Cold Vengeance

CHAPTER 42

Penumbra Plantation, St. Charles Parish

WELCOME HOME, MR. PENDERGAST,” SAID MAURICE, as if Pendergast had only been away a few minutes instead of two months, when he opened the front door. “Will you be wanting supper, sir?”

Pendergast entered the house, Maurice shutting the door against the chill fog of the winter air. “No, thank you. But a glass of amontillado in the second-floor parlor would be lovely, if you don’t mind.”

“The fire is laid.”

“Marvelous.” Pendergast climbed the stairs to the parlor, where a small fire blazed on the hearth, banishing the habitual dampness of the house. He took a seat in a wing chair beside it, and a moment later Maurice came in carrying a silver tray, with a small glass of sherry balanced on it.

“Thank you, Maurice.”

As the white-haired servant turned to leave, Pendergast said, “I know you’ve been worried about me.”

Maurice paused but did not respond.

“When I first discovered the circumstances of my wife’s death,” Pendergast continued, “I was not myself. I imagine you must have been alarmed.”

“I was concerned,” said Maurice.

“Thank you. I know you were. But I’m my own man once again, and there’s no need to monitor my comings or goings or mention them to my brother-in-law…” He paused. “You were in contact with Judson about my situation, I assume?”

Maurice colored. “He is a doctor, sir, and he asked me to help, specifically with regard to your movements. He was fearful that you might do something rash. I thought, given the family history…” His voice trailed off.

“Quite so, quite so. However, it turns out that Judson may not have had my best interests in mind. We’ve had a bit of a falling-out, I’m afraid. And as I mentioned, I’m quite recovered. So you see there is no reason to share anything further with him.”

“Of course. I hope my confidences to Dr. Esterhazy did not cause you any inconvenience?”

“None at all.”

“Will there be anything else?”

“No, thank you. Good night, Maurice.”

“Good night, sir.”

One hour later, Pendergast sat motionless in a small space that had once been his mother’s dressing room. The door was closed and locked. The heavy, old-fashioned furniture had been removed and replaced with a single wing chair, a mahogany table set before it. The elegant William Morris wallpaper had been stripped away and dark blue soundproofing installed in its place. There was nothing in the room to distract or to arouse interest. The only illumination in the windowless space came from a single beeswax taper placed on the small table, which cast a flickering light over the patternless walls. It was the most private and insular room in the mansion.

In the perfect silence, Pendergast turned his gaze to the candle flame, slowing both his respiration and pulse with great deliberation. Through the esoteric meditative discipline of Chongg Ran, which he had studied in the Himalayas many years before, he was preparing to enter the heightened mental state of stong pa nyid. Pendergast had combined this ancient Buddhist practice with the idea of the memory palace contained in Giordano Bruno’s Ars Memoria to create his own unique form of mental concentration.

He stared at the flame and — slowly, very slowly — let his gaze pierce its flickering heart. As he sat, motionless, he allowed his consciousness to enter into the flame, to be consumed by it, to join with it first as an organic whole, and then — as the minutes passed — at an even more fundamental level, until it was as if the very molecules of his sentient being mingled with those of the flame.

The flickering heat grew to fill his mind’s eye with endless, unquenchable fire. And then — quite suddenly — it winked out. Unrelieved blackness took its place.

Pendergast waited, in perfect equanimity, for his memory palace — the storehouse of knowledge and recollection to which he could retreat when in need of guidance — to appear. But the familiar marble walls did not rise up from the blackness. Instead, Pendergast found himself in a dim, closet-like area with a ceiling that sloped low over his head. Before him stood a latticed doorway looking out onto a service hallway; behind him was a wall covered with Rube Goldberg — like diagrams and treasure maps, scrawled by youthful hands.

This was the hideout known as Plato’s Cave, under the back stairs of the old house on Dauphine Street, where he and his brother, Diogenes, had gone to hatch childish schemes and plots… before the Event that sundered their comradeship forever.

This was the second time a memory crossing of Pendergast’s had taken an unexpected turn to this place. With a sudden apprehension, he peered into the dark space at the rear of Plato’s Cave. Sure enough: there was his brother, aged about nine or ten, wearing the navy blazer and shorts that were the uniform of Lusher, the school they attended. He was browsing through a book of Caravaggio’s paintings. He glanced up at Pendergast, gave a sardonic smile, and returned to the book.

“It’s you again,” Diogenes said, the boy strangely speaking in the adult’s voice. “Just in time. Maurice just saw a rabid dog running down the street near the Le Prêtres’ house. Let’s see if we can’t goad it into entering the Convent of St. Maria, shall we? It’s just noon, they’re probably all assembled at mass.”

When Pendergast did not reply, Diogenes turned over a page. “This is one of my favorites,” he said. “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist. Notice how the woman on the left is lowering the basket to receive the head. How accommodating! And the nobleman standing over John, directing the proceedings — such an air of calm command! That’s just how I want to look when I…” He abruptly fell silent and turned another page.

Still Pendergast did not speak.

“Let me guess,” said Diogenes. “This has to do with your dear departed wife.”

Pendergast nodded.

“I saw her once, you know,” Diogenes continued, not looking up from the book. “You two were in the gazebo in the back garden, playing backgammon. I was watching from behind the wisteria bushes. Priapus in the shrubbery, and all that sort of thing. It was an idyllic scene. She had such poise, such elegance of movement. She reminded me of the Madonna in Murillo’s Immaculate Conception.” He paused. “So you think she’s still alive, frater?”

Pendergast spoke for the first time. “Judson told me so, and he had no motive to lie.”

Diogenes did not look up from the book. “Motive? That’s easy. He wanted to inflict the maximum amount of pain at the moment of your death. You have that effect on people.” He turned another page. “I suppose you dug her up?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“The DNA matched.”

“And yet you still think she’s alive?” Another snicker.

“The dental records also matched.”

“Was the corpse also missing a hand?”

A long pause. “Yes. But the fingerprint evidence was inconclusive.”

“The body must’ve been in quite a state. How terrible for you to have that image lodged in your mind — your last image of her. Have you found the birth certificate yet?”

Pendergast paused, struck by the question. Now that the subject came up, he did not recall ever having seen her birth certificate. It hadn’t seemed important. He had always assumed she had been born in Maine, but that was now clearly a lie.

Diogenes tapped an image on the page: Crucifixion of Saint Peter. “I wonder how being hung upside down on a cross affects the continuity of one’s thought processes.” He looked up. “Frater. You’re the one who was — not to put too fine a point on it — in possession of her loins. You were her soul mate, were you not?”

“I thought so.”

“Well, sift your feelings. What do they tell you?”

“That she’s alive.”

Diogenes broke into a peal of laughter, his pink boyish mouth thrown back and open, the laugh grotesquely adult. Pendergast waited for it to subside. Finally Diogenes stopped, smoothed his hair, and laid the book aside. “This is so rich. Like the coming in of a foul tide, those bad old Pendergastian genes are finally rising to the fore in you. You now have a crazy obsession of your very own. Congratulations and welcome to the family!”

“It isn’t an obsession if it’s the truth.”

“Oh, ho!”

“You’re dead. What do you know?”

“Am I really dead? Et in Arcadia ego! The day will come when we shall, all of us Pendergasts, join hands in a great family reunion in the lowest circle of hell. What a party that will be! Ha ha ha—!”

With a sudden, violent burst of will, Pendergast sundered the memory crossing. Once again he was back in the old dressing room, sitting in the leather wing chair, with only the flickering candle for company.