The Cabinet of Curiosities

ONE

THE BIG ROLLS-ROYCE glided its way along the one-lane road that crossed Little Governors Island. Fog lay thick in the marshes and hollows, obscuring the surrounding East River and the ramparts of Manhattan that lay beyond. The headlights slid past a row of ancient, long-dead chestnut trees, then striped their way across heavy wrought iron gates. As the car stopped, the lights came to rest on a bronze plaque: Mount Mercy Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

A security guard stepped out of a booth into the glare and approached the car. He was heavyset, tall, friendly looking. Pendergast lowered the rear window and the man leaned inside.

“Visiting hours are over,” he said.

Pendergast reached into his jacket, removed his shield wallet, opened it for the guard.

The man gave it a long look, and then nodded, as if it was all in a day’s work.

“And how may we help you, Special Agent Pendergast?”

“I’m here to see a patient.”

“And the name of the patient?”

“Pendergast. Miss Cornelia Delamere Pendergast.”

There was a short, uncomfortable silence.

“Is this official law enforcement business?” The security guard didn’t sound quite so friendly anymore.

“It is.”

“All right. I’ll call up to the big house. Dr. Ostrom is on duty tonight. You can park your car in the official slot to the left of the main door. They’ll be waiting for you in reception.”

Within a few minutes Pendergast was following the well-groomed, fastidious-looking Dr. Ostrom down a long, echoing corridor. Two guards walked in front, and two behind. Fancy wainscoting and decorative molding could still be glimpsed along the corridor, hidden beneath innumerable layers of institutional paint. A century before, in the days when consumption ravaged all classes of New York society, Mount Mercy Hospital had been a grand sanatorium, catering to the tubercular offspring of the rich. Now, thanks in part to its insular location, it had become a high-security facility for people who had committed heinous crimes but were found not guilty by reason of insanity.

“How is she?” Pendergast asked.

There was a slight hesitation in the doctor’s answer. “About the same,” he said.

They stopped at last in front of a thick steel door, a single barred window sunk into its face. One of the forward guards unlocked the door, then stood outside with his partner while the other two guards followed Pendergast within.

They were standing in a small “quiet room” almost devoid of decoration. No pictures hung on the lightly padded walls. There was a plastic sofa, a pair of plastic chairs, a single table. Everything was bolted to the floor. There was no clock, and the sole fluorescent ceiling light was hidden behind heavy wire mesh. There was nothing that could be used as a weapon, or to assist a suicide. In the far wall stood another steel door, even thicker, without a window. Warning: Risk of Elopement was posted above it in large letters.

Pendergast took a seat in one of the plastic chairs, and crossed his legs.

The two forward attendants disappeared through the inner door. For a few minutes the small room fell into silence, punctuated only by the faint sounds of screams and an even fainter, rhythmic pounding. And then, louder and much nearer, came the shrill protesting voice of an old woman. The door opened, and one of the guards pushed a wheelchair into the room. The chair’s five-point leather restraint was almost invisible beneath the heavy layer of rubber that covered every metal surface.

In the chair, securely bound by the restraints, sat a prim, elderly dowager. She was wearing a long, old-fashioned black taffeta dress, Victorian button-up shoes, and a black mourning veil. When she saw Pendergast her complaints abruptly ceased.

“Raise my veil,” she commanded. One of the guards lifted it from her face, and, standing well away, laid it down her back.

The woman stared at Pendergast, her palsied, liver-spotted face trembling slightly.

Pendergast turned to Dr. Ostrom. “Will you kindly leave us alone?”

“Someone must remain,” said Ostrom. “And please give the patient some distance, Mr. Pendergast.”

“The last time I visited, I was allowed a private moment with my great-aunt.”

“If you will recall, Mr. Pendergast, the last time you visited—” Ostrom began rather sharply.

Pendergast held up his hand. “So be it.”

“This is a rather late hour to be visiting. How much time do you need?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Very well.” The doctor nodded to the attendants, who took up places on either side of the exit. Ostrom himself stood before the outer door, as far from the woman as possible, crossed his arms, and waited.

Pendergast tried to pull the chair closer, remembered it was bolted to the floor, and leaned forward instead, gazing intently at the old woman.

“How are you, Aunt Cornelia?” he asked.

The woman bent toward him. She whispered hoarsely, “My dear, how lovely to see you. May I offer you a spot of tea with cream and sugar?”

One of the guards snickered, but shut up abruptly when Ostrom cast a sharp glance in his direction.

“No, thank you, Aunt Cornelia.”

“It’s just as well. The service here has declined dreadfully these past few years. It’s so hard to find good help these days. Why haven’t you visited me sooner, my dear? You know that at my age I cannot travel.”

Pendergast leaned nearer.

“Mr. Pendergast, not quite so close, if you please,” Dr. Ostrom murmured.

Pendergast eased back. “I’ve been working, Aunt Cornelia.”

“Work is for the middle classes, my dear. Pendergasts do not work.”

Pendergast lowered his voice. “There’s not much time, I’m afraid, Aunt Cornelia. I wanted to ask you some questions. About your great-uncle Antoine.”

The old lady pursed her lips in a disapproving line. “Great-uncle Antoine? They say he went north, to New York City. Became a Yankee. But that was many years ago. Long before I was born.”

“Tell me what you know about him, Aunt Cornelia.”

“Surely you’ve heard the stories, my boy. It is an unpleasant subject for all of us, you know.”

“I’d like to hear them from you, just the same.”

“Well! He inherited the family tendency to madness. There but for the grace of God…” The old woman sighed pityingly.

