Cold Vengeance

CHAPTER 19

New York City

DR. JOHN FELDER WALKED DOWN THE ECHOING hallway of Mount Mercy Hospital, a slim folder under one arm and the physician in charge, Dr. Ostrom, at his side.

“Thank you for allowing this visitation, Dr. Ostrom,” Felder said.

“Not at all. I take it your interest in her will be ongoing?”

“Yes. Her condition is… unique.”

“Many things involving the Pendergast family are unique.” Ostrom started to say more and then fell silent, as if he’d already said too much on the matter.

“Where is Pendergast, her guardian?” Felder asked. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with him.”

“He’s a cipher to me, I’m afraid — comes and goes at the oddest times, makes demands and then vanishes. I’ve found him a somewhat difficult person to deal with.”

“I see. So you have no objections to my continuing visits to the patient?”

“None at all. I’ll be glad to share my observations with you, if you wish.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

They reached the door, and Ostrom knocked lightly. “Please come in,” came the response from the other side.

Ostrom unlocked the door and ushered Felder in ahead of him. The room looked similar to the last time he’d seen it, except that there were more books in it — many more books. The bookcase that before had held only half a dozen volumes now had several times that many. Glancing at the titles, Felder noticed The Complete Poetry of John Keats, Jung’s Symbols of Transformation, the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom, Eliot’s Four Quartets, Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus. No doubt these were from the Mount Mercy library; Felder found himself mildly shocked that certain of these titles were allowed to circulate.

There was another difference, too: the room’s single table was now covered with sheets of foolscap, which were filled with dense lines of writing, punctuated by elaborate sketches, profiles, still lifes, equations, and Leonardo-like diagrams. And there, on the far side of the desk, sat Constance. She was in the act of writing, a quill pen in one hand, a bottle of blue-black ink on the desk beside her.

She glanced up at the two men as they entered. “Good morning, Dr. Ostrom. Good morning, Dr. Felder.” She stacked the sheets one on top of the other, then turned the top sheet over the rest.

“Good morning, Constance,” Ostrom said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Then I’ll leave you two. Dr. Felder, I’ll have someone outside the door. Just knock when you’re ready to leave.” Ostrom stepped out. A moment later, Felder heard a key turning smoothly in the lock.

He turned to see Constance regarding him with her strange eyes. “Please have a seat, Dr. Felder.”

“Thank you.” Felder sat in the only vacant chair in the room, a plastic chair with steel legs bolted to the floor. He was curious about her writings but decided to address that issue another time. He placed the folder on his knees and nodded at the quill. “Interesting choice of writing instrument.”

“It was either this or crayons.” She paused. “I did not expect to see you again so soon.”

“I hope you don’t find our conversations disagreeable.”

“On the contrary.”

Felder shifted in the chair. “Constance, if you don’t mind, I wanted to speak with you again, briefly, about — about your childhood.”

Constance sat up slightly.

“First, let me make sure I understand. You state that you were born on Water Street in the 1870s, though you are unsure of the exact year. Your parents died of tuberculosis, and both your brother and older sister died within a few years as well. That would make you…” He paused to calculate. “More than one hundred and thirty years old.”

For a moment, Constance did not reply. She just regarded him calmly. Once again, Felder was struck by her beauty: her intelligent expression, her bob of auburn hair. She had far more self-possession than was natural for a woman who looked only twenty-two or — three.

“Doctor,” she said at last, “I’ve much to thank you for. You’ve treated me with kindness and respect. But if you’re here to humor me, I’m afraid my good opinion of you will suffer.”

“I’m not here to humor you,” Felder said, with sincerity. “I’m here to help you. But I need to understand you better first.”

“I’ve told you the truth. Either you believe me or you don’t.”

“I want to believe you, Constance. But put yourself in my place. It’s a biological impossibility that you’re a hundred and thirty years old. And so I seek other explanations.”

Again she paused briefly. “A biological impossibility? Doctor, you are a man of science. Do you believe that the human heart can be transplanted from one person to another?”

“Of course.”

“Do you believe that X-ray radiographs and MRI machines can take pictures of the internal structure of the body, without resorting to invasive procedures?”

“Naturally.”

“Around the time of my birth, such things would have been thought ‘a biological impossibility.’ Is it really ‘impossible’ that medicine could retard aging and prolong a life span beyond its natural length?”

“Well… perhaps prolong a life span. But to keep a girl in her early twenties for more than a century? No, I’m sorry, it’s just not possible.” As he spoke, Felder felt his own convictions wavering. “Are you saying that’s what happened to you? You were the subject of some kind of medical procedure to prolong your life?”

Constance did not reply. Felder felt he was getting somewhere, all of a sudden.

“How did it happen? What brought it about? Who performed this procedure?”

“To say anything more would be to betray a confidence.” Constance smoothed the front of her dress. “I’ve already said more than I should have. The only reason I tell you this is I sense you have a sincere desire to help me. But I can say nothing more. What you choose to believe is entirely up to you, Doctor.”

