The Inner Circle

by Brad Meltzer

  He glanced down both sides of the alley. Slaughterhouse, ice factory, abandoned waterworks… It suddenly made perfect sense.

  More slowly now, Pendergast walked away, headed for Baxter Street and points north. He could, of course, have ended his journey at this point—have opened his eyes to the present-day books and tubes and monitor screens—but he preferred to continue the discipline of this mental exercise, to take the long way back to Lenox Hill Hospital. He was curious to see if the fire at Shottum’s Cabinet had been brought under control. Perhaps he would hire a carriage uptown. Or better yet, walk up past the Madison Square Garden circus, past Delmonico’s, past the palaces of Fifth Avenue. There was much to think about, much more than he had previously imagined—and 1881 was as good a place as any to do it in.

  FOURTEEN

  NORA STOPPED AT THE NURSES’ STATION TO ASK DIRECTIONS to Pendergast’s new room. A sea of hostile faces greeted the question. Clearly, Nora thought, Pendergast was as popular at Lenox as he had been at St. Luke’s—Roosevelt.

  She found him lying up in bed, the blinds shut tight against the sun. He looked very tired, his face gray. His blond-white hair hung limply over his high forehead, and his eyes were closed. As she entered, they slowly opened.

  “I’m sorry,” Nora said. “This is a bad time.”

  “Not at all. I did ask you to see me. Please clear off that chair and sit down.”

  Nora moved the stack of books and papers from the chair to the floor, wondering again what this was about. She’d already given him her report about her visit with the old lady and told him it would be her last assignment for him. He had to understand that it was time for her to get back to her own career. As intriguing as it was, she was not about to commit professional hara kiri over this business.

  Pendergast’s eyes had drooped until they were almost closed, but she could still see the pale irises behind the shtted lids.

  “How are you?” Courtesy required she ask that question, but there wouldn’t be any others. She’d listen to what he had to say, then leave.

  “Leng acquired his victims from the cabinet itself,” Pendergast said.

  “How do you know?”

  “He captured them at the back of one of the halls, most likely a small cul-de-sac housing a particularly gruesome exhibit. He would lie in wait until a visitor was alone, then he’d snatch his victim, take the unfortunate through a door at the rear of the exhibit, which led down the back stairs to the coal cellar. It was a perfect setup. Street people vanished all the time in that neighborhood. Undoubtably, Leng selected victims that would not be missed: street urchins, workhouse boys and girls.”

  He spoke in a monotone, as if reviewing his findings within his own mind instead of explaining them to her.

  “From 1872 to 1881 he used the cabinet for this purpose. Nine years. Thirty-six victims that we know of, perhaps many more Leng disposed of in some other way. As you know, there had in fact been rumors of people vanishing in the cabinet. These no doubt served to increase its popularity.”

  Nora shuddered.

  “Then in 1881 he killed Shottum and burned the cabinet. We of course know why: Shottum found out what he was up to. He said as much in his letter to McFadden. But that letter has, in its own way, been misleading me all this time. Leng would have killed Shottum anyway.” Pendergast paused to take a few breaths. “The confrontation with Shottum merely gave him the excuse he needed to burn the cabinet. You see, phase one of his work was complete.”

  “Phase one?”

  “He had achieved what he set out to do. He perfected his formula.”

  “You don’t seriously mean Leng was able to prolong his own life?”

  “He clearly believed he could. In his mind, the experimentation phase could cease. Production could begin. Victims would still be required, but many fewer than before. The cabinet, with its high volume of foot traffic, was no longer necessary. In fact, it had become a liability. It was imperative for Leng to cover his tracks and start afresh.”

  There was a silence. Then Pendergast resumed.

