The Cabinet of Curiosities

“With the Museum’s cooperation, I think we can get through this by midnight, if not sooner. We’ll need a room for interrogation. We will require power for our recording machinery, a sound engineer, and an electrician. I will require identification from everyone, and access to personnel files on an ongoing basis.”

“Just which staff members are you going to question?” Manetti asked.

“We will determine that from the files.”

“We have two thousand five hundred employees.”

This temporarily floored Custer. Twenty-five hundred people to run a museum? What a welfare program. He took a breath, carefully recomposing his features. “We will deal with that. As a start, we’ll need to interview, let’s see . . . night watchmen who might have noticed any unusual comings or goings. And that archaeologist who excavated those skeletons, found the others down on Doyers Street, and—”

“Nora Kelly.”

“Right.”

“The police have already spoken with her, I believe.”

“So we’ll be speaking with her again. And we’ll want to talk to the head of security—that’s you—about your security arrangements, in the Archives and elsewhere. I want to question everyone connected with the Archives and the discovery of, ah, Mr. Puck’s body. How’s that for a start?” He gave a quick, artificial smile.

There was a silence.

“Now, direct me to the Archives, please.”

For a moment, Manetti just stared at him, as if the situation was beyond his powers of comprehension.

“Direct me to the Archives, Mr. Manetti, and make it now, if you please.”

Manetti blinked. “Very well, Captain. If you’ll follow me.”

As they walked down the storied halls, cops and administrators in tow, Custer felt a huge swelling of excitement at his newly found self-confidence. He’d finally discovered his true calling. Homicide was where he should have been all along. It was obvious he was a natural; he had a knack for the work. His being put in charge of this case had not been a fluke. It had been destiny.

FIVE

SMITHBACK STOOD IN the dark hall, struggling to control his fright. It was fright that was his problem here, not locked doors. Clearly, at least one of them must be unlocked: he had just come through it.

As deliberately as he could, he went down the hall once again, trying all the doors, shaking harder this time, even at the cost of making some noise, pushing at the jambs, making sure they weren’t simply stuck. But no, it wasn’t his imagination. They were all securely locked.

Had somebody locked the door behind him? But that was impossible: the room had been empty. A gust of wind had closed it. He shook his head, searching unsuccessfully for amusement in his own paranoia.

The doors, he decided, must lock automatically when shut. Maybe that was a feature of old houses like this. No problem: he would find another way out of the house. Downstairs, through the reception hall and out a first floor window or door. Perhaps out the porte-cochère door, which had every appearance of being functional—in fact it was probably the very door used by the custodian. Relief coursed through him at this thought. It would be easier; it would save him the trouble of having to climb back down that outside wall.

All he had to do was find his way to it through the dark house.

He stood in the hall, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. The place was so quiet, so unusually quiet, that he found his ears alert for the faintest sound. The silence, he told himself, was a good sign. No custodian was around. He probably came only once a week, at most; or maybe only once a year, given all the dust in the place. Smithback had all the time in the world.

Feeling a little sheepish, he made his way back to the head of the stairs and peered down. The carriage door, it seemed to him, should be to the left, somewhere off the reception hall. He descended the stairs and paused warily at the bottom, peering again at the strange, endless displays. Still, no sound. The place was clearly deserted.

He remembered Pendergast’s theory. What if Leng really had succeeded . . . ?

Smithback forced himself to laugh out loud. What the hell was he thinking about? Nobody could live 150 years. The darkness, the silence, the mysterious collections were getting to him.

He paused, taking stock. A passage ran off from the hall to the left, in what he thought was the right direction. It lay in complete darkness, yet it seemed the most promising. He should have thought to bring a damn flashlight. No matter: he would try that first.

Stepping carefully, avoiding the display cases and sheeted objects, he walked across the hall and into the side passage. His pupils refused to dilate further and the corridor remained pitch black, the darkness an almost palpable presence around him. He fumbled in his pocket, found the box of matches he’d picked up at the Blarney Stone. He lit one, the scraping and flaring of the match unpleasantly loud in the still air.