The Cabinet of Curiosities

by Douglas Preston

  “That, Dr. Kelly, is the nature of our appointment.”

  He pointed to a door at the end of the hall, with the name of the occupant in gold lettering on a wooden plaque.

  “Oh, no,” groaned Nora. “No.”

  They found Roger Brisbane ensconced in his Bauhaus chair, crisp Turnbull & Asser shirt rolled up at the cuffs, looking every inch the lawyer. His prized gems still nestled in their glass box, the only touch of warmth in the cold immaculate office. He nodded toward two chairs opposite his desk. It did not look like Brisbane was in a good mood.

  “Special Agent Pendergast,” Brisbane said, glancing from his appointment book up to Pendergast without acknowledging Nora. “Now, why is that name familiar?”

  “I’ve done work in the Museum before,” said Pendergast, in his creamiest drawl.

  “Who did you work for?”

  “You misapprehend. I said I did work in the Museum, not for it.”

  Brisbane waved his hand. “Whatever. Mr. Pendergast, I enjoy my quiet mornings at home. I fail to see what the emergency was that required my presence in the office at such an hour.”

  “Crime never sleeps, Mr. Brisbane.” Nora thought she detected a note of dry humor in Pendergast’s voice.

  Brisbane’s eyes veered toward Nora, then away again. “Dr. Kelly’s responsibilities are here. I thought I made that clear on the telephone. Normally the Museum would be delighted to help the FBI, but I just don’t see how we can in this particular case.”

  Instead of answering, Pendergast’s gaze lingered on the gems. “I didn’t know the famous Mogul Star Sapphire had been taken off public display. That is the Mogul Star, is it not?”

  Brisbane shifted in his chair. “We periodically rotate the exhibits, to give visitors a chance to see things that are in storage.”

  “And you keep the, ah, excess inventory here.”

  “Mr. Pendergast, as I said, I fail to see how we can help you.”

  “This was a unique crime. You have unique resources. I need to make use of those resources.”

  “Did the crime you mention take place in the Museum?”

  “No.”

  “On Museum property?”

  Pendergast shook his head.

  “Then I’m afraid the answer is no.”

  “Is that your final word on the subject?”

  “Absolutely. We don’t want the Museum mixed up in any way with police work. Being involved in investigations, lawsuits, sordidness, is a sure way to draw the Museum into unwelcome controversy. As you well know, Mr. Pendergast.”

  Pendergast removed a piece of paper from his vest pocket and laid it in front of Brisbane.

  “What’s this?” Brisbane said, without looking at it.

  “The Museum’s charter with the City of New York.”

  “What relevance is that?”

  “It states that one of the responsibilities of Museum employees is to perform pro bono public service to the City of New York.”

  “We do that every day by running the Museum.”

  “Ah, but that is precisely the problem. Up until fairly recently, the Museum’s Anthropology Department regularly assisted the police in forensic matters. It was part of their duties, as a matter of fact. You remember, of course, the infamous Ashcan Murder of November 7, 1939?”

  “Pity, I must have missed that particular piece in the Times that day.”

  “A curator here was instrumental in solving that case. He found the burned rim of an orbit in an ashcan, which he was able to identify as positively human—”

  “Mr. Pendergast, I am not here for a history lesson.” Brisbane rose out of his chair and flicked on his jacket. “The answer is no. I have business to attend to. Dr. Kelly, please return to your office.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. There will be adverse publicity, of course.”

  At these two words, Brisbane paused, then a cold smile crept onto his face. “That sounded remarkably like a threat.”

  Pendergast continued in his genial, southern fashion. “The truth is, the charter clearly calls for service to the City outside of regular curatorial duties. The Museum has not been keeping its contract with the City of New York now for close to a decade, despite the fact that it receives millions in tax dollars from the citizens of New York. Far from providing public service, you have now closed your library to all but Ph.D.’s; you have closed your collections to everyone except so-called accredited academics; and you charge fees for everything, all in the name of intellectual property rights. You have even begun suggesting an admission fee, despite the fact that this is clearly barred by your charter. It says right here:… for the Creation of a Museum of Natural History for the City of New York, to be Open and Free to all Members of the Public, without Restriction…”

  “Let me see that.”

