Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 108

"I thought you'd ask how I learned of the mystery."

"Actually," he said, "I'm curious how you knew to be in this room. As my message was for the captain alone, I believe."

She sipped her own tea. "I eavesdropped." She smiled. "My German is excellent."

The door at the base of the stair swung open. It was a fragile thing, fabric stretched over a wooden frame, closed by a wooden latch for lightness of structure. Sebastien and Jack stood as Captain Hoak entered the salon alone, his hat pinned against his side by his left elbow. Mrs. Smith remained seated, as was proper, but set her teacup down.

"Mrs. Smith," the Captain said, in English. "Good morning. And guten Morgen, Don Sebastien, Master Jack. Is Mrs. Smith" He wavered, uncertain as to whom he should be addressing.

"Mrs. Smith is just leaving," the auth.o.r.ess said. She abandoned her cup and plate and made sure of her reticule before standing. "I shall be in the observation lounge if I am required. Thank you for the excellence of your company, Don Sebastien." She offered her gloved hand. He took it and bowed over it lightly. "Master Jack," she concluded, with a teasing smile that sent high color across the young man's face, and swept past the Captain with a little gracious nod.

The Captain turned to watch her go. He was a tall man, blond hair graying, and he carried the beginnings of a small, hard paunch. He sighed lightly as the door latch clicked and went to fetch his own coffee. "How much have you been informed, Don Sebastien?"

Sebastien reclaimed his chair as the Captain sat. He lifted his cooling tea and blew across the saucer. Jack, who had already finished two scones and was toying with the crumbs on his plate, sat as well. Sebastien expected a steward would be along to tidy when their conference was done. "Only that Madame Pontchartrain is... gone, I believe the word was. Not dead, I take it then?"

"Vanished," the Captain said. "Dead, perhaps. If she fell, certainly, but there's no evidence she did. No breach in the hull, and the pa.s.senger doors are sealedand she did not enter the control cabin."

"Have you searched the lifting body?" Sebastien's hand rose, an extended finger indicating the ceiling and the giant framework of aluminum beyond it. Within the streamlined lifting body were thirteen donut-shaped gas containers filled with hydrogen and harnessed by netting within the dirigible's frame.

"We are searching it now," Captain Hoak said. "But there has been no sign of her there. And of course, even if a woman of her... dignity could be expected to be clambering up ladders, the hatchways are kept locked."

Sebastien picked up his cup and saucer and stood smoothly, without reliance upon the arms of the chair. "By all means," he said. "Let us examine the lady's cabin."

Madame Pontchartrain's cabin was no different from Sebastien's, except in that women's clothinga dozen or so dresses, half of them rich with velvet and silk, and cut for a more generous figure than the plainer muslins and woolsand two nightgownshung from the bar at the foot of the bunks, and the upper bunk had been tidied. Sebastien and Jack searched the cabin thoroughly, to the Captain's stiff-lipped dismay, and found little of note. The lower bed lay as it had been left, the covers smoothed roughly over a bottom sheet that was rumpled but not creased; hardly typical of what Sebastien had observed of the chambermaids' military efficiency. There was no blood, and no sign of a struggle, although Madame Pontchartrain's papers seemed to be in some disarray inside her portfolio, and her cabin bag was less neatly packed than one might expect.

"Dear boy," Sebastien said, while the Captain posed rigidly beyond the door, erect as a hungry hawk upon a glove, "do you suppose a woman of Madame Pontchartrain's age and breeding is inclined to creep from her bed at nightto any purposewithout smoothing the sheets respectably?"

"Perhaps if she were very ill," Jack said uncertainly. He stood a little closer to Sebastien than decorum warranted, but the Captain seemed disinclined to comment. "And very much in a hurry."

"Captain," Sebastien said. "I believe we must examine the ladies' washroom."

The ladies' was innocent of any sign of violence, and like Mademoiselle LeClere, the attendant had heard nothing. After their inspection, Sebastien accompanied Jack to the dining room for an early luncheon, switching plates discreetly when Jack finished his own steak and salad and began eyeing Sebastien's poached salmon. He was halfway across the serving and eating methodically when his fork hesitated in midair and his chin came up, blue eyes catching the filtered light.

Sebastien, who was sitting with his back to the windows so he would not be dazzled by even indirect sunlight, saw their bright shapes reflected in Jack's irises.

