The Cabinet of Curiosities

ONE

NORA WATCHED THE Silver Wraith approach her at an alarming speed, weaving through the Central Park West traffic, red light flashing incongruously on its dashboard. The car screeched to a stop alongside her as the rear door flew open.

“Get in!” called Pendergast.

She jumped inside, the sudden acceleration throwing her back against the white leather of the seat.

Pendergast had lowered the center armrest. He looked straight ahead, his face grimmer than Nora had ever seen it. He seemed to see nothing, notice nothing, as the car tore northward, rocking slightly, bounding over potholes and gaping cracks in the asphalt. To Nora’s right, Central Park raced by, the trees a blur.

“I tried reaching Smithback on his cell phone,” Nora said. “He isn’t answering.”

Pendergast did not reply.

“You really believe Leng’s still alive?”

“I know so.”

Nora was silent a moment. Then she had to ask. “Do you think — Do you think he’s got Smithback?”

Pendergast did not answer immediately. “The expense voucher Smithback filled out stated he would return the car by five this evening.”

By five this evening… Nora felt herself consumed by agitation and panic. Already, Smithback was over six hours overdue.

“If he’s parked near Leng’s house, we might just be able to find him.” Pendergast leaned forward, sliding open the glass panel that isolated the rear compartment. “Proctor, when we reach 131st Street, we’ll be looking for a silver Ford Taurus, New York license ELI-7734, with rental car decals.”

He closed the panel, leaned back against the seat. Another silence fell as the car shot left onto Cathedral Parkway and sped toward the river.

“We would have known Leng’s address in forty-eight hours,” he said, almost to himself. “We were very close. A little more care, a little more method, was all it would have taken. Now, we don’t have forty-eight hours.”

“How much time do we have?”

“I’m afraid we don’t have any,” Pendergast murmured.

TWO

CUSTER WATCHED BRISBANE unlock his office door, open it, then step irritably aside to allow them to enter. Custer stepped through the doorway, the flush of returning confidence adding gravity to his stride. There was no need to hurry; not anymore. He turned, looked around: very clean and modern, lots of chrome and glass. Two large windows looked over Central Park and, beyond, at the twinkling wall of lights that made up Fifth Avenue. His eyes fell to the desk that dominated the center of the room. Antique inkwell, silver clock, expensive knickknacks. And a glass box full of gemstones. Cushy, cushy.

“Nice office,” he said.

Shrugging the compliment aside, Brisbane draped his tuxedo jacket over his chair, then sat down behind the desk. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he said truculently. “It’s eleven o’clock. I expect you to say what you have to say, then have your men vacate the premises until we can determine a mutually agreeable course of action.”

“Of course, of course.” Custer moved about the office, hefting a paperweight here, admiring a picture there. He could see Brisbane growing increasingly irritated. Good. Let the man stew. Eventually, he’d say something.

“Shall we get on with it, Captain?” Brisbane pointedly gestured for Custer to take a seat.

Just as pointedly, Custer continued circling the large office. Except for the knickknacks and the case of gems on the desk and the paintings on the walls, the office looked bare, save for one wall that contained shelving and a closet.

“Mr. Brisbane, I understand you’re the Museum’s general counsel?”

“That’s right.”

“An important position.”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

Custer moved toward the shelves, examined a mother-of-pearl fountain pen displayed on one of them. “I understand your feelings of invasion here, Mr. Brisbane.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“To a certain extent, you feel it’s your place. You feel protective of the Museum.”

“I do.”

Custer nodded, his gaze moving along the shelf to an antique Chinese snuffbox set with stones. He picked it up. “Naturally, you don’t like a bunch of policemen barging in here.”

“Frankly, I don’t. I’ve told you as much several times already. That’s a very valuable snuffbox, Captain.”

Custer returned it, picked up something else. “I imagine this whole thing’s been rather hard on you. First, there was the discovery of the skeletons left by that nineteenth-century serial killer. Then there was that letter discovered in the Museum’s collections. Very unpleasant.”

“The adverse publicity could have easily harmed the Museum.”

“Then there was that curator—?”

“Nora Kelly.”

Custer noted a new tone creeping into Brisbane’s voice: dislike, disapproval, perhaps a sense of injury.

“The same one who found the skeletons — and the hidden letter, correct? You didn’t like her working on this case. Worried about adverse publicity, I suppose.”

“I thought she should be doing her research. That’s what she was being paid to do.”

“You didn’t want her helping the police?”

“Naturally, I wanted her to do what she could to help the police. I just didn’t want her neglecting her museum duties.”

Custer nodded sagely. “Of course. And then she was chased in the Archives, almost killed. By the Surgeon.” He moved to a nearby bookshelf. The only books it contained were half a dozen fat legal tomes. Even their bindings managed to look stultifyingly dull. He tapped his finger on a spine. “You’re a lawyer?”

“General counsel usually means lawyer.”

This bounced off Custer without leaving a dent. “I see. Been here how long?”

“A little over two years.”

“Like it?”

“It’s a very interesting place to work. Now look, I thought we were going to talk about getting your men out of here.”

“Soon.” Custer turned. “Visit the Archives much?”

“Not so much. More, lately, of course, with all the activity.”

“I see. Interesting place, the Archives.” He turned briefly to see the effect of this observation on Brisbane. The eyes. Watch the eyes.

“I suppose some find it so.”

“But not you.”

“Boxes of paper and moldy specimens don’t interest me.”

“And yet you visited there”—Custer consulted his notebook—“let’s see, no less than eight times in the last ten days.”

“I doubt it was that often. On Museum business, in any case.”

“In any case.” He looked shrewdly back at Brisbane. “The Archives. Where the body of Puck was found. Where Nora Kelly was chased.”

