The Cabinet of Curiosities

He reached a spot where a larger pool of blood shone in the beam of his flashlight. Clearly, Pendergast had stopped here. He had been looking at something, and the Surgeon peered into the case to see what it was. It wasn’t more chemicals, as he had assumed. Instead, the case was filled with thousands of mounted insects, all exactly alike. It was an odd-looking bug with sharp horns on its iridescent head. He moved to the next case. Strange: this contained bottles housing only insect parts. Here were bottles filled with gossamer dragonfly wings, while over there were others with what looked like curled-up abdomens of honeybees. Yet others held innumerable tiny, dried-up white spiders. He moved to the next case. It contained desiccated salamanders and wrinkled frogs in a multitude of bright colors; a row of jars containing a variety of scorpion tails; other jars full of numberless evil-looking wasps. In the next case were jars holding small dried fish, snails, and other insects the Surgeon had never seen before. It was like some vast witch’s cabinet for brewing potions and concocting spells.

It was quite strange that Leng had felt the need for such a vast collection of potions and chemicals. Perhaps, like Isaac Newton, he had ended up wasting his life in alchemical experiments. The “ultimate project” Pendergast mentioned might not be a red herring, after all. It could very well have been some useless attempt to turn lead into gold, or similar fool’s challenge.

Pendergast’s trail led out of the cabinets and through another arched doorway. The Surgeon followed, gun at the ready. Beyond lay what looked like a series of smaller rooms—closer to individual stone crypts or vaults, actually—each containing a collection of some kind. Pendergast’s trail weaved back and forth between them. More oaken cabinets, filled with what looked like bark and leaves and dried flowers. He stopped a moment, staring around curiously.

Then he reminded himself that Pendergast was the pressing issue. Judging from the weaving tracks, the man was now having trouble walking.

Of course, knowing Pendergast, it could be a ruse. A new suspicion arose within him, and the Surgeon crouched beside the nearest scattering of crimson droplets, touching his fingers to one, rubbing them together. Then he tasted it. No doubt about it: human blood, and still warm. There could be no way of faking that. Pendergast was definitely wounded. Gravely wounded.

He stood up, raised the gun again, and moved stealthily forward, his flashlight probing the velvety darkness ahead.

SIX

NORA STEPPED WARILY through the doorway. After the darkness of the cell, the light was so bright that she shrank back into shadow, temporarily blinded. Then she came forward again.

As her eyes adjusted, objects began to take form. Metal tables, covered with gleaming instruments. An empty gurney. An open door, leading onto a descending staircase of rough-hewn stone. And a figure, strapped facedown onto a stainless steel operating table. Except the table was different from others she had seen. Gutters ran down its sides into a collecting chamber, full now with blood and fluid. It was the kind of table used for an autopsy, not an operation.

The head and torso of the figure, as well as the waist and legs, were covered by pale green sheets. Only the lower back remained exposed. As Nora came forward, she could see a ghastly wound: a red gash almost two feet long. Metal retractors had been set, spreading the edges of the wound apart. She could see the exposed spinal column, pale gray amidst the pinks and reds of exposed flesh. The wound had bled freely, red coagulating tributaries that had flowed down either side of the vertical cut, across the table, and into the metal gutters.

Nora knew, even without drawing back the sheet, that the body was Smithback’s. She suppressed a cry.

She tried to steady herself, remembering what Pendergast had said. There were things that needed to be done. And the first was to verify that Smithback was dead.

She took a step forward, glancing quickly around the operating theater. An IV rack stood beside the table, its clear narrow tube snaking down and disappearing beneath the green sheets. Nearby was a large metal box on wheels, its panel festooned with tubes and dials—probably a ventilator. Several bloody scalpels sat in a metal basin. On a nearby surgical tray were forceps, sterile sponges, a squirt bottle of Betadine solution. Other instruments lay in a scatter on the gurney, where they had apparently been dropped when the surgery was interrupted.

She glanced at the head of the table, at the rack of machines monitoring the vital signs. She recognized an EKG screen, a ghostly line of green tracing a course from left to right. Tracing a heartbeat. My God, she thought suddenly, is it possible Bill’s still alive?