Constance said nothing. His voice seemed to be getting stronger, as if he were edging closer. Just a few steps more… a few steps more…
“I will be honest with you. You deserve nothing less — and besides, your high intelligence would see through any deception. By the time I’m done, you will know I am telling the truth: I promise you that.”
A brief pause.
“True: there was a time when I desperately wanted to see my brother suffer, as I had suffered as a child. Back then, I regarded you — forgive my bluntness — as merely a path to help destroy Aloysius. You see, Constance, I didn’t know you then.”
In her stockinged feet, she took a slow step toward his voice. And another.
“I was horribly injured by the fall into La Sciara. During the months of recovery, I had a lot of time to think. I did harbor notions of revenge toward you. But then — and, Constance, it happened so suddenly it was like a veil being torn from a window — all of that changed. I recognized my anger for what it truly was: another emotion altogether. My true feelings.”
She maintained silence. Diogenes had used such words on her before. At the time, they’d had the effect he had desired. She had drunk them in like water thrown on a parched garden.
“Let me explain why I feel — for want of a better term — a reverence for you. First, you’re the only person I’ve met who is my intellectual equal. And, perhaps, my emotional equal. Second: you bested me. I had to respect that. I made the mistake of toying with you, and you responded with the most astonishing vigor and singularity of purpose that I have ever seen in a human being. It awed me.”
Another step forward.
“Reverence. And respect. There are few people on this earth that I respect, living or dead. You are one. And thanks to my ancestor Dr. Enoch Leng, you have led a long and rich life. His elixir kept you young for over a century. It was only with his death that you, like the rest of us, began to age normally. The upshot of this is that you sport more than six times my scholarship.”
Diogenes laughed at this observation. But there was nothing snide or sarcastic in it: it was a light, self-effacing laugh.
“There is something else that I find most attractive about your long life span. You’ve lived. You are the one person whose thirst for knowledge, for revenge — and, if I may allude to something else as well, passion—has astonished me with its ferocity. Constance, I not only admire you, but I’m afraid of you. I realized this as I lay, recovering, in a small hut outside Ginostra, under the volcano, listening to the booming of Stromboli. It was humbling, because prior to that I feared nobody, man or woman. Now I do fear one woman.”
She slid another step forward in utter silence. She sensed he was there, mere feet from her. One more step and she could lunge…
“Which brings me to the other thing vital to understanding our connection: you are the mother of my son.”
In utter silence, she leapt forward and thrust the stiletto — into thin air.
“Ah, Constance. That saddens me. But I don’t blame you.”
Constance listened, motionless, in the dark. The voice had moved. Somehow he anticipated it. Or was he that close, after all? The echoes in the stone room, with its myriad doors and air shafts — combined with his low, soft voice — made it impossible to be sure.
“You see, Constance, I am convinced you are the one human being who, deep down, is capable of sharing my own peculiar view of life. Let’s face it — we’re misfits. We’re misanthropes, cut from the same cloth.”
It took Constance a moment to parse the meaning of what Diogenes had said. When she did, her grasp tightened on the stiletto.
“That is the crux of it,” Diogenes went on. “I was blind; I didn’t see. Now I do. We’re alike in so very many ways. In others you are my superior. Is it any wonder, then, that my reverence for you has only grown?”
For a moment Constance thought that Diogenes would say more. But now the blackness around her became filled with silence — a silence that stretched on, and still on. Finally, she broke it herself.
“What have you done with Mrs. Trask?”
“Nothing. She remains in Albany, at the side of her sister — who is taking a little longer to recuperate than initially expected. Have no fear: it is not serious. And Mrs. Trask is easy in her mind, having received assurances that you are being well cared for here.”
“Cared for? By Proctor, I suppose. I imagine you’ve murdered him.”
“Proctor? He’s not dead. He’s rather preoccupied at the moment, though, on an unexpected trek across the Kalahari Desert.”
The desert? Could he be telling the truth? Proctor would never leave the house defenseless while she was in residence. So much of what he was saying was shocking… and unbelievable.
“So then it’s my son you’re after.”
“Constance,” came the reproachful reply. “How can you say such a thing? It’s true I did have… issues with my brother. But why would I wish to harm our child?”
“You’re no father to him.”
“Indeed I’m not. But that I hope will change. You saw the t’angka painting I had made of him. I went to India, by the way, to assure myself our child was being well cared for. He is: and he’s a most remarkable boy.” A pause. “As one would expect of our offspring.”
“Our offspring. You once used much cruder terms to describe our liaison.”
There was a pause. “How painfully I recall my unforgivable behavior. As a token of my true feelings, please take a look at the compartment beneath that harpsichord stool.”
Constance hesitated a moment. Then she resolutely snapped on her torch, glanced around. While his voice was seemingly so close, he was still nowhere to be seen.
“The stool, my dear.”
She opened the seat top. Inside was a photograph attached to some papers. She plucked it out, examined it closely.
“That was taken five weeks ago,” came the disembodied voice. “He seemed very happy.”
As Constance stared at the picture, the hand holding the torch trembled ever so slightly. It was without doubt a picture of her son, in a long silken robe, holding the hand of Tsering. They were standing in an archway framed by cork trees. He was gazing into the middle distance with the perfect seriousness of a gifted three-year-old. Staring at the picture, Constance was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of loneliness and yearning.
She glanced at the attached sheet. It was a note from his guardians at the monastery, addressed to her, affirming that the boy was safe and well and that he was already showing great promise. It was fixed with a special seal — a seal, she knew, that proved Diogenes had actually been there, and that the letter was genuine. How Diogenes had contrived such a visit with those most secretive and protective monks, Constance could not begin to imagine.
She placed the photo and letter on the harpsichord and switched off the torch, letting the darkness return. She could not allow this disgusting man to work on her feelings. “You were there,” she said. “In Exmouth. You were spying on us.”
“Yes,” Diogenes replied. “It is true. I was there, along with Flavia, my — for want of a better term — assistant. You no doubt saw her: the young waitress in the Captain Hull restaurant who also worked part-time in the tea and curio store, A Taste of Exmouth.”
“That girl? Flavia? Working for you?”
“I must admit to having a bit of a problem with her. She’s a little too keen in performing her duties.”