“You mentioned her already.”

“And then there’s Smithback, that annoying reporter?”

“Annoying is an understatement.”

“Didn’t want him around, did you? Well, who would?”

“My thinking exactly. You’ve heard, of course, how he impersonated a security officer? Stole Museum files?”

“I’ve heard, I’ve heard. Fact is, we’re looking for the man, but he seems to have disappeared. You wouldn’t know where he was, by any chance, would you?” He added a faint emphasis to this last phrase.

“Of course not.”

“Of course not.” Custer returned his attention to the gems. He stroked the glass case with a fat finger. “And then there’s that FBI agent, Pendergast. The one who was attacked. Also very annoying.”

Brisbane remained silent.

“Didn’t much like him around either — eh, Mr. Brisbane?”

“We had enough policemen crawling over the place. Why compound it with the FBI? And speaking of policemen crawling around—”

“It’s just that I find it very curious, Mr. Brisbane…” Custer let the sentence trail off.

“What do you find curious, Captain?”

There was a commotion in the hallway outside, then the door opened abruptly. A police sergeant entered, dusty, wide-eyed, sweating.

“Captain!” he gasped. “We were interviewing this woman just now, a curator, and she locked—”

Custer looked at the man — O’Grady, his name was — reprovingly. “Not now, Sergeant. Can’t you see I’m conducting a conversation here?”

“But—”

“You heard the captain,” Noyes interjected, propelling the protesting sergeant toward the door.

Custer waited until the door closed again, then turned back to Brisbane. “I find it curious how very interested you’ve been in this case,” he said.

“It’s my job.”

“I know that. You’re a very dedicated man. I’ve also noticed your dedication in human resources matters. Hiring, firing…”

“That’s correct.”

“Reinhart Puck, for example.”

“What about him?”

Custer consulted his notebook again. “Why exactly did you try to fire Mr. Puck, just two days before his murder?”

Brisbane started to say something, then hesitated. A new thought seemed to have occurred to him.

“Strange timing there, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Brisbane?”

The man smiled thinly. “Captain, I felt the position was extraneous. The Museum is having financial difficulties. And Mr. Puck had been… well, he had not been cooperative. Of course, it had nothing to do with the murder.”

“But they wouldn’t let you fire him, would they?”

“He’d been with the Museum over twenty-five years. They felt it might affect morale.”

“Must’ve made you angry, being shot down like that.”

Brisbane’s smile froze in place. “Captain, I hope you’re not suggesting I had anything to do with the murder.”

Custer raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. “Am I?”

“Since I assume you’re asking a rhetorical question, I won’t bother to answer it.”

Custer smiled. He didn’t know what a rhetorical question was, but he could see that his questions were finding their mark. He gave the gem case another stroke, then glanced around. He’d covered the office; all that remained was the closet. He strolled over, put his hand on the handle, paused.

“But it did make you angry? Being contradicted like that, I mean.”

“No one is pleased to be countermanded,” Brisbane replied icily. “The man was an anachronism, his work habits clearly inefficient. Look at that typewriter he insisted on using for all his correspondence.”

“Yes. The typewriter. The one the murderer used to write one — make that two — notes. You knew about that typewriter, I take it?”

“Everybody did. The man was infamous for refusing to allow a computer terminal on his desk, refusing to use e-mail.”

“I see.” Custer nodded, opened the closet.

As if on cue, an old-fashioned black derby hat fell out, bounced across the floor, and rolled in circles until it finally came to rest at Custer’s feet.

Custer looked down at it in astonishment. It couldn’t have happened more perfectly if this had been an Agatha Christie murder mystery. This kind of thing just didn’t happen in real policework. He could hardly believe it.

He looked up at Brisbane, his eyebrows arching quizzically.

Brisbane looked first confounded, then flustered, then angry.

“It was for a costume party at the Museum,” the lawyer said. “You can check for yourself. Everyone saw me in it. I’ve had it for years.”

Custer poked his head into the closet, rummaged around, and removed a black umbrella, tightly furled. He brought it out, stood it up on its point, then released it. The umbrella toppled over beside the hat. He looked up again at Brisbane. The seconds ticked on.

“This is absurd!” exploded Brisbane.

“I haven’t said anything,” said Custer. He looked at Noyes. “Did you say anything?”

“No, sir, I didn’t say anything.”

“So what exactly, Mr. Brisbane, is absurd?”

“What you’re thinking—” The man could hardly get out the words. “That I’m… that, you know… Oh, this is perfectly ridiculous!”

Custer placed his hands behind his back. He came forward slowly, one step after another, until he reached the desk. And then, very deliberately, he leaned over it.

“What am I thinking, Mr. Brisbane?” he asked quietly.

THREE

THE ROLLS ROCKETED up Riverside, their driver weaving expertly through the lines of traffic, threading the big vehicle through impossibly narrow gaps, sometimes forcing opposing cars onto the curb. It was after eleven P.M., and the traffic was beginning to thin out. But the curbs of Riverside and the side streets that led away from it remained completely jammed with parked cars.

The car swerved onto 131st Street, slowing abruptly. And almost immediately — no more than half a dozen cars in from Riverside — Nora spotted it: a silver Ford Taurus, New York plate ELI-7734.

Pendergast got out, walked over to the parked car, leaned toward the dashboard to verify the VIN. Then he moved around to the passenger door and broke the glass with an almost invisible jab. The alarm shrieked in protest while he searched the glove compartment and the rest of the interior. In a moment he returned.

“The car’s empty,” he told Nora. “He must have taken the address with him. We’ll have to hope Leng’s house is close by.”

