Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

“Not at all,” Chang answered. “Yet it appears we have interests in common.”

The servant did not reply.

“Charlotte Trapping, for example. And Mr. Francis Xonck.”

The man's crisp professional veneer—the collar, the coat, the clean-scrubbed nails, the impeccable polish of his shoes—was suddenly belied by his eyes, twitching with the encapsulated worry of two nervous mice.

“May I ask you a question, Mr….?”

“Mr. Happerty.”

“Mr. Happerty. That you entertain a character like myself in the middle of the morning on your own doorstep tells me you have certain … cares about your master. That I am here, never having met the man, is signal enough of his grave situation. I would suggest we speak more frankly—for speak we must, Mr. Happerty—indoors.”

Happerty sucked on his teeth, but then stepped aside.

“I am obliged,” whispered Cardinal Chang. Things were far worse than he had assumed.

THE FOYER of Leveret's townhouse was all one would have imagined, which was to say it expressed an imagination utterly contained: a black-and-white-checkered marble floor, a high-domed ceiling with an ugly chandelier dangling from a chain like a crystallized sea urchin, a staircase marked at regular intervals with paintings nakedly selected to match the upholstery of the reception chairs— optimistic river scenes showing the city's waters in a hue Chang doubted they would possess if Christ Himself walked across them on the brightest day in June.

Mr. Happerty shut the door, but did not invite Chang farther into the house, so Chang took it upon himself to stalk a few steps toward the open archway.

“The house is new to Mr. Leveret,” Chang stated. “Were you in his service at his previous residence?”

“I have allowed your entry only so as to not be further seen from the street,” said Happerty firmly. “You must tell me what you know.”

“Tell me how long your master has been missing.”

It was a guess, but a reasonable one. The real question was whether Leveret had fallen victim to the Cabal, or whether something else had occurred in the confusion of the past week—that is, whether the man was simply in hiding, or whether he was dead.

“I have let you in this house,” said Happerty again. “But I must know more who you are.”

“I am exactly what I seem,” Chang replied. “I do not care two pins for your master—I am not interested in harming him, if that is what you ask. Or harming you —or I would already have done so.”

There were no other servants—no crowd of footmen at call to throw him out of doors. Had they all gone? Or been sent away?

“It has been four days,” said Happerty at last, with a sigh.

“And to your mind, when you last saw him, did he expect to be gone?”

“I do not believe so.”

“No valise? No pocket of ready cash? No changes to his social calendar?”

“None of those things.”

“And where is his place of business?”

“Mr. Leveret travels to the different gun-works throughout the week. But that day…” Happerty hesitated.

“Can he defend himself?” asked Chang.

Happerty said nothing.

“Your employer is in danger,” said Chang. “Henry Xonck is an imbecile and Francis Xonck is dead. Forces more powerful than they, thus very powerful indeed, have made your master their target.”

Chang found his eye caught by the grain of the close-shaven skin on the underside of Happerty's jaw, reminding him unpleasantly of sliced salmon. The way it rubbed against the white starched collar, Chang expected to see a greasy pink stain. Then the old servant cleared his throat, as if he had made a decision.

“Mr. Leveret had an appointment at the Palace.”

“Is that normal?”

“Such appointments are a regular consequence of government contracts, though Mr. Leveret never appeared himself—they were the province of Mr. Xonck.”

“Henry Xonck?”

Happerty frowned. “Of course Henry Xonck. Yet in Mr. Xonck's absence—the quarantine —Mr. Leveret was summoned, to present delivery time-tables related to shore defenses.”

“Deliveries by way of the western canals?”

“I only keep Mr. Leveret's house.”

“Do you know who he met at the Palace?”

“Apparently he never arrived. They were most insistent he appear. An officer came. Quite beyond all decorum and without any further explanation, his men searched the premises for Mr. Leveret, despite everything I might do to persuade them otherwise!”

Happerty had become more animated, describing the disruption of his own domain. Chang nodded in sympathy. “But who was he meeting? At the Palace?”

“Mr. Leveret's calendar names a ‘Mr. Phelps,’ of the Foreign Ministry—itself a thing that makes no sense for coastal defenses. I do not believe Mr. Leveret had ever met with him before.”

Happerty gestured, affronted, beyond the archway. In the far room a window had been cracked, the fine lace curtains lay on the floor in a heap, the expensive Italian floor tiles had been scratched…

“Do you recall the officer in command?” Chang asked.

“It is my duty to recall everyone. Colonel Noland Aspiche, 4th Dragoons.”

Chang recalled the looping scars from the Process around Aspiche's eyes, the temporary disfigurement an apt sign of the man's internal distemper. Though he had hated Trapping's corruption, Colonel Aspiche had been seduced by the Cabal with ease. Chang was sure any remorse lay curled like a worm within the Colonel's conscience, making him that much more severe in executing his new masters' agenda.

“Two more questions, and I must go,” he said, “though I am in your debt, and will do my best to find Mr. Leveret. First, did your master ever visit Harschmort House?”

Mr. Happerty shook his head no.

“Second—in the last fortnight, did you ever see his face discolored, a scarring around the eyes? Or was he ever absent for some days at a time when such a condition might have healed without your knowing it?”

Happerty shook his head again. “Mr. Leveret is a prompt man with regular habits, dining at home each night at half-past six.”

“In that case, I will ask a third question,” said Chang, his hand on the crystal knob of the door. “You are a man who pays attention. Are you acquainted with Mrs. Elöise Dujong?”

“She is the widow,” said Happerty. “Mrs. Trapping's woman.”

“Would Mr. Leveret know her?”

“Mr. Leveret is most attentive to social nuance.”

HE WAS forced to cut through the Circus Garden, a district he preferred at all times to avoid and found especially onerous in his presently battered appearance. His path was momentarily blocked by a coach of young ladies, and Chang was stung by the trust cocooning them, even to the color of their merry hats, the blitheness—in a city of filth and smoke and blood and tobacco juice and layered grease—that allowed anyone to wear anything the color of a lemon meringue.

In his hurry, he'd not gone the extra streets to enter hidden through Helliott Street, and he was jostled down Stropping's main staircase into what appeared to be an especially restive and hostile crowd of travelers… but then he saw a line of constables at the foot of the wide stone steps, barking at people to form lines and group themselves by destination. What in the world was this? Chang paused, as angry bodies pushed past him—people muttering at the constables, constables answering the travelers with sharp shoves. What was more, beyond the constables he picked out pockets of red—dragoons scattered across the whole of the terminal, with each little crimson band led by men in Ministry topcoats—in the midst of a search the scale of which Chang had never seen in a lifetime of crime and its consequence. He was shoved forward, swept down by the crowd's momentum, waiting with rising dread for a constable to pick him out. Just before the foot of the stairs Chang muttered a sudden apology, as if he had dropped his stick, and crouched below the shoulders of the travelers around him, scuttling quickly ahead and past the harassed constables. He kept low until he reached the cover of an advertising kiosk, and then carefully took stock of his predicament.