The Obsidian Chamber

“Sir, we’ve completed work. If it’s all right with you, we’ll go back downtown and begin logging the data.”

  “Is there much?”

  Arensky shook his head. “Just the occasional print.”

  Pendergast nodded.

  As Arensky turned and began gathering the teams together, the front door opened and Longstreet appeared, his tall figure filling the door frame. Seeing him, Arensky walked over quickly and they began conversing in low tones, Arensky gesturing this way and that, calling over various team members in turn, evidently to give Longstreet their reports.

  Pendergast watched for a moment. Then he returned his eyes to the window. Gazing over the tops of the low buildings that stretched westward toward the river, he could make out—past the long lines of brownstones—the tall gables and crenellations of his own Riverside Drive mansion. Even without binoculars, he was able to make it out quite clearly: the front door, servants’ entrance, service ports—even the shuttered windows of the library.

  This apartment had obviously been chosen because it afforded an excellent spot from which to observe the activity at 891 Riverside.

  Now he stooped to take a close look at the windowsill. Two sets of three holes each, at regular intervals, had been drilled into the wood of the sill, forming two triangles about six inches apart. Anchors, no doubt, for a telescope mount. The heavy weight of a sixty- or eighty-power, light-enhancing spotting telescope such as Diogenes would have used would make such anchoring advisable—providing extra stability for his study of that most private of domiciles.

  As he straightened up, Longstreet came forward. In answer to Pendergast’s unasked question, he nodded. “Agent Arensky’s filled me in,” he said. “It’s more or less what we expected to find. The apartment was leased for a one-year term by a Mr. Kramer, about three months ago.”

  “No doubt one of Diogenes’s throwaway identities. And was much seen of this Mr. Kramer?”

  “We’ve interviewed the neighbors and the doormen. The next-door neighbor, a woman in her late seventies with very little to do, was particularly helpful. We’ve got a police artist in to make the facial reconstruction—not that it will do us much good. Mr. Kramer was seen with some regularity at the beginning of his tenancy, frequently in the company of a young woman.”

  “Flavia.”

  Longstreet nodded. “Several people identified her from the mug shots we provided. Diogenes, on the other hand, was not. He was here, though.” Longstreet swept the room with a hand. “Even doing simple field matches with the forensic laptop, we’ve found prints from both of them all over the apartment.”

  “I see.”

  “There was a period when neither of them was seen. That, no doubt, corresponds to the Exmouth period. And then, around four weeks ago, ‘Mr. Kramer’ returned—this time without Flavia. He began to keep odd hours: leaving late at night, returning home around dawn. He was seen, off and on, by various doormen and the elderly neighbor…until about a week ago. And then, suddenly, he vanished—taking all his possessions with him.” Longstreet frowned. “And this time, Flavia seems to have been more careful. There are no scraps of evidence to suggest where they, or more importantly he, might have gone.”

  There was a pause. “I’m afraid that’s about the same story we’ve been getting down at Special Operations,” Longstreet continued. “There have been no recent hits on TSA monitors, bank or credit card audits, or anything else. Cross-correlation of the security screen network has produced nothing. My teams in the field, and I’ve employed many, have turned up nothing. The trail’s gone cold.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, old friend. I know that finding that sales receipt, tracking him down to this bolt-hole, must have raised your hopes. I know it raised mine. But now, it’s as if Diogenes has just vanished into thin air.”

  “I see,” Pendergast said in a flat voice.

  “I want to get him as much as you do,” Longstreet said. “Believe me, this is going to remain my top priority. Although I’m afraid we’re going to have to turn down the heat on our search for Diogenes temporarily. We’re forced to take some men off the job and retask them to that crazy doctor-slasher murder in Florida. It won’t be for long, though—I promise you that.”

  “Doctor-slasher murder?” Pendergast asked, turning away from the window.