  Brisbane read it, his smooth brow contracting into the faintest wrinkle.

  “Old documents can be so inconvenient, don’t you think, Mr. Brisbane? Like the Constitution. Always there when you least want it.”

  Brisbane let it drop to the desk, his face reddening for a moment before returning to its usual healthy pink. “I’ll have to take this up with the board.”

  Pendergast smiled slightly. “An excellent start. I think perhaps the Museum can be left to work this little problem out on its own—what do you think, Mr. Brisbane?—provided I am given what little help I need from Dr. Kelly.”

  There was a silence. Then Brisbane looked up, a new look in his eyes. “I see.”

  “And I assure you I will not take up an undue amount of Dr. Kelly’s time.”

  “Of course you won’t,” said Brisbane.

  “Most of the work will be archival in nature. She’ll be on the premises and available, should you need her.”

  Brisbane nodded.

  “We will do all we can to avoid unpleasant publicity. Naturally, all this would be kept confidential.”

  “Naturally. It is always best that way.”

  “I just want to add that Dr. Kelly did not seek me out. I have imposed this duty on her. She has already informed me she would rather be working on her potsherds.”

  “Of course.”

  An opaque veil had dropped over Brisbane’s face. It was hard for Nora to tell what he was thinking. She wondered if this little hardball play of Pendergast’s was going to damage her prospects at the Museum. It probably would. She darted a reproachful glance toward Pendergast.

  “Where did you say you were from?” Brisbane asked.

  “I didn’t. New Orleans.”

  Brisbane immediately pushed himself back in his chair, and with a smile said: “New Orleans. Of course. I should have known from the accent. You’re a rather long way from home, Mr. Pendergast.”

  Pendergast bowed, holding the door open for Nora. She stepped through it, feeling shocked. Down the hall, she halted and spoke to Pendergast. “You totally blindsided me back there. I had no idea what you were up to until we were in Brisbane’s office. I don’t appreciate it.”

  Pendergast turned his pale eyes on her. “My methods are unorthodox, but they have one advantage.”

  “And what is that?”

  “They work.”

  “Yeah, but what about my career?”

  Pendergast smiled. “May I offer a prediction?”

  “For what it’s worth, why not?”

  “When this is over, you will have been promoted.”

  Nora snorted. “Right. After you blackmailed and humiliated my boss, he’s going to promote me.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t suffer petty bureaucrats gladly. A very bad habit, but one I find hard to break. Nevertheless, you will find, Dr. Kelly, that humiliation and blackmail, when used judiciously, can be marvelously effective.”

  At the stairwell, Nora paused once again.

  “You never answered my question. Why is the FBI concerned with killings that are over a century old?”

  “All in good time, Dr. Kelly. For now, let it suffice to say that, on a purely person
al level, I find these killings rather—ah—interesting.”

  Something in the way Pendergast said “interesting” sent the faintest of shudders through Nora.

  Men of Science

  ONE

  THE MUSEUM’S VAST central archives lay deep in the basement, reachable only through several sets of elevators, winding corridors, stairs, and passageways. Nora had never been to the Archives before—she did not, in fact, know anybody who ever had—and as she descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Museum, she wondered if perhaps she had made a wrong turn somewhere.

  Before accepting the job at the Museum, she had taken one of the tours that threaded their way through its endless galleries. She had heard all the statistics: it was physically the largest museum in the world, consisting of two dozen interconnected buildings built in the nineteenth century, forming a bizarre maze of more than three thousand rooms and almost two hundred miles of passageways. But mere numbers could not capture the claustrophobic feeling of the endless, deserted corridors. It was enough, she thought, to give the Minotaur a nervous breakdown.