  “A year before the cabinet burned, Leng offered his services to two workhouses in the vicinity—the Five Points House of Industry and the Five Points Mission. The two were connected by the warren of old underground tunnels that riddled the entire Five Points area in the nineteenth century. In Leng’s day, a foul alley known as Cow Bay lay between the workhouses. Along with the sordid tenements you’d expect, Cow Bay was home to an ancient subterranean pumping station dating back to the days of the Collect Pond. The waterworks were shut down and sealed for good about a month before Leng allied himself with the workhouses. That is no mere coincidence of dates.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “The abandoned waterworks was the site of Leng’s production laboratory. The place he went after burning Shottum’s Cabinet. It was secure, and better still it provided easy underground access to both workhouses. An ideal place to begin production of the substance he believed would prolong his life. I have the old plans for the waterworks, here.” Pendergast waved his hand, weakly.

  Nora glanced over at the complex set of diagrams. She wondered what had so exhausted the agent. He had seemed much better the day before. She hoped he hadn’t taken a turn for the worse.

  “Today, of course, the workhouses, the tenements, even many of the streets are gone. A three-story brownstone was built directly above the site of Leng’s production laboratory. Number 99 Doyers Street, erected in the 1920s off Chatham Square. Broken into one-bedroom flats, with a separate two-bedroom apartment in the basement. Any traces of Leng’s laboratory would lie under that building.”

  Nora thought for a moment. Excavating Leng’s production laboratory would no doubt be a fascinating archaeological project. There would be evidence there, and as an archaeologist she could find it. She wondered, once again, why Pendergast was so interested in these nineteenth-century murders. It would be of some historical solace to know that Mary Greene’s killer had been brought to light—She abruptly terminated the line of thought. She had her own work to do, her own career to salvage. She had to remind herself once again that this was history.

  Pendergast sighed, turned slightly in the bed. “Thank you, Dr. Kelly. Now, you’d better go. I’m badly in need of sleep.”

  Nora glanced at him in surprise. She had been expecting another plea for her help. “Why did you ask to see me, exactly?”

  “You’ve been a great help to me in this investigation. More than once, you’ve asked for more information than I could give you. I assumed you wished to know what I’ve discovered. You’ve earned that, at the very least. There’s a detestable term one hears bandied about these days: ’closure.’ Detestable, but in this case appropriate. I hope this knowledge will bring you some degree of closure, and allow you to continue your work at the Museum without a sense of unfinished business. I offer my sincerest thanks for your help. It has been invaluable.”

  Nora felt a twinge of offense at this abrupt dismissal. She reminded herself that this was what she had wanted… Wasn’t it? After a moment she spoke. “Thanks for saying so. But if you ask me, this business sounds totally unfinished. If you’re right about this, 99 Doyers Street seems like the next logical stop.”

  “That is correct. The basement apartment is currently unoccupied, and an excavation below the living room floor would be most instructive. I plan to rent the apartment myself and undertake that excavation. And that is why I must recover as quickly as possible. Take care, Dr. Kelly.” He shifted with an air of finality.

  “Who’s going to do the excavation?” she asked.

  “I will find another archaeologist.”

  Nora looked at him sharply.“Where?”

  “Through the New Orleans field office. They are most flexible when it comes to my, ah, projects.”

  “Right,” said Nora briskly. “But this isn’t a job for just any archaeologist. This requires someone with special skills in—”

  “Are you offering?”


  Nora was silent.

  “Of course you’re not. That’s why I didn’t ask. You’ve more than once expressed your desire to return to a more normal course of work. I’ve imposed upon you too much as it is. Besides, this investigation has taken a dangerous turn, far more so than I initially assumed. An assumption I have paid for, as you can see. I would not wish you exposed to any more danger than you have been already.”

  Nora stood up.

  “Well,” she said, “I guess that’s settled. I’ve enjoyed working with you, Mr. Pendergast—if ‘enjoy’ is the right word. It’s certainly been interesting.” She felt vaguely dissatisfied with this outcome, even though it was what she had come down here to achieve.

  “Indeed,” said Pendergast. “Most interesting.”

  She began to walk toward the door, then stopped, remembering something. “But I may be in touch with you again. I got a note from Reinhart Puck in the Archives. Says he’s found some new information, asked me to stop by later this afternoon. If it seems useful, I’ll pass it on.”