“What kind of madness?” Pendergast knew the answer, of course; but he needed to hear it again. There were always details, nuances, that were new.

“Even as a boy he developed certain dreadful obsessions. He was quite a brilliant youth, you know: sarcastic, witty, strange. At seven you couldn’t beat him in a game of chess or backgammon. He excelled at whist, and even suggested some refinements that, I understand, helped develop auction bridge. He was terribly interested in natural history, and started keeping quite a collection of horrid things in his dressing room — insects, snakes, bones, fossils, that sort of thing. He also had inherited his father’s interest in elixirs, restoratives, chemicals. And poisons.”

A strange gleam came into the old lady’s black eyes at the mention of poisons, and both attendants shifted uneasily.

Ostrom cleared his throat. “Mr. Pendergast, how much longer? We don’t want to unduly disturb the patient.”

“Ten minutes.”

“No more.”

The old lady went on. “After the tragedy with his mother, he grew moody and reclusive. He spent a great deal of time alone, mixing up chemicals. But then, no doubt you know the cause of that fascination.”

Pendergast nodded.

“He developed his own variant of the family crest, like an old apothecary’s sign it was, three gilded balls. He hung it over his door. They say he poisoned the six family dogs in an experiment. And then he began spending a lot of time down… down there. Do you know where I mean?”

“Yes.”

“They say he always felt more comfortable with the dead than with the living, you know. And when he wasn’t there, he was over at St. Charles Cemetery, with that appalling old woman Marie LeClaire. You know, Cajun voodoo and all that.”

Pendergast nodded again.

“He helped her with her potions and charms and frightful little stick dolls and making marks on graves. Then there was that unpleasantness with her tomb, after she died…”

“Unpleasantness?”

The old woman sighed, lowered her head. “The interference with her grave, the violated body and all those dreadful little cuts. Of course you must know that story.”

“I’ve forgotten.” Pendergast’s voice was soft, gentle, probing.

“He believed he was going to bring her back to life. There was the question of whether she had put him up to it before she died, charged him with some kind of dreadful after-death assignment. The missing pieces of flesh were never found, not a one. No, that’s not quite right. I believe they found an ear in the belly of an alligator caught a week later out of the swamp. The earring gave it away, of course.” Her voice trailed off. She turned to one of the attendants, and spoke in a tone of cold command. “My hair needs attention.”

One of the attendants — the one wearing surgical gloves — came over and gingerly patted the woman’s hair back into place, keeping a wary distance.

She turned back to Pendergast.

“She had a kind of sexual hold over him, as dreadful as that sounds, considering the sixty-year difference in their ages.” The old lady shuddered, half in disgust, half in pleasure. “Clearly, she encouraged his interest in reincarnation, miracle cures, silly things like that.”

“What did you hear about his disappearance?”

“It happened at the age of twenty-one, when he came into his fortune. But ‘disappearance’ really isn’t quite the word, you know: he was asked to leave the house. At least, so I’ve been told. He’d begun to talk about saving, healing the world — making up for what his father had done, I suppose — but that cut no mustard with the rest of the family. Years later, when his cousins tried to track down the money he’d inherited and taken with him, he seemed to have vanished into thin air. They were terribly disappointed. It was so very much money, you see.”

Pendergast nodded. There was a long silence.

“I have one final question for you, Aunt Cornelia.”

“What is it?”

“It is a moral question.”

“A moral question. How curious. Is this connected by any chance with Great-Uncle Antoine?”

Pendergast did not answer directly. “For the past month, I have been searching for a man. This man is in possession of a secret. I am very close to discovering his whereabouts, and it is only a matter of time until I confront him.”

The old woman said nothing.

“If I win the confrontation — which is by no means certain — I may be faced with the question of what to do with his secret. I may be called upon to make a decision that will have, possibly, a profound effect on the future of the human race.”

“And what is this secret?”

Pendergast lowered his voice to the merest ghost of a whisper.

“I believe it is a medical formula that will allow anyone, by following a certain regimen, to extend his life by at least a century, perhaps more. It will not vanquish death, but it will significantly postpone it.”

There was a silence. The old lady’s eyes gleamed anew. “Tell me, how much will this treatment cost? Will it be cheap, or dear?”

“I don’t know.”

“And how many others will have access to this formula besides yourself?”

“I’ll be the only one. I’ll have very little time, maybe only seconds after it comes into my hands, to decide what to do with it.”

The silence stretched on into minutes. “And how was this formula developed?”

“Suffice to say, it cost the lives of many innocent people. In a singularly cruel fashion.”

“That adds a further dimension to the problem. However, the answer is quite clear. When this formula comes into your possession, you must destroy it immediately.”

Pendergast looked at her curiously. “Are you quite sure? It’s what medical science has most desired since the beginning.”

“There is an old French curse: may your fondest wish come true. If this treatment is cheap and available to everyone, it will destroy the earth through overpopulation. If it is dear and available only to the very rich, it will cause riots, wars, a breakdown of the social contract. Either way, it will lead directly to human misery. What is the value of a long life, when it is lived in squalor and unhappiness?”

“What about the immeasurable increase in wisdom that this discovery will bring, when you consider the one, maybe two hundred years, of additional learning and study it will afford the brilliant mind? Think, Aunt Cornelia, of what someone like Goethe or Copernicus or Einstein could have done for humanity with a two-hundred-year life span.”

The old woman scoffed. “The wise and good are outnumbered a thousand to one by the brutal and stupid. When you give an Einstein two centuries to perfect his science, you give a thousand others two centuries to perfect their brutality.”

This time, the silence seemed to stretch into minutes. By the door, Dr. Ostrom stirred restlessly.

