Page 39 of Angel of Vengeance
Pendergast frowned. “Very well. As agreed, this is the one meeting we dare allow ourselves before we complete our tasks and get in position. And since we last met, you’ve calculated the date by which we must be ready. Correct?”
Constance nodded.
“Then let us go over our individual progress and finalize our strategies. Leaving room for the unexpected—if we can.”
“Unexpected developments are Leng’s stock in trade,” said Diogenes. He slipped the notebook into a pocket of his waistcoat. “Have you arranged for my access to the alleyway?”
“Yes.”
“This fellow Bloom knows all that he needs to know—but no more?”
“He does,” Pendergast said, taking a seat himself, “and I’d suggest you pay him a visit, make his acquaintance, and see what he’s done.” He turned to Constance. “You’re sure that Binky is no longer in the Riverside Drive mansion?”
Constance tugged her white gloves tighter and spread her fingers, like a cat unsheathing its claws. “She is not.”
“Do you have any further suggestions to add?”
“Not particularly. She has left Riverside Drive, so I suggest you get on with your mission, Aloysius—find her.”
Pendergast’s normally unreadable face creased with irritation. “That is my intention,” he said almost coldly. “Let us get down to particulars, shall we?”
Constance seated herself on a chaise lounge. It was clear Pendergast’s mood had darkened since her arrival. Diogenes looked from one to the other. Then he bent forward, elbows upon his knees, and they began a murmured conversation.
33
CONSTANCE ESTIMATED THAT THE conference between the three of them could not have lasted over twenty minutes. When all the necessary points had been covered, Diogenes rose.
“I believe we’ve talked enough,” he said. “I’ve completed the lion’s share of my assignment already—cutting off Leng’s supply of victims from the workhouse. But just to be sure: Constance, you said that—given Leng’s methods—we have until January ninth to get all the chess pieces in place?”
She nodded. “Within a day or so, yes. After that, Leng will have made ironclad arrangements for my siblings that… effectively, will render everything we’ve done, or tried to do, useless.”
Diogenes thought a moment. “This deadline—unfortunate word, under the circumstances—doesn’t leave us much time. However, since there are no other options, I’ll proceed with arranging an emergency signal, in the manner we’ve just agreed on—with the hope that all goes well for you both in the interim. Yes?”
Constance nodded, and after a moment Pendergast did as well. It was clear to her they all believed that—however necessary—this assignment for Diogenes remained an exercise in wishful thinking.
“Just so the two of you know,” Constance said in a low voice. “Even if we fail, and the deadline comes and goes—there is one thing that I will be certain to accomplish.”
“And what is that?” Pendergast asked, a note of alarm in his voice. “Why spring this melodrama upon us now—once we’ve already gone over our plans?”
Constance did not reply.
“I am allergic to melodrama,” Diogenes said. “And Horace was right when he said: Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. Let me deal with this accursed signal, so I can return my full attention to debauchery once again. Can you not hear it, crying out from the haunts of iniquity and demanding my attention? Such a delicious world this is! So for now, adieu.” He walked over to the coatrack, donned his cape with a flourish, gave a low bow, and left the suite.
Pendergast remained silent for a long moment. Then he glanced over at Constance. She could see an unusual flush of anger in his pale face. “Constance, I find your attitude to be, frankly, not only willful, but ungrateful.”
“‘Ungrateful’?” she repeated acerbically as she stood up. “That would be ungenerous of me indeed, given how poorly I was making out before you arrived here… neither invited nor expected.” She held up a fist before his face—aware that her limbs were trembling with repressed emotion—and began raising her fingers, one after another. “What had I accomplished? Oh, yes. First: I had established an identity as a European duchess, with the pedigree, household, and wealth necessary to maintain it. Second: I had rescued both Joe and Binky and brought them safely under my wing. Third: I had contacted Leng directly, put him off balance, and made my demands clear. Had you not blundered into my carefully laid plans, the four of us would already be far away from here: a family once again, sailing for lands where he’d never follow. Never—because as soon as I had made Mary safe, I would have killed him.”
Pendergast stood as well, listening in icy silence. Then he placed his hand over hers, folding her fingers back down into her palm. “Fourth,” he said, “instead of this fantasy you fondly imagine, a more accurate picture would be this: all of you dead by now, tortured at the hands of Leng—or, worse, awaiting the bite of his scalpel into your lower back.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You blame me for blundering in and confounding your plans. That’s clear enough. But what I ‘blundered’ into—at that ball where you literally danced with the devil; and later, when you flirted with him at lunch—was the spectacle of a woman unknowingly headed for the slaughterhouse door.”
Constance was taken aback. This was Aloysius as she had never heard him before—brusque, lacking the courtesy with which he habitually treated her. From the meeting just concluded, she’d already sensed he was acting with uncharacteristic recklessness—destroying Shottum’s basement, flooding the subterranean tunnels of the Five Points. She realized this impulsiveness stemmed from anger, even fury.
And yet she felt her own anger rise at this presumption—Aloysius, daring to be angry? He had disregarded her express intentions, entered her world, and spoiled her plans. His irritation was as hypocritical as the swordsman who, upon decapitating Marie Antoinette, grew annoyed when her blood stained his shoes. And it was the last straw.
Snatching away the hand he’d just forced closed, she slapped him. His face went pale, with just a blush where her hand had struck him, and his eyes glittered dangerously.