idaho made good. His passions were agriculture and education, and he had served both well as Secretary of Agriculture under President Calvin Coolidge. But politics is always a dirty game and two years ago in the Herbert Hoover administration he had been elbowed out to the post of American ambassador to Egypt, where his expertise in agriculture could be put to good use.

Monty had respect for his judgement.

Jardine scratched one of his large ears. ‘We’re looking at a very fragile stability of the triangle of power, I can tell you, Montague.’ He held up three fingers. ‘The British Residency, King Fuad and the Wafd Nationalist Party.

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