"Ah," he said, observing the deepening furrow between Jack's eyebrows. "The nightgowns."

"Two nightgowns," Jack agreed. "Hanging, and one unrumpled. Madame Pontchartrain never went to bed last night."

"Indeed she didn't," Sebastien said, holding his wine under his nose before tilting the gla.s.s, and flicking his tongue out to collect just a drop on the tip, for tasting's sake. "So the question remains, who rumpled her bunk?"

"And why did Mademoiselle LeClere lie?" Chewing a last bite of salmon, Jack laid his fork across his platemore yellow Meissen, with cabbage roses and gilt edges. The tablecloths were eyelet linen, white and fine. "Speaking of which, there's the young lady herself. With Miss Lillian Meadows, no less."

Sebastien lifted his knife and turned it so the silver blade reflected the dining room behind him. He saw two blonde heads bent close together as the ladies were seated, Miss Meadows tight-trousered and drawing sidelong glancesadmiring or censoriousand Mlle. LeClere scandalous with her shawl wound about her neck like a scarf rather than covering the white expanse of her bosom. "While the duenna's away" Sebastien began, but then his eyes were drawn to the white cloth twisted around Mlle. LeClere's long pale throat.

Jack cleared his throat. "I know where you were last night."

"Indeed." Sebastien laid the knife crisply across Jack's plate, abruptly grateful that he could not blush. "So do I. And also I think it's time for a stroll. Do you not agree?"

Silently, Jack rose, folding his napkin. And together they left the table.

Chapter III.

"Do you think it's Miss Meadows?" Jack asked, when they were safely away from the dining room, strolling the promenade. It was only a little past noon, so the sun was safely blocked from the long windows by the shadow of the airframe, and if anyone did harbor suspicions about Sebastien, it would do no harm for Sebastien to be seen by midday.

"One doesn't find many of the blood in theatre." Sebastien licked pale lips. "Matinees."

"But she's a motion picture actress"

"And how might she explain an inability to shoot outdoor scenes in daylight?"

"Ah," Jack said. He raked at his hair, pale curls stretching between his fingers and then springing back. "Besides, why would she turn to Mlle. LeClere when she has two travelling companions of her own?"

"Mrs. Smith was wearing an open-necked shirtwaist," Sebastien pointed out.

In answer, Jack touched his own loosely-knotted cravat. He did not affect the London and Milan fashion of high collars, as Sebastien did. "Mrs. Smith may not be p.r.o.ne to bruising"

"She is a very pale blonde."

"or she may be a more intimate friend of Miss Meadows' than Mlle. LeClere, leaving the evidence... in.o.bvious." Jack finished, smugly.

"I am scandalized," the great detective answered, a small smile warming his lips. They warmed further when Jack checked over his shoulder, and then brushed them with a quick peck.

"If not Miss Meadows...." Jack said, stepping back.

"You make a.s.sumptions," Sebastien said. A cardinal sin, and Jack winced to be caught out. "If there is another of the blood aboard this ship... and if Mlle. LeClere is of her court" the polite term, in preference to any of the myriad cra.s.s ones "it would be the rankest sort of stupidity to murder an old woman."

They turned at the wall, and began walking back.

"Because suspicion would naturally fall on any pa.s.senger discovered to be of the blood."

"Prejudices die hard," Sebastien said.

"I've known a few Jews," Jack said. The dryness that informed his voice was no happenstance. He was one, blond curls and blue eyes and good plain English alias aside. "It's the same everywhere. And it needn't be your folk, Sebastien. A disappearance in the absence of any evidence suggests black magic to me. Teleportation, trans.m.u.tation... what if someone turned her into a frog?"

"Or a green parrot? And us without a forensic sorcerer anywhere to be found."

Jack cleared his throat. "We've seen the parrot and Madame Pontchartrain in the same place. So if it is one of yours, and not Miss Meadows, who?"

"Korvin ur," Sebastien said, automatically. And then he checked himself. "At a guess."

"Good guess," Jack said. He lowered his voice; they were still alone on their side of the promenade, but below, in the dining room blurrily visible through the interior isingla.s.s, Virgil Allen and Hollis Leatherby had entered and paused beside the drinks caddy. "I'm trying to remember if I've heard his name"

"Have you?" The tone was sharper than Sebastien had intended. He did not care to be reminded of Jack's past.