“Are you all right, my dear?” the old lady asked, looking intently at Pendergast.

“Yes.”

He gazed into her dark, strange eyes, so full of wisdom, insight, and the most profound insanity. “Thank you, Aunt Cornelia,” he said.

Then he straightened up. “Dr. Ostrom?”

The doctor glanced toward him.

“We’re finished here.”

TWO

CUSTER STOOD IN a pool of light before the Archives desk. Clouds of dust — by-products of the ongoing investigation — billowed out from aisles in the dimness beyond. The pompous ass, Brisbane, was still protesting in the background, but Custer paid little attention.

The investigation, which had started so strongly, was bogging down. So far his men had found an amazing assortment of junk — old maps, charts, snakeskins, boxes of teeth, disgusting unidentifiable organs pickled in centuries-old alcohol — but not one thing that resembled an actual clue. Custer had been certain that, once in the Archives, the puzzle would immediately fall into place; that his newfound investigative skill would make the critical connection everyone else had overlooked. But so far there had been no brainstorm, no connection. An image of Commissioner Rocker’s face — staring at him through lowered, skeptical brows — hung before his eyes. A feeling of unease, imperfectly suppressed, began to filter through his limbs. And the place was huge: it would take weeks to search at this rate.

The Museum lawyer was talking more loudly now, and Custer forced himself to listen.

“This is nothing but a fishing expedition,” Brisbane was saying. “You can’t just come in here and turn the place upside down.” He gestured furiously at the NYPD evidence lockers lying on the floor, a riot of objects scattered within and around them. “And all that is Museum property!”

Absently, Custer gestured toward the warrant that Noyes was holding. “You’ve seen the warrant.”

“Yes, I have. And it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. I’ve never seen such general language. I protest this warrant, and I am stating for the record that I will not permit the Museum to be further searched.”

“Let’s have your boss, Dr. Collopy, decide that. Has anybody heard from him yet?”

“As the Museum’s legal counsel, I’m authorized to speak for Dr. Collopy.”

Custer refolded his arms gloomily. There came another crash from the recesses of the Archives, some shouting, and a ripping sound. An officer soon appeared, carrying a stuffed crocodile, cotton pouring from a fresh slit in its belly. He laid it in one of the evidence lockers.

“What the hell are they doing back there?” Brisbane shouted. “Hey, you! Yes, you! You’ve damaged that specimen!”

The officer looked at him with a dull expression, then shambled back into the files.

Custer said nothing. His feeling of anxiety increased. So far, the questioning of Museum staff hadn’t come up with anything either — just the same old stuff the earlier investigation had produced. This had been his call, his operation. His and his alone. If he was wrong — it almost didn’t bear thinking, of course, but if—he’d be hung out to dry like last week’s laundry.

“I’m going to call Museum security and have your men escorted out,” Brisbane fumed. “This is intolerable. Where’s Manetti?”

“Manetti was the man who let us in here,” Custer said distractedly. What if he’d made a mistake — a huge mistake?

“He shouldn’t have done that. Where is he?” Brisbane turned, found Oscar Gibbs, the Archives assistant. “Where’s Manetti?”

“He left,” Gibbs said.

Custer watched absently, noticing how the young man’s insolent tone, his dark look, conveyed what he thought of Brisbane. Brisbane’s not popular, Custer thought again. Got a lot of enemies. Puck sure must have hated the guy, the way Brisbane came down on him. Can’t say I blame him one bit for—

And that was when the revelation hit him. Like his initial revelation, only bigger: much bigger. So obvious in retrospect, and yet so difficult to first perceive. This was the kind of brilliant leap of intuition one received departmental citations for. It was a leap of deduction worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

He turned now, watching Brisbane subtly, but intently. The man’s well-groomed face was glistening, his hair askew, eyes glittering with anger.

“Left where?” Brisbane was demanding.

Gibbs shrugged insolently.

Brisbane strode over to the desk and picked up the phone. Custer continued to watch him. He dialed a few numbers, and left low, excited messages.

“Captain Custer,” he said, turning back. “Once again, I am ordering you to remove your men from the premises.”

Custer returned the glance from between lowered lids. He’d have to do this very carefully.

“Mr. Brisbane,” he asked, taking what hoped sounded like a reasonable tone. “Shall we discuss this in your office?”

For a moment, Brisbane seemed taken aback. “My office?”

“It’ll be more private. Perhaps we needn’t search the Museum much longer. Perhaps we can settle this in your office, now.”

Brisbane seemed to consider this. “Very well. Follow me.”

Custer nodded to his man, Lieutenant Detective Piles. “You take over here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then Custer turned toward Noyes. The merest crook of his fat finger brought the little man to his side.

“Noyes, I want you with me,” he murmured. “Got your service piece on you?”

Noyes nodded, rheumy eyes glistening in the dusky light.

“Good. Then let’s go.”

THREE

THE SLOT OPENED again. In the endless period of darkness and terror, Smithback had lost his perception of time. How long had it been? Ten minutes? An hour? A day?

The voice spoke, lips once again gleaming in the rectangle of light. “How kind of you to visit me in my very old and interesting house. I hope you enjoyed seeing my collections. I am particularly fond of the corydon. Did you, by chance, see the corydon?”

Smithback tried to respond, belatedly remembering that his mouth was taped.

“Ah! How thoughtless of me. Do not trouble yourself to answer. I will speak. You will listen.”

Smithback’s mind raced through the possibilities for escape. There were none.

“Yes, the corydon is most interesting. As is the mosasaur from the chalk beds of Kansas. And of course the durdag from Tibet is quite unusual, one of only two in the world. I understand it was fashioned from the skull of the fifteenth reincarnation of the Buddha.”

