The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

and Arthur Trapping. I escaped. I again tried to find Madame Lacquer-Sforza, only to see her with Xonck and d’Orkancz—she is one of them. In my flight from her hotel, I saw Miss Temple through the window—recognizing her from the card—I have not mentioned the cards—” He fumbled the cards onto the small table that held the tea tray. “One from the Prince, one from Trapping. As Miss Temple points out—they are valuable, if mysterious, evidence.”
    “You did not say where you heard the name Isobel Hastings,” observed Chang.
    “Didn’t I? I’m sorry, from Madame Lacquer-Sforza. She asked that I help her find one Isobel Hastings in exchange for telling me where the Prince was—at the Institute. That was the curious thing, for she told me where he was, allowing me to take him away quite against the wishes of Crabbé and d’Orkancz. This was why I had thought to find her again—for while someone took the Prince from our rooftop tonight, at least some of these conspirators—Xonck and Crabbé—seemed ignorant of his whereabouts. I had hoped
she
might know.”
    Miss Temple felt the back of her neck tingle. “Perhaps it would help, Doctor, if you could describe the woman.”
    “Of course,” he began. “A tall woman, black hair, curled about her face and gathered in the back, pale skin, exquisite clothing, elegant to an almost vicious degree, gracious, intelligent, wry, dangerous, and I should say wholly remarkable. She gave her name as Madame Lacquer-Sforza—one of the hotel staff referred to her as Contessa—”
    “The St. Royale Hotel?” asked Chang.
    “The same.”
    “Do you know her?” asked Miss Temple.
    “Merely as ‘Rosamonde’…she hired me—that is what people do, hire me to do things.
She
hired me to find Isobel Hastings.”
    Miss Temple did not speak.
    “I assume you know the woman,” said Chang.
    Miss Temple nodded, her earlier poise slightly shaken; as much as she tried to deny it, the Doctor’s description had conjured the woman, and the dread she inspired, freshly into her thoughts.
    “I do not know her names,” said Miss Temple. “I met her at Harschmort. She was masked. At first she assumed I was one of a party with Mrs. Marchmoor and others—as you say, a group of whores—but then it was she who questioned me…and it was she who gave me over to die.” As she finished speaking, her voice seemed painfully small. The men were silent.

    “What is amusing—genuinely amusing,” said Chang, “is that for all they are hunting us, we are not at all what they assume. My own portion of this tale is simple. I am a man for hire. I also followed a man to Harschmort—the man you saw dead, Doctor—Colonel Arthur Trapping. I had been hired to kill him.”
    He took a sip of tea and watched their reactions over the rim of his cup. Miss Temple did her level best to nod with the same degree of polite detachment as when someone mentioned a secret keenness for growing begonias. She glanced at Svenson, whose face was blank, as if this new fact merely confirmed what he’d already known. Chang smiled, somewhat bitterly, she thought.
    “I did
not
kill him. He was killed by someone else—though I did see the scars you mentioned, Doctor. Trapping was a tool of the Xonck family—I do not understand who killed him.”
    “Did he betray them?” asked Svenson. “Francis Xonck sunk his body in the river.”
    “Does that mean Xonck killed him, or that he didn’t want the body found—that he could not allow it to be found with the facial scars? Or something else? You mentioned the woman—why would she betray the others and allow you to rescue your Prince? I have no idea.”
    “I was able to examine the Colonel’s body briefly, and believe he was poisoned—an injection of some kind, in his finger.”
    “Could it have been an accident?” asked Chang.
    “It could have been anything,” answered the Doctor. “I was about to be murdered at the time, and had no mind to reason clearly.”
    “May I ask who hired you to kill him?” asked Miss Temple.
    Chang thought for a moment before answering.
    “Obviously it is a professional secret,” Miss Temple said. “Yet if you do not wholly trust that person, perhaps—”
    “Trapping’s adjutant, Colonel Aspiche.”
    Svenson laughed aloud. “I met him yesterday in the presence of Madame Lacquer-Sforza at the St. Royale Hotel. By the end of the visit, Mrs. Marchmoor—” He glanced awkwardly at Miss Temple. “Let us say he is