The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

the inside, why break the door at all? Could perhaps Lord Tarr have broken it himself, in his hurry to escape? But that only made sense if the door had been locked from the
outside
…if Lord Tarr had been confined to his room…
    The door was locked now, from the inside, and Svenson reached in carefully and opened it. He stepped into the darkened room and closed the glass door behind him. In the moonlight he could see a desk and long walls completely fitted with bookshelves. He fumbled a match from his pocket, struck it on his nail and located a candle in an old copper holder on a side bookshelf. With this much light, he carefully went through each drawer of the desk, but at the end all he knew was that Lord Tarr had a keen interest in medicine, and next to none in his estate. For the single ledger—completely written in what Svenson assumed was his overseer’s hand—detailing Lord Tarr’s business, there were many, many notebooks and banded stacks of receipts from different physicians. Svenson had seen this enough before to realize that the Lord’s own ebbing health had been itself a pursuit of pleasure beyond any particular restorative or cure—indeed, the man seemed to record the failures with as much satisfaction in his journal. This was a neat volume Svenson had found in the top drawer, under another larger ledger of receipts for potions and procedures. He flipped through it idly, just ready to put it down when his eye caught a reference to “Doctor Lorenz: Mineral Treatment. Ineffective!” He turned the page and found two more entries, identical save for a growing number of exclamation points, the last also describing Lord Tarr’s bilious reaction and the subsequent forceful voiding of many chambers in his body. This was the final page in the journal, but Svenson saw a small ridge of paper between this and the journal’s back cover…there had been another page, several, but someone had carefully cut them out with a razor. He frowned with frustration. The entries were undated—the egotism of the patient assumed no need to record what he already knew—so Svenson had no idea how long this had been going on. No matter. He dropped the journal back in the drawer and slid it shut. The Cabal had made its attempt to swing Lord Tarr to their party long before they settled on Bascombe’s succession…and murder.

    Svenson knelt at the keyhole and looked unhelpfully onto a bare wall some three or four feet away. He sighed, stood, and very, very slowly turned the knob, feeling the latch release with a far-too-audible
click.
He did not move, ready to shoot the bolt and run back for the garden. Apparently, no one had heard. He took a breath and just as slowly eased the door open, his eye against the growing gap. He desperately wanted a cigarette. The hallway was empty. He opened the door enough to poke his head and look in the other direction. The hall itself was dim, illuminated only from lighted rooms at either end. He could not see what those rooms were, nor could he hear. Svenson’s nerves were fraying. He forced himself to step into the hallway and close the door—he didn’t want anyone to come across it ajar and start investigating—even though he was afraid of getting lost in the house and not recognizing it again when he was trying to escape. He steeled himself—he did not need to escape.
He
was the predator. The people in the house should be afraid of
him
. Svenson stuck his hand into the pocket of his greatcoat and took hold of his revolver. It was foolish for a weapon to reassure him—either he had courage or he didn’t, he chided himself, anyone can carry a gun—but he nevertheless felt better able to walk to the end of the hallway and peer around the corner.
    He whipped his head back and brought his hand up over his face. The smell—that sharp sulfurous mechanical smell—assaulted his nostrils and his throat as if he had inhaled the fumes of an iron works. He wiped his nose and eyes with his handkerchief and looked again, the handkerchief held over his face. It was a large room, a reception parlor, ringed with elegant old-fashioned sitting chairs and sofas, all with wide seats to accommodate women with bustles or hoops. Around the chairs were small end tables, the tops of each punctuated with half-empty tea cups and small plates bearing crusts and demurely unfinished slices of cake. Doctor Svenson made a quick count and came up with a total of eleven cups—enough to supply the women from