The Cabinet of Curiosities

“This revolting thing, Dr. Wellesley, belonged to a nineteen-year-old girl who was murdered over a hundred years ago, dissected, dismembered, and walled up in a tunnel in lower Manhattan. Sewn up into the dress was a note, which the girl wrote in her own blood. It gave her name, age, and address. Nothing else—ink of that sort does not encourage prolixity. It was the note of a girl who knew she was about to die. She knew that no one would help her, no one would save her. Her only wish was that her body be identified—that she not be forgotten. I could not help her then, but I am trying to now. That is why I am here.” The dress seemed to quiver slightly, and O’Shaughnessy realized with a start that the FBI agent’s hand was trembling with emotion. At least, that’s how it looked to him. That a law officer would actually care about something like this was a revelation.

The silence that followed Pendergast’s statement was profound.

Without a word, Wellesley bent down over the dress, fingered it, turned up its lining, gently stretched the material in several directions. Reaching into a drawer of her desk, she pulled out a large magnifying glass and began examining the stitching and fabric. Several minutes passed. Then she sighed and sat down in her chair.

“This is a typical workhouse garment,” she said. “Standard issue in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Cheap woolen fabric for the exterior, scratchy and coarse but actually quite warm, lined with undyed cotton. You can see from the pattern cuts and stitching that it was probably made by the girl herself, using fabric issued to her by the workhouse. The fabrics came in several basic colors—green, blue, gray, and black.”

“Any idea which workhouse?”

“Impossible to say. Nineteenth-century Manhattan had quite a few of them. They were called ‘houses of industry.’ They took in abandoned children, orphans, and runaways. Harsh, cruel places, run by the so-called religious.”

“Can you give me a more precise date on the dress?”

“Not with any accuracy. It seems to be a rather pathetic imitation of a style popular in the early eighteen eighties, called a Maude Makin. Workhouse girls usually tried to copy dresses they liked out of popular magazines and penny press advertisements.” Dr. Wellesley sighed, shrugged. “That’s it, I’m afraid.”

“If anything else comes to mind, I can be contacted through Sergeant O’Shaughnessy here.”

Dr. Wellesley glanced up at O’Shaughnessy’s name tag, then nodded.

“Thank you for your time.” The FBI agent began rolling up the dress. “That was a lovely exhibition you curated last year, by the way.”

Dr. Wellesley nodded again.

“Unlike most museum exhibitions, it had wit. Take the houppelande section. I found it delightfully amusing.”

Concealed in its wrapper, the dress lost its power to horrify. The feeling of gloom that had settled over the office began to lift. O’Shaughnessy found himself echoing Custer: what was an FBI agent doing messing around with a case 120 years old?

“Thank you for noticing what none of the critics did,” the woman replied. “Yes, I meant it to be fun. When you finally understand it, human dress—beyond what is necessary for warmth and modesty—can be marvelously absurd.”

Pendergast stood. “Dr. Wellesley, your expertise has been most valuable.”

Dr. Wellesley rose as well. “Please call me Sophia.” O’Shaughnessy noticed her looking at Pendergast with new interest.

Pendergast bowed and smiled. Then he turned to go. The curator came around her desk to see him through the waiting room. At the outer door, Sophia Wellesley paused, blushed, and said, “I hope to see you again, Mr. Pendergast. Perhaps soon. Perhaps for dinner.”

There was a brief silence. Pendergast said nothing.

“Well,” said the curator crisply, “you know where to reach me.”

They walked back through the thronged, treasure-laden halls, past the Khmer devatars, past the reliquaries encrusted with gems, past the Greek statues and the Red Attic vases, down the great crowded steps to Fifth Avenue. O’Shaughnessy whistled an astringent little chorus of Sade’s “Smooth Operator.” If Pendergast heard, he gave no sign.

Moments later, O’Shaughnessy was sliding into the white leather cocoon of the Rolls. When the door shut with a solid, reassuring thunk, blessed silence returned. He still couldn’t figure out what to make of Pendergast—maybe the guy, for all his expensive tastes, was on the up-and-up. He sure as hell knew this: he was going to keep his eyes and ears open.

“Across the park to the New York Museum of Natural History, please,” Pendergast told the driver. As the car accelerated into traffic, the agent turned to O’Shaughnessy. “How is it that an Irish policeman came to love Italian opera?”

O’Shaughnessy gave a start. When had he mentioned opera?