Telling Proctor to park at Grant’s Tomb and wait for their call, Pendergast led the way down 131st in long, sweeping strides. Within moments they reached the Drive itself. Riverside Park stretched away across the street, its trees like gaunt sentinels at the edge of a vast, unknown tract of darkness. Beyond the park was the Hudson, glimmering in the vague moonlight.

Nora looked left and right, at the countless blocks of decrepit apartment buildings, old abandoned mansions, and squalid welfare hotels that stretched in both directions. “How are we going to find it?” she asked.

“It will have certain characteristics,” Pendergast replied. “It will be a private house, at least a hundred years old, not broken into apartments. It will probably look abandoned, but it will be very secure. We’ll head south first.”

But before proceeding, he stopped and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Normally, I’d never allow a civilian along on a police action.”

“But that’s my boyfriend caught—”

Pendergast raised his hand. “We have no time for discussion. I have already considered carefully what it is we face. I’m going to be as blunt as possible. If we do find Leng’s house, the chances of my succeeding without assistance are very small.”

“Good. I wouldn’t let you leave me behind, anyway.”

“I know that. I also know that, given Leng’s cunning, two people have a better chance of success than a large — and loud — official response. Even if we could get such a response in time. But I must tell you, Dr. Kelly, I am bringing you into a situation where there are an almost infinite number of unknown variables. In short, it is a situation in which it is very possible one or both of us may be killed.”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

“One final comment, then. In my opinion, Smithback is already dead, or will be by the time we find the house, get inside, and secure Leng. This rescue operation is already, therefore, a probable failure.”

Nora nodded, unable to reply.

Without another word, Pendergast turned and began to walk south.

They passed several old houses clearly broken into apartments, then a welfare hotel, the resident alcoholics watching them apathetically from the steps. Next came a long row of sordid tenements.

And then, at Tiemann Place, Pendergast paused before an abandoned building. It was a small townhouse, its windows boarded over, the buzzer missing. He stared up at it briefly, then went quickly around to the side, peered over a broken railing, returned.

“What do you think?” Nora whispered.

“I think we go in.”

Two heavy pieces of plywood, chained shut, covered the opening where the door had been. Pendergast grasped the lock on the chain. A white hand slid into his suit jacket and emerged, holding a small device with toothpick-like metal attachments projecting from one end. It gleamed in the reflected light of the street lamp.

“What’s that?” Nora asked.

“Electronic lockpick,” Pendergast replied, fitting it to the padlock. The latch sprung open in his long white hands. He pulled the chain away from the plywood and ducked inside, Nora following.

A noisome stench welled out of the darkness. Pendergast pulled out his flashlight and shined the beam over a blizzard of decay: rotting garbage, dead rats, exposed lath, needles and crack vials, standing puddles of rank water. Without a word he turned and exited, Nora following.

They worked their way down as far as 120th Street. Here, the neighborhood improved and most of the buildings were occupied.

“There’s no point in going farther,” Pendergast said tersely. “We’ll head north instead.”

They hurried back to 131st Street — the point where their search had begun — and continued north. This proved much slower going. The neighborhood deteriorated until it seemed as if most of the buildings were abandoned. Pendergast dismissed many out of hand, but he broke into one, then another, then a third, while Nora watched the street.

At 136th Street they stopped before yet another ruined house. Pendergast looked toward it, scrutinizing the facade, then turned his eyes northward, silent and withdrawn. He was pale; the activity had clearly taxed his weakened frame.

It was as if the entire Drive, once lined with elegant townhouses, was now one long, desolate ruin. It seemed to Nora that Leng could be in any one of those houses.

Pendergast dropped his eyes toward the ground. “It appears,” he said in a low voice, “that Mr. Smithback had difficulty finding parking.”

Nora nodded, feeling a rising despair. The Surgeon now had Smithback at least six hours, perhaps several more. She would not follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion.

FOUR

CUSTER ALLOWED BRISBANE to stew for a minute, then two. And then he smiled — almost conspiratorially — at the lawyer. “Mind if I…?” he began, nodding toward the bizarre chrome-and-glass chair before Brisbane’s desk.

Brisbane nodded. “Of course.”

Custer sank down, trying to maneuver his bulk into the most comfortable position the chair would allow. Then he smiled again. “Now, you were about to say something?” He hiked a pant leg, tried to throw it over the other, but the weird angle of the chair knocked it back against the floor. Unruffled, he cocked his head, raising an eyebrow quizzically across the desk.

Brisbane’s composure had returned. “Nothing. I just thought, with the hat…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“In that case, tell me about the Museum’s costume party.”

“The Museum often throws fund-raisers. Hall openings, parties for big donors, that sort of thing. Once in a while, it’s a costume ball. I always wear the same thing. I dress like an English banker on his way to the City. Derby hat, pinstriped pants, cutaway.”

“I see.” Custer glanced at the umbrella. “And the umbrella?”

“Everybody owns a black umbrella.”

A veil had dropped over the man’s emotions. Lawyer’s training, no doubt.

“How long have you owned the hat?”

“I already told you.”

“And where did you buy it?”

“Let’s see… at an old antique shop in the Village. Or perhaps TriBeCa. Lispinard Street, I believe.”

“How much did it cost?”

“I don’t remember. Thirty or forty dollars.” For a moment, Brisbane’s composure slipped ever so slightly. “Look, why are you so interested in that hat? A lot of people own derby hats.”

Watch the eyes. And the eyes looked panicked. The eyes looked guilty.

“Really?” Custer replied in an even voice. “A lot of people? The only person I know who owns a derby hat in New York City is the killer.”

