When there was no response, the count continued. “You no doubt feel weak, barely able to stir. And you may be experiencing a certain degree of amnesia. Phenobarbital does have that effect at times: it seemed the easiest way to return you to the castle without undue exertions. So allow me to refresh your memory. You and the good sergeant D’Agosta grew tired of my hospitality and desired to leave. I, naturally, took objection. There was a nasty struggle, I’m afraid, in which my beloved Pinketts perished. You had deposited some paperwork I was obliged to reclaim. Then came your escape attempt. Sergeant D’Agosta made good his escape, I fear. But the important thing is that you’re back, my dear Agent Pendergast: back safely again in the bosom of Castel Fosco! And I insist you remain here, as my guest. No, really—I’ll hear no objection.”
Fosco placed the torch carefully into an iron wall mounting. “I beg your pardon for the scant accommodation. Still, these chambers are not without their natural charm. You’ll notice the white webwork that gleams from the cavern walls? It’s nitre, my dear Pendergast—you of all people should appreciate the literary allusion. And thus understand what is to follow.”
And to underscore this, the count slipped his hand into his waistcoat and slowly withdrew a trowel.
Staring at it, Pendergast’s dull, drug-heavy eyes gleamed briefly.
“Aha!” the count cried, pleased. “It is not lost on you! Let us then proceed with all haste.” And turning to one side, he swept away a heap of tumbled bones, revealing a large quantity of freshly slaked mortar.
Using the trowel, he laid a thick line of mortar along the front lip of the recess. Then he moved to one of the piles of collapsed brick and, two at a time, brought the bricks back to the niche, laying them carefully in a line atop the mortar. Within a few minutes, the first course of bricks was in place and Fosco was troweling another layer of mortar along its top.
“How wonderful these bricks are!” he said as he worked. “They are many centuries old, made from the very clay of the hillside. See how massive: none of your trifling English bricks for Fosco! I’ve called for a great deal of lime in the mortar—nearly two parts lime to each part sand—but then I want your final habitation to be as strong as possible. I want it to last through the ages, my dear Pendergast. I want it to last until the final trump is sounded!”
Pendergast said nothing. But his drug-clouded eyes had cleared. They watched Fosco work with an almost feline stoicism—if, Fosco reflected, stoicism was the correct word. Finishing the second course of bricks, he paused to return the gaze.
“I’ve been preparing this for some time,” he said. “Quite some time, in fact. You see, ever since our first meeting—at the memorial service for Jeremy Grove, when we had our little disagreement over the Ghirlandaio panel—I realized you were the most formidable opponent I had ever faced.”
He paused, waiting. But still Pendergast said nothing, did not move except to blink his eyelids. And so Fosco returned to his work and—with the energy of a sudden surge of anger—laid the third, fourth, and fifth course of bricks.
When he laid the last brick of the sixth course in place, he paused once more. The brief anger had passed and he was again himself. The wall reached now to Pendergast’s waist. Throwing back the tails of his coat, Fosco perched daintily on the old pile of bricks to rest. His gaze fell almost kindly on the prisoner.
“You’ll note I’m laying the bricks in Flemish bond, alternating the headers with the stretchers,” he said. “Beautiful, is it not? I could have been a mason, perhaps, had I so chosen. Of course, building such a wall is time-consuming. Consider it my final gift. My parting gift. You see, once the last brick is in place, it will not take long—perhaps a day, perhaps two, depending on how much air seeps through these ancient walls. I am no sadist. Your death will not be unduly prolonged—though I imagine slow suffocation in the dark might not be quite as merciful as one would hope. It cannot be helped.”
He sat for a moment, catching his breath. Then he went on, his voice now almost meditative.
“Do not think, Signor Pendergast, I take this responsibility lightly. I realize that by entombing you here, I rob the world of a great intellect. It will be a duller place without you. However, it will also be safer, for me and those like me: men and women who would prefer to pursue their destinies unfettered by laws devised by their inferiors.”
He glanced into the recess. With the wall half complete, the niche lay in deepest shadow. Only the gaunt lines of Pendergast’s bloodied face reflected in the torchlight.
The count looked at him quizzically. “Still nothing? Very well: let us continue.” And he pulled himself to his feet.
The next three tiers were laid in silence. Finally, as Fosco put the last brick of the ninth course in position and smoothed fresh mortar across its top, Pendergast spoke. The wall had reached the level of his pale eyes, and his voice echoed hollowly inside the new-made vault.
“You must not do this,” he said. His voice had none of its usual creamy, almost lazy precision.
This, Fosco knew, was a side effect of the phenobarbital. “But my dear Pendergast, it is done!” He troweled off the mortar and returned to the brick pile.
The tenth course was half laid before Pendergast spoke once more. “There is something I must do. Something unfinished, of great importance to the world. A member of my family is in a position to do great harm. I must be allowed to stop him.”
Fosco halted, listening.