At first Smithback felt a frisson of fear and incomprehension at the sight, until his mind began to understand just what he was looking at. It was, in fact, nothing more than a stuffed chimpanzee, hanging from a tree branch. Moths and rats had chewed away most of the face, leaving pits and holes that went down to brown bone. The lips were gone as well, giving the chimpanzee the agonized grin of a mummy. One ear hung by a thread of dried flesh, and even as Smithback watched it fell to the ground with a soft thud. One of the chimp’s hands was holding a wax fruit; the other was clutching its stomach, as if in pain. Only the beady glass eyes looked fresh, and they stared at Smithback with maniacal intensity.
Smithback felt his heart quicken. Leng had, after all, been a taxonomist, collector, and member of the Lyceum. Did he, like McFadden and the rest, also have a collection, a so-called cabinet of curiosities? Was this decayed chimp part of his collection?
He again experienced a moment of indecision. Should he leave now?
Taking a step back from the chimpanzee, he peered down the staircase. There was no light except what little filtered in from behind nailed boards and wooden shutters. Gradually, he began to make out the dim outlines of what seemed to be a reception hall, complete with parqueted oak floor. Lying across it were exotic skins—zebra, lion, tiger, oryx, cougar. Ranged about were a number of dark objects, also draped in white sheets. The paneled walls were lined with old cabinets, covered with rippled glass doors. On them sat a number of shadowy objects in display cases, each with a brass plate affixed below it.
Yes, it was a collection—Enoch Leng’s collection.
Smithback stood, clutching the upper knob of the banister. Despite the fact that nothing seemed to have been touched in the house for a hundred years, he could feel, deep in his gut, that the house hadn’t been empty all this time. It looked, somehow, tended. It bespoke the presence of a caretaker. He should turn around now and get out.
But the silence was profound, and he hesitated. The collections below were worth a brief look. The interior of this house and its collections would play a big role in his article. He would go down for a moment—just a moment—to see what lay beneath some of the sheets. He took a careful step, and then another… and then he heard a soft click behind him. He spun around, heart pounding.
At first, nothing looked different. And then he realized that the door from which he’d entered the hallway must have closed. He breathed a sigh of relief: a gust of wind had come through the broken window and pushed the door shut.
He continued down the sweeping marble staircase, hand clutching the banister. At the bottom he paused, screwing up his eyes, peering into the even more pronounced darkness. The smell of rot and decay seemed stronger here.
His eyes focused on an object in the center of the hall. One of the sheets had become so decayed that it had already fallen from the object it covered. In the darkness it looked strange, misshapen. Smithback took a step forward, peering intently—and suddenly he realized what it was: the mounted specimen of a small carnivorous dinosaur. But this dinosaur was extraordinarily well preserved, with fossilized flesh still clinging to the bones, some fossilized internal organs, even huge swaths of fossilized skin. And covering the skin were the unmistakable outlines of feathers.
Smithback stood, dumbstruck. It was an astounding specimen, of incalculable value to science. Recent scientists had theorized that some dinosaurs, even T. Rex, might have had a covering of feathers. Here was the proof. He glanced down: a brass label read Unknown coeloraptor from Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada.
Smithback turned his attention to the cabinets, his eye falling on a series of human skulls. He moved closer. The little brass label below them read: Hominidae series from Swartkopje Cave, South Africa. Smithback could hardly believe his eyes. He knew enough about hominid fossils to know they were exceedingly rare. These dozen skulls were some of the most complete he had ever seen. They would revolutionize hominid studies.
His eye caught a gleam from the next cabinet. He stepped up to it. It was crowded with gemstones, and his eye landed on a large, green cut stone the size of a robin’s egg. The label below read Diamond, flawless specimen from Novotney Terra, Siberia, 216 carats, believed to be the only green diamond in existence. Next to it, in an especially large case, were immense star rubies, sapphires, and more exotic stones with names he could hardly pronounce, winking in the dim recesses—gemstones equal to the finest ones at the New York Museum. They seemed to have been given star billing among the other exhibits. On a nearby shelf lay a series of gold crystals, perfectly beautiful, lacy as frost, one as large as a grapefruit. Below lay rows of tektites, mostly black misshapen things, but some with a beautiful deep green or violet coloring.
