Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [37]
“Where is Pendergast, her guardian?” Felder asked. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with him.”
“He’s a cipher to me, I’m afraid—comes and goes at the oddest times, makes demands and then vanishes. I’ve found him a somewhat difficult person to deal with.”
“I see. So you have no objections to my continuing visits to the patient?”
“None at all. I’ll be glad to share my observations with you, if you wish.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
They reached the door, and Ostrom knocked lightly. “Please come in,” came the response from the other side.
Ostrom unlocked the door and ushered Felder in ahead of him. The room looked similar to the last time he’d seen it, except that there were more books in it—many more books. The bookcase that before had held only half a dozen volumes now had several times that many. Glancing at the titles, Felder noticed The Complete Poetry of John Keats, Jung’s Symbols of Transformation, the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom, Eliot’s Four Quartets, Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus. No doubt these were from the Mount Mercy library; Felder found himself mildly shocked that certain of these titles were allowed to circulate.
There was another difference, too: the room’s single table was now covered with sheets of foolscap, which were filled with dense lines of writing, punctuated by elaborate sketches, profiles, still lifes, equations, and Leonardo-like diagrams. And there, on the far side of the desk, sat Constance. She was in the act of writing, a quill pen in one hand, a bottle of blue-black ink on the desk beside her.
She glanced up at the two men as they entered. “Good morning, Dr. Ostrom. Good morning, Dr. Felder.” She stacked the sheets one on top of the other, then turned the top sheet over the rest.
“Good morning, Constance,” Ostrom said. “Did you sleep well?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Then I’ll leave you two. Dr. Felder, I’ll have someone outside the door. Just knock when you’re ready to leave.” Ostrom stepped out. A moment later, Felder heard a key turning smoothly in the lock.
He turned to see Constance regarding him with her strange eyes. “Please have a seat, Dr. Felder.”
“Thank you.” Felder sat in the only vacant chair in the room, a plastic chair with steel legs bolted to the floor. He was curious about her writings but decided to address that issue another time. He placed the folder on his knees and nodded at the quill. “Interesting choice of writing instrument.”
“It was either this or crayons.” She paused. “I did not expect to see you again so soon.”
“I hope you don’t find our conversations disagreeable.”
“On the contrary.”
Felder shifted in the chair. “Constance, if you don’t mind, I wanted to speak with you again, briefly, about—about your childhood.”
Constance sat up slightly.
“First, let me make sure I understand. You state that you were born on Water Street in the 1870s, though you are unsure of the exact year. Your parents died of tuberculosis, and both your brother and older sister died within a few years as well. That would make you…” He paused to calculate. “More than one hundred and thirty years old.”
For a moment, Constance did not reply. She just regarded him calmly. Once again, Felder was struck by her beauty: her intelligent expression, her bob of auburn hair. She had far more self-possession than was natural for a woman who looked only twenty-two or -three.
“Doctor,” she said at last, “I’ve much to thank you for. You’ve treated me with kindness and respect. But if you’re here to humor me, I’m afraid my good opinion of you will suffer.”
“I’m not here to humor you,” Felder said, with sincerity. “I’m here to help you. But I need to understand you better first.”
“I’ve told you the truth. Either you believe me or you don’t.”
“I want to believe you, Constance. But put yourself in my place. It’s a biological impossibility that you’re a hundred and thirty years old. And so I seek other explanations.”
Again she paused briefly. “A biological impossibility? Doctor, you are a man of science. Do you believe that the human heart can be transplanted from one person to another?