The front door opened to admit Mr. Bolte.
“I am afraid I must borrow your guest for a little time, Mrs. Daube,” he called, smiling in such a way as to let the woman know she had no say in the matter.
Mrs. Daube snorted at the Doctor. “What's it to me if you eat it cold?”
“WE HAVE found something,” Mr. Bolte explained once they were outside. “A clue.”
In the road waited Mr. Potts, and—his work at the train yards evidently finished—Mr. Carper, both with lanterns, and some men Svenson did not recognize, each standing with either a new-sharpened stave or a bright lantern.
“It was Mr. Potts' idea.” Bolte nodded to the crisply dressed city man. “Perhaps you will show the Doctor, Martin.”
Doctor Svenson disliked this newfound familiarity, but forced himself to smile with curiosity at Potts, aware that the man's own earnest expression was an untrustable veil. Svenson had been attached to the Macklenburg diplomatic party as personal physician to the late Prince, but everyone with a brain knew his true task, to control the young man's penchant for excess and scandal. If Potts was from the Ministry he must know of Svenson…which meant he must also know that Macklenburg had declared Svenson a criminal. Yet here was Potts, saying nothing, leading them all to a patch of scrub grass near the road, half-way between the dead boy's house and the Flaming Star.
Mr. Potts stroked his chin like a preening bird. “Indeed—well, it was this notion of the killer—the wolf—chasing the boy from the deathbed of his father to the rocks. I simply took a lantern and searched for any signs connecting the two—for example a trail of blood.”
“And was there?” asked Svenson.
“My word, yes,” replied Potts with a smile. “But not of blood! It's most strange, you see—nothing other than marbles! Beads of what to me looks like glass!” He crouched low, holding the lantern.
There in the dirt lay a scatter of flattened, bright stones that in the flickering light seemed to contain the blue shimmer of a tropical sea. Svenson saw instantly that this had been some fluid ejected in a stream—a jet of coagulating blood, or clotted saliva—that had then hardened in the cold air. Could the boy have been wounded in the house? Had he fled to the rocks, leaving this unnatural trail?
He realized Potts was watching him closely. Svenson cleared his throat.
“Do you gentlemen know their… source?”
“We rather hoped you did,” replied Bolte.
“I am afraid this is beyond my knowledge. But perhaps Mr. Potts—”
“Not I.” Potts fixed his gaze on Svenson.
“Then let us hurry on,” Mr. Bolte urged. “Back to the rocks.”
AS THEY walked, Mr. Bolte speculated whether the blue marbles might have come from some hitherto unknown mineral deposit or whether the boy's father had cadged them from unsavory dealings— here Bolte's voice dropped low—with a gypsy.
“I should not think Karthe has traffic with gypsies,” offered Svenson.
“We do not,” insisted Bolte.
“Because of the isolation, I mean.”
“Precisely.”
“Then perhaps…” Potts risked a glance to the Doctor. “… we have not found a gypsy's marble. Perhaps it comes from a wolf… eating something unnatural.”
Mr. Carper called over their shoulders, for he had fallen behind, his voice thick with effort. “A hungry wolf will eat anything!”
Svenson felt Potts watching him and groped for some reply, but then they reached the rocks. With so many lanterns lighting up the inner clearing like an unnatural dark-skied summer day, the horrifying nature of the boy's last hour was inescapable. The rock face below his cleft of refuge was thickly striped in both blood and gleaming blue. The child had been clawed to pieces like a cornered rat—his assailant striking again and again from below, hacking at the legs but never able to catch a grip to pull the boy to the ground. Svenson turned away, dismayed to his heart. His gaze fell upon a ring of blackened stones, a fire pit. Potts called to him.
“It seems to have been recently used, does it not?”
“It might have been the boy,” Svenson speculated aloud. “Or a miner in transit with no money for the inn.”
“But if it wasn't?” asked Potts.
“Who do you mean?” asked Bolte.
“I do not know. But if someone else might have been here…”
“I saw no one,” said Svenson, “when I found the boy.”
“Perhaps they too fell victim,” wheezed Mr. Carper, who did not seem the better for the walk. “Or perhaps they ran away.”
“Perhaps they left a trail themselves,” observed Svenson, and he looked meaningfully at Mr. Potts. Immediately Potts was snapping orders at the other men—without a qualm for Mr. Bolte's ostensible authority—spreading them out to search the ground.
Svenson looked up at the mournful crevice where the boy had lain. He turned to Mr. Carper. “If I might trouble you for a push, sir?”
Carper was entirely obliging—it gave him an excuse not to search— and allowed the Doctor to press one foot off his cradled hands, and then another off his shoulder. Svenson clawed his way up the rock, gritting his teeth and refusing to look beneath him—even this minor height made his palms sweat. Why must he always find himself in these situations?
“What do you see?” called Carper, holding up his lantern.
Svenson reached the crevice and pulled himself to the side of the sticky blood, exhaling with effort. The crevice was tiny, but extended farther than he'd thought, the depths too narrow for the boy to use. Svenson squinted… a pale object in the very distant dark… he flattened his body and extended one arm… his fingers touched cloth… he pulled on it, gently, and it came free—a grain sack… with something particularly heavy inside it.
He slid to the ground. Before Mr. Carper could ask what Svenson had found, the Doctor leaned close. “We must find Mr. Bolte, alone.”
The rest of the men were assisting Mr. Potts, nosing about like dogs in the shadows. Svenson crossed quickly, took Bolte's arm, and walked him out of the rocks altogether, Carper trailing behind with the lantern.
“The Doctor has something to show you,” whispered Carper, a bit too dramatically.
“Found in the crevice,” said Svenson, “where the boy was attacked. I believe it was what he was protecting—why he was killed.”
“I do not understand. Is it food?”
“It is not.”
“Why would a wolf care about anything it could not eat?”
“Mr. Bolte… and Mr. Carper, you too must know.”
The two men exchanged a glance and drew closer.
“There is no wolf,” said Svenson. “At least no wolf in Karthe. Be fore you say a word—believe me, my proof for all I say is longer than we have time to tell—you saw the ‘marbles’ Mr. Potts found on the road, and you saw the dead boy's legs—the gashes of blue?”
“But you said that you did not know—”
“I had hoped it was not necessary. It has become so.”