There was a brief silence. Then Constance nodded at Tristram’s empty chair. “Have you decided what to do about him?”
“I was considering one idea.”
“And what might that be?”
“That, in addition to being my amanuensis—and my oracle, it would seem—you might be his…”
Constance glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly. “His what? Babysitter?”
“More than babysitter. Less than guardian. More like—older sister.”
“Older is the operative word. A hundred and thirty years older. Aloysius, don’t you think I’m a little advanced in age to start acting like a sibling again?”
“It is admittedly a novel idea. Will you at least consider it?”
Constance looked at him for a long moment. Then her gaze returned to Tristram’s empty chair. “There is something affecting about him,” she said. “So much the opposite of his brother, at least as you’ve described him to me. He’s so young and impatient—and remarkably naive about the world. So innocent.”
“As was someone else we both knew, once.”
“The thing is, I sense in him an incredible, almost boundless empathy, a depth of compassion I haven’t seen since the monastery.”
At this point Tristram stepped back into the library, glass of milk in hand.
“Herr Proctor is coming,” he told them. “He is bringing you—what was the word he used?—refreshments.” He repeated the word as he sat down at the card table, as if to taste it.
Pendergast turned toward the youth. For a moment, he simply looked at him, drinking his milk with evident enjoyment. His wants were so simple, his gratitude for even the slightest kindness so boundless. He rose from his chair and walked over to his son. Tristram put down the milk and looked up at him.
He knelt, bringing himself to the boy’s level, reached into a pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a ring: gold, set with a large, perfect star sapphire. Taking Tristram’s hand, he pressed the ring into it. The youth stared at it, turned it over in his hands, then brought it closer to his eyes, watching the star move on the surface of the sapphire.
“This was your mother’s, Tristram,” he said gently. “I gave it to her on our engagement. When I feel you are ready—not yet, but perhaps in the not-too-distant future—I will tell you all about her. She was a most remarkable woman. Like all of us, she had her faults. And she… had more than her share of secrets. But I cared for her very much. Like you, she was a victim of Der Bund. Like you, she had a twin. It was… very difficult for her. But the years we spent together were some of the most wonderful of my life. It’s those memories in particular I would like to share with you. Perhaps they will help make up, in a small way, for the memories you’ve been deprived of—all these years.”
Tristram looked up from the ring into Pendergast’s face. “I would like very much to learn about her, Father.”
There was a discreet cough. Pendergast looked up to see Proctor standing in the doorway, a silver salver in one upraised hand, two glasses of sherry balanced upon it. As Pendergast rose, the chauffeur stepped forward, offering one of the glasses to the FBI agent and the other to Constance.
“Thank you, Proctor,” Pendergast said. “Most kind.”
“Not at all, sir,” came the measured response. “Mrs. Trask has asked me to tell you that dinner will be laid on at eight o’clock.”
Pendergast inclined his head.
As Proctor began to pass from the library into the great rotunda that served as the mansion’s reception area, the chauffeur paused to look back over his shoulder. Pendergast had returned to his writing table in the far corner, staring rather moodily into the fire. Constance was shuffling a deck of cards and was speaking in low tones to Tristram, who was sitting across from her, listening attentively.
When Constance had been released from Mount Mercy about three weeks earlier, she’d been reserved and distant with the young man, Pendergast’s son. Now, Proctor noticed, she was warming to him—at least somewhat. The fire, the candlelight, threw a mellow light over the rows of old books, the exquisite furnishings, and the three inhabitants. There was a sense of—if not peace exactly—something like equanimity in the room. Calmness and composure. Proctor was not generally given to such reflections, but the sight did, indeed, strike him almost like a family tableau.
An Addams Family tableau, he corrected himself as he exited the library, a faint smile on his lips.
Pendergast watched as the chauffeur vanished. He turned back to the letter and picked up the fountain pen. It scratched over the paper for perhaps another two minutes. Pendergast rested it on the green baize of the writing table and picked up the piece of paper to read from the beginning.
My dear Viola,
I am writing you for several reasons. First, to apologize for the reception I gave you at our last meeting. You went to a great deal of trouble on my behalf, and my behavior toward you at the time was execrable. I make no excuse, save to tell you—which you no doubt already know—that I was not myself.
I would also like to thank you for saving my life. I do not exaggerate. When you showed up on my doorstep nearly two months ago, I was on the very brink of committing that act I so callously described to you at the time. Your presence, and your words, delayed my hand long enough for other developments to take me away. In plain words, you arrived at the Dakota in the nick of time—and for that you have my lasting, most infinite, and deepest gratitude.
It is my intention to take a vacation. For how long, or where, I do not know. If I find myself in Rome, I will certainly contact you—as a friend. This is how it must be, between us, from now on, forever.
There are few things that ground me to this earth, Viola, and even fewer people. Please know that you are one of them.
With great affection,
Aloysius
Pendergast put the letter down, signed it, folded it, and slipped it into an envelope. Then he stared at the card players, Constance and Tristram, engrossed in their game. His gaze drifted to the blazing fire. He gazed into it, motionless, sherry untasted, for a long time—so long, in fact, that he was only roused by Proctor’s returning to inform them that dinner was served. Tristram immediately jumped to his feet and skipped on behind the retreating butler, evidently hungry—a youth for whom each new meal was a novelty. Constance followed at a more dignified pace. Last of all, Special Agent Pendergast rose—let his fingertips drift across the envelope that lay upon the writing desk—and then glided silently out of the room, a dim shape that grew increasingly faint as it made its way through the secret and shadow-haunted spaces of the mansion on Riverside Drive.
