The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(31)

It was at that point, I believe, that I first noticed the sound.

To my left, there was a table I had not taken note of before. A large oilcloth had been spread over it, covering something large and rather bulky. As I watched, the faint sound came again, from beneath the oilcloth: the sound of some animal dispossessed of tongue, palate, vocal cords.

I cannot explain where I found the strength to approach it, other than my own overpowering need to know. I stepped forward, and then—before my resolution could falter—I gripped the greasy cloth and drew it away.

The sight uncovered in that dim light will haunt me until my last day. It lay upon its stomach. A gaping hole lay where the base of the spine had once been. The sound I had heard was, it seemed to me, the escaping gases of decay.

You might have thought me incapable of registering fresh shock at this point. Yet I noticed, with a rising sense of unreality, that both the corpse and the wound appeared fresh.

I hesitated for perhaps five, perhaps ten seconds. Then I drew closer, my mind possessed by one thought, and one thought only. Could this be the body that had bled so profusely on Leng’s floor? How, then, to explain the rawness of the wound? Was it possible—even conceivable—that Leng would make use of two corpses within the span of a single week?

I had come this far: I had to know all. I reached forward, gingerly, to turn the body and check its lividity.

The skin felt supple, the flesh warm in the humid summer cellar. As I turned the body over and the face was exposed, I saw to my transcendent horror that a blood-soaked rag had been knotted around the mouth. I snatched my hand away; the thing rolled back onto the table, face upwards.

I stepped back, reeling. In my shock, I did not immediately understand the terrible import of that blood-soaked rag. I think if I had, I would have turned and fled that place—and in so doing been spared the final horror.

For it was then, McFadden, that the eyes above the rag fluttered open. They had once been human, but pain and terror had riven all humanity from their expression.

As I stood, transfixed by fear, there came another low moan.

It was, I knew now, not gas escaping from a corpse. And this was not the work of a man who trafficked with body snatchers, with corpses stolen from graveyards. This poor creature on the table was still alive. Leng practiced his abominable work on those who still lived.

Even as I watched, the horrible, pitiable thing on the table moaned once more, then expired. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to replace the body as I had found it, cover it with the oilcloth, close the door, and climb up out of that charnel pit into the land of the living…



I have barely moved from my chambers within the Cabinet since. I have been trying to gather courage for what I know in my heart remains to be done. You must see now, dear colleague, that there can be no mistake, no other explanation, for what I found in the basement. Leng’s journal was far too comprehensive, too diabolically detailed, for there to be any misapprehension. As further evidence, on the attached sheet I have reproduced, from memory, some of the scientific observations and procedures this monstrous man recorded within its pages. I would go to the police, except I feel that only I can—

But hark! I hear his footstep on the stair even now. I must return this letter to its hiding place and conclude tomorrow.

God give me the strength for what I must now do.





SIX




ROGER BRISBANE LEANED BACK IN HIS OFFICE CHAIR, HIS EYES ROAMING the glass expanse of desk that lay before him. It was a long, enjoyable perambulation: Brisbane liked order, purity, simplicity, and the desk shone with a mirror-like perfection. At last, his gaze came to the case of jewels. It was that time of day when a lance of sunlight shot through the case, turning its occupants into glittering spheres and ovals of entangled light and color. One could call an emerald “green” or a sapphire “blue,” but the words did no justice to the actual colors. There were no adequate words for such colors in any human language.

Jewels. They lasted forever, so hard and cold and pure, so impervious to decay. Always beautiful, always perfect, always as fresh as the day they were born in unimaginable heat and pressure. So unlike human beings, with their opaque rubbery flesh and their odoriferous descent from birth to the grave—a story of drool, semen, and tears. He should have become a gemologist. He would have been much happier surrounded by these blooms of pure light. The law career his father had chosen for him was nothing more than a vile parade of human failure. And his job in the Museum brought him in contact with that failure, day in and day out, in stark illumination.

He turned to lean over a computer printout with a sigh. It was now clear the Museum should never have borrowed one hundred million for its new state-of-the-art planetarium. More cuts were needed. Heads would have to roll. Well, at least that shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish. The Museum was full of useless, tweedy, overpaid curators and functionaries, always whining about budget cuts, never answering their phones, always off on some research trip spending the Museum’s money or writing books that nobody ever read. Cushy jobs, sinecures, unable to be fired because of tenure—unless exceptional circumstances existed.

He put the printout through a nearby shredder, then opened a drawer and pulled out several tied packets of inter-office correspondence. The mail of a dozen likely candidates, intercepted thanks to a man in the mailroom who had been caught organizing a Super Bowl pool on Museum time. With any luck, he’d find plenty of exceptional circumstances inside. It was easier—and easier to justify—than scanning e-mail.