Part 15 (1/2)
”I do not know,” said Svenson, looking straight at Potts. ”He is called Chang. My understanding is that he was returning to the city.”
”And yet now there has been murder,” observed Mr. Potts mildly, and c.o.c.ked his head to Bolte. ”I heard you mention a boy?”
”Young Willem,” explained Bolte. ”A stable groom. This gentleman found him at the black rocks, savagely attacked-we were unable to save him. You know his father-”
”Murdered this night!” whispered Franck.
”Just like that devil promised!” cried Mrs. Daube. ”He told me plain as day that any person crossing him would die. No doubt he went from here to the stables! Now that I remember, I am sure he said it quite clear: 'If that boy crosses me-”
The two townsmen erupted in astonished and outraged shouts, demanding that Mrs. Daube explain more, demanding of Svenson where his friend was hiding, insisting (this was Mr. Carper) that the fellow be hanged. Svenson put up his hands and called out, his eyes darting between the strangely satisfied innkeeper and her watchful guest.
”Gentlemen-please! I am sure this woman is wrong!”
”How am I wrong?” she sneered. ”I know what I saw-and what he said! And now you say the boy's been slaughtered!”
”The many cuts-” began Mr. Bolte.
”The knife!” cried Mr. Carper.
”I understand!” shouted Svenson, raising his hands again to quiet them.
”Who are you anyway?” muttered Mrs. Daube.
”I am a surgeon,” said Svenson. ”I have spent the last hour attempting to save that poor boy's life-I am not unmindful of the savage way in which he was killed. Mrs. Daube, you have told us what Chang-”
”He is a Chinaman?” asked Mr. Bolte, with open distaste.
”No. It-it does not matter. Mrs. Daube claims that Chang told her-”
”He did tell me!”
”I do not doubt you, madame.” Indeed, Svenson was surprised not to find the imprint of Chang's hand still raw on the woman's face. ”But when... when did this conversation occur?”
Mrs. Daube licked her lips, as if she did not trust this line of questioning at all.
”Yesterday evening,” she replied.
”Are you sure?” asked Svenson.
”I am.”
”And after this conversation Cardinal Chang departed-”
”He is a churchman?” asked Mr. Bolte.
”He is a demon,” muttered Mrs. Daube.
”A demon you last saw yesterday evening?” asked the Doctor.
Mrs. Daube nodded with a sniff.
”Why are you defending his man?” Mr. Potts asked Svenson.
”I am trying to learn the truth. The boy was attacked only some hours ago, and by his wounds, the father at most only hours before that.”
”That proves nothing,” offered Mr. Potts. ”This fellow might have spent the whole next day tracking them, only to make his attack to night.”
”Certainly true,” nodded Svenson. ”The question is whether Chang left town in the intervening hours or not. You did not see him yourself, Mr. Potts?”
”Regrettably, no.”
”Mr. Potts and his fellows have each traveled different directions from Karthe,” explained Mrs. Daube, ”the better to find the best hunting.”
”And none of your fellows were back either?” asked Svenson.
”I fear I am the first to return, being less of an outdoorsman-”
”Not like the Captain,” said Mrs. Daube with a smile, ”who has come and gone again. As handsome a man as this Chang is a terror-”
”No one was here,” Potts insisted, over her words. ”Suspicion naturally falls on this man Chang.”
”Who else could have done these things?” asked Mr. Bolte.
”Why else would anyone do them?” asked Mr. Carper.
”Why would Chang?” countered Svenson. ”He is a stranger here- like myself and Mr. Potts-and come to Karthe only in order to leave it, and leave before these killings occurred.”
”And yet,” began Carper, ”if he is a natural villain-”
”How would we learn whether he had gone?” asked Mr. Bolte.
”Quite simply,” said Svenson. ”Did a train depart last night or this morning?”
Mr. Bolte looked at Mr. Carper.
”Last night,” answered Carper. ”But we do not know this Chang was on it.”
”Is there anyone who might know?” asked Svenson. ”Usually this sort of thing is quite easily proven, you see.”
”Perhaps we could ask at the train yard,” Mr. Bolte said.
AN HOUR later Doctor Svenson walked back with Mr. Bolte-Mr. Carper, connected to the mines, was still speaking with the trainsmen. There had been an incident-the talk of the rail yard-on the previous night's train: a pa.s.senger compartment with its window and door shattered, and a mysterious figure, wearing a blind man's gla.s.ses and a long red coat, stalking through the corridor like a wraith. The damaged compartment had been splashed with blood, as had the gla.s.s on the trackside, but no victim-dead or alive-had been found. How ever, the trainsmen were sure: the strange figure in red had been aboard when the train had finally left.
With Chang regrettably eliminated as a suspect, the two townsmen had speculated about who, or what, might have killed the boy and his father, seizing on the possibility of a wolf with enthusiasm. Svenson nodded where politeness required it.
All of Chang's suspicion had stood before the Doctor in the form of Mr. Potts-obviously no simple hunter. If Potts was on any official Ministry errand there would be no fiction of a hunting party-there would be soldiers in uniform. Since there were not, Svenson had to conclude that the remnants of the Cabal in the city, all those masked guests at Harschmort who had received their instructions in specially coded leather-bound volumes, had not yet claimed power openly. Because of the disaster with the airs.h.i.+p? Perhaps there was still time to stop them-the question was what Potts knew. Did he have their names? Was he informed about the gla.s.s? Would he denounce Svenson to the town? What were his exact instructions... and from whom?
And of course, to the side of this, there was the unfortunate boy himself. Both he and his father-and, by the similarity of wounds, the two grooms in the fis.h.i.+ng village-had been slain by shards from a broken blue gla.s.s book. Could this have been one of Potts' soldiers, penetrating that far north, coming across the gla.s.s? But why the grooms and not Svenson himself-surely anyone in the fis.h.i.+ng village would have directed the soldiers to Sorge's cabin.
Was it possible someone else had survived the airs.h.i.+p? Svenson recalled the crude map drawn on Sorge's table, the killings ascribed to two sources. He groaned aloud. Did that mean two survivors?