The Book of the Dead (12 page)

“Yes. I know who you are.” She choked on the uncanny resemblance to the man she knew so well, all except his hair—and his eyes.

The man nodded. “I am gratified.”

“How did you get in here?”

“
How
I got in is unimportant.
Why
I am here is the true question, don’t you think?”

Constance seemed to consider this for a moment. “Yes. Perhaps you are right.” She took a step forward, letting the fingers of one hand drift from her wing chair and slide along the side table. “Very well, then:
why
are you here?”

“Because it’s time we spoke, you and I. It’s the least courtesy you could pay me, after all.”

Constance took another step, her fingers trailing along the polished wood. Then she paused. “Courtesy?”

“Yes. After all, I—”

With a sudden motion, Constance snatched a letter opener from the side table and leaped at the man. The attack was remarkable not only for its swiftness, but for its silence. She had done nothing, said nothing, to warn the man of her strike.

To no avail. The man twitched aside at the last instant and the letter opener sank to its hilt in the worn leather of the wing chair. Constance jerked it free and—still without uttering a sound—whirled to face the man, raising the weapon above her head.

As she lunged, the man coolly dodged the stroke and with a flick of his arm seized her wrist; she thrashed and struggled, and they fell to the floor, the man pinning her body under his, the letter opener skidding across the rug.

The man’s lips moved to within an inch of her ear. “Constance,” he said in a quiet voice. “
Du calme. Du calme.
”

“Courtesy!” she cried once again. “How
dare
you speak of courtesy! You murder my guardian’s friends, disgrace him, tear him from his house!” She stopped abruptly and struggled. A soft groan rose in her throat: a groan of frustration, mingled with another, more complex emotion.

The man continued to speak in a smooth undertone. “Please understand, Constance, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m restraining you simply to prevent harm to myself.”

She struggled again. “Hateful man!”

“Constance, please. I have something to say to you.”

“I’ll
never
listen to you!” she gasped.

But he continued to pin her to the floor, gently yet firmly. Slowly her struggling ceased. She lay there, heart racing painfully. She became aware of the beating of his own heart—much slower—against her breasts. He was still whispering calming, soothing words into her ear that she tried to ignore.

He pulled away slightly. “If I release you, will you promise not to attack me again? To stay and hear me out?”

Constance did not reply.

“Even a condemned man has the right to be heard. And you may learn that everything is not as it seems.”

Still, Constance said nothing. After a long moment, the man raised himself from the floor, then—slowly—released his grip on her wrists.

She stood at once. Breathing heavily, she smoothed down her pinafore. Her eyes darted around the library again. The man was still positioned strategically between her and the door. He raised a hand toward her wing chair.

“Please, Constance,” he said. “Sit down.”

Warily, she seated herself.

“May we speak now, like civilized people, without further outbursts?”

“You dare speak of yourself as civilized? You? A serial killer and thief.” She laughed scornfully.

The man nodded slowly, as if ingesting this. “Naturally, my brother has taken a certain line with you. After all, it’s worked so well for him in the past. He’s an extraordinarily persuasive and charismatic individual.”

“You can’t presume to imagine I’d believe anything you say. You’re insane—or worse, you do these things as a
sane
man.” She again glanced past him, toward the library exit and the reception hall beyond.

The man gazed back at her. “No, Constance. I am not insane—on the contrary, like you, I greatly fear insanity. You see, the sad fact is, we have a great deal in common—and not just that which we fear.”

“We haven’t the slightest in common.”

“No doubt this is what my brother would like you to believe.”

It seemed to Constance that the man’s expression had become one of infinite sadness. “It’s true that I am far from perfect and cannot yet expect your trust,” he went on. “But I hope you understand that I intend you no hurt.”

“What you intend means nothing. You’re like a child who befriends a butterfly one day to pull off its wings the next.”

“What do you know of children, Constance? Your eyes are so wise and so old. Even from here, I can see the vast experience written there. What strange and terrible things they must have seen! How very penetrating your gaze! It fills me with sadness. No, Constance: I sense—I
know
—that childhood was a luxury you were denied. Just as I myself was denied it.”

Constance went rigid.

“Earlier, I said I was here because it’s time we spoke. It is time that you learned the truth. The
real
truth.”

His voice had sunk so low that the words were only just audible. Against her will, she asked, “The truth?”

“About the relationship between me and my brother.”

In the soft light of the dying fire, Diogenes Pendergast’s peculiar eyes looked vulnerable, almost lost. Gazing back at her, they brightened slightly.

“Ah! Constance, it must sound impossibly strange to you. But gazing on you like this, I feel I would do anything in my power to lift from you that burden of pain and fear and carry it myself. And do you know why? Because when I look at you, I see
myself
.”

Constance did not reply. She merely sat, motionless.

