The Cabinet of Curiosities

by Douglas Preston

  With an effort, she pushed it all away. Mary Greene and her family were long gone. It was tragic, it was horrifying—but it was no concern of hers.

  Sorting completed, she began packing the tubes in their special Styrofoam shipping containers. Better to break it down into three batches, just in case one got lost. Sealing the containers, she turned to the bills of lading and FedEx shipping labels.

  A knock sounded at the door. The knob turned, but the locked door merely rattled in its frame. She glanced over.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  The hoarse whisper was muffled by the door.

  “Who?” She felt a sudden fear.

  “Me. Bill.” The furtive voice was louder.

  Nora stood up with a mixture of relief and anger. “What are you doing here?”

  “Open up.”

  “Are you kidding? Get out of here. Now.”

  “Nora, please. It’s important.”

  “It’s important that you stay the hell away from me. I’m warning you.”

  “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “That’s it. I’m calling security.”

  “No, Nora. Wait”

  Nora picked up the phone, dialed. The officer she reached said he would be only too glad to remove the intruder. They would be there right away.

  “Nora!” Smithback cried.

  Nora sat down at her worktable, trying to compose her mind. She closed her eyes. Ignore him. Just ignore him. Security would be there in a moment.

  Smithback continued to plead at the door. “Just let me in for a minute. There’s something you have to know. Last night—”

  She heard heavy footfalls and a firm voice. “Sir, you’re in an off-limits area.”

  “Hey! Let go! I’m a reporter for—”

  “You will come with us, please, sir.”

  There was the sound of a scuffle.

  “Nora!”

  A new note of desperation sounded strong in Smithback’s voice. Despite herself, Nora went to the door, unlocked it, and stuck out her head. Smithback was being held between two burly security men. He glanced at her, cowlick bobbing reproachfully as he tried to extricate himself. “Nora, I can’t believe you called security.”

  “Are you all right, miss?” one of the men asked.

  “I’m fine. But that man shouldn’t be here.”

  “This way, sir. We’ll walk you to the door.” The men started dragging Smithback off.

  “Unhand me, oaf! I’ll report you, Mister 3467.”

  “Yes, sir, you do that, sir.”

  “Stop calling me ‘sir.’ This is assault.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The men, imperturbable, led him down the hall toward the elevator.

  As Nora watched, she felt a turmoil of conflicting emotion. Poor Smithback. What an undignified exit. But then, he’d brought it on himself—hadn’t he? He needed the lesson. He couldn’t just show up like this, all mystery and high drama, and expect her to—

  “Nora!” came the cry from down the hall. “You have to listen, please! Pendergast was attacked, I heard it on the police scanner. He’s is St. Luke’s—Roosevelt, down on Fifty-ninth. He—”

  Then Smithback was gone, his shouts cut off by the elevator doors.

  EIGHT

  NOBODY WOULD TELL nora anything. It was more than an hour before the doctor could see her. At last he showed up in the lounge, very young: a tired, hunted look in his face and a two-day growth of beard.

  “Dr. Kelly?” he asked the room while looking at his clipboard.

  She rose and their eyes met. “How is he?”

  A wintry smile broke on the doctor’s face. “He’s going to be fine.” He looked at her curiously. “Dr. Kelly, are you a medical—?”

  “Archaeologist.”

  “Oh. And your relationship to the patient?”

  “A friend. Can I see him? What happened?”

  “He was stabbed last night.”

  “My God.”

  “Missed his heart by less than an inch. He was very lucky.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s in…” the doctor paused. The faint smile returned. “Excellent spirits. An odd fellow, Mr. Pendergast. He insisted on a local anesthetic for the operation—highly unusual, unheard of actually, but he refused to sign the consent forms otherwise. Then he demanded a mirror. We had to bring one up from obstetrics. I’ve never had quite such a, er, demanding patient. I thought for a moment I had a surgeon on my operating table. They make the worst patients, you know.”

