The Dark Volume mtccads-2

by Gordon Dahlquist

  BUT CHANG did not return that night for their meal. They had waited in awkward silence—Sorge, Lina, and Bette waiting with them—until the food had gone quite cold, and Svenson was forced to concoct a story that Chang had taken it upon himself to search the coastline to the south, traveling so far that perhaps it seemed simpler to make camp where he was, especially if he had found any sign of wreckage. He'd no idea if Sorge believed him—he knew full well Elöise did not—but hoped it would be enough until Chang finally reappeared. As soon as he could reasonably escape to the porch for a cigarette Svenson snatched up a lantern and walked through the woods to where he and Chang had argued and well beyond, to the water, into the trees, knowing the search was haphazard and fruitless. Two hours later, his face numb and his breath frosting before him as he scraped his boots on the porch steps, Svenson was no more the wiser. All the lights were doused. He crept inside in silence, boots in one hand.

  “Where were you?” asked Elöise softly, from the shadows near the stove.

  “Walking,” he whispered, and sat awkwardly at the table.

  “Did you find him?”

  “No.”

  “Where did he go? If you know anything, please—”

  “Elöise, I have no idea. We argued. He stalked off in a rage and has not returned.”

  “Argued? About what?”

  “About the villagers—you must have seen it yourself, heard their whispers—I merely suggested he make himself less visible…”

  Elöise was silent. He knew he ought to mention the grooms. Why did he hesitate?

  “Did Sorge say anything while I was gone? Or Lina?”

  “I do not know that they trust me enough to speak. Bette, however, once her parents had retired, was less reticent.”

  “What did she say?”

  “One of the village boats has been missing since the storm. They fear the man is dead.”

  “They say this now? Has he no family?”

  “No. And apparently this fellow sailed alone.”

  Svenson said nothing—again, knowing he should mention the grooms, the blue stains. Instead, as the silence grew, his eyes now adjusted to the dark, he realized she was quite lost in thought.

  “I am appalled at myself,” he said. “I have never asked—of course I know you were married. Do you have children, Elöise?”

  She shook her head, smiling away both the question and his concern. “I do not. My husband died soon after our marriage.”

  “What was his profession?”

  “He was a soldier. I thought you knew.”

  Svenson shook his head.

  “It was a very long time ago,” said Elöise. “I scarcely remember the girl I must have been—in truth, I recall him even less. A dear boy. He did not seem a boy at the time. We knew so very little.” Elöise paused, and then spoke rather carefully. “This woman you mentioned… your cousin…”

  “Corinna,” said Svenson.

  “Your silver case. The engraving on it—‘vom CS’—Corinna Svenson?”

  “You remember that?”

  “Of course I do,” said Elöise. “Miss Temple had wondered who it was from.”

  “A gift upon my last promotion.”

  She smiled. He sighed, then knowing it was wrong, plunged ahead. “I have wanted to say—perhaps I can help you—to discover what you remember, what you do not—”

  She shook her head quickly. “I'm sure it is impossible.”

  “But—this other man—”

  “I cannot speak of it.”

  “But—Elöise—you are a grown woman—a respectable widow—”

  She looked away from him. His words faltered.

  “But you and I…” Svenson could not find the words. “At Tarr Manor, did we not…”

  He stopped.

  “I am a fool.” Her face was hard, but her eyes stricken. “You saved my life. But at times, so many times, I think I should have died.”

  She stood and walked without another word into the room she shared with Bette.

  THE NEXT morning, the fisherman's boat was found. It lay on its side, flung onto the line of sharp black rocks as if by a disdainful child, the mast snapped and the tattered, dragging sails half buried in the sand. Three men were there to meet them—the same men who had been at the stable—their expressions visibly colder and more grim. As he nodded in greeting—no man offered his hand—Svenson frowned to see that one of the fishermen now wore a well-kept pair of leather riding boots.

  The man saw his gaze and redirected the Doctor's attention with a thrust of his unshaven chin. The body had been placed, as if sitting upright, on one of the angled benches that spanned the width of the boat.

  “A moment first,” said Svenson, and he climbed past the corpse, over the skewed gunwale, to the cabin, poking his head into the dim little chamber.

  The cabin's contents had been thrown to the floor and sent into a pile with the vessel's tilt. The floorboards were still damp but the upper walls had not been submerged. The one small window bore a spattered line of reddish brown, and a patient search revealed another half-dozen drips and flecks. Svenson rooted through the littered debris without any particular expectation, and found nothing.