“I see a person who longs to fit in, to be merely human, and yet who is destined always to remain apart. I see a person who feels the world more deeply, more intensely, than she is willing to admit… even to herself.”

Listening, Constance began to tremble.

“I sense both pain and anger in you. Pain at being abandoned—not once, but several times. And anger at the sheer capriciousness of the gods. Why me? Why again? For it’s true: you’ve been abandoned once again. Though not, perhaps, in exactly the way you imagined it. Here, too, we are the same. I was abandoned when my parents were burned to death by an ignorant mob. I escaped the flames. They did not. I’ve always felt that I should have died, not them; that it was my fault. You feel the same way about the death of your own sister, Mary—that it was you, instead of she, who should have died. Later, I was abandoned by my brother. Ah: I see the disbelief in your face. But then again, you know so little about my brother. All I ask is that you hear me with an open mind.”

He rose. Constance took in a sharp breath, half rising herself.

“No,” Diogenes said, and once again Constance stopped. There was nothing in his tone but weariness now. “There’s no need to run. I’ll take my leave of you. In the future, we’ll speak again, and I’ll tell you more about the childhood I was denied. About the older brother who took the love I offered and flung back scorn and hatred. Who took pleasure in destroying everything I created—my journals of childish poetry, my translations of Virgil and Tacitus. Who tortured and killed my favorite pet in a way that, even today, I can barely bring myself to think about. Who made it his mission in life to turn everyone against me, with lies and insinuations, to paint me as his evil twin. And when in the end none of this could break my spirit, he did something so awful… so, so
awful
…” But at this, his voice threatened to break. “Look at my dead eye, Constance: that was the
least
of what he did…”

There was a brief silence, broken only by the sound of labored breathing as Diogenes struggled to master himself, his opaque eye staring not quite at her, but not quite away from her, either.

He passed one hand across his brow. “I’ll be going now. But you’ll find I’ve left you with something. A gift of kinship, a recognition of the pain we share. I hope you’ll accept it in the spirit in which it is offered.”

“I want nothing from you,” Constance said, but the hatred and conviction in her voice had ebbed into confusion.

He held her gaze a moment longer. Then—slowly, very slowly—he turned and walked away, toward the library exit. “Good-bye, Constance,” he said quietly over his shoulder. “Take care. I’ll see myself out.”

Constance sat rooted in place as she listened to his departing footsteps. Only when silence had returned did she rise from her chair.

As she did so, something moved in the handkerchief pocket of her crinoline.

She started. The movement came again. And then a tiny pink nose appeared, bewhiskered and twitching, followed by two beady black eyes and two soft little ears. In wonder, she put her hand in her pocket and cupped it. The little creature climbed up on it and sat upright, his little paws curled as if begging, whiskers trembling, his bright eyes looking pleadingly up into her own. It was a white mouse: sleek, tiny, and perfectly tame—and Constance’s heart melted with a suddenness so unexpected that the breath fled from her and tears sprang into her eyes.

D
ust motes drifted in the still air of the Central Archives reading room, and it smelled not unpleasantly of old cardboard, dust, buckram, and leather. Polished oak paneling rose to an elaborately carved and gilded rococo ceiling, dominated by a pair of heavy chandeliers of gilt copper and crystal. Against the far wall stood a bricked-up fireplace of pink marble at least eight feet high and as many wide, and the center of the room was dominated by three massive oaken tables with claw feet, tops laid over with a heavy covering of baize. It was one of the most impressive rooms in the museum—and one of the least known.

It had been over a year since Nora was last in this room, and despite its grandeur, the memories it evoked were not good. Unfortunately, it was the only place where she could peruse the museum’s most important historic files.

A faint tap came at the door and the stocky form of Oscar Gibbs entered, his muscular arms piled with ancient documents tied up with twine.

“There’s quite a lot on this Tomb of Senef,” he said, staggering a little as he laid out the documents on the baize table. “Funny that I never heard of it until yesterday.”

“Very few have.”

“It’s become the talk of the museum overnight.” He shook his head, which was shaved as bald as a billiard ball. “Only in a joint like this could you hide an Egyptian tomb.”

He paused, catching his breath. “You remember the drill, right, Dr. Kelly? I have to lock you in. Just call extension 4240 when you’re done. No pencils or paper; you have to use the ones in those leather boxes.” He glanced at her laptop. “And wear linen gloves at all times.”

“Got it, Oscar.”

“I’ll be in the archives if you need me. Remember, extension 4240.”

The huge bronze door closed and Nora heard the well-oiled click of the lock. She turned to the table. The neat bundles of documents emanated a heavy odor of decay. She looked them over one by one, getting a general sense of what there was and how much of it she actually needed to read. There was no way she could read them all: it would be a question of triage.