Brimstone

Proctor flitted about in the background, presenting and whisking away plates with the least amount of warning gentility would allow. Pendergast sat at the head of the table, Constance to his left. She looked a little less pale than before: some sun, perhaps, from yesterday's outing. But the dining room of the ancient Riverside Drive mansion remained a dreary place, with its dark green wallpaper and equally dark oil paintings. The windows that once must have looked out over the Hudson had been boarded up a long time ago, and it appeared Pendergast was going to leave them that way. No wonder the guy was so white, living in the dark like some cave creature. D'Agosta decided he'd trade the whole di

"Don't you like the cod roe?" Pendergast asked him. "It's an old Italian recipe."

"My grandmother was from Naples, and she never cooked anything like this in her life."

"I believe this dish comes from Liguria. But never mind: cod roe is not to everyone's taste." He signaled to Proctor, who whisked the plate away and, a few moments later, returned with a steak and a small silver beaker brimming with wonderful-smelling sauce. In his other hand was a can of Budweiser, still dripping chips of ice.

D'Agosta tucked in, then glanced up to see Pendergast smiling with amusement. "Constance cooks a sublime tournedos bordelaise . I had it waiting in the wings, just in case. Along with the, ah, iced beer."

"That was decent of you."

"Is the steak to your liking?" Constance asked from across the table. "I prepared stagnant , as the French prefer."

"I don't know about saignant, but it's rare, just the way I like it."

Constance smiled, pleased.

D'Agosta speared another forkful, washed it down with a swig. "So what's next?" he asked Pendergast.

"After di

"Sounds great." D'Agosta coughed delicately. "But what I meant was, what's next for the investigation?"

"Ah! I see. Our next move, actually, has two fronts. We track down this Ranier Beckma

Constance dabbed primly at her mouth with a napkin. "Aloysius has asked me to look into historical precedents for SHC."

"Spontaneous human combustion," said D'Agosta. "As in the Mary Reeser case you mentioned to the M.E. at the Cutforth homicide?"

"Exactly."

"You don't really believe in that, do you?"

"The case of Mary Reeser is only the most famous of many, and it is well documented. Isn't that right, Constance?"

"Famous, impeccably documented, and very curious." She consulted some notes that lay at her elbow. "On July 1, 1951, Mrs. Reeser, a widow, went to sleep in an easy chair in her apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was found the next morning by a friend who smelled smoke. When they broke down the door, they found that the chair Mary Reeser had sat in was now just a heap of charred coil springs. As for Mary Reeser herself, her one hundred and seventy pounds had been reduced to less than ten pounds of ash and bone. Only her left foot remained intact, still wearing a slipper, burned off at the ankle but otherwise undamaged. Also found were her liver and her skull, cracked and splintered by the intense heat. And yet the rest of the apartment was intact. The only burning occurred in the small circular area encompassing the remains of Mrs. Reeser, her chair, and a plastic electric wall outlet which had melted, stopping her clock at 4:20A.M. When the clock was plugged into another outlet, it worked perfectly."

"You gotta be kidding."

"The Bureau was called in immediately, and their documentation was impeccable," said Pendergast. "Photographs, tests, analysis-it ran to more than a thousand pages. Our experts determined that a temperature of at least three thousand degrees would be necessary to cremate a body that thoroughly. A cigarette igniting her clothing would never have produced that temperature, and besides, Mary Reeser didn't smoke. There were no traces of gasoline or other accelerants. No short circuit. Even lightning was ruled out. The case was never officially closed."

D'Agosta shook his head in disbelief.

"And it's not just a recent phenomenon," Constance said. "Dickens wrote an account of spontaneous combustion into his novel Bleak House . He was roundly criticized by reviewers for it, so he later defended himself by recounting a real case of SHC in the preface to the 1853 edition."

D'Agosta, who had been about to take another bite of steak, put down his fork.

"On the evening of April 4, 1731, Dickens tells us, the countess Cornelia Zangari de' Bandi of Cesena, in Italy, complained of feeling 'dull and heavy.' A maid helped her to bed, and they spent several hours praying and talking together. The next morning, when the countess did not arise at her usual time, the maid called at the door. There was no answer-just a foul smell.

"The maid opened the door to a scene of horror. The air was full of bits of floating soot. The countess, or what remained of her, was lying on the stone floor about four feet from the bed. Her entire torso had burned to ashes, even the bones reduced to crumbled piles. Only her legs remained, from the knees down; a few fragments from her hands; and a piece of forehead with a lock of blonde hair attached. The rest of the body was merely an outline in ash and crumbled bone. It, and other early cases such as Madame Nicole of Rheims, were invariably ascribed to death by the 'visitation of God.'"

"Excellent research, Constance," Pendergast said.

She smiled. "There are several volumes devoted to spontaneous human combustion in the library here. Your great-uncle was fascinated by bizarre forms of death-but of course, you know that already. Unfortunately there are no books here more recent than 1954, but there are still many dozens of earlier accounts. SHC cases all have several elements in common. The torso is completely incinerated, but the extremities are frequently left intact. The blood is, quite literally, vaporized from the body: normal fires do not dehydrate body tissue to such a great degree. The inferno is extremely localized: nearby furniture or other items, even inflammable ones, remain untouched. Officials often speak of a 'circle of death': everything inside is consumed, while everything outside is spared."

Slowly, D'Agosta pushed away his half-eaten steak. This all sounded pretty similar to what happened to Grove and Cutforth, with one crucial difference: the branding of the cloven hoof and face, and the stench of brimstone.

Just then came a low, hollow knock at the distant front door.

"Neighborhood kids, I imagine," said Pendergast after a moment of silence.

The hollow knock came again-deliberate, insistent, echoing through the galleries and halls of the ancient mansion.

"That's not the knock of a delinquent," Constance murmured.

Proctor cast an inquiring glace at Pendergast. "Shall I?"