Smithback heard a dry laugh, like the scattering of withered leaves.

“Altogether a most interesting cabinet of curiosities, my dear Mr. Smithback. I’m sorry that so few people have had a chance to see it, and that those so honored find themselves unable to make a return visit.”

There was a silence. And then the voice continued, softly and gently: “I will do you well, Mr. Smithback. No effort will be spared.”

A spasm of fear, unlike anything he had ever known, racked Smithback’s limbs. I will do you well… Do you well… Smithback realized that he was about to die. In his extremity of terror, he did not immediately notice that Leng had called him by name.

“It will be a memorable experience — more memorable than those who have come before you. I have made great strides, remarkable strides. I have devised a most exacting surgical procedure. You will be awake to the very end. Consciousness, you see, is the key: I now realize that. Painstaking care will be taken, I assure you.”

There was a silence as Smithback struggled to keep his reason about him.

The lips pursed. “I shouldn’t want to keep you waiting. Shall we proceed to the laboratory?”

A lock rattled and the iron door creaked open. The dark figure in the derby hat who approached was now holding a long hypodermic needle. A clear drop trembled at its end. A pair of round, old-fashioned smoked glasses were pushed into his face.

“This is merely an injection to relax your muscles. Succinyl choline. Very similar to curare. It’s a paralyzing agent; you’ll find it tends to render the sort of weakness one feels in dreams. You know what I mean: the danger is coming, you try to escape, but you find yourself unable to move. Have no fear, Mr. Smithback: though you’ll be unable to move, you will remain conscious throughout much of the operation, until the final excision and removal is performed. It will be much more interesting for you that way.”

Smithback struggled as the needle approached.

“You see, it’s a delicate operation. It requires a steady and highly expert hand. We can’t have the patient thrashing about during the procedure. The merest slip of the scalpel and all would be ruined. You might as well dispose of the resource and start afresh.”

Still the needle approached.

“I suggest you take a deep breath now, Mr. Smithback.”

I will do you well…

With the strength born of consummate terror, Smithback threw himself from side to side, trying to tear free his chains. He opened his mouth against the heavy tape, trying desperately to scream, feeling the flesh of his lips tearing away from his skin under the effort. He jerked violently, fighting against the manacles, but the figure with the needle kept approaching inexorably — and then he felt the sting of the needle as it slid into his flesh, a sensation of heat spreading through his veins, and then a terrible weakness: the precise weakness Leng had described, that feeling of paralysis that happens in the very worst of dreams, at the very worst possible moment.

But this, Smithback knew, was no dream.

FOUR

POLICE SERGEANT PAUL J. Finester really hated the whole business. It was a terrible, criminal, waste of time. He glanced around at the rows of wooden tables set up in parallel lines across the library carpet; at the frumpy, tweed-wearing, bug-eyed, moth-eaten characters who sat across the tables from the cops. Some looked scared, others outraged. Clearly, none of these museum wimps knew anything: they were just a bunch of scientists with bad teeth and even worse breath. Where did they find these characters? It made him mad to think of his hard-earned tax dollars supporting this stone shitpile. Not just that, but it was already ten P.M., and when he got home his wife was going to kill him. Never mind that it was his job, that he was being paid time and a half, that they had a mortgage on the fancy Cobble Hill apartment she forced him to buy and a baby who cost a fortune in diapers. She was still going to kill him. He would come home, dinner would be a blackened crisp in the oven — where it had been since six o’clock, at 250 degrees — the ball and chain would already be in bed with the light out, but still wide awake, lying there like a ramrod, mad as hell, the baby crying and unattended. The wife wouldn’t say anything when he got into the bed, just turn her back to him, with a huge self-pitying sigh, and—

“Finester?”

Finester turned to see his partner, O’Grady, staring at him.

“You okay, Finester? You look like somebody died.”

Finester sighed. “I wish it was me.”

“Cheese it. We’ve got another.”

There was something in O’Grady’s tone that caused Finester to look across their set of desks. Instead of yet another geek, here was a woman — an unusually pretty woman, in fact — with long copper hair and hazel eyes, trim athletic body. He found himself straightening up, sucking in the gut, flexing the biceps. The woman sat down across from them, and he caught a whiff of her perfume: expensive, nice, very subtle. God, a real looker. He glanced at O’Grady and saw the same transformation. Finester grabbed his clipboard, ran his eye down the interrogation lineup. So this was Nora Kelly. The famous, infamous Nora Kelly. The one who found the third body, who’d been chased in the Archives. He hadn’t expected someone so young. Or so attractive.

O’Grady beat him to the opening. “Dr. Kelly, please make yourself comfortable.” His voice had taken on a silken, honeyed tone. “I am Sergeant O’Grady, and this is Sergeant Finester. Do we have permission to tape-record you?”

“If it’s necessary,” the woman said. Her voice wasn’t quite as sexy as her looks. It was clipped, short, irritated.

“You have the right to a lawyer,” continued O’Grady, his voice still low and soothing, “and you have the right to decline our questioning. We want you to understand this is voluntary.”

“And if I refuse?”

O’Grady chuckled in a friendly way. “It’s not my decision, you understand, but they might subpoena you, make you come down to the station. Lawyers are expensive. It would be inconvenient. We just have a few questions here, no big deal. You’re not a suspect. We’re just asking for a little help.”

“All right,” the woman said. “Go ahead. I’ve been questioned several times before. I suppose once more won’t hurt.”

O’Grady began to speak again, but this time Finester was ready, and he cut O’Grady off. He wasn’t going to sit there like an idiot while O’Grady did all the talking. The guy was as bad as his wife.

