Chang looked up at her. He pulled the glasses from his face and folded them into his pocket. She did not react. She had seen similar faces on her plantation, though never sitting across the tea table. She smiled at him politely, then nodded to the card in his hand.
“They really are the most lovely color blue.”
Miss Temple left Cardinal Chang with the instruction that he should call for whatever meal the Doctor required upon waking, for which she would sign upon her return. She had her arms full of newspapers and books as she reached her own rooms, and kicked on the door three times instead of shifting her burdens to find her key. After a moment of rustling footsteps, the door was opened by Marthe. Miss Temple entered and dropped the pile of papers on the main table. Her aunt sat where she had left her, sipping a cup of tea. Before she could voice a reproof, Miss Temple spoke to her.
“I must ask you several questions, Aunt Agathe, and I will require your honest replies. You may be able to help me, and I will be very grateful for the assistance.” She fixed her aunt with a firm look at the word “grateful” and then turned back to Marthe, to ask for Marie. Marthe pointed to Miss Temple’s dressing room. Miss Temple entered to see Marie quickly folding and arranging a row of silk underthings on top of the ironing table. She stepped back as Miss Temple swept in and was silent as her mistress examined her purchases.
Miss Temple was extremely pleased, going even so far as to give Marie a congratulatory smile. Marie then pointed out the box of cartridges that sat by the mirror, and gave Miss Temple the receipts and leftover money. Miss Temple quickly scrutinized the figures and, satisfied, gave Marie an extra two coins for her efforts. Marie bobbed in surprise at the coins and again as Miss Temple motioned her out of the room. The door shut behind her, Miss Temple smiled again and turned to her purchases. The silk felt delicious between her fingers. She was happy to see that Marie had been smart enough to select a green that matched the dress she was wearing, and her boots. In the mirror, Miss Temple saw her own beaming face and blushed, looking away. She composed herself, cleared her throat, and called for her maids.
After the two young women had taken apart her dress and corset, helped her into the green silk undergarments, and then restored her outer layers, Miss Temple—her entire body tickling with enjoyment—carried the box of cartridges to the main table. With all the casual efficiency she could muster, recalling each step of Chang’s instruction, she struck up a conversation with her aunt, and as she spoke, spun the cylinder, snapped it open, and smoothly loaded each empty chamber with a shell.
“I have been reading the newspapers, Aunt,” she began.
“It seems you have enough of them.”
“And do you know what I have learned? I saw the most astonishing announcement about Roger Bascombe’s uncle, Lord Tarr.”
Aunt Agathe pursed her lips. “You should not be bothering with—”
“Did you see the announcement?”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
“There is so much that I do not remember, my dear—”
“That he has been murdered, Aunt.”
Her aunt did not reply at once. When she did, it was merely to say, “Ah.”
“Ah,” echoed Miss Temple.
“He was quite gouty,” observed her aunt, “something dire was bound to happen. I understand it was wolves.”
“Apparently not. Apparently the wound was altered to implicate wolves.”
“People will do anything,” muttered Agathe.
She reached to pour more tea. Miss Temple slapped the cylinder back into position and spun it. At the noise, her aunt froze in position, eyes wide in alarm. Miss Temple leaned forward and spoke as deliberately and patiently as she could.
“My dear Aunt, you must accept that the money you need is in my possession, and thus, despite our difference in age, that I am your mistress. These are facts. Your position will not be helped by frustrating me. On the contrary, the more we work in concert, the more I promise your situation will improve. I have no wish to be your enemy, but you must see that your previous sense of what was best—my marriage to Roger Bascombe—is no longer appropriate.”
“If you were not so difficult—” her aunt burst out, stopping herself just as quickly.
Miss Temple glared at her with unmitigated rage. Aunt Agathe recoiled as if from a snake.
“I am sorry, my dear,” whispered the frightened woman, “I merely—”
“I do not care. I do not care! I am not asking about Lord Tarr because I care! I am asking because—though you do not know it—others have been murdered as well, and Roger Bascombe is in the thick of it—and now he will be the next Lord Tarr! I do not know how Roger Bascombe has become his uncle’s heir. But you do, I am sure—and you are going to tell me this minute.”
Miss Temple stalked down the corridor toward the stairwell, the clutch bag around her wrist, heavy with the revolver and an extra handful of cartridges. She snorted with annoyance and tossed her head—difficult—and cursed her aunt for a small-minded old fool. All the woman thought of was her pension and her propriety, and the number of parties she might be invited to as the relation of a rising Ministry official like Roger. Miss Temple wondered why she should even be surprised—her aunt had only known her for three months, but had been acquainted with the Bascombes for years. How long she must have planned, and how sharp had been her disappointment, Miss Temple sneered. But that her aunt held her at fault stung to the quick.