There were clubs in most cities, places where those who courted the blood congregated, and where those of the blood who were far from their courts and their courtesans could go, for sustenance and for companionship. Names were whispered in those places, and secrets traded.

It was in one such, in a bas.e.m.e.nt in Budapest, that Sebastien had discovered Jack, a gamin child of eight or nine years, and where heagainst his custom and better judgement, and in much the spirit with which one might haggle for a starved dog chained to a railinghad purchased the boy.

It was three hundred and fifty German marks Sebastien considered very well spent indeed.

Jack chewed his lip, and then shrugged. "It was a long time ago. I don't recall."

Jack was still tired from a difficult night, while Sebastien buzzed with energy. It had been unsafe attending to his needs aboard the Hans Glucker, but it would be more unsafe to spend three days and part of a fourth in human company with his skin cold and waxen and his hunger growing. Sebastien wondered if Korvin ur had found himself in similar straits. It was unusual for one of the blood to travel without a companion. Or three.

Or perhaps the handsome stranger to eye with suspicion wasn't Lillian Meadows or Oczkar Korvin, but the pale and delicate Mrs. Phoebe Smith. Virgil Allen had a southerner's bronzed glow, but that could be counterfeited with cosmetics...

Sebastien paused in the pa.s.sageway and shook his head, leaning one hand on a cornerpost of the corridor wall. Those, at least, were solid enough to hold his weight, unlike the cloth stretched between them. He was committing the same sin he'd accused Jack of, speculating on small and circ.u.mstantial evidence, looking for a monster to explain away what was most likely mere human veniality. Speculation, rather than deduction, and that was no way to solve a crime.

a.s.suming any crime had been committed. Which, admittedly, seemed like a fairly safe a.s.sumptionbut one a.s.sumption tended to lead to another.

He straightened up and squared his shoulders under his coat. The next step must be to interview the witnesses. Particularly, he thought, Mlle. LeClere.

He was halfway down the spiral stair to the day parlor, following her scent, when something else occurred to him. Her scent. In particular. It had been present in the cabin she shared with Mme. Pontchartrain. As, indeed, had the scents of Mme. Pontchartrainboth her own bodily aroma, and the funereal bouf of roses and chrysanthemums she habitually wore. But there had been no third person's aroma, and, as Jack had noted, Mme. Pontchartrain did not appear to have even slipped on her nightdress.

So why had her bunk been rumpled? And not, he thought, rumpled as if someone had slept therein, but rather as if someone had stripped the covers back in hasty investigation, and then smoothed them carelessly.

That mystery distracted Sebastien to the bottom of the stairs, where he paused and cast left and right, sniffing delicately, for the aroma of lilies, powder, and warm girl that identified Mlle. LeClere.

Instead, he smelled lilacs and civet and a different warm girl entirely, the scent vanguarding a swish of sensible English wool. "My dear Mrs. Leatherby," he said, and turned.

She startled, which had been his intention, and drew herself up short, her skirts swinging heavily about the ankles of her b.u.t.ton boots. Gray kid-gloved fingers tensed on the handle of her reticule; there was a tiny snag on her left thumb, a little hole she hadn't yet sewn up. "Don Sebastien," she stammered. "I beg your pardon"

"I have excellent hearing," he said, stooping a little to offer her an arm. She accepted it, her fingers curling as convulsively on his sleeve as they had on her handbag.

"As it happens," Mrs. Leatherby said in a small voice, "so do I. Which is what I wished to speak with you about, if you do not find me too forward, Don Sebastien."

Her steps tarried so he must cut his own stride for fear of dragging her off her feet. He ducked his head to introduce the appearance of intimacy. "Do continue."

"I'm sorry," she said, shivering delicately. "I'm all aflutter. If there's a killer aboard...."

"Quite." He patted her arm, grateful of the long sleeves that would prevent her from noticing how his skin was chill.

"Last night" She glanced over her shoulder, and he soothed her with a hand on her hand again. "Last night I heard voices. You must understand that Hollis is a very sound sleeper, Don Sebastien, and he snores quite dreadfully."

