The Dark Volume Part 4

She allowed her eyes to penetrate the dark until she located a standing bureau where one might expect to find, and then did, a tallow candle and a match. Shutting the door to hide her house-breaking from any prying eyes in the street, she examined the room with a light in one hand and, after a deft reach to her boot, Mr. Jorgens' sharp knife in the other.

The hut differed from the Jorgenses' cabin in that it contained at least three rooms, receding one after another in a line, but the size and low ceiling of the first, main room was nearly the same, a fact that only accentuated Miss Temple's disquiet upon seeing a bed stripped of its linens, a cold stove, and a large trunk whose lock had been pried open with force. The floor was such a jumble of footprints that no inferences-apart from a lamentable lack of house care-could be made. The trunk was empty. She turned to the various shelves and cupboards. These were also bare. The only exceptions were the candles to one side of the door, and to the other, on the floor, a wadded ball of cloth. Miss Temple was not at all surprised to find it stained with blood.

The next room was windowless. It was clotted with furniture, chairs and tables and bureaus, stacked all against each other and pressed to each wall, the piles topped with a spinning wheel, wrapped burlap bundles, and heaps of bedding. Either the occupants were leaving Karthe, or someone had died.

On the threshold of the final room Miss Temple paused. At her feet lay the crushed stub of a cigarette. She crouched down but could not determine if the unlit edge had been crimped in the Contessa's lacquered holder, or if it had been consumed by Doctor Svenson, again availing himself of that filthy habit.

The last room-and then she really must rejoin Eloise-was as empty of furnishings as the second was full, but its smell-a smell Miss Temple never would forget-remained pungent. It was a stomach-turning mix of burning tar and sulpherous, smoking ore-the smell of indigo clay... the noxious raw mineral the Comte d'Orkancz used to make the blue gla.s.s. She'd had a whiff of it off the stable pallet, but that was nothing compared to the saturation in the hut-almost as if someone had been smelting clay, or if some hapless citizen of Karthe had fallen victim to the Process-the Cabal's cruel procedure to imprint their authority onto a victim's mind, making the man or woman a willing slave to the dreams of indifferent masters. But this required machinery, and there could be none-it was all back at Harschmort, or under the sea in the sunken airship. She held the candle high and turned slowly-nothing but an empty room with cheap, patterned paper pasted to each wall. Miss Temple crossed to the one window, leaning close to the sill. At first she saw nothing, then suddenly squeaked with shock and dropped the candle to the floor, where it went out, plunging the room into darkness.

SHE'D SEEN a face, and stumbled back blind before crouching and scuttling until she reached the wall, the knife held before her. She heard nothing save her own breath, and held her breath only to hear her pounding heart. She waited. The face had been pale, disfigured- no face she felt she knew by sight, yet exuding in the scarcely remembered instant the baleful malevolence of a ghoul.

She must leave at once.

But she could not do so without one last look at the window. Miss Temple crept to the wall beneath, peered into the darkened doorway, then seized her courage and popped to her feet, staring into the gla.s.s. A clouded fluid had been sprayed, dark and clinging, on the window. It had not been there before. Miss Temple turned and ran.

With a surge of fear she pulled the door open, and dashed outside. She looked back at the house, the wide night sky and the open street underscoring how alone she was. The cabin door hung slack and empty, a mocking mouth in the dark.

HER BREATHLESS arrival at the inn minutes later did not in any way forestall Miss Temple's fears, nor, stepping into the common room, with its low glowing fire and wooden benches, did she find the hoped for comfort of numbers inside. The room was empty. Miss Temple closed the door behind her and dropped into place a wrought-iron latch.

"Excuse me?" she called, her voice not yet as controlled as she might prefer. There was no answer. The only sound was the popping of embers.

"Eloise?" she called, her tone encouragingly firmer. "Eloise Dujong?" But Eloise answered no more than any innkeeper.

MISS TEMPLE stepped toward the kitchen. There she found, again, no person, but the complete trappings of a half-prepared meal: fresh loaves, salted meat, pickled vegetables floating in an earthen crock.

"h.e.l.lo?" called Miss Temple.

Past the high wooden table was a door to the sort of yard where one might house chickens or tend a garden or dry laundry on poles- or perhaps store barrels of ale (it being the only inn in the village, she guessed that the Flaming Star's ale being good or indifferent did not so much matter). But Miss Temple did not explore further. Instead, she closed the door and slipped its latch into place, and returned through the common room to stand at the base of a stairway.

"Eloise?" she called.

There was a glowing lantern somewhere above, but not in view, as the stairway turned back at a tiny landing. She climbed up, boots echoing despite her care. At the top of the stairs were three doors. The two to either side were closed. The lantern light came from the middle one, open wide.