  “Yes. This doctor—apparently a doctor, anyway, I don’t recall his name—just walked into a Miami hospital and killed an elderly woman. On death’s door already, if you can believe it—dying of congestive heart failure. Slashed her up most impressively, Jack the Ripper would have approved. When another doctor walked in and, it seems, surprised him at his game, the lunatic killed him and slashed him to ribbons, as well. And then he just disappeared.” Longstreet shook his head. “Craziest thing. All over the national press, which makes it a priority for us, as well.”

  Pendergast stood still for a moment. Then he looked back at Longstreet with a curious expression on his face. “Tell me more about this double murder.”

  Longstreet seemed surprised. “Why? It’s just a distraction. We’re obviously dealing with some sociopath—he’ll be picked up soon and we can get back to the business at hand.”

  “The double murder,” Pendergast repeated. “Humor me, old friend, if you please.”

  51

  IT WAS ANOTHER glorious November day in the Keys as Diogenes eased his Chris Craft into the dock, cleated it, and hopped out. He plucked the small cooler out of the back cockpit, filled with ice and containing the two caudae equinae, and hurried along the pier to the house. He kept an eye out for Constance as he approached, but all was quiet.

  He entered in a state of high nervous energy, avoided the library, and went straight to his basement laboratory, locking the door behind him.

  Six hours later he emerged with a box tucked under his arm. It was now late afternoon and the house and island were awash in that soft golden light so distinctive to the Keys. He went to the library and there found Constance, sitting by the dead fireplace, book in hand.

  “Hello, my dear,” said Diogenes.

  She raised her head. He was shocked by her distracted appearance, but he managed to keep his expression cheerful.

  “Hello,” she said in a low voice.

  “I hope you got along well in my absence.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Diogenes was hoping she would ask about his trip, or why he’d shaved off the Van Dyke he’d begun to regrow, but she did not. He hesitated. This might be difficult. “Constance, there’s something I must discuss with you.”

  She put down the book and turned to him.

  “I…I have to confess I deceived you about that blood test. It wasn’t routine. And it revealed something wrong.”

  Her eyebrows raised, a faint stirring of interest in her face.

  “The arcanum I gave you failed.”

  He took a deep breath, let that sink in. He had rehearsed this scene a dozen times in his mind on the way back from Miami. He couldn’t rush this; he needed to give her time to absorb the new information and think through the situation.

  “Failed?”

  “I imagine you are feeling the ill effects of it. I am so very, very sorry.”

  She faltered, looked away. “What happened?”

  “The biochemistry is exceedingly complex. Suffice to say I made a mistake. I have now corrected it.” He set the box down and opened it up, to reveal a three-hundred-milliliter bag filled with a violet liquid.

  “Is that why you went to Key West?”

  “Yes.”

  “To obtain more caudae equinae?”

  Diogenes had been waiting for this very question. “Good Lord, no!” He shook his head vigorously. “Absolutely not. I’ve fully synthesized the drug, no need for more human tissue. It’s just that the first synthesis was faulty because of a mistake I made. I’ve now synthesized a new batch, reformulated. A good batch.”

  “I see.”

  She looked so exhausted, she appeared almost more unwell than tired.


  “I’d like to give it to you, now, to restore you to health.”

  “How do I know this batch isn’t a ‘mistake’ as well?” A dryness had crept into her tone that Diogenes didn’t like.

  “Please trust me, Constance. I figured out exactly what went wrong and I’ve corrected it. This formulation will work. I swear to you on the strength of my love: this will work.”

  She said nothing. He got up and walked to the IV closet, removed the IV rack, and wheeled it over next to her chair. He spread a sterile pad on the table, wrapped the tourniquet, located a vein, and inserted the IV. She watched him, apathetic, unresisting. Working quickly, he started her on saline, hung the bag with the arcanum, switched a valve, and in a moment the pinkish-purple liquid began to creep down the tube.

  “I trusted you before,” said Constance, her voice prickly with irritation. “Why should I trust you again?”

  “The first time I was too eager, too much in a hurry to give you the miracle of extended life.”

  “You still look rather in a hurry.”