"Indeed," he answered, letting her annoying overuse of his name pa.s.s unremarked, though it led him to unworthy speculation on whether Mr. Leatherby had perhaps been less oblivious than he seemed to Jack's shameless flirtation with his wife that first night in the salon, or if the sighs he had breathed had been of relief rather than jealousy. "And this is significant because?..."

"We sleep away from the other pa.s.sengers," Mrs. Leatherby said. "Out of consideration."

A benefit of the nearly-empty pa.s.senger quarters. "You heard something?" Sebastien asked, understanding dawning. His hair slid down his forehead, and he tossed it back, taking a moment as well to consider the particular h.e.l.l of a nervous woman with acute hearing paired with a heavy snorer.

"A man and a woman," she said, her chin jerking in small, sharp nods. "Speaking French. I recognized the man's voice as Mister Korvin's, and is he really a viscount?"

"Vikomt, in Hungarian," Sebastien said. "And I have not heard Korvin ur make such a claim. If only this were a sailing vessel, one could examine the peerage in the ship's library."

"Silly me," Mrs. Leatherby said. "I'm sure you think me a right fool, but it's so exciting, being abroad and meeting exotic personages with their European manners." Her hand flew to her mouth, releasing his somewhat crumpled sleeve. "Oh, Sebastien, I'm terribly sorry."

"It's quite all right," he answered. "No offense taken." Released of her grip, he took a half-step toward the salon. She tripped after.

"But I haven't told you the worst," she said. Her voice rose, but she had the art of the breathless shriek, like so many Englishwomen, and it wouldn't carry. He wondered when the pocket handkerchief would emerge, or if she'd skip directly on to the fainting spell.

"Indeed, Senora," he said. Perhaps he should resort to his own handkerchief; the lilac was about to make him sneeze. "What did you hear?"

"I didn't understand the words, of course, but it had the sound of an argument," she said. "And afterward... there were other things." Her lips made a moue of distaste.

"Ah," Sebastien said. "Say no more. Did you recognize the lady's voice?"

"They were speaking French," she repeated, insistently.

"Of course," Sebastien answered. With a great and distancing show of gallantry, he stepped forward and opened the door to the salon for her, sweeping an outrageous bow. "That does narrow the field somewhat, now doesn't it?"

Chapter IV.

Unfortunately, his intention of speaking to Mlle. LeClere was foiled by the continuing presence of Miss Meadows. The ladies had been joined by Mr. Allen and Korvin ur, and judging by the way Mlle. LeClere was leaning on Oczkar Korvin's arm, Miss Meadow's presence was all that was preventing a scandalan irony which Sebastien savored, briefly.

He understood the urge. A young woman rarelyperhaps neverfound herself released on her own recognizance. It must seem a heady interlude in such a constrained life, and he couldn't grudge her taking advantage of it, when it would be back to her ordained task of trapping a man when she made landfall. The Hans Glucker was, in any case, a relatively safe place to sow wild oats.

Or should have been, to all rights, if there had not been a potential murderer aboard.

As soon as Sebastien could decently extract himself from Mrs. Leatherby, he went in search of the infinitely preferable American lady, Mrs. Smith. At the very least, she could no doubt tell him a little something about Miss Lillian Meadows and Mr. Virgil Allen.

He found her on the promenade. Lingering would become a tricky proposition as the sun slid down before the nose of the dirigible, but for now the long shadows kept him safe. Phoebe Smith stood at the forward-most reach of the promenade, under the nose of the airframe. She held her hard-backed black notebook left-handed and scribbled busily with the right, her ink-stained fingers embracing the grip of a tortoisesh.e.l.l fountain pen.

She sniffed as he came up beside her, and said, with great satisfaction, "Did you know, Don Sebastien, that were we to ascend very much further, the drop in air pressure would cause the ink in my pen to expand, resulting in an oozing mess?" She turned to him, and held it up beside her face for inspection. The nib gleamed dully in the indirect light, a hairline of black demonstrating the split, but Sebastien focused past it. At her face, her pallor, the whiteness of her lips where they tightened over her teeth, the faintly visible capillaries warming her pale cheeks.

"You're staring, Don Sebastien."

He glanced quickly down so she would not see him fail to blush. "So it would appear. Is the material any good?"

"I beg your pardon?"

He gestured to the crawling sea below the isingla.s.s. "You must be working on a novel."

"Only scribbling observations. It's what I do."

"Scribble?"