On its narrow bed lay the wrapped bundle Lina had prepared that morning, but there was no other sign of Eloise. Miss Temple took up the lantern and returned to the landing. She looked at the two closed doors and weighed-given that the inn seemed empty, and that no light came from beneath either door-what to her mind was a very minor moral choice.

The first room was certainly let out, for there were several leather travel bags-one on the bed and three on the floor-and an odd long leather case, as if for a parasol, set into the corner. The bags were lashed tight, however, and aside from a chipped white dish smeared with ash she saw no sign of a particular occupant.

The third room had no occupant at all, for the bed was stripped of blankets. Miss Temple sniffed for the slightest whiff of indigo clay, but perceived only a problem with mice under the floorboards. She dropped to a crouch to look under the bed. Directly before her lay a slender book. She picked it up. The book's cover of pale white pasteboard-Persephone, Poetic Fragments (translated by a Mr. Lynch)-was finger-smeared with long-dried blood.

She recalled their first meeting, on the train-a man reading such a volume, a straight razor open on the seat beside. The book was Chang's.

BELOW HER someone rattled the inn's front door. Miss Temple leapt out of the empty room, hurriedly set the lantern and the book next to Lina's bundle, and ran down the stairs. As she dashed into the common room, wondering who could be at the door and whether running to them so openly was a very stupid thing, a woman emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on an ap.r.o.n.

"You must be the other young lady." The woman smiled tolerantly as she crossed to unlatch the door. "I was told you'd arrive."

Before Miss Temple could say a word-or even fully form the question as to where the woman had been hidden-Eloise Dujong burst in from the street, followed by two men. She rushed to Miss Temple and clasped hold of her hands.

"O Celeste-there you are!" Eloise turned back to the men with a relieved smile. "You see-she is no figure of my imagination!"

"I had begun to think it, I confess," chuckled the older of the two, a tall, broad fellow with black hair that curled about his ears. He wore a thick traveling cloak that covered his body, down to a pair of black leather riding boots.

"This is Mr. Olsteen," said Eloise, extending her hand, "a fellow guest at the Flaming Star, who quite n.o.bly agreed to walk with me."

"Can't have a lady alone in the street." Olsteen chuckled again. "Not with everything I hear about these mountains!"

"And this is Franck." The second man was shorter than Olsteen and young, with rough, sullen eyes. His hands-which the fellow persisted in squeezing into fists-were unpleasantly calloused. "Franck is Mrs. Daube's hired man here at the inn-our hostess, whose acquaintance I see you have already made."

"I haven't, actually," managed Miss Temple, ignoring the gaze of both men upon her person.

"We have been searching for you, Celeste," continued Eloise, as though this was not perfectly obvious. "Apparently some of the regrettable events from farther north have antic.i.p.ated our arrival. When you did not return at once I became worried."

"We walked all the way to the stables," said Olsteen. "But they said you had already gone."

"And yet we did not pa.s.s in the street," observed Miss Temple innocently. "How very queer."

"Mr. Olsteen is one of a party of hunters just back from the mountains. And both Mrs. Daube and Franck informed me-"

"Of the deaths, I expect," said Miss Temple, turning to their hostess. "The wretched occupants of that particular squat cottage-across the road and some twenty yards along? Quite recent, I should think, and one can only guess how horrid."

To this no one replied.

"Because it had no lights," Miss Temple went on, "nor smoke from the chimney-alone of the entirety of Karthe. Thus one draws conclusions. But tell me, how many were killed-and, if I might be so pressing, who were they? And killed by whom?"

"A boy, Willem," said Franck, "and his poor father."

"Not young Willem," Miss Temple asked with sympathy, "the morning boy at the stables?"

"How did you know that?" asked Franck.

"She's just come from the stables," said Olsteen with a shrewd smile. "No doubt this Willem's death was all the other lad could speak of."

"You are correct, sir." Miss Temple nodded severely. "People will peck at another person's tragedy like daws at a mislaid seed cake."

Eloise reached out for Miss Temple's hand.

"But the groom did not say who had done the murders," added Miss Temple, a touch too hopefully.

"I shouldn't expect he did," said Mrs. Daube.

"Shall we retire for a moment to our room?" Eloise asked Miss Temple.

"Of course." Miss Temple smiled at Olsteen and Franck. "I am obliged to both of you for your kindness, however unnecessary."

Eloise dipped her knee to Mr. Olsteen, gently turned Miss Temple toward the stairs, and then respectfully addressed their hostess.

"Mrs. Daube, if it would be no trouble for us to dine in some twenty minutes?"

