Glass Books of the Dream Eaters mtccads-1

by Gordon Dahlquist

  “Marie, this is a list of items I will require both from the hotel management and from shops in the city. You will present the management with items one, two, and three, and then from them receive directions as to the shops best suited to satisfy items four and five. I will give you money”—and here Miss Temple reached into the desk drawer and removed a leather notebook with a small pile of crisp banknotes tucked into it. She deliberately peeled off two—then three—notes and handed them to Marie, who bobbed her head as she took them—“and you will make the purchases. Do not forget receipts, so I will know exactly how much money has been spent.”

  Marie nodded gravely, and with some reason, for Miss Temple was habitually watchful with her money and did not allow odd small sums to disappear where others might, or at least not without due acknowledgment of her generosity.

  “The first item is a collection of newspapers, the World, the Courier, the Herald, for today, for yesterday, and for the day before. The second item is a map of the local railway lines. The third item is a geographical map, specifically as it relates to the coastal fen country. The fourth item, which you must find, is a box of these.” Here she handed Marie one of the bullets from the revolver. “The fifth item, which will most likely take the longest, for you must be extremely exacting, are three sets of undergarments—you know my sizes—in the finest silk: one in white, one in green, and one…in black.”

  With the other maid, Marthe, she retreated into her dressing room to finish her hair, tighten her corset, and apply layers of powder and cream over the bruises on her throat. She emerged, in another green dress, this with a subtle sort of Italian stitchwork across the bodice, and her ankle boots, which Marthe had duly polished, just as a knock on the door brought the first wave of newspapers and maps. The room clerk explained that they had been forced to send out for some of the previous days’ editions, but that these should arrive shortly. Miss Temple gave him a coin, and as soon as he was gone placed the pile on the main dining table and began to sort through it. She did not exactly know what she was looking for, only that she was finished with the frustration of not knowing what she had stepped into. She compared the rail map with the topographical atlas, and began to meticulously plot the route from Stropping Station to Orange Canal. Her finger had progressed as far as De Conque when she became particularly aware of Marthe and Agathe staring at her. She briskly asked Marthe to make tea, and merely gazed steadily at her aunt. Far from taking the hint, Aunt Agathe installed herself in another chair and muttered that a cup of tea would suit her very well.

  Miss Temple shifted in her chair, blocking her aunt’s view with her shoulder, and continued to trace the line to Orange Locks, and from there to the Orange Canal itself. She took a particular pleasure in plotting the progress from station to station, having a visual reference for each one in her memory. The rail map had no further detail about roads or villages, much less particularly great houses, so she pulled the atlas toward her and found the page with the greatest detail of the area. She marveled at the distance she had traveled, and suppressed another shiver at how isolated and in peril she had actually been. The country between the final two stations seemed uninhabited—there were no villages on the map that she could find. She knew the great house had been near the sea, for she remembered the smell of salt in the air, though she well knew that the sea breeze travels far over land as flat as the fen country, so it could have been farther than it seemed. She tried to work out a reasonable radius of possibility, given the time the coach took to reach the house from the station, and looked for any landmark whatsoever on the map. She saw an odd symbol near the canals themselves, which a quick check with the map’s legend told her signified “ruin”. How old was the map—could a house that size be so new? Miss Temple looked up at her aunt.

  “What is ‘Harschmort’?”

  Aunt Agathe took in a sharp breath, but said nothing. Miss Temple narrowed her eyes. Neither spoke (for in some ways at least the older lady partook of a familial stubbornness) and after a full silent minute Miss Temple slammed the atlas shut and, brusquely rising from the table, strode to her inner room. She returned, to her aunt’s great alarm, with the open revolver, reloading the bullets as she went, and making a great effort at slamming the cylinder home. Miss Temple looked up to see the two women gaping at her and sneered—did they think she was going to shoot them?—snatching up a clutch handbag and dropping the revolver into it. She wound the strap around her wrist and then proceeded to gather her pile of papers with both arms. She snapped at Marthe without the least veil over her irritation. “The door, Marthe.” The servant girl darted to the front door and pulled it open so Miss Temple, her arms full, was free to sail through. “I will be working where I can find peace, if not cooperation.”

  Walking down the thickly carpeted corridor, and then down to the lobby, Miss Temple felt as if she were re-entering the world, and more importantly that she was confronting the events that had overtaken her. As she walked past various maids and porters, she knew that—because it was the morning shift—these were the same that had seen her blood-soaked arrival. Of course they had all spoken of it, and of course they all cast inquiring glances her way as she walked by. Miss Temple’s resolve was firm, however, and she knew if anything had changed, it was only that she needed to be even more self-reliant. She knew how fortunate she was to have her independence, and to have a disposition that cared so little for the opinions of others. Let them talk, she thought, as long as they also saw her holding her head high, and as long as she possessed the whip-hand of wealth. At the main desk she nodded at the clerk, Mr. Spanning—the very man who had opened the door upon her bloody return. Society manners were not so different than those among her father’s livestock, she knew, or his pack of hounds—and so Miss Temple held Spanning’s gaze longer than normal, until he obsequiously returned her nod.

  She had installed herself on one of the wide plush settees in the empty lobby, a quick, hard glare alerting the staff that she required no assistance, spreading the papers into organized stacks. She began by going back to “Harschmort”, jotting down her observations—its status as a ruin, its location. She then turned first to the Courier, whose pages would be more likely to follow social affairs. She was determined to learn all she could about the gala evening—first as it was understood by the populace at large, and then, by way of any comments she might find about murdered men in the road or missing women, about its true insidious nature. She read through headlines without any immediate idea of what might be most important: scanning the large black type announcing colonial skirmishes, cunning inventions, international ballooning, society balls, works of charity, scientific expeditions, reforms in the navy, infighting amongst the Ministries—it was clear that she was going to have to delve. It had not been ten minutes before she sensed the shadow falling over her work and then heard—had someone come in the main doors?—the vaguely insistent clearing of a throat. She looked up, fully ready to audibly snarl if her Aunt Agathe or Marthe had presumed to follow, but Miss Temple’s eyes saw someone quite different.

  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 phras
ing 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 Fra
ncis 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.”