Relic

= 27 =

Smithback dumped his notebooks beside one of his favorite library carrels. Sighing heavily, he squeezed himself into the cramped space, placed his laptop on the desk, and turned on the small overhead light. He was only a stone’s throw from the oak-panelled reading room, with its red leather chairs and marble fireplace that hadn’t seen use in a century. But Smithback preferred the narrow, scuffed carrels. He especially liked the ones that were hidden deep in the stacks, where he could examine documents and manuscripts he’d temporarily liberated—or catch forty winks—in privacy and relative comfort.

The Museum’s collection of new, old, and rare books on all aspects of natural history was unrivalled. It had received so many bequests and privately donated collections over the years that its card catalogue was always hopelessly behind. Yet Smithback knew the library better even than most of the librarians. He could find a buried factoid in record time.

[178] Now he pursed his lips, thinking. Moriarty was a stubborn bureaucrat, and Smithback himself had come up empty with Kawakita. He didn’t know anyone else who could get him into the accession database. But there was more than one way to approach this puzzle.

At the microfilm card file, he started flipping through the New York Times index. He backtracked as far as 1975. Nothing there—or, as he soon discovered, in the relevant natural history and anthropological journals.

He checked the back issues of the Museum’s internal periodicals for information on the expedition. Nothing. In the 1985 Who’s Who At NYMNH, a two-line bio of Whittlesey told him nothing he didn’t already know.

He cursed under his breath. This guy’s hidden deeper than the Oak Island treasure.

Smithback slowly put the volumes back on their racks, looking around. Then, taking some sheets from a notebook, he strolled nonchalantly up to the desk of a reference librarian, first making sure he hadn’t seen her before.

“Gotta put these back in the archives,” he told the librarian.

She blinked up at him severely. “Are you new around here?”

“I’m from the science library, just got transferred up last week. On rotation, you know.” He gave her a smile, hoped it looked bright and genuine.

She frowned at him, uncertain, as the phone on her desk began to ring. She hesitated, then answered it, distractedly handing him a clipboard and a key on a long, blue cord. “Sign in,” she said, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.

The library archives lay behind an unmarked gray door in a remote corner of the library stacks. It was a gamble in more ways than one. Smithback had been [179] inside once before, on legitimate business. He knew that the bulk of the Museum’s archives were stored elsewhere, and that the library’s files were very specific. But something was nagging him. He closed the door and moved forward, scanning the shelves and the stacks of labeled boxes.

He had progressed down one side of the room and was starting up the other when he stopped. Carefully, he reached up and brought down a box labeled CENTRAL RECVG/SHPG: AIR CARGO RECEIPTS. Squatting down, he rustled quickly through the papers.

Once again, he went back as far as 1975. Disappointed, he rustled through them again. Nothing.

As he returned the box to its high perch, his eye caught another label: BILLS OF LADING, 1970-1990. He couldn’t risk more than another five minutes, tops.

His finger stopped near the end of the pile. “Gotcha,” he whispered, pulling a smudged sheet free of the box. From his pocket, he extracted his microcassette recorder and quietly spoke the pertinent words, dates, and places: Belém; Port of New Orleans; Brooklyn. The Strella de Venezuela—Star of Venezuela. Odd, he thought. Awfully long layover in New Orleans.

“You seem pretty pleased with yourself,” the librarian said as she stowed the key back in the desk.

“Have a nice day,” Smithback said. He finished the entry on the archives clipboard: Sebastian Melmoth, in 11:10, out 11:25.

Back at the microfilm catalog, Smithback paused. He knew the New Orleans newspaper had a strange name, very antebellum-sounding—Times-Picayune, that was it.

He scanned the catalog quickly. There it was: Times-Picayune, 1840-present.

He snapped the 1988 reel into the machine. As he neared October, he slowed, then stopped completely. A [180] large, 72-point banner headline stared at him out of the microfilm viewer.

“Oh, God,” he breathed.

He now knew, without a shred of doubt, why the Whittlesey crates had spent so long in New Orleans.