"Of course not, my dear," answered the innkeeper evenly. "I shall just be carving the joint."

THE WOMEN sat side by side on their bed, door latched, whispering closely.

"It is Chang's," exclaimed Miss Temple, holding out the bloodstained book. "I found it in the other room."

"I'm sure it must be. And here..." Eloise dug in the pocket of her dress and came out with a small smooth purple stone and a cigarette b.u.t.t. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the stone away with her other hand and held out the cigarette b.u.t.t to Miss Temple. "... is evidence of Doctor Svenson."

Miss Temple studied the b.u.t.t-end without success for crimping. "Are you sure it must be his?"

"It was crushed to the floor just here."

"But perhaps Mr. Olsteen, or one of his fellows-may they not have been in this very room?"

"As I'm certain many men read poetry."

Miss Temple did not see the comparison at all.

"I have seen Chang with this very book," she explained. "The consumption of tobacco is as common as cholera in Venice."

"Doctor Svenson purchased a quant.i.ty of Danish cigarettes from a fisherman," answered Eloise. "You will see the maker's mark."

She turned the foul thing in her hand until Miss Temple could indeed discern a small gold-inked bird.

"Well, then," Miss Temple said, "perhaps it tells us more. I found another such remnant-though I do not know if it bore this mark-in the abandoned house I examined on my way back from the livery. If the Doctor had also been inside it-"

"You went into an abandoned house? Alone? In the midst of these murders?"

"I did not know I was in the midst of anything," began Miss Temple.

"And you just brazenly lied to us all downstairs!"

"What ought I have said? I do not know those people, I do not know what involvement they might have had-"

"Involvement?" cried Eloise. "Why should they have any involvement-they were trying to help you!"

"But why?"

"Kindness, Celeste! Plain decency-"

"O Eloise! The hair, the bootprints-and now there have been murders here! That empty house belonged to the most recent victims."

Eloise threw the cigarette b.u.t.t to the floor. "We went looking for you, Celeste-as soon as I learned what had happened, we went the length of the road to the stables! We should have seen you on our way! But you had vanished! I was quite disturbed and frightened!"

"O you had your burly fellows," said Miss Temple.

"I was frightened for you!"

"But I have discovered-"

"We have discovered we are in great danger! We have discovered the Doctor and Cardinal were both here-but we do not know if they survived to leave!"

IT WAS not a thought that had occurred to Miss Temple. So happy had she been to find Chang's book that the notion of its somehow being a token of his peril seemed too cruel a contradiction. It was then, looking up at Eloise-whose gaze had fallen to the cigarette stub-that Miss Temple noticed the tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g about the woman's eyes. She saw in an instant that Eloise was right, that anything could have happened, that Chang and Svenson could have been killed.

"No no," she began with a dutiful cheer. "I'm sure our friends are quite safe-"

But Eloise cried out quite sharply, even as twin lines of tears broke forth down her cheeks.

"Who are you to know anything, Celeste Temple? You are a willful thing who has been happily asleep these past cruel days-who has money and confident ease, who has been rescued from your brazen presumption time and again by these very men who may now be dead or who knows where? Who I have watched over night after night, watched alone, only to have you abandon me at every adventuresome whim that pops into your spoiled-brat's brain!"

Miss Temple's first impulse was to slap the other woman's face quite hard, but she was so taken aback by this outburst that her only response was a certain cold loathing. It settled behind her grey eyes and imbued their formerly eager expression with the watchful, heartless gaze of an ambivalent cat.

Just as immediately Eloise placed a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

"O Celeste, I am sorry-I did not mean it, forgive me-"

But Miss Temple had heard such words before, throughout the whole of her life, from her imperious father to the lowest kitchen maid, so often that she divided the persons she knew into those who had voiced-or, she suspected, harbored-such criticisms, and those, like Chang, Svenson, and up to this very instant Eloise, who had not. She was routinely obliged to retain regular contact with those in the former category, but future dealings were irrevocably changed-and as she stared coolly at Mrs. Dujong, Miss Temple ignored what a less forceful person might have recognized on the woman's face as evident regret. Instead, taking care and interest as things once more to bury fully within her own heart, Miss Temple shifted her attention, as if it were a heavy case on a train platform, to the very real and pressing tasks at hand, next to which any intimate misunderstandings must be insignificant.

"We shall not speak of it," she said quietly.

"No no, it was horrid, I am so sorry-" here Eloise stifled an actual, presumptuous sob "-I am merely frightened! And after my quarrel with the Doctor, our foolish, foolish quarrel-"

"It is surely no matter to me either way." Miss Temple took the opportunity to rise and straighten her dress, stepping deftly beyond the reach of any guilt-driven comforting hand. "My only concern is to confound and defeat this party of murdering villains-and learn who is responsible for these crimes-and whether anyone else survived the airship. Lives are at stake-it is imperative we find answers, Eloise."

