The Cabinet of Curiosities

by Douglas Preston

  He blinked in the bright fall light, inhaled the crisp air.

  Years before—during the time he’d spent writing what had started out as a history of the Museum’s superstition exhibition—Smithback had grown to know the Museum very well. He knew its eccentric ways, the ins and outs, the shortcuts, the curiosa, the hidden corners and miscellaneous archives. If there was any information about Leng hidden within those walls, Smithback would find it.

  When the great bronze doors opened, Smithback made sure he buried himself within the throngs, staying as anonymous as possible. He paid the suggested admission and pinned on his button, strolling through the Great Rotunda, gaping like all the others at the soaring skeletons.

  Soon he broke away from the tourists and worked his way down to the first floor. One of the least known, but most useful, archives in the Museum was here. Colloquially known as Old Records, it housed cabinet upon filing cabinet of personnel records, running from the Museum’s founding to about 1986, when the system was computerized and moved to a gleaming new space on the fourth floor and given the shiny new name of Human Resources. How well he remembered Old Records: the smell of mothballs and foxed paper, the endless files on long-dead Museum employees, associates, and researchers. Old Records still contained some sensitive material, and Smithback remembered that it was kept locked and guarded. The last time he was in here, it was on official business and he had a signed permission. This time, he was going to have to use a different approach. The guards might recognize him; then again, after several years, they might not.

  He walked through the vast Hall of Birds, echoing and empty, considering how best to proceed. Soon he found himself before the twin riveted copper doors labeled Personnel Records, Old. Peering through the crack between them, he could see two guards, sitting at a table, drinking coffee.

  Two guards. Twice the chance of being recognized, half the chance of pulling a fast one on them. He had to get rid of one.

  He took a turn around the hall, still thinking, as a plan began to take shape. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and walked out into the corridor, up the stairs, and into the huge Selous Memorial Hall. There, the usual cadre of cheerful old ladies had taken their places at the information desk. Smithback plucked the visitor’s button from his lapel and tossed it in a trash bin. Then he strode up to the nearest lady.

  “I’m Professor Smithback,” he said, with a smile.

  “Yes, Professor. What can I do for you?” The lady had curly white hair and violet eyes.

  Smithback gave her his most charming smile. “May I use your phone?”

  “Of course.” The woman handed him the phone from under the desk. Smithback looked through the nearby museum phone book, found the number, and dialed.

  “Old Records,” a gruff voice answered.

  “Is Rook on duty there?” Smithback barked.

  “Rook? There’s no Rook here. You got the wrong number, pal.”

  Smithback expelled an irritated stream of air into the phone. “Who’s on in Records, then?”

  “It’s me and O’Neal. Who’s this?” The voice was truculent, stupid.

  “ ‘Me’? Who’s ‘me’?”

  “What’s your problem, friend?” came the reply.

  Smithback put on his coldest, most officious voice. “Allow me to repeat myself. May I be so presumptuous to ask who you are, sir, and whether you want to be written up for insubordination?”

  “I’m Bulger, sir.” The guard’s gruff manner wilted instantly.

  “Bulger. I see. You’re the man I need to talk to. This is Mr. Hrumrehmen in Human Resources.” He spoke rapidly and angrily, deliberately garbling the name.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. How can I help you, Mr.—?”

  “You certainly can help me, Bulger. There’s a problem here with certain, ah, asseverations in your personnel file, Bulger.”

  “What kind of problem?” The man sounded suitably alarmed.

  “It’s confidential. We’ll discuss it when you get here.”

  “When?”

  “Now, of course.”

  “Yes, sir, but I didn’t catch your name—”

  “And tell O’Neal I’m sending someone down to review your procedures in the meantime. We’ve had some disturbing reports about laxity.”

  “Yes, sir, of course, but—?”

  Smithback replaced the phone. He looked up to find the elderly volunteer eyeing him curiously, even suspiciously.

  “What was that all about, Professor?”

  Smithback grinned and drew a hand over his cowlick. “Just a little trick on a coworker. We’ve got this running joke, see… Gotta do something to lighten up this old pile.”

  She smiled. The dear innocent, Smithback thought a little guiltily as he made a beeline back down the stairs to Old Records. On the way, he passed one of the guards he’d seen through the crack: huffing down the hall, belly jiggling as he walked, panic writ large on his face. The Human Resources office at the Museum was a notoriously feared place, overstaffed like the rest of the administration. It would take the guard ten minutes to get there, ten minutes to wander around looking for the nonexistent Mr. Hrumrehmen, and ten minutes to get back. That would give Smithback thirty minutes to talk his way inside and find what he was looking for. It wasn’t a lot of time, but Smithback knew the Museum’s archival systems inside and out. He had infinite confidence in his ability to find what he needed in short order.

  Once again, he strode down the hall to the copper doors of Old Records. He straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath. Raising one hand, he knocked imperiously.

  The door was opened by the remaining security officer. He looked young, barely old enough to be out of high school. He was already spooked. “Yes, how can I help you?”

  Smithback grasped the man’s surprised, limp hand while stepping inside at the same time.