This was the first mention of the word “killer,” and Custer gave it a slight, but noticeable, emphasis. Really, he was playing this beautifully, like a master angler bringing in a huge trout. He wished this was being captured on video. The chief would want to see it, perhaps make it available as a training film for aspiring detectives. “Let’s get back to the umbrella.”

“I bought it… I can’t remember. I’m always buying and losing umbrellas.” Brisbane shrugged casually, but his shoulders were stiff.

“And the rest of your costume?”

“In the closet. Go ahead, take a look.”

Custer had no doubt the rest of the costume would match the description of a black, old-fashioned coat. He ignored the attempted distraction. “Where did you buy it?”

“I think I found the pants and coat at that used formalwear shop near Bloomingdale’s. I just can’t think of the name.”

“No doubt.” Custer glanced searchingly at Brisbane. “Odd choice for a costume party, don’t you think? English banker, I mean.”

“I dislike looking ridiculous. I’ve worn that costume half a dozen times to Museum parties, you can check with anyone. I put that costume to good use.”

“Oh, I have no doubt you put it to good use. Good use indeed.” Custer glanced over at Noyes. The man was excited, a kind of hungry, almost slavering look on his face. He, at least, realized what was coming.

“Where were you, Mr. Brisbane, on October 12, between eleven o’clock in the evening and four o’clock the following morning?” This was the time bracket the coroner had determined during which Puck had been killed.

Brisbane seemed to think. “Let’s see… It’s hard to remember.” He laughed again.

Custer laughed, too.

“I can’t remember what I did that night. Not precisely. After twelve or one, I would have been in bed, of course. But before then… Yes, I remember now. I was at home that night. Catching up on my reading.”

“And you live alone, Mr. Brisbane?”

“Yes.”

“So you have no one who can vouch for you being at home? A landlady, perhaps? Girlfriend? Boy friend?”

Brisbane frowned. “No. No, nothing like that. So, if it’s all the same to you—”

“One moment, Mr. Brisbane. And where did you say you live?”

“I didn’t say. Ninth Street, near University Place.”

“Hmmm. No more than a dozen blocks from Tompkins Square Park. Where the second murder took place.”

“That’s a very interesting coincidence, no doubt.”

“It is.” Custer glanced out the windows, where Central Park lay beneath a mantle of darkness. “And no doubt it’s a coincidence that the first murder took place right out there, in the Ramble.”

Brisbane’s frown deepened. “Really, Detective, I think we’ve reached the point where questions end and speculation begins.” He pushed back his chair, prepared to stand up. “And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with the business of clearing your men out of this Museum.”

Custer made a suppressing motion with one hand, glanced again at Noyes. Get ready. “There’s just one other thing. The third murder.” He slid a piece of paper out of his notebook with a nonchalant motion. “Do you know an Oscar Gibbs?”

“Yes, I believe so. Mr. Puck’s assistant.”

“Exactly. According to the testimony of Mr. Gibbs, on the afternoon of October 12, you and Mr. Puck had a little, ah, discussion in the Archives. This was after you found out that Human Resources had not supported your recommendation to fire Puck.”

Brisbane colored slightly. “I wouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

Custer smiled. “I don’t, Mr. Brisbane. Believe me, I don’t.” He followed this with a long, delicious pause. “Now, this Mr. Oscar Gibbs said that you and Puck were yelling at each other. Or rather, you were yelling at Puck. Care to tell me, in your words, what that was about?”

“I was reprimanding Mr. Puck.”

“What for?”

“Neglecting my instructions.”

“Which were?”

“To stick to his job.”

“To stick to his job. How had he been deviating from his job?”

“He was doing outside work, helping Nora Kelly with her external projects, when I had specifically—”

It was time. Custer pounced.

“According to Mr. Oscar Gibbs, you were (and I will read): screaming and yelling and threatening to bury Mr. Puck. He (that’s you, Mr. Brisbane) said he wasn’t through by a long shot.” Custer lowered the paper, glanced at Brisbane. “That’s the word you used: ‘bury.’ ”

“It’s a common figure of speech.”

“And then, not twenty-four hours later, Puck’s body was found, gored on a dinosaur in the Archives. After having been butchered, most likely in those very same Archives. An operation like that takes time, Mr. Brisbane. Clearly, it was done by somebody who knew the Museum’s ways very well. Someone with a security clearance. Someone who could move around the Museum without exciting notice. An insider, if you will. And then, Nora Kelly gets a phony note, typed on Puck’s typewriter, asking her to come down — and she herself is attacked, pursued with deadly intent. Nora Kelly. The other thorn in your side. The third thorn, the FBI agent, was in the hospital at this point, having been attacked by someone wearing a derby hat.”

Brisbane stared at him in disbelief.

“Why didn’t you want Puck to help Nora Kelly in her — what did you call them—external projects?”

This was answered by silence.

“What were you afraid she would find? They would find?”

Brisbane’s mouth worked briefly. “I… I…”

Now Custer slipped in the knife. “Why the copycat angle, Mr. Brisbane? Was it something you found in the Archives? Is that what prompted you to do it? Was Puck getting too close to learning something?”

At this, Brisbane found his voice at last. He shot to his feet. “Now, just a minute—”

Custer turned. “Officer Noyes?”

“Yes?” Noyes responded eagerly.

“Cuff him.”

“No,” Brisbane gasped. “You fool, you’re making a terrible mistake—”

Custer worked his way out of the chair — it was not as smooth a motion as he would have wished — and began abruptly booming out the Miranda rights: “You have the right to remain silent—”

“This is an outrage—”

“—you have the right to an attorney—”

“I will not accept this!”

