The Cabinet of Curiosities

by Douglas Preston

  “Nothing,” the commissioner answered hastily. “There was no role. All the work was done by local law enforcement. An FBI agent did take an unofficial interest early on, but those leads led nowhere and as far as we know he has abandoned the case.”

  “Another question for Captain Custer, please! How does it feel, sir, to have cracked the biggest case since Son of Sam?”

  It was that prepped-out weenie, Bryce Harriman. It was the question he had longed for someone to ask. Once again, the man had ridden to his rescue. It was beautiful how these things worked out.

  Custer summoned up his most impassive monotone: “I was just doing my duty as a police officer. Nothing less, and nothing more.”

  Then he stood back and basked, poker-faced, in the endless flare of flashbulbs that ensued.

  FOURTEEN

  THE IMAGE THAT burst into the beam of nora’s light was so unexpected, so horrifying, that she instinctively scrambled backward, dropped the scalpel, and ran. Her only conscious desire was to put some distance between herself and the awful sight.

  But at the door she stopped. The man—she had to think of him as that—was not following her. In fact, he seemed to be shuffling along as before, zombie-like, unaware of her presence. With a shaking hand she trained the light back on him.

  The man’s clothes hung from his frame in tatters, skin raked and scored and bleeding as if by frenzied scratching. The scalp was torn, skin hanging away in flaps from where it had apparently been ripped from the skull. Tufts of bloody hair remained clutched rigidly between the fingers of the right hand: a hand whose epithelial layers were sloughing away in parchment-like curls of tissue. The lips had swollen to a grotesque size, liver-colored bananas covered with whitish weals. A tongue, cracked and blackened, forced its way between them. A wet gargling came from deep inside the throat, and each effort to suck in or expel air caused the tongue to quiver. Through the gaps in the ragged shirt, Nora could see angry-looking chancres on the chest and abdomen, weeping clear fluid. Below the armpits were thick colonies of pustules like small red berries, some of which she saw—with a sickening sense of fast-motion photography—were swelling rapidly; even as she watched, one burst with a sickening pop, while more blistered and swelled to take its place.

  But what horrified Nora most were the eyes. One was twice normal size, blood-engorged, protruding freakishly from the orbital socket. It jittered and darted about, roving wildly but seeing nothing. The other, in contrast, was dark and shriveled, motionless, sunken deep beneath the brow.

  A fresh shudder of revulsion went through Nora. It must be some pathetic victim of the Surgeon. But what had happened to him? What dreadful torture had he undergone?

  As she watched, spellbound with horror, the figure paused, and seemed to look at her for the first time. The head tilted up and the jittery eye paused and appeared to fix on her. She tensed, ready for flight. But the moment passed. The figure underwent a violent trembling from head to toe; then the head dropped down, and it once more resumed its quivering walk to nowhere.

  She turned the light away from the obscene spectacle, feeling sick. Worse even than the loathsome sight was her sudden recognition. It had come to her in a flash, when the bloated eye had fixed on hers: she knew this man. As grotesquely malformed as it now was, she remembered seeing that distinctive face before, so powerful, so self-confident, emerging from the back of a limousine outside the Catherine Street digsite.

  The shock nearly took her breath away. She looked with horror at the figure’s retreating back. What had the Surgeon done to him? Was there anything she could do to help?

  Even as the thought came to her, she realized the man was far beyond help. She lowered the flashlight from the grotesque form as it shuffled slowly, aimlessly away from her, back toward a room beyond the lab.

  She thrust the light forward. And then, in the edge of the flashlight’s beam, she made out Pendergast.

  He was in the next room, lying on his side, blood pooling on the ground below him. He looked dead. Nearby, a large, rusted axe lay on the floor. Beyond it was an upended executioner’s block.

  Suppressing a cry, she ran through the connecting archway and knelt before him. To her surprise, the FBI agent opened his eyes.

  “What happened?” she cried. “Are you all right?”

  Pendergast smiled weakly. “Never better, Dr. Kelly.”

