The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Page A
Authors: Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Tags: FIC031000
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dress, exposing a crudely sewn patch in the cotton lining. Immediately, Pendergast moved closer.
“There’s a piece of paper sewn inside,” she said. “I came upon it just before they shut down the site.”
“May I borrow your loup?”
Nora lifted it over her head and handed it to him. Bending over the dress, he examined it with a thorough professionalism that surprised and impressed Nora. At last he straightened up.
“Very hasty work,” he said. “You’ll note that all the other stitching and mending was done carefully, almost lovingly. This dress was some girl’s prize garment. But this one stitch was made with thread pulled from the dress itself, and the holes are ragged—I would guess they were made with a splinter of wood. This was done by someone with little time, and with no access to even a needle.”
Nora moved the microscope over the patch, using its camera to take a series of photographs at various magnifications. Then she fixed a macro lens and took another series. She worked efficiently, aware that Pendergast’s eyes were upon her.
She put the microscope aside and picked up the tweezers. “Let’s open it up.”
With great care, she teased the end of the thread out and began to undo the patch. A few minutes of painstaking work and it lay loose. She placed the thread in a sample tube and lifted the material.
Underneath was a piece of paper, torn from the page of a book. It had been folded twice.
Nora put the patch into yet another Ziploc bag. Then, using two pairs of rubber-tipped tweezers, she unfolded the paper. Inside was a message, scratched in crude brown letters. Parts of it were stained and faded, but it read unmistakably:
i aM MarY GreeNe agt 19 Years No. 16 WaTTer sTreeT
Nora moved the paper to the stage of the stereozoom and looked at it under low power. After a moment she stepped back, and Pendergast eagerly took her place at the eyepieces. Minutes went by as he stared. Finally he stepped away.
“Written with the same splinter, perhaps,” he said.
Nora nodded. The letters had been formed with little scratches and scrapes.
“May I perform a test?” Pendergast asked.
“What kind?”
Pendergast slipped out a small stoppered test tube. “It will involve removing a tiny sample of the ink on this note with a solvent.”
“What is that stuff?”
“Antihuman rabbit serum.”
“Be my guest.” Strange that Pendergast carried forensic chemicals around in his pockets. What did the agent not have hidden inside that bottomless black suit of his?
Pendergast unstoppered the test tube, revealing a tiny swab. Using the stereozoom, he applied it to a corner of a letter, then placed it back in its tube. He gave it a little shake and held it to the window. After a moment, the liquid turned blue. He turned to face her.
“So?” she asked, but she had already read the results in his face.
“The note, Dr. Kelly, was written in human blood. No doubt the very blood of the young woman herself.”
EIGHT
S ILENCE DESCENDED IN THE M USEUM OFFICE. N ORA FOUND SHE HAD TO sit down. For some time nothing was said; Nora could vaguely hear traffic sounds from below, the distant ringing of a phone, footsteps in the hall. The full dimension of the discovery began to sink in: the tunnel, the thirty-six dismembered bodies, the ghastly note from a century ago.
“What do you think it means?” she asked.
“There can be only one explanation. The girl must have known she would never leave that basement alive. She didn’t want to die an unknown. Hence she deliberately wrote down her name, age, and home address, and then concealed it. A self-chosen epitaph. The only one available to her.”
Nora shuddered. “How horrible.”
Pendergast moved slowly toward her bookshelf. She followed him with her eyes.
“What are we dealing with?” she asked. “A serial killer?”
Pendergast did not answer. The same troubled look that had come over him at the digsite had returned to his face. He continued
“There’s a piece of paper sewn inside,” she said. “I came upon it just before they shut down the site.”
“May I borrow your loup?”
Nora lifted it over her head and handed it to him. Bending over the dress, he examined it with a thorough professionalism that surprised and impressed Nora. At last he straightened up.
“Very hasty work,” he said. “You’ll note that all the other stitching and mending was done carefully, almost lovingly. This dress was some girl’s prize garment. But this one stitch was made with thread pulled from the dress itself, and the holes are ragged—I would guess they were made with a splinter of wood. This was done by someone with little time, and with no access to even a needle.”
Nora moved the microscope over the patch, using its camera to take a series of photographs at various magnifications. Then she fixed a macro lens and took another series. She worked efficiently, aware that Pendergast’s eyes were upon her.
She put the microscope aside and picked up the tweezers. “Let’s open it up.”
With great care, she teased the end of the thread out and began to undo the patch. A few minutes of painstaking work and it lay loose. She placed the thread in a sample tube and lifted the material.
Underneath was a piece of paper, torn from the page of a book. It had been folded twice.
Nora put the patch into yet another Ziploc bag. Then, using two pairs of rubber-tipped tweezers, she unfolded the paper. Inside was a message, scratched in crude brown letters. Parts of it were stained and faded, but it read unmistakably:
i aM MarY GreeNe agt 19 Years No. 16 WaTTer sTreeT
Nora moved the paper to the stage of the stereozoom and looked at it under low power. After a moment she stepped back, and Pendergast eagerly took her place at the eyepieces. Minutes went by as he stared. Finally he stepped away.
“Written with the same splinter, perhaps,” he said.
Nora nodded. The letters had been formed with little scratches and scrapes.
“May I perform a test?” Pendergast asked.
“What kind?”
Pendergast slipped out a small stoppered test tube. “It will involve removing a tiny sample of the ink on this note with a solvent.”
“What is that stuff?”
“Antihuman rabbit serum.”
“Be my guest.” Strange that Pendergast carried forensic chemicals around in his pockets. What did the agent not have hidden inside that bottomless black suit of his?
Pendergast unstoppered the test tube, revealing a tiny swab. Using the stereozoom, he applied it to a corner of a letter, then placed it back in its tube. He gave it a little shake and held it to the window. After a moment, the liquid turned blue. He turned to face her.
“So?” she asked, but she had already read the results in his face.
“The note, Dr. Kelly, was written in human blood. No doubt the very blood of the young woman herself.”
EIGHT
S ILENCE DESCENDED IN THE M USEUM OFFICE. N ORA FOUND SHE HAD TO sit down. For some time nothing was said; Nora could vaguely hear traffic sounds from below, the distant ringing of a phone, footsteps in the hall. The full dimension of the discovery began to sink in: the tunnel, the thirty-six dismembered bodies, the ghastly note from a century ago.
“What do you think it means?” she asked.
“There can be only one explanation. The girl must have known she would never leave that basement alive. She didn’t want to die an unknown. Hence she deliberately wrote down her name, age, and home address, and then concealed it. A self-chosen epitaph. The only one available to her.”
Nora shuddered. “How horrible.”
Pendergast moved slowly toward her bookshelf. She followed him with her eyes.
“What are we dealing with?” she asked. “A serial killer?”
Pendergast did not answer. The same troubled look that had come over him at the digsite had returned to his face. He continued
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