  She stopped, consulted her map, and sighed. A long brick passageway ran straight ahead, illuminated by a string of light bulbs in cages; another ran off from it at right angles. Everything smelled of dust. She needed a landmark, a fixed point to get her bearings. She looked around. A padlocked metal door nearby had a weathered sign: Titanotheres. A door across the hall from it read: Chalicotheres and Tapiroids. She checked the oversized map, finally locating her position with difficulty. She wasn’t lost, after all: it was just ahead and around the corner. Famous last words, she thought, walking forward, hearing the echoing rap of her heels against the concrete floor.

  She stopped at a massive set of oaken doors, ancient and scarred, marked Central Archives. She knocked, listening to the rap resound cavernously on the far side. There came a sudden rattle of papers, the sound of a dropped book, a great clearing of phlegm. A high-pitched voice called out, “Just a moment, please!”

  There was a slow shuffling, then the sound of numerous locks being unfastened. The door opened, revealing a short, round, elderly man. He had a vastly hooked red nose, and a fringe of long white hair descended from the gleaming dome above it. As he looked up at her, a smile of greeting broke out, dispelling the air of melancholy on his veined face.

  “Ah, come in, do come in,” he said. “Don’t let all these locks frighten you. I’m an old man, but I don’t bite. Fortunate senex!”

  Nora took a step forward. Dust lay everywhere, even on the worn lapels of the man’s jacket. A lamp with a green shade cast a small pool of light on the old desk, piled high with papers. On one side sat an elderly Royal typewriter, perhaps the only thing in the room not covered in dust. Beyond the desk, Nora could see cast-iron shelves laden with books and boxes stretching back into a gloom as deep as the ocean. In the dimness, it was impossible to judge how far the room extended.

  “Are you Reinhart Puck?” Nora asked.

  The man set up a vigorous nodding, his cheeks and bow tie flapping in response. “At your service.” He bowed, and for an alarmed moment Nora thought he might reach out to kiss her hand. Instead, there was another loud sound of phlegm being forced against its will somewhere within his windpipes.

  “I’m looking for information on—on cabinets of curiosities,” Nora continued, wondering if that was the correct pluralization.

  The man, busy relocking the door, glanced over, his rheumy eyes lighting up. “Ah! You’ve come to the right place. The Museum absorbed most of the old cabinets of early New York. We have all their collections, their papers. Where shall we begin?” He slammed the last bolt home, then rubbed his hands together, smiling, clearly happy to be of service to someone.

  “There was a cabinet of curiosities in lower Manhattan known as Shottum’s Cabinet.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “Shottum’s… Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. Quite popular these days, Shottum’s. But first things first. Please sign the register, and then we can get started.” He motioned her to follow him around the desk, where he produced a leather-bound ledger, so old and rubbed that Nora was tempted to ask for a quill pen. She took the proffered ballpoint, wrote in her name and department.

  “Why all the locks and bolts?” she asked, handing back the pen. “I thought all the really valuable stuff, the gold and diamonds and the rest, was kept in the Secure Area.”

  “It’s the new administration. Added all this red tape, after the unpleasantness a few years back. It’s not as if we’re all that busy, you know. Just researchers and doctoral candidates, or the occasional wealthy patron with an interest in the history of science.” He returned the register, then shuffled over to a huge bank of old ivory light switches, big as clothes pegs, and snapped a few on. Deep in the vast space there was a flicker, then another, and a dim light appeared. Puck set off toward it at a slow hobble, his feet scraping on the stone floor. Nora followed, glancing up at the dark walls of shelving. She felt as if she were walking through a dark forest toward the distant glow of a welcoming cottage.

  “Cabinets of curiosities, one of my favorite subjects. As you no doubt know, Delacourte’s was the first cabinet, established in 1804.” Puck’s voice echoed back over his stooped shoulders. “It was a marvelous collection. A whale eyeball pickled in whiskey, a set of hippo teeth, a mastodon tusk found in a bog in New Jersey. And of course the last dodo egg, of a Rodrigues Solitaire to be exact. The egg was brought back live in a crate, but then after they put it on display it appeared to have hatched, and—Aha, here we are.”