Smithback took a step back, his mind wrestling with the richness and variety of the display. To think all this has stood here, in this ruined house, for a hundred years… He turned away and, on impulse, reached out and twitched off the sheet from a small specimen behind him. The sheet dissolved, and a strange stuffed animal greeted his eye: a large, tapirlike mammal with a huge muzzle, powerful forelegs, bulbous head, and curving tusks. It was like nothing he had ever seen before; a freak. He bent down to make out the dim label: Only known specimen of the Tusked Megalopedus, described by Pliny, thought to be fantastical until this specimen was shot in the Belgian Congo by the English explorer Col. Sir Henry F. Moreton, in 1869.
Good lord, thought Smithback: could it be true? A large mammal, completely unknown to science? Or was it a fake? Suddenly the thought occurred to him: could all these be fakes? But as he looked around, he realized they were not. Leng would not have collected fakes, and even in the dim light he could see that these were real. These were real. And if the rest of the collections in the house were like this, they constituted possibly the greatest natural history collection in the world. This was no mere cabinet of curiosities. It was too dark to take notes, but Smithback knew he wouldn’t need notes: what he had seen had been imprinted upon his mind forever.
Only once in a lifetime was a reporter given such a story.
He jerked away another sheet, and was greeted by the massive, rearing fossil skeleton of a short-faced cave bear, caught in a silent roar, its black teeth like daggers. The engraved brass label on the oak mounting stand indicated it had been pulled from the Kutz Canyon Tar Pits, in New Mexico.
He whispered through the reception hall on his stockinged feet, pulling off additional sheets, exposing a whole row of Pleistocene mammals—each one a magnificent specimen as fine or finer than any in a museum—ending with a series of Neanderthal skeletons, perfectly preserved, some with weapons, tools, and one sporting some sort of necklace made out of teeth.
Glancing to one side, he noticed a marble archway leading into a room beyond. In its center of the room was a huge, pitted meteorite, at least eight feet in diameter, surrounded by rows upon rows of additional cabinets.
It was ruby in color.
This was almost beyond belief.
He looked away, turning his attention to the objects ranged about mahogany shelves on a nearby wall. There were bizarre masks, flint spearpoints, a skull inlaid with turquoise, bejeweled knives, toads in jars, thousands of butterflies under glass: everything arranged with the utmost attention to systematics and classification.
He noticed that the light fixtures weren’t electric. They were gas, each with a little pipe leading up into a mantle, covered by a cut-glass shade. It was incredible. It had to be Leng’s house, just as he had left it. It was as if he had walked out of the house, boarded it up, and left…
Smithback paused, his excitement suddenly abating. Obviously, the house hadn’t remained like this, untouched, since Leng’s death. There must be a caretaker who came regularly. Somebody had put tin over the windows and draped the collections. The feeling that the house was not empty, that someone was still there, swept over him again.
The silence; the watchful exhibits and grotesque specimens; the overpowering darkness that lay in the corners
of the room—and, most of all, the rising stench of rot—brought a growing unease that would not be denied. He shuddered involuntarily. What was he doing? There was already enough here for a Pulitzer. He had the story: now, be smart and get the hell out.
He turned and swiftly climbed the stairs, passing the chimpanzee and the paintings—and then he paused. All the doors along the hall were closed, and it seemed even darker than it had a few minutes before. He realized he had forgotten which door he had come through. It was near the end of the hall, that much he remembered. He approached the most likely, tried the handle, and to his surprise found it locked. Must have guessed wrong, he thought, moving to the next.
That, too, was locked.
With a rising sense of alarm he tried the door on the other side. It was locked, as well. So was the next, and the next. With a chill prickling his spine, he tried the rest—all, every one, securely locked.
