Blue Labyrinth

55

For as long as Margo had been associated with the New York Museum of Natural History, Jörgensen had been “retired.” And yet every day he continued to occupy the corner office where he had always been, seeming never to go home — if he even had a home — and grumbling at anyone who disturbed him. Margo paused at his half-open door, hesitating to knock. She could see the old man bent over some seedpods, studying them under a glass, his head entirely bald, his bushy eyebrows bristling from his face.

She knocked. “Dr. Jörgensen?” she ventured.

The head rotated and a pair of bleached-blue eyes turned on her. He said nothing but the expression in the eyes was one of annoyance.

“Sorry to bother you.”

This was met with a noncommittal grunt. Since no offer to enter seemed forthcoming, Margo went in uninvited.

“I’m Margo Green,” she said, offering her hand. “I used to work here.”

Another grunt and a withered hand met hers. The eyebrows knitted up. “Margo Green… Ah, yes. You were around during the time of those awful killings.” He shook his head. “I was a friend of Whittlesey, poor old soul—”

Margo swallowed and hastened to change the subject. “That was a long time ago, I hardly remember the killings,” she lied. “I was wondering—”

“But I remember,” said Jörgensen. “And I remember you. Funny, your name came up recently. Now, where was that…?”

He cast about with his eyes but, finding nothing, looked back at her. “What happened to that tall fellow with the cowlick you used to go around with? You know, the one who loved the sound of his own voice?”

Margo hesitated. “He died.”

Jörgensen seemed to contemplate this for a moment. “Died? Those were dark days. So many died. So, you moved on to greener pastures?”

“I did.” She hesitated. “There were too many bad memories here. I work for a medical foundation now.”

A nod. Margo felt encouraged. “I’m looking for help. Some botanical advice.”

“Very well.”

“Are you familiar with the mycoheterotrophs?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Well, I’m interested in a plant called Thismia americana.”

“It’s extinct.”

Margo took a deep breath. “I know. I was hoping… wondering… if there might be a specimen of a similar mycoheterotroph in the Museum’s collection.”

Jörgensen leaned back in his chair and made a tent with his fingers. Margo could see she was in for a lecture. “Thismia americana,” he intoned, as if not having heard her last sentence, “was a rather celebrated plant in botanical circles. It’s not only extinct, but when it was alive it was one of the rarest plants known. Only one botanist ever saw it and took samples. The plant disappeared around 1916, thanks to the expansion of Chicago. It vanished without a trace.”

Margo pretended to be interested in this mini-lecture, even though she already knew every detail. Jörgensen stopped without having answered her question.

“So,” she said, “only one botanist took specimens?”

“That is correct.”

“And what happened to those samples?”

At this, Jörgensen’s ancient face creased into an unusual smile. “They’re right here, naturally.”

“Here? In the Museum’s collection?”

A nod.

“Why isn’t it listed in the online catalog?”

Jörgensen waved his hand dismissively. “That’s because it’s in the Herbarium Vault. There’s a separate catalog for those specimens.”

Margo was speechless at her good luck. “Um, how can I gain access to it?”

“You can’t.”

“But I need it for my research.”

Jörgensen’s face began to take on a pinched look. “My dear girl,” he began, “access to the Herbarium Vault is strictly limited to Museum curators, and then only with the written permission of the director himself.” His voice took on a schoolmaster’s tone. “Those extinct plant specimens are very fragile, and simply can’t stand handling by inexperienced laypersons.”

“But I’m not an inexperienced layperson. I’m an ethnopharmacologist and I have a good reason, a very good reason, to study that specimen.”

The bushy eyebrows raised. “Which is?”

“I’m, ah, doing a study of nineteenth-century medicine—”

“Just a minute,” said Jörgensen, interrupting, “now I recollect where your name came up!” A withered hand snaked out and extracted a document from atop a pile of paper. “I recently received a memo regarding your status here at the Museum.”

Margo was brought up short. “What?”

Jörgensen glanced at it, and then proffered it to her. “See for yourself.”

It was a memo from Frisby to all staff in the Department of Botany. It was short.

Please be advised of a status change regarding outside researcher Dr. Margo Green, an ethnopharmacologist employed by the Pearson Institute. Her access privileges to the collections have been downgraded from Level 1 to Level 5, effective immediately.

Margo was well aware how this little bit of bureaucratese translated: “Level 5” access meant no access at all. “When did you get that?”

“This morning.”

“Why didn’t you mention it before?”

“I don’t pay much attention to Museum missives these days. It’s a miracle I remembered it at all. At eighty-five, my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

Margo sat in the seat, trying to get her temper under control. It would do no good to get mad in front of Jörgensen. Best to be straight, she thought.

