Page 16 of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

PENDERGAST WAS SILENT FORso long, Coldmoon began to wonder if he’d drifted off under the influence of the opioid in his drink. Finally, he spoke. “I know you read the note Constance left me—and of course you are puzzled.”

Now it was Coldmoon’s turn to say nothing.

“You know that the machine we discovered during the case that just concluded had the ability to see into the future—notourfuture, but a parallel future. Initially, it could see only a few minutes ahead. Ultimately, with adjustments, it could see much farther…into a multiplicity of parallel universes, recognizable and strange, future and—past.”

Coldmoon nodded. He remembered only too well.

“If you can accept the bizarre nature of that machine, you should also be able to accept what I’m going to tell you now—about Constance.” He paused to take a sip of his periwinkle-colored beverage. “She was born in 1871, on Water Street in lower Manhattan. Her parents died while she was still very young. Constance and her two siblings became street children. In 1878, her sister, Mary, then seventeen, was arrested for solicitation and sentenced to a period of labor at the Five Points House of Industry. The Five Points neighborhood was the most dangerous, pestilential, and squalid slum that New York ever knew—before or since.”

He sat forward, observing Coldmoon as if to gauge what reaction his words were provoking. Coldmoon was careful to keep his expression opaque.

“In 1880, Constance’s brother Joseph was sentenced for a period of time to the prison on Blackwell’s Island. It changed him. Not long after his release, he was murdered.”

He took another sip. “During these events, a certain Dr. Enoch Leng offered his medical and psychiatric services to the House of Industry. He did not charge for his services, and he had a diabolical motive. He was attempting to create an elixir to significantly prolong the life of a human being—his own. A necessary ingredient for this elixir, he discovered, was the cauda equina—the bundle of nerves at the base of the human spine—vivisected from girls.”

“Jesus,” Coldmoon could not help but mutter.

“The House of Industry proved a good source for the experimental victims he needed. No questions were asked when he took them away to his ‘sanatorium,’ and no interest was taken in them afterwards. Some he would put under the knife to remove the cauda equina, while others would be the guinea pigs to administer the latest elixir to test. He would keep these latter experimental subjects in his own mansion. Unfortunately, the elixir was imperfect and the various combinations of it were powerfully fatal. When a guinea pig died, he would dissect her to see what went wrong.

“Constance’s older sister, Mary, was taken not as a guinea pig, but as a provider of the essential ingredient. She fell under the knife of Dr. Leng shortly after her brother was killed. It occurred in January 1881. Constance herself was only nine at the time.”

Now—slowly—Pendergast sat back.

“Under normal circumstances, Constance—a guttersnipe without family—would have died from hunger, disease, or exposure. But fate intervened. Dr. Leng noticed her presence in the vicinity of the House of Industry. Around early summer 1881, after the death of her sister, Constance became the last young person to be taken under the wing of Dr. Leng. He administered to her the elixir prepared from her sister’s own body. This time, the elixir worked.”

Pendergast reached for the highball glass. Coldmoon remained silent, hardly able to process what he was hearing.

“Constance became Dr. Leng’s ward. She grew up in his mansion. Although, of course, ‘growing up’ is a relative term, because with the elixir her body aged so slowly that, a century later, she had only reached the physical form of a twenty-year-old. Leng also partook of the elixir and remained youthful as well, so he could continue his scientific work toward an ultimate goal of immeasurable importance to him—which there is no need to go into now. Leng later perfected a synthetic substitute for the cauda equina, and then no more unfortunates were sacrificed.

“I don’t know when or how, but Constance learned that she herself was kept unnaturally young by the sacrifice of her own sister. You can imagine the effect on her psyche. In any case, Dr. Leng was killed a few years ago. Constance, no longer under his influence, stopped taking the elixir. And she became my ward.”

Coldmoon stared. “But how?”

“Enoch Leng was my great-great uncle. I inherited his mansion on Riverside Drive, and in it, I found Constance. She had lived there for the past hundred years.”

“What?” Coldmoon cried.

Pendergast merely waved a hand.

Coldmoon shook his head. It was impossible…and yet it was in keeping with Constance’s eccentric manner and her old-fashioned speech and dress. An ancient woman in the body of a girl…No wonder she knew so much, could speak so many languages. It boggled the mind.

“You can guess the rest,” Pendergast said. “That infernal machine opened up a kaleidoscope of alternate worlds, including New York City, circa 1880. I saw it myself. No doubt Constance did, too, when she rescued me.” He cradled his drink. “She saw an opportunity to return to an alternate past and save both her sister and brother from death. I can only hope she succeeds.”

Pendergast fell silent. Coldmoon shakily drained his drink and Pendergast refilled it. “I’m no physicist,” Coldmoon said, “but…doesn’t that mess things up? I mean, Constance going back to…” He fell silent again, still mentally sorting the potential consequences. “What if she meets herself?”

“She will certainly meet herself. That is not, however, the paradox it might seem. I remind you that all that is happening in an alternate, parallel universe, almost but not quite identical to ours. Anything that happens there will not affect us—especially since the machine that created the gateway has been destroyed. That door is now shut.”

Pendergast’s voice broke during these last words. As for the complex relationship between Pendergast and Constance…Na da ma y azan, Coldmoon thought to himself. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

Pendergast looked surprised at the question. “I’m going to return to New York.”

“And what about Constance?”

A change came over Pendergast’s features, and he turned away slightly while draining his glass. “Constance has made her choice.”

“That’s really it? She’s gone?”

“Where she has gone, I can’t follow. Nor would I want to. Letting Constance put those ancient ghosts to rest without my interference is all I can do for her now. I shall never see her again.”

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