Blue Labyrinth (26 page)
Authors: Douglas Preston,Lincoln Child
Tags: #Thriller, #Mystery, #Fantasy
C
onstance Greene stood in front of a large recessed bookcase in the library at 891 Riverside Drive. A fire was dying on the grate, the lights were low, and the house was finally silent. The low sounds from the upstairs bedroom, so deeply disturbing, had at last ceased. But the turmoil in Constance’s mind had not. Dr. Stone was demanding with increasing urgency that Pendergast be taken to the hospital and put in intensive care. Constance had forbidden it. It was clear to her from her visit to Geneva that a hospital could do nothing and might, indeed, precipitate the end.
Her hand stole to an inner pocket of her dress, where a small vial of cyanide pills nestled. If Pendergast died, this was to be her own, personal insurance policy. Never together in life, but perhaps in death their dust would mingle.
But Pendergast would not die. There must be an answer to his sickness. It would be found somewhere in the abandoned laboratories and dusty files in the rambling sub-basements of the Riverside Drive mansion. Her long study of Pendergast’s family history—Hezekiah Pendergast, in particular—convinced her of it.
If my ancestor Hezekiah
, Pendergast had told her,
whose own wife was dying as a result of his elixir, could not find a cure, could not undo the damage his nostrum had caused… then how can I?
How, indeed.
She slid a heavy tome from the bookshelf. As she did, a muffled click could be heard, and two adjoining bookcases swung out noiselessly on oiled hinges, revealing the brass grille of an old-fashioned elevator. She stepped inside, shut the gate, and turned a brass lever. With a rattle of ancient machinery, the elevator descended. After a moment it jerked to a halt, and Constance stepped out into a dark anteroom. A faint smell of ammonia, dust, and fungus assaulted her nostrils. It was a familiar smell. She knew this basement well—so well that she almost did not need a light to move around. It was, quite literally, a second home to her.
Nevertheless, she removed an electric lantern from its rack on a nearby wall and switched it on. She moved through a maze of corridors, ultimately reaching an old door, heavy with verdigris, which she pushed open to reveal an abandoned operating room. An empty gurney gleamed in the beam of her flashlight, next to an IV rack draped in cobwebs, a bulbous EKG machine, and a stainless-steel tray spread with operating instruments. She crossed the room to the limestone wall at the far end. A quick gesture—the depressing of a stone panel—caused a section of the wall to swivel inward. She stepped into the opening, her light probing down a spiral staircase cut out of the living bedrock of Upper Manhattan.
She descended the staircase, heading for the mansion’s sub-basement. At the bottom, the staircase debouched into a long, vaulted space with an earthen floor, a brick pathway running ahead through a series of seemingly endless chambers. Constance walked down the pathway, passing storerooms, niches, and burial vaults. As she moved, her flashlight beam revealed row after row of cabinets, filled with bottles of chemicals in every color and hue, glittering like jewels in the light. This was what remained of the chemistry collection of Antoine Pendergast, who had been known to the public at large by his pseudonym, Enoch Leng—Agent Pendergast’s great-granduncle and one of Hezekiah Pendergast’s sons.
Chemistry ran in the family.
Hezekiah’s wife, also named Constance (strange coincidence, she mused—or then again, perhaps not) had died of her own husband’s
elixir. In those last, desperate weeks of her life, according to family lore, Hezekiah had finally faced the truth about his patent medicine. After his wife’s grisly death, he had taken his own life and been buried in the lead-lined family mausoleum in New Orleans, beneath the old family manse known as Rochenoire. That mausoleum had been permanently sealed after the burning of Rochenoire by a mob, and it now lay under the asphalt of a parking lot.
What, then, had happened to Hezekiah’s laboratory, his collection of chemical compounds, and his notebooks? Had they perished in the fire? Or had his son, Antoine, inherited things related to his father’s chemical researches and carried them here, to New York City? If he had, they would be somewhere in these decrepit labs in the sub-basement. The other three sons of Hezekiah had no interest in chemistry. Comstock had become a magician of some renown. Boethius, Pendergast’s great-grandfather, went off to become an explorer and archaeologist. She could never find out what Maurice, the fourth brother, had accomplished, beyond the fact that he sank to an early death from dipsomania.