“Dr. Jörgensen, I have a friend who is gravely ill. In fact, he’s dying.”

A slow nod.

“The only thing that can save him is an extraction from this plant—Thismia americana.”

Jörgensen frowned. “My dear girl…”

Margo swallowed hard. She was getting awfully tired of this “dear girl” business.

“… You can’t be serious. If this plant would truly save his life, may I see a medical statement to that effect, signed by his doctor?”

“Let me explain. My friend was poisoned, and this extract must be part of the antidote. No doctor knows anything about this.”

“This sounds like quackery to me.”

“I promise you—”

“But even if it were legitimate,” he went on, overriding her, “I would never allow the destruction of an extinct plant specimen, the last of its kind, for a one-off medicinal treatment. What is the value of an ordinary human life in the face of the last specimen of an extinct plant in existence?”

“You…” Margo looked at his face, creased with lines of extreme disapproval. She was flabbergasted by the sentiment he had just expressed: that a scientific specimen was worth more than a human life. She was never going to get through to this man.

She thought fast. She had seen the Herbarium Vault years ago, and recalled that it was essentially a walk-in safe with a keypad lock. The combinations to such locks, for security purposes, were changed on a regular basis. She looked at Jörgensen, who was frowning at her, his arms crossed, waiting for her to finish what she had started to say.

He said his memory wasn’t so sharp these days. Now, that was an important fact. She glanced around the office. Where would he write down a combination? In a book? In his desk? She remembered the old Hitchcock film Marnie, where a businessman had kept the combination to his safe inside a locked drawer of his secretary’s desk. It could be in a thousand places, even in an office this small. Perhaps she could trick him into revealing the location.

“Dr. Green, is there anything else—?”

If she didn’t think of something fast, she’d never get in that vault… and Pendergast would die. The stakes were that high.

She looked directly at Jörgensen. “Where do you hide the combination to the vault?”

The briefest flicker of his eyes, and then he locked them back on her. “What an offensive question! I’ve wasted quite enough time with you already. Good day, Dr. Green.”

Margo rose and left. In that brief moment, his eyes had involuntarily flickered to a spot above and behind her head. As she turned to leave, she observed that the space was occupied by a small, framed botanical print.

She felt hopeful that behind that print would be a safe containing the combination. But how to get Jörgensen out of his bloody office? And even if she found a safe, where would she find its combination? And, assuming she managed to learn the combination, the Herbarium Vault was located deep within the Museum’s basement…

Nevertheless, she had to try.

In the middle of the hallway, she paused. Should she pull a fire alarm? But that would cause the wing to be evacuated and probably get her into trouble.

She continued walking down the hallway, offices and labs on either side. It was still lunch hour, and the place was relatively empty. In one empty lab she spied a Museum phone. She ducked inside, staring at the phone. Could she call him, pretend to be someone’s secretary, ask him to come to a meeting? But he didn’t look like someone who went to meetings… nor someone who would respond favorably to an unexpected summons. And wouldn’t he know most of the secretaries’ voices?

There must be a way to get him out of the office. And that way would be to get him mad, send him off in a fury to dress down a colleague.

She picked up the phone. Instead of calling Jörgensen, she called Frisby’s office. Disguising her voice, she said: “This is the Botany Department office. May I speak with Dr. Frisby? We have a problem.”

Frisby came on a moment later, out of breath. “Yes, what is it?”

“We received your memo about that woman, Dr. Green,” Margo said, keeping her voice muffled and low.

“What about it? She hasn’t been bothering you down there, has she?”

“You know old Dr. Jörgensen? He’s a good friend of Dr. Green. I’m afraid he’s planning to defy your express wishes and give her access to the collection. He’s been railing about your memo all morning. I only mention this because we don’t want trouble, and you know how difficult Dr. Jörgensen can be—”

Frisby slammed down the phone. Margo waited in the empty lab, its door partly open. In a few minutes she heard a huffing sound and an enraged Jörgensen came striding past, face red, looking remarkably robust for his age — no doubt heading for Frisby’s office to set him straight.

Margo quickly hustled down the hall and, to her relief, found that his office door had been left wide open in his hurried exit. She ducked in, eased the door shut, and lifted the botanical print from the wall.

Nothing. No safe — just a blank wall.

She felt crushed. Why had he looked in that direction? There was nothing else on the wall. Maybe it was just a random glance, or maybe she hadn’t gotten a good fix on it. She was about to put the picture back when she noticed a piece of paper taped to the rear of the frame, with a list of numbers on it. All the numbers had been crossed out but the last.