The Obsidian Chamber

by Lincoln Child

  There—on the floor directly in front of her concealed doorway—sat a single flower in a cut-glass vase.

  Constance released her grip, letting the silver tray, plates, and bottle drop to the floor with a crash. But it was not a reflexive movement of surprise—it was to free her hands in order to draw out the antique Italian stiletto she kept on her person at all times. Springing the blade, she shifted the beam of her torch from left to right, knife at the ready, as she peered around.

  Empty. She stood there, the sense of shock giving way to a flood of anxious speculation. Somebody had been there—someone had penetrated her sanctum sanctorum.

  Who was responsible for this intrusion? Who knew enough to access this most private, hidden, inaccessible of places…and what possible meaning could be ascribed to the flower?

  She considered running to the stairs and ascending them as quickly as she could—leaving behind this dark sub-basement with its endless black chambers, grotesque collections, and innumerable places of concealment—to rush back to the library and the fire, back to Mrs. Trask and Proctor and the land of the living. But this impulse died quickly. Constance had never run from anything in her life. She sensed, furthermore, that she was in no immediate danger: the book of poems, the feather, the flower, were not the work of a villain. Somebody who wanted her dead could easily have killed her while she slept. Or poisoned her food. Or stabbed her as she traversed the galleries on her way to and from the elevator.

  Her mind went back to the feather, marking the love poem; the fresh notation in the margin of the unfamiliar book. This was no caprice of her imagination: clearly, the person had already penetrated her secret rooms. The book, the feather, the flower—all this, it seemed to her, was a message. An eccentric message, no doubt—but a message that, though she did not understand it, had nothing of threat about it.

  Constance stood quite still for about ten minutes. The shock had faded, followed by the sense of fear; but it took much longer for the uncomfortable sense that her privacy had been violated to ebb.

  It did not ebb entirely.

  Finally—leaving the broken plates and wine bottle on the floor, and securing a spare torch—she exited the room of Japanese prints and began a painstaking search of the sub-basement, collection by collection, room by room. She conducted her search in perfect silence, alert at all times for the faintest sound, the least glimmer of light.

  She found nothing. The floor was either stone or hard-packed earth; no shoe or boot would leave an impression. Areas of dust did not seem recently disturbed. Nothing else was out of order that she could recall. The vast, shadowed-haunted galleries appeared as they always had.

  Reaching at last the stairway leading upward, she stopped. If the person or persons had exited the sub-basement, there was no longer any point in continuing the search.

  Now she returned to the entrance of her secret chamber, and the flower in its cut-glass vase. It was an orchid of the rarest beauty—but of a variety unknown to her. The exterior of the labellum was pure white, of an elongated shape. Inside it was pink, flushing almost red near the stamen.

  Constance examined it for several minutes, her mind drifting over the various possibilities, none of which seemed likely, or even possible. Shaking her head, she cleaned up the broken glassware and crockery, piled it on the silver tray, and took it upstairs to the elevator, placing it inside for Mrs. Trask to collect. She removed the new tray with its covered dish—from which rose a heavenly aroma. Next to it, nestled in a silver bucket full of crushed ice and draped with a linen cloth, was a bottle of Perrier-Jouët Fleur de Champagne. She carried them back to the sub-basement. But instead of retreating as far as her private set of rooms, she stopped in the chamber that contained Enoch Leng’s vast collection of dried flowers and other flora. Here, setting the tray and bucket on an ancient desk, she consulted several encyclopedic books on the subject, including a few devoted to orchids. While she worked, her eyes strayed to the bottle of champagne, and on impulse she slid it from the ice, popped the cork, and poured herself a small glass.

  Despite a thorough search of the dusty tomes, she could find no match to the flower that had been left, apparently, for her. But these books were half a century old, and no doubt other orchids had been bred, or discovered, in the years since.

