Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

“And you are the present Lady of the house.”

She nodded.

“Can you—I am merely making sure of their work, you understand—tell me what you saw? Here, please, come in and take advantage of a chair. And perhaps there is some cake left after all…”

She installed herself on a settee with striped upholstery and pulled a plate of untouched cake slices onto her lap. With impulsive relish the woman crammed the whole of a slice into her mouth, giggled with her mouth full, swallowed with practiced determination, picked up another slice—as if having it in her hand was a comfort. She spoke in a rush.

“Well, you know, it is the sort of thing that seems, well, it seems awful, just awful—but then so many things seem that way at first, so many things that are good for one, or actually—eventually—delicious—” She realized what she had just said, and to whom, and erupted in another shrill laugh, stifled only by another bite of cake. She choked it down, her full bosom heaving with the effort beneath the bodice of her dress. “And they did seem happy—these women—alarmingly so, I must say. If it wasn’t so frightening I would have been envious. Perhaps I still am envious—but of course I have no reason to be. Roger says it will do wonders for the family—all of this—which perhaps I shouldn’t tell you, but I do believe he is right. My boy is a child—he can do nothing for his family for years—and Roger has promised, aside from every other generosity, that Edgar will inherit from him, that Roger—who has no children, but even if he did—he had a fiancee, but doesn’t any longer—not that that matters—she was a wicked girl, I always said, never mind her money—he’s quite eligible—and most impressively connected—he will pass it all back when the time comes. Fair is fair! And do you know—it is nearly certain—we shall be invited to the Palace! I cannot say it should have happened with Edgar on his own!”

Doctor Svenson nodded encouragingly.

“Well, Mr. Bascombe’s work is very important.”

She nodded vigorously. “I know it!”

“Though it must—I can only imagine, of course—surely some would find it a touch…unsettling…to have such intrusions into their house.”

She did not answer, but smiled at him stiffly.

“May I also inquire—the recent loss of your father—”

“What of that? There is no sense—no decent sense to dwell on—on—on— tragedy!”

She persisted in smiling, though once more her eyes were wild.

“Were you with him in the house?”

“No one was with him.”

“No one?”

“If there’d been anyone with him, they’d have been killed by wolves as well!”

“Wolves?”

“What’s worse is that the creature’s not been found. It could happen again!”

Svenson nodded gravely. “I should stay indoors.”

“I do!”

He stood, gesturing to the ante-room with the staircase. “The others…are they…upstairs?”

She nodded, then shrugged, and finished the second slice.

“You’ve been very helpful. I shall inform Roger when I see him…and Minister Crabbe.”

The woman giggled again, blowing crumbs.

Svenson walked up the stairs, realizing that he was searching for Eloise. He knew Miss Temple was not here. In all likelihood, Eloise did not want to be found—that is, she was his enemy. Was he such a sentimental fool? He looked back down the stairs and saw the Bascombe woman cramming another piece of cake into her mouth, tears streaming down her face. She met his gaze, cried out with dismay and dashed awkwardly from sight like a silk- wrapped scuttling dog. Svenson thought about stopping to find her for perhaps one second and then continued up the stairs. His hand drifted again to his revolver. His other hand absently bounced against the black book in his other pocket. Was he an idiot? He’d forgotten completely about it—the lack of light to read, probably—but it was the surest thing to explain what Eloise—and everyone else—was doing there.

He reached a dark landing and remembered that this and the following floors were completely dark from outside. Tarr Manor was an old house, subsisting solely on lanterns and candles, which meant there was always a near sideboard with a drawer of tallow stubs for contingencies. The Doctor stumped down the hallway until he found the very thing, and snapped a match to the candle. Now for some place to read. Svenson glanced at the labyrinthine passages and doorways and decided to stay where he was. Even taking this long went against a nagging fear that something might be happening to the women even now. He remembered Angelique. What if Lorenz, who clearly lacked the Comte d’Orkancz’s esthetic scruples, was upstairs even then, unscrewing one of his glass-packed metal flasks?

Svenson controlled his thoughts—he was working himself up to no purpose. Two minutes. He would give the book that much.

It was all the task required. On the first page was the quotation he’d had read to him on the train. And on the second page, and the next, and throughout the entirety of the book, printed again and again in small script, one great continuous flow of the identical passage. He looked on the inside and back covers, to see if Coates had written anything…and saw that he had, a series of numbers, jotted in pencil and then ineffectively erased. Svenson held the candle close, and turned to the first of the pages listed, 97…it seemed like any other page, with no special sign or significance that he could see. An idea gnawed at him…he looked at the first word at the top of the page— could these add up to a message? Some kind of basic code? Svenson took a pencil stub from his pocket and began to jot notes on the inner flap of the book. The first word of TWO: Cardinal was “the”…he looked at the next number in Coates’s list, THREE: Surgeon…the first word was “already”…Svenson quickly flipped the pages.

He frowned. “The already remake realms vessels into…” did not seem like anything sensible. Perhaps it was itself a code—he tried to puzzle it out: “already” meant the past…so “already remake” might mean their progress so far…but why bother with “the” at the beginning? Weren’t coded messages supposed to be economical? Svenson sighed, looking at the book with as much insight as if it were a Hungarian newspaper, but feeling just within reach of the solution…he tried the last words of each page, but this gave him “of Lord will their night only”. It sounded like a dire prediction of some kind, but wasn’t right…

The letters! He looked at the list of first words—if he only took the first letters he got…“T-A-R-R-V-I”…he anxiously looked for the next page—the first word was “look”—it meant Tarr Village! He kept going and got as far as “Tarr Vill” when the next page, ONE: Temple, began with a blank line…as did the next, ONE: Temple. It came in an instant—3:02!—it was the time of the train! It was the matter of another minute before Svenson had nearly the whole of it done—there was only the last number, whose page started with the letter p…which gave him a last word of “bravep”…which could not be correct. He double- checked Coates’s numbering, and noticed that this last number was underlined. Could it mean something different? He chuckled and had it—it indicated the whole word! He jotted it down and looked at what he’d written:

Tarr Vill. 3:02. Who offers sin shall brave Paradise

Doctor Svenson snapped the book closed and picked up the candle. These people—in ignorance of one another—had been invited to come, to submit “sin” in exchange for “Paradise”. He knew enough to shudder at what this Paradise might actually be. Did any of them know with whom they trafficked? Had Coates? He walked back to the stairs, wondering why—why these people? Karl-Horst, Lord Tarr, Bascombe, Trapping—suborning them made mercenary sense, they were perfect well-placed tools. He thought of the stupid woman on the train and he thought of Eloise. He thought of Coates under the altar, and knew exactly how little these people were worth to those who had seduced them. At the base of the stairs Doctor Svenson took the pistol out of his coat and blew out his candle. He climbed into the darkness.

He heard nothing until he stepped onto the fourth floor. Above were the gabled attics, where he’d seen the light. His steps climbing were as light as he could make them, but anyone listening would have heard the creaks and groans of the old wood well in advance of his arrival. As he ascended the steps he also met a thicker concentration of the mechanical smell—perversely, as if he were in the thinning alpine air, his breath more shallow and his head dizzied. He stopped and put his handkerchief over his nose and mouth, sweeping across the shadowed