Constance turned back toward him. The small crowd of reporters that had come to cover the ghoulish story were gone, and the atmosphere of the town had fallen into a hum of excited relief. Following dinner, Pendergast had invited her up to his room to share the bottle of Haut-Braquilanges. Constance was of two minds: On the one hand, she was flattered that he would share such a princely bottle with her. But she also remembered the effects that the glass of Calvados had had on her the last time she was in his room, and she did not want to lose control like that again.
“Are you sure you want to drink it now?” she asked.
“Carpe diem. Who knows what tomorrow might bring? And what a fine setting we have: the storm outside, the fire within, and our own good company.”
Handling the bottle with care, Pendergast removed the capsule, withdrew the cork, set it aside, and, using a candle to see through the wine, decanted it. He immediately poured a tiny taste, swirled, and downed it. The expression on his face, eyes closed, head back, was one Constance had never seen before—pure sensual pleasure.
“What about me?” she asked after a moment.
His eyes sprang open. “Ah, Constance, I was just making sure it hadn’t turned to vinegar. To spare you a shock. I’m happy to say it has not.”
He set his glass down and poured one for her, refilling his. “We must drink it quickly.”
“Shouldn’t it air?”
“A wine of this age and complexity turns fast. Apres toi.” He picked up his glass. She took the other.
“I’m not sure what to do,” said Constance with a nervous laugh. “I’ve drunk wine before, of course, but not one like this.”
“First, we touch glasses.”
They touched glasses. Their eyes met. Nothing was said.
“And now, we drink. Just follow my lead. A great deal of unnecessary pomp surrounds the drinking of wine. All you really need to do is swirl it about, inhale, and then sip—like this.”
Pendergast swirled, inhaled once, twice, swirled again, then took a sip. He drew a little air in, took another sip.
Constance did the same. It tasted to her like…wine, nothing more, nothing less. She colored, thinking how he was wasting it on her.
“Don’t worry, my dear Constance, if you don’t immediately taste what I taste, or enjoy it as deeply as I do. Wine is like many of the finer things in life, which take time and experience to extract their full pleasure and meaning.”
He described to her again how to swirl, and smell, and then sip, drawing in air.
“The vocabulary of wine drinking is rather recherché,” he said. “It’s an expression of the inadequacy of words to describe taste and smell.”
“So what does it taste like to you?”
“I would say this wine enters the palate like silk wrapped in a velvet texture. That is because of its age—almost all the fruit and tannins have been transformed.” He sipped again. “I note spice, cigar-box, truffles, faded flowers, autumn leaves, earth, and leather flavors.”
Constance sipped once again, but couldn’t even begin to find those tastes in the wine.
“This wine is austere, structured, with great finesse, and a long, lingering finish.”
“What, exactly, makes it so good?”
“Everything. Each sip brings out another flavor, another characteristic.” He sipped again. “It is just so marvelously complex, so balanced, with each flavor coming forward in its turn. Most important, it has that go?t de terroir, the special taste of the earth from which the grapes emerged. It contains the very soul of that famous and long-gone two-acre hillside, ruined by mustard gas during World War I.”
Pendergast poured them each a second glass and Constance tasted it carefully. It was softer than most wines she remembered drinking, and it had a perfumed delicacy to it that was pleasing. Perhaps she could learn to enjoy wine in the way Pendergast did. As she sipped, she was aware of the slightest numbness of her lips and a pleasant, tingling warmth that seemed to radiate from her very core. She thought she might be detecting notes of truffles and leather in the wine, after all.
Pendergast rose from his seat beside her on the bed and began to stroll about the room thoughtfully, glass in hand. Obtaining, and drinking, the exquisite wine had put him in rare spirits, and he was uncharacteristically voluble. “Even more than with most criminal investigations, Constance, this one is heavy with irony. We have the historian, McCool, arriving with knowledge of the jewels, but not the location of the Pembroke Castle’s destruction—while at the same time we have the Dunwoody brothers, knowing exactly where the ship ran aground but ignorant of the existence of the jewels. When the two came together, voilà! The crime was born. The brothers needed time to stage their sham wine theft, which explains the several weeks gap after the historian left. The brothers also knew there was a good chance the historian might return, and they wanted to be ready for him—hence Dana Dunwoody’s idea of looking up the Tybane symbols. After the killing, Joe, the bartender, was in an excellent position to spread rumors of the inscriptions carved into McCool’s body, and the implication that witches were involved—something that Exmouth natives, who had all grown up hearing such legends, would enthusiastically adopt. A perfect red herring, really.”