Dance Of Death

FORTY-THREE

viola Maskelene picked up her luggage at the international arrivals carousel at Kennedy Airport, engaged a luggage porter to load it onto a cart, and followed it through customs. It was after midnight, and the wait was brief; the bored official asked her a few desultory questions, stamped her U.K. passport, and ushered her through.

A small crowd of people was waiting at the arrivals area. She paused, scanning the crowd, until she noticed a tall man in a gray flannel suit standing at the fringe. She recognized him instantly, so uncanny was the resemblance to his brother, with his high smooth forehead, aquiline nose, and aristocratic bearing. Just seeing a person with such a close resemblance to Pendergast made her heart accelerate. But there were differences, too. He was taller and less wiry, a little more heavily built perhaps; but his face was sharper, the cheekbones and bony ridges around the eyes more pronounced, all of which, taken together, gave his face a curiously asymmetrical feeling. His hair was ginger-colored and he sported a thick, neatly trimmed beard. But the most startling difference was in his eyes: one was a rich hazel green, the other a glaucous blue. She wondered if he was blind in the pale eye-it looked dead.

She smiled, gave him a quick wave.

He, too, broke into a smile and came walking over with a languid step, his hands outstretched. He grasped her hand in both of his, hands cool and soft. "Lady Maskelene?"

"Call me Viola."

"Viola. I'm charmed." His voice had much of his brother's buttery southern tones, yet although his manner of speech was almost as languorous as his walk, his words were very precisely enunciated, as if bitten off at the ends. It was an unusual, almost strange combination.

"A pleasure to meet you, Diogenes."

"My brother has been quite mysterious about you, but I know he's anxious to see you. Is this your luggage?" He snapped his fingers and a porter came rushing over. "See that this lady's luggage is brought to the black Lincoln parked just outside," Diogenes told him. "The trunk is open." A twenty appeared in his hand as if by magic, but the man was so captivated by Viola that he barely saw it.

Diogenes turned back to Viola. "And how was your trip?"

"Bloody awful."

"I'm sorry I couldn't suggest a more convenient flight. It's been rather a hectic time for my brother, as you know, and the logistics of arranging the meeting were a bit daunting."

"No matter. The important thing is that I'm here."

"Indeed it is. Shall we go?" He offered her his arm and she took it. It was surprisingly strong, the muscles hard as steel cables, very different from the soft, languid impression his movements gave.

"There'd be no mistaking you for anyone but Aloysius's brother," she said as they walked out of the baggage claim area.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

They went through the revolving doors into a blast of cold air. A dusting of fresh snow glittered on the sidewalks beyond the covered walkway.

"Brrr!" Viola said, recoiling. "When I left Capraia, it was a balmy twenty degrees. This is barbaric!"

"That would be twenty degrees Celsius, of course," said Diogenes with a wink. "How I envy you, able to live there year-round. My car." He opened the door for her, then went around, waited for the skycap to dose the trunk, then slipped in the other side.

"I don't actually live there year-round. Normally at this time of year, I'm in Luxor, working on a dig in the Valley of the Nobles. But this year, with the blasted state of the Middle East, I ran into some permit problems."

Diogenes accelerated smoothly from the curb and merged into the traffic headed for the airport exit. "An Egyptologist," he said. "How fascinating. I myself spent some time in Egypt, a junior member of the von Hertsgaard expedition."

"Not the one that went into Somalia looking for the diamond mines of Queen Hatshepsut? The one where Hertsgaard was found decapitated?"

"The very one."

"How exciting! I'd love to hear about it."

" 'Exciting' is certainly one way to describe it."

"Is it true that Hertsgaard may have found the Hatshepsut mines just before he was murdered?"

Diogenes laughed quietly. "I sincerely doubt it. You know how these rumors get started. What I find more interesting than those mythical mines is the very real Queen Hatshepsut herself-the only female pharaoh-but, of course, you know all about her, I'm sure."

"Fascinating woman."

"She claimed legitimacy by saying that her mother slept with the god Amon and that she was the issue. How does that famous inscription go? Amon found the queen sleeping in her room. When the pleasant odors that proceeded from him announced his presence she awoke. He showed himself in his godlike splendor, and when he approached the queen she wept for joy at his strength and beauty and gave herself to him."

Viola was intrigued: Diogenes seemed to be as much of a polymath as his brother.

"So tell me, Viola. What kind of work are you doing in the Valley of the Nobles?"

"We've been excavating the tombs of several royal scribes."

