The Cabinet of Curiosities

Smithback wearily closed the drawer. He glanced at his watch. “I have to be getting back. Carry on. You’re doing a good job here, O’Neal. Keep it up.” He turned to go.

“Mr. Fannin?”

For a moment Smithback wondered who the man was talking to. Then he remembered. “Yes?”

“Do the carbons need a file check also?”

“Carbons?” Smithback paused.

“The ones in the vault.”

“Vault?”

“The vault. Back there.”

“Er, yes. Of course. Thank you, O’Neal. My oversight. Show me the vault.”

The young guard led the way through a rear door to a large, old safe with a nickel wheel and a heavy steel door. “In here.”

Smithback’s heart sank. It looked like Fort Knox. “Can you open this?”

“It’s not locked anymore. Not since the high-security area was opened.”

“I see. What are these carbons?”

“Duplicates of the files back there.”

“Let’s take a look. Open it up.”

O’Neal wrestled the door open. It revealed a small room, crammed with cabinets.

“Let’s take a look at, say, 1870.”

The guard glanced around. “There it is.”

Smithback made a beeline for the drawer, yanking it open. The files were on some early form of photocopy paper, like glossy sepia-toned photographs, faded and blurred. He quickly pawed through to the Ls.

There it was. A security clearance for Enoch Leng, dated 1870: a few sheets, tissue- thin, faded to light brown, covered in long spidery script. With one swift stroke Smithback slipped them out of the file and into his jacket pocket, covering the motion with a loud cough.

He turned around. “Very good. All this will need to be file-checked, too, of course.”

He stepped out of the vault. “Listen, O’Neal, other than the file check, you’re doing a fine job down here. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fannin. I try, I really do—”

“Wish I could say the same for Bulger. Now there’s someone with an attitude.”

“You’re right, sir.”

“Good day, O’Neal.” And Smithback beat a hasty retreat.

He was just in time. In the hall, he again passed Bulger, striding back, his face red and splotchy, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, lips and belly thrust forward aggressively, keys swaying and jingling. He looked pissed.

As Smithback made for the nearest exit, it almost felt as if the pilfered papers were burning a hole in the lining of his jacket.

The Old, Dark House

ONE

SAFELY ON THE street, Smithback ducked through the Seventy-seventh Street gate into Central Park and settled on a bench by the lake. The brilliant fall morning was already warming into a lovely Indian summer day. He breathed in the air and thought once again of what a dazzling reporter he was. Bryce Harriman couldn’t have gotten his hands on these papers if he had a year to do it and all the makeup people of Industrial Light and Magic behind him. With a sense of delicious anticipation, he removed the three sheets from his pocket. The faint scent of dust reached his nose as sunlight hit the top page.

It was an old brown carbon, faint and difficult to read. At the top of the first sheet was printed: Application for Access to the Collections: The New York Museum of Natural History

Applicant: Prof. Enoch Leng, M.D., Ph.D. (Oxon.), O.B.E., F.R.S. &tc.

Recommender: Professor Tinbury McFadden, Department of Mammalogy

Seconder: Professor Augustus Spragg, Department of Ornithology

The applicant will please describe to the committee, in brief, the purposes of his application:

The applicant, Dr. Enoch Leng, wishes access to the collections of anthropology and mammalogy to conduct research on taxonomy and classification, and to prepare comparative essays in physical anthropology, human osteology, and phrenology.

The applicant will please state his academic qualifications, giving degrees and honors, with appropriate dates:

The applicant, Prof. Enoch Leng, graduated Artium Baccalaurei, with First Honors, from Oriel College, Oxford; Doctor of Natural Philosophy, New College, Oxford, with First Honors; Elected Fellow of the Royal Society 1865; Elected to White’s, 1868; Awarded Order of the Garter, 1869.