Blue Labyrinth

by Douglas Preston

  “Slade,” came the atonal voice on the other end of the line.

  “Sergeant? This is Vincent D’Agosta.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “I’ve just come across a document on a man named Barbeaux. Heard of him?”

  “No.”

  “You should have. You filed the document yourself—in the wrong folder. Put it under Barbecci.”

  A pause. “Oh. That. Albany, right? Stupid of me—sorry.”

  “I was wondering how you happened to be in possession of that memo.”

  “Angler gave it to me to file. As I recall, it was Albany’s case, not ours, and it didn’t check out.”

  “Any idea why it was sent to Angler in the first place? Did he request it?”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant. I’ve got no idea.”

  “It’s all right, I’ll ask him myself. Is he around?”

  “No. He took a few days off to visit some relatives upstate.”

  “All right, I’ll check in with him later.”

  “Take care, Lieutenant.” There was a click as Slade hung up.

  Read down the list of ingredients,” Margo said to Constance. “We’ll take them one by one.”

  “Aqua vitae,” Constance said. She was seated in the library of the Riverside Drive mansion, the old journal in her lap. It was just past eleven in the morning—at Constance’s urgent summons, Margo had ducked out of work as quickly as possible. Constance’s graceful hands were trembling slightly with agitation, her face flushed. But her expression was under rigid control.

  Margo nodded. “That’s an old-fashioned name for an aqueous solution of ethanol. Vodka will suffice.” She jotted a notation in a small notebook.

  Constance turned back to the journal. “Next is laudanum.”

  “Tincture of opium. Still available by prescription in the United States.” Margo made another notation, squinting as she did so—although it was still morning, the library windows were shuttered, and the light was dim. “We’ll get Dr. Stone to write us out a prescription.”

  “Not necessary. There’s plenty of laudanum in the basement chemical stores,” said Constance.

  “Good.”

  Another pause, and Constance consulted the old journal. “Petroleum jelly. Calomel… Calomel is mercurous chloride, I believe. There are jars of it in the basement, too.”

  “Petroleum jelly we can get at any drugstore,” said Margo. She looked over the list of the dozen-odd compounds she’d jotted down in her notebook. Despite everything, she felt a prickling sensation of hope. At first, Constance’s news of Hezekiah’s antidote, her showing Margo the old journal, seemed like a long shot. But now…

  “Cascara bark,” Constance said, returning her attention to the journal. “I’m not familiar with that.”

  “Cascara buckthorn,” said Margo. “Rhamnus purshiana. Its bark was, and still is, a common ingredient in herbal supplements.”

  Constance nodded. “Oil of chenopodium.”

  “That’s another name for wormseed oil,” said Margo. “It’s mildly toxic, but nevertheless was used as a common ingredient in nineteenth-century quack medicines.”

  “There should be some bottles of both in the basement, then.” Constance paused. “Here are the last two ingredients: Hodgson’s Sorrow and Thismia americana.”

  “I haven’t heard of either of them,” Margo said. “But they are obviously botanicals.”

  Constance rose and retrieved a huge botanical dictionary from the bookshelf. Placing it on a stand, she began leafing through it. “Hodgson’s Sorrow. An aquatic, night-blooming water lily of the family Nymphaeaceae, with a spectacular deep-pink color. In addition to its color, it has a most unusual odor. It doesn’t say anything here about pharmacological properties.”

  “Interesting.”

  There was a silence as Constance continued to read through the entry. “It’s native only to Madagascar. Very rare. Prized by collectors of water lilies.”

  Silence settled over the library. “Madagascar,” said Margo. “Damn.” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her tablet, accessed the Internet, and did a quick search for Hodgson’s Sorrow. With the flick of a finger, she scrolled quickly down through the entries. “Okay, we’ve got a break. It seems there’s a specimen in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.” She called up the website for the garden, searched through it for a moment. “It’s in the Aquatic House, which is part of the main greenhouse complex. But how will we get it?”

