Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

by Gordon Dahlquist

  “No,” said Miss Temple. “I’m sure you’re correct. I’m sure he’s only like them all.”

  She shrugged away the glimmer of sympathy. “But the question remains—should we direct our efforts to Tarr Manor?”

  “There is another possibility,” said Doctor Svenson. “I’ve been distracted. Not three minutes from here is the walled garden where the Comte d’Orkancz brought me to look at the injured woman—it was my destination when I saw you in the window.”

  “What woman?” asked Chang.

  Svenson exhaled heavily and shook his head. “Another unfortunate caught up in the Comte’s experiments, and another mystery. She bore all the features of drowning in frozen water, though the damage had apparently been inflicted by some machine—I assume it has to do with the glass, or the boxes—I could not say if she survived the night. But the location—a greenhouse, to keep her warm—must be a stronghold of the Comte, and it is very near. He sought me to treat her—”

  “Sought you?” asked Miss Temple.

  “He claimed to have seen a pamphlet I wrote, years ago, on the afflictions of Baltic seamen—”

  “He is indeed widely read.”

  “It is ridiculous, I agree—”

  “I do not doubt it, but why?” Miss Temple frowned, her thoughts quickening. “But wait…if the pamphlet is so old, then it means the Comte must have had cause, even then, to be mindful of such injuries!”

  Svenson nodded. “Yes! Would this mean the Comte is the chief architect of these experiments?”

  “At Harschmort it was quite clearly he who managed the boxes and the strange mechanical masks. It only follows he is master of the science itself…” She shivered at the memory of the large man’s callous manipulation of the somnolent women.

  “What did the woman look like?” interrupted Chang. “At this greenhouse?”

  “Look like?” said Svenson, his train of thought jarred. “Ah—well—there were disfiguring marks across her body—she was young, beautiful—yes, and perhaps Asiatic. Do you know who she is?”

  “Of course not,” said Chang.

  “We can see if she is still there—”

  “So that is another possibility,” said Miss Temple, attempting to keep the conversation clear. “I can also think of several destinations in search of particular people—back to Harschmort, to the St. Royale for the Contessa—”

  “Crabbé’s house on Hadrian Square,” said Svenson.

  They turned to Chang. He was silent, lost in thought. Abruptly he looked up, and shook his head. “Following an individual merely gives us a prisoner—at best, that is. It means interrogation, threats—it is awkward. True, we may find the Prince—we may find anything—but most likely we will catch Harald Crabbé at dinner with his wife and end up having to cut both their throats.”

  “I have not made Mrs. Crabbé’s acquaintance,” said Miss Temple. “I should prefer any mayhem be directly applied to those who we know have harmed us.” She knew that Chang had raised the idea of murdering the woman just to frighten them, and she was frightened—a test, as she realized the paintings were a way for her to test the two of them. As they stood speaking, she saw that placing herself with two men amidst a room full of undulating flesh was actually a declaration of a certain capacity and knowledge that she did not in fact possess. It had not been her initial intention, but it made her feel more their equal.

  “So you are not content to simply kill everyone.” Chang smiled.

  “I am not,” replied Miss Temple. “In all this I have wanted to know why—from the first moment I decided to follow Roger.”

  “Do you suppose we should separate?” asked Svenson. “Some to visit the greenhouse—which may involve the throat-cutting you describe, if it is full of the Comte’s men—and one to visit Tarr Manor?”

  “What of your Prince?” asked Miss Temple.

  Svenson rubbed his eyes. “I do not know. Even they did not know.”

  “Who did not?” asked Chang. “Specifically.”

  “Xonck, Bascombe, Major Blach, the Comte…”

  “Did they rule out the Contessa?”

  “No. Nor Lord Vandaariff. So…perhaps the Prince is in a room at the St. Royale, or at Harschmort—perhaps, if we were able to find him, it would accentuate the divisions between them, and who can say—thus provoke some rash action or at least reveal more of their true aims.”

