Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

“Go ahead and sit down.” Phelps gestured with his protruding pink fingers toward the nearest chair. Miss Temple did not move. He stepped into the room.

“I appreciate the oddness of the occasion. You have no need to be afraid.”

“I am not afraid,” replied Miss Temple.

He looked as if he expected her to say more, but being rather afraid indeed, she did not. Phelps turned to Soames. “What is your name again?”

“Soames. Joseph Soames. One of Lord Acton's special liaisons.”

“Soames.” Phelps intoned it, committing the name to memory. “Per haps you could discover what delays this woman's tea.”

SOAMES' FOOTSTEPS echoed down the corridor. Phelps reached into the pocket of his topcoat, pulling out one black leather glove. Still watching her expression—which remained willfully bland—he tugged the glove onto his non-plastered hand and then carefully opened the canvas sack. As if he were unpacking a cobra, Phelps removed a shining blue glass book. He set it down on the table and took two steps away, removing the glove.

“What was your name again?” he asked, a bit too idly. “Because I feel I have seen you before.”

“Isobel Hastings. May I ask what happened to your arm?”

“It was broken,” said Phelps.

“Did it hurt?”

“It did indeed.”

“Does it hurt still?”

“Only when I am attempting to sleep.”

“You know, I myself am fascinated by that exact sort of thing— how in the middle of a sleepless night a sore tooth can seem to have become the size of one's entire fist—so much room does it take up in one's thoughts, you see. What did you actually do to break it?”

“A German doctor broke it for me—at a place called Tarr Manor. Do you know it?”

“Do you insinuate I ought to?”

“Heavens no, I merely pass the time.”

Miss Temple settled herself on one of the chairs, both because she was bored by standing like a servant and to bring the knife in the boot nearer to her hand.

“I'm sure it is a lesson to steer clear of Germans to begin with,” she observed. “Am I your prisoner?”

“I will tell you as soon as I know myself,” said Mr. Phelps.

Mr. Soames returned alone, holding a metal tray with a pot, a stack of cups without saucers, a small jug of milk, and, Miss Temple noted bitterly, not one biscuit on a plate. He stopped abruptly in the doorway, his eyes fixed on the book on the table, then caught himself and turned to Phelps, raising the tray as if to ask where—the table taken—he should put it. Phelps gestured with disdain to the floor. Soames set the tray on the tiles and knelt, pouring tea, looking to Miss Temple to see if she wanted milk, then pouring milk at her indication that she did. He took the cup to her, returned to the tray, and looked to Phelps, who shook his head with impatience. Soames looked down briefly at the tray, measuring whether, with Phelps' demurral, he might avail himself of a cup, but then clasped his hands behind his back, looking sharply at Miss Temple. She held the warm cup cradled on her lap and smiled back at him brightly.

“We were just discussing the manner in which pain can preoccupy the mind—”

Her words were cut off by the loud clatter of Mr. Soames' foot kicking the teapot, scattering the tray and its contents across the floor. He staggered where he stood, his face blank as it had been in the coach, arms dangling at his side. Miss Temple looked to Phelps, but Phelps had already crossed to the doorway. He slammed it shut and turned a metal key in its lock. Miss Temple's hand reached toward her boot. Soames blinked and cocked his head, watching her with intent, flickering eyes.

“Celeste Temple.” His voice was an unpleasant, uninflected hiss.

“Mr. Soames?”

“It is not Mr. Soames,” whispered Phelps. “If you value your life, you must answer every question put to you.”

Mr. Soames drew back his lips in the unnatural leer of an ape in a cage. “Where is she, Celeste? Where are the others?”

It was a small number of people who might presume to call her Celeste and a smaller number still to whom she might grant the privilege—not half a dozen in life, and nowhere in this number stood Mr. Soames. The troubling, hideous spectacle was not—at least in terms of mind —Mr. Soames at all.

Mr. Phelps cleared his throat, and Miss Temple looked to him. “You must answer.”

Mr. Soames watched her closely, a bit of foam having appeared at each corner of his mouth.

“What others do you mean precisely?” she said to him.

“You know what I want,” hissed Mr. Soames.

She glanced fearfully at Mr. Phelps, but the man's attention seemed split between discomfort and curiosity. Miss Temple forced herself to shrug and began to rattle away in as blithe a tone as possible.

“Well, it all depends on where one starts—I don't know if the events at Harschmort House are known to you, but on the airship nearly everyone was killed, and the airship itself—with all the books and machinery and most of the bodies—has been sunk beneath the sea. The Prince, Mrs. Stearne, Doctor Lorenz, Miss Vandaariff, Roger Bascombe, Harald Crabbé, the Comte d'Orkancz I saw dead with my own eyes—”

“Francis Xonck is still alive,” spat Mr. Soames. “You were with him. You were seen.”

Miss Temple felt an icy blue pressure against her skull, the pressure escalating to pain.

“He was in Karthe,” squeaked Miss Temple. “I saw him get off the train and followed him.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don't know—he disappeared! I took his book and ran!”

“Where is the Contessa?” asked Soames. “What will she do?”

“I cannot say—her body was not found—”

“Do not lie . I can feel her.”

“Well, you know more than I do.”

Mr. Soames twitched his fingers. “I can see her near you,” he whispered. “I can sense her… on your mouth.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Temple.

“Tell me I am wrong,” rasped Mr. Soames.

Mr. Phelps crossed to Soames. He placed a hand on Soames' forehead, and then—with some distaste—peeled back the lid from the man's left eye. Its white had acquired a milky blue cast that, as Miss Temple watched, crossed into the brown iris.

“There is not much time,” whispered Mr. Phelps.

“Where is the Contessa?” cried Soames.

“I do not know!” insisted Miss Temple. “She was on the train. She left in the night.”

“Where?”

“I do not know!”

“Scour the length of the train tracks!” Soames barked to Phelps. “Every man you have—near the canals! She must be near the canals!”

“But,” began Phelps, “if it was Francis Xonck—”

“Of course it was Xonck!” screeched Soames.

“Then surely we must keep searching—”

“Of course!” Soames coughed thickly, spattering saliva on his moustache and chin. He turned his attention back to Miss Temple. “Xonck's book!” he cried hoarsely. “Why did you take it?”

“Why would I not take it?” replied Miss Temple.

Soames coughed again. His eyes were almost entirely blue.

“Bring her upstairs,” he croaked. “This one is spent.”

In an instant, like the snuffing of a candle, the presence that had inhabited Mr. Soames was gone. He toppled to the floor and lay still, gasping like a fish in the bottom of a boat, a ghastly rasp that filled the room. She looked up to Phelps.

“I will escort you to his Grace's chambers,” he said.

WAITING OUTSIDE the door were two servants with an assortment of mops and bottles.

“You will manage the gentleman,” Phelps said to them. “Be sure to scrub well with vinegar.”