Blue Labyrinth

64

Dr. Horace Stone found himself suddenly awake in the room with his patient. He did not care for nursing duties, but his patient was paying him extremely well and the case was most unusual, if not fascinating. There would be an excellent JAMA article in this — of course, not until after the patient’s demise and postmortem, when they might have at least a better chance of diagnosing this most unusual affliction.

An excellent article indeed.

Now he saw what had awakened him. Pendergast’s eyes had opened and were drilling into him with intensity.

“My phone?”

“Yes, sir.” Stone fetched the phone from the bureau and handed it to him.

He examined it, his face pale. “Nine twenty. Constance — where is she?”

“I believe she just left.”

“You believe?”

“Well,” said Stone, flustered. “I heard her say good-bye to Mrs. Trask, I heard the door shut, and there was a livery cab outside that took her away.”

Stone was shocked when Pendergast rose in his bed. He was clearly coming into the remissive phase of the disease.

“I strongly advise—”

“Be silent,” said Pendergast, pushing back the covers and, with difficulty, rising to his feet. He pulled the IV from his arm. “Step aside.”

“Mr. Pendergast, I simply cannot allow you to leave your bed.”

Pendergast turned his pale, glittering eyes upon Dr. Stone. “If you try to stop me, I will hurt you.”

This naked threat stopped Stone’s retort. The patient was clearly febrile, delusional, perhaps hallucinating. Stone had asked for a nurse and been denied one. He could not handle this on his own. He retreated from the room as Pendergast began changing out of his bedclothes.

“Mrs. Trask?” he called. The house was so blasted large. “Mrs. Trask!”

He heard the housekeeper bustling around downstairs, calling from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes, Doctor?”

Pendergast appeared in the bedroom doorway, slipping into his black suit, stuffing a sheet of paper into one pocket, and sliding his gun into an inside holster. Dr. Stone stepped aside to let him pass.

“Mr. Pendergast, I repeat, you are in no condition to leave the house!”

Pendergast ignored him and headed down the stairs, moving slowly, like an old man. Dr. Stone followed in pursuit. A frightened Mrs. Trask hovered at the bottom.

“Please get me a car,” Pendergast told the housekeeper.

“Yes, sir.”

“You can’t get him a car!” Stone expostulated. “Look at his condition!”

Mrs. Trask turned to him. “When Mr. Pendergast asks for something, we do not say no.”

Dr. Stone looked from her to Pendergast himself who, despite being obviously debilitated, returned the stare with such an icy look that he was finally silenced. It all happened so quickly. Now Mrs. Trask was hanging up the phone and Pendergast, staggering slightly, made his way to the porte cochere entrance. In a moment he was out the door, and the red taillights of the hired car were turning up the drive.

Stone sat down, breathing hard. He had never quite seen a patient with such steely resolve in the grip of such a fatal illness.

As he reclined in the rear of the car, Pendergast took the piece of paper from his pocket and read it over. It was a note, in Constance’s copperplate hand: the list of chemical compounds and other ingredients. Beside some of these ingredients, locales had been listed.

Pendergast read the list over carefully, first once, then twice. And then he folded the page over on itself, tore it into small pieces, lowered the window of the car, and allowed the pieces to float out into the Manhattan night, one by one.

The cab turned onto the entrance ramp for the West Side Highway, heading for the Manhattan Bridge and, ultimately, Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.