The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

could answer, added, “And if you might—if it were possible to—generally—
describe
them?”
    “Describe them?”
    “I am not merely morbid, I assure you.”
    “No…no, indeed—perhaps you too have merely witnessed—yet I can only hope you have not—in any event, yes—I myself have seen two bodies—there may be others—others in peril, and others I myself may have slain, I do not know. One, as I say, was a man I did not know, an older man, connected to the Royal Institute of Science and Exploration—a fellow I am led to believe of some great learning. The other was a military officer—his disappearance was in the newspaper—Colonel Arthur Trapping. I believe he was poisoned. How the first man—well, the officer was actually the first to die—but how the
other
man, from the Institute, was killed, I cannot begin to understand, but it is part of the mystery of this blue glass—”
    “Only those?” asked Miss Temple. “I see.”
    “Do you know of others?” asked Doctor Svenson.
    She decided to confide in him.
    “Two men,” Miss Temple said. “Two horrible men.”

    She could not for the moment say more. On impulse she removed a handkerchief from her bag, moistened a corner and leaned forward to dab at a thin line of blood etched across the Doctor’s face. He muttered apologies and took the cloth from her, stepping away, and stabbed vigorously at his face. After a moment, he pulled it away and folded it over, offering it back. She motioned for him to keep it, smiling grimly and offhandedly wiping her eye.
    “Let me see the other card,” said Miss Temple. “You have another in your pocket.”
    Svenson blanched. “I—I do not think, the time—”
    “I do insist.” She was determined to learn more about Roger’s inner life—who he had seen, the bargains with Crabbé, his true feelings for
her
. Svenson was blathering excuses—did he want some kind of exchange?
    “I cannot allow—a lady—please—”
    Miss Temple handed him the first card. “The country house belongs to Roger’s uncle, Lord Tarr.”
    “Lord Tarr is his uncle?”
    “Of course Lord Tarr is his uncle.”
    Svenson did not speak. Miss Temple pointedly raised her eyebrows, waiting.
    “But Lord Tarr has been murdered,” said Svenson.
    Miss Temple gasped.
    “Francis Xonck spoke of this Bascombe’s inheritance,” said Svenson, “that he would soon be important and powerful—my thought—when Crabbé says ‘decision’—”
    “I’m afraid that is quite impossible,” snapped Miss Temple.
    But even as she spoke, her mind raced. Roger had
not
been his uncle’s heir. While Lord Tarr (a gouty difficult man) had no sons, he did have daughters with male children of their own—it had been quite clearly and bitterly explained to her by Roger’s mother. Moreover, as if to confirm Roger’s peripheral status, on their sole visit to Tarr Manor, its ever-ailing Lord proved disinclined to see Roger, much less make the acquaintance of Roger’s provincial fiancée. And now Lord Tarr had been murdered, and Roger somehow acclaimed as his heir to lands and title? She could not trust it for a minute—but what other inheritance could Roger have? She did not think Roger Bascombe a murderer—all the more since having herself recently met several of the species—but she knew he was weak and tractable, despite his broad shoulders and his poise, and she suddenly felt cold…the people he had fallen in with, the demonstration he had willingly witnessed in the operating theatre…within her vow to ruin him, her utter and complete disdain for all things Bascombe, it was with a tinge of sorrow that Miss Temple felt oddly certain that he was lost. Just as she had wondered, in the operating theatre at Harschmort, if Roger had truly understood with whom or what he had become entangled—and in that wondering felt a pang at being unable to protect him from his own blindness when it came to the powerful and rich—so Miss Temple felt suddenly sure that, one way or another and without it being his intention, these events would be his doom.

    She looked up at Svenson. “Give me the other card. Either I am your ally or I am not.”
    “You have not even told me your name.”
    “Haven’t I?”
    “No, you have not,” said the Doctor.
    Miss Temple pursed her lips, then smiled at him graciously and offered her hand, along with her standard explanation.
    “I am Miss Temple, Celestial Temple. My father enjoyed astronomy—I am fortunate