Blue Labyrinth

Her only chance now was to lose him somewhere in the Museum’s endless storage rooms.

She ran around one corner, then another, shelving flashing past. Reaching a door in the nearest wall, she flung it open, passed through another storage room, turned a corner at the rear, and raced for a door at the end of a cul-de-sac. Locked — and this time, her key didn’t work. She turned to backtrack, but heard Slade sneer from just around the corner.

“I do believe you’re trapped.”

She cast about, but there was no way to go. He was right: she really was trapped.

Gasping, heart hammering, Margo saw Slade’s shadow against the far wall of the cul-de-sac — black against red in the emergency lighting — creep forward as he approached the corner. And then she saw the blowpipe appear, bobbing slightly, inching forward. Next, Slade’s head and hands came into view. He was moving cautiously, blowpipe to his lips, taking his time, aiming carefully, preparing to fire another dart.

He wasn’t going to chance missing her again.

70

Barbeaux led the way, Shaved Head pushing Constance along before him. They passed through the Bonsai Museum and into the far wing of the Palm House, still decorated for a wedding but now looking a little the worse for wear. Four men stood around a figure seated at the table reserved for the bride and groom. A single candle had been placed on it, casting a dim illumination that barely penetrated the murk.

Constance faltered when she saw Pendergast slumped in the chair, handcuffed, his face smeared with dirt, his suit awry. Even his eyes had lost their luster. For an instant, those slitted, leaden eyes flickered toward her, and Constance was horrified by their look of hopelessness.

“Well, what a surprise,” said Barbeaux. “Unexpected, but not unwelcome. In fact, I couldn’t have pla

He contemplated Pendergast for a moment with a cold smile, and then turned to two of the men. “Stand him up. I want him attentive.”

They pulled Pendergast to his feet. He was so weak he could barely stand; they had to support him, his knees buckling. Constance could hardly bear to look at him. It was she who had drawn him here after her.

“I was pla

Pendergast’s head lolled to one side, and Barbeaux turned to his men. “Wake him up.”

One of the men, with a neck so covered in tattoos it was almost completely blue, stepped forward and delivered a stu

Constance stared at Tattoo. “You will be the first to die,” she said quietly.

The man looked over at her, his lip curling in derision, his eyes wandering lasciviously over her body. He issued a short laugh, then reached out and grasped her hair, pulling her toward him. “What, you go

“That’s enough,” said Barbeaux sharply.

Tattoo backed off with a smirk.

Barbeaux returned his attention to Pendergast. “I suspect you already know the broad outlines of why I poisoned you. And you surely appreciate its poetic justice. Our families were neighbors in New Orleans. My great-grandfather went shooting with your great-great-grandfather, Hezekiah, up at his plantation, while he had Hezekiah and his wife to di

He paused. “How wrong I was. My son was the next victim. He died — slowly and horribly. Again, the doctors were baffled. Again, they said it was some inherited flaw in our genes.”

Barbeaux paused, staring calculatingly at Pendergast.

“He was my only son. My wife was already gone. I was left alone in my grief.”

A deep breath. “And then I received a visit. From your son. Alban.”

At this, Barbeaux turned and began pacing, slowly at first, his voice low and tremulous.

“Alban found me. He opened my eyes to the evil your family had perpetrated on mine. He pointed out that the Pendergast family fortune was largely founded on the blood money from Hezekiah’s elixir. Your lavish lifestyle — the apartment in the Dakota, a mansion on Riverside Drive, your chauffeured Rolls-Royce, your servants — is based on the suffering of others. He was sickened by your hypocrisy: pretending to bring justice to the world, while all the time being the very image of injustice.”

During this speech, Barbeaux’s voice had grown louder, and now he halted, face flushed, the blood pulsing visibly in his thick neck. “Your son told me how much he hated you. My God, what a splendid hatred that was! He came to me with a plan of justice. What were his words for it? Delectably appropriate.”

He resumed pacing, faster this time.

“I don’t need to tell you how much time and money it took to put my plan into action. The greatest challenge was piecing together the original formula of the elixir. Conveniently, there was a skeleton of a woman murdered by the elixir in the New York Museum’s collection, and I obtained a bone from it, which provided my scientists with the final chemical formulae. But you know all about that, of course.

“And then there came the challenge of devising and setting the trap out at the Salton Sea — a location Alban had discovered on his own. It was important to me that you suffered the same fate as my son and the others in my family. Alban had anticipated that. And I would never have succeeded had not Alban — before he left me that special evening — warned me in the strongest terms not to underestimate you. Wise counsel indeed. Of course, at the time he warned me against something else, as well: not to send my men after him. Then he left.”

Barbeaux halted and leaned toward Pendergast. The agent returned the look, his eyes like glassy slits in his pale face. Blood trickled from his nose, almost purple against the alabaster skin.

“And then, something remarkable happened. Almost a year later, just as my plan was reaching maturity, Alban returned. It seems he’d had a change of heart. In any case, he tried at length to talk me out of my vengeance, and, when I refused, he left in anger.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I knew he wouldn’t leave it there. I knew he would try to kill me. He might have succeeded, too… if I hadn’t had those security tapes recording his initial visit. Despite Alban’s warning, you see, I’d had my men try to stop him from leaving. But he’d bested them most effectively — and most violently. I watched those fascinating tapes of him in action, over and over again… and in time I figured out the only possible way he’d been able to do the seemingly impossible. He had a kind of sixth sense, didn’t he? An ability to envision what was about to happen.” Barbeaux looked at Pendergast to gauge the effect his words were having. “Isn’t that right? I suppose we all have it to some degree: a primitive, intuitive sense of what’s just about to happen. Only in Alban, this sense was more refined. He’d told me, arrogantly, of his ‘remarkable powers.’ By examining the security tapes frame by frame, I determined your son had the unca