Blue Labyrinth

49

For the second time in less than a week, Lieutenant D’Agosta found himself in the gun room of the mansion on Riverside Drive. Everything was the same: the same rare weaponry on display, the rosewood walls, the coffered ceiling. The other attendees were the same, as well: Constance Greene, dressed in a soft organdy blouse and pleated skirt of dark maroon, and Margo, who gave him a distracted smile. Conspicuous in his absence was the owner of the mansion, Aloysius Pendergast.

Constance took a seat at the head of the table. She seemed even more of a cipher than usual, with her stilted manner and old-fashioned accent. “Thank you both for coming,” she said. “I’ve requested your presence this morning because we have an emergency.”

D’Agosta eased into one of the leather chairs that surrounded the table, a sense of foreboding filling his mind.

“My guardian, our friend, is unwell — indeed, he is extremely sick.”

D’Agosta leaned forward. “How sick?”

“He is dying.”

This was greeted with a shock of silence.

“So he was poisoned, like the guy in Indio?” D’Agosta said. “Son of a bitch. Where’s he been?”

“In Brazil and Switzerland, trying to learn what happened to Alban and why he himself was poisoned. He had a collapse in Switzerland. I found him in a Geneva hospital.”

“Where’s he now?” D’Agosta asked.

“Upstairs. Under private care.”

“My understanding is that it took users of Hezekiah’s elixir months, years, to sicken and die,” Margo said. “Pendergast must have received an extremely concentrated dose.”

Constance nodded. “Yes. His attacker knew he would get only a single chance. It’s also a fair assumption — based on his even quicker decline — that the man who assaulted Pendergast in the Salton Fontainebleau, and is now dead in Indio, got an even stronger dose.”

“That fits,” Margo said. “I got a report from Dr. Samuels in Indio. The dead man’s skeleton shows the same unusual compounds I discovered in Mrs. Padgett’s skeleton — only in much more concentrated amounts. It’s no wonder the elixir killed him so fast.”

“If Pendergast is dying,” D’Agosta said, rising, “why the heck isn’t he in a hospital?”

A narrow stare met his look. “He insisted on leaving the Geneva hospital and flying home via private medical transport. You can’t legally hospitalize someone against his will. He insists there’s nothing anyone can do for him and he will not die in a hospital.”

“Jesus,” said D’Agosta. “What can we do?”

“We need an antidote. And to find that antidote, we need information. That’s why we’re here.” She turned to D’Agosta. “Lieutenant, please tell us the results of your recent investigations.”

D’Agosta mopped his brow. “I don’t know how relevant some of this is, but we traced Pendergast’s attacker to Gary, Indiana. Three years ago, he was a guy named Howard Rudd, family man and shop owner. He got into debt with the wrong people and vanished, leaving his wife and kids. He appeared two months ago with a different face. He’s the guy who attacked Pendergast and probably killed Victor Marsala. We’re trying to account for that gap in his history — where he was, who he was working for. Brick wall so far.” D’Agosta glanced at Margo. She had said nothing, but her face was pale.

For a moment, there was silence. Then Constance spoke again. “Not quite.”

D’Agosta looked at her.

“I’ve been compiling a list of Hezekiah’s victims, on the assumption that a descendant was responsible for the poisoning. Two victims were Stephen and Ethel Barbeaux, a married couple, who succumbed to the effects of the elixir in 1895, leaving three orphaned children, including a baby who was conceived while Ethel was taking the elixir. The family lived in New Orleans, on Dauphine Street, just two houses down from the Pendergast family mansion.”

“Why them, in particular?” said D’Agosta.

“They have a great-grandson, John Barbeaux. He’s CEO of a military consulting company called Red Mountain Industries — and a wealthy and reclusive man. Barbeaux had a son — an only child. The youth was a musical prodigy. Always of delicate health, the boy fell ill two years ago. I haven’t been able to learn much about the details of the illness, but it apparently baffled an entire corps of doctors and specialists with its unusual symptoms. A titanic medical effort failed to save his life.” Constance looked from Margo to D’Agosta and back again. “The case was written up in the British medical journal Lancet.”

“What are you saying?” D’Agosta asked. “That the poison that killed John Barbeaux’s great-grandparents jumped down through the generations to kill his son?”

“Yes. The boy complained of the stink of rotten flowers before he died. And I’ve found a scattering of other similar deaths in the Barbeaux family, going back generations.”

“I don’t buy it,” said D’Agosta.

