“At the top, they will try to reverse it before we can get out,” she whispered.
“They will,” agreed Elöise quietly. “You must get out first. I will push you.”
“And then I shall pull your feet.”
“That will be fine, I am sure.”
“What if there are more men?”
“It’s very possible.”
“We will surprise them,” observed Miss Temple quietly.
Elöise did not answer, but held the younger woman’s head to her bosom with an exhalation of breath that to Miss Temple was equal parts sweetness and sorrow, a mixture she did not completely understand. Such physical intimacy with another woman was unusual for Miss Temple, much less any emotional intimacy—but she knew that their adventures had already hastened a connection to each other, as a telescope eliminated the distance between a ship and the shore. It was the same with Chang and Svenson, men who she in truth knew not at all yet felt were the only souls in the world she could rely on or even—and this surprised her, for to form the thought was to place the events of the recent days within the context of her whole life—care about. She had never known her mother. Miss Temple wondered—self-conscious and rapidly becoming less sure of herself, as this was no time to drift into reckless contemplation or indulgent feeling—if her present sensations of warm flesh, of life, of contact, and, for the space of their isolated climb at least, unquestioned care resembled what having a mother might be like. Her cheeks flushing at the exposure of her frailty and her desire, Miss Temple burrowed her face into the crook between the woman’s arm and bosom and let out a sigh that by its end left her entire body shuddering.
They rose in the darkness until the car lurched to a stop without warning. The door slid open and Miss Temple saw the astonished faces of two men in the black servants’ livery of Harschmort, one having slid open the door and the other holding another wooden tray of flasks and bottles. Before they could close the door and before the men below could call the car back down, she kicked both feet—the soles of which she knew were filthy as any urchin’s—vigorously in their faces, driving them back out of disgust if not fear. With Elöise shoving her from behind, Miss Temple shot out the door, screaming at the men like a mad thing, hair wild, face smeared with soot and sweat and then, her eyes desperately looking for it, lunged to the brass control panel, stabbing the green button that kept the car in place.
The men looked at her with their mouths open and expressions darkening, but their response was cut short as their gaze was pulled to Elöise clambering out, feet first, silk robes rising up to the very tops of her pale thighs as she scooted forward and revealing her own pair of small silk pants, the split seam gaping for one dark, flashing instant that rooted both men to the spot before she slid her upper body free and landed awkwardly on her knees. In her hand was the bottle of bright orange fluid. At the sight of it the men took another step back, their expressions shifting in a trice from curious lust to supplication.
The moment Elöise was clear Miss Temple released the button and stepped directly to the man without the tray and shoved him with both of her hands and all of her strength back into the man who held it. Both servants retreated tottering through the metal door and onto the slick black and white marble, their attention focused solely on not dropping any of their precious breakables. Miss Temple helped Elöise to her feet and took the orange bottle from her. Behind them the dumbwaiter clanked into life, disappearing downward. They dashed into the foyer, but the servants, recovered somewhat, would not let them past.
“What do you think you’re doing?” shouted the one with the tray, nodding urgently at the bottle in Miss Temple’s hand. “How did you get that? We—we could—we all could have—”
The other simply hissed at her. “Put that down!”
“You put it down,” Miss Temple snapped. “Put down the tray and leave! Both of you!”
“We will do no such thing!” snapped the man with the tray, narrowing his eyes viciously. “Who are you to give orders? If you think—just because you’re one of the master’s whores—”
“Get out of the way!” the other man hissed again. “We have work to do! We will be whipped! And you’ve made us wait again for the dumbwaiter!”
He tried to edge around them toward the tower door, but the man with the tray did not move, glaring with a rage that Miss Temple knew arose from injured pride and petty stakes.
“They will not! They’re not going anywhere! They need to explain themselves—and they’ll do it to me or to Mr. Blenheim!”
“We don’t need Blenheim!” his partner hissed. “The last thing—for God’s sake—”
“Look at them,” said the man with the tray, his expression growing by the moment more ugly. “They’re not at any of the ceremonies—they’re running away—why else was she screaming?”
This thought penetrated the other man, and in a pause both studied the two less-than-demurely-clad women.
“If we stop them I wager we’ll be rewarded.”
“If we don’t get this work done we’ll be sacked.”
“We have to wait for it to come back up anyway.”
“We do … do you reckon they’ve stolen those robes?”
Throughout this fatiguing dialog, Miss Temple debated her course, edging farther from the door, half-step by half-step, as the two men hesitated and bickered—but she could see that they were about to be ridiculous and manly, and so she must act. In her hand was the orange bottle, which evidently held some appallingly violent chemical. If she broke it over one of their heads, it was probable that both men would be incapacitated and they could run. At the same time, the way everyone flinched from it, like schoolgirls from a spider, she could not depend that once shattered it might not—by fumes, perhaps—afflict herself and Elöise. Further, the bottle was an excellent weapon to keep for a future crisis or negotiation, and anything of value Miss Temple much preferred to possess rather than spend. But whatever she did must be decisive enough to forestall these fellows’ pursuit, for she was deeply annoyed at all this seemingly endless running.