  “There’s only one sure way.”

  “Which is?”

  “Steal it.”

  After a moment, Margo nodded.

  “Now for the final ingredient.” Constance consulted the encyclopedia again. “Thismia americana… A plant found in the wetlands around Chicago’s Lake Calumet. It flowers for less than a month above ground. Of interest to botanists not only because of its very localized habitat, but because it’s a mycoheterotroph.”

  Margo said, “That’s a rare kind of plant that parasitizes underground fungi for its nourishment, instead of photosynthesis.”

  Suddenly Constance froze. A strange expression crept over her face as she stared at the encyclopedia. “According to this,” she said, “the plant went extinct around 1916, when its habitat was built over.”

  “Extinct?”

  “Yes.” Constance’s voice had taken on a dead cast. “A few years ago, a small army of volunteers undertook a careful search of Chicago’s Far South Side, with the specific intent of finding a specimen of Thismia americana. They were unsuccessful.”

  She laid the book down, walked to the dying fire. She stopped, staring into it, while twisting a handkerchief between her hands. She said nothing.

  “There’s a possibility,” Margo said, “the Museum might have a specimen in its collections.” Using her tablet again, she accessed the Museum’s Internet portal, entered her name and password. Opening the online catalog of the Botany Department, she did a search for Thismia americana.

  Nothing.

  Margo let the tablet settle on her lap. Constance continued twisting the handkerchief.

  “I can see if there isn’t something similar in the Museum’s collection,” said Margo. “The mycoheterotrophs are all quite similar, and might have similar pharmacological properties.”

  Constance turned toward her quickly. “Go to the Museum. Retrieve the closest range of specimens you can find.”

  Of course, thought Margo, this would also involve stealing. God, how was that going to work out? But when she thought of Pendergast upstairs, she realized they had no choice. After a silence, she said: “We’re also forgetting something.”

  “Which is?”

  “The antidote that Hezekiah wrote down here… it didn’t work. Hezekiah’s wife died anyway.”

  “Leng’s final note said something about a wee mistake. One small oversight. Do you have any idea what the oversight might have been?”

  Margo turned again to the formula. It was a simple preparation, really, except for the last two highly unusual botanicals. “It could be anything,” she said, shaking her head. “The proportions might be wrong. The preparation could have been botched. A wrong ingredient. An unexpected interaction.”

  “Think, please think!” Margo could hear the handkerchief tear in Constance’s hands.

  Margo tried to comply, thinking carefully about the ingredients. Again, the last two were the ones that were unique. The rest were more common, their preparations standard. It would have to be in the two rare ingredients where the “oversight” lay.

  She scanned the preparation directions. Both plants had been extracted into tinctures using a common method—boiling. Usually that worked, but in some cases boiling denatured certain complex plant proteins. Today the best method of botanical extraction for pharmacological use was via chloroform.

  Margo looked up. “A room-temperature extraction of these two botanicals using chloroform would be more efficacious,” she said.

  “I’m sure I can find chloroform in the collectio
ns. Let us proceed with all haste.”

  “We should test it first. We have no idea what compounds are in these two plants. They could be deadly.”

  Constance stared at her. “There’s no time for a test. Pendergast seemed to rally yesterday evening—but now he’s taken a decided turn for the worse. Go to the Museum. Do what you have to do to get the mycoheterotrophs. Meanwhile, I’ll collect as many of these other ingredients as I can from the basement, and…” She stopped when she saw the look on Margo’s face. “Is there a problem?”

  “The Museum,” Margo repeated.

  “Of course. That’s the logical place to find the necessary ingredients.”

  “But they would be stored in… in the basement.”

  “You know the Museum better than I,” Constance said. When Margo did not reply, she continued: “Those plants are vital if we’re to have any hope of saving Pendergast.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know they are.” Margo swallowed, then slipped her tablet back into her bag. “What are we going to do about D’Agosta? We said we’d stay in touch, but I’m not so sure we should mention these… plans.”