  He stepped back to the tilting deck. Sorge stood with the other men, some several yards farther away, as if they had sought to speak without Svenson overhearing. As the Doctor knelt to examine the corpse, their scrutiny was palpable on the back of his neck.

  The fisherman's throat had been gashed, ear to ear and more than once, but the repeated strokes had not carved the same cavity seen on the bodies at the stable.

  “Are those from… claws?” Sorge leaned forward, pointing.

  “Or teeth?” called one of the others.

  “Or is it a knife?” called the man with boots.

  Svenson calmly indicated the empty sheath at the fisherman's belt. “Did anyone find his knife?”

  They had not. Svenson returned to the corpse, delicately holding the head and moving it in his hands to better see the overlapping incisions. He stood and faced the fishermen, picking his words carefully.

  “No doubt you can read these signs for yourselves. The weapon was likely a short, squat blade.”

  “Do you know how long he's been dead?” asked Sorge.

  “My guess would be two days. During the storm. Is it strange he should be found only now?”

  “It was the flooding,” said the booted man, gesturing back toward the town. “The land was flooded four feet this last half mile.”

  The men all stared at Svenson, as if this comment required his answer.

  “The stables,” said Sorge, awkwardly. “The stables are on the other side of the village, to the south. These waters have only just receded…”

  “Quite impassable,” the booted man spat. “Since the storm.”

  Svenson felt his heart sink like a stone. Whoever slew this man could not possibly be to blame for the two dead grooms and the scattered horses.

  “So… more than one wolf?” muttered Sorge.

  HE FOUND Elöise alone in Miss Temple's room. He spoke quickly—the grooms, the fisherman, the flooding, the unrest in the village.

  “What can we do?” she asked.

  He had not yet mentioned the blue stains, nor the villager's new boots.

  “Something has happened. Something they will not tell me.”

  “Have they killed Chang?”

  “I do not know. I cannot think so—”

  A knock came on the door, and Svenson quickly sat next to Miss Temple, taking her wrist just as Sorge entered, nodding an apology for intruding, but asking if he might have a word with the Doctor alone.

  Svenson stepped into the kitchen but Sorge had already walked out onto the porch. Svenson took out his silver case, selected a cigarette, and tapped it on the case before lighting it. Sorge exhaled sharply—miserably, for Svenson had so recently been such a stroke of good fortune— and his words came tumbling out.

  “What about the flooding? Where
is your Chang? The others say you must deliver him up! Or they will blame you! I have told them… but… but…”

  Svenson blew a stream of smoke over the yard. The other men were gone. Miss Temple could not yet leave. He tapped his ash over the rail.

  “It cannot be easy for you, my friend—you who have been so kind to us all, who have saved our lives. I will, of course—of course—do all I can to make things right with your village.” Svenson took another puff of his cigarette. “Sorge… you are quite sure that none of your fellows has seen Chang themselves? They would tell you, yes?”

  “Of course they would!”

  “Indeed—now, these deaths. We must sort them out—we must sort them to everyone's satisfaction. Will you trust me this much? Will you let me speak to the other men?”

  Sorge did not reply and Svenson put his hand on the man's shoulder.

  “It would be better for everyone—for the women—that no one be left afraid.”

  Svenson wondered if the man had already sent his wife and daughter to hide in one of the sheds.

  “I will call them together,” said Sorge. “An hour, at the boats.”

  “I'm sure that will do perfectly.”

  HE SLIPPED into Miss Temple's room. Elöise sat on the opposite side of the bed, looking down.

  “Sorge claims they have not found Chang.”

  She nodded but did not reply. Svenson rubbed his eyes.

  “Before anything else, I am sorry for not telling you about the dead grooms. I had hoped they did not portend anything. I am sorry.”

  “And do they? Portend anything?” Her voice was hoarse with worry. “Did Chang believe so—is that why he has gone?”

  “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…”

  He looked out hopefully, but no one replied. Svenson turned to Sorge. “Is there paper, something to write on?”

  There was no paper, but Sorge passed him a mostly white patch of sailcloth, which Svenson spread on the table, plucking a stub of charcoal from near the stove. With quick strokes he drew out the coastline as he knew it, the pathways of the village, the line of the river, and the expanded width—as he guessed—of its storm-fueled flood. Then, explaining as he went, he drew an X to mark the stables, another to mark the fishing boat.

  “I am trying to reason why these people have been killed. Killing the grooms would have given their killer a mount—also blankets, food, clothing. If you look, you will see from the map that, having killed them, the killer's path south would have been unimpeded by the flood.”

  “What if he did not want to go south?” asked an older man. Svenson had tended his pigs.