"Of course-Celeste-"

"Which brings me to ask, as it was impossible to do so downstairs, whether in your search you glimpsed any other figure in the village streets?"

"Was there someone we ought to have seen?"

Miss Temple shrugged. Eloise watched her closely, obviously on the point of apologizing once more. Miss Temple smiled as graciously as she could.

"It is only this morning that I have been from my bed. Suddenly I should like nothing more than to shut my eyes."

"Of course. I will tell Mrs. Daube that we shall be some minutes more-you must take all the time you like."

"That is most kind," said Miss Temple. "If you would take the lantern with you and close the door."

AS SHE lay in the dark, facing the pine plank wall, holding Chang's volume of poetry between her hands, Miss Temple told herself that in all truth it was simpler this way-and who knew, perhaps Eloise's quarrel with Doctor Svenson had been similarly impulsive and shortsighted, the outburst of an unreliable, skittish woman who had, quite frankly, always been something of a bother. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling a catch in her throat. Nothing was changed-apart from it being that much more important to get back to the city. If she slept on the train, there would be no need to speak to Eloise at all, apart from the sorting of tickets-and no reason to visit her family's cottage either. Miss Temple could find a new hotel. Chang and Svenson could seek her out there. If they were alive.

She sighed again, then sat up in an abrupt rustle of petticoats, fumbling for a candle and a match. She did not want to think about Eloise, nor the disfigured, corpse-white face in the window, nor her visions from the gla.s.s book, nor the Contessa, nor Roger. She didn't want to think about anything. Miss Temple looked down at the book in her hand, and leaned closer to the light.

She was never one for poetry or, if it must be said, reading in particular. It was an activity most often undertaken at the behest of someone else-a governess, a tutor, some relative-and so a source of resentment and disdain. Yet Miss Temple imagined Chang must feel about poetry the same way she felt about maps, maps being the one sort of reading she could happily essay. She opened the book and began to flip the pages, gauging the amount of text per page (not very much) and the number of pages in all (not very many)-an easy sort of read that would have appealed to her impatience save that this sparsity gave off at the same time an unwelcome whiff of pride.

She closed the book, and then on an impulse opened both covers at the same time, allowing the pages to open on a random poem. The one that fell to view did so because the binding had been repeatedly doubled back, and the page's corner deliberately folded down to mark its place.

It bore but one simple stanza, t.i.tled "Pomegranate": Six blood-swept seeds, consumed in grief A dismal realm of fetid torp'rous air No sky above her for relief Compacted with d.a.m.nation, beyond care Miss Temple closed the book. She was not against poetry as a rule-the idea of its density even appealed to her. Yet to Miss Temple this meant nothing written, but knotted, sensual experiences she could not imagine bound into mere words-moments too unwieldy, too crammed with what shivered her bare spine: the rage of a September surf, the snarl of her sweet cat upon catching a bird, the smoke of burning cane fields drifting across her morning veranda... distilled instants in which she perceived some larger inkling of the hidden world... moments that left her feeling both wiser and bereft.

If she concentrated she could of course recall the legend of Persephone, or enough of it to make her sigh with impatience, but she did not know what kidnapping, pomegranates, and so forth meant to Chang. That the binding had been bent and the page folded spoke to the poem's significance in his mind. She did take a certain pleasure at "blood-swept" and appreciated the hopelessness of a realm lacking a sky, as one supposed an underworld must. But as to the poem's subject, a Princess taken into the underworld... Miss Temple sniffed, supposing it must refer to Chang's courtesan love, Angelique. She pursed her lips to recall the regrettable wh.o.r.e who, like a foolish girl in a fairy tale, had rejected Chang in favor of vain promises from the Comte d'Orkancz-a choice that had led to Angelique's enslavement, disfigurement, and death. Such things of course happened-a great many unwelcome men had cared for Miss Temple any number of times- and yet it seemed that the Cardinal, who was so able, ought to have been immune to so common an affliction. And yet, far from spurring a dislike of Chang for this failing, Miss Temple found herself sighing in unexpected sympathy for his pain.

SHE SIGHED again, looking into the candle flame. A sensible course would have been to go downstairs, eat a good meal, and then sleep through to the morning. But her thoughts were still too restless (nor was she especially looking forward to sharing a bed with Eloise). It occurred to her that the other guest, the hunter, Mr. Olsteen, must have used a local horse for his hunting. Perhaps he could answer some of the questions she would have put to the murdered groom...