Extraction

The shabby living room, the sofas and chairs burrowed into by rodents, likewise showed no sign of either my uncle or Maurus Dufour.

“But in the very back of the house, in a small room that opened to what once was a garden, we found… a workshop. There was a dentist’s chair there, an antique from the late nineteenth century, of darkened wood, cracked leather, and polished brass, the seat gnawed by rats, the stuffing protruding. On an old brass steel tray beside it, we found an array of rusty dental instruments with bone handles.

“And there, arrayed with military precision on the tray, we saw something else. Teeth. Thirty-two of them. But these were not baby teeth — oh, no. They were all adult. And they were damp, their roots bloody, some pulled out so violently that sections of the surrounding bone were still attached. They had all been freshly extracted.”

“Freshly extracted,” Constance repeated in a dull voice, and then quoted: “ ‘I appeased him.’ ”

“Everett was always so precise in his speech. Indeed he did appease Old Dufour. And what a ghastly exchange it must have been.”

“And what happened to him?”

“We never saw Uncle Everett again. The police searched the place, and searched again. Both Dufour and my uncle had disappeared, as if into thin air. There were those who spoke of hearing cries in the night; of seeing a dark figure lugging a trunk down by the abandoned Saint Peter Street Piers — but, of course, such stories remained rumors.”

“And the, ah, leaving of teeth at the Dufour house? Has the tooth fairy tradition continued?”

“You know how children are, my dear Constance. Childish rituals do not die; they are passed along more tenaciously than any adult tradition. The tradition continued even as the Dufour house fell further into rack and ruin. And then, one dark night, it burned down. That was about three years after the events I’ve described. No one was particularly surprised by it; abandoned houses did have a tendency to burn. But I, for one, long wondered if my brother Diogenes was somehow responsible. Later, it came to my attention that he enjoyed fires very much; the larger the better.”

The plump figure of Mrs. Trask appeared in the library doorway. Cook, she was pleased to announce, had prepared a new dish of tagliatelle pasta; dinner was ready; and the tartufo bianco was no less than heavenly. Indeed, the wonderful aroma of it had filled the kitchen and was now drifting into the library.

“And is the pasta al dente?” Constance asked.

“Perfectly so,” replied Mrs. Trask.

Bertin came up behind the housekeeper. As Pendergast had predicted, the old man’s mood was restored. “Marvelous, I simply cannot wait!” he said, rubbing his hands. “Have you ever scented such exquisite truffes? Please, let us go in without delay.”

Pendergast rose and glanced at Constance. “Shall we?”

“Al dente,” Constance repeated to herself. “Yes, one must eat one’s pasta al dente. Somehow, Aloysius, I find that your story has sharpened my appetite to a most excellent degree.”

And with that observation, the three went in to dinner.

About the Authors

The thrillers of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child “stand head and shoulders above their rivals” (Publishers Weekly). Preston and Child’s Relic and The Cabinet of Curiosities were chosen by readers in a National Public Radio poll as being among the one hundred greatest thrillers ever written, and Relic was made into a number-one box office hit movie. Coauthors of the famed Pendergast series, Preston and Child are also the authors of Fever Dream, Cold Vengeance, and Gideon’s Sword. Preston’s acclaimed nonfiction book, The Monster of Florence, is being made into a movie starring George Clooney. His interests include horses, scuba diving, skiing, mountain climbing, and exploring the Maine coast in an old lobster boat. Lincoln Child is a former book editor who has published five novels of his own, including the huge bestseller Deep Storm. He is passionate about motorcycles, sports cars, exotic parrots, and nineteenth-century English literature.

Readers can sign up for The Pendergast File, a monthly “strangely entertaining note” from the authors, at their website, www.prestonchild.com. The authors welcome visitors to their alarmingly active Facebook page, where they post regularly.