The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (31 page)

He was a strange sort of man, tall, crisply rumpled in the way only a neat-minded person can be, wearing a blue greatcoat with pale epaulettes and silver buttons and scuffed black boots. His hair was almost white, parted in the center of his head and plastered back, though his exertions had caused some of it to break free and fall over his eyes, one of which held a monocle on a chain. He had not shaved, and it seemed to her that he was not especially well. She could not tell his age, partly because of his obvious fatigue, but also because of the way his hair, which was long on the top of his head, had been shaved on the back and sides, almost like some medieval lord—though perhaps he was merely German. He was staring at her, his gaze moving from her face down to her boots. She looked down at them, then up at his face. He was having difficulty with his words. There was a sparsity about the fellow she found nearly touching.

“Excuse me,” he began. His voice was accented, which caused his phrasing to seem more formal than it actually was. “I—I apologize—I have seen you—I did not realize—but now—somehow—through the window—” He stopped, took a breath, swallowed, and opened his mouth to start again and then snapped it shut. She realized that he was staring at her head—the wound above her cheekbone—and then, with rising discomfort, that his eyes had dropped lower, over her neck. He looked up at her, speaking with surprise.

“You have been injured!”

Miss Temple did not reply. While she had not truly expected her cosmetics could hide the bruises for long, she was not prepared to be so soon discovered, much less confront the spectacle of her mauling, reflected in the man’s expression of concern. And yet, who was this man? Could agents of the woman in red have found her so soon? As slowly as she could make her hand do it, she reached for the clutch bag. He saw the movement and put up his hand.

“Please—no—of course. You do not know who I am. I am Captain-Surgeon Abelard Svenson, of the Macklenburg Navy, in diplomatic service to his majesty Prince Karl-Horst von Maasmärck, who at this very moment is missing. I am your ally. It is of the utmost importance that we speak.”

As he spoke Miss Temple slowly completed her reach for the bag, bringing it back to her lap. He watched in silence as she inserted her hand, clearly understanding that she took hold of a weapon.

“You said you had…seen me?”

“Indeed,” he said, and then smiled, chuckling strangely. “I cannot even explain it—for truly, we have never to my knowledge been in each other’s presence!”

He glanced behind her, and took a step back—obviously the staff at the desk had taken notice. For Miss Temple this was too much, too quickly—she did not trust it. Her thoughts were spinning back to the terrible evening—Spragg and Farquhar—and who knew how many other minions in service to the woman in red.

“I do not know what you mean,” she said, “or indeed, what you
think
you mean, seeing that by your accent you are a foreigner. I assure you that we have never met.”

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again.

“That may be true. Yet, I have seen you—and I am sure you can assist me.”

“Why would you possibly think that?”

He leaned toward her and whispered. “Your
shoes
.”

To this, Miss Temple had no answer. He smiled and swallowed, glancing back out to the street. “Is there perhaps another place where we might discuss—”

“There is not,” she said.

“I am not mad—”

“You do look it, I assure you.”

“I have not slept. I have been hunted through the streets—I offer no danger—”

“Prove it,” said Miss Temple.

She realized that with her sharp tone there was a part of her that was trying to drive him away. At the same time, another part of her realized that, far from wading through maps and newspapers, she had in his person been presented with the exact advantage she would have wished for in her investigation. She balked because the circumstance was so real, so immediate, and because the man was so obviously stricken with fatigue and distress—qualities from which Miss Temple instinctively withdrew. By continuing these inquiries, what might she herself endure in the future—or endure
again
? No matter how much she might steel herself to it in the abstract, the corporeal evidence shook Miss Temple’s resolve.

She looked up at him and spoke quietly. “I should appreciate it if you could…in some fashion…please.”

He nodded, gravely. “Then—permit me.” He sat on the end of the settee and reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out two gleaming blue cards, quickly glanced at each and then returned one to the pocket. The other, he held out to her.

“I do not understand what this is. I only know what it shows me. As I say, there is a great deal to talk about and, if my fears are correct, very little time. I have been awake all night—I apologize for my desperate appearance. Please, look into this card—as if you were looking into a pool—take it with both hands or you will surely drop it. I will stand apart. Perhaps it will tell you more than it has told me.”

He gave her the card and stepped away from the settee. With shaking hands he took a dark foul-looking cigarette from a silver case and lit it. Miss Temple studied the card. It was heavy, made of a kind of glass she had never seen, brilliant blue that shifted in hue—from indigo to cobalt to even bright aqua—depending on the light passing through. She glanced once more at the strange doctor—he
was
a German, by his accent—and then she looked into the card.

Without his warning she would have certainly dropped it. As it was, she was happy to be sitting down. She had never experienced the like, it was as if she were swimming, so
immersive
were the sensations, so tactile the images. She saw herself—
herself
—in the parlor of the Bascombe house, and knew that her hands were clutching the upholstery because, out of his mother’s sight, Roger had just leaned forward to blow softly across her nape. The experience was not unlike seeing herself in the mirror wearing the white mask, for here she somehow appeared through the eyes of another—lustful eyes that viewed her calves and bare arms with hunger, almost as if they were rightful possessions. Then the entire location shifted, somehow seamlessly, as if in a dream…she did not recognize the pit or the quarry, but then gasped to see the country house of Roger’s uncle, Lord Tarr. Next was the coach and the Deputy Minister—“your decision?”—and finally the eerie curving hallway, the banded metal door, and the terrifying chamber. She looked up and found herself once again in the lobby of the Boniface. She was panting for breath. It was Roger. She knew that all of this had been the experience—in the mind—of Roger Bascombe. Her heart leapt in her chest, surging with anguish that was swiftly followed by rage. Decision? Could that mean what she thought? If it did—and of course it must—it
must
!—Harald Crabbé became in that instant Miss Temple’s particular, unpardonable enemy. She turned her flashing eyes to Svenson, who stepped back to the settee.

