The Dark Volume

the train.

“She is in a freight car,” he said, “directly in the middle of the line—”

“The Contessa?” asked Eloise.

“Yes.”

“That one?”

Doctor Svenson looked to where she pointed. The door of the car had been pushed open wide enough for the woman to exit—or for Xonck to enter. Svenson swore in German beneath his breath, still pulling Eloise along. The rushes between the canal and the sloping gravel of the track were high enough to hide the water. He swept his gaze beyond the canal to the trees—though how the Contessa might have crossed the water he did not know—but saw nothing. What he could see of the car's interior lay dark and empty. The porter came toward him, waving. Back near the engine, the various figures seemed stopped. Had they heard the pistol too?

He turned at an audible plunk of canal water. The Contessa.

Eloise gasped aloud and pulled at his hand, and Svenson spun back to see Francis Xonck—through the underside of the carriage— on the far side of the train, having just dropped from some hidden perch. He was on hands and knees. With a rasping, hacking rale Xonck vomited a bilious stream of dark liquid onto the stones. Svenson extended the pistol, unsure of his aim through the intervening cables and wheels, and Xonck reeled to his knees, the hood falling back onto his shoulders. Eloise gasped again and her fingers dug into Svenson's hand. Xonck's face had been savaged by his ordeal—eyes rimmed red as two open wounds, lips blue, face streaked like a sweat-smeared actor's greasepaint. Doctor Svenson hesitated, and then Xonck's torso convulsed and he fell forward again, spewing another vile splashing bolt. The Doctor looked away with a wince—it was almost as if the sight conjured the smell—then saw the flash of a woman—black hair, dark dress, white hand—vanish into the trees on the canal's opposite side.

He pulled Eloise's hand and leapt into the rushes, the high green stalks slapping against them.

“But—Francis—the freight car—” cried Eloise.

“It is empty!” shouted Svenson. “Xonck is dying—the Contessa is more important!”

Her reply was curtailed by a grunt of pain as they stumbled abruptly into the low brick barrier that lined the canal. The bricked border of the canal was slick with dead reeds, flattened and brown, dangling into the dark green water.

“How did she cross?” asked Eloise.

“Perhaps she swam.”

“Never so quickly,” replied Eloise. “And not in any dress.”

The canal was not excessively wide, perhaps ten yards, but far enough for a woman's swimming to have made some noise—simply her climbing out would have dripped and splashed enough to draw their attention, and yet they had not heard a thing. He scanned both banks in either direction, looking for any rope or ferry box that might be hauled across. Once more Eloise pulled at his arm. She pointed farther down the canal, where the current flowed. Svenson screwed in his monocle and saw it for himself—a small flat-bottomed launch. The Contessa had taken it across and then pushed it away downstream.

“Can we catch it?” asked Eloise.

“We have little choice, save swimming,” replied Svenson.

Behind them the train whistle sounded its shrill and forlorn cry. They both looked back, hesitating, but reaching the train before it pulled forward, even if they had wanted to, was impossible. The iron wheels ground into motion with a shriek.

“Let us find our way across,” Eloise said.

AS IT happened, they did not need the little boat. Thirty yards away they found a narrow bridge of ingenious construction: it could be folded—allowing the water traffic to pass—and then laid out again as necessary to reach the other side. As the Contessa's boat drifted farther from their view, Doctor Svenson wrestled with the knots securing the planking. Once loosed, the network of pulleys and weights and cords stretched itself like some sort of wood-and-hemp mantis across the green canal, falling on the far bank with a slap.

He took Eloise's hand, helping her climb the short rise through the rushes. They had entered the vast and isolated woods of Parchfeldt Park.

“Do you know where we are?” he asked.

She squeezed his hand and pulled hers free. Doctor Svenson fussed in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his monocle.

“I am not sure,” said Eloise, taking a deep breath of the country air and exhaling with a smile, as if to displace the tension between them. “You see how dense the forest is. The canals are to the south—as is my uncle's cottage, but I have always come by the road. We could be within two hundred yards of the place or twenty miles… I've truly no idea.”

“The Contessa has not run so far only to escape Xonck. If she was intent on reaching the city, that woman would have clawed his eyes out rather than leave the train. She has entered the park for a reason. Can you think what it might be?”

“I cannot.”

“But did she ever, when speaking to you—”

“She never spoke to me.”

“But did she see you… did she know you were on the train?”

“I'm sure I've no idea!”

Doctor Svenson was torn between shaking her hard by the shoulders and caressing her face with sympathy. He diverted both urges by re-wiping his monocle.

“I'm afraid that will not do, my dear. Though I am an ignorant foreigner, I can at least make speculations. If it is a royal preserve, is there some royal presence—the hunting lodge of the Duke of Staelmaere, for example? Some other estate where the Contessa might hope to find rescue?”

“I do not know the whole park, only one small portion.”

“But if we are near that portion—”

“I do not know—”

“But if we are, what other tenants, what other possibilities?”

“There are none. The Rookery is all that remains of an estate house that burned some years ago. There are villages and wardens, but wholly unremarkable. Certainly a woman such as the Contessa might convince them to give her food—”

“She did not leave the train to find food in a village,” said Svenson.

“If you say so,” snapped Eloise.

“It will not help to get angry.”

“If I am angry it is because—because all of this—my mind and my body—”

She was breathing quickly, her face flushed, one hand in the air and the other protectively touching the bandage below her breasts.

“Listen to me.” The Doctor's sharp tone brought her eyes to his. “I am here—in this wood—because I am trying to recover my sense of duty. This woman we chase—the man in the train—the dead Ministry man at Karthe —”

“Who?”

He waved her question away. “If the Contessa escapes, other people will die—we will die. I am not thinking of myself, or of us, it is the last of my concerns—whatever I once thought, or hoped, I have put it away.”

“Abelard—”

“There is a hole in your mind you cannot help. That is a fact. And yet there are other facts you have not shared. Perhaps you have your reasons—but thus, you must see, comes my own dilemma. With some distress I must admit that we do not truly know each other at all. For example, I know that you met Caroline Stearne in a private room of the St. Royale Hotel, in the company of Charlotte Trapping.”

He waited for her to respond. She did not.

“You did not mention it,” he said.

Eloise looked away to the trees. After another hopeless silence Svenson indicated the way before them.