Two Graves (38 page)

A
S SOON AS PENDERGAST ENTERED THE MANSION HE
sensed something was wrong. There was a watchful silence in the air, an unnatural stasis—and a faint, strange odor. A quick check showed that all the alarms were on and green, the locks un-tampered-with, everything in its place.

Nevertheless, Pendergast moved fast through the echoing corridors to the library. It was cold, dark, and silent, the fireplace dead, no sign of Proctor.

Swinging open the bookcases, he took the elevator to the basement, raced along the subterranean passageway to the secret door, opened it. Now the smell hit him like a wall—the commingled stench of formaldehyde, ethanol, and myriad other liquids, powders, and unguessable concoctions. He drew his .45 as he raced down the curve of the staircase.

He emerged through the archway into the long string of underground chambers that made up the sub-basement, ran through the first half dozen, then stopped abruptly. The rooms ahead—stretching off one after another, connected by stone arches, illuminated by a string of lightbulbs—presented a scene of destruction. Everywhere glittered shards of colored glass and shattered bottles lay amid puddles of smoking liquids. Specimens were strewn everywhere, shelving lay upended and shattered upon the stone floor, and the cases along the walls were peppered with large-caliber bullet holes.

“Tristram!” he cried as he began to run.

He flew through the vaults, his shoes crunching on a carpet of glass, turned a corner halfway down the series of chambers, came
to his son’s room, jammed his key in the lock, then turned it and wrenched open the door.

A body lay on the floor, covered with a sheet. Stifling a gasp, Pendergast rushed to it and pulled the sheet back—to uncover Proctor, his face covered with blood. He quickly felt the pulse in his neck: strong. The chauffeur was alive but unconscious. Pendergast made an examination of Proctor’s body, determining he was merely battered, with a nasty gash on his head that had bled copiously and was clearly evidence of a concussion.

Going to the connecting bathroom, he rinsed a cloth in warm water and returned, gently cleaning Proctor’s face and the cut on his head. The effort began to revive the man, and he tried to sit up, almost fainting as a result. Pendergast eased him back down.

“What happened?” Pendergast asked, quietly but urgently.

Proctor shook his head to clear it, then groaned at the resulting pain. “Alban… took Tristram.”

“How in God’s name did he get in?”

Another shake of the head. “No idea. Thought I heard… a noise.”

“When did this happen?”

“About a quarter… to ten.”

It was now past eleven. Pendergast leapt up. There was no indication Alban and his victim had left the house—the alarms had been green. And yet more than an hour had passed since the attack.

“I’m going to leave you here while I track them,” he said.

Proctor waved a dismissive hand as if to say,
Don’t worry about me
.

Sidearm at the ready, Pendergast performed a quick search of the room. Going through the mess of papers on Tristram’s desk, his attempts to write in English, he found a striking drawing of a mountain, with a note indicating it was a gift to his father. This discovery caused a painful twinge. But he pushed the feeling away as best he could, took the drawing, and left the room, locking the door behind him.

He examined intently the marks in the dust of the side passage, but this close to Tristram’s room there were too many confusing footprints to bring any order to. He returned to the main corridor,
continuing on as swiftly as he could while still maintaining vigilance, examining the riot of ruin that covered the floor. Passing through several more chambers, he came to the old laboratory of Professor Leng. The confrontation had not extended this far—the lab was relatively in order. Old soapstone tabletops were covered with beakers, retorts, titration apparatuses. He looked around carefully, then made his way noiselessly along the walls to the open door leading to the next and final room. It was full of weapons, both ancient and relatively modern: swords, maces, rifles, blackjacks, grenades, flails, tridents.

Here Pendergast paused, fishing a small LED light from his pocket and exploring the room with it. Nothing appeared to be missing. At the far end, he stopped. There were fresh marks before an unobtrusive door in the wall.

The security alarms had been green. The motion sensors had not been triggered. The mansion was exceedingly well wired against intruders—except for the basement and sub-basements, accessible only through the hidden elevator and secret door, which because of their bizarre layout and almost limitless extent could not be properly wired for security. Indeed, attempting to have done so might actually have compromised that secret section of the mansion. But this was all speculation, because no intruder could find his way into them.

Pendergast stared at the closed door. Unless… was it even possible?

He quickly opened the door, which led to a crude stone passageway and a descending staircase, constructed from a natural crevasse in the schist bedrock. A strong smell of mold and damp rose from below. Heading down the long series of rude steps, he came to an ancient stone quay alongside a watery tunnel—the lair of the river pirate who had owned an earlier house near the site of the mansion. Normally, an old rowing skiff was upturned on the quay—but now it was gone. Fresh splashes and puddles of water on the stone edges of the quay attested to the fact the boat had been recently launched.

Pendergast knew the smuggler’s tunnel led to the Hudson River. It was so well concealed, and the passage from it to the sub-basement
so carefully barred and locked, Pendergast had always believed the rear tunnel entrance to be undiscoverable and impregnable. He now realized this had been a foolish oversight. With an hour’s head start, Alban and his hostage would be gone—and impossible to trace.

He half sat, half collapsed onto the stone floor of the quay.

D
R. JOHN FELDER STEPPED OUT OF THE GATEHOUSE AND
closed the door silently behind him. As the calendar had promised, it was a moonless night. The Wintour mansion had no exterior lights—Miss Wintour was too miserly to buy any more lightbulbs than absolutely necessary—and the ancient pile was a vast obscure shape rising before him, black against black.

He took a deep breath, then began pushing his way through the knee-high tangle of dead weeds and grasses. It was a cold night, close to freezing, and his breath smoked the air. The mansion, the street, the entire town of Southport seemed cloaked in silence. Despite the darkness, he felt horribly exposed.

