Douglas Child - The Wheel of Darkness

“You did well.” Pendergast smiled, gave a half bow, and departed quickly.

23

BACK IN THE SUITE, CONSTANCE FOUND PENDERGAST HUNCHED over a chemistry set. She watched as he dipped a cotton swab into a vial of a clear liquid and applied it to a paint chip in a test tube. Immediately, the fragment turned black.

He moved to another test tube and another, applying the same test. Finally he looked up. “Good evening, Constance.”

“Any results?”

He nodded to the tests. “Indeed. These paint samples all show unacceptable levels of lead. Our Mr. Lionel Brock has six crates of impressionist paintings in his spare bedroom, and if the rest are like these, they’re all forgeries. Brock must be employing a European art forger—a man of considerable talent—to imitate the work of minor artists, which he no doubt salts among his genuine paintings by major artists. Quite a clever scheme, really: nobody would question the authenticity of the second-tier paintings carried by a dealer known to sell the finest, most scrupulously provenanced first-tier works.”

“Clever indeed,” said Constance. “But it seems to me a man like that wouldn’t risk all this on a Tibetan artifact.”

“Exactly. We can strike him.” With a rustle, Pendergast produced his list. “I have also crossed off Lambe—the man’s as soft as risen dough.”

“How did you manage that? Impersonate a doctor?”

“Ugh. Let us not speak of it. I have also struck Claude Dallas from the list, as well as Lord Cliveburgh, who is busy smuggling cocaine. Strage is illegally exporting several extremely valuable and quite genuine Greek vases, and while this might lessen the chances that he’s also smuggling the Agozyen, we can’t quite rule him out. Which leaves us with three: Blackburn, Calderón, and Strage.” He turned his silver eyes on her. “How did your adventure belowdecks go?”

“I met the woman assigned to clean Blackburn’s triplex. Luckily—for us, anyway—she took over from another worker who apparently suffered a psychotic break shortly after departure and killed herself.”

“Indeed?” said Pendergast with sudden interest. “There’s been a suicide on board?”

“That’s what they say. She just stopped working in the middle of her shift, returned to her cabin, and had a breakdown. Later, she stabbed herself in the eye with a piece of wood and died.”

“How odd. And the woman who’s cleaning Blackburn’s triplex—what does she say?”

“He brought his own maid, and she lords it over the ship’s maid. Blackburn also had his suite redecorated for the crossing with his own furniture and artwork.”

“That would include his Asian art collection.”

“Yes. The same housekeeper I met also cleans Calderón’s stateroom, which is next door. It seems he picked up a lot of French antiques. Apparently, he’s as pleasant as Blackburn is obnoxious: he gave her a nice tip.”

“Excellent.” For a time, Pendergast’s eyes seemed to go far away. Slowly, they came back into focus.

“Blackburn is a strong number one on our list.” He reached in his pocket, withdrew yet another sheaf of crisp bills. “You are to temporarily switch places with the ship’s housekeeper assigned to Blackburn and Calderón’s rooms. Get in there when the suite is empty.”

“But Blackburn won’t let the ship’s maid in without his maid being there.”

“No matter—if you’re caught you can always chalk it up to bureaucratic error. You know what to look for. I would suggest going late this evening—Blackburn, I’ve noticed, is partial to baccarat and will probably be in the casino.”

“Very well, Aloysius.”

“Oh—and bring me his trash, please.”

Constance raised her eyebrows briefly. Then she nodded and turned toward the staircase, preparing to change for dinner.

“Constance?”

She turned back.

“Please be careful. Blackburn is one of our prime suspects—and that means he could well be a ruthless, perhaps psychopathic, killer.”

24

SCOTT BLACKBURN PAUSED AT THE ENTRANCE TO OSCAR’S TO BUTTON his Gieves & Hawkes bespoke suit, adjust his mauve tie, and survey the room. It was eight forty-five and the second seating was well under way: a horde of slim, elegant foreign waiters rushing in with the main courses under silver domes, which they brought to each table, laid down, and then—all at once, a waiter standing behind each diner—whipped off to reveal the dish underneath.

With a sardonic crook to his lip, Blackburn strolled over to his table. His two companions had already seated themselves and they rose obsequiously as he arrived. As well they should—Blackburn had invested several hundred million in their respective companies and sat on their boards’ compensation committees. Two bottles of burgundy already stood empty on the table, among the scattered remains of hors d’oevures, antipasti, and a first course of a smallish bird that might have been squab or pheasant. As he sat down he took one bottle into his hand and examined the label.

“Richebourg Domaine de la Romanée-Conti ’78,” he said. “You fellows are breaking out the good stuff.” He turned and poured out the heel into his own glass. “And you’ve left me with nothing but sediment!”

Lambe and Calderón laughed reverentially, and Lambe gestured for a waiter. “Bring out another of these from our private cellar,” he said. “One of the ones already opened.”

“Right away, sir.” The waiter glided off as silently as a bat.

“What’s the occasion?” Blackburn asked.

“We just thought we’d indulge ourselves,” Lambe said, rocking his soft, slumpy shoulders. Blackburn noticed that the man was less green about the gills than before. The weenie was, apparently, growing accustomed to the ocean.

“Why not?” Blackburn said. “This voyage is proving to be even more interesting than I anticipated. Among other things, I ran into an old girlfriend last night, and found her obliging— very obliging. At first, anyway.”

This was greeted with a roar of laughter from his two listeners.

“And then what?” Lambe asked, eagerly leaning forward.

Blackburn shook his hand and laughed. “I don’t know which was more exciting—the fucking or the fight afterward. Whew, what a wildcat.”

More toadying laughter.

The waiter glided back with the bottle and a fresh glass, and Lambe indicated for him to pour Blackburn a taste. Blackburn swirled the liquid around in the glass, took a quick whiff, swirled again, then stuck his nose in and inhaled the bouquet. Then he sat back, his eyes half closed, appreciating the aroma. After a moment, he lifted the glass to his lips, drew in a small amount, rolled it around on his tongue, then drew in some air through his lips, bubbling it through the wine before swallowing. Ritual complete, he placed the glass down and waved the waiter away.

“What do you think?” Lambe asked eagerly.

“Magnificent.”

They relaxed.

Blackburn raised his glass again. “And, it so happens, I have something to announce.”

Both friends turned to him eagerly.

“Fill your glasses.”

They did so with alacrity.

“As you know, since selling Gramnet for two billion, I’ve been knocking around, looking for some new little thing to mess around with. I believe I’ve found that thing.”

“Can you talk about it?” asked Calderón.

Blackburn enjoyed the long pause.

“It has to do with scanning and searching visual databases on the web.” He smiled. “When I sold Gramnet, I retained the rights to my proprietary image-compression algorithms. I’ll push image content onto everybody’s desktop, and it’ll be content that looks a hundred times better than anything else out there.”