“So it is. I thank you for sharing this with me.” Felder hesitated. “I wonder if you would do me a favor.”

“Certainly.”

“I’d like you to think back to your childhood on Water Street. Your earliest memories of the neighborhood.”

She looked at him very carefully, as if searching his face for any sign of coyness or deception. After a moment, she nodded.

“Do you remember Water Street with any clarity?”

“I remember it well.”

“Very good. As I recall, you have said your home was at Sixteen Water Street.”

“Yes.”

“And you were roughly five years of age when your parents died.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the immediate surroundings — around your residence, I mean.”

For a moment, Constance’s alert eyes seemed to go far away. “There was a tobacconist next door. I remember the smell of Cavendish and Latakia drifting into the front window of our flat. On the other side of us was a fishmonger’s. The neighborhood cats liked to congregate on the brick wall of its back garden.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

“Across the street was a haberdasher. London Town, they called it. I recall the model displayed over the signboard. And down the street was a chemist’s shop — Huddell’s. I remember it because my father took us inside once for a penny bag of chocolates.” Her face shone briefly at the memory.

Felder found the answers more than a little disturbing.

“What about schooling? Did you go to school on Water Street?”

“There was a school, down at the corner, but I didn’t go. My parents couldn’t afford it. Universal free public education didn’t exist then. And I told you — I’m self-educated.” She paused. “Why are you asking me these questions, Dr. Felder?”

“I’m curious to see how clear your early memories are.”

“Why — in order to satisfy yourself they are delusional?”

“Not at all.” His heart was beating fast, and he tried to conceal his excitement and confusion.

Constance met his gaze with her own and seemed to see into him. “If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’m tired.”

He took up the folder with both hands and rose. “Thank you again, Constance,” he said. “I appreciate your candor.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And for what it’s worth—” he said suddenly—“I believe you. I don’t begin to understand it, but I believe you.”

Her expression softened. Very faintly, she inclined her head.

He turned and knocked on the door. What had possessed him to make such an impulsive statement? A moment later, the key turned and an orderly appeared.

Outside in the corridor, as the orderly relocked the door, Felder opened the folder he’d been carrying. Inside was an article from that morning’s New York Times. It described a historical find that had just been announced that very day: the diary of a young man, Whitfield Speed, who had lived on Catherine Street from 1869 to his untimely death under the wheels of a carriage in 1883. Speed, an enthusiastic New Yorker, had apparently been very taken with Stow’s Survey of London and was hoping to write a similarly fine-grained account of the streets and shops of Manhattan. He had only managed to fill a single journal with observations before his death. The journal had remained locked in an attic trunk with his few possessions, unknown since his death, and had only just been rediscovered. It was being hailed as an important addition to the history of the city, as it gave very specific information about the composition of his neighborhood — information unobtainable from any other source.

Speed’s Catherine Street residence had been just around the corner from Water Street. And on an inside page, the Times had printed one of the elaborate pencil sketches from Speed’s journal-in-progress — a sketch that included a detailed neighborhood map of two streets, Catherine and the adjoining Water. Until this very morning, nobody alive knew precisely, on a building-by-building basis, what shops those streets had consisted of during the 1870s.

The moment Felder had read the article at the breakfast table earlier that morning, he’d been struck with an idea. It seemed crazy, of course — he was really doing little more than indulging Constance, encouraging her delusions — but here was a perfect opportunity to check on her information. In the face of truth — the real layout of 1870s Water Street — perhaps Constance could be persuaded to begin leaving her fantasy-world behind.

Standing in the corridor, Felder scrutinized the image in the newspaper carefully, struggling to parse the antique handwriting scrawled across the diagram. Then he went rigid. There was the tobacconist. And two buildings away, Huddell’s Chemists. Across the street was the haberdasher London Town, and on the corner, Mrs. Sarratt’s Academy for Young Children.

He closed the folder slowly. The explanation was obvious, of course. Constance had already seen today’s paper. A mind as inquisitive as hers would want to know what was going on in the world. He set off down the hall toward reception.

As he drew close to the receiving station, he noticed Ostrom standing in an open doorway, speaking with a nurse.

“Doctor?” Felder asked, with some hurry.

Ostrom glanced back at him, eyebrows raised in inquiry.

“Constance has seen the morning paper, right? The Times?”

Ostrom shook his head.

Felder froze. “No? You’re sure about that?”

“I’m positive. The only newspapers, radios, and televisions that are patient-accessible are in the library. And Constance has been in her room all morning.”

“Nobody has seen her? No staff, no nurses?”

“Nobody. Her door hasn’t been unlocked since last night. The log states it quite clearly.” He frowned. “Is something the matter?”

Felder realized he’d been holding his breath. He exhaled slowly. “Nothing. Thank you.”

And he walked out of the lobby, into bright sunlight.