“—you have the right—”

He thundered it out to the bitter end, overriding Brisbane’s protestations. He watched as the gleeful Noyes slapped the cuffs on the man. It was the most satisfying collar Custer could ever remember. It was, in fact, the single greatest job of police work he had done in his life. This was the stuff of legend. For many years to come, they’d be telling the story of how Captain Custer put the cuffs on the Surgeon.

FIVE

PENDERGAST SET OFF up Riverside once again, black suit coat open and flapping behind him in the Manhattan night. Nora hurried after. Her thoughts returned to Smithback, imprisoned in one of these gaunt buildings. She tried to force the image from her mind, but it kept returning, again and again. She was almost physically sick with worry about what might be happening — what might have already happened.

She wondered how she could have been so angry with him. It’s true that much of the time he was impossible — a schemer, impulsive, always looking for an angle, always getting himself into trouble. And yet many of those same negative qualities were his most endearing. She thought back to how he’d dressed up as a bum to help her retrieve the old dress from the excavation; how he’d come to warn her after Pendergast was stabbed. When push came to shove, he was there. She had been awfully hard on him. But it was too late to be sorry. She suppressed a sob of bitter regret.

They moved past guttered mansions and once elegant townhouses, now festering crack dens and shooting galleries for junkies. Pendergast gave each building a searching look, always turning away with a little shake of his head.

Nora’s thoughts flitted briefly to Leng himself. It seemed impossible that he could still be alive, concealed within one of these crumbling dwellings. She glanced up the Drive again. She had to concentrate, try to pick his house out from the others. Wherever he lived, it would be comfortable. A man who had lived over a hundred and fifty years would be excessively concerned with comfort. But it would no doubt give the surface impression of being abandoned. And it would be well-nigh impregnable — Leng wouldn’t want any unexpected visitors. This was the perfect neighborhood for such a place: abandoned, yet once elegant; externally shabby, yet livable inside; boarded up; very private.

The trouble was, so many of the buildings met those criteria.

Then, near the corner of 138th Street, Pendergast stopped dead. He turned, slowly, to face yet another abandoned building. It was a large, decayed mansion, a hulking shadow of bygone glory, set back from the street by a small service drive. Like many others, the first floor had been securely boarded up with tin. It looked just like a dozen other buildings they had passed. And yet Pendergast was staring at it with an expression of intentness Nora had not seen before.

Silently, he turned the corner of 138th Street. Nora followed, watching him. The FBI agent moved slowly, eyes mostly on the ground, with just occasional darted glances up at the building. They continued down the block until they reached the corner of Broadway. The moment they turned the corner, Pendergast spoke.

“That’s it.”

“How do you know?”

“The crest carved on the escutcheon over the door. Three apothecary balls over a sprig of hemlock.” He waved his hand. “Forgive me if I reserve explanations for later. Follow my lead. And be very, very careful.”

He continued around the block until they reached the corner of Riverside Drive and 137th. Nora looked at the building with a mixture of curiosity, apprehension, and outright fear. It was a large, four-story, brick-and-stone structure that occupied the entire short block. Its frontage was enclosed in a wrought iron fence, ivy covering the rusty pointed rails. The garden within was long gone, taken over by weeds, bushes, and garbage. A carriage drive circled the rear of the house, exiting on 138th Street. Though the lower windows were securely boarded over, the upper courses remained unblocked, although at least one window on the second story was broken. She stared up at the crest Pendergast had mentioned. An inscription in Greek ran around its edge.

A gust of wind rustled the bare limbs in the yard; the reflected moon, the scudding clouds, flickered in the glass panes of the upper stories. The place looked haunted.

Pendergast ducked into the carriage drive, Nora following close behind. The agent kicked aside some garbage with his shoe and, after a quick look around, stepped up to a solid oak door set into deep shadow beneath the porte-cochère. It seemed to Nora as if Pendergast merely caressed the lock; and then the door opened silently on well-oiled hinges.

They stepped quickly inside. Pendergast eased the door closed, and Nora heard the sound of a lock clicking. A moment of intense darkness while they stood still, listening for any sounds from within. The old house was silent. After a minute, the yellow line of Pendergast’s hooded flashlight appeared, scanning the room around them.

They were standing in a small entryway. The floor was polished marble, and the walls were papered in heavy velvet fabric. Dust covered everything. Pendergast stood still, directing his light at a series of footprints — some shod, some stockinged — that had disturbed the dust on the floor. He looked at them for so long, studying them as an art student studies an old master, that Nora felt impatience begin to overwhelm her. At last he led the way, slowly, through the room and down a short passage leading into a large, long hall. It was paneled in a very rich, dense wood, and the low ceiling was intricately worked, a blend of the gothic and austere.

This hall was full of an odd assortment of displays Nora was unable to comprehend: weird tables, cabinets, large boxes, iron cages, strange apparatus.

“A magician’s warehouse,” Pendergast murmured in answer to her unspoken question.

They passed through the room, beneath an archway, and into a grand reception hall. Once again, Pendergast stopped to study several lines of footprints that crossed and recrossed the parquet floor.

“Barefoot, now,” she heard him say to himself. “And this time, he was running.”

He quickly probed the immense space with his beam. Nora saw an astonishing range of objects: mounted skeletons, fossils, glass-fronted cabinets full of wondrous and terrible artifacts, gems, skulls, meteorites, iridescent beetles. The flashlight played briefly over all. The scent of cobwebs, leather, and old buckram hung heavy in the thick air, veiling a fainter — and much less pleasant — smell.

“What is this place?” Nora asked.

“Leng’s cabinet of curiosities.” A two-toned pistol had appeared in Pendergast’s left hand. The stench was worse now; sickly sweet, oily, that filled the air like a wet fog, clinging to her hair, limbs, clothes.