Yet under pressure she had answered her niece’s questions, though her answers just added to the mystery. Roger’s cousins—the over-fed Pamela and the younger but no less porcine Berenice—both had infant sons of their own, each of whom should have assumed Lord Tarr’s title and lands before Roger. Yet both had signed a paper to waive their children’s claims, to abdicate, and clear the way for Roger’s inheritance and ennoblement. Miss Temple did not understand how Roger had managed this, for he was not especially wealthy, and she knew each woman well enough to be sure that no small sum would have satisfied either. The cash had been supplied by others, by Crabbé or his cohorts, that was obvious enough. But what was so important about Roger, and how did his advancement possibly relate to the various other plots and murders she had stumbled into? Further—though she told herself the question was merely academic—as Roger took up the rightful property of his cousins, what was he giving up of himself, and for what grand purpose?
In short order she had also learned—for her aunt followed the city’s gossip with an evangelical fervor—the owner of Harschmort, the occasion of the masked ball, the reputations of Prince Karl-Horst and his bride (wretched and unsullied, respectively), and what she could about the various other names she had heard: Xonck, Lacquer-Sforza, d’Orkancz, Crabbé, Trapping, and Aspiche. The latter two her aunt did not know—though she was acquainted with the tragedy of Trapping’s disappearance. Crabbé she knew by way of the Bascombes, but even that family concentrated their attention on the Chief Minister, and not his respected deputy—he was a figure in the government, but hardly public. As the Xonck family’s fame was by way of business, it was significantly less interesting to her aunt—though she had heard of them—who was generally attracted to titles (indeed, Robert Vandaariff’s elevation within Agathe’s mind to the rank of a Man who Mattered had only occurred upon his becoming a Lord, though Miss Temple understood that at a certain point such a man must be made a Lord, lest the government appear peripheral to him). Francis Xonck was of course a figure of scandal, though no one knew exactly why—there were whispers about deviant tastes from abroad newly appeared—but his elder siblings were merely substantial. The Comte d’Orkancz her aunt only knew as a patron of the opera—apparently he was born in some dire Balkan enclave, raised in Paris, and inherited family titles and wealth after a particularly devastating series of house fires cleared the way. Beyond this, Agathe could merely say he was a man of serious refinement, learned and severe, who could have been at a university if those university peo
ple were not so very dreadful. The final name, which Miss Temple had put to her aunt with a quaver in her otherwise sure interrogation, met with a hapless shrug. The Contessa Lacquer-Sforza was of course known, but nothing seemed to be known about her. She had arrived in the city the previous autumn—Agathe smiled, and observed that it must have been very near to when Miss Temple herself had arrived. Agathe had never seen the lady, but she was said to rival Princess Clarissa or Lydia Vandaariff for beauty. She smiled and sweetly asked her niece if she had seen the Contessa, and if that were indeed the case. Miss Temple merely snapped that of course not, she had seen none of these people—she saw no one in society unless during her excursions with Roger—and certainly none of these figures from the very cream of the continent. She snorted that the Roger Bascombe she had known was hardly the type to mix with such company. Her aunt, with a rueful shake of her head, admitted this was true.
Miss Temple stopped on the landing between the third and second floors and, after looking around to see that she was not observed, sat on the stairs. She felt the need to order her thoughts before rejoining her new comrades—she needed to order her thoughts about her new comrades—and before advancing further into her adventure. The sticking point, to her great dismay, remained Roger, neck deep in whatever was taking place. The man was a fool, she knew that now without question—but she felt she was constantly brought up against her former feelings as she strove to move forward without them. Why could she not simply carve them from her thoughts, from her heart? For moments she was sure she had, and that the ache she felt, the pressure in her chest and at the catch of her throat, was not love for Roger, but in fact its absence, as the removal of anything substantial must leave behind it open space—a hole in her heart, so to speak, around which her thoughts were, temporarily at least, forced to navigate. But then without warning she would find herself worrying at how Roger had placed his entire life so thoughtlessly at risk, and craving just one minute of sharp speech to wake him to his folly. Miss Temple sighed heavily and had for some reason a vivid memory of the plantation’s sugar works, the great copper pots and the spiraled coils that converted the raw cane into rum. She knew that Roger had allied himself with people who sanctioned murder—her own murder—and she feared, as cane was by rough science and fire reduced to rum, that this must inevitably lead to a mortal confrontation between Roger and herself. She felt the weight of the revolver in her clutch bag. She thought of Chang and Svenson—did they have any similar torment of feeling? They both seemed so sure—especially Chang, who was a type of man she had never before known. Then she realized that this was not true, that she had known other men with such open capacity for brutal action—in fact, her father was just such a man—but there the brutality had always been clothed in the guise of business and of ownership. With Chang, the truth of the work was worn openly. She struggled to find this refreshing—she told herself it was exactly that—but could not repress a shudder. Doctor Svenson seemed to her less formidable and more stricken by common fears and hesitancies, but then, so was she—and Miss Temple knew no one in her world would have granted her the capacity to survive what she already had. She trusted in the Doctor’s resilience then, as she trusted in her own. Besides, she smiled to think it, many otherwise capable men were not at their best around a fetching woman.