Reaching the main building, he pressed himself against its chill flanks and paused, listening. All was silent. He moved slowly along the exterior wall until he came to the large bow window of the mansion’s library. The library boasted three sets of casement windows. Moving even more slowly now, Felder peered into the closest casement. Utter blackness.

Retreating slightly, he pressed his back to the stone façade and peered around. There was nothing, not even the hush of a passing car, to break the stillness. This side of the mansion was at right angles to the street, hidden from view by a wall of ancient arborvitae planted along the inside edge of the wrought-iron fence. He could not be seen.

Nevertheless, he stood in the lee of the library windows for a long time. Was he really going to do this? As he’d sat in the gatehouse that evening, hour after hour, waiting for midnight, he’d told himself he wasn’t really planning anything wrong. He’d simply be appropriating
the portfolio of a second-rate artist who nobody cared about, least of all Miss Wintour. In fact, he wouldn’t even be appropriating it. He was simply borrowing it. At the end of the day, he could just mail it back to her anonymously. No harm done…

But then he’d come back to reality. He was planning a burglary. Breaking and entering. That was a crime, a misdemeanor or perhaps even a felony, punishable by jail time. And then his thoughts went to Dukchuk—and jail seemed a preferable alternative to getting caught by him.

His feet were going numb from the cold and the lack of movement, and he shifted position. Was he really going to do this? Yes, he was—in another minute. Or two.

He reached into the pocket of his jacket, checking its contents. A Maglite, a screwdriver, a scalpel, a tin of 3-In-One oil, a thin pair of leather gloves. He took another deep, shuddering breath; licked his lips; looked around yet again. Nothing. It was utterly black; he could barely make out the library windows against their heavy frames. The mansion was as silent as a tomb. Another moment of hesitation—then he plucked the gloves from his pocket, pulled them on, and stepped up to the nearest window.

Pressing close to the casement, he took out his flashlight, and—shielding its beam with his glove—turned it on and examined the center post where the two vertical sections of the window met. Damn—the espagnolettes had been twisted into place, the hinged levers effectively locking this pair of windows. Flicking off the light and taking another look around, he moved on to the next casement and examined it. Again, the handles that opened the windows had been twisted into a horizontal position. He couldn’t get in without breaking the glass, reaching in, and turning the handle himself—unthinkable.

With a sensation that seemed half disappointment, half relief, he moved on to the last casement, hooded his light, and glanced in. The handle of the first matched window was securely in place. But the beam of his light revealed that its mate was slightly ajar, the espagnolette having broken off and been left unrepaired, the place where it had been fastened to the metal framing now just a hole.

Snapping off his light, Felder moved on, into the shadow of the far side of the bow window. Once again he waited, looking around and listening carefully. But there was nothing.

He realized his heart was pounding painfully in his chest. If he didn’t do this now, he’d lose his nerve. Turning resolutely back to the final casement, he slipped the screwdriver into the thin space between the window edge and the frame, then applied gentle pressure. The gap widened with a squeak of protest. Felder stopped, took the lubricating oil from his pocket, applied it to the rusty hinges, tried the screwdriver again. Now the window moved silently. In a moment the gap was large enough for him to insert his fingers. Gently—gently—he pulled the window wide.

He put the oil and screwdriver back into his pocket. All remained still. Summoning his courage, he placed his hands on both sides of the window frame and raised his foot onto the sill, preparing to pull himself in. Then he hesitated. For a moment, he saw himself as if from a distance. It suddenly seemed ridiculous, even preposterous, what he was doing. A thought flashed through his head:
If my med-school professors could see me now
. But he was too nervous for such contemplations to last. Taking a fresh hold on the frame, he pulled himself up and, with one quick effort, was inside the room.

The library was almost as chilly as the night outside. Shielding the flashlight, Felder swept it briefly around the room, taking in the positions of the various pieces of furniture. It wouldn’t do for him to tumble over a chair. The space was decorated similarly to the front parlor: prudish high-backed chairs, a few low tables covered with lace cloths on which were set various pieces of display china and pewter. The room was dusty, as if it had not been used in a long time. The walls on both sides were covered floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves, set behind cases of leaded glass.

He glanced around again, memorizing the location of the furnishings. Then, snapping off the light, he walked as quickly and as quietly as he dared across the room to the pocket doors. Here he stopped, placing his ear to the doors and listening intently.

Nothing.

Heart beating still faster, he turned back to face the library. He had no idea where to start. The shelves were stuffed with thousands of books, leather storage boxes, bundles of ancient manuscripts tied in decaying ribbons, and other material. The prospect of spending hours searching, fearing discovery at any moment, was intolerable.

He braced himself with thoughts of Constance. Then, turning to his left, he crept over to where the wall of bookshelves seemed to start, next to the pocket doors. Hooding his flashlight again, he snapped it on, long enough to see a row of tall, leather-bound books staring back at him, their ribbed spines glowing faintly in the light. They were the works of Henry Adams, in four volumes.

He walked a little way down the wall of shelving, then paused and flicked the light on again, briefly. On the shelf in front of him sat maybe half a dozen small wooden boxes of intricate workmanship, beautifully dovetailed and varnished. Paper labels were fixed to each, curling away slightly from the wood as the old glue dried. A note had been handwritten on each box in faded ink:
Bierstadt, Vol. 1. Bierstadt, Vol. 2.

The Bierstadt correspondence. The goal of the Harvard delegation that had made a futile pilgrimage here. No doubt worth a fortune…