  “What did he want a mirror for?”

  “He insisted on watching. His vitals were dropping and he was losing blood, but he absolutely insisted on getting a view of the wound from various angles before he would allow us to operate. Very odd. What kind of profession is Mr. Pendergast in?”

  “FBI.”

  The smile evaporated. “I see. Well, that explains quite a bit. We put him in a shared room at first—no private ones were available—but then we quickly had to make one available for him. Moved out a state senator to get it.”

  “Why? Did Pendergast complain?”

  “No… he didn’t.” The doctor hesitated a moment. “He began watching the video of an autopsy. Very graphic. His roommate naturally objected. But it was really just as well. Because an hour ago, the things started to arrive.” He shrugged. “He refused to eat hospital food, insisted on ordering in from Balducci’s. Refused an IV drip. Refused painkillers—no OxyContin, not even Vicodin or Tylenol Number 3. He must be in dreadful pain, but doesn’t show it. With these new patient-rights guidelines, my hands are tied.”

  “It sounds just like him.”

  “The bright side is that the most difficult patients usually make the fastest recovery. I just feel sorry for the nurses.” The doctor glanced at his watch. “You might as well head over there now. Room 1501.”

  As Nora approached the room, she noticed a faint odor in the air: something out of place among the aromas of stale food and rubbing alcohol. Something exotic, fragrant. A shrill voice echoed out of the open door. She paused in the doorway and gave a little knock.

  The floor of the room was stacked high with old books, and a riot of maps and papers lay across them. Tall sticks of sandalwood incense were propped inside silver cups, sending up slender coils of smoke. That accounts for the smell, Nora thought. A nurse was standing near the bed, clutching a plastic pill box in one hand and a syringe in the other. Pendergast lay on the bed in a black silk dressing gown. The overhead television showed a splayed body, grotesque and bloody, being worked on by no fewer than three doctors. One of the doctors was in the middle of lifting a wobbly brain out of the skull. She looked away. On the bedside table was a dish of drawn butter and the remains of coldwater lobster tails.

  “Mr. Pendergast, I insist you take this injection,” the nurse was saving. “You’ve just undergone a serious operation. You must have your sleep.”

  Pendergast withdrew his arms from behind his head, picked up a dusty volume lying atop the sheets, and began leafing through it nonchalantly. “Nurse, I have no intention of taking that. I shall sleep when I’m ready.” Pendergast blew dust from the book’s spine and turned the page.

  “I’m going to call the doctor. This is completely unacceptable. And this filth is highly unsanitary.” She waved her hand through the clouds of dust.

  Pendergast nodded, leafed over another page.

  The nurse stormed past Nora on her way out.

  Pendergast glanced at her and smiled. “Ah, Dr. Kelly. Please come in and make yourself comfortable.”

  Nora took a seat in a chair at the foot of the bed. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “I was careless.”

  “But who did it? Where? When?”

  “Outside my residence,” said Pendergast. He held up the remote and turned off the video, then laid the book aside. “A man in black, with a cane, wearing a derby hat. He tried to chlorofor
m me. I held my breath and pretended to faint; then broke away. But he was extraordinarily strong and swift, and I underestimated him. He stabbed me, then escaped.”

  “You could have been killed!”

  “That was the intention.”

  “The doctor said it missed your heart by an inch.”

  “Yes. When I realized he was going to stab me, I directed his hand to a nonvital place. A useful trick, by the way, if you ever find yourself in a similar position.”

  He leaned forward slightly. “Dr. Kelly, I’m convinced he’s the same man who killed Doreen Hollander and Mandy Eklund.”

  Nora looked at him sharply. “What makes you say that?”

  “I caught a glimpse of the weapon—a surgeon’s scalpel with a myringotomy blade.”

  “But… but why you?”

  Pendergast smiled, but the smile held more pain than mirth. “That shouldn’t be hard to answer. Somewhere along the way, we brushed up a little too close to the truth. We flushed him out. This is a very positive development.”