  “O’Neal? I’m Maurice Fannin from Human Resources. They sent me down here to straighten things out.”

  “Straighten things out?”

  Smithback slid his way inside, looking at the rows of old metal filing cabinets, the scarred table covered with foam coffee cups and cigarette butts, the piss-yellow walls.

  “This is a disgrace,” he said.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  Smithback drilled his eyes into O’Neal. “We’ve been doing a little looking into your area here, and let me tell you, O’Neal, we are not pleased. Not pleased at all.”

  O’Neal was immediately and utterly cowed. “I’m sorry, sir. Maybe you should talk to my supervisor, Mr. Bulger—”

  “Oh, we are. We’re having a long discussion with him.” Smithback looked around again. “When was the last time you had a file check, for example?”

  “A what?”

  “A file check. When was the last time, O’Neal?”

  “Er, I don’t know what that is. My supervisor didn’t tell me anything about a file check—”

  “Strange, he thought you knew all about the procedure. Now, that’s what I mean here, O’Neal: sloppy. Very sloppy. Well, from now on, we will be requiring a monthly file check.” Smithback narrowed his eyes, strode over to a filing cabinet, pulled on a drawer. It was, as he expected, locked.

  “It’s locked,” said the guard.

  “I can see that. Any idiot can see that.” He rattled the handle. “Where’s the key?”

  “Over there.” The poor guard nodded toward a wall box. It, too, was locked.

  It occurred to Smithback that the climate of fear and intimidation the new Museum administration had fostered was proving most helpful. The man was so terrified, the last thing he would think of doing was challenging Smithback or asking for his ID.

  “And the key to that?”

  “On my chain.”

  Smithback looked around again, his quick eyes taking in every detail under the pretense of looking for further violations. The filing cabinets had labels on them, each with a date. The dates seemed to run back to 1865, the founding
year of the Museum.

  Smithback knew that any outside researchers who were issued a pass to the collections would have to have been approved by a committee of curators. Their deliberations, and the files the applicant had to furnish, should still be in here. Leng almost certainly had such a collections pass. If his file were still here, it would contain a wealth of personal information: full name, address, education, degrees, research specialization, list of publications—perhaps even copies of some of those publications. It might even contain a photograph.

  He rapped with a knuckle on the cabinet marked 1880. “Like this file. When was the last time you file-checked this drawer?”

  “Ah, as far as I know, never.”

  “Never?” Smithback sounded incredulous. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  The guard hustled over, unlocked the wall cabinet, fumbled for the right key, and unlocked the drawer.

  “Now let me show you how to do a file check.” Smithback opened the drawer and plunged his hands into the files, rifling them, stirring up a cloud of dust, thinking fast. A yellowed index card was poking from the first file, and he whipped it out. It listed every file in the drawer by name, alphabetized, dated, cross-referenced. This was beautiful. Thank God for the early Museum bureaucrats.

  “See, you start with this index card.” He waved it in the guard’s face.

  The guard nodded.

  “It lists every file in the cabinet. Then you check to see if all the files are there. Simple. That’s a file check.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Smithback quickly scanned the list of names on the card. No Leng. He shoved the card back and slammed the drawer.

  “Now we’ll check 1879. Open the drawer, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Smithback drew out the 1879 index card. Again, no Leng was listed. “You’ll need to institute much more careful procedures down here, O’Neal. These are extremely valuable historical files. Open the next one. ’78.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Damn. Still no Leng.

  “Let’s take a quick look at some of the others.” Smithback had him open up more cabinets and check the yellow index cards on each, all the while giving O’Neal a steady stream of advice about the importance of file-checking. The years crept inexorably backward, and Smithback began to despair.

  And then, in 1870, he found the name. Leng.

  His heart quickened. Forgetting all about the guard, Smithback flipped quickly through the files themselves, pausing at the Ls. Here he slowed, carefully looked at each one, then looked again. He went through the Ls three times. But the corresponding Leng file was missing.

  Smithback felt crushed. It had been such a good idea.

  He straightened up, looked at the guard’s frightened, eager face. The whole idea was a failure. What a waste of energy and brilliance, frightening this poor guy for nothing. It meant starting over again, from scratch. But first, he’d better get his ass out of there before Bulger returned, disgruntled, spoiling for an argument.

  “Sir?” the guard prompted.

  Smithback wearily closed the drawer. He glanced at his watch. “I have to be getting back. Carry on. You’re doing a good job here, O’Neal. Keep it up.” He turned to go.

  “Mr. Fannin?”

  For a moment Smithback wondered who the man was talking to. Then he remembered. “Yes?”

  “Do the carbons need a file check also?”

  “Carbons?” Smithback paused.

  “The ones in the vault.”

  “Vault?”

  “The vault. Back there.”

  “Er, yes. Of course. Thank you, O’Neal. My oversight. Show me the vault.”

  The young guard led the way through a rear door to a large, old safe with a nickel wheel and a heavy steel door. “In here.”

  Smithback’s heart sank. It looked like Fort Knox. “Can you open this?”

  “It’s not locked anymore. Not since the high-security area was opened.”