If Hezekiah had left notes, laboratory equipment, or chemicals behind, Antoine—or as Constance preferred to think of him,
Dr. Enoch
—was the only one who would have taken an interest. And if that was the case, perhaps some remnant of Hezekiah’s formula for his deadly elixir might be found in this sub-basement.
Formula first, antidote second. And all this had to happen before Pendergast died.
After passing through several chambers, Constance walked beneath a Romanesque arch, decorated with a faded tapestry, into a room that lay in considerable disarray. Shelves were toppled; the bottles and their contents shattered on the floor—the results of a conflict that had taken place here eighteen months before. She and Proctor had been trying to restore order from the shambles. This was one of the last rooms awaiting restoration; scattered about the floor lay Antoine’s entomological collections, with broken bottles full of dried hornet abdomens, dragonfly wings, iridescent beetle thoraxes, and desiccated spiders.
She glided beneath another archway, into a room filled with stuffed
Passeriformes, and from there into the most unusual region of the sub-basement: Antoine’s collection of miscellanea. Here were cases full of such odd things as wigs, doorknobs, corsets, busks, shoes, umbrellas and walking sticks, along with bizarre weapons—harquebuses, pikes, shestopyors, bardiches, poleaxes, glaives, bombards, and war hammers. Next, a room full of ancient medical equipment, apparently for both human and veterinary purposes, some of it evidently much used. This was followed, bizarrely, by a collection of military weapons, uniforms, and various kinds of equipment, dating up to approximately the First World War. Constance paused to examine both the medical and the military collections with some interest.
And then came the devices of torture: brazen bulls, racks, thumbscrews, iron maidens, and, ugliest of all, the Pear of Anguish. In the center of the room an executioner’s block had been placed, with an ax lying nearby, near a piece of curled human skin and a shock of hair: relics of a certain horrific event that had taken place here five years earlier, around the time that Agent Pendergast had become her guardian. Constance looked on all these devices with detachment. She was not particularly disturbed by this grotesque evidence of human cruelty. On the contrary, it only confirmed that her view of humanity was correct and needed no revision.
Finally, she came to the room she had been seeking: Antoine’s chemical laboratory. Pushing open the door, a forest of glassware, columnar distillation equipment, titration arrays, and other late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century apparatus greeted her eye. Years ago she had spent some time in this particular room, assisting her first guardian. She had never seen anything suggestive. Nevertheless, she was certain that—if Antoine had inherited anything from his father—it would be found here.
She set down the electric lantern on a soapstone table and looked about. She would begin her search, she decided, at the far end.
The chemical apparatus was set up on long tables, coated for the most part in a thick mantle of dust. She quickly went through the drawers, finding many notes and old papers, but nothing that predated Antoine, and all of it focused on Antoine’s own unique
researches, mostly dealing with acids and neurotoxins. Having gone through the drawers, finding nothing, Constance started with the old oaken cabinets that lined the walls, still full of working chemicals behind the fronts of rippled glass. She went carefully through the bottles and vials and ampoules and carboys, but they were all labeled in Antoine’s neat copperplate hand—nothing in the handwriting of Hezekiah, which, she knew from her research, was spiky and erratic.
Once having searched the contents of the cabinets, she examined the doors, the drawers, the bottoms and tops and hinges, for any hidden compartments. And almost immediately she found one: a large space behind a drawer in one of the soapstone tables.
It took only a moment to find the locking mechanism and spring it open. There, inside the compartment, stood a jeroboam full of liquid, with a label that read:
Triflic Acid
CF
3
SO
3
H
Sept. 1940
The bottle was well sealed—so much so that the glass stopper had been gently glazed with heat and fused to the glass bottleneck. Nineteen forty—far too late to be something from Hezekiah. But why was it hidden? She made a mental note to look into this acid, which she had never heard of.