  “A positive development? You could still be in danger!”

  Pendergast raised his pale eyes and looked at her intently. “I am not the only one, Dr. Kelly. You and Mr. Smithback must take precautions.” He winced slightly.

  “You should have taken that painkiller.”

  “For what I plan to do, it’s essential to keep my head clear. People did without painkillers for countless centuries. As I was saying, you should take precautions. Don’t venture out alone on the streets at night. I have a great deal of trust in Sergeant O’ Shaughnessy.” He slipped a card into her hand. “If you need anything, call him. I’ll be up and about in a few days.”

  She nodded.

  “Meanwhile, it might be a good idea for you to get out of town for a day. There’s a talkative, lonely old lady up in Peekskill who would love to have visitors.”

  She sighed. “I told you why I couldn’t help anymore. And you still haven’t told me why you’re spending your time with these old murders.”

  “Anything I told you now would be incomplete. I have more work of my own to do, more pieces of the puzzle to fit together. But let me assure you of one thing, Dr. Kelly: this is no frivolous field trip. It is vital that we learn more about Enoch Leng.”

  There was a silence.

  “Do it for Mary Greene, if not for me.”

  Nora rose to leave.

  “And Dr. Kelly?”

  “Yes?”

  “Smithback isn’t such a bad fellow. I know from experience that he’s a reliable man in a pinch. It would ease my mind if, while all this is going on, you two worked together—”

  Nora shook her head. “No way.”

  Pendergast held up his hand with a certain impatience. “Do it for your own safety. And now, I need to get back to my work. I look forward to hearing back from you tomorrow.”

  His tone was peremptory. Nora left, feeling annoyed. Yet again Pendergast had dragged her back into the case, and now he wanted to burden her with that ass Smithback. Well, forget Smithback. He’d just love to get his hands on part two of the story. Him and his Pulitzer. She’d go to Peekskill, all right. But she’d go by herself.

  NINE

  THE BASEMENT ROOM was small and silent. In its simplicity it resembled a monk’s cell. Only a narrow-legged wooden table and stiff, uncomfortable chair broke the monotony of the uneven stone floor, the damp unfinished walls. A black light in the ceiling threw a spectral blue pall over the four items upon the table: a scarred and rotting leather notebook; a lacquer fountain pen; a tan-colored length of India-rubber; and a hypodermic syringe.

  The figure in the chair glanced at each of the carefully aligned items in turn. Then, very slowly, he reached for the hypodermic. The needle glowed with strange enchantment in the ultraviolet light, and the serum inside the glass tube seemed almost to smoke.

  He stared at the serum, turning it this way and that, fascinated by its eddies, its countless miniature whorls. This was what the ancients had been searching for: the Philosopher’s Stone, the Holy Grail, the one true name of God. Much sacrifice had been made to get it—on his part, on the part of the long stream of resources who had donated their lives to its refinement. But any amount of sacrifice was acceptable. Here before him was a universe of life, encased in a prison of glass. His life. And to think it all started with a single material: the neuronal membrane of the cauda equina, the divergent sheaf of spinal ganglia with the longest nerve roots of all. To bathe all the cells of the body with the essence of neurons, the cells that did not die: such a simple concept, yet so damnably complicated in development.

  The process of synthesis and refinement was tortuous. And yet he took great pleasure in it, just as he did in the ritual he was about to perform. Creating the final reduction, moving from step to step to step, had become a religious experience for him. It was like the countless Gnostic keys the believer must perform before true prayer can begin. Or the harpsichordist who works his way through the twenty-nine Goldberg Variations before arriving at the final, pure, unadorned truth Bach intended.

  The pleasure of these reflections was troubled briefly by the thought of those who would stop him, if they could: who would seek him out, follow the carefully obscured trail to this room, put a halt to his noble work. The most troublesome one had already been punished for his presumption—though not as fully punished as intended. Still, there would be other methods, other opportunities.