“How—how does this
work
?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“Because…well…because it is
very
queer.”

“Indeed, it is most disquieting—an—ah—unnatural
immediacy.
”

“Yes! It is—it is…” She could not find the words, and then stopped trying and merely blurted, “…
unnatural
.”

“Did you recognize anything?” he asked.

She ignored him. “Where did you get this?”

“If I tell you—will you assist me?”

“Possibly.”

He studied her face with an expression of concern that Miss Temple had seen in her life before. Her features were pretty enough, her hair fine and her figure, if she were permitted to have an opinion, reasonably appealing, but Miss Temple knew by now and was no longer disquieted by the knowledge that she was only truly remarkable in the way an animal is remarkable, in the way an animal so fully and purely inhabits its
self
without qualm. Doctor Svenson, when faced with her strangely elemental presence, swallowed, then sighed.

“I found it sewn into the jacket of a dead man,” he said.

“Not”—she held up the card, her voice suddenly brittle, feeling completely caught out—“not
this
man?”

She was unprepared for the possibility that anything so serious could have happened to Roger. Before she could say more, Svenson was shaking his head.

“I do not know who
this
man is, the—the point of
vantage,
so to speak—”

“It is Roger Bascombe,” she said. “He is at the Foreign Ministry.”

The Doctor clucked his tongue, clearly annoyed at himself. “Of course—”

“Do you know him?” she inquired tentatively.

“Not as such, but I have seen—or heard—him this very morning. Do you know Francis Xonck?”

“O! He is a terrible rake!” said Miss Temple, feeling foolishly prim as soon as she said it, having so thoughtlessly parroted the gossip of women she despised.

“No doubt,” agreed Doctor Svenson. “Yet Francis Xonck and this man—Bascombe—between them were disposing of a body—”

She indicated the card. “The man who had this?”

“No, no, someone else—though they are related, for this man’s arms—the blue glass—excuse me, I am getting ahead of myself—”

“How many bodies are involved—to your own knowledge?” she asked, and then, before he could answer, added, “And if you might—if it were possible to—generally—
describe
them?”

“Describe them?”

“I am not merely morbid, I assure you.”

“No…no, indeed—perhaps you too have merely witnessed—yet I can only hope you have not—in any event, yes—I myself have seen two bodies—there may be others—others in peril, and others I myself may have slain, I do not know. One, as I say, was a man I did not know, an older man, connected to the Royal Institute of Science and Exploration—a fellow I am led to believe of some great learning. The other was a military officer—his disappearance was in the newspaper—Colonel Arthur Trapping. I believe he was poisoned. How the first man—well, the officer was actually the first to die—but how the
other
man, from the Institute, was killed, I cannot begin to understand, but it is part of the mystery of this blue glass—”

“Only those?” asked Miss Temple. “I see.”

“Do you know of others?” asked Doctor Svenson.

She decided to confide in him.

“Two men,” Miss Temple said. “Two horrible men.”

She could not for the moment say more. On impulse she removed a handkerchief from her bag, moistened a corner and leaned forward to dab at a thin line of blood etched across the Doctor’s face. He muttered apologies and took the cloth from her, stepping away, and stabbed vigorously at his face. After a moment, he pulled it away and folded it over, offering it back. She motioned for him to keep it, smiling grimly and offhandedly wiping her eye.

“Let me see the other card,” said Miss Temple. “You have another in your pocket.”

Svenson blanched. “I—I do not think, the time—”

“I do insist.” She was determined to learn more about Roger’s inner life—who he had seen, the bargains with Crabbé, his true feelings for
her
. Svenson was blathering excuses—did he want some kind of exchange?

“I cannot allow—a lady—please—”

Miss Temple handed him the first card. “The country house belongs to Roger’s uncle, Lord Tarr.”

“Lord Tarr is his uncle?”

“Of course Lord Tarr is his uncle.”

Svenson did not speak. Miss Temple pointedly raised her eyebrows, waiting.

“But Lord Tarr has been murdered,” said Svenson.

Miss Temple gasped.

“Francis Xonck spoke of this Bascombe’s inheritance,” said Svenson, “that he would soon be important and powerful—my thought—when Crabbé says ‘decision’—”

“I’m afraid that is quite impossible,” snapped Miss Temple.

But even as she spoke, her mind raced. Roger had
not
been his uncle’s heir. While Lord Tarr (a gouty difficult man) had no sons, he did have daughters with male children of their own—it had been quite clearly and bitterly explained to her by Roger’s mother. Moreover, as if to confirm Roger’s peripheral status, on their sole visit to Tarr Manor, its ever-ailing Lord proved disinclined to see Roger, much less make the acquaintance of Roger’s provincial fiancée. And now Lord Tarr had been murdered, and Roger somehow acclaimed as his heir to lands and title? She could not trust it for a minute—but what other inheritance could Roger have? She did not think Roger Bascombe a murderer—all the more since having herself recently met several of the species—but she knew he was weak and tractable, despite his broad shoulders and his poise, and she suddenly felt cold…the people he had fallen in with, the demonstration he had willingly witnessed in the operating theatre…within her vow to ruin him, her utter and complete disdain for all things Bascombe, it was with a tinge of sorrow that Miss Temple felt oddly certain that he was lost. Just as she had wondered, in the operating theatre at Harschmort, if Roger had truly understood with whom or what he had become entangled—and in that wondering felt a pang at being unable to protect him from his own blindness when it came to the powerful and rich—so Miss Temple felt suddenly sure that, one way or another and without it being his intention, these events would be his doom.