  She continued on to her set of rooms, closing the stone door behind her. Entering the small library, she settled at her desk, poured herself another glass of champagne, and booted up her laptop that—thanks to a Wi-Fi repeater installed in the basement—had limited access to the Internet.

  It was the work of fifteen minutes to find a precise match. The flower was a newly discovered species of Orchidaceae, native to the Himalayas. It had been collected along the Tibetan-Indian border.

  And it had been named Cattleya constanciana.

  Constance stared. This was madness. Had it been named after her? Impossible; it had to be mere coincidence. And yet, the location where it had been found…was that a coincidence, as well? It was not far from the Tibetan monastery where her child was currently living in hiding. And the orchid had been found, described, and named only six months before. But who had discovered it was not indicated.

  She continued her research, finally coming across the original note in The Orchid Review, published by the Royal Horticultural Society. Under Discoverer, the name was rendered merely as Anonymous.

  It had been named after her. There were too many coincidences; there could be no other explanation.

  She turned off the laptop and sat very still. She should report this intrusion to Proctor. And yet—strange though it seemed—she did not wish to. He would not take it well, this invasion of the house under his watch. He was a blunt tool. This situation, whatever its precise nature might be, seemed to call for more finesse. She was confident in her ability to handle whatever might come her way. She did not lack for means of self-defense: she had overcome threats far worse than this. Her own natural tendency toward sudden and effective violence was her best protection. If only Aloysius were here; he would know what was going on.

  Aloysius. She realized that almost an hour had passed without incessant thoughts of her guardian. And now, thinking of him did not summon forth the usual stab of grief. Maybe she was, at last, finally adjusting to his death.

  No; she would not report this to Proctor. At least, not yet. She was in her element; she knew of a dozen other places within these vast subterranean vaults, places even more secret, to which she could retreat. And yet some sixth sense told her it would not be necessary. What had happened was an intrusion…but it did not feel like a violation. It felt like something else. She was not sure what, exactly…but in a most peculiar way, she sensed—in this time of alienation and terrible loneliness—that she was sharing a private exile with some sort of kindred spirit.

  That night, when she at last retired, she was careful to put a steel door jammer against the inside of the stone wall that led out into the room of Japanese prints. She was just as careful to lock the deadbolt to her bedroom, and to keep her Maniago stiletto close by. But before doing these things, she brought the beautiful orchid, and its equally beautiful vase, into her chambers and placed them on one side of her writing desk.

  14

  CONSTANCE LOOKED UP from her journal.

  What was it that had so suddenly caught her attention? A noise of some sort? She listened, but the sub-basement was as quiet as a tomb. A draft of air, perhaps? That was absurd; no breezes stirred in this ancient space, so far below the streets of Manhattan.

  She sighed. It was nothing; she was simply restless and distracted. She glanced at her watch: ten minutes past two in the morning. Her eyes lingered on the watch with sadness. It was a ladies Rolex with a platinum jubilee band, and it had been a present from Pendergast the previous Christmas. It matched the timepiece he wore on his own wrist.

  She shut the journal abruptly. It was impossible to escape the memory of Aloysius; everything reminded her of him.

  She
had woken half an hour before. Recently, and most uncharacteristically, her sleep patterns had become disturbed—waking in the middle of the night only to find herself unable to fall asleep again. Perhaps this accounted for the lethargy that had been stealing over her in recent afternoons, prompting the naps that, almost inevitably, had turned into prolonged dozes. But at least she couldn’t blame the insomnia on recent events, Pendergast’s death or the apparent intrusion into her sub-basement: she had been waking at unexpected hours since at least the beginning of their trip to Massachusetts. At that time, her nocturnal alertness had occasioned an important step forward in their investigation. Now it was simply an annoyance.

  So she had risen from her wakeful bed and gone into her library to write in her journal. The normally soothing practice proved another frustration: the words just wouldn’t come.

