Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

“I see.”

“So. Speak. Names. Start with your own.”

“May I ask you a question first?”

“You may not.”

Miss Temple ignored her. “If something were to happen to me, would this not be the most singular signal to my confederates about the character of your activities?”

The woman barked again with laughter. She regained control over her features. “I’m sorry, that was so very nearly amusing. Please—you were saying? Or did you want to die?”

Miss Temple took a breath and began to lie for all she was worth.

“Isobel. Isobel Hastings.”

The woman smirked. “Your accent is…odd…perhaps even fabricated.”

As she was speaking in her normal voice, Miss Temple found this extremely annoying.

“I am from the country.”

“What country?”

“This one, naturally. From the north.”

“I see…” The woman smirked again. “Whom do you serve?”

“I do not know names. I was given instructions by letter.”

“What instructions?”

“Stropping Station, platform 12, 6:23 train, Orange Locks. I was to find the true purpose of the evening and report back all I had witnessed.”

“To whom?”

“I do not know. I was to be contacted upon returning to Stropping.”

“By whom?”

“They would reveal themselves to me. I know nothing, so I can give nothing away.”

The woman sighed with annoyance, stubbed out her cigarette on the carpet, and rummaged for another in her bag. “You’ve some education. You’re not a common whore.”

“I am not.”

“So you’re an un-common one.”

“I am not one at all.”

“I see,” the woman sneered. “Your expenses are paid by the work you do in a shop.” Miss Temple was silent. “So tell me, because I do not understand, just who are you to be doing this kind of…‘investigation’?”

“No one at all. That is how I can do it.”

“Ah.”

“It is the truth.”

“And how were you first…recruited?”

“I met a man in a hotel.”

“A man.” The woman sneered again. Miss Temple found herself studying the woman’s face, noting how its almost glacially inarguable beauty was so routinely broken by these flashes of sarcastic disapproval, as if the world itself were so insistently squalid that even this daunting perfection could not stand up against the onslaught. “What man?”

“I do not know him, if that is what you mean.”

“Perhaps you can say what he looked like.”

Miss Temple groped for an answer and found, looming out of her unsettled thoughts, Roger’s supervisor, the Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Harald Crabbe.

“Ah—let me see—a shortish man, quite neat, fussy actually, grey hair, moustache, polished shoes, peremptory manner, condescending, mean little eyes, fat wife—not that I saw the wife, but sometimes, you will agree, one just knows—”

The woman in red cut her off.

“What hotel?”

“The Boniface, I believe.”

The woman curled her lip with disdain. “How respectable of you…”

Miss Temple continued. “We had tea. He proposed that I might do such a kind of task. I agreed.”

“For how much money?”

“I told you. I am not doing this for money.”

For the first time, Miss Temple felt the woman in red was surprised. It was extremely pleasant. The woman rose and crossed again to the sconce, lighting a second cigarette. She returned to her seat in a more leisurely manner, as if musing aloud. “I see…you prefer…leverage?”

“I want something other than money.”

“And what is that?”

“It is my business, Madam, and unconnected to this talk.”

The woman started, as if she had been slapped. She had been just about to sit again in the armchair. Very slowly, she straightened, standing tall as a judge over the seated Miss Temple. When she spoke, her voice was clipped and sure, as if her decision had already been made, and her questions now merely necessary procedure.

“You have no name for who sent you?”

“No.”

“You have no idea who will meet you?”

“No.”

“Nor what they wanted you to find?”

“No.”

“And what have you found?”

“Some kind of new medicine—most likely a patent elixir—used on unsuspecting women to convert them to a lifetime spent in the service of corrupted appetites.”

“I see.”

“Yes. And I believe you are the most corrupted of them all.”

“I’m sure you are correct in every degree, my dear—you have much to be proud of. Farquhar!”

This last was shouted—in a surprisingly compelling voice of command—toward a corner of the room blocked from view by a draped changing screen. Behind it Miss Temple heard the sound of a door, and a moment later saw her escort from before emerge, his complexion even redder, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. “Mmn?” he asked; then, making the effort to swallow, did so, and cleared his throat. “Madam?”

“She goes outside.”

“Yes, Madam.”

“Discreetly.”

“As ever.”

The woman looked down at Miss Temple and smiled. “Be careful. This one has secrets.” She walked to the main door without another word and left the room. The man, Farquhar, turned to Miss Temple.

“I don’t like this room,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

The door behind the screen led them into an uncarpeted serving room with several long tables and a tub of ice. One of the tables held a platter with a ravaged ham on it, and the other an array of open bottles of different shapes. The room smelled of alcohol. Farquhar indicated that Miss Temple should sit in the only visible chair, a simple wooden seat with no padding, a high back, and no arms. As she did, he wandered over to the ham and sawed away a chunk of pink meat with a nearby knife, then skewered the chunk on the knife and stuck it into his mouth. He leaned against the table and looked at her, chewing. After a moment he walked to the other table and leaned against it, tipping a brown bottle up to his teeth. He exhaled and wiped his mouth. After this moment of rest, he continued drinking, three deep swallows in succession. He put the bottle on the table and coughed.

The door on the far side of the room opened and the other escort, with the flask, stepped in. He spoke from the doorway. “See anything?”