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“Your Grace! You are certainly a curious young woman.” He chuckled again. “No, all my work is donein vitro—that is, in cell cultures.”
“I should think the temptation to experimentin vivowould be strong.”
Constance saw, finally, a faint look of displeasure, possibly even suspicion, pass like a ripple across his face. “Your Grace, shall we speak of more pleasant subjects? Here is our tea.”
The waiter busied himself placing the pot on the table, while a second waiter arranged two silver tiers, one resplendent with petits fours, the other with assorted finger sandwiches from which the crusts had been removed.
“Shall I pour, sir?” he asked Leng.
“We’ll pour for ourselves.”
“As you wish.” The two waiters departed.
Leng paused a moment before speaking again. “Now: do tell me more about your illustrious family and how you came to leave your native land. I must confess I’ve never met a duchess before.”
Constance forced a knowing smile. “And you still haven’t.”
He looked at her inquisitively. “How so?”
“Because I’m no duchess—as you no doubt already surmised.”
His eyebrows rose. “No?”
“And while we’re about it, let’s clear up another misconception: I am not here at your invitation. You are here at mine.”
At this, Leng looked momentarily flummoxed. Constance went on. “I’ve engineered this meeting from the start.Iwas the one who suggested you be invited to the ball.Iwas the one who intercepted you.Iwas the one who arranged for the Ozymandias sculpture, knowing your fondness for that poem.”
She took great satisfaction in seeing his pale face grow paler. But it took him only a moment to recover.
“Allow me to serve you,Your Grace.” An ironic tone crept into his voice as he tipped the teapot toward her cup.
“Thank you.” Constance put a cube of sugar and a little milk into her cup, and Leng poured out the steaming beverage. With tongs he placed an assortment of sandwiches on a plate for her, then served himself.
“Now: tell me why you were so anxious to meet me.”
“Who wouldn’t want to meet the celebrated Enoch Leng, Surgeon, Mental Alienist, and Consulting Psychiatrist at Bellevue?”
He waited for her to go on, his face remaining studiously neutral.
She sipped the tea—perfectly steeped, rich with the fragrance of bergamot: one sip, two, and then a third—before she put the cup down. “I have taken an interest in you, Dr. Leng.”
“I shall consider myself flattered.” A smile played about his lips.
Constance had the sudden urge to remove it—but at the same time, that smile reminded her to keep to her plan and not push things too far. “I know quite a bit about you.”
Another leisurely sip.
“I’m aware, for example, that you are expending enormous sums on acquiring exotic chemical poisons, reagents, and laboratory equipment.”
“Perfectly normal; I’m a scientist engaged in important research.”
“Perhaps. You have also extracted rare and fearful poisons not only from vipers and spiders; you’ve scoured the world to collect poisons that are untraceable, that are slow acting as well as instantaneous; poisons that are tasteless, colorless, and odorless. You have found these poisons in the skins of frogs in the Amazon, in the bladders of fishes in Japan, in the tentacles of jellyfish in the Austral regions, in the deadly fungi of Africa and the giant hornets of Indochina. You have in fact built up a remarkable arsenal of poisons, and you are analyzing these toxins and teasing out their chemical formulae and structures. You have even been able to synthesize and, shall we say,improveon some of them. Which returns us to the question I asked earlier: to what end?”
“To what end indeed?” Leng continued smiling, although the look on his face had become as frozen as a winter pond.
Constance, seeing that look, knew this was the moment to strike. “Since you insist on being coy, I will answer the question myself. You have a project. A project that will take many decades, possibly even a century, to complete.”
“And what project might this be?”