  Her glance moved from the closed journal to the dishes from last night’s dinner, piled on the silver tray. The meal had been a chilled one, almost as if Mrs. Trask had known that Constance would be too preoccupied to eat it directly: a brace of cold-water lobster tails, sauce rémoulade; quail eggs au diable…and, of course, a bottle of champagne, of which she had drunk far too much. She could feel it now, a gentle throbbing behind her temples.

  Almost as if Mrs. Trask had known I would be too preoccupied to eat it directly…

  A strange thought arose in Constance’s mind: was it really Mrs. Trask who was preparing these dishes? But who else could it be? She would not have hired another chef, especially not on her own authority. Besides, the housekeeper jealously guarded her maternal role, always fussing, and would never allow anyone else to prepare food in the house.

  Constance placed her fountain pen on the table. She was clearly out of sorts. It was probably due to the wine, which she was unused to drinking, along with the rich meals of late. She could, at least, put a stop to all that. And while she thought of it, it might be a good idea, after all, to speak to Proctor about her recent discoveries in the sub-basement.

  Picking up her pen again, she reached into her desk, removed a single piece of cream-laid writing paper, and jotted a note:

  Dear Mrs. Trask,

  Thank you for your kind attentions of late. Your concern for my well-being is greatly appreciated. I would request, however, that you return to serving me simpler meals, without wine; the dishes you have prepared since your return from Albany have been delicious but, I fear, rather too rich for my taste.

  If you could also do me the favor of telling Proctor that I desire to speak with him, I would be grateful. He can leave a note in the elevator, suggesting a convenient time.

  Kind regards,

  Constance

  Folding the note in half, she rose from the desk; put on her silk dressing gown; and then, lighting a torch, picking up the tray holding the dishes and champagne bottle, and placing the note on top of them, walked down the short hallway.

  She opened the door—then stopped short once again. This time, she did not drop the dishes or the bottle. Nor did she draw her stiletto. Instead, she carefully placed the tray to one side, patted her dressing gown to ensure the blade was at hand, and then shone the torch on the thing that had been placed outside her door.

  It was a dirty, yellowed, rolled-up piece of silk, with Tibetan writing and a red handprint. She recognized it immediately as the reverse of a t’angka—a Tibetan Buddhist painting.

  She picked it up and carried it to the library, where she spread it out. And then she gasped. It was of the most gorgeous appearance imaginable: a coruscation, a sunburst, of reds and golds and azures, with exquisitely delicate shading and perfection of detailing and clarity. She recognized it as a certain type of religious painting depicting Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, sitting upon a lotus throne, which in turn rested on the lunar disk. Avalokiteshvara was the god most revered in Tibet as sacrificing his own salvation to be reincarnated again and again on earth, in order to bring enlightenment to all living, suffering beings of the world.

  Except that this depiction of Avalokiteshvara was not as a man, but a young boy. And the child’s features, so exquisitely drawn, were identical, down to the fine whorls of hair and the characteristic droop of the eyelids…to those of her own son.

  Constance had not seen her child—the child of herself and Diogenes Pendergast—in a year. The Tibetans had declared him a rinpoche, the nineteenth reincarnation of a revered Tibetan monk. He was hidden away in a monastery outside Dharamsala, India, safe from any interference by the Chinese. In this painting, the child was older than he had been when she last saw him. It could not have been done more than a few months before, at most…

  Standing utterly still, she drank in the painted features. Despite the father, Constance could not help but feel a fierce maternal love—exacerbated by the fact that she could only visit him rarely. So this is what he looks like now, she thought, staring almost rapturously.

  Whoever left this, she thought, knows my innermost secrets. The existence of my child—and my child’s identity. The hint that had begun with the location of the newly discovered orchid, Cattleya constanciana, was now made plain.

  Something else was becoming clear. This person was, without doubt, courting her. But who could it be? Who could possibly know so much about her? Did he know her other secrets, as well—her true age? Her relationship to Enoch Leng?

  She felt certain that he did.

  For a moment, she considered engaging in another fierce and thorough search of the sub-basement. But she dropped the idea; no doubt a fresh search would be as fruitless as the last.