With a dramatic gesture Miss Temple drew back the bottle and with a cry brought her arm forward, as if to break it over the head of the man who held the tray and who—because of the tray—could not raise his own hands to ward off the blow. But such was the threat of the bottle that he could not stop his hands from trying and as Miss Temple’s arm swept down he lost his grip on the tray, which dropped to the marble floor with a crash, its contents of bottles and flasks smashing and bursting against each other with an especially satisfying clamor.
The men looked up at her, both hunched at the shoulders against the impact of her blow, their faces gaping at the fact that Miss Temple had never released—had never intended to release—the orange bottle. At once the gazes of all four dropped to the tray, whose surface erupted with hissing and steaming and a telltale odor that made Miss Temple gag. This odor was not, as she would have anticipated, the noxious indigo clay, but one that brought her back to the coach at night as she struggled free of Spragg’s heavy spurting body—the concentrated smell of human blood. Three of the broken flasks had pooled together and in their mixture transformed—there was no other way to say it—into a shining bright arterial pool that spilled from the tray onto the floor in a quantity larger than the original fluids—as if the combination of chemicals not only made blood, but made more of it, gushing like an invisible wound across the marble tile.
“What is this nonsense?”
All four looked up at the flatly disapproving voice that came from the doorway behind the two men, where a tall fellow with grizzled whiskers and wire spectacles stood holding in his arms an army carbine. He wore a long dark coat, whose elegance served to make his balding head appear more round and his thin-lipped mouth more cruel. The servants immediately bowed their heads and babbled explanations.
“Mr. Blenheim, Sir—these women—”
“We were—the dumbwaiter—”
“The
y attacked us—”
“Fugitives—”
Mr. Blenheim cut them off with the finality of a butcher’s cleaver. “Return this tray, replace its contents, and deliver them at once. Send a maid to clean this floor. Report to my quarters when you are finished. You were told of the importance of your task. I cannot answer for your continued employment.”
Without another word the men snatched up the dripping tray and trotted past their master, hanging their heads obsequiously. Blenheim sniffed once at the smell, his eyes flitting over the bloody pool and then back to the women. His gaze paused once at the orange bottle in Miss Temple’s hand, but betrayed no feeling about it either way. He gestured with the carbine.
“You two will come with me.”
They walked in front of him, directed at each turn by blunt monosyllabic commands, until they stood at an aggressively carved wooden door. Their captor looked about him quickly and unlocked it, ushering them through. He followed them in, showing a surprising swiftness for a man of his size, and once more locked the door, tucking the key—one of many on a silver chain, Miss Temple saw—back into a waistcoat pocket.
“It will be better to speak in isolation,” he announced, looking at them with a cold gaze that in its flat and bland nature belied a capacity for pragmatic cruelty. He shifted the carbine in his hand with dangerous ease.
“You will put that bottle on the table next to you.”
“Would you like that?” asked Miss Temple, her face all blank politeness.
“You will do it at once,” he answered.
Miss Temple looked about the room. Its ceilings were high and painted with scenes of nature—jungles and waterfalls and expansively dramatic skies—that she assumed must represent someone’s idea of Africa or India or America. On each wall were display cases of weapons and artifacts and animal trophies—stuffed heads, skins, teeth, and claws. The floors were thickly carpeted and the furniture heavily upholstered in comfortable leather. The room smelled of cigars and dust, and Miss Temple saw behind Mr. Blenheim an enormous sideboard bearing more bottles than she thought were made in the civilized world, and reasoned that, given the exploratory nature of the decor, there must among them be many liquors and potions from the dark depths of primitive cultures. Mr. Blenheim cleared his throat pointedly, and with a deferent nod she placed her bottle where he had indicated. She glanced to Elöise and met the woman’s questioning expression. Miss Temple merely reached out and took hold of Elöise’s hand—the hand that held the blue glass card—effectively covering it with her own.
“So, you’re Mr. Blenheim?” she asked, not having the slightest idea what this sentence might imply.
“I am,” the man answered gravely, an unpleasant tang of self-importance clinging to his tone.
“I had wondered”—nodded Miss Temple—“having heard your name so many times.”
He did not reply, looking at her closely.
“So many times,” added Elöise, striving to push her voice above a whisper.
“I am the manager of this household. You are causing trouble in it. You were in the master’s passage just now, spying on what you shouldn’t have been like the sneaks you are—do not bother to deny it. And now I’ll wager you’ve disrupted things in the tower—as well as having made a mess of my floor!”
