Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [18]
“Hal,” she put in, remembering again what Regina Chai had said. “Wasn’t there a card with the flowers? Have you a still you can put up on the screen?” Hal apparently had sufficient respect for her judgment not to ask her why—although, for once, he was probably glad of the opportunity to let go of the conversation.
* * * The image on the screen flickered, then shifted to a shot in which the camera was zooming in on something which lay on the glass-topped table, propped up against the vase containing the yellow flowers. It was a small cardboard rectangle. It had already been monomol-sealed as a safety measure, but the transparent film did not obscure the words written on the card.
Charlotte’s eyes went directly to the bottom right-hand corner of the card, which bore the legend: Rappaccini Inc.
Perhaps he did leave his name after all, Charlotte marveled. If the flowers in the vase are one of Wilde’s designs, the card might conceivably refer to the others: the ones which consumed Gabriel King. If Wilde’s right, the arrogant swine has actually signed his crime! But what, she quickly wondered, if Wilde were a liar? What if this had been planted purely and simply to back up his story? Her eyes had reflexively moved from the bottom of the card to the top, so that she could read the message of condolence inscribed there. Unfortunately, she couldn’t understand the words; the message was not written in English. It read: La sottise, l’erreur, le péché, la tésine, Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps, Et nous alimentons nos amiables remords, Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine.
“ ‘Stupidity, error, sin, and poverty of spirit,’ ” Oscar Wilde obligingly translated, thoughtfully, “ ‘possess our hearts and work within our bodies, and we nourish our fond remorse as beggars suckle their parasites.’ Hardly an orthodox condolence card—if Rappaccini mass-produces them, I can’t believe that he sells very many.” “Do you recognize the words?” Charlotte asked suspiciously.
“A poem by Charles Baudelaire. ‘Au lecteur’—that is, ‘To the Reader.’ From Les Fleurs du Mal. A play on words, I think.” The camera’s eye had obligingly moved back, to focus once again upon the black flowers which had destroyed Gabriel King. It occurred to Charlotte that Hal must have known about this all along—and in spite of that advantage and all of his experience, he had still allowed Oscar Wilde to rattle him.
“He’s right,” Hal said, as if on cue. “I checked—that’s where the words come from. The book was originally published in eighteen fifty-seven. Dr. Wilde is also an expert of nineteenth-and twentieth-century literature. The condolence card is a fake, though—no such message has ever been commercially released by Rappaccini Inc.” “My expertise does not extend to all of nineteenth-and twentieth-century literature,” said Oscar Wilde modestly. He was wearing a slight frown, as if he had taken offense at the suggestion that his judgment might have been mistaken.
Charlotte wondered how many men there were in the world who could recognize six-hundred-year-old poems written in French. Surely, she thought, Wilde must have made up the card himself. He must be the person behind all this. But if so, what monstrous game was he playing? “What significance do you attach to the poem, Dr. Wilde?” Hal asked, having recovered his most officious manner.
“Assuming that my earlier reasoning was correct,