"Find any treasures-gold or, even better, jewels?"

"Nothing like that. They were all robbed in antiquity. We're after inscriptions."

"What a marvelous profession, Egyptology. It seems my brother appreciates interesting women."

"I hardly know your brother, to tell you the truth."

"That will change this week, I have little doubt."

"I'm looking forward to it." She laughed a little self-consciously. "Actually, I still can't believe I'm here. This whole trip is such a… a caprice. So mysterious. I love mysteries."

"So does Aloysius. It seems you two are made for each other."

Viola felt herself coloring. She quickly changed the subject. "Do you know anything about this case he's been working on?"

"It's been one of the most difficult of his career. Fortunately, it's almost over. Today, in fact, will come the denouement-and then he'll be free. The case involves a serial killer, a truly insane individual, who for various obscure reasons has conceived a deep hatred for Aloysius. He's been killing people and taunting my brother with his inability to catch him."

"How terrible."

"Yes. My brother was forced to go underground so abruptly in order to conduct his investigation that it gave everyone the impression he'd been killed."

"I thought he was dead. Lieutenant D'Agosta told me as much."

"Only I knew the truth. I helped him after that Italian ordeal, nursed him back to health. I saved his life, if I may be allowed a moment of self-congratulation."

"I'm so glad he has a brother like you."

"Aloysius has few real friends. He's very old-fashioned, somewhat forbidding, a bit standoffish. And so I've tried to be his friend as well as his brother. I'm so glad he found you. I was so worried about him after that dreadful accident with his wife in Tanzania."

Wife? Tanzania? Suddenly, Viola found herself wanting very much to ask what had happened. She resisted: Aloysius would tell her in good time, and she had always had the English abhorrence of prying into someone else's personal life.

"He hasn't really found me yet. We're just the most casual of new friends, you know."

Diogenes turned his strange, bicolored eyes to her and smiled. "I believe my brother is already in love with you."

This time Viola colored violently, feeling a sudden mixture of excitement, embarrassment, and foolishness. Stuff, she thought. How could he be in love with me after one meeting?

"And I have reason to believe you are in love with him."

Viola managed a careless laugh, but she was tingling all over with the strangest sensation. The car hurtled through the frosty night. "This is all far too premature," she finally managed to say.

"While Aloysius and I are much alike, I do differ from him in terms of directness. Forgive me if I've embarrassed you."

"Think nothing of it."

The Long Island Expressway stretched ahead, a snowy alley of darkness. It was almost one o'clock in the morning and there were few cars on the road. Flakes of snow were drifting down, whipping up and over the windshield of the car as they hurtled along.

"Aloysius was always the indirect one. I could never tell what he was thinking, even when he was a boy."

"He does seem a bit inscrutable, I suppose."

"Very inscrutable. Rarely does he ever reveal his real motivations for doing things. For example, I've always believed he devoted himself to public service to make up for some of the black sheep in the Pendergast line."

"Really?" Viola's curiosity was piqued again.

An easy laugh. "Yes. Take Great-Aunt Cornelia, for example. Lives not far from here, at the Mount Mercy Hospital for the Criminally Insane."

Curiosity was replaced by surprise. "Criminally insane?"

"That's right. Every family has its black sheep, I suppose."

Viola thought of her own great-grandfather. "Yes, that's true."

"Some families more than others."

She nodded, glanced over, found Diogenes looking at her, quickly lowered her eyes.

"I think it adds interest, spice, to a family lineage. Much better to have a murderer for a great-grandfather than a shopkeeper."

"A rather unique point of view." Diogenes might be a little odder than first impressions indicated, but he was certainly amusing.

"Any interesting criminals in your ancestry?" Diogenes asked. "If you don't mind me prying."

"Not at all. No criminals, exactly, but I did have an ancestor who was one of the great violin virtuosi of the nineteenth century. He went insane, froze to death in a shepherd's hut in the Dolomites."

"Exactly my point! I felt sure you would have some interesting ancestors. No dull accountants or traveling salesmen in your lineage, eh?"

"Not that I know of."

"Actually, we did have a traveling salesman in our own ancestry- contributed greatly to the Pendergast fortune, in fact."

"Really?"

"Indeed. He concocted a quack medicine by the name of Hezekiah's Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative. Started by selling it from the back of a wagon."

Viola laughed. "What a funny name for a medicine."

"Hilarious. Except it consisted of a deadly combination of cocaine, acetanilid, and some rather nasty alkaloid botanicals. It caused uncounted numbers of addictions and thousands of deaths, including that of his own wife."