She closed the compartment, turned away, and continued her search.
The first pass through the laboratory produced nothing of value. A more intrusive search would be necessary.
Looking around with the lantern, she noted that one of the wall cabinets was fixed to the stone with bolt anchors that had apparently, at one time in the distant past, been removed and re-anchored.
Taking up a long piece of metal, she pried out the bolts, one after another, working them loose from the rotting stone, until the cabinet
could be moved away from the wall. Behind, she discovered an ancient, worm-eaten leather valise, the leather moldy and chewed by vermin.
It was a valise of the kind a patent-medicine salesman might have carried with him to hold his samples. As she drew it out and turned it over, she saw the remains of elaborate Victorian gold stamping, forming a large design dense with curlicues and intertwined vines, leaves, and flowers. She could just barely make out the lettering:
HEZEKIAH’S
~COMPOUND~
ELIXIR
and
GLANDULAR
RESTORATIVE
Moving aside some glassware, she laid the valise out on a table and tried to open it. It was locked. A quick tug, however, tore off the old hinges.
The case was empty, save for a desiccated mouse.
She shook out the mouse, picked up the case, and turned it over to inspect the back. Nothing there; not even slots or seams. Turning the case over again, she paused, held it up, hefted it.
There was something heavy concealed beneath a false bottom, it seemed. A quick slash with a knife along the base of the valise exposed a hidden compartment, in which was snugged an old leather notebook. She pulled the notebook out carefully and opened it to the first page. It was covered with crabbed, spiky handwriting.
Constance glanced over the page for a moment. Then she flipped quickly through the journal until she reached the final pages. At this point, she settled down to read—to read about the
other
woman named Constance, known lovingly to the family by her nickname of Stanza…
6 Sept. 1905
Darkness. I found her in darkness—a state so very unlike my Stanza! She of all people has ever sought out the light. Even in inclement weather, with gloom lowering over the city, she would always be the first to put on her bonnet and shawl, ready to walk along the banks of the Mississippi at any sign of sunlight seeping through clouds. But today I found her half-asleep on the chaise longue in her sitting room, blinds shut fast against the light. She seemed surprised by my presence, starting almost guiltily. No doubt it is some passing fit of nerves, or perhaps a female complaint; she is the strongest of women, and the best, and I will think of it no more. I administered a dose of the Elixir via a Hydrokonium, and that calmed her considerably.
H.C.P.
19 Sept. 1905
I grow concerned about Stanza’s state of health. She seems to alternate between fits of euphoria—gay, almost giddy spells, characterized by an antic nature most unlike her—and black moods in which she
takes to either her sitting room or her bed. She complains of a smell of lilies—initially pleasant, but now rotten and sickly-sweet. Beyond the mention of the lilies, however, I note that she does not confide in me the way she has always done in the past, and this is perhaps most concerning of all. I would I could spend more time with her, perhaps discern what is troubling her, but, alas, these all-consuming business difficulties of late take up my waking hours. A plague on these meddlesome busybodies and their misinformed attempts to undermine my curative!
H.C.P.
30 Sept. 1905
This
Collier’s
article, coming as it does just now, is the most damnably infernal stroke of bad fortune. My Elixir has proven itself time and again to be both rejuvenative and salubrious. It has brought life and vigor to countless thousands. And yet this is forgotten amidst the cries of the ignorant, uneducated “reformers” of patent medicines. Reformers—bah! Envious, meddling pedants. What boots it struggling to better the human condition, if only to be assailed as I am at present?
H.P.
4 Oct. 1905
I believe I have found the cause of Stanza’s malaise. Although she has been at pains to hide it, I have learned—from my monthly inventory—that nearly three dozen bottles of the Elixir are missing from the storage cabinets. Only three souls on earth have keys to those cabinets: myself, Stanza, and of course my assistant Edmund, who is at present abroad, collecting and analyzing new botanicals. Just this morning, watching unobserved from the bow window of the library, I saw Stanza slipping out of doors to pass empty bottles to the dustman.
