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His voice had sunk so low that the words were only just audible. Against her will, she asked, “The truth?”
“About the relationship between me and my brother.”
In the soft light of the dying fire, Diogenes Pendergast’s peculiar eyes looked vulnerable, almost lost. Gazing back at her, they brightened slightly.
“Ah! Constance, it must sound impossibly strange to you. But gazing on you like this, I feel I would do anything in my power to lift from you that burden of pain and fear and carry it myself. And do you know why? Because when I look at you, I see myself.”
Constance did not reply. She merely sat, motionless.
“I see a person who longs to fit in, to be merely human, and yet who is destined always to remain apart. I see a person who feels the world more deeply, more intensely, than she is willing to admit… even to herself.”
Listening, Constance began to tremble.
“I sense both pain and anger in you. Pain at being abandoned-not once, but several times. And anger at the sheer capriciousness of the gods. Why me? Why again? For it’s true: you’ve been abandoned once again. Though not, perhaps, in exactly the way you imagined it. Here, too, we are the same. I was abandoned when my parents were burned to death by an ignorant mob. I escaped the flames. They did not. I’ve always felt that I should have died, not them; that it was my fault. You feel the same way about the death of your own sister, Mary-that it was you, instead of she, who should have died. Later, I was abandoned by my brother. Ah: I see the disbelief in your face. But then again, you know so little about my brother. All I ask is that you hear me with an open mind.”
He rose. Constance took in a sharp breath, half rising herself.
“No,” Diogenes said, and once again Constance stopped. There was nothing in his tone but weariness now. “There’s no need to run. I’ll take my leave of you. In the future, we’ll speak again, and I’ll tell you more about the childhood I was denied. About the older brother who took the love I offered and flung back scorn and hatred. Who took pleasure in destroying everything I created-my journals of childish poetry, my translations of Virgil and Tacitus. Who tortured and killed my favorite pet in a way that, even today, I can barely bring myself to think about. Who made it his mission in life to turn everyone against me, with lies and insinuations, to paint me as his evil twin. And when in the end none of this could break my spirit, he did something so awful… so, so awful…” But at this, his voice threatened to break. “Look at my dead eye, Constance: that was the least of what he did…”
There was a brief silence, broken only by the sound of labored breathing as Diogenes struggled to master himself, his opaque eye staring not quite at her, but not quite away from her, either.
He passed one hand across his brow. “I’ll be going now. But you’ll find I’ve left you with something. A gift of kinship, a recognition of the pain we share. I hope you’ll accept it in the spirit in which it is offered.”
“I want nothing from you,” Constance said, but the hatred and conviction in her voice had ebbed into confusion.
He held her gaze a moment longer. Then-slowly, very slowly-he turned and walked away, toward the library exit. “Good-bye, Constance,” he said quietly over his shoulder. “Take care. I’ll see myself out.”
Constance sat rooted in place as she listened to his departing footsteps. Only when silence had returned did she rise from her chair.
As she did so, something moved in the handkerchief pocket of her crinoline.
She started. The movement came again. And then a tiny pink nose appeared, bewhiskered and twitching, followed by two beady black eyes and two soft little ears. In wonder, she put her hand in her pocket and cupped it. The little creature climbed up on it and sat upright, his little paws curled as if begging, whiskers trembling, his bright eyes looking pleadingly up into her own. It was a white mouse: sleek, tiny, and perfectly tame-and Constance’s heart melted with a sudde
Chapter 14
Dust motes drifted in the still air of the Central Archives reading room, and it smelled not unpleasantly of old cardboard, dust, buckram, and leather. Polished oak paneling rose to an elaborately carved and gilded rococo ceiling, dominated by a pair of heavy chandeliers of gilt copper and crystal. Against the far wall stood a bricked-up fireplace of pink marble at least eight feet high and as many wide, and the center of the room was dominated by three massive oaken tables with claw feet, tops laid over with a heavy covering of baize. It was one of the most impressive rooms in the museum-and one of the least known.
It had been over a year since Nora was last in this room, and despite its grandeur, the memories it evoked were not good. Unfortunately, it was the only place where she could peruse the museum’s most important historic files.
A faint tap came at the door and the stocky form of Oscar Gibbs entered, his muscular arms piled with ancient documents tied up with twine.
“There’s quite a lot on this Tomb of Senef,” he said, staggering a little as he laid out the documents on the baize table. “Fu
“Very few have.”
“It’s become the talk of the museum overnight.” He shook his head, which was shaved as bald as a billiard ball. “Only in a joint like this could you hide an Egyptian tomb.”
He paused, catching his breath. “You remember the drill, right, Dr. Kelly? I have to lock you in. Just call extension 4240 when you’re done. No pencils or paper; you have to use the ones in those leather boxes.” He glanced at her laptop. “And wear linen gloves at all times.”
“Got it, Oscar.”
“I’ll be in the archives if you need me. Remember, extension 4240.”
The huge bronze door closed and Nora heard the well-oiled click of the lock. She turned to the table. The neat bundles of documents emanated a heavy odor of decay. She looked them over one by one, getting a general sense of what there was and how much of it she actually needed to read. There was no way she could read them all: it would be a question of triage.
She had asked for accession files to the Tomb of Senef and all related documents in the archives, from its discovery in Thebes to its final 1935 closing as an exhibition. It looked like Oscar had done a thorough job. The oldest documents were in French and Arabic, but they switched to English as the tomb’s chain of ownership went from Napoleon’s army to the British. There were letters, diagrams of the tomb, drawings, shipping manifests, insurance papers, excerpts from journals, old photographs, and scientific monographs. Once the tomb arrived at the museum, the number of documents exploded. A series of fat folders contained construction diagrams, plats, blueprints, conservators’ reports, various pieces of correspondence, and i
Nora sighed, looking at the spread of bundled documents. Menzies wanted a summary report of them by the following morning so they could begin pla