“Dr. Kelly,” he said, hastily, perhaps a little too loud, quickly covering it with a smile of his own, “we’re delighted you’re willing to help us. For the record, please state your full name, address, the date, and time. There’s a clock on the wall over there, but no, I see you’re wearing a watch. It’s just a formality, you know, so we can keep our tapes straight, not get them mixed up. We wouldn’t want to arrest the wrong person.” He chuckled at his joke and was a little disappointed when she didn’t chuckle along with him.

O’Grady gave him a pitying, condescending look. Finester felt the irritation toward his partner rise. When you got down to it, he really couldn’t stand the guy. So much for the unbreakable blue bond. He found himself wishing O’Grady would stop a bullet someday soon. Like tomorrow.

The woman stated her name. Then Finester jumped in again and recorded his own, O’Grady following a little grudgingly. After a few more formalities, Finester put the background sheet aside and reached for the latest list of prepared questions. The list seemed longer than before, and he was surprised to see some handwritten entries at the bottom. They must have just been added, obviously in haste. Who the hell had been messing with their interrogation sheets? This whole thing was balls up. Totally balls up.

O’Grady seized on Finester’s silence as an opportunity. “Dr. Kelly,” he jumped in, “could you please describe in your own words your involvement in this case? Please take all the time you need to recall the details. If you don’t remember something, or are unsure about it, feel free to let us know. I’ve found that it’s better to say you can’t remember than to give us details that may not be accurate.” He gave her a broad smile, his blue eyes twinkling with an almost conspiratorial gleam.

Screw him, thought Finester.

The woman gave a testy sigh, crossed her long legs, and began to speak.

FIVE

SMITHBACK FELT THE paralysis, the dreadful helplessness, take complete possession of him. His limbs were dead, motionless, foreign. He could not blink his eyes. Worst of all — by far, the worst of all — he could not even fill his lungs with air. His body was immobilized. He panicked as he tried to work his lungs, struggled to draw in breath. It was like drowning, only worse.

Leng hovered over him now, a dark figure backlit by the rectangle of the door, spent needle in his hand. His face was a shadow beneath the brow of his derby hat.

A hand reached forward, grasped the edge of the duct tape that still partially sealed Smithback’s mouth. “No need for this anymore,” Leng said. With a sharp tug, it was ripped away. “Now, let’s get you intubated. After all, it wouldn’t do to have you asphyxiate before the procedure begins.”

Smithback tried to draw breath for a scream. Nothing came but the barest whisper. His tongue felt thick and impossibly large in his mouth. His jaw sagged, a rivulet of saliva drooling down his chin. It was a consummate struggle just to draw in a spoonful of air.

The figure took a step back, disappearing beyond the door. There was a rattle in the hallway and Leng returned, wheeling a stainless steel gurney and a large, boxlike machine on rubber wheels. He positioned the gurney next to Smithback, then bent over and, with an old iron key, quickly unlocked the cuffs around the reporter’s wrists and legs. Through his terror and despair Smithback could smell the musty, mothball odor of antique clothes, along with the tang of sweat and a faint whiff of eucalyptus, as if Leng had been sucking on a lozenge.

“I’m going to place you on the gurney now,” Leng said.

Smithback felt himself being lifted. And then, cold unyielding metal pressed against his naked limbs. His nose was running but he could not raise his arm to brush it away. His need for oxygen was becoming acute. He was totally paralyzed — but, most terrible of all, he retained an utter clarity of consciousness and sensation.

Leng reappeared in his field of vision, a slender plastic tube in one hand. Placing his fingers on Smithback’s jaw, Leng pulled the mouth wide. Smithback felt the tube knock roughly against the back of his throat, slide down his trachea. How awful to feel the intense, undeniable desire to retch — and yet be unable to make even the slightest movement. There was a hiss as the ventilating machine filled his lungs with air.

For a moment, the relief was so great Smithback momentarily forgot his predicament.

Now the gurney was moving. A low, brickwork ceiling was passing by overhead, punctuated occasionally by naked bulbs. A moment later, and the ceiling changed, rising into what seemed a cavernous space. The gurney swung around again, then came to rest. Leng bent down, out of sight. Smithback heard four measured clicks, one after the other, as the wheels were locked in place. There were banks of heavy lights, a whiff of alcohol and Betadine that covered a subtler, far worse, smell.

Leng slid his arms beneath Smithback, raised him up once again, and moved him from the gurney to another steel table, wider and even colder. The motion was gentle, almost loving.

And then — with a completely different motion, economical and amazingly strong — he turned Smithback over onto his stomach.

Smithback could not close his mouth, and his tongue pressed against the metal gurney, unwillingly sampling the sour chlorinated taste of disinfectants. It made him think about who else might have been on this table, and what might have happened to them. A wave of fear and nausea washed over him. The ventilator tube gurgled inside his mouth.

Then Leng approached and, passing his hand across Smithback’s face, shut his eyelids.

The table was cold, so cold. He could hear Leng moving around. There was a pressure on his elbow, a brief sting as an intravenous needle was inserted near his wrist, the ripping sound of medical tape being pulled from its canister. He could smell the eucalyptus breath, hear the low voice. It spoke in a whisper.

“There will be some pain, I’m afraid,” the voice said as straps were fixed to Smithback’s limbs. “Rather a lot of pain, in fact. But good science is never really free from pain. So do not discompose yourself. And if I may offer a word of advice?”

Smithback tried to struggle, but his body was far away. The whisper continued, soft and soothing: “Be like the gazelle in the jaws of the lion: limp, accepting, resigned. Trust me. That is the best way.”