Taken in proper amounts, the Elixir is, of course, the best of remedies. But as with all things, lack of moderation can have serious consequences.
What shall I do? Must I confront her? Our entire relationship has been built on decorum, etiquette, and trust—she abhors scenes of any kind. What shall I do?
H.P.
11 Oct. 1905
Yesterday—after finding another half dozen bottles of the Elixir missing from their cabinets—I felt compelled to confront Stanza on the matter. A scene of the most disagreeable nature ensued. She said things to me uglier than I ever imagined her capable of uttering. She has now taken to her rooms and refuses to come out.
Attacks on my reputation, and on my Elixir in particular, continue in the yellow papers. Normally, I would—as I have always done—repulse them with every fiber of my being. However, I find myself so distraught at my own domestic condition that I cannot concentrate on such matters. Thanks to my diligent efforts, the fiscal stability of the family has been restored beyond any future vicissitudes—and yet I take but little comfort in this, given the more intimate difficulties I now find myself in.
H.P.
13 Oct. 1905
Will she not respond to my pleas? I hear her crying in the night, behind her locked door. What sufferings does she endure, and why will she not accept my ministrations?
H.P.
18 Oct. 1905
Today I at last gained admittance to my wife’s rooms. It was only due to the kind offices of Nettie, her faithful lady’s maid, who is almost prostrate with worry over Stanza’s well-being.
Upon entering the chambers I found Nettie’s fears only too well founded. My dearest one is fearfully pale and drawn. She will take no nourishment, and will not leave her bed. She is in constant pain. I have had no doctors in—my own medical knowledge is superior to those New Orleans mountebanks and quacks who pass themselves off as physicians—but I can see in her a wasting and dissipation almost shocking in its rapidity. Was it only two months ago we took a carriage ride along the levee, Stanza smiling and singing and laughing, in the full flush of health and youthful beauty? My one consolation is that Antoine and Comstock, away at school, are spared the sight of their mother’s pitiable state. Boethius has his nurse and tutors to occupy his time, and thus far I have been able to deflect his inquiries as to his mother’s condition. Maurice, bless him, is too young to understand.
H.
21 Oct. 1905
God forgive me—today, despairing of all other physics, I brought Stanza the Hydrokonium and Elixir she has been begging for. The relief, the almost animal hunger, she showed at its sight was perhaps the worst pang my heart has ever borne. I allowed her but a single deep inhale; her cries and imprecations upon my retiring with bottle in hand are too painful to recall. I find our prior situation now painfully reversed—it is she who must be locked in, rather than herself being the instrument of locking me out.
… What have I done?
26 Oct. 1905
It is very late, and I sit here at my desk, inkstand and writing lamp before me. It is a dirty night; the wind howls and the rain lashes against the mullions.
Stanza is crying in her bedroom. Now and then, from behind the securely locked door, I can hear a stifled groan of pain.
I can no longer deny that which I have for so long refused to accept. I told myself I was working only for the commonweal, for the greater good. I believed it in all sincerity. Talk of my Elixir causing addiction, madness, even birth defects—I ascribed it to the whisperings of the ignorant, or to those chemists and druggists who would benefit from the Elixir’s failure. But even my hypocrisy has its limits. It took the sad, indeed grievous, state of my own wife to lift the scales from my eyes. I am responsible. My Elixir is not a cure-all. It treats the symptoms rather than the underlying problem. It is habit forming, and its initially positive effects are finally overwhelmed by mysterious and deadly side effects. And now Stanza, and by extension myself, is paying the cost of my shortsightedness.
1 Nov. 1905
Darkest of all Novembers. Stanza seems to grow weaker by the day. She is now racked with hallucinations and even the occasional seizure. Against my own better judgment, I am attempting to ease her pain with morphine and with additional inhalations of the Elixir, but even these do little good; if anything, they seem to speed her enfeeblement. My God, my God, what am I to do?
