Page 108 of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

“I am not done asking, Mr. Ferenc. Now tell me: what is this man Pendergast doing here?”

Again, Ferenc went silent. The only noise was the gibbering and muttering from other cells down the passage.

“Speak up!” Norcross said sharply. “Dr. Leng is trying to help you.”

“Leng!” Ferenc repeated in alarm, jumping back from the bars as if shocked.

Leng gazed upon the man’s face, now white as a sheet. He was sorry that Norcross had spoken his name. But no matter; he could find out everything he needed to know despite that.

“Thank you, Mr. Ferenc.” He nodded to Norcross, signaling he was done. They both departed, leaving the prisoner in his cell.

Down the hall, Leng turned to Norcross. “A most interesting case indeed. I’m much obliged to you for calling my attention to it.”

“I had hoped as much,” said Norcross, a glow of pleasure on his face.

“Definitely worthy of further study. We shall file the paperwork to have him immediately discharged into my care. There is much to be learned from this rare presentation.”

“An excellent idea, Dr. Leng.”

“Please inform Dr. Cawley and complete the paperwork posthaste.”

It was the work of thirty minutes. Leng exercised his standing authority to transfer any patient at Bellevue under his purview to his own facility. Norcross took care of the paperwork with his usual efficiency and dispatch, glowing inside with the great interest Leng had taken in the case as well as his own role in it. As he watched Dr. Leng proceed down the hallway with the patient, now heavily sedated and gentle as a kitten, Norcross realized something: He had seen the good doctor remove many female patients to his private sanatorium in the past. But this was the first time Dr. Leng had taken a man.

68

VINCENT D’AGOSTA, DRESSEDin a shabby greatcoat and gloves, watch cap pulled down and collar turned up against the chill, stood in the little newsstand on the south side of Forty-Eighth Street, around the corner from Fifth Avenue. The owner of the newsstand, which in addition to newspapers sold broadsheets and penny novels, had been given a handsome fee to take a few days off, no questions asked. D’Agosta had taken his place that morning. The newsstand gave him a clear view of the marble town house Constance Greene now owned. It was a beautiful building, but D’Agosta could see the place was well fortified against unauthorized entry. The front door was massive and banded with iron. Around the corner on Forty-Eighth Street was the entrance to the carriage driveway, leading to the stables and stone garage where the three horses and carriage were kept. All the first-floor windows had iron bars across them—bars that looked freshly installed. An eight-foot wrought iron fence topped by spikes screened the building on two sides, and the dark service alleyway that ran behind it parallel to the avenue was barred by an even taller fence. It was a marvel of urban design that all these precautionary measures still allowed the place to resemble a mansion instead of a fortress.

As the afternoon wore on, he kept a constant eye on the residence, occasionally interrupted by buyers of papers but always remaining hyperalert.

The only weakness in his position was that he had no direct view of the mansion’s front façade. There was no way to surveil that without loitering on Fifth Avenue and making oneself conspicuous. In this well-policed Gilded Age neighborhood, anyone hanging around for any length of time would arouse suspicion. For the same reason, it seemed unlikely that Leng or one of his henchmen would choose to spy on the town house from the avenue. D’Agosta was pretty confident anyone watching the house would likely approach from the bustling Forty-Eighth Street corner—a corner busy with traffic and, in addition to his newsstand, hosting a bootblack and a peddler selling roasted chestnuts from a cart.

He clapped his gloved hands together and took a small turn around the space, trying to keep warm. Horses and carriages clattered by on the cobbled street, the sound of hooves echoing off the building façades, and he could smell the chestnuts roasting nearby. He tried not to think about the still-staggering fact that this was 1880. He’d seen some crazy shit working with Pendergast, but this was one thing he still couldn’t wrap his mind around. And how the hell was he ever going to explain it to Laura? He kept returning to his argument with Laura and the way she’d walked out.Sorry I vanished like that—you see, Pendergast and I went back in time to 1880 to rescue crazy Constance Greene, who was living on Fifth Avenue, passing herself off as a duchess and preparing to murder someone.He could just see Laura’s face as he tried to explain.

He made an effort to banish thoughts of Laura from his mind—there was nothing he could do about it now.

“TheHerald,” came a crisp request from a gentleman, interrupting his thoughts. The man placed a nickel on the counter and D’Agosta handed him the paper. He dropped the nickel into the cash box and watched the man walk off toward Madison Avenue. Nothing suspicious there.

D’Agosta had taken up his position at ten that morning, less than twenty-four hours after he and Pendergast had returned to Longacre Square. Pendergast had previously arranged for him to take over at the newsstand, and as soon as D’Agosta was installed, Pendergast had rushed away in a God-awful hurry on some mysterious mission.

Not long after he’d manned the kiosk, he spied one of the children in an upstairs window. It was the girl, Constance, her dark hair cut in a short bob and tied with a ribbon on one side, playing with a deck of cards. And then he had seen the other Constance—the Constance he knew—approaching the town house by hansom cab and being let in by a maid. The same person, but of two different ages: coexisting not only in the same world, but in the samehouse. It was like no science fiction story he’d ever read—going back in the past and meeting yourself was a logical no-no. Yet it was happening before his eyes…and not only that: Constance had set herself up in a veritable palace. Where had she gotten the damn money? But he reminded himself that if anyone could pull it off, she could. D’Agosta had never met a more formidable woman. Scary and, quite possibly, not completely sane. He’d heard about her escapades—getting revenge on her seducer by hurling him into a live volcano in Sicily, spraying acid on the bastards trying to kill Pendergast at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden—and he’d sure as hell seen the results.

Even though it was only four o’clock, the winter night was already falling. No daylight saving in 1880. A man came by with a long rod, lighting the gas lamps one by one. A horse and carriage clopped past. The bootblack packed up his kit and left. Soft lights went on in the marble mansion, and the shades were drawn.

And then an old man came down the street, walking slowly with a cane. D’Agosta watched him suspiciously. The man paused in front of the kiosk and fished a nickel from his pocket with a grubby hand and placed it on the counter.

“TheSun,” he said in a cracked voice.

D’Agosta turned to get the paper from the stack behind him. When he turned around again, he was startled to see the man had taken off his hat and Pendergast was standing before him, pale and agitated. “Sorry to surprise you, my friend,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve done a little more probing and I’m more concerned than ever. I fear Constance is overplaying her hand.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means things may come to a head even sooner than I expected. We must not make the mistake of underestimating how dangerous Leng is. It may no longer be a question of days anymore—it may be less. I fear for Mary, and Imustfind her.” He took up the newspaper.

“What’s your plan, then?” D’Agosta asked in an undertone as he dropped the nickel in the cash box.

“Through a combination of research, memory, and observation, I am reasonably confident of Mary’s location. I intend to rescue her tonight. I also have reason to believe his man Munck might appear after dark, to shadow Constance or provide Leng with intelligence on her activities, so keep an eye out for him.”

“How will I know this Munck guy?”

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