  Chang nodded. He turned to Miss Temple and spoke quite seriously. “What is your opinion about dividing our efforts? About pursuing one of these choices alone?”

  Before she could answer—as she knew she must answer—Miss Temple felt the whole of her mind relocated to the jolting coach with Spragg, the hot smell of his sweating, bristled neck, the suffocating weight of his body, the imperious force of his hands, the crush of fear that had taken such implacable hold over her body. She blinked the thought away and found herself again facing the woman in red, her piercing violet eyes sharper than any knife, her dismissive, lordly insolence of expression, her dark chuckling laugh that seemed to flay the nerves from Miss Temple’s spine. She blinked again. She looked around her at the paintings, and at the two men who had become her allies—because she had chosen them, as she had chosen to place her very self at hazard. She knew they would do whatever she said.

  “I do not mind at all.” Miss Temple smiled. “If I should have the chance to shoot one of these fellows by myself, then all the better, I say.”

  “Just a moment…,” said Doctor Svenson. He was looking past her at the far wall and walked over to it, wiping his monocle on the lapel of his greatcoat. He stood in front of a small canvas—perhaps the smallest on display—and peered at the identifying card, then back at the painting with close attention. “Both of you need to come here.”

  Miss Temple crossed to the painting and abruptly gasped with surprise. How could she have not remembered this from before? The canvas—clearly cut from a larger work—showed an ethereal woman reclining on what one first assumed to be a sofa or divan, but which on further study was clearly an angled table—there even seemed to be straps (or was this merely the artist’s conception of a Biblical garment?) securing her arms. Above the woman’s head floated a golden halo, but on her face, around her eyes, were the same purpled looping scars they had all witnessed in the flesh.

  Svenson consulted his brochure. “Annunciation Fragment…it is…a moment—” He flipped the page. “The painting is five years old. And it is the newest piece in the collection. Excuse me.”

  He left them and approached the agent, who sat making notes in a ledger at his desk. Miss Temple returned to the painting. She could not deny that it was unsettlingly lovely, and she noticed with horror that the woman’s pale robe was bordered at the neck with a line of green circles. “The robes in Harschmort,” she whispered to Chang, “the women under the Comte’s power—they wore the same!”

  The Doctor returned, shaking his head. “It’s most bizarre,” he hissed. “The artist—Mr. Oskar Veilandt—was apparently a mystic, deranged, a dabbler in alchemy and dark science.”

  “Excellent,” said Chang. “Perhaps he’s the one to tie these threads together—”

  “He can lead us to the others!” Miss Temple whispered excitedly.

  “My exact thought.” The Doctor nodded. “But I am told that Mr. Veilandt has been dead for these five years.”

  All three were silent. Five years? How could that be possible? What did it mean?

  “The lines on her face,” said Chang. “They are definitely the same…”

  “Yes,” agreed Svenson, “which only tells us that the plot itself—the Process—is at least that old as well. We will need to know more—where the artist lived, where he died, who holds custody of his work—indeed, who has sponsored this very exhibition—”

  Miss Temple extended her finger to point at the small card with the work’s title, for next to it was a small blot of red ink. “Even more, Doctor, we will need to know who has bought this painting!”

&
nbsp; The gallery agent, a Mr. Shanck, was happy to oblige them with information (after the Doctor had thoroughly inquired as to prices and delivery procedures for several of the larger paintings, in between mutters about wall space in the Macklenburg Palace), but unfortunately what Mr. Shanck knew was little: Veilandt himself was a mystery, school in Vienna, sojourns in Italy and Constantinople, atelier in Montmartre. The paintings had come from a dealer in Paris, where he understood Veilandt had died. He glanced toward the opulent compositions and tendered that he did not doubt it was due to consumption or absinthe or some other such destructive mania. The present owner wished to remain anonymous—in Mr. Shanck’s view because of the oeuvre’s scandalous nature—and Shanck’s only dealings were with his opposite number at a gallery in the Boulevard St. Germain. Mr. Shanck clearly relished the patina of intrigue around the collection, as he relished sharing his privileged information with those he deemed discerning. His expression faltered into suspicion however when Miss Temple, in a fully casual manner, wondered who had purchased the “odd little painting”, and if he might have any others like it for purchase. She quite fancied it, and would love another for her home. In fact, he outright blanched.

