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DR. ENOCH LENG PAUSEDat the entryway to take in the full sweep of the grand reception room. Very little impressed Leng, but as his eye roamed about the marble and limestone expanse, festooned in crimson and scarlet, with Chinese screens, draperies, giant masks—and two statuesque legs, arranged as a centerpiece—he found himself unexpectedly surprised and amused. It was impossible to believe that a vacuous woman like Mrs. Cabot-Flint and her swine of a husband could have pulled this off. Leng almost hadn’t come, but the truth was he’d needed reminding of his life’s great work and why he’d embarked on it. Lurid exhibitions such as this were vitally necessary, from time to time, in extinguishing any spark of empathy and rekindling his hatred of mankind and all its grotesqueries.
He had brought no one to the ball; there was no one to bring. Munck was in the carriage, no doubt enjoying the spectacle through the tall windows much as a feral dog might enjoy the guillotine, excited by the noise and movement, understanding nothing save the blood.
Professor Leng resumed strolling to the end of the carpet, his black monk’s robes sweeping the floor behind him, and made his way to the trunkless legs of stone. They were remarkably well made out of papier-mâché, fauxed to look like granite.
He read the inscription on the pedestal below.
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
“Ozymandias” happened to be his favorite poem. Someone—surely not the Cabot-Flints—had supervised the fantastical decorations, and he should like to find out who.
He strolled around the legs of stone. To his right, he could see through a grand archway into the ballroom itself. He paused to watch an almost naked dancer flit past him—one of the La Scala company, according to the invitation he had received—and a magnificent specimen of pulchritude she was. Briefly he mused on the delectable image of her body splayed on the table of his operating chamber. But such was not to be; he had to make do with lesser specimens, although he was in fact trying the “fatted calf” approach on the most recent experimental subjects, hoping for better results.
Leng had just finished his slow turn around the reception hall when he felt a presence next to him. A woman—a most striking young woman—was also admiring the centerpiece. She was cloaked in white, with an exotic white turban decorated with laurel leaves, a jeweled headband, and flowers pinned to her breast.
She spoke in a low, contralto voice:
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies…
And at this, Leng gently interrupted and continued:
whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
He bowed and took her hand. “Professor Enoch Leng.”
As he raised her hand to his lips, the woman said: “Be careful of the ring.”
Leng paused. “Ah. Of course. You’re wearing the infamous hollow ring with which Lucrezia Borgia administered her poisons.”
“The very same.”
He held the hand for a moment, examining the ring on her index finger. It was of thick gold, heavily granulated and set with tiny diamonds and rubies. He turned her hand slightly and noted, on the inside part of the band, a tiny hole, currently covered, and next to it a diamond button, evidently used to open the hole with a spring in order to release the poisoned powder.
“Ingenious,” he said. “Where did you get it?”
“From my father.”
“And your father is—?”
The woman gently withdrew her hand. “I am the Duchess of Ironclaw,” she said. “My father, God rest his soul, was Duke Casimir VIII. But he was more than a duke: he was an ardent chemist and a passionate collector. He had the most admired cabinet of curiosities in Transylvania, where we lived in exile from the family duchy.”
Leng raised his head. Her eyes were a most extraordinary violet. “Pleased to meet you, Your Grace.”
“Likewise, Dr. Leng. Or would you rather I called you Savonarola?”
“Ah yes, my costume: the mad monk of San Marco.”