Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

“I don't know where Chang is.”

“Perhaps he simply left us,” she said. “The man was miserable—”

Svenson's words came out in a cold rush. “The dead grooms and the dead fisherman had different killers. At the stable we found traces of indigo clay. Something is known by the villagers—about Chang or the deaths—that they hide from me.”

She stared at him. “Indigo clay? You say this now? Are we safe?”

“I will make sure we are.”

To this bald promise Elöise said nothing, smoothing her dress over her legs. The dress was spare and black—gathered from someone's period of mourning, and lucky to fit, he knew. In the dim room, Elöise's hair looked black as well, and her face half-wrought from shadow. He wondered—with a strange, despairing detachment he did not fully understand—what his feelings for her truly were. A piece of her mind was missing. There was another man, a man she loved. Was this such a disappointment? Could she dislodge the stone of grief he had carried so long?

It seemed to Doctor Svenson that he had the power to choose— she was right before him, a woman in life, and he saw the flaws in her face or body as he saw her fundamental beauty. He felt the tipping balance of his own heart and mind. Prudence, sanity even, demanded he fold his hopes back where they had lain and do his very best to return her to that life, to whatever mystery shook her soul, and then, that done, to step away. To choose differently led nowhere—or to the exact same place after agonizing cost.

Yet, the proximity… the terrible possibility, however illusory, however doomed, that here was a woman he might love, after so much time, after all the world. How could a man turn away from that?

“It seems her breath is not so shallow tonight,” she said.

“No.”

“Hopefully we may leave soon.” Elöise paused, as if there might be some other thing to say, but then smiled tightly.

“I must meet Sorge and the village men at the boats,” he said. “I will convince them of Chang's innocence, and our own—I must find out what they know, do my best to find Chang. If our enemies do live, then the more I do, the more visible these efforts are—”

“Why do you meet them at the boats?”

“It is Sorge's idea. My hope is to draw all this away from you.”

“Where are you going?” asked Elöise. “Where are you going?”

“I am not —I merely—whatever needs to be done—”

“What of me? What of Celeste?”

“You will be safe. Believe me. Only promise not to go out alone— to the shore or the woods—until all this has been settled.”

They stood in silence, the bed between them, the girl upon it. He so wanted to speak to her, yet sensed with an unassailable sharpness how little he must count for in her thoughts.

“They are all dead,” Elöise whispered. “They simply must be.”

HE STRODE through the woods, late for Sorge, his thoughts running wild. What did his own unhappiness matter? Elöise would disappear into her former life… or what might be left of it, a widow now caring for another widow's children. Elöise would tell Charlotte Trapping everything—perhaps sparing a few details about the louche habits of the late Colonel… but were they not confidantes? He had seen the two women together at Harschmort, Elöise whispering in Charlotte Trapping's ear… as he had seen Elöise whispering to Arthur Trapping, attempting to persuade him to remain in the ballroom as opposed to going off with Harald Crabbé, the Deputy Foreign Minister. But Trapping had ignored her and gone off with Crabbé…

The hole in Elöise's memory. Francis Xonck convincing her to visit Tarr Manor, to share whatever shameful secrets she might keep… shameful secrets Xonck must have known… all in order to save Arthur Trapping's life.

Svenson stopped walking. He stood, acutely aware of the high cocoon of the night, miles wide and cold, holding his thoughts fast.

Arthur Trapping… a man of no account… his Colonel's commission purchased by his wife's money… an unprincipled and ambitious rake… Svenson had seen the man's behavior for himself…

Elöise's lover was Arthur Trapping.

Svenson felt numb.

Or was it Francis Xonck?

Or both of them?

Svenson's thinking snagged on the image, like a fish hooked sharply through its jaw.

Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps Elöise was engaged to the greengrocer, or an officer in the local militia… but why should any such unimportant attachment have been selected for inclusion in the glass book?

It would not have been. He was not wrong.

Svenson laughed bitterly. He was an idiot. Of course she had kissed him. Her brown hair, curling onto her startling white neck. They had been ready to die.

HE LOOKED up. He had reached the docks without realizing it, and Vat least ten men stood watching him, waiting in a knot outside a row of huts. Sorge raised a hand to wave him on, but the others remained silent as Svenson forced himself forward, following Sorge under a hanging sheet of oilcloth and out of the wind. The hut smelled of fish, but had a burning stove and room for them all. Svenson waited until the last man had come in—the fellow with the boots—then lit a cigarette. Everyone stared at him. Svenson cleared his throat, stuck the cigarette in his mouth to free his hands, and peeled off his peacoat.

“You know me as a man of medicine…” Svenson swatted his battered tunic with both hands. “But you will see that what I wear is the uniform of a soldier—the uniform of Macklenburg. I am a foreigner— yet you all know the meaning of duty, of honor, of loyalty, and such is the code of my own service. I speak of Sorge's family, and your entire village, whose kindness saved our lives.”

No one had interrupted him yet, which he chose to take as an encouraging sign.

“The man who gave his name as Chang is a stranger to me. I do not know him, any more than I know where he is now. But the lives of two women are my responsibility—and so I am here to help as best I can.”

Svenson met the gaze of the man in the riding boots.

“This Chang is without question a criminal. And yet, such men easily become phantoms, scapegoats…”

At this, several men began to mutter. Svenson held out his hands.

“If more people are not to die, we need to understand exactly what has happened.”

“That's clear enough,” called the man with the boots.

“Is it?” asked Svenson. “What did you yourself say this afternoon? That the grooms and the dead boatman must have been killed by different hands?”

“What of it?” snarled the man. “The grooms were killed by a wolf, the boatman by your criminal.”

“The fisherman—” began Svenson.

“His name was Sarn!” called one of the others, angrily.

“I'm sorry— Sarn —my apologies, but Sarn was murdered two days ago. Before the grooms. Chang was at Sorge's—you all saw him. He could no more have reached the fishing boat than any of you, because of the flooding.”

“But he could have gone to the stables.”

“Like any of us, indeed. But you saw those wounds. The grooms were not killed by any blade I know—not unless it was a cutlass, or a boarding axe. Think, all of you! If the grooms were murdered not by a wolf, they were murdered for horses, which means whoever killed them then left ! On a horse! Chang did not so leave—nor, as he was here in your sight that entire day, did he have any horse tucked under his coat! I do not excuse Chang, but my reasoning tells me that someone else has done this killing. Perhaps they have now killed Chang. Perhaps there is something else we do not know…”