“I’m going to see Father DeLorme today,” announced Everard.
Everyone, except for Roland who was still stuck in his laboratory doing work, was sitting around the dining table for lunch. Haidée continued to sip her soup after the head astronomer’s announcement. She had awakened hungry, but she was still wary of the state of her stomach so she ate slowly. She concentrated on her food, mostly. But she slanted a glance at the others to gauge their reaction.
The only other people at the table were Renaud and Garnier. The place seemed eerily empty as she realized that the lack of people at the table was due to the fact that some of them were dead. Renaud only flicked a rather disinterested expression in Everard’s direction. Garnier looked distinctly nervous.
“It’s bad weather out today,” said Garnier.
“Bad weather hasn’t stopped me from visiting Father DeLorme before,” the head astronomer replied as he began cutting his portion of fish into small bite sized pieces. “It is just a walk down from here to the church. I will only get wet.”
“Wet!” Garnier sneered. “That’s what they all say.”
“Well, it is sort of impossible not to get wet in the rain,” Renaud pointed out.
“These days, one doesn’t merely get wet in the storm,” Garnier muttered darkly. “Just look at what D’Aubigne did only a few days ago. He went out for a meeting with somebody that we don’t even know and he never came back. Well, his body came back—but he wasn’t alive.”
“Perhaps D’Aubigne met with the murderer,” speculated Everard. “But I am not. I am meeting with a priest. You couldn’t get much safer than that.”
“That’s what you say.” The short astronomer sounded petulant as he whined between bites of food. “You sleep well at night because you are completely ignorant about the world around you.”
At the mention of sleep, Haidée was startled. But she tried to cover up her movement with a cough. The marten, that for some reason was sleeping in her lap rather than snatching up food, stirred briefly at her movement and opened one shiny black eye. It chirped in question—or at least she thought it was a question.
“Go back to sleep,” she muttered.
The marten stretched and yawned, showing its sharp teeth and pink tongue. Then it flopped across her gown like a limp dishrag and fell back asleep.
Haidée sighed and reached for the wine glass just as Everard spoke up.
“Garnier, you are way out of line. You are letting your paranoia about the situation affect you. You should go see the doctor and see if he can prescribe you something for your insomnia.”
The short astronomer scoffed and eyed Everard with bloodshot eyes. “I don’t need anything from the doctor. As soon as the tide is out, I’m getting the hell away from this island. And if you’re as smart as you say you are, you’d be too.”
“You are spinning things out of nothing,” the head astronomer declared. “D’Aubigne died of an accident. Legard died of an accident.”
“So close together and in such unusual circumstances? I don’t think so. And if you ask me, Danton Neville’s suicide is a little bit suspicious in light of all this happening. And what about Nicolas Bisset? Or the old man before him?”
Everard slammed a fist against the table. Haidée shot Renard a nervous glance. He slightly shook his head. “Neville was already mentally unhinged,” Everard said firmly, on the edge of temper. “And the others died of old age, as to be expected. Why are you bringing all of this up?”
With the evidence of the head astronomer’s anger, Garnier seemed to calm down. He gave a sarcastic smile. “Why, you’ll be going out all alone to see Father DeLorme. Who knows what might happen to you between here and there if there is indeed a murderer about? You might think twice going alone. You might want someone with you while you’re out there in the storm.” Garnier sipped his soup loudly.
Everard’s fork clattered on his plate. His eyes were narrowed. “You’re afraid that I’m going to end up like the others and you’d be alone fending for yourself. Fine. I will bring someone with me. I will take Villiers with me to see DeLorme. He will not be happy to be escorting me out into the rain, but I will tell him that he has you to blame for his discomfort.”
“You need not bother Villiers about it if he doesn’t want to go out,” spoke up Renard. “I can accompany you to the church.”
“No, no,” the head astronomer waved him off. “It is Villiers’s job. He will not complain. I was just trying to make a point with…”
A frightening shriek abruptly pierced the air, echoing through the stone walls of the observatory. It was a high pitched shriek, a woman’s scream. Haidée had the urge to cover her ears, but she winced instead, feeling the sound pierce her ear and rattle in her head. Her senses were alert and magnified by the sip of tonic she had before coming down for lunch and as a result, the shriek probably sounded louder than it should have been.
But the noise had awakened the marten. It swiveled its head to and fro, trying to determine the source of the sound. The men at the table had gotten out of their seats in reaction to the noise.