Smithback stood in the dark hallway, trying to control the sudden panic that threatened to paralyze his limbs.
He was locked in.
FOUR
CUSTER’S UNMARKED CRUISER pulled up with a satisfying squeal of rubber before the Museum’s security entrance, five squad cars skidding up around him, sirens wailing, light bars throwing red and white stripes across the Romanesque Revival facade. He rolled out of the squad car and strode decisively up the stone steps, a sea of blue in his wake.
At the impromptu meeting with his top detectives, and then in the ride uptown to the Museum, the theory that had hit him like a thunderclap became a firm, unshakable conviction. Surprise and speed is the way to go in this case, he thought as he looked up at the huge pile of granite. Hit ’ em hard and fast, leave them reeling—that was what his instructor at the Police Academy had always said. It was good advice. The commissioner wanted action. And it was action, in the form of Captain Sherwood Custer, that he was going to get.
A Museum security guard stood at the doorway, the police lights reflecting off his glasses. He looked bewildered. Several other guards were coming up behind him, staring down the steps, looking equally perplexed. A few tourists were approaching up Museum Drive, cameras dangling, guidebooks in hand. They stopped when they saw the cluster of police cars. After a brief parley, the group turned around and headed back toward a nearby subway entrance.
Custer didn’t bother to show the grunt his badge. “Captain Custer, Seventh Precinct,” he rapped out. “Brevetted to Homicide.”
The guard swallowed painfully. “Yes, Captain?”
“Is the Museum’s security chief in?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get him down here. Right away.”
The guards scurried around, and within five minutes a tall man in a tan suit, black hair combed back with a little too much grease, arrived. He’s an unsavory-looking fellow, Custer thought; but then, so many people in private security were. Not good enough to join the real force.
The man held out his hand and Custer took it reluctantly. “Jack Manetti, director of security. What can I do for you, officers?”
Without a word, Custer displayed the embossed, signed, and notarized bench warrant he’d managed to get issued in close to record time. The security director took it, read it over, handed it back to Custer.
“This is highly unusual. May I ask what’s happened?”
“We’ll get to the specifics shortly,” Custer replied. “For now, this warrant should be all you need to know. My men will need unlimited access to the Museum. I’m going to require an interrogation room set up for the questioning of selected staff. We’ll work as quickly as we can, and everything will go smoothly—provided we get cooperation from the Museum.” He paused, thrust his hands behind his back, looked around imperiously. “You realize, of course, that we have the authority to impound any items that, in our judgment, are germane to the case.” He wasn’t sure what the word germane meant, but the judge had used it in the warrant, and it sounded good.
“But that’s impossible, it’s almost closing time. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“Justice doesn’t wait, Mr. Manetti. I want a complete list of Museum staff. We’ll single out the individuals we want to question. If certain staff members have gone home early, they’ll need to be called back in. I’m sorry, but the Museum will just have to be inconvenienced.”
“But this is unheard of. I’m going to have to check with the Museum’s director—”
“You do that. In fact, let’s go see him in person. I want to make sure we’re clear, clear as crystal, on all points of order, so that once our investigations are underway we will not be inconvenienced or delayed. Understood?”
Manetti nodded, displeasure contracting his face. Good, thought Custer: the more upset and flustered everyone became, the quicker he’d be able to flush out the killer. Keep them guessing, don’t give them time to think. He felt exhilarated.
He turned. “Lieutenant Detective Cannell, take three officers and have these gentlemen show you to the staff entrance. I want everyone leaving the premises to be ID’d and checked against personnel records. Get phone numbers, cell numbers, and addresses. I want everyone available to be called back at a moment’s notice, if necessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant Detective Piles, you come with me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Custer turned a stern eye back on Manetti. “Show us the way to Dr. Collopy’s office. We have business to discuss.”
“Follow me,” said the security director, even more unhappily.
