“Why should I?”
“Because Bascombe was murdered! He accompanied Deputy Foreign Minister Crabbé to Macklenburg, but they never arrived— cables from Warnemünde have confirmed it!”
“Not arriving does not make him dead, much less murdered.”
Rawsbarthe stepped closer, shaking his head with a cloying tolerance. “Do you imagine the Queen's Privy Council and her Ministries remain idle when so much hangs in the balance? I know you were this very morning found at Stropping Station and taken to the Palace. I know your disfigured criminal accomplice—yes, yes, we are aware of your activities—has re-emerged from the gutters where he fled. And the German spy? His own government has issued papers for his arrest—by now he's been dragged home in chains, or had his throat cut by his countrymen! You know about Roger Bascombe! You know about Arthur Trapping!”
“Ah, well then, it is impossible to dissemble.” Miss Temple found herself smiling enigmatically and batting her eyes. “I put a bullet through Roger Bascombe's heart myself.”
RAWSBARTHE WAS silent. Miss Temple deliberately inhaled, the small swell of her breasts momentarily confounding the man's attention, and then let out a poor little sigh.
“You will undoubtedly want to arrest me—it is natural. And yet… have we not made enough amiable conversation between us— at the Ministry, at Mr. Bascombe's home, at so many very dull receptions—to possess between us some understanding?”
“You… shot him?”
“Dear Mr. Rawsbarthe…what I mean to say—and I may be wrong, and if that is so, we must proceed to unfortunate outcomes—”
“The murder of Roger Bascombe—”
“Enough about Bascombe.”
“Miss Temple, as much as I might prefer—”
“Mr. Rawsbarthe, I do not believe you are a fool.”
“I am gratified by the sentiment, I'm sure.”
“Indeed, so—please—if you could just step… here.”
She took his arm—causing him to nervously lick his lips—and guided him two steps to the mirrored cabinet. Rawsbarthe flinched.
“Look at my skin.” Miss Temple nodded to her mirrored image. “Below the eyes.”
“You are a perfectly attractive young woman—”
“O Andrew, normally I should blushingly agree with you, but the two of us must be honest… I look ill.”
“People often do.”
“Not me.”
“No doubt the toll of your recent immorality—”
“Andrew… look at yourself.”
At once he pulled away. “I—I am a representative of the Foreign Ministry, and I insist that you accompany me downstairs. You must see the Duke—”
“How do you think I arrived?”
Rawsbarthe put a hand to his mouth. “You saw the Duke? You spoke with him? Impossible, he speaks to no one.”
“Of course he doesn't—”
“But how are you free? Did they not know you?”
“Of course they did!”
“How can that be?”
“Have you seen the Duke? Andrew, listen to me, for your own sake…”
Rawsbarthe's eyes shirked away from hers and he squeezed the leather case.
“Andrew, answer me! Have you seen the Duke?”
Rawsbarthe waved at the mirror without looking at it. “If you refer to his Grace's illness—most definitely not the blood fever that has been rumored—rumored to infect all Harschmort, and yet here we are!—it is but an ague that will pass! If in the meantime others of us shake under his Grace's chills, it is another sort of loyalty, of service…”
Rawsbarthe took another step away, staring at the carpet like a shamed dog, his voice colored by an unpersuasive chuckle.
“Whatever you have assumed—well, trust you are not the first to make the error! Indeed, the inner workings of a modern government must appear a veritable spider's web of influence and compulsion to the humble citizen, and so the commonplace—an ague!—turns into mystery, crisis, plague! I do not know what Mr. Bascombe ever explained to you—very little, I should think, you being, indeed, a w-w-woman—”
“Mr. Rawsbarthe—”
“Now I must take you downstairs with all dispatch. Mr. Bascombe spoke at all times with discretion—I have heeded no insinuations about what compromised your engagement, even now, despite those questionable men who have become your companions.”
Miss Temple stepped nearer and he began to stammer. She could smell the frangipani perfume on her skin and wondered if he could as well. Rawsbarthe took a breath with a quivering determination, as if he had been abruptly pushed to some inner precipice.
“A great deal has changed, Miss Temple. I do not promise I am in a position to help you—but yet it may be that I am not wholly without influence. I have been summoned to Stäelmaere House… on several occasions… a sign of favor I should not have dreamed of one week ago.”
“I have just been there myself,” observed Miss Temple.
“Then you know!” he said quickly, and then caught himself. “Or perhaps not, perhaps you did not—cannot—truly appreciate—”
“Appreciate what exactly?” She came closer, despite the unclean odor of his mouth.
“How bold you are, I see that—even if you try to influence me— toward, ah, leniency—but—but nevertheless, because you know— knew—Mr. Bascombe, you can at least appreciate my good fortune, even to be invited—”
“O I do appreciate it,” she whispered.
“Do you truly?”
“I should like every detail! Once you entered Stäelmaere House— the seat of the Privy Council itself… the corridor with the glass cases and those awful old paintings—were you ushered to a room? Come, Andrew… what do you remember?”
“Naturally, I was not alone—”
“Were you with Mr. Soames?”