“I do,” said Margo, speaking for the first time. “What you’re suggesting is that Hezekiah’s elixir caused epigenetic changes. Such changes can and do get passed down the generations. Environmental poisons are the leading cause of epigenetic changes.”

“Thank you,” said Constance.

Another brief silence settled over the room.

D’Agosta rose to his feet and began pacing restlessly, his mind racing. “Okay. Let’s put this together. You’re saying Barbeaux poisoned Pendergast with the elixir as a way of getting revenge, not only for his ancestors, but for his son. How did Barbeaux get the idea? I mean, it’s unlikely he’d even have known about what happened to his great-grandparents, who died more than a century ago. And this entire revenge plot — killing Alban, sticking a piece of turquoise into him, luring Pendergast all the way across the country — it’s baroque in complexity. Why? Who could have dreamed it up?”

“A man named Tapanes Landberg,” said Constance.

“Who?” asked Margo.

“Of course!” D’Agosta smacked his palm against the other and turned. “Alban! As I told you, he made a trip to New York — to the Albany area, according to Lieutenant Angler’s case file — over a year before he was killed!”

“Red Mountain Industries is located in Adirondack, New York,” Constance said. “An hour and a half’s drive from Albany.”

D’Agosta turned again. “Alban. The crazy fuck. From what Pendergast has told me, this is exactly the kind of game he’d love to play. Of course, brilliant as he was, he’d have known all about Hezekiah’s elixir. So he went out, found a descendant of a victim — somebody with both the motive for revenge and the means to carry it out. He hit pay dirt with Barbeaux, whose son died. Alban must have learned something of Barbeaux’s personality; he’s no doubt the eye-for-an-eye kind of fellow. It would be beautiful in a different context: both Barbeaux and Alban being revenged on Pendergast.”

“Yes. The scheme reeks of Alban,” said Constance. “He may even have researched the Salton Fontainebleau and the turquoise mine. He could have told Barbeaux: Here’s the setup. All you have to do is synthesize the elixir and lure Pendergast to the spot.”

“Except that, in the end, Alban got double-crossed,” said Margo.

“The big question,” D’Agosta went on, “is how the hell will all this help us develop an antidote?”

“We’ve got to decipher the formula for the elixir before we can reverse its effects. If Barbeaux was able to reconstruct it, then so can we.” Constance looked around. “I’ll search the basement collections here, the files, the family archives, and the old chemistry laboratory, looking for evidence of Hezekiah’s formula. Margo, will you do more work on the bones of Mrs. Padgett? Those bones contain a vital clue — given the great lengths Barbeaux went in getting one.”

“Yes,” said Margo. “And the coroner’s report on Rudd might also help unravel the formula.”

“As for me,” said D’Agosta, “I’m going to check up on this Barbeaux character. If I find he’s responsible, I’ll squeeze him so hard the formula will pop out of—”

“No.”

This was said by a new and different voice — little more than a cracked whisper, coming from the doorway to the gun room. D’Agosta turned toward it and saw Pendergast. He stood unsteadily, leaning on the door frame, wearing a disordered silk dressing gown. He seemed almost corpse-like, save for the eyes — and these glittered like coins above puffy, blue-black bags of skin.

“Aloysius!” Constance cried, standing up. “What are you doing out of bed?” She hurried around the table toward him. “Where’s Dr. Stone?”

“The doctor is useless.”

She tried to usher him out of the room, but he pushed her away. “I must speak.” He staggered, righted himself. “If you are correct, then the man who did this was able to kill my son. He is clearly an extremely powerful and competent adversary.” He shook his head as if to clear his mind. “You go after him, you’ll place yourselves in mortal danger. This is my fight. I, and I alone… will follow through… must follow through…”

A man abruptly appeared in the doorway — tall and thin, wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a chalk-striped suit, a stethoscope around his neck.

“Come, my friend,” the doctor said gently. “You must not exert yourself. Let’s return upstairs. Here, we can take the elevator.”

“No!” Pendergast protested again, more feebly this time — clearly, the effort of leaving his bed had exhausted him. Dr. Stone bore him off, gently but firmly. As they vanished down the hall, D’Agosta heard Pendergast saying: “The light. How glaring it is! Turn it off, I beg you…”

The three remained standing, looking at each other. D’Agosta noticed that Constance, normally remote and unreadable, was now flushed and agitated.

“He’s right,” D’Agosta said. “This Barbeaux is no ordinary guy. We better think this through. We need to stay in close touch and share information. A single mistake might get us all killed.”

“That’s why we won’t make one,” said Margo quietly.