  She knelt, picked up her note to Mrs. Trask, tore it in two, then slipped it into the pocket of her robe. There was no longer any point in sending it—because she knew now that it was not the housekeeper who had been providing her with these exquisite meals and precious wines.

  But who?

  Diogenes.

  She quickly dismissed this as the most ridiculous speculation imaginable. True, such a fey, whimsical, teasing courtship would have been typical of Diogenes Pendergast. But he was dead.

  Wasn’t he?

  Constance shook her head. Of course he was dead. He had fallen into the terrible Sciara del Fuoco of the Stromboli volcano. She knew this, because she had struggled with him on the very lip of the abyss. She had pushed him herself, she had watched him fall—and had peered over the edge into the roaring winds to the smoking lava below. She was certain her revenge had been complete.

  Besides, in life Aloysius’s brother had had nothing but contempt for her—he’d made that abundantly clear. You were a toy, he had written: a mystery easily solved; a dull box forced and found empty.

  Her hands clenched at the mere memory.

  It wasn’t Diogenes; that was impossible. It was someone else—someone who also knew her deepest secrets.

  It came to her like a bolt of lightning. He’s alive, she thought. He didn’t drown, after all. And he has returned to me.

  She was overwhelmed with a tidal wave of emotion. She felt almost crazy with hope, frantic with anticipation, her heart suddenly battering in her chest as if it would break free.

  “Aloysius?” she cried into the darkness, her voice breaking, whether with laughter or weeping she didn’t know. “Aloysius, come out and show yourself! I don’t know why you’re being so coy, but for God’s sake please, please let me see you!”

  But the only reply was her own voice, echoing faintly through the subterranean chambers of stone.

  15

  ROCKY FILIPOV, CAPTAIN of the F/V Moneyball, a sixty-five-foot converted trawler, turned his head and ejected a stream of brown tobacco juice onto the deck, where it joined a sticky layer of grease, diesel fuel, and rotten fish juice.

  “It’s simple,” the crewman, Martin DeJesus, was saying. “It’s taking too long. Just fucking shoot him, put him in a fish sack, weigh it down, and throw him overboard.”

  A cold wind blew across the deck of the Moneyball. It was a deep overcast night wit
h no stars, and they were snugly berthed in Bailey’s Hole, not far from the Canadian-U.S. border. The small group stood on the deck of the dark boat, and all Filipov could see of the others were the glowing tips of their cigarettes. There were no other lights; the Moneyball had extinguished its anchor and running lights, and even the red illumination of the pilothouse had been doused.

  “I’m with Martin,” came the heavy voice of Carl Miller, followed by a brightening of his cigarette; a loud exhale. “I don’t want to keep him on board any longer—they’re just stringing us along. Screw the swap. It’s too risky.”

  “It’s not risky,” said the cook. “We can be in international waters inside of an hour. The next shipment is weeks away. Arsenault’s a mate of ours; he’s worth the trade.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. Then why aren’t the feds playing ball?”

  Captain Filipov listened to the back-and-forth. The crew needed to talk it out. Tensions had been rising in recent days. The crew that was still on board, minus the watch on deck, had gradually assembled in the lee of the pilothouse to hash it out once and for all. He hunched in the cold wind, leaned against the steel pilothouse wall, arms crossed.

  “I think they’re setting us up,” said Juan Abreu, the ship’s engineer.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said the cook. “If we get even the least whiff of the thing going south, then we’ll take off and dump the guy overboard. We’d still have that watch of his to sell.”

  The argument went on and on, until they all began repeating themselves. Filipov finally pushed himself from the wall, spat another stream, and spoke. “We’ve had the bastard on board almost three weeks. We’ve been trying to work this exchange for days now. It’s a good plan—let’s stick to the plan. Three more days—that’s what we agreed. If the swap isn’t completed by then, we do the DeJesus thing and dump him overboard.”