He moved forward, warily, his light playing off the various objects in the room. Some of the objects were uncovered, but most were draped. The walls were lined with glass cases, and Pendergast moved toward them, his flashlight licking from one to the next. The glass sparked and shimmered as the beam hit it; dark shadows, thrown from the objects within, reared forward as if living things.

Suddenly, the beam stopped dead. Nora watched as Pendergast’s pale face lost what little color it normally had. For a moment, he simply stared, motionless, not even seeming to draw breath. Then, very slowly, he approached the case. The beam of the flashlight trembled a bit as he moved. Nora followed, wondering what had had such a galvanic effect on the agent.

The glass case was not like the rest. It did not contain a skeleton, stuffed trophy, or carven image. Instead, behind the glass stood the figure of a dead man, legs and arms strapped upright between crude iron bars and cuffs, mounted as if for museum display. The man was dressed in severe black, with a nineteenth-century frock coat and striped pants.

“Who—?” Nora managed to say.

But Pendergast was transfixed, hearing nothing, his face rigid. All his attention was concentrated on the mounted man. The light played mercilessly about the corpse. It lingered for a long time on one particular detail — a pallid hand, the flesh shrunken and shriveled, a single knucklebone poking from a tear in the rotten flesh.

Nora stared at the exposed knuckle, red and ivory against the parchment skin. With a nauseous lurch in the pit of her stomach, she realized that the hand was missing all its fingernails; that, in fact, nothing remained of the fingertips but bloody stumps, punctuated by protruding bones.

Then — slowly, inexorably — the light began traveling up the front of the corpse. The beam rose past the buttons of the coat, up the starched shirtfront, before at last stopping on the face.

It was mummified, shrunken, wizened. And yet it was surprisingly well preserved, all the features modeled as finely as if carved from stone. The lips, which had dried and shriveled, were drawn back in a rictus of merriment, exposing two beautiful rows of white teeth. Only the eyes were gone: empty sockets like bottomless pools no light could illuminate.

There was a hollow, muffled sound of rustling coming from inside the skull.

The journey through the house had already numbed Nora with horror. But now her mind went blank with an even worse shock: the shock of recognition.

She automatically turned, speechless, to Pendergast. His frame remained rigid, his eyes wide and staring. Whatever it was he had expected to find, it was not this.

She shifted her horrified gaze back at the corpse. Even in death, there could be no question. The corpse had the same marble-colored skin, the same refined features, the same thin lips and aquiline nose, the same high smooth forehead and delicate chin, the same fine pale hair — as Pendergast himself.

SIX

CUSTER OBSERVED THE perp— he’d already begun to call him that — with deep satisfaction. The man stood in his office, hands cuffed behind him, black tie askew and white shirt rumpled, hair disheveled, dark circles of sweat beneath his armpits. How are the mighty fallen, indeed. He’d held out a long time, kept up that arrogant, impatient facade. But now, the eyes were red, the lips trembling. He hadn’t believed it was really going to happen to him. It was the cuffs that did it, Custer thought knowingly to himself. He had seen it happen many times before, to men a lot tougher than Brisbane. Something about the cool clasp of the manacles around your wrists, the realization that you were under arrest, powerless—in custody—was more than some people could take.

The true, the pure, police work was over — now it was just a matter of collecting all the little evidentiary details, work for the lower echelons to complete. Custer himself could take leave of the scene.

He glanced at Noyes and saw admiration shining in the small hound face. Then he turned back to the perp.

“Well, Brisbane,” he said. “It all falls into place, doesn’t it?”

Brisbane looked at him with uncomprehending eyes.

“Murderers always think they’re smarter than everyone else. Especially the police. But when you get down to it, Brisbane, you really didn’t play it smart at all. Keeping the disguise right here in your office, for example. And then there was the matter of all those witnesses. Trying to hide evidence, lying to me about how often you were in the Archives. Killing victims so close to your own place of work, your place of residence. The list goes on, doesn’t it?”

The door opened and a uniformed officer slipped a fax into Custer’s hand.

“And here’s another little fact just in. Yes, the little facts can be so inconvenient.” He read over the fax. “Ah. And now we know where you got your medical training, Brisbane: you were pre-med at Yale.” He handed the fax to Noyes. “Switched to geology your junior year. Then to law.” Custer shook his head again, wonderingly, at the bottomless stupidity of criminals.

Brisbane finally managed to speak. “I’m no murderer! Why would I kill those people?”

Custer shrugged philosophically. “The very question I asked you. But then, why do any serial killers kill? Why did Jack the Ripper kill? Why Jeffrey Dahmer? That’s a question for the psychiatrists to answer. Or maybe for God.”

On this note, Custer turned back to Noyes. “Set up a press conference for midnight. One Police Plaza. No, hold on — let’s make it on the front steps of the Museum. Call the commissioner, call the press. And most importantly, call the mayor, on his private line at Gracie Mansion. This is one call he’ll be happy to get out of bed for. Tell them we collared the Surgeon.”

“Yes, sir!” said Noyes, turning to go.

“My God, the publicity…” Brisbane’s voice was high, strangled. “Captain, I’ll have your badge for this…” He choked up with fear and rage, unable to continue.

But Custer wasn’t listening. He’d had another masterstroke.

“Just a minute!” he called to Noyes. “Make sure the mayor knows that he’ll be the star of our show. We’ll let him make the announcement.”

As the door closed, Custer turned his thoughts to the mayor. The election was a week away. He would need the boost. Letting him make the announcement was a clever move; very clever. Rumor had it that the job of commissioner would become vacant after reelection. And, after all, it was never too early to hope.