  Placing the hypodermic gently aside, he reached for the leather-bound journal, turned over the front cover. Abruptly, a new smell was introduced into the room: must, rot, decomposition. He was always struck by the irony of how a volume that, over the years, had itself grown so decayed managed to contain the secret that banished decay.

  He turned the pages, slowly, lovingly, examining the early years of painstaking work and research. At last, he reached the end, where the notations were still new and fresh. He unscrewed the fountain pen and laid it by the last entry, ready to record his new observations.

  He would have liked to linger further but did not dare: the serum required a specific temperature and was not stable beyond a brief interval. He scanned the tabletop with a sigh of something almost like regret. Though of course it was not regret, because in the wake of the injection would come nullification of corporeal poisons and oxidants and the arresting of the aging process—in short, that which had evaded the best minds for three dozen centuries.

  More quickly now, he picked up the rubber strap, tied it off above the elbow of his right arm, tapped the rising vein with the side of a fingernail, placed the needle against the antecubital fossa, slid it home.

  And closed his eyes.

  TEN

  NORA WALKED AWAY from the red gingerbread peekskill station, squinting against the bright morning sun. It had been raining when she’d boarded the train at Grand Central. But here, only a few small clouds dotted the blue sky above the old riverfront downtown. Three-story brick buildings were set close together, faded facades looking toward the Hudson. Behind them, narrow streets climbed away from the river, toward the public library and City Hall. Farther still, perched on the rocky hillside, lay the houses of the old neighborhoods, their narrow lawns dotted with ancient trees. Between the aging structures lay a scattering of smaller and newer houses, a car repair shop, the occasional Spanish-American mini-market. Everything looked shabby and superannuated. It was a proud old town in uncomfortable transition, clutching to its dignity in the face of decay and neglect.

  She checked the directions Clara McFadden had given her over the telephone, then began climbing Central Avenue. She turned right on Washington, her old leather portfolio swinging from one hand, working her way toward Simpson Place. It was a steep climb, and she found herself panting slightly. Across the river, the ramparts of Bear Mountain could be glimpsed through the trees: a patchwork of autumnal yellows and reds, interspersed with darker stands of spruce and pine.

  Clara McFadden’s house was a dilapidated Queen
Anne, with a slate mansard roof, gables, and a pair of turrets decorated with oriel windows. The white paint was peeling. A wraparound porch surrounded the first floor, set off by a spindlework frieze. As she walked up the short drive, the wind blew through the trees, sending leaves swirling around her. She mounted the porch and rang the heavy bronze bell.

  A minute passed, then two. She was about to ring again when she remembered the old lady had told her to walk in.

  She grasped the large bronze knob and pushed; the door swung open with the creak of rarely used hinges. She stepped into an entryway, hanging her coat on a lone hook. There was a smell of dust, old fabric, and cats. A worn set of stairs swept upward, and to her right she could see a broad arched doorway, framed in carved oak, leading into what looked like a parlor.

  A voice, riven with age but surprisingly strong, issued from within. “Do come in,” it said.

  Nora paused at the entrance to the parlor. After the bright day outside, it was shockingly dim, the tall windows covered with thick green drapes ending in gold tassels. As her eyes slowly adjusted, she saw an old woman, dressed in crepe and dark bombazine, ensconced on a Victorian wing chair. It was so dark that at first all Nora could see was a white face and white hands, hovering as if disconnected in the dimness. The woman’s eyes were half closed.

  “Do not be afraid,” said the disembodied voice from the deep chair.

  Nora took another step inside. The white hand moved, indicating another wing chair, draped with a lace antimacassar. “Sit down.”

  Nora took a seat gingerly. Dust rose from the chair. There was a rustling sound as a black cat shot from behind a curtain and disappeared into the dim recesses of the room.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” Nora said.

  The bombazine crackled as the lady raised her head. “What do you want, child?”

  The question was unexpectedly direct, and the tone of the voice behind it sharp.