There was the sound of water rushing in a sink, the clink of steel on steel, instruments sliding in a metal basin. The light in the room grew abruptly brighter. Smithback’s pulse began to race wildly, faster and faster, until the table beneath him seemed almost to rock in time with the frantic beating of his heart.

SIX

NORA SHIFTED IN the uncomfortable wooden chair, glanced at her watch for what had to be the fifth time. Ten-thirty. This was like the questioning she’d endured after finding Puck’s body, only worse — much worse. Though she’d deliberately kept her story brief, reduced her answers to mere one-liners, the questions kept coming in an endless, moronic stream. Questions about her work at the Museum. Questions about being chased by the Surgeon in the Archives. Questions about the typewritten note Puck — or rather the murderer, pretending to be Puck — had sent her, which she’d given to the police long before. All questions she had already answered two or three times, to more intelligent and thoughtful police officers than these. Worse, the two cops sitting opposite her — one a beefed-up little troll, the other decent-looking but full of himself — showed no signs of reaching the end of their list. They kept interrupting each other, darting angry looks back and forth, competing for heaven only knew what reason. If there was bad blood between these two, they shouldn’t be working together. God, what a performance.

“Dr. Kelly,” said the short one, Finester — looking for the thousandth time at his notes—“we’re almost through here.”

“Praise be to God.”

This comment was met with a short silence. Then O’Grady waded in once again, looking at a freshly scribbled sheet that had just been handed to him.

“You are familiar with a Mr. William Smithback?”

Nora felt her annoyance giving way to a sudden wariness. “Yes.”

“What is your relationship to Mr. Smithback?”

“Ex-boyfriend.”

O’Grady turned the paper over in his hands. “We have a report here that earlier today, Mr. Smithback impersonated a security officer and gained unauthorized clearance to some high-security files in the Museum. Would you know why?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you spoke to Mr. Smithback?”

Nora sighed. “I don’t remember.”

Finester sat back in his seat, folded his beefy arms. “Take your time, please.” He had a shiny, paste-colored dome of a head, topped by a tuft of hair so thick and coarse it looked like a hairy island in the middle of his bald head.

This was intolerable. “Maybe a week.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“He was harassing me in my office.”

“Why?”

“He wanted to tell me that Agent Pendergast had been stabbed. Museum security dragged him away. They’ll have a record of it.” What the hell was Smithback doing back in the Museum? The guy was incorrigible.

“You have no idea what Mr. Smithback was looking for?”

“I believe I just said that.”

There was a short silence while O’Grady checked his notes. “It says here that Mr. Smithback—”

Nora interrupted impatiently. “Look, why aren’t you pursuing some real leads here? Like those typewritten notes of the killer’s, the one sent to me and the one left on Puck’s desk? Obviously, the killer is somebody with access to the Museum. Why all these questions about Smithback? I haven’t spoken to him in a week. I don’t know anything about what he’s up to and, frankly, I couldn’t care less.”

“We have to ask you these questions, Dr. Kelly,” O’Grady replied.

“Why?”

“They’re on my list. It’s my job.”

“Jesus.” She passed a hand over her forehead. This whole episode was Kafkaesque. “Go ahead.”

“After a warrant was put out on Mr. Smithback, we found his rented car parked on upper Riverside Drive. Would you know why he rented the car?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I haven’t spoken to him in a week.”

O’Grady turned over the sheet. “How long have you known Mr. Smithback?”

“Almost two years.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“In Utah.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“On an archaeological expedition.” Nora was suddenly having trouble paying attention to the questions. Riverside Drive? What the hell was Smithback doing up there?

“What kind of an archaeological expedition?”

Nora didn’t answer.

“Dr. Kelly?”

Nora looked at him. “Where on Riverside Drive?”

O’Grady looked confused. “I’m sorry?”

“Where was Smithback’s car found on Riverside Drive?”

O’Grady fumbled with the paper. “It says here upper Riverside. One hundred thirty-first and Riverside.”

“One hundred thirty-first Street? What was he doing up there?”

“That’s just what we were hoping you could tell us. Now, about that archaeological expedition—”

“And you say he came in this morning, gained access to some files? What files?”

“Old security files.”

“Which ones?”

O’Grady flipped through some other sheets. “It says here it was an old personnel file.”

“On who?”

“It doesn’t say.”

“How did he do it?”

“Well, it doesn’t say, and—”

“For God’s sake, can’t you find out?”

Pink anger blossomed across O’Grady’s face. “May we get back to the questions, please?”

“I know something about this,” Finester suddenly broke in. “I was on duty earlier today. When you were out getting donuts and coffee, O’Grady. Remember?”

O’Grady turned. “In case you’ve forgotten, Finester, we’re supposed to be the ones asking the questions.”

Nora gave O’Grady her coldest stare. “How can I answer if you don’t give me the information I need?”

O’Grady’s rose-colored face grew redder. “I don’t see why—”

“She’s right, O’Grady. She has a right to know,” Finester turned to Nora, pug face lit up by an ingratiating smile. “Mr. Smithback lured one of the security guards away with a phony telephone call, allegedly from the Human Resources office. Then he pretended to be from Human Resources himself and persuaded the remaining guard to unlock certain filing cabinets. Said he was conducting some kind of file inspection.”

“He did?” Despite her concern, Nora couldn’t help smiling to herself. It was vintage Smithback. “And what were those files, exactly?”

“Security clearances, dating back over a hundred years.”

“And that’s why he’s in trouble?”

“That’s the least of it. The guard thought he saw him take some papers out of one drawer. So you can add theft to—”

“Which file drawer?”