  “I see. What are these carbons?”

  “Duplicates of the files back there.”

  “Let’s take a look. Open it up.”

  O’Neal wrestled the door open. It revealed a small room, crammed with cabinets.

  “Let’s take a look at, say, 1870.”

  The guard glanced around. “There it is.”

  Smithback made a beeline for the drawer, yanking it open. The files were on some early form of photocopy paper, like glossy sepia-toned photographs, faded and blurred. He quickly pawed through to the Ls.

  There it was. A security clearance for Enoch Leng, dated 1870: a few sheets, tissue-thin, faded to light brown, covered in long spidery script. With one swift stroke Smithback slipped them out of the file and into his jacket pocket, covering the motion with a loud cough.

  He turned around. “Very good. All this will need to be file-checked, too, of course.”

  He stepped out of the vault. “Listen, O’Neal, other than the file check, you’re doing a fine job down here. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Fannin. I try, I really do—”

  “Wish I could say the same for Bulger. Now there’s someone with an attitude.”

  “You’re right, sir.”

  “Good day, O’Neal.” And Smithback beat a hasty retreat.

  He was just in time. In the hall, he again passed Bulger, striding back, his face red and splotchy, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, lips and belly thrust forward aggressively, keys swaying and jingling. He looked pissed.

  As Smithback made for the nearest exit, it almost felt as if the pilfered papers were burning a hole in the lining of his jacket.

  The Old Dark House

  ONE

  SAFELY ON THE STREET, Smithback ducked through the Seventy-seventh Street gate into Central Park and settled on a bench by the lake. The brilliant fall morning was already warming into a lovely Indian summer day. He breathed in the air and thought once again of what a dazzling reporter he was. Bryce Harriman couldn’t have gotten his hands on these papers if he had a year to do it and all the makeup people of Industrial Light and Magic behind him. With a sense of delicious anticipation, he removed the three sheets from his pocket. The faint scent of dust reached his nose as sunlight hit the top page.

  It was an old brown carbon, faint and difficult to read. At the top of the first sheet was printed: Application for Access to the Collections: The New York Museum of Natural History

  Applicant: Prof. Enoch Leng, M.D., Ph.D. (Oxon.), O.B.E., F.R.S. &tc.

  Recommender: Professor Tinbury McFadden, Department of Mammalogy

  Seconder: Professor Augustus Spragg, Department of Ornithology

  The applicant will please describe to the committee, in brief, the purposes of his application:

  The applicant, Dr. Enoch Leng, wishes access to the collections of anthropology and mammalogy to conduct research on taxonomy and classification, and to prepare comparative essays in physical anthropology, human osteology, and phrenology.

  The applicant will please state his academic qualifications, giving degrees and honors, with appropriate dates:

  The applicant, Prof. Enoch Leng, graduated Artium Baccalaurei, with First Honors, from Oriel College, Oxford; Doctor of Natural Philosophy, New College, Oxford, with First Honors; Elected Fellow of the Royal Society 1865; Elected to White’s, 1868; Awarded Order of the Garter, 1869.

  The applicant will please state his permanent domicile and his current lodgings in New York, if different:

  Prof. Enoch Leng

  891 Riverside Drive, New York

  New York

  Research laboratory at

  Shottum’s Cabinet of Natural Productions and Curiosities

  Catherine Street, New York

  New York

  The applicant will please attach a list of publications, and will supply offprints of at least two for the review of the Committee.

  Smithback looked through the papers, but realized he had missed this crucial piece.
<
br />   The disposition of the Committee is presented below:

  Professor is hereby given permission to the free and open use of the Collections and Library of the New York Museum of Natural History, this 27th Day of March, 1870.

  Authorized Signatory: Tinbury McFadden

  Signed: E. Leng.

  Smithback swore under his breath. He felt abruptly deflated. This was thin—thin indeed. It was too bad that Leng hadn’t gotten his degree in America—that would have been much easier to follow up. But maybe he could pry the information out of Oxford over the telephone—although it was possible the academic honors were false. The list of publications would have been much easier to check, and far most interesting, but there was no way he could go back and get it now. It had been such a good idea, and he’d pulled it off so well. Damn.

  Smithback searched through the papers again. No photograph, no curriculum vitae, no biography giving place and date of birth. The only thing here at all was an address.

  Damn. Damn.

  But then, a new thought came to him. He recalled the address was what Nora had been trying to find. Here, at least, was a peace offering.

  Smithback did a quick calculation: 891 Riverside lay uptown, in Harlem somewhere. There were a lot of old mansions still standing along that stretch of Riverside Drive: those that remained were mostly abandoned or broken up into apartments. Chances were, of course, that Leng’s house had been torn down a long time ago. But there was a chance it might still stand. That might make a good picture, even if it was an old wreck. Especially if it was an old wreck. Come to think of it, there might even be bodies buried about the premises, or walled up in the basement. Perhaps Leng’s own body might be there, moldering in a corner. That would please O’Shaughnessy, help Nora. And what a great capstone for his own article—the investigative journalist finding the corpse of America’s first serial killer. Of course, it was very unlikely, but even so…