The Chemickal Marriage

see.’
    Svenson sighed hopelessly. ‘My dear –’
    ‘If they were followed, we must leave,’ muttered Cunsher. He spoke with an accent Miss Temple could not place.
    ‘We were not followed,’ Brine protested gruffly.
    ‘Cunsher has been our eyes,’ said Phelps.
    Miss Temple sniffed. ‘He went to Parchfeldt.’
    ‘And he has watched your hotel. Your movements have been observed by our enemies. And your fellows –’
    ‘Have been taken,’ said Miss Temple. ‘When they went to Harschmort, I know.’
    ‘Celeste,’ Svenson’s voice was too gentle, ‘you have been very brave –’
    Miss Temple resisted the urge to fling the cocoa in his face. ‘Chang is dead. Elöise is dead. You tell me I am watched, that my efforts have been undermined. If I could find you, are
your
efforts any better? I should not be surprised if the Contessa herself has taken the house next door just to laugh at your useless sneakery.’
    No one spoke. Miss Temple saw doubt on Cunsher’s face, and disdain on Phelps’s. Mr Brine looked at the floor. Doctor Svenson reached towards her, gently pulled away the mug and set it on the floor. Then he took Miss Temple’s hands in his own, the fingers long and cold.
    ‘I say you are brave, Celeste, because you
are
– far braver than I. Despair gives a hero’s strength to anyone. To be a heroine in
life
is altogether different.’
    Miss Temple grudgingly tossed one shoulder. Doctor Svenson looked to the others.
    ‘And I expect she is correct. We should depart at once.’
    They walked single file through the houses behind Albermap Crescent, Phelps in the lead, then the Doctor and Miss Temple, Mr Brine at the rear. Mr Cunsher had stayed to feed all evidence of their inhabitation to the stove. He would join them further on.
    ‘Why can we not simply return to the Boniface?’ asked Miss Temple.
    ‘Because I do not care to deliver myself into my enemy’s hand,’ Phelps whispered without turning. He waved them through a battered wrought-iron gate. ‘Keep low … do not speak … with any luck no one will see …’
    Beyond the gate lay shuttered houses, riven walkways choked with weeds and an open common. Through the darkness Miss Temple perceived a host of canvas tents and winking lanterns, and snatches of talk in other tongues. Svenson took her hand. She wondered if she ought to take Mr Brine’s, so no one would be lost, but did not. A dog barked near one of the tents, and achorus of yaps rose all around. The party broke into a run, outpacing the human calls that followed the dogs, challenges sent out to passing ghosts.
    Their way ended at a high stone wall. Phelps began patting at it like a blind man. Miss Temple looked back. The dog had again provoked the chorus of its fellows.
    ‘I expect that’s Mr Cunsher,’ whispered Brine.
    ‘Who
is
Mr Cunsher?’ Miss Temple asked.
    ‘A man known to the Ministry,’ said Svenson. ‘You would call him a spy.’
    ‘But not from
here
.’
    ‘No more than you or I, which recommends him, this city being a snakepit … ’
    Miss Temple realized the Doctor had quietly drawn the Naval revolver.
    ‘At last … at
last
,’ muttered Phelps, and she heard the turn of a key. ‘Quickly, inside and up the stairs.’
    ‘A relic of an older time.’ Phelps’s whisper rebounded off a brick ceiling. He tamped the lamp wick to a lower flame and slid a fluted glass over it. ‘A portion of ancient city wall – a tower left to secure river traffic, and then left again as a useful hole for stuffing things and people one’s government ought not to have. I learnt of it from the late Colonel Aspiche, who stumbled across it as a subaltern. Once assigned to Palace duties, he sought out the key … a key which I took it upon myself to, ah, take.’
    ‘Colonel Aspiche was horrid,’ said Miss Temple.
    Phelps sighed. ‘I am sure you must have found him so – as you must find me. Ambition has made apes of better men, and far worse.’
    ‘How do you
feel
?’ asked Miss Temple, not interested in another apology. ‘The sickness from the blue glass – has it passed? Are its effects reversed?’
    ‘In the main, though not without cost – I do not think I shall ever sleep the night through without some dream of
her
staining my mind. If Doctor Svenson owes his life to my efforts, I owe my sanity to his.’
    Svenson smiled tightly, snapping open his silver case for a cigarette. ‘You ask what I have done these weeks, Celeste, apart from tending my own