  Diogenes took a long, deep breath. “I am in a hurry because I love you and want you to be happy and healthy. But I have not hurried the preparation of this drug.”

  She was silent for a minute, a querulous air still clinging to her. “I’m not sure I care for being your guinea pig.”

  “My lovely Constance, you’re a guinea pig only in the sense that the drug is formulated for one person only—you. There’s no one else I could try it on.”

  “Except yourself.”

  “There isn’t enough.” She’s very quick, even now, he thought.

  She shook her head and he spoke fast. “Everything is so new. And you’re sick. Give it time—please. That’s all I ask.”

  She breathed out with evident irritation and brushed a hair from her face, saying nothing. Diogenes glanced at the bag. He had upped the flow to run it in as quickly as possible, and already about half was gone.

  “Your bad humor is a symptom of the misformulated arcanum,” said Diogenes.

  As soon as he said this, he realized that was a mistake. “My bad humor,” she said, “is due to your excessive solicitousness, your creeping about the house listening for my every movement. I feel like I’m being stalked.”

  “I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized I was bothering you so. I’ll give you all the freedom you wish. Just tell me how to act.”

  “For starters, get rid of that telescope in the tower. It makes me feel like you’re spying on me.”

  Against his will, Diogenes found his face flushing.

  “Yes,” she said, looking at him keenly. “I see that you have spied on me. No doubt when I was swimming the other day.”

  Diogenes was flummoxed. He couldn’t bring himself to deny it. He simply could not find an answer, and his silence was all the admission she needed.

  “Everything was fine here while you were gone. I wish you hadn’t come back.”

  This cut Diogenes to the quick. “That’s not only cruel, but unfair. Everything I’ve done—everything—has been for you.”

  “Cruel? This coming from the maestro of cruelty himself?”

  Diogenes felt this like another blow. He could feel a rising humiliation, and something else—the stirrings of anger. “You chose to come down here, knowing full well my history. It’s wrong of you to throw it back in my face.”

  “Wrong? Who are you to decide what’s right and what’s wrong?” She issued a loud, sarcastic laugh.

  This savage escalation left Diogenes reeling. He had no idea how to respond, what to say. The drug was three-quarters through. He could only hope to God it would take effect soon. Constance was talking herself into a rage.

  “When I think back on what you’ve done,” she said, “on all that history, when I recall how you made Aloysius desperately unhappy, I wonder how you can live with yourself!”

  “Aloysius made me miserable, as well. Please, Constance.”

  “Please, Constance,” she said mockingly. “What a mistake I made, trusting you. Instead of making me better, you’ve poisoned me. How do I know this isn’t more of the same?” She shook the IV stand with her free hand.

  “Oh, careful! Careful!” Diogenes steadied the stand, protecting his precious drug.

  “I should have known your promises would prove worthless.”

  “Constance, my promises are inviolate. All this anger of yours—that’s your sickness talking. That’s not you.”

  “Isn’t it now?” She grasped the tubes. He lunged to stop her, but was too late—she ripped them out of her arm, the violet liquid spraying about, dotted with flecks of blood, the rack toppling to the floor with a crash.

  “Constance! Good God! What are you doing?”

  She flung the tubes at him and turned, running from the room. He stood there, frozen in shock, as he heard her feet hurrying up the back stairs, the door to her wing shutting and the bolt slamming home. He tried to get the pounding of his heart down so that he could hear; and he did hear, a faint, stifled sobbing from above. Constance, weeping? That shocked him more than anything else. He looked down at the floor to see the last of his precious arcanum drain out of the bag and onto the rug.

  52

  AFTER SPENDING ALMOST an hour conducting a minute search of the hospital room in which the elderly female patient and a doctor had met their deaths, Pendergast—with Longstreet’s tacit approval—had appropriated one of the doctors’ lounges at Miami Baptist for a series of interviews. Longstreet looked on with detached bemusement. He’d been relieved enough to leave the scene of the crimes—although he was no stranger to blood, the extravagant Jackson Pollock–like sprays and spatterings that covered a remarkable amount of the room’s surface area were a bit much even for him. Now he looked on, curious to see exactly what Pendergast was onto—if anything.