  She flashed her light at the pool of blood, at the crimson stain that covered his shirtfront. “You’ve been hurt!”

  Pendergast looked at her, his pale eyes cloudy. “Yes. I’m afraid I’ll need your help.”

  “But what happened? Where’s the Surgeon?”

  Pendergast’s eyes seem to clear a little. “Didn’t you see him, ah, walk past?”

  “What? The man covered with sores? Fairhaven? He’s the killer?”

  Pendergast nodded.

  “Jesus! What happened to him?”

  “Poisoned.”

  “How?”

  “He picked up several of the objects in this room. Take care not to follow his example. Everything you see here is an experimental poison-delivery system. When he handled the various weapons, Fairhaven absorbed quite a cocktail of poisons through his skin: neurotoxins and other fast-acting systemics, no doubt.”

  He grasped her hand with his own, slippery with blood. “Smithback?”

  “Alive.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “Fairhaven had started to operate.”

  “I know. Is he stable?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know for how long. We’ve got to get him—and you—to a hospital right away.”

  Pendergast nodded. “There’s an acquaintance of mine, a doctor, who can arrange everything.”

  “How are we going to get out of here?”

  Pendergast’s gun lay on the ground nearby, and he reached for it, grimacing a little. “Help me up, please. I need to get back to the operating room, to check on Smithback and stop my own bleeding.”

  She helped the agent to his feet. Pendergast stumbled a little, leaning heavily on her arm. “Shine your light on our friend a moment, if you please,” he said.

  The Fairhaven-thing was shuffling along one wall of the room. He ran into a large wooden cabinet, stopped, backed up, came forward again, as if unable to negotiate the obstacle. Pendergast gazed at the thing for a moment, then turned away.

  “He’s no longer a threat,” he murmured. “Let’s get back upstairs, as quickly as possible.”

  They retraced their steps back through the chambers of the subbasement, Pendergast stopping periodically to rest. Slowly, painfully, they mounted the stairs.

  In the operating room, Smithback lay on the table, still unconscious. Nora scanned the monitors quickly: the vitals remained weak, but steady. The liter bag of saline was almost empty, and she replaced it with a third. Pendergast bent over the journalist, drew back the covers, and examined him. After a few moments, he stepped back.

  “He’ll survive,” he said simply.

  Nora felt a huge sense of relief.

  “Now I’m going to need some help. Help me get my jacket and shirt off.”

  Nora untied the jacket around Pendergast’s midsection, then helped him remove his shirt, exposing a ragged hole in his abdomen, thickly encrusted in blood. More blood was dripping from his shattered elbow.

  “Roll that tray of surgical instruments this way,” he said, gesturing with his good hand.

  Nora rolled the tray over. She could not help but notice that his torso, although slender, was powerfully muscled.

  “Grab those clamps over there, too, please.” Pendergast swabbed the blood away from the abdominal wound, then irrigated it with Betadine.

  “Don’t you want something for the pain? I know there’s some—”

  “No time.” Pendergast dropped the bloody gauze to the floor and angled the overhead light toward the wound in his abdomen. “I have to tie off these bleeders before I grow any weaker.”

  Nora watched him ins
pect the wound.

  “Shine that light a little lower, would you? There, that’s good. Now, if you’d hand me that clamp?”

  Although Nora had a strong stomach, watching Pendergast probe his own abdomen made her feel distinctly queasy. After a moment he laid down the clamp, took up a scalpel, and made a short cut perpendicular to the wound.

  “You’re not going to operate on yourself, are you?”

  Pendergast shook his head. “Just a quick-and-dirty effort to stop the bleeding. But I’ve got to reach this colic vein, which, with all my exertion, has unfortunately retracted.” He made another little cut, and then probed into the wound with a large, tweezer-like instrument.

  Nora winced, tried to think of something else. “How are we going to get out of here?” she asked again.

  “Through the basement tunnels. My research on this area turned up the fact that a river brigand once lived along this stretch of Riverside. Based on the extent of the cellars below us, I feel certain now that this was his residence. Did you notice the superb view of the Hudson the house commanded?”