Custer motioned to the rest of his men, and they followed him through great echoing halls, up several floors in a giant elevator, and along yet more halls filled with displays—Christ, this place had more than its share of weird shit—until at last they reached a grand paneled door leading to an even grander paneled office. The door was half open, and beyond sat a small woman at a desk. She rose at their approach.
“We’re here to see Dr. Collopy,” said Custer, looking around, wondering why a secretary had such a fancy office.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said. “Dr. Collopy’s not here.”
“He’s not?” Custer and Manetti said in chorus.
The secretary shook her head, looking flustered. “He hasn’t been back since lunch. Said he had some important business to take care of.”
“But lunch was hours ago,” Custer said. “Isn’t there some way he can be reached?”
“There’s his private cell phone,” the secretary said.
“Dial it.” Custer turned to Manetti. “And you, call around to some of the other top brass. See if they know where this Collopy is.”
Manetti moved off to another desk, picked up a phone. The large office fell silent, save for the beep of numbers being dialed. Custer looked around. The space was paneled in very dark wood, and it was chock-full of bleak oil paintings and forbidding-looking displays parked behind glass-fronted cabinets. Christ, it was like a house of horrors.
“The cell phone’s turned off, sir,” the secretary said.
Custer shook his head. “Isn’t there any other number you can call? His house, for example?”
The secretary and Manetti exchanged looks. “We aren’t supposed to call there,” she said, looking even more flustered.
“I don’t care what you’re supposed to do. This is urgent police business. Call his house.”
The secretary unlocked a desk drawer, rummaged through a file of index cards, plucked one out. She looked at it a moment, shielding it from Custer’s and Manetti’s view. Then she replaced the card, locked the drawer, and dialed a number.
“Nobody’s picking up,” she said after a moment.
“Keep ringing.”
Half a minute went by. Finally, the secretary replaced the phone in its cradle. “There’s no answer.”
Custer rolled his eyes. “All right, listen. We can’t waste any more time. We have good reason to believe that the key to the serial killer known as the Surgeon—perhaps even the killer himself—
will be found here in the Museum. Time is of the essence. I’m going to personally supervise a thorough search of the Archives. Lieutenant Detective Piles will be in charge of questioning certain staff members.”
Manetti was silent.
“With the Museum’s cooperation, I think we can get through this by midnight, if not sooner. We’ll need a room for interrogation. We will require power for our recording machinery, a sound engineer, and an electrician. I will require identification from everyone, and access to personnel files on an ongoing basis.”
“Just which staff members are you going to question?” Manetti asked.
“We will determine that from the files.”
“We have two thousand five hundred employees.”
This temporarily floored Custer. Twenty-five hundred people to run a museum? What a welfare program. He took a breath, carefully recomposing his features. “We will deal with that. As a start, we’ll need to interview, let’s see… night watchmen who might have noticed any unusual comings or goings. And that archaeologist who excavated those skeletons, found the others down on Doyers Street, and—”
“Nora Kelly.”
“Right.”
“The police have already spoken with her, I believe.”
“So we’ll be speaking with her again. And we’ll want to talk to the head of security—that’s you—about your security arrangements, in the Archives and elsewhere. I want to question everyone connected with the Archives and the discovery of, ah, Mr. Puck’s body. How’s that for a start?” He gave a quick, artificial smile.
There was a silence.
“Now, direct me to the Archives, please.”
For a moment, Manetti just stared at him, as if the situation was beyond his powers of comprehension.
“Direct me to the Archives, Mr. Manetti, and make it now, if you please.”
Manetti blinked. “Very well, Captain. If you’ll follow me.”
As they walked down the storied halls, cops and administrators in tow, Custer felt a huge swelling of excitement at his newly found self-confidence. He’d finally discovered his true calling. Homicide was where he should have been all along. It was obvious he was a natural; he had a knack for the work. His being put in charge of this case had not been a fluke. It had been destiny.
The Cabinet of Curiosities Page 33
