Free The Dark Volume by Gordon Dahlquist Page A

home.”
    “Doctor Svenson. He must have passed through Karthe at most two days after the Cardinal.”
    “Cardinal? That fellow—all in red, and with those eyes? He was no churchman!”
    “No no,” said Miss Temple, chuckling, “but that—in the city— is what everyone else calls him. In truth I have no knowledge of his Christian name.”
    “Do Chinamen have Christian names?”
    Miss Temple laughed outright. “O Mrs. Daube, he is no more from China than you or I are black Africans! It is merely a name he has acquired—from the scars across his eyes, you see.”
    Miss Temple happily pulled her own eyelids to either side, doing her best to approximate Chang's disfigurement.
    “It is unnatural,” declared Mrs. Daube.
    “Horrid, to be sure—the result of a riding crop, I believe—and it would indeed be difficult to call the Cardinal handsome , and yet—for his world is a harsh one—their ferocity speaks to his capacity.”
    “What world is that?” asked Mrs. Daube, her voice a bit more hushed. She had stepped closer, one hand worrying the scuffed edge of the table.
    “A world where there are murders,” replied Miss Temple, realizing how much pleasure she took in disturbing her hostess, and that it was all a sort of boasting. “And people like Cardinal Chang—and Doctor Svenson, and—though I know you will not credit such a thing—myself have done our best to discover who has been doing the killing. You did meet Doctor Svenson, I know it. Mrs. Dujong found one of his crushed cigarettes upstairs—it is proven he was here.”
    Miss Temple gazed up at the woman—older, taller, stronger, in her own home—with the clear confidence of an inquisitor not to be trifled with. She set down her knife and fork, and indicated the empty chair opposite her. Mrs. Daube sank into it with a grudging sniff.
    “Karthe does not take to strangers, much less those that walk about looking like the devil himself.”
    “How long after Chang arrived did the Doctor—”
    “And then came the murders—of course men from the town went looking, even your other friend, the foreign Doctor.”
    “He is a surgeon, to be precise, in the Macklenburg Navy. Where is the Doctor now ?”
    “I told you—he joined the party of men to search. I'm sure I don't know what's taken them so long to return.”
    “But where did they go—to the train?”
    Mrs. Daube snorted at this ridiculous suggestion.
    “The mountains, of course. Dangerous any time of year, and even more so after winter, when what beasts that have survived are ravenous.”
    “Beasts?”
    “Wolves, my dear—our hills are full of them.”
    Miss Temple was appalled at two such violently complementary thoughts—the missing men and a propensity for wolves—existing so placidly next to one another in the woman's mind.
    “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Daube, but you seem to be saying that Doctor Svenson left Karthe with a party of men, traveling into the wolf-ridden mountains, and has failed to return. Is no one worried? Surely the missing townsmen have families.”
    “No one tells me,” snapped Mrs. Daube sullenly. “Merely a poor widow, no one cares for an old woman—”
    “But who would know where they went?”
    “Anyone else in Karthe! Even Franck,” the woman huffed. “Not that he's breathed a word to me, though one would only think, after my generosity—”
    “Did either of you mention this to Mrs. Dujong?”
    “How am I expected to know that?” she snapped, but then grinned with poorly hidden relish. “But I can guess how the likes of him would enjoy frightening her with stories.”
    Miss Temple shut her eyes, imagining how news of the Doctor's vanishing must have been taken by Elöise.
    “My goodness, yes,” Mrs. Daube went on, “ever since the first strangers—and then your man Chang—”
    “Wait—what first strangers? Do you mean Mr. Olsteen and his fellows—or someone else?”
    “The Flaming Star is extremely popular with travelers of all