Unfortunately for Mr. Blenheim, his litanies—for he was clearly a man whose authority depended on the ability to catalog transgression—were only damning to those who felt any of this was a source of guilt. Miss Temple nodded to at least acknowledge the man’s concerns.
“In terms of management, I should expect a house this size is rather an involving job. Do you have a large staff? I myself have at various times given much thought to the proper size of a staff in relation to the size of a house—or the ambition of the house, as often a person’s social aim outstrips their physical resources—”
“You were spying. You broke into the master’s inner passage!”
“And a wicked inner passage it is,” she replied. “If you ask me, it is your master you should call a sneak—”
“What were you doing there? What did you hear? What have you stolen? Who has paid you to do this?”
Each of Mr. Blenheim’s questions was more vehement than the one before, and by the last his face was red, quite accentuating the amount of white hair in his grizzled whiskers, making him appear to Miss Temple even more worth mocking.
“My goodness, Sir—your complexion! Perhaps if you drank less gin?”
“We were merely lost,” Elöise intervened smoothly. “There was a fire—”
“I am aware of it!”
“You can see our faces—my dress—” and here Elöise helpfully drew his eyes to the blackened silk that fell about her shapely calves.
Blenheim licked his lips. “That means nothing,” he muttered.
But to Miss Temple it meant a great deal, for the fact that the man had not by this time delivered them to his master told her that Mr. Blenheim had ideas of his own. She indicated the animal heads and the display cases of weapons with a vague wave and a conspiratorial smile.
“What a curious room this is,” she said.
“It is not curious at all. It is the trophy room.”
“I’m sure it must be, but that is to say it is a room of men.”
“And what of that?”
“We are women.”
“Is that of consequence?”
“That, Mr. Blenheim”—here she batted her eyes without shame—“is surely our question to you.”
“What are your names?” he asked, his mouth a tightly drawn line, his eyes flicking quickly as he stared. “What do you know?”
“That depends on who you serve.”
“You will answer me directly!”
Miss Temple nodded sympathetically at his outburst, as if his anger were at the uncooperative weather rather than herself. “We do not want to be difficult,” she explained. “But neither do we want to offend. If you are, for example, deeply attached to Miss Lydia Vandaariff—”
Blenheim waved her past the topic with a violently brusque stab of his hand. Miss Temple nodded.
“Or you had particular allegiances with Lord Vandaariff, or the Contessa, or the Comte d’Orkancz, or Mr. Francis Xonck, or Deputy Minister Crabbé, or—”
“You will tell me what you know no matter what my allegiance.”
“Of course. But first, you must be aware that the house has been penetrated by agents.”
“The man in red—” Blenheim nodded with impatience.
“And the other,” added Elöise, “from the quarry, with the airship—”
Again Blenheim waved them to another topic. “These are in hand,” he hissed. “But why are two adherents in white gowns running through the house and defying their masters?”
“Once more, Sir, which masters do you mean?” asked Miss Temple.
“But …” he stopped, and nodded vigorously, as if his own thoughts were confirmed. “Already, then … they plot against each other …”
“We knew you were not a fool.” Elöise sighed, hopelessly.
Mr. Blenheim did not at once reply, and Miss Temple, though she did not risk a glance at Elöise, took the moment to squeeze her hand.
“While the Comte is down in the prison chamber,” she said, speaking with bland speculation, “and the Contessa is in a private room with the Prince … where is Mr. Xonck? Or Deputy Minister Crabbé?”
“Or where are they thought to be?” asked Elöise.
“Where is your own Lord Vandaariff?”
“He is—” Blenheim stopped himself.
“Do you know where to find your own master?” asked Elöise.
Blenheim shook his head. “You still have not—”
“What do you think we were doing?” Miss Temple allowed her exasperation to show. “We escaped from the theatre—escaped from Miss Poole—”
“Who came with Minister Crabbé in the airship,” added Elöise.
“And then mad
e our way to overhear the actions of the Contessa in your secret room,” resumed Miss Temple, “and from there have done our best to intrude upon the Comte in his laboratory.”
Blenheim frowned at her.
“Who have we not troubled?” Miss Temple asked him patiently.
“Francis Xonck,” whispered Mr. Blenheim.
“You have said it, Sir, not I.”
He chewed his lip. Miss Temple went on. “Do you see … we have not divulged a thing … you have seen these things for yourself and merely deduced the facts. Though … if we were to help you … Sir … might it go easier with us?”
“Perhaps it would. It is impossible to say, unless I know what sort of help you mean.”
Miss Temple glanced to Elöise, and then leaned toward Blenheim, as if to share a secret.
“Do you know where Mr. Xonck is … at this very moment?”
“Everyone is to gather in the ballroom …” Blenheim muttered, “ … but I have not seen him.”
“Is that so?” replied Miss Temple, as if this were extremely significant. “And if I can show you what he is doing?”
“Where?”
“Not where, Mr. Blenheim—indeed, not where … but how?”