Two Graves

41

PROCTOR MOVED QUIETLY THROUGH THE LIBRARY, HIS eyes scanning the books. He was not a bookish person, and almost all the titles were unknown to him. Many were also written in foreign languages. He had no idea how to “educate” anyone, let alone a strange, weak boy the likes of Tristram. But an assignment was an assignment, and Proctor knew his duty. He had to admit the boy was easy to care for. His needs were modest, and he was grateful for every kindness, every meal, no matter how simple. At first—based on his broken speech and strange ways—Proctor assumed he was mentally defective, but that had clearly been a misjudgment; the boy was catching on very fast.

His eye stopped at a title he recognized: Rogue Male, by Geoffrey Household. A good book. A very good book.

Proctor placed his finger on the spine, slipped the book out, then paused to listen. The housekeeper had the night off. The mansion was silent.

… Or was it?

With an easy motion, he tucked the book under his arm and turned, his eye taking in the dim library. It was cold—Proctor did not bother with a fire when Pendergast wasn’t around—and most of the lights were off. It was nine o’clock in the evening, and a bitter winter night had settled in, the wind sweeping off the Hudson.

Proctor continued to listen. His ears could now pick up the sounds of the house, the deep, muffled moan of the wind, the faint ticks and creaks of the old mansion; the scent was as usual, beeswax polish, leather, and wood. And yet he thought he’d heard something. Something quiet, almost below audibility. Something from above.

Still moving casually, Proctor strolled to the far end of the library and slid open a small oak panel, exposing a computer security pad and LCD. It was green down the line, the alarms all set, doors and windows secure, motion sensors quiescent.

With the punch of a button, Proctor temporarily deactivated the motion sensors. Then he strolled out of the library into the reception hall, through a marble archway, and into the so-called cabinet—several rooms that had been arranged by Pendergast into a small museum, its displays taken from the seemingly endless collections of Pendergast’s great-grand-uncle, Enoch Leng. In the center of the first room stood a small but vicious-looking fossilized dinosaur, all teeth and claws, surrounded by case after case of bizarre and otherworldly specimens, from skulls to diamonds, meteorites to stuffed birds.

He moved easily, smoothly, but inside he felt anything but easy. Proctor had an internal radar, honed by years in the special forces, and at the moment that radar was going off. Why, he did not know—there was not one thing he could put his finger on. Everything seemed secure. It was instinct.

Proctor never ignored his instincts.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor. Skirting the moth-eaten, stuffed chimpanzee with no lips, he scanned the doors up and down the hall. All closed. His eyes rested momentarily on the painting of a deer being torn apart by wolves, then moved on.

All was well.

Returning to the first floor, he went back to the library, reactivated the motion sensors, picked up Rogue Male, sat down in a chair strategically positioned toward a mirror on a far wall that allowed him a view out of the library and across the entire reception area.

He opened the book and pretended to read.

As he did so, he maintained his senses on highest alert—especially his sense of smell. Proctor had a supernaturally keen sense of smell, almost as good as a deer’s. It was not something most humans anticipated, and it had saved his life more than once.

Half an hour passed without one thing to arouse his suspicions. He realized it must have been a false alarm. But—never one to make assumptions—he closed the book, yawned, and walked over to the secret bookcase entrance to the elevator that descended into the basement. He rode the elevator down and walked along the narrow basement corridor of undressed stone, the walls covered with niter, damp, and lime.

He turned a corner, pressed himself noiselessly into a recess, and waited.

Nothing.

Slowly, he inhaled, his nose testing the currents of air. But there was no human smell in it, no strange eddies or unexpected warmth; nothing but the chill damp.

Now Proctor began to feel a little foolish. His isolation, his unaccustomed role as protector and tutor, had put him on edge. Nobody could be following him. The bookcase entrance had closed behind him and had clearly not been reopened. The elevator he had taken remained in the basement; no one had called it back to the first floor. Even if someone were on the first floor, they could not possibly have followed him into the basement.

Gradually, under these thoughts, the feeling of alarm began to subside. It was safe to descend to the sub-basement.

Stepping down the corridor to the small stone room, he pressed on the Pendergastian crest. The hidden door opened. He stepped through and waited until it snugged back shut again. Then he descended the long curving staircase and began making his way through the many strange rooms that made up the sub-basement, full of glass bottles, rotting tapestries, dried insects, medicines, and other bizarre collections of Enoch Leng. He hurried to the heavy, iron-banded door that opened into Tristram’s quarters.

The boy was waiting for him patiently. Patience was one of his great virtues. He could sit still, unmoving, with nothing to do, for many hours. It was a quality Proctor admired.

“I brought you a book,” Proctor said.

“Thank you!” The boy rose and took it with eagerness, looking at it, turning it over. “What’s it about?”

Proctor suddenly had a twinge of doubt. Was this really the right book for someone whose brother was a serial killer? That hadn’t occurred to him before. He cleared his throat. “It’s about a man who stalks and tries to kill a dictator. He’s caught and escapes.” He paused. His description didn’t make it seem very interesting. “I’ll read you the first chapter.”

“Please!” Tristram sat down on the bed, waiting.

“Stop me if there are any words you don’t understand. And when I’m done, we’ll talk about the chapter. You’ll have questions—be sure to ask them.” Proctor settled into a chair, opened the book, cleared his throat, and started to read.

“I cannot blame them. After all, one doesn’t need a telescopic sight to shoot boar or bear…”

Suddenly, Proctor felt something behind him: a presence. He spun and leapt up, clapping his hand on his weapon, but the figure vanished back into the darkness of the corridor even before his hand had touched the gun. But the image of the face he’d seen was engraved on his mind. It was the face of Tristram—only keener and more blade-like.

Alban.