Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

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 Crabbe 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.