  He stopped abruptly, reached up to drag a box down from a high shelf, and opened its lid. Instead of the Shottum’s Cabinet material Nora hoped for, inside was a large eggshell, broken into three pieces. “There’s no provenience on these things, so they didn’t accession them into the main Museum collection. That’s why we’ve got them here.” He pointed reverently at the pieces of shell, licking his lips. “Delacourte’s Cabinet of Natural History. They charged twenty-five cents admission, quite a sum at the time.”

  Replacing the box, he slid a thick three-ring binder off an adjoining shelf and began flipping through it. “What would you like to know about the Delacourte Cabinet?”

  “It was actually Shottum’s Cabinet of Natural Productions and Curiosities that I was interested in. John Canaday Shottum.” Nora swallowed her impatience. It would clearly be useless to rush Mr. Puck.

  “Yes, yes, Shottum’s.” He resumed his shuffling down the row of boxes, binders, and books.

  “How did the Museum acquire these cabinets?” she asked.

  “Once the Museum opened, with free admission, it put most of them out of business. Of course, a lot of the stuff the old cabinets displayed were fakes, you know. But some of it held real scientific value. As the cabinets went bankrupt, McFadden, an early curator here, bought them up for the Museum.”

  “Fakes, you said?”

  Puck nodded portentously. “Sewing two heads onto a calf. Taking a whale bone and dying it brown, saying it came from a dinosaur. We have some of those.”

  As he moved on to the next row, Nora hastened to keep up, wondering how to guide this flood of information in the direction she wanted.

  “Cabinets were all the rage. Even P.T. Barnum once owned a cabinet known as Scudder’s American Museum. He added live exhibits. And that, young lady, was the beginning of his circus.”

  “Live exhibits?”

  “He displayed Joice Heth, a wizened old black woman who Barnum claimed was George Washington’s 161-year-old nurse. Exposed as a fraud by the father of our own Tinbury McFadden.”

  “Tinbury McFadden?” Nora was starting to panic. Would she ever get out of here?

  “Tinbury McFadden. A curator here back in the late ninteenth century. He had a particular interest in cabinets of curiosities. Queer fellow. Just up and disappeared one day.”

  “I’m interested in Shottum’s Cabinet. John Canaday Shottum.”

  “We’re getting there, young
lady,” said Puck, with the slightest touch of irritation. “We don’t have much from Shottum’s. It burned in 1881.”

  “Most of the stuff was collected by a man named Marysas. Alexander Marysas,” Nora said, hoping to keep his mind on the subject at hand.

  “Now, there was an odd fellow. Marysas came from a rich New York family, died in Madagascar. I believe the chief made an umbrella out of his skin to protect his baby grandson from the sun…”

  They followed a labyrinthine path between shelves groaning with papers, boxes, and bizarre artifacts. Puck snapped more ivory switches; more lights went on ahead of them, while others winked out behind, leaving them in an island of light surrounded by a vast ocean of darkness. They came to an open area in the shelves where some large specimens stood on oak platforms—a woolly mammoth, shriveled but still huge; a white elephant; a giraffe missing its head. Nora’s heart sank when Puck stopped.

  “Those old cabinets would do anything to draw the paying public. Take a look at this baby mammoth. Found freeze-dried in Alaska.” He reached underneath it and pressed something; there was a soft click and a trapdoor flopped open in the belly.

  “This was part of a sideshow routine. A label said the mammoth had been frozen for 100,000 years and that a scientist was going to thaw it out and try to revive it. Before the sideshow opened, a small man would climb in through that trapdoor. When the place had filled with spectators, another man posing as a scientist would come out and give a lecture and start warming the thing with a brazier. Then the man inside would start moving the trunk and making noises. Cleared the place out in seconds.” Puck chuckled. “People were a lot more innocent back then, weren’t they?” He reached under and carefully closed the trapdoor.

  “Yes, yes,” said Nora. “This is very interesting, Mr. Puck, and I appreciate the tour. But I’m pressed for time, and I really would like to see the Shottum material now.”

  “We’re here.” Puck rolled a metal ladder into place, climbed up into the gloom, and descended with a small box.