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Watching Pendergast, Gli
“Yes.”
“And you followed.”
“I… I was about to.”
“What stopped you?”
Pendergast gave a sudden, spasmodic twitch, but did not answer.
“What stopped you?” Gli
“The show began. Inside the box. Inside, where Diogenes was.”
“A show of Comstock’s devising?”
“Yes.”
“What was its purpose?”
Another twitch. “To frighten someone to death.”
Gli
So this was where Comstock’s madness had led.
“Tell me how it began,” he said.
“I don’t know. The floor tilted or collapsed beneath Diogenes. He fell into a lower chamber.”
“Deeper into the box?”
“Yes, back down to the first level. That was where the… show took place.”
“Describe it,” Gli
Suddenly Pendergast moaned-a moan of such anguish, such long-repressed suffering, that Gli
“Describe it,” he urged again as soon as he could speak.
“I only had a glimpse, I didn’t really see it. And then… they closed around me.”
“They?”
“Mechanisms. Driven by secret springs. One behind me, shutting off escape. Another that locked Diogenes inside the i
Pendergast fell silent again. The pillow beneath his head was now soaked in perspiration.
“But for a moment… you saw what Diogenes saw.”
Pendergast lay still. Then-very slowly-he inclined his head. “Only for a moment. But I heard it all. All of it.”
“What was it?”
“A magic-lantern show,” Pendergast whispered. “A phantasmagoria. Operated by voltaic cell. It was… Comstock’s specialty.”
Gli
“Well then, what did you see?”
Abruptly the agent leaped from the couch, suddenly full of feverish action. He paced the room, hands clenching and unclenching. Then he turned toward Gli
He mastered himself with a supreme effort, still pacing the room like a caged beast.
“Go on, please,” said Gli
“Diogenes shrieked and screamed from within the i
“Gunshot?”
“Comstock Pendergast had furnished his… house of pain with a single-shot derringer. He gave his victim a choice. You could go mad; you could die of fright-or you could take your life.”
“And Diogenes chose the last.”
“Yes. But the bullet didn’t… didn’t kill him. It only damaged him.”
“How did your parents react?”
“At first they said nothing. Then they pretended Diogenes was sick, scarlet fever. They kept it secret. They were afraid of the scandal. They told me the fever had altered his vision, his sense of taste and smell. That it deadened one eye. But now I know it must have been the bullet.”
Gli
“And the small chamber you were imprisoned in,” he said. “These photographs you mention-what were they of?”
“Official crime scene photographs and police sketches of the world’s most terrible murders. Perhaps a way to prepare for the… the horror beyond.”
An awful silence settled over the small room.
“And how long was it before you were rescued?” Gli
“I don’t know. Hours, a day perhaps.”
“And you awakened from this living nightmare under the impression Diogenes had become sick. And that accounted for his long absence.”
“Yes.”
“You had no idea of the truth.”
“No, none.”
“And yet Diogenes never realized that you had repressed the memory.”
Abruptly Pendergast stopped in his pacing. “No. I suppose he didn’t.”
“As a result, you never apologized to your brother, tried to make it up to him. You never even mentioned it, because you had utterly blocked out all memory of the Event.”
Pendergast looked away.
“But to Diogenes, your silence meant something else entirely. A stubborn refusal to admit your mistake, to ask forgiveness. And that would explain…”
Gli
Remotely, Gli
“Mr. Gli
Gli
“There is nothing more I can or will say.”
“Understood.”
“I will now require five minutes alone, please. Without interruptions of any kind. And then we can… proceed.”
After a moment, Gli
Chapter 53
With sirens shrieking, Hayward was able to get down to Greenwich Village in twenty minutes. On the way, she had tried the few other contact numbers she had for D’Agosta-none co
She knew the company existed, and she knew its address on Little West 12th Street. Beyond that, nothing.
Sirens still blaring, she pulled off the West Side Highway onto West Street, and from there turned into a narrow lane, crowded on both sides by dingy brick buildings. She shut off her sirens and crawled along, glancing at the building numbers. Little West 12th, once the center of the meatpacking district, was a single block in length. The EES building had no number, but she deduced it must be the correct one by the numbers on either side. It was not exactly what she imagined: perhaps a dozen stories tall, with the faded name of some long-defunct meatpacking company on the side-except it betrayed itself by tiers of expensive new windows on the upper floors and a pair of metal doors at the loading dock that looked suspiciously high-tech. She double-parked in front, blocking the narrow street, and went up to the entrance.