Page 58 of Angel of Vengeance
Now all Humblecut could think of was getting more air into his lungs, trying to keep his chest expanding, his breathing going. But the paralysis had now reached his core, and no matter how hard his mind screamed at his lungs to expand, they refused. His eyes danced with points of light, and then fog, and then finally night.
Leng pulled the tapestry cord again, and the white-gloved lackey returned, a second on his heels. He wordlessly gestured at the body and the satchel, and both were quickly removed.
A few minutes later Decla entered. Leng had asked her to wait until Humblecut left—if she was surprised at the way he’d done so, she did not show it.
“Have a seat,” Leng said.
Decla sat. She looked displeased—Leng knew the trappings of wealth made her uneasy: they were to be looted, rather than make oneself comfortable in. Her eyes darted to the fire and back to him.
“Drink?”
She shook her head.
“My dear, I find myself increasingly concerned about a mutual acquaintance of ours.”
“The churchman?” This piqued her interest.
“No—although, as we’ve discussed, you can have his head in a day or two. Now: I’ve accomplished my goal of capturing and imprisoning our main adversaries—all except one. Three more are due to arrive soon—that interfering fellow Pendergast, along with the sisters, Mary and, ah, Binky. There’s just one loose thread—the other person we spoke of at our last meeting. Despite everything I’ve done, despite all the nets I’ve dragged across the city, I can’t find her. I’m sure you know of whom I speak.”
“The duchess,” Decla said in a low, hateful tone.
“Exactly. The Duchess of Ironclaw. Whose real name is Constance—Constance Greene. A meddlesome creature, here to interfere with my—our—plans.”
Decla nodded with increased interest.
“As you know, I only purchased this abode a few years ago and have yet to find time to explore every last corner. Be that as it may, over the past few days I’ve had the sense—only a feeling, mind you—that there’s a foreign presence here; a hostile revenant, if you will. I’ve no solid evidence; it’s mere intuition… but I believe that presence is our mutual friend.”
Decla remained silent, listening.
“I don’t know the details—neither did the source of my information—but it seems that, for at least a few years, she once lived in this house. And my sense, my intuition, wonders if in fact she might be hiding here, in this house, right under my nose. It’s just the sort of thing she’d do. If that’s the case, it’s possible she knows passageways and rooms I have not yet discovered. Your assignment is to take your squadron and search this house, top to bottom. You will be permitted to enter even those areas previously off-limits, such as the cellars. In fact, you should probably concentrate your search there.” He held up a ring, from which dangled an iron key. “Here is the master key to the house: you may go anywhere, search any place. My only exhortation to you is not to touch anything in my storerooms, laboratory, surgery, or collections. I say this out of concern for your own safety—there are poisons that will kill by mere touch, weapons that will discharge at the slightest jostle, gases that will suffocate. Do you understand?” He removed the key from the ring and tossed it to her. “Go find Constance. I’m not interested in her capture, if you understand my meaning. You may have your way with her—as you may also, in the near future, with the reverend. That will be your reward: but I find this business of the Greene girl rather more pressing than even Considine. Please see to it at once.”
Decla’s only response was the wicked gleam that appeared in her eyes, and a smile she could not fully restrain. She nodded, stood, and left the room.
52
CONSTANCE PEERED AT THE coin in her hand: a gold doubloon struck during the Spanish empire, bearing a date of 1699. She had found it wedged in a crack of her temporary quarters and appropriated it as a sort of good luck piece. She turned it over in her palm. Its cool heaviness was soothing to the touch—but it did little to ease the agitation she felt.
She assumed—hoped—that Aloysius had found Binky, allowed himself to be captured by Leng’s men, and was now headed back to the mansion—as they had planned in their meeting at the Tenderloin bordello. She’d successfully poisoned Leng—a private plan of her own she had told neither Aloysius nor Diogenes about, for obvious reasons. The man was doomed: it gave her immense satisfaction to know that no matter what he did, no matter what happened to her, he would be dying in agony within four to six days. But poisoning him had started a clock ticking, and it meant both she and Pendergast had a limited period to complete their combined assignments: free her siblings and get them to safety before Leng’s initial symptoms kicked in. These symptoms could manifest themselves as early as tomorrow, January 9. As soon as the poison began to work on Leng and he realized what was happening, he would kill them all. But he’d already killed Mary—which, almost subconsciously, had narrowed her own goal to one overriding thing: destroying Leng. Hence the irreversible poison. Aloysius and the others—they must have known when they came through the portal that the chances of survival were slim. Now, with the machine broken, all their fates were even less certain.
She stared at the coin. Her feeling of unease was not going away. She’d lived in this house—or at least its simulacrum—for a hundred years, and she trusted her instincts. She decided a reconnoiter would be in order, to see if conditions had changed.
Grasping a lantern, she rose from the cell and moved out into the corridor leading to the secret staircase that connected this sub-basement lair to the basement proper. She cautiously ascended the stairs and paused at the exit, peering through a pinhole to ensure nobody was there before she opened the door.
She froze. There was someone. She could see a dim lantern moving down the far end of a basement corridor. Soon, two more appeared behind it.
She watched as they approached. Slowly, the face of the leader became visible. It was Decla. She and the others were clearly searching for something: examining the walls, tapping on them, occasionally holding up lighted matches to test the flow of air.
Constance shrank back. The secret door into the sub-basement was well hidden—and securely locked—but would it stand up to such close examination? Despite the thickness of the walls, she could hear the tapping move closer, and closer, until it reached the hidden door. There the tapping hesitated briefly. Then it started again, now going up and down, then sideways. Clearly, they had noted a change of tone.
This was followed a few minutes later by a low scraping: a knife being used to examine the spot for cracks or unnatural edges. Then a sudden, excited murmur of voices, and the tapping immediately accelerated.
They had found the door to the sub-basement caverns.
More scraping and chiseling as they uncovered the hidden seams. They weren’t going to be able to open it right away—the inside of the door was shielded in solid iron plate—but it would be only a matter of time before they broke through and uncovered the sub-basement—and her lair.
She waited, ear pressed to the iron of the door. More chiseling, hammering, chatter—and then all went silent.
They had gone off to fetch heavier tools.