The Cabinet of Curiosities

It is hard to date with any precision my first glimmerings of suspicion. Perhaps it began with what, in my perception, was a growing sense of secretiveness about the man’s affairs. Although he had promised early on to share the formal results of his experiments, except for an initial joint inspection when the lease was signed I was never invited to see his chambers. As the years passed, he seemed to grow more and more absorbed in his own studies, and I was forced to take on much of the curatorial duties for the Cabinet myself.

I had always believed Leng to be rather sensitive about his work. You will no doubt recall the early and somewhat eccentric talk on Bodily Humours he presented to the Lyceum. It was not well received—some members even had the ill breeding to titter on one or two occasions during the lecture—and henceforth Leng never returned to the subject. His future talks were all models of traditional scholarship. So at first, I ascribed his hesitancy to discuss personal work to this same innate circumspection. However, as time went on, I began to realize that what I had thought to be professional shyness was, in fact, active concealment.

One spring evening earlier this year, I had occasion to stay on very late at the Cabinet, finishing work on an accumulation of documents and preparing the exhibition space for my latest acquisition, the double-brained child, of which we have previously spoken. This latter task proved far more engrossing than the tiresome paperwork, and I was rather surprised to hear the city bell toll midnight.

It was in the moments following, as I stood, listening to the echoes of the bell die away, that I became aware of another sound. It came from over my head: a kind of heavy shuffling, as if of a man bearing some heavy burden. I cannot tell you why precisely, McFadden, but there was something in that sound that sent a thrill of dread coursing through me. I listened more intently. The sound died away slowly, the footsteps retreating into a more distant room.

Of course there was nothing for me to do. In the morning, as I reflected on the event, I realized the culprit was undoubtedly my own tired nerves. Unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the footsteps—which seemed a remote possibility—there was no cause for approaching Leng on the matter. I ascribed my alarm to my own perverse state of mind at the time. I had succeeded in creating a rather sensational backdrop for displaying the double-brained child, and no doubt this, along with the late hour, had roused the more morbid aspects of my imagination. I resolved to put the matter behind me.

It chanced that some few weeks later—the fifth of July, last week, to be precise—another event took place to which I most earnestly commend your attention. The circumstances were similar: I remained late at the Cabinet, preparing my upcoming paper for the Lyceum journal. As you know, writing for learned bodies such as the Lyceum is difficult for me, and I have fallen into certain routines which ease the process somewhat. My old teakwood writing desk, the fine vellum paper upon which this note is now being written, the fuchsia-colored ink made by M. Dupin in Paris—these are the petty niceties which make composition less onerous. This evening, inspiration came rather more easily than usual, however, and around half past ten I found it necessary to sharpen some new pens before work could continue. I turned away from my desk briefly to effect this. When I returned I found, to my utmost astonishment, that the page on which I had been at work had been soiled with some small number of inkstains.

I am most fastidious with a pen, and was at a loss to explain how this came about. It was only when I took up my blotter to clear away the stains that I realized they differed slightly in color from the fuchsia of my pen, being a somewhat lighter shade. And when I blotted them aside, I realized they were of a thicker, more viscous, consistency than my French ink.

Imagine my horror, then, when a fresh drop landed upon my wrist as I was in the act of lifting the blotter from the paper.

Immediately, I lifted my eyes to the ceiling above my head. What devilment was this? A small but widening crimson stain was leaching between the floorboards of Leng’s chambers overhead.

It was the work of a moment to mount the stairs and pound upon his door. I cannot describe precisely the sequence of thoughts that ran through my mind—foremost among them, however, was fear that the Doctor had fallen victim to foul play. There had been rumors circulating through the neighborhood of a certain vicious and predatory murderer, but one pays little heed to the gossip of the lower classes, and alas, death is a frequent visitor to the Five Points.