  “He’s a police officer. He couldn’t help us—and he might stop us.”

  Margo bowed her head in assent.

  Constance nodded. “Good luck.”

  “You, too.” Margo paused. “I’m curious—that note… in the journal. It was written to you. What was that all about?”

  A silence. “Before Aloysius, I had another guardian. Dr. Enoch Leng. The man who wrote that final note in the journal.”

  Margo paused, waiting. Constance never volunteered information about herself; Margo knew virtually nothing about her. Many times she had wondered where she had suddenly come from and what her real relationship was to Pendergast. But now, most uncharacteristically, Constance’s voice took on a softer, almost confessional tone.

  “Dr. Enoch had a notorious interest in a certain branch of chemistry. I sometimes acted as his lab assistant. I helped him with his experiments.”

  “When was this?” Margo asked. It seemed strange: Constance looked to be only in her early twenties, and she had been Pendergast’s ward for years.

  “Long ago. I was a mere child.”

  “Oh.” Margo paused. “And what branch of chemistry interested this Dr. Enoch?”

  “Acids.” And Constance smiled faintly: a faraway, almost nostalgic smile.

  For as long as Margo had been associated with the New York Museum of Natural History, Jörgensen had been “retired.” And yet every day he continued to occupy the corner office where he had always been, seeming never to go home—if he even had a home—and grumbling at anyone who disturbed him. Margo paused at his half-open door, hesitating to knock. She could see the old man bent over some seedpods, studying them under a glass, his head entirely bald, his bushy eyebrows bristling from his face.

  She knocked. “Dr. Jörgensen?” she ventured.

  The head rotated and a pair of bleached-blue eyes turned on her. He said nothing but the expression in the eyes was one of annoyance.

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  This was met with a noncommittal grunt. Since no offer to enter seemed forthcoming, Margo went in uninvited.

  “I’m Margo Green,” she said, offering her hand. “I used to work here.”

  Another grunt and a withered hand met hers. The eyebrows knitted up. “Margo Green… Ah, yes. You were around during the time of those awful killings.” He shook his head. “I was a friend of Whittlesey, poor old soul—”

  Margo swallowed and hastened to change the subject. “That was a long time ago, I hardly remember the killings,” she lied. “I was wondering—”

  “But I remember,” said Jörgensen. “And I remember you. Funny, your name came up recently. Now, where was that…?”

  He cast about with his eyes but, finding nothing, looked back at her. “What happened to that tall fellow with the cowlick you used to go around with? You know, the one who loved the sound of his own voice?”

  Margo hesitated. “He died.”

  Jörgensen seemed to contemplate this for a moment. “Died? Those were dark days. So many died. So, you moved on to greener pastures?”

  “I did.” She hesitated. “There were too many bad memories here. I work for a medical foundation now.”

  A nod. Margo felt encouraged. “I’m looking for help. Some botanical advice.”

  “Very well.”

  “Are you familiar with the mycoheterotrophs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. Well, I’m interested in a plant called Thismia americana.”

  “It’s extinct.”

  Margo took a deep breath. “I know. I was hoping… wondering… if there might be a specimen of a similar mycoheterotroph in the Museum’s collection.”

  Jörgensen leaned back in his chair and made a tent with his fingers. Margo could see she was in for a lecture. “Thismia americana,” he intoned, as if not having heard her last sentence, “was a rather celebrated plant in botanical circles. It’s not only extinct, but when it was alive it was one of the rarest plants known. Only one botanist ever saw it and took samples. The plant disappeared around 1916, thanks to the expansion of Chicago. It vanished without a trace.”

  Margo pretended to be interested in this mini-lecture, even though she already knew every detail. Jörgensen stopped without having answered her question.

  “So,” she said, “only one botanist took specimens?”

  “That is correct.”

  “And what happened to those samples?”