  “No,” Nora replied, swallowing. “Can’t say I did.”

  “That’s understandable, considering the North River Water Pollution Control Plant now blocks much of the view,” Pendergast said as he fished a large vein out of the wound with the clamp. “But a hundred and fifty years ago, this house would have had a sweeping view of the lower Hudson. River pirates were fairly common in the early nineteenth century. They would slip out onto the river after dark to hijack moored ships or capture passengers for ransom.” He paused while he examined the end of the vein. “Leng must have known this. A large subbasement was the first thing he wanted in a house. I believe we will find a way down to the river, via the subbasement. Hand me that absorbable suture, if you please? No, the larger one, the 4-0. Thank you.”

  Nora looked on, wincing inwardly, as Pendergast ligated the vein.

  “Good,” he said a few moments later, as he released the clamp and put the suture aside. “That vein was causing most of the bleeding. I can do nothing about my spleen, which has obviously been perforated, so I’ll merely cauterize the smaller bleeders and close the wound. Would you hand me the electrocauterer, please? Yes, that’s it.”

  Nora handed the device—a narrow blue pencil at the end of a wire, two buttons marked cut and cauterize on its side—to the FBI agent. Once again, he bent over his wound. There was a sharp crackling sound as he cauterized a vein. This was followed by another crackling noise—much longer this time—and a thin wisp of smoke rose into the air. Nora averted her eyes.

  “What was Leng’s ultimate project?” she asked.

  Pendergast did not respond immediately. “Enoch Leng wanted to heal the human race,” he said at last, still bent over the wound. “He wanted to save it.”

  For a moment, Nora wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. “Save the human race? But he was killing people. Scores of people.”

  “So he was.” Another crackling noise.

  “Save it how?”

  “By eliminating it.”

  Nora looked back at him.

  “That was Leng’s grand project: to rid the earth of humanity, to save mankind from itself, from its own unfitness. He was searching for the ultimate poison—hence those rooms full of chemicals, plants, poisonous insects and reptiles. Of course, I had plenty of tangential evidence before: the poisonous materials on the glass fragments you unearthed from Leng’s old laboratory, for example. Or the Greek inscription on the escutcheon outside the house. Did you notice it?”

  Nora nodded her head numbly.

  “It’s the final words of Socrates, spoken as he took the fatal poison. . ‘Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?’ Yet another thing I should have realized sooner.” He cauterized another vein. “But it wasn’t until I saw the room full of weapons that I made the connection and realized the scope of his plans. Because creating the ultimate poison alone wasn’t enough—he would also have to create a delivery system, a way to make it reach across the globe. That’s when the more vexing, inexplicable parts of the cabinet—the clothing, weapons, migratory birds, windborne spores, and the rest—made sense to me. Among other things, while researching this delivery system, he had collected all manner of poisoned objects: clothing, weapons, accessories. And much of it was poisoned by himself—redundant experiments with all manner of poisons.”

  “My God,” Nora said. “What a crazy scheme.”

  “It was an ambitious scheme, certainly. One he realized would take several lifetimes to complete. That was why he developed his, ah, method of life extension.”

  Pendergast put the electrocauterer carefully to one side. “I’ve seen no evidence here of any supplies for closing incisions,” he said. “Clearly, Fairhaven had no need of them. If you’ll hand me that gauze and the medical tape, I’ll butterfly the wound until it can be properly attended to. Again, I’ll need your assistance.”

  Nora handed him the requested items, then helped him close. “Did he succeed in finding the ultimate poison?” she asked.

  “No. Based on the state of his laboratory, I would say he gave up around 1950.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Pendergast said as he taped gauze over the exit wound. The troubled look she’d noticed earlier returned. “It’s very curious. It’s a great mystery to me.”

  Dressing completed, Pendergast straightened up. Following his instructions, Nora helped him make a sling for his injured arm using torn surgical sheets, then helped him into his shirt.