She was at least confident that armed with her aunt’s gossip she would be able to follow the conversation. So much of her comrades’ accounts referred to a city she did not know—to brothels and institutes and diplomatic compounds—a mix of lower depths and exclusive heights quite apart from her middling experience. She wanted to feel that she brought to their partnership an equal third, and wanted that third to be something other than money to provide a room or a meal. If they were to continue in league against this—what was the Doctor’s word?—cabal, then she must continue to expand her capacities. What she had done so far seemed a mix of actual investigation and mere tagging along, where even the killing of Spragg and Farquhar struck her as unlikely happenstance. The figures arrayed against her were beyond imagination, her few allies equally so—what did she possess besides her change purse? It was a moment when she could easily spiral into self-doubt and fear, assurance melting like a carnival ice. She imagined herself alone in a train compartment with a man like the Comte d’Orkancz—what could she possibly do? Miss Temple looked around her at the Boniface’s stairwell wallpaper, painted with an intricate pattern of flowers and leaves, and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. She wiped her eyes and sniffed. What she would do is to press the barrel of her revolver against his body and pull the trigger as many times as it took to bring his foul carcass to the floor. And then she would find the Contessa Lacquer-Sforza and thrash the woman until her arm was too tired to hold a whip. And then…Roger. She sighed. From Roger Bascombe she would merely walk away.
She stood and made her way down to the second floor, but paused at the final step, hearing voices in the corridor. She peered around the corner to see three men in black uniforms and another man in a dark brown cloak standing directly outside the door to room 27. The men muttered to each other (Miss Temple was a foe of muttering in general and always resented not hearing what other people said, even if it was not strictly her business) and then as a group marched away from her, to the main stairs at the far end of the hall. She crept into the corridor, moving as quickly as she could to the door. She gasped to see it was ajar—the men must have been inside—and with great trepidation pushed the door open. The sitting room was empty. What papers she had left behind had been scattered across the room, but she saw no token of Chang or Svenson, nor of any particular struggle. She crossed quickly to the bedchamber, but it too was empty. The bedclothes were pulled apart, and the window was open, but she saw no sign of either man. Miss Temple peered out of the window. The room was directly above the rear alley, with a sheer drop of some thirty feet to the paving. She tightened her grip on the clutch bag and made her way back to the corridor. Both Chang and Svenson had been chased by soldiers—but which had drawn them here? She frowned with thought—it could not have been Chang, for as far as anyone knew, Chang was not in room 27. She raced to the door she had seen him leave—number 34—to find it also open. The room was empty. The window was locked. She returned to the hall, more agitated—somehow the soldiers had known of Svenson’s room and of Chang’s. With a sudden bolt of horror she thought of her own, and her aunt.
Miss Temple charged up the stairs, feverishly digging the revolver from her bag. She rounded the landing, cocking the pistol and taking a breath. She strode into the corridor and saw no one. Were they already inside? Or about to arrive any moment? This door was shut. Miss Temple banged on it with the heel of her fist. There was no sound from beyond the door. She knocked again. Still there was no answer, and her mind was assailed by images of her aunt and her maids slaughtered, the room running with blood. Miss Temple dug her key from her bag and, using her left hand, which made it awkward, unlocked the door. She shoved it open and threw herself to the side. Silence. She peeked around the corner. The entryway was empty. She held the revolver with both hands and walked slowly through the doorway. The outer parlor was empty as well, with no signs of disturbance. She turned to the inner parlor door, which was closed. It was never closed. She crept toward it, looked about her and reached her left hand toward the knob. She slowly turned it and, hearing the click of the bolt, thrust it open. She shrieked—a small shriek, she later hoped—for before her, his revolver extended to Miss Temple’s face, stood Doctor Svenson in his stockinged feet. Sitting next to him, trembling and white with terror, was her aunt. Behind them sat the two maids, frozen with fright. A sudden prickling caused Miss Temple to wheel. Behind her, a long double-edged knife in his hand, stood Cardinal Chang, having just stepped out from the maids’ room. He smiled at her grimly.
“Very good, Miss Temple. Would you have shot me before I’d cut your throat? I do not know, which is the profoundest of compliments.”
She swallowed,
unable quite yet to lower the pistol.
“The front door, I’d suggest,” called Doctor Svenson from behind her.
Chang nodded. “Indeed.” He turned and walked to the door, glancing quickly into the hall before stepping back and closing it, turning the lock. “And perhaps a chair…” he said to no one in particular, and selected one of the inner parlor chairs to wedge beneath the knob. This done, he turned to them and smiled coolly. “We have made the acquaintance of your aunt.”
“We were extremely worried when you were not here,” said Svenson. He had pocketed his pistol, and was looking uncomfortable to be standing among the openly terrified women.
“I used the other stairs,” said Miss Temple. She saw both men were watching her closely and followed their gaze to her hands. She forced herself to slowly release the hammer of the revolver, and to exhale. “There are soldiers—”
“Yes,” said Chang. “We were able to escape.”
“But how—they were on one staircase and you did not pass me on the other. And how did you know which room was mine?”
“The chit you signed for the tea,” said Svenson. “It noted your room—we did not leave it for them to find, do not worry. As for the escape—”
“Doctor Svenson is a sailor.” Chang smiled. “He can climb.”
“I can climb when I am pushed,” said Svenson, shaking his head.
“But—I looked out the window,” cried Miss Temple, “there was nothing to climb but brick!”
“There was a metal pipe,” said Svenson.