6

Dinner passed uneventfully. Jack demonstrated a certain hesitancy in circumventing the pork roast, but–given two lunches–he extemporized around the fish and salad courses and, with the addition of Sebastien’s dessert to his own, made a satisfactory supper. Sebastien disarrayed his food artfully to produce the illusion of dining, a sleight of hand that had served him well over the years.

After dining, the ladies excused themselves before the men adjourned to the smoking room. Sebastien took advantage of the exodus to plead a headache and an aversion to cigars and make his own escape. If Sebastien ventured into the smoking room, he’d be smelling stale tobacco for days. Jack, who numbered cigars among his bad habits as well as brandy–quite the young rakehell, he was growing into, and Sebastien had no-one to blame but himself–would report if anything interesting transpired.

Sebastien had fairer prey.

The passenger room at the head of the stairs was the least desirable, and on an airship as unpeopled as the Hans Glücker, it was understandably deserted. Sebastien slipped inside, leaving the light fixture shrouded, and settled on the lower bunk to wait.

A human–or even a younger blood–might have brought reading material, something with which to while away the hours. Sebastien simply closed his eyes in the dark, leaned his shoulder on the bedpost, and listened to the Hans Glücker drift.

An airship was no more silent in her passage than a sailing vessel. Through the deck, Sebastien could feel the thrum of engines, the almost-subliminal vibration of the cables containing the gas bags within the lifting body, the way the giant aircraft moved in response to the wind plucking at its control cabin and fabric skin. He listened to the ship in the night, and let his mind wander. It was a kind of meditation, and sometimes it helped him uncover surprising truths.

Now, it led him back to Mme. Pontchartrain’s cabin, and the disarrayed papers, and the amended logbook. But those items refused to resolve into a pattern, no matter how many angles he turned them to or stared at them from. He found himself instead musing on Mrs. Leatherby, and her blatant attempt to feed him information. Probably accurate information, as it happened. But he was not blind to the manipulation.

A step on the stair and the swish of a woman’s skirt brought him from his reverie. A small woman, by the weight of her footfall, and so either Mrs. Smith or Mlle. LeClere. And while he would have been happier to see Mrs. Smith–he was beginning to give some serious thought to wooing her; he would need friends and courtesans in America–he hoped it was, at last, Mlle. LeClere.

Alone.

He smoothed his hair with both hands, the mirror no use to him, and stepped into the corridor. And almost into the young Frenchwoman’s arms.

She gave a startled squeak and might have toppled down the stairs if he hadn’t caught her wrist and landed her. Instead she tottered and collapsed forward into his arms; he took two quick steps back to set her at arm’s length. “Mademoiselle,” he said. “Forgive me. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she said, and shrugged his hands off. “I’ll just–”

“Not at all.” He stepped aside, and then fell in beside her when she advanced. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you alone.”

“That’s hardly seemly, monsieur.” She stepped faster, but he kept up with ease.

“I did not think you the sort of young lady who concerned herself with appearances,” he countered. The reached the cabin she had until recently shared with Mme. Pontchartrain, and Mlle. LeClere moved as if to push Sebastien aside. He caught her elbow and turned her.

“Monsieur,” she said. “I will shout.”

“And I will tell the Captain that you lied about where you were last night.”

She held herself stiff for a moment, her chin lifted, her lips pressed suddenly thin. And then, abruptly, she deflated, sagging inside the confines of her corset. “Damn you,” she whispered. “What do you want?”

“Mademoiselle,” Sebastien answered, “we all have secrets. I wish only to discover what became of your chaperone. Will you tell me where you were last night?”

“With Oczkar,” she said, hopelessly. “I knew Mme. Pontchartrain had a taste for laudanum, you see, and sometimes she did not even remove her clothes of an evening, when she had indulged–”

“And your absence would not wake her from her dreams.”

“Indeed,” she said, hopelessly. “But I did not kill her. I did not even provide the drug–”

“Hush,” Sebastien said. He brushed her cheek with cool fingers. “You do not need to justify yourself to me.”

#

“Was she lying?” Jack asked, in the darkness.

“I don’t believe so.” Sebastien did not sleep. But he occupied his pajamas nonetheless, and lay on Jack’s bunk beside him, listening to Jack breathe, inches away in the quiet darkness. “So what do we know, then?”

“That we can cross Korvin and LeClere off our list of suspects.” Jack spoke very softly, just for Sebastien’s ears, both of them aware of Mrs. Smith sleeping peacefully on the other side of the doped fabric wall. Faintly, distantly, Sebastien could hear Hollis Leatherby snoring.

“Unless they did it together.”

“Then no-one has an alibi.”

“Not even you.”

“Alas,” Jack said. He shifted under the covers, leaning his head on Sebastien’s shoulder. “We know Mrs. Smith is an inveterate eavesdropper. We know Captain Hoak–or somebody feigning his handwriting–made an inconsistent entry in the logbook. We know Mme. Pontchartrain disappeared between drinks and breakfast. We can speculate that Korvin and Meadows had some sort of prior arrangement to travel together, or that Corvin and LeClere did–aside from the tour group, I mean. Five colonials and one European, that’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Is that something you can inquire after with Mrs. Smith?”

“I thought you didn’t approve of Mrs. Smith.”

“She’s just your type,” Jack said, feigning placidity. “And I know very well that we can’t get along in America, just the two of us, without friends.”

“You are a practical soul, dear boy,” Sebastien said, and turned to kiss Jack’s forehead. “We also know that Beatrice Leatherby has some agenda that involves incriminating Korvin.”

“Or Mademoiselle LeClere.”

“Just so. Extending that last point, we know that there is some mysterious tension between the Leatherbys and the other passengers. We know Korvin úr may very well be something other than he seems, but that he is not of the blood.”

“We know Miss Meadows knows that you are.” Sebastien could hear Jack’s frown in his voice.

“And we know that this dirigible is currently host to any number of unsavory relationships.”

“Is that so?” Jack asked, propping himself on his elbows, his silhouette barely visible in the dim light that slipped around the edges of the lampshade.

“Unfortunately,” Sebastien answered, sitting up, “it appears to be a motif. You should sleep, Jack.”

Jack caught his wrist. “Madame’s papers appeared to have been riffled. Hurriedly. But you said no one but she and Mlle. LeClere had been in the cabin.”

Sebastien nodded. “I did, didn’t I? I wonder if I could have been mistaken.”

“Anise oil confuses bloodhounds,” Jack said, slyly.

Sebastien snorted.

“We also now know that Madame Pontchartrain was an opium addict.”

“Such harsh terms for a little genteel laudanum use.” And then Sebastien stopped, freed his right hand, and used it to stroke Jack’s curls, thoughtfully. “Jack, when we searched Madame Pontchartrain’s room–”

Jack stiffened. “No laudanum bottle.”

“Indeed,” Sebastien answered. “And isn’t that a curious thing?”

***

To Be Continued

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