  “I…I assumed—you mentioned the wedding—the Prince—”

  Miss Temple nodded in agreement, dispelling none of the man’s sudden fear.

  “Exactly. Thus my interest in buying one for myself.”

  “But none are available for purchase at all! They never were!”

  “That seems no way to run a gallery,” she said, “and besides, one has been sold—”

  “Why—why else would you come?” he said, more to himself than to her, his voice fading as he spoke.

  “To see the paintings, Mr. Shanck—as I told you—”

  “It was not even bought,” he sputtered, waving at the small canvas. “It was given, for the wedding. It is a gift for Lydia Vandaariff. The entire exhibition has been arranged for no other reason than to reunite each canvas with the others in a single collection! Anyone acquainted with the gallery—anyone suitable to be informed—surely, the union of the artist’s themes…religion…morality…appetite…mysticism…you must be aware…the forces at work—the dangerous…”

  Mr. Shanck looked at them and swallowed nervously. “If you did not know that—how did you—who did you—”

  Miss Temple saw the man’s rising distress and found she was instinctively smiling at him, shaking her head—it was all a misunderstanding—but before she could actually speak, Chang stepped forward, immediately menacing and sharp, and took up a fistful of Mr. Shanck’s cravat, pulling him awkwardly over his desk. Shanck bleated in futile protest.

  “I know nothing,” he cried. “People use the gallery to meet—I am paid to allow it—I say nothing—I will say nothing about any of you—I swear it—”

  “Mr. Shanck—” began Miss Temple, but Chang cut her off, tightening his grip on the man with a snarl.

  “The paintings have been gathered together you say—by whom?”

  Shanck sputtered, utterly outraged and afraid—though not, it seemed to her, of them. “By—ah!—by her father!”

  Once released, the man broke away and fled across the gallery into a room Miss Temple believed actually held brooms. She sighed with frustration. Still, it gave them a moment to speak.

  “We must leave at once,” she said. There were noises from beyond the distant doorway. She reached out an arm and prevented Chang from investigating. “We did not yet decide—”

  Chang cut her off. “This greenhouse. It may be dangerous enough that numbers will help our entry. It is also nearby.”

  Miss Temple bristled with irritation at Chang’s peremptory manner, but then perceived a flicker of emotion cross his face. Though she could not, with his eyes so hidden, guess what feelings were at work, the very fact of their presence piqued her interest. Chang seemed to her then like a kind of finely bred horse whose strengths were at the mercy of any number of infinitesimal tempests at work in the blood—a character that required a very particular sort of managing.

  “I agree,” replied Svenson.

  “Excellent,” said Miss Temple. She noted with alarm a growing clamor from amongst the brooms. “But I suggest we leave.”

  “Wait…,” called Doctor Svenson, and he dashed away from them toward Veilandt’s Annunciation. With a quick glance after Mr. Shanck’s closet, the Doctor snatched it from the wall.

  “He’s not going to steal it?” whispered Miss Temple.

  He was not. Instead, the Doctor flipped the picture over to look at the back side of the canvas, the deliberate nodding of his face confirming that he’d found something there to see. A moment later the painting was returned to the wall and the Doctor running toward them.

  “What was it?” asked Chang.

  “Writing,” exclaimed Svenson, ushering them toward the street. “I wondered if there might be any indication of the larger work, or—seeing as the man was an alchemist—some kind of mystical formula.”

  “And was there?” asked Miss Temple.

  He nodded, groping for a scrap of paper and a pencil stub from his coat pocket. “Indeed—I will note them down, though the symbols mean nothing to me—but also, I cannot say what they portend, but there were words, in large block letters—”

  “What words?” asked Chang.

  “‘And so they shall be consumed’,” Svenson replied.