“Someone’s in trouble!” Everard exclaimed the obvious.
Haidée felt her appetite flee as footsteps pattered toward the dining hall. Her intuition told her that something bad had happened. The pale look on Garnier’s face strengthened that feeling. The appearance of a disheveled Colette all but confirmed it.
“Monsieur Everard!” The usually quiet maid was stammering, on the verge of hysteria. “Please, come quickly. It is Monsieur Roland. I think he’s…he’s…”
Everard threw down his napkin on top of his lunch. “Where is he?”
“In his laboratory. Madame Boulanger went in to see if he wanted to eat lunch while he was working and she screamed. I was nearby cleaning the floors…”
The head astronomer didn’t wait for the maid to finish, he rushed off, out of the dining hall. Despite his pallor, Garnier wasn’t too far behind.
The marten leaped out of Haidée’s lap. Finally she stood up and exchanged a glance with Renard. “Do you think…?”
“If you’re not up to this, you should probably go back to your room,” he suggested.
She shook her head. “If what has happened is what I think has happened, I don’t feel easy being about this place alone.”
“Considering the victims,” said Renaud, “I don’t think it is likely that you will be targeted.”
When he moved out of the dining hall, she followed him. They were walking quickly, not too far behind from Garnier and Everard. “Well, what about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re another astronomer here. What if you are next?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “I am a visitor here just as you are. And if I come face to face with whoever is behind this, he will be very surprised. I have some unexpected tricks, thanks to you.”
“Don’t be so confident,” she retorted. “What if he surprises you? He would have the advantage and you’d be dead before you know it. You have nothing except second hand spells.”
His expression tightened. “Then what do you suggest I do?”
“To be honest, I don’t know.”
They stopped at an open door down the main hallway of the observatory. Past the door was a flight of stairs up one of the observatory towers. They climbed until they reached a landing and another open door. The room inside appeared to be one of the laboratories. Garnier and Everard was already inside. Madame Boulanger was sobbing and wailing as Colette attempted to steer her away from the scene and out of the room. Renard and Haidée moved aside as the two servants exited.
The laboratory itself had a cluttered look—papers and books were scattered on chairs and a long work table. Several astronomical instruments were piled carelessly in a corner. A window on the far side of the room was open, letting in rain from the storm outside. Haidée took a step closer toward the middle of the room and spotted what had caused the hysteria. Roland was slumped over his desk, face down. He was still clothed and his hand was on the desk. A pen had fallen from his fingers. The old astronomer appeared to be in the midst of working when he keeled over, dead.
Everard attempted to take a pulse by feeling for it in Roland’s limp wrist. After a moment, the head astronomer just shook his head. “Roland’s dead.”
“Good God,” said Garnier. “Another one. Now do you believe me, Everard?”
The head astronomer looked tired at his argument. “You’ve been too stressed, Garnier. All these deaths are taking a toll on you. Roland was a very old man. His time has come. Perhaps the stress of the other deaths had also taken a toll on him and stopped his already weakened heart. These are very ordinary although sad circumstances.”
“You’re just making up excuses,” Garnier ranted as Everard put his hands on the shorter astronomer’s shoulders and pointed him towards the door. “There’s nothing normal about this! It’s downright strange! Chilling! Evil! This island is going to kill us all!”
As the astronomers went past the threshold, Renaud went over to the body and looked down at it. Haidée didn’t dare walk close to the old man’s corpse. Her intuition that something bizarre had happened was stronger than ever. Instead of trying to take a pulse himself, Renaud pulled the back of Roland’s shirt away from his body a little bit and looked underneath. The slant of light from a nearby flickering candle caused a glare on his spectacles, hiding his expression from her.
After a moment, he drew his hand away and nodded to her to preceed him from the room. As they walked down the stairs, he said, “There were marks on the old man. They looked very similar to the other ones.”
Haidée felt cold. “Whoever he is, he’s becoming more clever.”
The marten had followed everyone up to Monsieur Roland’s laboratory. It stayed for a moment after all the people had left, ignoring the dead corpse in favor of rooting through the pile of unorganized papers. But in the midst of tossing aside another sheet of foolscap, its ears pricked up at a noise coming from the open window. It was a strange noise that was utterly different than the rain or the thunder. Frightened, the marten bolted out of the room and raced down the stairs towards its mistress.