Felder scribbled faster.

Esterhazy shifted in his chair. “I often wondered if her, ah, unusual personal relationships might have been a factor in her disorder.”

“You mean, her guardian? This fellow Pendergast?”

“Well…” Esterhazy seemed to hesitate. “It is true that guardian is the term Pendergast uses. However — speaking as one doctor to another, you understand — the relationship has been a great deal more intimate than that term would suggest. Which may explain why Pendergast — or so I understand — declined to show up at her competency hearing.”

Dr. Felder stopped scribbling and looked up. Esterhazy nodded, slowly and significantly.

“That is very interesting,” Felder said. “She denies it quite specifically.”

“Naturally,” Esterhazy replied in a low voice.

“You know—” Felder stopped a moment, as if considering something. “If there was some severe emotional trauma, sexual coercion or even abuse, it might not only explain that fugue state, but her strange ideas about her past.”

“Strange ideas about the past?” Esterhazy said. “That must be a new development.”

“Constance has been insisting to me that — well, not to put too fine a point to it, Dr. Poole — that she is roughly one hundred and forty years old.”

It was all Esterhazy could do to keep a straight face. “Indeed?” he managed.

Felder nodded. “She maintains she was born in the 1870s. That she grew up on Water Street, just blocks from where we are now. That both her parents died when she was young and she lived for years and years in a mansion owned by a man named Leng.”

Esterhazy quickly followed up this line. “That could be the other side of the coin of her dissociative amnesia and fugue state.”

“The thing of it is, her knowledge of the past — at least the period in which she maintains she grew up — is remarkably vivid. And accurate.”

What utter rubbish. “Constance is an unusually intelligent — if troubled — person.”

Felder looked thoughtfully at his notes for a moment. Then he glanced at Esterhazy. “Doctor, could I ask you a favor?”

“Of course.”

“Would you consider consulting with me on the case?”

“I would be delighted.”

“I would welcome a second opinion. Your past experience with the patient and your observations would no doubt prove invaluable.”

Esterhazy felt a shiver of joy. “I’m only in New York a week or two, up at Columbia — but I would be happy to lend what assistance I can.”

For the first time, Dr. Felder smiled.

“Given the lacunar amnesia I mentioned,” Esterhazy said, “it would be better to introduce me to her as if we have not met before. Then we can observe her response. It will be interesting to see if the amnesia has persisted through her fugue state.”

“Interesting indeed.”

“I understand she’s currently in residence at Mount Mercy?”

“That is correct.”

“And I assume you can arrange to get me the necessary consulting status there?”

“I believe so. Of course, I’ll need your CV, institutional affiliation, the usual paperwork…” And here Felder’s voice trailed off in embarrassment.

“Certainly! As it happens, I believe I have all the necessary paperwork here. I brought it along for the staff at Columbia.” Opening his briefcase, he extracted a folder containing a beautifully forged set of accreditations and documents, compliments of the Covenant. There was indeed a real Dr. Poole in case Felder did a brief check, but given his trusting nature he didn’t seem the type to make calls. “And here’s a short breakdown — a brief summary — of my own work with Constance.” He extracted a second folder, whose contents were designed more to whet Felder’s curiosity than to provide any real information.

“Thank you.” Felder opened the first folder, scanned through it quickly, then closed it and handed it back. As Esterhazy had hoped, this step had been merely a formality. “I should be able to give you an update by tomorrow.”

“Here’s my cell number.” And Esterhazy passed a card across the table.

Felder slipped it into his jacket pocket. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am, Dr. Poole, to have gained your assistance in this matter.”

“Believe me, Doctor, the pleasure is all mine.” And — rising — Esterhazy shook hands warmly with Felder, smiled into the earnest face, and showed himself out.

CHAPTER 42

Penumbra Plantation, St. Charles Parish

WELCOME HOME, MR. PENDERGAST,” SAID MAURICE, as if Pendergast had only been away a few minutes instead of two months, when he opened the front door. “Will you be wanting supper, sir?”

Pendergast entered the house, Maurice shutting the door against the chill fog of the winter air. “No, thank you. But a glass of amontillado in the second-floor parlor would be lovely, if you don’t mind.”

“The fire is laid.”

“Marvelous.” Pendergast climbed the stairs to the parlor, where a small fire blazed on the hearth, banishing the habitual dampness of the house. He took a seat in a wing chair beside it, and a moment later Maurice came in carrying a silver tray, with a small glass of sherry balanced on it.

“Thank you, Maurice.”

As the white-haired servant turned to leave, Pendergast said, “I know you’ve been worried about me.”

Maurice paused but did not respond.

“When I first discovered the circumstances of my wife’s death,” Pendergast continued, “I was not myself. I imagine you must have been alarmed.”

“I was concerned,” said Maurice.

“Thank you. I know you were. But I’m my own man once again, and there’s no need to monitor my comings or goings or mention them to my brother-in-law…” He paused. “You were in contact with Judson about my situation, I assume?”

Maurice colored. “He is a doctor, sir, and he asked me to help, specifically with regard to your movements. He was fearful that you might do something rash. I thought, given the family history…” His voice trailed off.

“Quite so, quite so. However, it turns out that Judson may not have had my best interests in mind. We’ve had a bit of a falling-out, I’m afraid. And as I mentioned, I’m quite recovered. So you see there is no reason to share anything further with him.”

“Of course. I hope my confidences to Dr. Esterhazy did not cause you any inconvenience?”

“None at all.”

“Will there be anything else?”

“No, thank you. Good night, Maurice.”

“Good night, sir.”

One hour later, Pendergast sat motionless in a small space that had once been his mother’s dressing room. The door was closed and locked. The heavy, old-fashioned furniture had been removed and replaced with a single wing chair, a mahogany table set before it. The elegant William Morris wallpaper had been stripped away and dark blue soundproofing installed in its place. There was nothing in the room to distract or to arouse interest. The only illumination in the windowless space came from a single beeswax taper placed on the small table, which cast a flickering light over the patternless walls. It was the most private and insular room in the mansion.

In the perfect silence, Pendergast turned his gaze to the candle flame, slowing both his respiration and pulse with great deliberation. Through the esoteric meditative discipline of Chongg Ran, which he had studied in the Himalayas many years before, he was preparing to enter the heightened mental state of stong pa nyid. Pendergast had combined this ancient Buddhist practice with the idea of the memory palace contained in Giordano Bruno’s Ars Memoria to create his own unique form of mental concentration.

He stared at the flame and — slowly, very slowly — let his gaze pierce its flickering heart. As he sat, motionless, he allowed his consciousness to enter into the flame, to be consumed by it, to join with it first as an organic whole, and then — as the minutes passed — at an even more fundamental level, until it was as if the very molecules of his sentient being mingled with those of the flame.