“It was the 1870 personnel file drawer, I believe,” Finester recollected with obvious pride. “And after the guard’s suspicions were aroused, they cross-checked the files and found that one of them was missing its cover sheets. It had been virtually emptied.”

“Which one?”

“It was that one on the nineteenth-century serial killer, what’s-his-name. The one written about in the Times. Clearly that’s what he was after, more information on—”

“Enoch Leng?”

“Yeah. That’s the guy.”

Nora sat, stunned.

“Now, can we please get back to the questions, Dr. Kelly?” O’Grady interrupted.

“And his car was found up Riverside Drive? At 131st Street? How long had it been there?”

Finester shrugged. “He rented it right after he stole the file. It’s staked out. As soon as he picks it up, we’ll know.”

O’Grady broke in again. “Finester, now that you’ve managed to reveal all the confidential details, maybe you can keep quiet for a minute. Now, Dr. Kelly, this archaeological expedition—”

Nora reached into her purse for her cell phone, found it, pulled it out.

“No cell phones, Dr. Kelly, until we’re finished.” It was O’Grady again, his voice rising in anger.

She dropped the phone back into her purse. “Sorry. I’ve got to go.”

“You can go as soon as we finish the questions.” O’Grady was livid. “Now, Doctor Kelly, about that archaeological expedition…”

Nora didn’t hear the rest. Her mind was racing.

“Dr. Kelly?”

“But can’t we, ah, finish this later?” She tried to smile, tried to put on her most pleading look. “Something really important has just come up.”

O’Grady didn’t return the smile. “This is a criminal investigation, Dr. Kelly. We’ll be done when we get to the end of the questions — not before.”

Nora thought for a moment. Then she looked O’Grady in the eye. “I’ve got to go. Go, go to the bathroom, I mean.”

“Now?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to accompany you, then. Those are the rules.”

“Into the bathroom?”

He blushed. “Of course not, but to the facilities. We’ll wait outside.”

“Then you’d better hurry. I’ve really got to go. Bad kidneys.”

O’Grady and Finester exchanged glances.

“Bacterial infection. From a dig in Guatemala.”

The policemen rose with alacrity. They crossed the Rockefeller Great Room, past the dozens of tables and the endless overlapping recitations of other staff members, out into the main library. Nora waited, biding her time, as they made their way toward the entrance. No point in sounding more of an alarm than was necessary.

The library itself was silent, researchers and scientists long since gone. The Great Room lay behind them now, the back-and-forth of questions and answers inaudible. Ahead were the double doors leading out into the hall and the rest rooms beyond. Nora approached the doors, the two cops trailing in her wake.

Then, with a sudden burst of speed, she darted through, swinging the doors behind her, back into the faces of the officers. She heard the thud of an impact, something clattering to the ground, a yelp of startled surprise. And then came a loud barking sound, like a seal giving the alarm, followed by shouts and running feet. She glanced back. Finester and O’Grady were through the doors and in hot pursuit.

Nora was very fit, but Finester and O’Grady surprised her. They were fast, too. At the far end of the hall, she glanced back and noticed that the taller sergeant, O’Grady, was actually gaining ground.

She flung open a stairwell door and began flying down the stairs, two at a time. Moments later, the door opened again: she heard loud voices, the pounding of feet.

She plunged downward even more quickly. Reaching the basement, she pushed the panic bar on the door and burst into the paleontological storage area. A long corridor ran ahead, arrow-straight, gray and institutional, illuminated by bare bulbs in wire cages. Doors lined both sides: Probiscidia, Eohippii, Bovidae, Pongidae.

The thudding of approaching feet filled the stairwell behind her. Was it possible they were still gaining? Why couldn’t she have gotten the two porkers at the table to her left?

She sprinted down the hallway, veered abruptly around a corner, and ran on, thinking fast. The vast dinosaur bone storage room was nearby. If she was going to lose these two, her best chance lay in there. She dug into her purse as she ran: thank God she’d remembered to bring her lab and storage keys along that morning.

She almost flew past the heavy door, fumbling with the keys. She turned, jammed her key into the lock, and pushed the door open just as the cops came into view around the corner.

Shit. They’ve seen me. Nora closed the door, locked it behind her, turned toward the long rows of tall metal stacks, preparing to run.

Then she had an idea.

She unlocked the door again, then took off down the closest aisle, turning left at the first crossing, then right, angling away from the door. At last she dropped into a crouch, pressing herself into the shadows, trying to catch her breath. She heard the tramp of feet in the corridor beyond. The door rattled abruptly.

“Open up!” came O’Grady’s muffled roar.

Nora glanced around quickly, searching for a better place to hide. The room was lit only by the dim glow of emergency lighting, high up in the ceiling. Additional lights required a key — standard procedure in Museum storage rooms, where light could harm the specimens — and the long aisles were cloaked in darkness. She heard a grunt, the shiver of the door in its frame. She hoped they wouldn’t be stupid enough to break down an unlocked door — that would ruin everything.

The door shivered under the weight of another heavy blow. Then they figured it out: it was almost with relief that she heard the jiggling of the handle, the creak of the opening door. Warily, silently, she retreated farther into the vast forest of bones.

The Museum’s dinosaur bone collection was the largest in the world. The dinosaurs were stored unmounted, stacked disarticulated on massive steel shelves. The shelves themselves were constructed of steel I-beams and angle iron, riveted together to make a web of shelving strong enough to support thousands of tons: vast piles of tree-trunk-thick legbones, skulls the size of cars, massive slabs of stone matrix with bones still imbedded, awaiting the preparator’s chisel. The room smelled like the interior of an ancient stone cathedral.

