The Cabinet of Curiosities

O’Shaughnessy stepped back into the gloom. He was an odd man, Nora thought; quiet, inscrutable, handsome in a Black Irish kind of way. Pendergast seemed to like him. O’Shaughnessy, on the other hand, looked as if he didn’t like anybody.

The agent clasped his hands behind his back and made a slow circuit of the first table, peering at each object in turn. He did the same with the second table, then moved to the third table, laden with its assorted papers.

“Let’s see this inventory you mentioned,” he said to Nora.

Nora pointed out the promissory note with the inventory she had found the day before. Pendergast looked it over, and then, paper in hand, made another circuit. He nodded at a stuffed okapi. “That came from Shottum’s,” he said. “And that.” He nodded to the elephant’s-foot box. “Those three penis sheaths and the right whale baculum. The Jivaro shrunken head. All from Shottum’s, payment to McFadden for his work.” He bent down to examine the shrunken head. “A fraud. Monkey, not human.” He glanced up at her. “Dr. Kelly, would you mind looking through the papers while I examine these objects?”

Nora sat down at the third table. There was the small box of Shottum’s correspondence, along with another, much larger, box and two binders—McFadden’s papers, apparently. Nora opened the Shottum box first. As Puck had noted, the contents were in a remarkable state of disarray. What few letters were here were all in the same vein: questions about classifications and identifications, tiffs with other scientists over various arcane subjects. It illuminated a curious corner of nineteenth-century natural history, but shed no light on a heinous nineteenth-century crime. As she read through the brief correspondence, a picture of J. C. Shottum began to form in her mind. It was not the image of a serial killer. He seemed a harmless enough man, fussy, narrow, a little querulous perhaps, bristling with academic rivalries. The man’s interests seemed exclusively related to natural history. Of course, you can never tell, she thought, turning over the musty pages.

Finding nothing of particular interest, Nora turned to the much larger—and neater—boxes of Tinbury McFadden’s correspondence. They were mostly notes from the long-dead curator on various odd subjects, written in a fanatically small hand: lists of classifications of plants and animals, drawings of various flowers, some quite good. At the bottom was a thick packet of correspondence to and from various men of science and collectors, held together by an ancient string that flew apart when she touched it. She riffled through them, arriving finally at a packet of letters from Shottum to McFadden. The first began, “My Esteemed Colleague.”

I herewith transmit to you a Curious Relic said to be from the Isle of Kut, off the coast of Indochine, depicting a simian in coito with a Hindoo goddess, carved from walrus ivory. Would you be so kind as to identify the species of simian?

Your colleague, J. C. Shottum

She slid out the next letter:

My Dear Colleague,

At the last meeting at the Lyceum, Professor Blackwood presented a fossil which he claimed was a Devonian Age crinoid from the Montmorency Dolomites. The Professor is sadly mistaken. LaFleuve himself identified the Montmorency Dolomites as Permian, and needs make a corrective note of it in the next Lyceum Bulletin . . .

She flipped through the rest. There were letters to others as well, a small circle of like-minded scientists, including Shottum. They were all obviously well acquainted with one another. Perhaps the killer might be found in that circle. It seemed likely, since the person must have had easy access to Shottum’s Cabinet—if it wasn’t Shottum himself.

She began to make a list of correspondents and the nature of their work. Of course, it was always possible this was a waste of time, that the killer might have been the building’s janitor or coal man—but then she remembered the crisp, professional scalpel marks on the bones, the almost surgical dismemberments. No, it was a man of science—that was certain.

Taking out her notebook, she began jotting notes.

Letters to/from Tinbury McFadden:

CORRESPONDENT  J. C. Shottum