Страница 40 из 91
"Where's his body?" she screamed. "Where's my husband's body? And who left this here?"
Chapter 35
D'Agosta parked the squad car under the porte — cochere of 891 Riverside Drive, got out, and pounded on the heavy wooden door. Thirty seconds later it was opened by Proctor, who gazed at him silently for a moment and then stood aside.
"You'll find him in the library," he murmured.
D'Agosta staggered down the length of the refectory, across the reception hall, and into the library, all the while pressing a cloth tight against the cut on his head. He found Pendergast — and the strange old archivist named Wren — sitting in leather wing chairs on either side of a blazing fire, a table between them laden with papers and a bottle of port.
"Vincent!" Pendergast rose with haste and came over. "What happened? Proctor, the man needs a chair."
"I can get my own chair, thanks." D'Agosta sat down, dabbing gingerly at his head. The bleeding had finally stopped. "Had a little accident up at the Ville," he said in a low voice. He didn't know what made him angrier: the thought of those animals being butchered, or the fact that he'd allowed some wino to get the drop on him. At least, he sure as hell hoped it was a wino. He wasn't prepared to think about the alternative.
Pendergast bent over to examine the cut but D'Agosta waved him away. "It's only a scratch. Heads always bleed like a stuck pig."
"May I offer you some refreshment? Port, perhaps?"
"Beer. Bud Light, if you've got it."
Proctor left the room.
Wren was sitting in his wing chair as if nothing untoward were happening. He was sharpening a pencil by hand with a tiny pocketknife: examining the tip, blowing on it, pursing his lips, sharpening a bit more.
The frosty can soon arrived on a silver salver, along with a chilled glass. Ignoring the glass, D'Agosta grabbed the beer and took a long pull. "Needed that, big — time," he said. He took another pull.
Pendergast had returned to his own wing chair. "My dear Vincent, we are all ears."
D'Agosta told the story of his interview with the woman on Indian Road and the events that followed. He didn't mention the fact that he'd almost walked into the Ville single — handedly in his rage — something he'd thought better of upon reviving. Pendergast listened intently. Vicent also decided to bypass the fact that he'd lost his cell phone and pager in the attack. When he had finished, a silence gathered in the library. The fire crackled and burned.
At last, Pendergast stirred. "And this — this man? He moved erratically, you say?" "Yes."
"And he was covered with blood and gore?"
"That's what it looked like in the moonlight, anyway."
Pendergast paused. "Was there a resemblance to the figure we saw in the security video?"
"Yes, there was."
Another pause, longer this time. "Was it Colin Fearing?"
"No. Yes." D'Agosta shook his throbbing head. "I don't know. I didn't see the face all that well."
Pendergast was silent for a long time, his smooth forehead creasing slightly. "And this happened when, precisely?"
"Thirty minutes ago. I was only out for a moment. Since I was uptown already, I came straight here."
"Curious." But the expression on Pendergast's face wasn't curious. It looked more like alarm.
After a moment, Pendergast glanced toward the wizened old man. "Wren was just about to share the fruits of his recent research on the very place you were attacked. Wren, would you care to continue?"
"Delighted," said Wren. Two heavily veined hands reached into the pile of papers and deftly extracted a brown folder. "Shall I read from the articles—"
"You may recapitulate succinctly, if you please."
"Of course." Wren cleared his throat, carefully arranged the papers in his lap, sorted through them. "Hmm. Let us see…" Shuffling and examination of papers; many eyebrow movements, grunts, and tappings. "On the evening of June eleven, 1901…"
"Succinctly is the operative word," murmured Pendergast, his tone not unfriendly.
"Yes, yes! Succinctly." A great clearing of phlegm. "It seems that the Ville has been, shall we say, controversial for some time. I have collected a series of articles from theNew York Sun, dating from around the turn of the century — the turn of the twentieth century, that is — describing complaints of neighbors not dissimilar to the ones being made today. Strange noises and smells, headless animal carcasses found in the woods, carryings — on. There were many unconfirmed reports of a 'wandering shadow' divagating about the woods of Inwood Hill."
The liver — spotted hand removed a yellowed clipping with exquisite care, as if it were the leaf of an illuminated manuscript. He read.
According to sources this paper has spoken with, this apparition — described by eyewitnesses as a shambling, seemingly mindless being — has been preying on Gotham citizenry unlucky or unwise enough to be caught in the environs of Inwood Hill after dark. Its attacks have often been lethal. The corpses that have been left behind have been found draped in dreadful attitudes of repose, mutilated in the most grievous ma
"How exactly were they mutilated?" D'Agosta asked.
"Disemboweled, with certain digits cut off — most frequently, middle fingers and toes — or so the paper says. TheSun, Lieutenant, was not known for its probity. It was the originator of 'yellow journalism.' You see, it was printed on yellowish paper, as it was the cheapest available at the time. Bleaching and sizing added a good twenty percent to the cost of newsprint in those days—"
"Very interesting," Pendergast interjected smoothly. "Pray continue, Mr. Wren."
More shufflings and tappings. "If you believe these stories, it appears that four people may have been killed by this so — called mindless being."
"Four people? That's the extent of the 'Gotham citizenry'?"
"As I told you, Lieutenant, the Sun was a sensationalist paper. Exaggeration was its stock in trade. The reports must be read with a grain of salt."
"Who were the citizens killed?"
"The first, who had been decapitated, was unidentified. The second was a landscape architect named Phipps Gormly. The third was a member of the parks commission, also a highly respectable citizen, apparently out for an evening's constitutional. One Cornelius Sprague. The murder of two respectable citizens back — to — back raised an uproar. The fourth killing, almost immediately on the heels of the third, was a groundskeeper at a local estate: the Straus summer cottage on Inwood Hill. The strange part of this last killing was that the groundskeeper had disappeared a few months before his body was found. But he had been freshly killed."
D'Agosta shifted in his chair. "Disemboweled? And fingers and toes cut off, you say?"
"The others, yes. But the groundskeeper was not disemboweled. He was found covered in blood, a knife in his chest. According to the papers, the wound might have been self — inflicted."
"What was the upshot?" D'Agosta asked.
"It appears the police raided the Ville and arrested several people, who later had to be released for lack of evidence. Searches turned up nothing, and the cases were never solved. Nothing definitely co