“We know you’re in here!” came the breathless voice of Finester.

Nora receded deeper into the shadows. A rat scurried in front of her, scrambling for safety within a gaping allosaurus eye socket. Bones rose on both sides like great heaps of cordwood, shelves climbing into the gloom. Like most of the Museum storage rooms, it was an illogical jumble of shelves and mismatched rows, growing by accretion over the last century and a half. A good place to get lost in.

“Running away from the police never did anyone any good, Dr. Kelly! Give yourself up now and we’ll go easy on you!”

She shrank behind a giant turtle almost the size of a studio apartment, trying to reconstruct the layout of the vault in her head. She couldn’t remember seeing a rear door in previous visits. Most storage vaults, for security purposes, had only one. There was only one way out, and they were blocking it. She had to get them to move.

“Dr. Kelly, I’m sure we can work something out! Please!”

Nora smiled to herself. What a pair of blunderers. Smithback would have had fun with them.

Her smile faded at the thought of Smithback. She was certain now of what he’d done. Smithback had gone to Leng’s house. Perhaps he had heard Pendergast’s theory — that Leng was alive and still living in his old house. Perhaps he’d wheedled it out of O’Shaughnessy. The guy could have made Helen Keller talk.

On top of that, he was a good researcher. He knew the Museum’s files. While she and Pendergast were going through deeds, he’d gone straight to the Museum and hit paydirt. And knowing Smithback, he’d have run right up to Leng’s house. That’s why he’d rented a car, driven it up Riverside Drive. Just to check out the house. But Smithback could never merely check something out. The fool, the damned fool…

Cautiously, Nora tried dialing Smithback on her cell phone, muffling the sound with the leather of her purse. But the phone was dead: she was surrounded by several thousand tons of steel shelves and dinosaur bones, not to mention the Museum overhead. At least it probably meant the radios of the cops would be equally useless. If her plan worked, that would prove useful.

“Dr. Kelly!” The voices were coming from her left now, away from the door.

She crept forward between the shelves, strained to catch a glimpse of them, but she could see nothing but the beam of a flashlight stabbing through the dark piles of bone.

There was no more time: she had to get out.

She listened closely to the footsteps of the cops. Good: they seemed to still be together. In their joint eagerness to take credit for the collar, they’d been too stupid to leave one to guard the door.

“All right!” she called. “I give up! Sorry, I guess I just lost my head.”

There was a brief flurry of whispers.

“We’re coming!” O’Grady shouted. “Don’t go anywhere!”

She heard them moving in her direction, more quickly now, the flashlight beam wobbling and weaving as they ran. Watching the direction of the beam, she scooted away, keeping low, angling back toward the front of the storage room, moving as quickly and silently as she could.

“Where are you?” she heard a voice cry, fainter now, several aisles away. “Dr. Kelly?”

“She was over there, O’Grady.”

“Damn it, Finester, you know she was much farther—”

In a flash Nora was out the door. She turned, slammed it shut, turned her key in the lock. In another five minutes she was out on Museum Drive.

Panting hard, she slipped her cell phone out of her purse again and dialed.

SEVEN

THE SILVER WRAITH glided noiselessly up to the Seventy-second Street curb. Pendergast slid out and stood for a moment in the shadow of the Dakota, deep in thought, while the car idled.

The interview with his great-aunt had left him with an unfamiliar feeling of dread. Yet it was a dread that had been growing within him since he first heard of the discovery of the charnel pit beneath Catherine Street.

For many years he had kept a silent vigil, scanning the FBI and Interpol services, on the lookout for a specific modus operandi. He’d hoped it would never surface — but always, in the back of his mind, had feared it would.

“Good evening, Mr. Pendergast,” the guard said at his approach, stepping out of the sentry box. An envelope lay in his white-gloved hand. The sight of the envelope sent Pendergast’s dread soaring.

“Thank you, Johnson,” Pendergast replied, without taking the envelope. “Did Sergeant O’Shaughnessy come by, as I mentioned he would?”

“No sir. He hasn’t been by all evening.”

Pendergast grew more pensive, and there was a long moment of silence. “I see. Did you take delivery of this envelope?”

“Yes, sir.”

“From whom, may I ask?”

“A nice, old-fashioned sort of gent, sir.”

“In a derby hat?”

“Precisely, sir.”

Pendergast scanned the crisp copperplate on the front of the envelope: For A. X. L. Pendergast, Esq., D. Phil., The Dakota. Personal and Confidential. The envelope was handmade from a heavy, old-fashioned laid paper, with a deckle edge. It was precisely the sort of paper made by the Pendergast family’s private stationer. Although the envelope was yellow with age, the writing on it was fresh.

Pendergast turned to the guard. “Johnson, may I borrow your gloves?”

The doorman was too well trained to show surprise. Donning the gloves, Pendergast slipped into the halo of light around the sentry box and broke the envelope’s seal with the back of his hand. Very gingerly, he bowed it open, looking inside. There was a single sheet of paper, folded once. In the crease lay a single small, grayish fiber. To the untrained eye, it looked like a bit of fishing line. Pendergast recognized it as a human nerve strand, undoubtedly from the cauda equina at the base of the spinal cord.

There was no writing on the folded sheet. He angled it toward the light, but there was nothing else at all, not even a watermark.

At that moment, his cell phone rang.

Putting the envelope carefully aside, Pendergast plucked his phone from his suit pocket and raised it to his ear.

“Yes?” He spoke in a calm, neutral voice.

“It’s Nora. Listen, Smithback figured out where Leng lives.”

“And?”

“I think he went up there. I think he went into the house.”