SEVEN

AGAIN, NORA LOOKED at Pendergast. And again she was unnerved by the depth of his shock. His eyes seemed glued to the face of the corpse: the parchment skin, the delicate, aristocratic features, the hair so blond it could have been white.

“The face. It looks just like—” Nora struggled to understand, to articulate her thoughts.

Pendergast did not respond.

“It looks just like you,” Nora finally managed.

“Yes,” came the whispered response. “Very much like me.”

“But who is it—?”

“Enoch Leng.”

Something in the way he said this caused Nora’s skin to crawl.

“Leng? But how can that be? I thought you said he was alive.”

With a visible effort Pendergast wrenched his eyes from the glass case and turned them on her. In them, she read many things: horror, pain, dread. His face remained colorless in the dim light.

“He was. Until recently. Someone appears to have killed Leng. Tortured him to death. And put him in that case. It seems we are now dealing with that other someone.”

“I still don’t—”

Pendergast held up one hand. “I cannot speak of it now,” was all he said.

He turned from the figure, slowly, almost painfully, his light stabbing farther into the gloom.

Nora inhaled the antique, dust-laden air. Everything was so strange, so terrible and unexpected; the kind of weirdness that happened only in a nightmare. She tried to calm her pounding heart.

“Now he is unconscious, being dragged,” whispered Pendergast. His eyes were once again on the floor, but his voice and manner remained dreadfully changed.

With the flashlight as a guide, they followed the marks across the reception hall to a set of closed doors. Pendergast opened them to reveal a carpeted, well-appointed space: a two-story library, filled with leather-bound books. The beam probed farther, slicing through drifting clouds of dust. In addition to books, Nora saw that, again, many of the shelves were lined with specimens, all carefully labeled. There were also numerous freestanding specimens in the room, draped in rotting duck canvas. A variety of wing chairs and sofas were positioned around the library, the leather dry and split, the stuffing unraveling.

The beam of the flashlight licked over the walls. A salver sat on a nearby table, holding a crystal decanter of what had once been port or sherry: a brown crust lined its bottom. Next to the tray sat a small, empty glass. An unsmoked cigar, shriveled and furred with mold, lay alongside it. A fireplace carved of gray marble was set into one of the walls, a fire laid but not lit. Before it was a tattered zebra skin, well chewed by mice. A sideboard nearby held more crystal decanters, each with a brown or black substance dried within. A hominid skull — Nora recognized it as Australopithecine — sat on a side table with a candle set into it. An open book lay nearby.

Pendergast’s light lingered on the open book. Nora could see it was an ancient medical treatise, written in Latin. The page showed engravings of a cadaver in various stages of dissection. Of all the objects in the library, only this looked fresh, as if it had been handled recently. Everything else was layered with dust.

Once again, Pendergast turned his attention to the floor, where Nora could clearly see marks in the moth-eaten, rotting carpet. The marks appeared to end at a wall of books.

Now, Pendergast approached the wall. He ran his light over their spines, peering intently at the titles. Every few moments he would stop, remove a book, glance at it, shove it back. Suddenly — as Pendergast removed a particularly massive tome from a shelf — Nora heard a loud metallic click. Two large rows of adjoining bookshelves sprang open. Pendergast drew them carefully back, exposing a folding brass gate. Behind the closed gate lay a door of solid maple. It took Nora a moment to realize what it was.

“An old elevator,” she whispered.

Pendergast nodded. “Yes. The old service elevator to the basement. There was something exactly like this in—”

He went abruptly silent. As the sound of his voice faded away, Nora heard what she thought was a noise coming from within the closed elevator. A shallow breath, perhaps, hardly more than a moan.

Suddenly, a terrible thought burst over Nora. At the same time, Pendergast stiffened visibly.

She let out an involuntary gasp. “That’s not—” She couldn’t bring herself to say Smithback’s name.

“We must hurry.”

Pendergast carefully examined the brass gate with the beam. He reached forward, gingerly tried the handle. It did not move. He knelt before the door and, with his head close to the latching mechanism, examined it. Nora saw him remove a flat, flexible piece of metal from his suit and slide it into the mechanism. There was a faint click. He worked the shim back and forth, teasing and probing at the latch, until there was a second click. Then he stood up and, with infinite caution, drew back the brass gate. It folded to one side easily, almost noiselessly. Again, Pendergast approached, crouching before the handle of the maple door, regarding it intently.

There was another sound: again a faint, agonized attempt to breathe. Her heart filled with dread.

A sudden rasping noise filled the study. Pendergast jumped back abruptly as the door shot open of its own accord.

Nora stood transfixed with horror. A figure appeared in the back of the small compartment. For a moment, it remained motionless. And then, with the sound of rotten fabric tearing away, it slowly came toppling out toward them. For a terrible moment, Nora thought it would fall upon Pendergast. But then the figure jerked abruptly to a stop, held by a rope around its neck, leaning toward them at a grotesque angle, arms swinging.

“It’s O’Shaughnessy,” said Pendergast.

“O’Shaughnessy!”

“Yes. And he’s still alive.” He took a step forward and grabbed the body, wrestling it upright, freeing the neck from the rope. Nora came quickly to his side and helped him lower the sergeant to the floor. As she did so, she saw a huge, gaping hole in the man’s back. O’Shaughnessy coughed once, head lolling.

There was a sudden jolt; a protesting squeal of gears and machinery; and then, abruptly, the bottom dropped out of their world.

