The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(15)

She took a step back from the desk. In the bright light of the office, she could examine the dress in great detail. It was long, quite simple, made of coarse green wool. It looked nineteenth-century, with a high collaret-style neckline; a trim bodice, falling in long pleats. The bodice and pleats were lined with white cotton, now yellowed.

Nora slid her hand down the pleats and, right below the waistline, felt the crinkle of paper. Not yet, she told herself as she sat down at the desk. One step at a time.

The dress was heavily stained. It was impossible to tell, without a chemical analysis, what the stains were—some looked like blood and body fluids, while others could be grease, coal dust, perhaps wax. The hemline was rubbed and torn, and there were some tears in the fabric itself, the larger ones carefully sewn up. She examined the stains and tears with her loup. The repairs had been done with several colored threads, none green. A poor girl’s effort, using whatever was at hand.

There was no sign of insect or rodent damage; the dress had been securely walled up in its alcove. She switched lenses on the loup and looked more closely. She could see a significant amount of dirt, including black grains that looked like coal dust. She took a few of these and placed them in a small glassine envelope with the tweezers. She removed other particles of grit, dirt, hair, and threads, and placed them in additional bags. There were other specs, even smaller than the grit; she lugged over a portable stereozoom microscope, laid it on the table, and brought it into focus.

Immediately, dozens of lice leapt into view, dead and dry, clinging to the crudely woven fabric, intermingled with smaller mites and several giant fleas. She jerked her head back involuntarily. Then, smiling at herself, she took a closer, more studied look. The dress was a rich landscape of foreign biology, along with an array of substances that could occupy a forensic chemist for weeks. She wondered how useful such an analysis would be, considered the cost, and temporarily shelved the idea. She brought the forceps forward to take more samples.

Suddenly, the silence in her office seemed all too absolute; there was a crawling sensation at the base of her neck. She swiveled, gasped; Special Agent Pendergast was standing behind her, hands behind his back.

“Jesus!” she said, leaping out of the chair. “You scared the hell out of me!”

Pendergast bowed slightly. “My apologies.”

“I thought I locked that door.”

“You did.”

“Are you a magician, Agent Pendergast? Or did you simply pick my lock?”

“A little of both, perhaps. But these old Museum locks are so crude, one can hardly call it ‘picking.’ I am well known here, which requires me to be discreet.”

“Do you think you could call ahead next time?”

He turned to the dress. “You didn’t have this yesterday afternoon.”

“No. I didn’t.”

He nodded. “Very resourceful of you, Dr. Kelly.”

“I went back last night—”

“No details of any questionable activities, please. However, my congratulations.”

She could see he was pleased.

He held out his hand. “Proceed.”

Nora turned back to her work. After a while, Pendergast spoke. “There were many articles of clothing in the tunnel. Why this dress?”

Without a word, Nora carefully turned up the pleats of the dress, exposing a crudely sewn patch in the cotton lining. Immediately, Pendergast moved closer.

“There’s a piece of paper sewn inside,” she said. “I came upon it just before they shut down the site.”

“May I borrow your loup?”

Nora lifted it over her head and handed it to him. Bending over the dress, he examined it with a thorough professionalism that surprised and impressed Nora. At last he straightened up.

“Very hasty work,” he said. “You’ll note that all the other stitching and mending was done carefully, almost lovingly. This dress was some girl’s prize garment. But this one stitch was made with thread pulled from the dress itself, and the holes are ragged—I would guess they were made with a splinter of wood. This was done by someone with little time, and with no access to even a needle.”

Nora moved the microscope over the patch, using its camera to take a series of photographs at various magnifications. Then she fixed a macro lens and took another series. She worked efficiently, aware that Pendergast’s eyes were upon her.

She put the microscope aside and picked up the tweezers. “Let’s open it up.”

With great care, she teased the end of the thread out and began to undo the patch. A few minutes of painstaking work and it lay loose. She placed the thread in a sample tube and lifted the material.

Underneath was a piece of paper, torn from the page of a book. It had been folded twice.

Nora put the patch into yet another Ziploc bag. Then, using two pairs of rubber-tipped tweezers, she unfolded the paper. Inside was a message, scratched in crude brown letters. Parts of it were stained and faded, but it read unmistakably:


i aM MarY GreeNe agt 19 Years No. 16 WaTTer sTreeT

Nora moved the paper to the stage of the stereozoom and looked at it under low power. After a moment she stepped back, and Pendergast eagerly took her place at the eyepieces. Minutes went by as he stared. Finally he stepped away.

“Written with the same splinter, perhaps,” he said.

Nora nodded. The letters had been formed with little scratches and scrapes.