  Miss Temple said nothing, recalling vividly the blackboard at Harschmort, for there was no time. They were on the avenue, the Doctor taking her arm as he led the way toward the greenhouse.

  “In blood?” asked Chang.

  “No,” answered Doctor Svenson. “In blue.”

  “The entrance to the lane that I know is directly opposite the Boniface,” said Svenson, speaking low as they walked. “To reach the garden gate safely, we will have to walk some distance around the hotel and come at it from the opposite side.”

  “And even then,” observed Chang, “you say it may be guarded.”

  “It was before. But of course, the Comte was there—without him, the guards may be gone. The problem is, I entered through the garden, that is, the back way—and it was dark and foggy, and I have no real idea whether there is a house connected to it—still less if the house is presently occupied.”

  Chang sighed. “If we must circle around it will be longer to walk, yet—”

  “Nonsense,” said Miss Temple. The men looked at her. She really would need to take a firmer hand. “We will hire a coach,” she explained, and realized that neither of her companions even thought of hiring a coach as a normal part of their day. It was obvious that between the three of them were different sorts of strength, and different brands of fragility. As a woman, Miss Temple perceived how each of her companions felt sure about where she might fail, but lacked a similar sense of their own vulnerabilities. It was, she accepted, her own responsibility, and so she directed their attention down the avenue.

  “There is one now—if one of you would wave to the man?”

  Thus conveyed, each one pressing themselves into their seat and away from the windows, they were on the other side of the lane within minutes. Chang gave Miss Temple a nod to indicate he saw no soldiers. They climbed out and she sent the coach on its way. The trio entered the empty, narrow, cobbled lane, which Miss Temple saw was called Plum Court. The gate stood in the middle of the lane—as they neared it the sounds of the adjoining avenues faded before the deepening shadow, for the buildings around them blocked out whatever light did not fall from directly above, which from this clouded sky was very feeble. Miss Temple wondered how any kind of garden could thrive in such a dull and airless place. The entrance was a strange church-like arch set into the wall around a thick wooden door. The arch itself was decorated with subtle figures carved into the wood, a strange pattern of sea monsters, mermaids, and shipwrecked sailors who were smiling even as they drowned.

  Miss Temple turned her gaze to the end of the lane and saw, in the br
ighter light of the avenue, as if it were a framed colored picture, the front of the Boniface. Standing at the door was Mr. Spanning, with a soldier to either side. Miss Temple tapped Chang on the shoulder and pointed. He stepped quickly to the doorway, set down Miss Temple’s flowered bag and dug in his pocket for a heavy ring of many keys. He rapidly sorted through them, and muttered out of the side of his mouth, “Let me know if they see us…and you might step closer to the wall.”

  Miss Temple and the Doctor did press themselves against the wall, each of them readying their pistols. Miss Temple felt more than a little anxious—she had never fired any weapon in her life, and here she was, playing the highwayman. Chang inserted a key and turned. It did not work. He tried another, and another, and another, each time patiently flipping through the ring for a new one.

  “If there is anyone on the other side of the door,” whispered Svenson, “they will hear!”

  “They already have,” Chang whispered in reply, and Miss Temple noticed that he had casually insinuated himself—and they behind him—to the side of the door, clear of any shots that might be fired through it. He tried another key, and another, and another. He stood back and sighed, then looked up at the wall. It was perhaps ten feet tall, but the sheer face was broken around the door by the ornamental arch. Chang pocketed his keys and turned to Svenson.

  “Doctor, your hands please…”

  Miss Temple watched with some alarm and a certain animal appreciation as Chang placed his boot in the knitted hands of Doctor Svenson, and then launched himself at the overhanging archway. With the barest grip he slithered up to where he could wedge his knee onto the shingles, shift his weight, and then reach as high as the edge of the wall itself. Within moments, and by what Miss Temple felt to be a striking display of physical capacity, Chang had swung a leg over the wall. He looked down with what seemed to be a professional lack of expression, and dropped from her sight. There was silence. Svenson readied his revolver. Then the lock was turning, the door open, and Chang beckoning them to enter.