EIGHT

CUSTER LED THE makeshift procession down the long echoing halls, toward the Great Rotunda and the front steps of the Museum that lay beyond. He’d allowed Noyes a good half hour to give the press a heads-up, and while he was waiting he’d worked out the precedence down to the last detail. He came first, of course, followed by two uniformed cops with the perp between them, and then a phalanx of some twenty lieutenants and detectives. Trailing them, in turn, was a ragged, dismayed, disorganized knot of museum staffers. This included the head of public relations; Manetti the security director; a gaggle of aides. They were all in a frenzy, clearly out of their depth. If they’d been smart, if they’d assisted rather than tried to impede good police work and due process, maybe this circus could have been avoided. But now, he was going to make it hard on them. He was going to hold the press conference in their own front yard, right on those nice wide steps, with the vast spooky facade of the Museum as backdrop — perfect for the early morning news. The cameras would eat it up. And now, as the group crossed the Rotunda, the echoes of their footsteps mingling with the murmuring of voices, Custer held his head erect, sucked in his gut. He wanted to make sure the moment would be well recorded for posterity.

The Museum’s grand bronze doors opened, and beyond lay Museum Drive and a seething mass of press. Despite the advance groundwork, he was still amazed by how many had gathered, like flies to shit. Immediately, a barrage of flashes went off, followed by the sharp, steady brilliance of the television camera lights. A wave of shouted questions broke over him, individual voices indistinguishable in the general roar. The steps themselves had been cordoned off by police ropes, but as Custer emerged with the perp in tow the waiting crowd surged forward as one. There was a moment of intense excitement, frantic shouting and shoving, before the cops regained control, pushing the press back behind the police cordon.

The perp hadn’t said a word for the last twenty minutes, apparently shocked into a stupor. He was so out of it he hadn’t even bothered to conceal his face as the doors of the Rotunda opened onto the night air. Now, as the battery of lights hit his face — as he saw the sea of faces, the cameras and outstretched recorders — he ducked his head away from the crowd, cringing away from the burst of flash units, and had to be propelled bodily along, half dragged, half carried, toward the waiting squad car. At the car, as Custer had instructed, the two cops handed the perp over to him. He would be the one to thrust the man into the back seat. This was the photo, Custer knew, that would be splashed across the front page of every paper in town the next morning.

But getting handed the perp was like being tossed a 175-pound sack of shit, and he almost dropped the man trying to maneuver him in the back seat. Success was achieved at last to a swelling fusillade of flash attachments; the squad car turned on its lights and siren; and nosed forward.

Custer watched it ease its way through the crowd, then turned to face the press himself. He raised his hands like Moses, waiting for silence to fall. He had no intention of stealing the mayor’s thunder — the pictures of him bundling the cuffed perp into the vehicle would tell everyone who had made the collar — but he had to say a little something to keep the crowd contained.

“The mayor is on his way,” he called out in a clear, commanding voice. “He will arrive in a few minutes, and he will have an important announcement to make. Until then, there will be no further comments whatsoever.”

“How’d you get him?” a lone voice shouted, and then there was a sudden roar of questions; frantic shouting; waving; boomed mikes swinging out in his direction. But Custer magisterially turned his back on it all. The election was less than a week away. Let the mayor make the announcement and take the glory. Custer would reap his own reward, later.

NINE

THE FIRST THING that returned was the pain. Nora came swimming back into consciousness, slowly, agonizingly. She moaned, swallowed, tried to move. Her side felt lacerated. She blinked, blinked again, then realized she was surrounded by utter darkness. She felt blood on her face, but when she tried to touch it her arm refused to move. She tried again and realized that both her arms and legs were chained.

She felt confused, as if caught in a dream from which she could not awake. What was going on here? Where was she?

A voice came from the darkness, low and weak. “Dr. Kelly?”

At the sound of her own name, the dream-like confusion began to recede. As clarity grew, Nora felt a sudden shock of fear.

“It’s Pendergast,” the voice murmured. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know. A few bruised ribs, maybe. And you?”

“More or less.”

“What happened?”

There was a silence. Then Pendergast spoke again. “I am very, very sorry. I should have expected the trap. How brutal, using Sergeant O’Shaughnessy to bait us like that. Unutterably brutal.”

“Is O’Shaughnessy—?”

“He was dying when we found him. He cannot have survived.”

“God, how awful,” Nora sobbed. “How horrible.”

“He was a good man, a loyal man. I am beyond words.”

There was a long silence. So great was Nora’s fear that it seemed to choke off even her grief and horror at what had happened to O’Shaughnessy. She had begun to realize the same was in store for them — as it may have already been for Smithback.

Pendergast’s weak voice broke the silence. “I’ve been unable to maintain proper intellectual distance in this case,” he said. “I’ve simply been too close to it, from the very beginning. My every move has been flawed—”

Abruptly, Pendergast fell silent. A few moments later, Nora heard a noise, and a small rectangle of light slid into view high up in the wall before her. It cast just enough light for her to see the outline of their prison: a small, damp stone cellar.

A pair of wet lips hovered within the rectangle.

“Please do not discompose yourself,” a voice crooned in a deep, rich accent curiously like Pendergast’s own. “All this will be over soon. Struggle is unnecessary. Forgive me for not playing the host at the present moment, but I have some pressing business to take care of. Afterward, I assure you, I will give you the benefit of my undivided attention.”

The rectangle scraped shut.

For a minute, perhaps two, Nora remained in the darkness, hardly able to breathe in her terror. She struggled to retake possession of her mind.

“Agent Pendergast?” she whispered.

There was no answer.

And then the watchful darkness was rent asunder by a distant, muffled scream — strangled, garbled, choking.

Instantly, Nora knew — beyond the shadow of a doubt — that the voice was Smithback’s.

“Oh my God!” she screamed. “Agent Pendergast, did you hear that?”

Still Pendergast did not answer.

“Pendergast!”

The darkness continued to yield nothing but silence.