  First, Pendergast spoke to the lieutenant in charge of the crime. He grilled the cop at great length about everything they had learned so far. There was, it seemed, no apparent motive. The killer had chosen a victim, apparently at random—a most bizarre choice of victims, too; one who was about to die anyway. The killer had been interrupted by an eminent young cardiologist, Dr. Graben, who paid for his discovery with his life. Both victims had been mutilated with scalpels in the most lavish way imaginable, basically sliced to ribbons.

  The police had begun a careful investigation into the killer, about whom there seemed to be little question. He had been identified by security cameras, by witnesses, and by the doctor’s badge he’d used to enter various areas of the hospital. He was a Dr. Walter Leyland of Clewiston, Florida. He was not affiliated with Miami Baptist and, as far as was known, had never previously met or had dealings with either of the victims. While the official inquiry had only just begun, it appeared that this Dr. Leyland spent a great deal of time abroad doing volunteer work with Médecins Sans Frontières and other such organizations, and that his patient list was very small—in fact, they were still trying to gain access to his office; there was no secretary or nurse to answer the phone, and a court order was in the works. In addition, it seemed Dr. Leyland operated, in a very limited capacity, as a state-appointed M.E., but once again the investigation into that was in its infancy. They would know more, the lieutenant said, in the hours and days to come. The doctor’s car had been located and was still being swept and analyzed, along with his cell phone and credit cards. The biggest mystery, however, was why he should snap like he did and kill two people in such a savage way.

  Next, Pendergast spoke with a nurse from the ICU, who corroborated the story that Dr. Leyland entered the room of eighty-two-year-old Frederica Montoya, who was just days, even hours, from death due to congestive heart failure. A few minutes later, Dr. Graben had entered the room. Puzzled, the nurse had been about to do the same when Dr. Leyland stuck out his head and told her to please leave matters to the two doctors. Five minutes later, Dr. Leyland had left the room and told the nurse that Dr. Graben was still with the patient and was not to be
disturbed. When Dr. Graben did not emerge in another five minutes, the nurse became alarmed and investigated.

  Dismissing the nurse, Pendergast called for the head of hospital security. The man said that they had not yet completed their examination of all the security tapes, but that—while they had numerous images of Dr. Leyland passing hospital reception, entering a doctors’ locker room, and other places—they had yet to find any images of him leaving. No, the video tech could not explain the discrepancy.

  Pendergast asked for an image of Dr. Leyland and the man complied with a grainy screen capture. Pendergast and Longstreet studied the image for some time: a salt-and-pepper-haired man with puffy cheeks.

  “Doesn’t look like your typical serial murderer,” Longstreet said. “All the same, there’s something familiar about him.”

  “Isn’t there,” Pendergast murmured.

  Finally, he called for the chief crime scene investigator. The man had had two days to write up his findings, and he had a very interesting observation to make. While the old woman had died first, the violent slashings and stabbings had begun with the unlucky doctor who’d blundered into the room.

  “How can you be sure?” Pendergast asked.

  “Blood spatter analysis,” the CSI said. “There were spatters of arterial blood from Dr. Graben on the lower walls, the bed, the monitoring equipment. But these were overlain by most of Ms. Montoya’s blood.”

  “That makes no sense,” Longstreet said. “If Leyland was interrupted in his murder of Montoya, you would expect the blood spatter analysis to show the opposite.”

  “Precisely,” said the CSI. “Something else: there is much less of Ms. Montoya’s blood on the walls than there is of Dr. Graben’s.”

  Pendergast thought for a moment. “Thank you,” he said at last to the CSI. “You’ve been most helpful.”

  As the man left the room, Longstreet turned to Pendergast. “Okay. I admit it’s a conundrum. How did this Dr. Leyland get out of the hospital without being seen? And why did he commit this atrocious double murder, slash these two innocents to pieces? But more to the point: what on earth is your interest in it?”