  Pendergast’s pale eyes were still regarding her attentively. “Do that. And again, Dr. Kelly, you have my thanks. Be very careful.”

  She nodded, then turned to leave, smiling at the baleful stares that greeted her as she passed the nurses’ station.

  FIFTEEN

  THE DOOR TO THE ARCHIVES GAVE OUT A SHARP CREAK AS Nora eased it open. There had been no response to her knocking, and the door was unlocked, in clear violation of regulations. Very strange.

  The smell of old books, papers, and the odor of corruption that seemed to suffuse the entire Museum hung in her nostrils. Puck’s desk lay in the center of a pool of light, a wall of darkness beyond. Puck himself was nowhere to be seen.

  Nora checked her watch. Four P.M. She was right on time.

  She released the door and it sighed back into place. She turned the lock, then approached the desk, heels clicking on the marble floor. She signed in automatically, scrawling her name at the top of a fresh page in the logbook. Puck’s desk was neater than usual, and a single typewritten note sat in the middle of the green felt pad. She glanced at it. I’m on the triceratops in the back.

  The triceratops, Nora thought, looking into the gloom. Leave it to Puck to be off dusting old relics. But where the hell was the triceratops? She didn’t recall having seen one. And there were no lights on in the back that she could see. The damn triceratops could be anywhere. She looked around: no diagram of the Archives, either. Typical.

  Feeling an undercurrent of irritation, she moved to the banks of ivory light switches. She snapped a few on at random. Lights sprang up here and there, deep within the Archives, casting long shadows down the rows of metal shelving. Might as well turn them all on, she thought, flipping whole rows of switches with the edge of her hand. But even with all the lights, the Archives remained curiously shadowy and dim, large pools of darkness and long dim aisles predominating.

  She waited, half expecting Puck to call out to her. There was no sound except the distant ticking of steam pipes and the hiss of the forced-air ducts.

  “Mr. Puck?” she called tentatively.

  Her voice reverberated and died. No answer.

  She called again, louder this time. The Archives were so vast she wondered if her voice could penetrate to the rear.

  For a minute, she considered coming back another time. But Puck’s message had been most insistent.

  Vaguely, she recalled seeing some mounted fossil skeletons on her last visit. Maybe she would find the triceratops among them.

  With a sigh, she began walking down one of the aisles, listening to the clatter of her shoes against the marble. Although the entrance to the aisle had been brightly lit, it soon grew shadowy and dim. It was amazing how poorly illuminated the place was; in the middle sections of the aisles, far from the lights, one almost needed a flashlight to make out the objects stacked on the shelves.

  At the next pool of light, Nora found herself at a junction from which several aisles wandered away at a variety of angles. She paused, considering which to take. It’s like Hansel and Gretel in here, she thought. And I’m fresh out of bread crumbs.

  The aisle closest to her left went in a direction that, she remembered, led to a grouping of stuffed animals. But its few lights were burned out and it vanished into darkness. Nora shrugged and took the next aisle over.

  It felt so different, walking these passages alone. The last time, she’d been with Pendergast and Puck. She had been thinking about Shottum and hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings. With Puck guiding their steps, she hadn’t even bothered to notice the strange jogs these aisles took, the odd angles at which they met. It was the most eccentric layout imaginable, made even more eccentric by its vast size.

  Her thoughts were interrupted as the aisle took a sharp turn to the left. Around the corner, she unexpectedly came upon a number of freestanding African mammals—giraffes, a hippo, a pair of lions, wildebeests, kudu, water buffalo. Each was wrapped in plastic, bestowing a muffled, ghostly appearance.

  Nora stopped. No sign of a triceratops. And once again, the aisles led away in half a dozen directions. She chose one at random, followed it through one jog, then another, coming abruptly to another intersection.

  This was getting ridiculous. “Mr. Puck!” she called out loudly.

  The echoes of her voice gradually faded away. The hiss of forced air filled the ensuing silence.

