He crept up to the door of the building and pressed his ear to it. At first he could hear nothing, but, over time, he picked up the faintest of sounds: movement, sighing, shuffling, perhaps even a cough.
This door was incongruously strong, of heavy wood banded and riveted with steel. The lock was sophisticated, but nothing that withstood Pendergast’s efforts for more than sixty seconds. The door swung in on oiled hinges, the air exhaling a mephitic, offensive smell. All was dark.
Pendergast advanced, keeping the red light well shielded. The shed now revealed itself as merely an entrance, leading down into something built underneath or perhaps into the cinder cones. Before him was a shallow, broad staircase of well-worn stone. Pendergast paused at the top step, turning the red light off before beginning his descent. He could see a faint light from below—of a reddish hue—and as he proceeded the stench became stronger, the air redolent of unwashed bodies. Reaching the bottom of the staircase, he found himself in a long tunnel. In the darkness he could hear the sounds more clearly now. They were the sounds of shuffling, snoring, mumbling—the sounds of people. Many people.
With infinite care Pendergast crept forward in the darkness, keeping close to the nearest wall. The reddish glow came from two barred windows set in a pair of locked double doors at the far end of the tunnel. Keeping low, Pendergast slipped up to the doors, examined the lock, and listened. There was someone on the far side, someone passing back and forth: a guard. He listened, timing the guard’s slow coming and going. At a safe moment, he rose and looked through the barred window.
A vast room greeted his eyes, illuminated in dull red light from strings of bare hanging bulbs. The room consisted of row upon row of crude wooden bunk beds extending into the gloom, stacked three bunks high, each with a single blanket wrapping up the form of a human being, faces sorrowful in restive sleep, while others moved about like ghosts, some going to or from a latrine along one wall of the room. Still others simply paced back and forth aimlessly, unable to sleep, their hopeless eyes reflecting the red light of the bulbs.
Everything Pendergast had not seen in Nova Godoi was here: the deformed, the crippled, the ugly and squat, the weak, the aged—and, particularly, the infirm of mind. But what horrified him most of all was that he
At the far edge of his vision, Pendergast saw the guard turning. He was not of these people, he was one of the others: tall, handsome. His presence seemed unnecessary—these poor souls were in no condition to revolt, escape, or otherwise cause trouble. The look of resignation on their faces was universal and absolute.
Pendergast lowered his gaze from the window and made his way back down the tunnel and up the staircase. A few minutes later, he was breathing deeply—gasping even—the cool, fresh, aboveground air, the grotesque image of human suffering he’d just witnessed burned into his consciousness for all time.
THIS TIME, FELDER HAD STOOD IN THE DARKNESS OUTSIDE the library windows for over an hour, in the freezing night, tense and fearful. The house looked dead: no lights, no movement. And above all, no Dukchuk. Finally, reassured, trying to keep his courage up, he opened the window and climbed in.
Leaving the window open in case he needed a quick escape, he stood motionless in the chill room for a long moment, listening. Nothing. Just as he’d hoped.
He had taken every precaution. For the last few nights, he’d kept watch on the library, surveilling it from the safety of the arborvitae. All had been still. The midnight near-encounter with Dukchuk must have been a freakish coincidence, since the man didn’t seem to be in the habit of roaming the house at night. The previous afternoon, Miss Wintour had asked him in again for tea, and neither she nor her terrifying manservant had given the slightest indication that anything was amiss. Nothing was suspected, it seemed.
But Felder knew he couldn’t wait forever. He had to act tonight—any more time and he’d lose his nerve completely. As it was, Constance and Mount Mercy were beginning to seem far, far away.
He moved along the series of bookcases, feeling his way in the dark by touching the rippled surfaces of the doors’ leaded glass. The W’s would be near the end of the collection, putting Alexander Wintour’s portfolio close to the pocket doors that led out into the main hallway. To his relief, those doors were firmly shut.
Felder paused at the second-to-last bookcase, listening, but the house was as silent as before. He pulled the Maglite from his pocket and, shielding it with care, flashed it over the books ahead of him. Trapp. Traven. Tremaine.
Snapping the light off, he moved on to the next and last bookcase. Once again, he hesitated, listening for even the slightest sound. Then he raised the flashlight, aiming it toward the upper shelves. Voltaire, in seven beautifully bound leather volumes—and beside them, a half dozen bundles of what looked like folded parchment, wrapped in crumbling crimson ribbon.
Keeping the flashlight beam on, he let it drift to the next shelf, then the next, and then trailed it laterally across the titles. Oscar Wilde’s
Felder’s heart began beating rather quickly.
Holding the Maglite between his teeth, he opened the glass case and eased the first portfolio from its shelf. It was covered in dust, and looked as if it hadn’t been touched in a hundred years. He opened it carefully, almost afraid to breathe. Inside were dozens of what appeared to be rough sketches and preliminary studies for intended paintings. They were foxed, and faded, and quite similar in style to the ones he had seen in the historical society.
Felder’s heart beat quicker.
He began leafing through the studies, fingers trembling. The first few were unsigned, but the third bore a signature in the lower right corner: WINTOUR, 1881.
He flipped to the back of the portfolio. There—attached to the inside rear edge with a narrow line of paste— was an envelope, brittle and yellowed. Taking the scalpel from his pocket, he cut the envelope free. His fingers felt numb and stupid, and it took him two attempts to open it.
There, nestled inside, was a small lock of dark hair.
For a moment, he just stared, with a strange mixture of emotion: triumph, relief, a little disbelief. So it was true, then—it was all true.
But wait—was it the
Sliding the envelope in his pocket, he put the portfolio back on the shelf and pulled down the next one, going through it rapidly. More sketches and watercolors. He felt his breath coming faster in his anxiety to get this done. There was no lock of hair in there. He pushed that back on the shelf and took down the third, flipping through it, in his haste tearing several pages. Again, nothing. He shut the portfolio and shoved it back on the shelf, but in his hurry he wasn’t as careful as before and it made a dull
He froze, his heart pounding. In the great cold silence of the house that small sound was like the crash of thunder.
Felder waited.
But there wasn’t even the breath of sound in that frozen house. Slowly, he felt his muscles relax, his breathing slow. Nobody had heard a thing. He was just being paranoid.
He felt the envelope in his pocket; it gave out a dry crackling sound. Only then, as his fright subsided, did the full implications of his discovery sink in. All doubt was gone: Constance
Strangely enough, this realization didn’t shock him as much as he thought it would. Somehow, he already knew it was true: from the calm, matter-of-fact manner in which she’d always maintained her story; from the way