  At this, Jörgensen’s ancient face creased into an unusual smile. “They’re right here, naturally.”

  “Here? In the Museum’s collection?”

  A nod.

  “Why isn’t it listed in the online catalog?”

  Jörgensen waved his hand dismissively. “That’s because it’s in the Herbarium Vault. There’s a separate catalog for those specimens.”

  Margo was speechless at her good luck. “Um, how can I gain access to it?”

  “You can’t.”

  “But I need it for my research.”

  Jörgensen’s face began to take on a pinched look. “My dear girl,” he began, “access to the Herbarium Vault is strictly limited to Museum curators, and then only with the written permission of the director himself.” His voice took on a schoolmaster’s tone. “Those extinct plant specimens are very fragile, and simply can’t stand handling by inexperienced laypersons.”

  “But I’m not an inexperienced layperson. I’m an ethnopharmacologist and I have a good reason, a very good reason, to study that specimen.”

  The bushy eyebrows raised. “Which is?”

  “I’m, ah, doing a study of nineteenth-century medicine—”

  “Just a minute,” said Jörgensen, interrupting, “now I recollect where your name came up!” A withered hand snaked out and extracted a document from atop a pile of paper. “I recently received a memo regarding your status here at the Museum.”

  Margo was brought up short. “What?”

  Jörgensen glanced at it, and then proffered it to her. “See for yourself.”

  It was a memo from Frisby to all staff in the Department of Botany. It was short.

  Please be advised of a status change regarding outside researcher Dr. Margo Green, an ethnopharmacologist employed by the Pearson Institute. Her access privileges to the collections have been downgraded from Level 1 to Level 5, effective immediately.

  Margo was well aware how this little bit of bureaucratese translated: “Level 5” access meant no access at all. “When did you get that?”

  “This morning.”

  “Why didn’t you mention it before?”

  “I don’t pay much attention to Museum missives these days. It’s a miracle I remembered it at all. At eighty-five, my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  Margo sat in the seat, trying to get her temper under control. It would do no good to get mad in front of Jörgensen. Best to be straight, sh
e thought.

  “Dr. Jörgensen, I have a friend who is gravely ill. In fact, he’s dying.”

  A slow nod.

  “The only thing that can save him is an extraction from this plant—Thismia americana.”

  Jörgensen frowned. “My dear girl…”

  Margo swallowed hard. She was getting awfully tired of this “dear girl” business.

  “… You can’t be serious. If this plant would truly save his life, may I see a medical statement to that effect, signed by his doctor?”

  “Let me explain. My friend was poisoned, and this extract must be part of the antidote. No doctor knows anything about this.”

  “This sounds like quackery to me.”

  “I promise you—”

  “But even if it were legitimate,” he went on, overriding her, “I would never allow the destruction of an extinct plant specimen, the last of its kind, for a one-off medicinal treatment. What is the value of an ordinary human life in the face of the last specimen of an extinct plant in existence?”

  “You…” Margo looked at his face, creased with lines of extreme disapproval. She was flabbergasted by the sentiment he had just expressed: that a scientific specimen was worth more than a human life. She was never going to get through to this man.

  She thought fast. She had seen the Herbarium Vault years ago, and recalled that it was essentially a walk-in safe with a keypad lock. The combinations to such locks, for security purposes, were changed on a regular basis. She looked at Jörgensen, who was frowning at her, his arms crossed, waiting for her to finish what she had started to say.

  He said his memory wasn’t so sharp these days. Now, that was an important fact. She glanced around the office. Where would he write down a combination? In a book? In his desk? She remembered the old Hitchcock film Marnie, where a businessman had kept the combination to his safe inside a locked drawer of his secretary’s desk. It could be in a thousand places, even in an office this small. Perhaps she could trick him into revealing the location.

  “Dr. Green, is there anything else—?”

  If she didn’t think of something fast, she’d never get in that vault… and Pendergast would die. The stakes were that high.