5 Nov. 1905
In the blackness that is my present life a ray of light now gleams. I see a desperate possibility—small, but nevertheless existent—that I may effect a cure; an antidote, so to speak, to the Elixir. The idea occurred to me
the day before yesterday, and since then I have immersed myself in nothing else.
From my observations of Stanza, it seems that the deleterious effects of the Elixir are caused by its peculiar
combination
of ingredients, in which the conjoined effect of excellent and proven remedies, such as cocaine hydrochloride and acetanilide, are canceled and reversed by the rare botanicals.
The botanicals are what produce the evil effects. Logically, those effects can therefore be reversed by
other
botanicals. If I could block the effects of the botanical extracts, it might thus reverse the wasting physical and mental damage it seems to have caused, much in the way the extract of the Calabar bean will neutralize poisoning by the Bella Donna plant.
With this antidote, I may be able to aid not only my poor ailing Stanza, but those others who, through my greed and shortsightedness, have suffered as well.
… If only Edmund would return! His was a three-year voyage to collect healing herbs and botanicals from the equatorial jungles. I daily await the arrival of his packet steamer. Unlike many of my supposedly learned brethren, I firmly believe the natives of this planet can teach us many things about natural remedies. My own travels amongst the Plains Indians taught me as much. I am making progress, but the plants I have tested so far—save for
Thismia americana
, for which I hold out great hope—do not seem effective in counteracting the wasting effects of my accursed tonic.
8 Nov. 1905
Edmund has returned at last! He has brought dozens of the most interesting plants with him, to which the natives ascribe miraculous healing properties. The spark of hope I barely dared foster a few days ago now burns bright within me. The work consumes all my time; I cannot sleep, I cannot eat—I think of nothing else. To the list of botanicals in the Elixir, I have a number of counter-effectives, including cascara bark, calomel, oil
of chenopodium, extract of Hodgson’s Sorrow; and extract of
Thismia americana
.
But no time to write—there is much to do. And very little time in which to do it—every day, Stanza fades. She is now a mere shadow of herself. If I do not succeed—and succeed quickly—she will slip into the realm of shadow.
12 Nov. 1905
I have failed.
Up until the last moment I was confident of my success. The chemical synthesis made perfect sense. I was certain I had worked out the precise series, and proportions, of compounds—listed inside the back cover of this journal—that, when boiled, would produce a tincture capable of counteracting the effects of the Elixir. I gave Stanza a series of doses—the poor suffering creature can keep nothing solid on her stomach—but to no avail. Very early this morning, her suffering became so ungovernable that I assisted her into the next world.
I will write no more. I have lost that which was dearest to me. I am no longer in thrall to this earth. I pen these last words, not as a living being, but as one who is already with my own dead wife in spirit, and soon in body, as well.
D’entre les morts
,
Hezekiah Comstock Pendergast
Constance’s gaze lingered on these last words for a long time. Then, thoughtfully, she turned over the page—and went quite still. There was a complex list of compounds, plants, extraction, and preparation steps, all under the label
ET CONTRA ARCANUM
:
The antidote formula
.
Below the list was another handwritten message, but in another hand altogether and in much fresher ink—a beautiful, flowing script that Constance knew very well indeed.
My dearest Constance,
Knowing your innate curiosity, your interest in Pendergast family history, and your penchant for exploring the basement collections, I have no doubt that—at some point in your long, long life—you will stumble upon these jottings.
Did you find that this journal made for rather disquieting reading? Of course you did. Imagine then, if you can, how much more painful I myself have found it—chronicling as it does my own father’s search to cure an affliction
he himself
bestowed upon my mother, Constance. (The fact that your name and hers are the same is not an accident, by the way.)
The greatest irony is that my father came so close to success. You see, according to my own analysis, his antidote
should have worked
. Except that he made a wee mistake. Do you suppose he was simply too blinded by grief and guilt to see his one small oversight? One grows curious.
Be careful.
I remain, Constance,
Your devoted, etc.
Dr. Enoch Leng
