Free Death in Leamington by David Smith Page B

Caribbean where they had married on the beach. Furious, Arish refused to accept the situation at first but after several long months of venting saw that his granddaughter was immovable and seemingly happy. He relented and become reconciled to the situation rather than fall out forever with the remaining love of his life. But he would get his revenge one day.
    Quoth the Caliph, ‘Say me, wilt thou return with us to Tigris’ bank and cast thy net on my luck, and whatsoever turneth up I will buy of thee for a hundred gold pieces?’ The man rejoiced when he heard these words and said, ‘On my head be it! I will go back with you,’ and, returning with them river-wards, made a cast and waited a while; then he hauled in the rope and dragged the net ashore and there appeared in it a chest padlocked and heavy. The Caliph examined it and lifted it finding it weighty; so he gave the fisherman two hundred dinars and sent him about his business; whilst Masrur, aided by the Caliph, carried the chest to the palace and set it down and lighted the candles. Ja’afar and Masrur then broke it open and found therein a basket of palm-leaves corded with red worsted. This they cut open and saw within it a piece of carpet which they lifted out, and under it was a woman’s mantilla folded in four, which they pulled out; and at the bottom of the chest they came upon a young lady, fair as a silver ingot, slain and cut into nineteen pieces. When the Caliph looked upon her he cried, ‘Alas!’ and tears ran down his cheeks and turning to Ja’afar he said, ‘O dog of Wazirs, shall folk be murdered in our reign and be cast into the river to be a burden and a responsibility for us on the Day of Doom? By Allah, we must avenge this woman on her murderer and he shall be made to die the worst of deaths!’

    Richard Burton
, The Three Apples
from
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night

    This be-knighted husband was undeniably a charismatic and successful man, an engineer from an illustrious family background, who had worked in various industrial companies in the Midlands and built up a personal fortune that outshone even the huge fortune squandered by previous generations of his once ennobled family. Small, brash and wiry, his ancestors had apparently enjoyed dalliances with royalty and could trace themselves back to Edward Hyde, the First Earl of Clarendon. His father, Frederick, had been a younger brother of a previous Earl, but through a series of missteps had lost huge amounts in gambling and misplaced land deals and had died before the title passed down to him. This meant that the Earldom was now forever lost to Sir William’s family line. Wherever Sir William’s new money had come from, and this was by no means clear despite all Arish’s assistant’s research (there were rumours of a mining venture in New South Wales as well as tea plantations in Sri Lanka), it had been his ticket to influence and political intrigue.
    Arish could see at once that Sir William was an inveterate self-publicist and chameleon, a ruthless man who was expert at tailoring his views to be supportive of the right part of the political elite at any one time and even more expert at getting those views published in the press without ever being directly attributed. His mastery of these black arts had even earned him the nickname ‘The black dog of Arden’ within the party, a reference to Guy, Earl of Warwick, who was Piers Gaveston’s executioner. The knighthood had been a political reward from the grateful new Prime Minister, along with his selection as the local MP in a by-election following his predecessor’s death. During his short time as a legislator, he had narrowly avoided censure over parliamentary expenses and undeclared consultancy contracts and had run into trouble with red-top stories about a series of mistresses around the country. These colourful adventures however appeared not to be major obstacles for a man of his ambition.
    More problematic