The laughter died in Viola's throat. She felt a twinge of uneasiness. "I see."

"Of course, nobody knew back then of the dangers of drugs like cocaine. You can't fault Great-Great-Grandfather Hezekiah for that."

"No, of course not."

They fell silent. The light snow continued to fall, the flakes drifting out of the dark sky, a glitter flashing through the headlights-and then were gone.

"Do you think there's such a thing as a criminal gene?" asked Diogenes.

"No," said Viola. "I think that's rubbish."

"Sometimes I wonder. There have been so many in our own family. There was Uncle Antoine, for example, one of the truly great mass murderers of the nineteenth century. Killed and mutilated almost a hundred workhouse girls and boys."

"How awful," murmured Viola.

The feeling of uneasiness grew stronger.

Diogenes gave an easy laugh. "The English transported their criminals to the colonies-Georgia and then Australia. They figured it would purge the Anglo-Saxon race of the criminal classes, but the more criminals they transported, the higher the crime rate became."

"Crime obviously had a lot more to do with economic conditions than genetics," said Viola.

"You think so? True: I would not have wanted to be poor in nineteenth-century England. In my view, the real criminals back then were the titled classes. Less than one percent of the people owned more than ninety-five percent of the land. And with the enclosure laws, the English lords could evict their tenant farmers, who flocked to the cities and either starved or turned to crime."

"True," Viola murmured. It seemed Diogenes had forgotten that she came from those titled classes.

"But here in America, it was different. How would you explain the fact that criminals run in some families like blue eyes or blond hair? In every generation, the Pendergast family seems to have produced a killer. After Antoine, let's see… There was Comstock Pendergast, famed mesmerist, magician, and mentor of Harry Houdini. He killed his business partner and the man's poor family, and then committed suicide. Cut his own throat twice. Then…"

"Pardon?" Viola realized that she was unconsciously gripping the door handle.

"Oh, yes. Twice. The first time he didn't quite get it deep enough, you see. I guess he didn't relish the thought of bleeding slowly to death. Myself, I wouldn't mind dying a slow death by exsanguination-I hear it's rather like going to sleep. I would have plenty of time to admire the blood, which has such an exquisite color. Do you like the color of blood, Viola?"

"Excuse me?" Viola felt panic well up within her.

"Blood. The color of a fine ruby. Or vice versa. I personally find it to be the most compelling color there is. Some might call me eccentric, but there it is."

Viola tried to quell her feelings of fear and uncertainty. They were now far from the city, and the dark night rushed by, only a few lights on in the darkened neighborhoods they passed, barely visible from the highway.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To a little place called the Springs. A charming cottage on the shore. It's about two more hours."

"And Aloysius is there?"

"Of course. Dying to see you."

This whole trip was a colossal mistake, she could see that now. Another foolish, impulsive decision. She'd been caught up in the heady romance of it, in the relief of learning Pendergast was still alive. But the truth was, she hardly knew the man. And this brother of his…

Suddenly, the thought of spending two more hours in a car with him was unthinkable.

"Viola," came the soft voice, "I'm sorry. Are you all right?"

"Fine. Just fine."

"You look worried."

She took a deep breath. "To tell you the truth, Diogenes, I'd prefer to stay in New York tonight. I'm more tired than I realized. I'll see Aloysius when he comes to town."

"Oh, no! He'll be crushed."

"I can't help that. If you would, please turn the car around? Really, I'm terribly sorry for the sudden change of mind, but this will be best. You've been very kind. Please take me back to New York."

"If that's what you want. I'll have to get off at the next exit to reverse direction."

She felt a wave of relief. "Thank you. I'm really awfully sorry for putting you to all this trouble."

The exit soon came: Hempstead. The car slowed, exited. It approached the stop sign at the top of the exit ramp and cruised to a stop. There were no cars in sight and Viola sat back, hand still unconsciously clutching the door handle, and waited for Diogenes to proceed.

But he didn't proceed. And then, suddenly, she smelled the queerest chemical odor.

She turned quickly. "What is-?"

A hand holding a bunched cloth clamped itself over her mouth while an arm lashed around her neck with lightning speed and wrenched her brutally down to the seat. She was pinned, the stinking cloth jammed mercilessly over her nose and mouth. She struggled, trying to breathe, but it was as if a door of darkness had just opened before her: against her will, she leaned forward, falling and falling into darkness, and then the world went blank.