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Paul frowned. “You mean…”
Lucy nodded. “We mean that the count is watching the entire drama live, in full color.” She paused for a moment. “And I guess he has a seat in the front row.”
“One of the Inner Circle,” I guessed.
The others nodded. “The Inner Circle. The count is one of the Guardians.”
Now, as I sat here with the count, I looked at his face. Which of them was he? The clock above the mantelpiece was ticking loudly. It was going to be an eternity before I traveled back.
The count gestured to me to sit down in one of the upholstered armchairs, poured glasses of dark red wine for both of us, and handed me one. Then he took the armchair opposite and raised his glass to me. “Your good health, Gwyneth! It was two weeks ago today that we first met—well, from my point of view, anyway. I am afraid that my first impression of you was not especially favorable. But by now we are good friends, would you not agree?”
Oh, sure. I sipped my wine, and then said, “You almost throttled me at that first meeting.” I took another sip. Then, rather bravely, I added, “At the time, I thought you could read thoughts. But I expect I was wrong about that.”
The count laughed in a self-satisfied way. “Well, I am able to understand the main currents of other people’s thoughts, but there is no magic about it. Indeed, anyone could learn it. I told you, when we met before, about my visits to Asia and how I acquired the wisdom and abilities of Tibetan monks there.”
So he had, yes. And I hadn’t been listening properly. In fact, even now I was finding it hard to make out his words. They suddenly sounded strangely distorted, sometimes long drawn out and slow, then as if they were being sung. “What on earth…,” I murmured. Veils of pink mist were gathering before my eyes, and I couldn’t blink them away.
The count interrupted himself in his lecture. “You’re feeling dizzy, aren’t you? And now your mouth is dry, am I right?”
Yes, it was! How the hell did he know? And why did his voice sound so metallic? I stared at him through the strange pink mists.
“Have no fear, my child,” he said. “It will soon be over. Rakoczy has promised me that you will feel no pain. You will have fallen asleep before the spasms begin. And, with a little luck, you won’t wake up again before the end.”
I heard Rakoczy laugh. It sounded like the noises you get on a recorded tape in a ghost-train ride at a funfair. “But why…” I was trying to speak, but all at once, my lips felt numb.
“Don’t take this personally,” said the count in a chilly voice, “but in order to realize my plans, I am afraid I have to kill you. The prophesies foretell that, too.”
I wanted to keep my eyes open, but I couldn’t. My chin fell on my breast, then my head flopped over to one side, and finally my eyes closed. Darkness surrounded me.
* * *
MAYBE I REALLY am dead this time was the first thought to cross my mind when I came back to my senses. But I hadn’t really imagined angels as nak*d little boys wearing nothing except rolls of excess fat and silly grins, like the specimens playing their harps above me here. Anyway, they were only painted on the ceiling. I closed my eyes again. My throat was so dry that I could hardly swallow. I was lying on something hard, and I felt utterly exhausted, as if I’d never be able to move again.
Somewhere behind my right ear, I heard a tune being hummed. It was the death march motif from Wagner’s The Twilight of the Gods, Lady Arista’s favorite opera. The voice humming the tune in an unsuitably jaunty way seemed to me vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And I couldn’t look to see whose it was, either, because my eyes simply refused to open.
“Jake, Jake,” said the voice, “I’d never have expected you, of all people, to get on my trail. But your medical Latin will do you no good now.” The voice laughed softly. “By the time you wake up, I’ll be over the hills and far away. You know, it’s very pleasant in Brazil at this season. I lived there for several years, from 1940 onward. There’s much to be said for Argentina and Chile as well.” The voice paused for a moment to whistle a few bars of the Wagnerian theme. “I’m always drawn back to South America. And Brazil, incidentally, has the best cosmetic surgeons in the world. They’ve dealt with my annoyingly hooded eyelids, my hooked nose, my receding chin. Which is why, fortunately, I don’t look much like my own portrait anymore.”
My numb arms and legs were beginning to tingle, but I controlled myself. It was probably all to the good if I kept perfectly still for now.
The voice laughed. “But even if someone here in the Lodge had recognized me,” it went on, “I’m sure none of you would have had the brains to draw the right conclusions. Except for that pest Lucas Montrose, who was on the very verge of unmasking me … oh, Jake, and even you didn’t realize that he died not of a heart attack, but of Marley senior’s subtle poisons! Because you ordinary humans only ever see what you want to see.”
“You’re a nasty, horrible, dopey man,” piped up a frightened voice somewhere behind me. “You’ve hurt my daddy!” I felt a cold draft of air. “And what have you done to Gwyneth?”
Yes, what? That was the question. And why didn’t I hear a squeak out of Gideon?
There was a clinking sound, and then the click of a case of some kind being closed. “Ever ready to further the cause of the Guardians, all of you! A cure for all the diseases of mankind, what a joke!” A snort of contempt. “As if mankind deserved it! Well, you won’t be able to help Gwyneth, for one, anymore.” The voice was moving around the room, and I was beginning to get a glimmering of whose voice it was. And who I was dealing with, although I could hardly believe it. “She’s as dead as the laboratory rats you were always dissecting.” Another soft laugh. “And that, incidentally, is a simile and not a metaphor.”
I opened my eyes and raised my head. “But you could always use it as a symbol, couldn’t you, Mr. Whitman?” I asked.
Next moment, I was sorry I’d outed myself. No sign of Gideon! Only Dr. White, lying unconscious on the floor, his face as gray as his suit. Little Robert, obviously badly upset, was crouching beside his father.
“Gwyneth.” You had to hand it to Mr. Whitman; he didn’t screech with fright. Or show any other emotion at all. He just stood there under the portrait of Count Saint-Germain, with his hand on a baggage cart loaded up with a laptop bag, staring at me. He wore an elegant gray coat with a silk scarf, and he had a pair of sunglasses perched on his hair as if he were Brad Pitt on the beach. He didn’t look a bit like the count in the painting above him.
I sat up with as much dignity as I could muster (the huge skirt of my dress was rather a disadvantage) and saw that I’d been lying flat on the desk.
Mr. Whitman clicked his tongue, looked at the time, and then let go of his baggage cart. “Well, well, how extremely annoying,” he said.
I couldn’t suppress a grin. “Yes, isn’t it?” I agreed.
