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Smithback had spent two weeks at the Feversham Clinic, north of Cold Spring, where his wound had been sewn and dressed. It had healed surprisingly quickly. Pendergast had also spent several weeks recuperating at Feversham after a series of operations to his elbow and abdomen. Then he had disappeared, and neither Nora nor Smithback had heard from him. Until this mysterious summons.
“I still can’t believe we’re up here again,” Smithback said as they walked northward.
“Come on, Bill. Aren’t you curious to see what Pendergast wants?”
“Of course. I just don’t see why it couldn’t be someplace else. Someplace comfortable. Like, say, the restaurant at the Carlyle.”
“I’m sure we’ll learn the reason.”
“I’m sure we will. But if he offers me a Leng cocktail out of one of those mason jars, I’m leaving.”
Now the old house appeared in the distance, up the Drive. Even in the bright sunlight it seemed somehow dark: sprawling, haunted, framed by bare trees, black upper windows staring westward like empty eye sockets.
As if at a single thought, Nora and Smithback paused.
“You know, just the sight of that old pile still scares the bejesus out of me,” Smithback muttered. “I’ll tell you, when Fairhaven had me laid out on that operating table, and I felt the knife slice into my—”
“Bill, please,” Nora pleaded. Smithback had grown fond of regaling her with gory details.
He drew his arm around her. He was wearing the blue Armani suit, but it hung a little loosely now, his gaunt frame thi
They continued walking north, crossing 137th Street. There was the carriage entrance, still partially blocked by windblown piles of trash. Smithback stopped again, and Nora watched his eye travel up the facade of the building, toward a broken window on the second floor. For all his display of bravado, the writer’s face paled for a moment. Then he stepped forward resolutely, following Nora under the porte-cochère, and they knocked.
A minute passed, then two. And then at last the door creaked open, and Pendergast stood before them. He was wearing heavy rubber gloves, and his elegant black suit was covered in plaster dust. Without a word of greeting he turned away, and they followed him through silent echoing passages toward the library. Portable halogen lamps were arrayed along the hallways, throwing cold white light onto the surfaces of the old house. Even with the light, however, Nora felt a shiver of fear as she retraced the corridors. The foul odor of decay was gone, replaced by a faint chemical wash. The interior was barely recognizable: panels had been taken off walls, drawers stood open, plumbing and gas lines exposed or removed, boards ripped from the floor. It looked as if the house had been torn apart in an unbelievably exhaustive search.
Within the library, all the sheets had been removed from the skeletons and mounted animals. The light was dimmer here, but Nora could see that half the shelves were empty, and the floor covered with carefully piled stacks of books. Pendergast threaded his way through them to the vast fireplace in the far wall, then—at last—turned back toward his two guests.
“Dr. Kelly,” he said, nodding to her. “Mr. Smithback. I’m pleased to see you looking well.”
“That Dr. Bloom of yours is as much an artist as he is a surgeon,” Smithback replied, with strained heartiness. “I hope he takes Blue Cross. I have yet to see the bill.”
Pendergast smiled thinly. A brief silence ensued.
“So why are we here, Mr. Pendergast?” Nora asked.
“You two have been through a terrible ordeal,” Pendergast replied as he pulled off the heavy gloves. “More than anyone should ever have to endure. I feel in large part responsible.”
“Hey, that’s what bequests are for,” Smithback replied.
“I’ve learned some things in the last several weeks. Far too many are already past help: Mary Greene, Doreen Hollander, Mandy Eklund, Reinhart Puck, Patrick O’Shaughnessy. But for you two, I thought perhaps hearing the real story—a story nobody else must ever know—might help exorcize the demons.”
There was another brief pause.
“Go ahead,” Smithback said, in an entirely different tone of voice.
Pendergast looked from Nora, to Smithback, then back again.
“From childhood, Fairhaven was obsessed with mortality. His older brother died at age sixteen of Hutchinson-Guilford syndrome.”
“Little Arthur,” Smithback said.
Pendergast looked at him curiously. “That’s correct.”
“Hutchinson-Guilford syndrome?” Nora asked. “Never heard of it.”
“Also known as progeria. After a normal birth, children begin to age extremely rapidly. Height is stunted. Hair turns gray and then falls out, leaving prominent veins. There are usually no eyebrows or eyelashes, and the eyes grow too large for the skull. The skin turns brown and wrinkled. The long bones become decalcified. Basically, by adolescence the child has the body of an old man. They become susceptible to atherosclerosis, strokes, heart attacks. The last is what killed Arthur Fairhaven, when he was sixteen.
“His brother saw mortality compressed into five or six years of horror. He never got over it. We’re all afraid of death, but for Anthony Fairhaven the fear became an obsession. He attended medical school, but after two years was forced to leave for certain unauthorized experiments he’d undertaken; I’m still looking into their exact nature. So by default he went into the family business of real estate. But health remained an obsession with him. He experimented with health foods, diets, vitamins and supplements, German spas, Fi
“We ca
“But I get ahead of myself. After Fairhaven discovered Leng’s work, he next wondered if Leng had succeeded—in other words, if Leng was still alive. So he began to track him down. When I myself started to hunt for Leng’s whereabouts, I often had the sense someone had walked the trail before me in the not too distant past.
“Ultimately, Fairhaven discovered where Leng had once lived. He came to this house. Imagine his exultation when he found my great-grand-uncle still alive—when he realized that Leng had, in fact, succeeded in his attempt to prolong life. Leng had the very secret that Fairhaven so desperately wanted.