  She didn’t have time for this. She would come back later, and she’d call first to make sure Puck was waiting at his desk. Better still, she’d just tell him to take whatever it was he wanted to show her directly to Pendergast. She was off the case, anyway.

  She turned to walk out of the Archives, taking what she thought would be the shortest path. After a few minutes, she came to a stop beside a rhino and several zebras. They looked like lumpy sentinels beneath the omnipresent plastic, giving off a strong smell of paradichlorobenzene.

  These aisles didn’t look familiar. And she didn’t seem to be any closer to the exit.

  For a moment, she felt a small current of anxiety. Then she shook it away with a forced laugh. She’d just make her way back to the giraffes, then retrace her steps from there.

  As she turned, her foot landed in a small puddle of water. She looked up just as a drop of water splattered on her forehead. Condensation from the pipes far overhead. She shook it away and moved on.

  But she couldn’t seem to find her way back to the giraffes.

  This was crazy. She’d navigated through trackless deserts and dense rainforests. How could she be lost in a museum in the middle of New York City?

  She looked around, realizing it was her sense of direction she had lost. With all these angled aisles, these dimly lit intersections, it had become impossible to tell where the front desk was. She’d have to—

  She abruptly froze, listening intently. A soft pattering sound. It was hard to tell where it had come from, but it was close.

  “Mr. Puck? Is that you?”

  Nothing.

  She listened, and the pattering sound came again. Just more water dripping somewhere, she thought. Even so, she was more eager than ever to find the door.

  She chose an aisle at random and moved down it at a brisk walk, heels clicking rapidly against the marble. On both sides of the aisle, the shelves were covered with bones stacked like cordwood, each with a yellowing tag tied to its end. The tags flapped and fluttered in the dead air stirred by her passage. The place was like a crypt. Amid the silence, the darkness, and the ghoulish specimens, it was hard not to think about the set of grisly murders that had occurred just a few years before, within this very subbasement. It was still the subject of rumor and speculation in the staff lounge.

  The aisle ended in another jog.

  Damn it, thought Nora, looking up and down the long rows of shelving that vanished into the gloom. Another welling of anxiety, harder to fight down this time. And then, once again, she heard—or thought she heard�
��a noise from behind. This time it wasn’t a pattering, so much as the scrape of a foot on stone.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded, spinning around. “Mr. Puck?”

  Nothing save the hiss of steam and the drip of water.

  She began walking again, a little faster now, telling herself not to be afraid; that the noises were merely the incessant shiftings and settlings of an old, decrepit building. The very corridors seemed watchful. The click of her heels was unbearably loud.

  She turned a corner and stepped in another puddle of water. She pulled back in disgust. Why didn’t they do something about these old pipes?

  She looked at the puddle again. The water was black, greasy—not, in fact, water at all. Oil had leaked on the floor, or maybe some chemical preservative. It had a strange, sour smell. But it didn’t look like it had leaked from anywhere: she was surrounded by shelves covered with mounted birds, beaks open, eyes wide, wings upraised.

  What a mess, she thought, turning her expensive Bally shoe sideways to find that the oily liquid had soiled the sole and part of the stitching. This place was a disgrace. She pulled an oversized handkerchief from her pocket—a necessary accoutrement to working in a dusty museum—and wiped it along the edge of the shoe. And then, abruptly, she froze. Against the white background of the handkerchief, the liquid was not black. It was a deep, glistening red.

  She dropped the handkerchief and took an involuntary step back, heart hammering. She looked at the pool, stared at it with sudden horror. It was blood—a whole lot of blood. She looked around wildly: where had it come from? Had it leaked out of a specimen? But it seemed to be just sitting there, all alone—a large pool of blood in the middle of the aisle. She glanced up, but there was nothing: just the dim ceiling thirty feet above, crisscrossed with pipes.

  Then she heard what sounded like another footfall, and, through a shelf of specimens, she glimpsed movement. Then, silence returned.