  Pendergast turned once again to Smithback, examining his unconscious form, studying the monitors at the head of the table. He felt Smithback’s pulse, examined the dressing Nora had made. After rummaging through the cabinet he brought out a syringe, and injected it into the saline tube.

  “That should keep him comfortable until you can get out of here and alert my doctor,” he said.

  “Me?” Nora said.

  “My dear Dr. Kelly, somebody has to keep watch over Smithback. We daren’t move him ourselves. With my arm in a sling and a gunshot wound in my abdomen, I fear I’m in no condition to go anywhere, let alone row.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will, shortly. And now, please assist me back down these stairs.”

  With a final look at Smithback, Nora helped Pendergast back down the staircase and through the series of stone chambers, past the endless collections. Knowing their purpose made them seem even more dreadful.

  At the laboratory, Nora slowed. She angled her light into the weapons room beyond, and saw Fairhaven, still motionless, sitting in the corner. Pendergast regarded him a moment, then moved to the heavy door in the far wall and eased it open. Beyond it lay another descending staircase, much cruder, seemingly fashioned out of a natural cavity in the earth.

  “Where does this go?” Nora asked as she approached.

  “Unless I’m mistaken, to the river.”

  They descended the staircase, the perfume of mold and heavy humidity rising to greet them. At the bottom, Nora’s light revealed a stone quay, lapped by water, with a watery tunnel leading off into darkness. An ancient wooden boat lay upturned on the quay.

  “The river pirate’s lair,” Pendergast said as Nora shone the light around. “This was how he snuck out to the Hudson to attack shipping. If the boat’s still seaworthy, you can take it out into the river.”

  Nora angled the light toward the skiff.

  “Can you row?” Pendergast inquired.

  “I’m an expert.”

  “Good. I believe you’ll find an abandoned marina a few blocks south of here. Get to a phone as quickly as possible, call 645-7884; that’s the number of my chauffeur, Proctor. Explain to him what’s happened. He’ll come get you and arrange everything, including the doctor for Smithback and myself.”

  Nora turned over the rowboat and slid it into the water. It was old, loose-jointed, and leaky, but it appeared to be seaworthy.
r />   “You’ll take care of Bill while I’m gone?” she said.

  Pendergast nodded, the reflected water rippling across his pale face.

  She stepped gingerly into the boat.

  Pendergast stepped forward. “Dr. Kelly,” he said in a low voice. “There is something more I must tell you.”

  She looked up from the boat.

  “The authorities must not know about what is in this house. Somewhere within these walls, I’m convinced, is the formula for the prolongation of human life. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Nora replied after a moment. She stared at him as the full import of what he was saying began to sink in. The secret to prolonged life: it still seemed incredible. Unbelievable.

  “I must also admit to a more personal reason for secrecy. I do not wish to bring more infamy down on the Pendergast name.”

  “Leng was your ancestor.”

  “Yes. My great-grand-uncle.”

  Nora nodded as she fitted the oarlocks. It was an antique notion of family honor; but then, she already knew that Pendergast was a man out of his time.

  “My doctor will evacuate Smithback to a private hospital upstate where they do not ask inconvenient questions. I will, of course, undergo surgery there myself. We need never mention our adventure to the authorities.”

  “I understand,” she repeated.

  “People will wonder what happened to Fairhaven. But I doubt very much the police will ever identify him as the Surgeon, or make the connection with 891 Riverside Drive.”

  “Then the Surgeon’s murders will remain unsolved? A mystery?”

  “Yes. But unsolved murders are always the most interesting, don’t you think? Now, repeat the telephone number for me, please.”

  “Six four five-seven eight eight four.”

  “Excellent. Now please hurry, Dr. Kelly.”

  She pushed away from the quay, then turned back to look at Pendergast once again, her boat bobbing in the shallow water.

  “One more question. How in the world did you escape from those chains? It seemed like magic.”

  In the dim light, she saw Pendergast’s lips part in what appeared to be a smile. “It was magic.”