“Impossible. He was attacked by a woman.”
“What?” said Svenson. “Who says so?”
“Everyone, of course. The man himself!” The conductor glanced to the businessmen, raising his eyebrows.
“Why did no one tell me?”
“You were tending to the lady.”
Had the Contessa truly been at the train yards? Could Xonck have mistaken Elöise for her?
“There are no other female passengers?” Svenson asked. “You are certain?”
“There are not,” replied the conductor.
“But the cars for freight, from the mines…” Svenson pointed to the rear of the train.
“These hold no passengers.”
“Not normally…”
“They are full of freight.”
“Have you inspected them?” pressed Svenson. “Some must be empty, to pick up goods farther down your line.”
“Empty cars would be locked.”
“But locks can be picked. Is there no way one might examine—”
“There are no connecting doors, you see.” The two businessmen were now openly eavesdropping, and the conductor appealed to them for the obviousness of his logic.
“But it might be possible when we stop?” Svenson asked.
“We are not stopping for some time.”
“Yes, of course, but when we do…”
“I will be sure to advise you of that fact,” said the conductor. “You will excuse me…”
THE DOCTOR stalked the length of the train's two passenger cars. The conductor had told the truth. Besides the two mining men, only one other compartment in the first car was occupied—a quartet of laborers heading south to work in the mills. Might Miss Temple have found refuge in the caboose? He would have to wait until the train stopped to reach the caboose too.
Elöise's forehead was warmer to the touch. Svenson lit another cigarette. He pulled the pistol from his waistband, dropped it on the coat, and stretched his legs out on the seats. After another minute of restless thought he fished out the purple stone. Elöise had been clutching it in her hand—he could not allow the fact any significance… yet it was with a disgusting ease that his mind slipped to the two of them standing on the sand, the sound of the sea, and the wind against her glowing face…
He put the stone away. He had abandoned the woman without fully apprising her of the dangers he knew to exist. If he was now in a position to help, it was a matter of expiating guilt, not of reclaiming affection. Svenson forced his mind to the facts at hand—it was the only way he was going to help anyone.
What had Elöise been doing in Karthe so soon? Obviously Miss Temple had recovered—or, he realized helplessly, had died… but no, if that had been the case, Elöise would have been occupied for at least an additional day with a burial. Yet if Miss Temple had simply come to her senses, fever passed, the Doctor would have expected the women to delay another day to build up her strength. What could have driven them from the fishing village with such precipitous haste? Clearly the villagers had not loved their presence… could there have been more murders? What had they found at the Jorgens cabin?
It seemed obvious that Xonck had killed the grooms in the fishing village. If the Contessa truly lived, then she must be responsible for the fisherman—and the man in the train yard, whose face had been slashed. This placed the Contessa in the train yard at the same time as Elöise—so perhaps Xonck had mistaken her identity.
Svenson shut his eyes. What was the connection between Francis Xonck and Elöise?
He wondered again what he might say to her. Once in the city they would pursue their separate paths, and forever. But before that, he would search the train when it stopped. If he found no sign of Miss Temple, he would return to Karthe, to track the poor girl down… but perhaps once Elöise was able to speak, she might know perfectly well where Miss Temple was…perhaps the women had hatched some plan together… perhaps—the Doctor's eyes closed… perhaps he would never wake at all…
IT TOOK him a moment to remember where he was, but the instant he did the Doctor sat up straight. The train was stopped. He looked to Elöise, still asleep—and groped for the pistol, couldn't find it, then stood and snatched up the coat he had sometime in the night bundled up for a pillow. The weapon had maliciously worked its way beneath. He seized it with one hand and smeared his hair back with the other. He rushed into the corridor, only to be thrown into the far wall as the train pulled forward.
“God damn!” Doctor Svenson cried aloud, and he stumbled down the corridor in search of the hateful conductor. He'd no sense of the time—the sky remained dark and he had no watch. He had completely missed a stop! How long had he slept? The four laborers sat slumped against once another, and each of the two businessmen was stretched across three seats in their compartment. A third compartment had been occupied by an elderly woman and two heavy-lidded children. The woman looked up at Svenson as he paused by her open door.
“Have you seen the conductor?” he asked.
She nodded toward the front of the train. Taking this for an answer, Svenson continued forward, but when he reached the head of the car the conductor was not there. Svenson slid open the door and stood in the cold, rushing air. Before him lay a narrow railed platform, the greasy coupling, beyond it the blank wall of the coal wagon, and beyond that the engine. The plume from the smokestack blew over him, suffusing the air with an acrid, moist, and smoky odor. Could the conductor have been behind him, in the second car? He made his way to the rear door and wrenched it open. Barring a leap from the railed platform to the ladder on the freight car, there was no exit here.
If the train had stopped… the conductor might have walked back to the caboose, or forward to the engine. But why, especially when new passengers had been taken on? Svenson re-entered their compartment and set the pistol (had he been waving it at the old woman?) onto a seat cushion. Where was the man?
ELÖISE ABRUPTLY gasped, as if waking from an especially fearful dream, her eyes snapping open.
“Francis?”
The name was a spike of ice in Svenson's heart.
“No, my dear,” he said. “It is Doctor Svenson.”
She did not hear him, her eyes still wide. She attempted to sit up and cried out. Svenson darted across to her, sank to his knees and eased one hand behind her head, and with the other caught the hand that sought to explore her bandages.
“You must not move,” he whispered to her. “Elöise—”
“Francis—”
“You have been stabbed. You very nearly died.”
He eased her back until her head lay fully on the seat once more, and squeezed her hand.
“You were very brave, and very fortunate the blade of glass penetrated only as far as it did. The blow was meant to kill.”
For the first time her eyes found his with recognition—his face, his hands, their physical proximity. Svenson stepped away at once. He waited for her to speak.
“We are on a train?”
“We are, from Karthe to the city.”
“You were in Karthe?”
“I was—quite luckily. My own story is too long to tell, and yet…” He took a breath. “Elöise, I must apologize. The peremptory—indeed, even cowardly—manner—”
“Where is Celeste?” asked Elöise, interrupting him.
“I have been waiting for you to tell me.”