What the old monks had used this subterranean vault for, Pendergast never learned. But almost two hundred years before, this place had become the Pendergast family necropolis. Here, over a dozen generations on both sides of the family—the fallen line of French aristocrats, the mysterious denizens of the deep bayou—had been buried or, more frequently, re-buried. Pendergast walked on, hands behind his back, staring at the carved names. Here was Henri Prendregast de Mousqueton, a seventeenth-century mountebank who pulled teeth, performed magic and comedy, and practiced quack medicine. And here, encased in a mausoleum bedecked with quartz minarets, was Eduard Pendregast, a well-known Harley Street doctor in eighteenth-century London. And here, Comstock Pendergast, famed mesmerist, magician, and mentor of Harry Houdini.
Pendergast strolled farther, passing artists and murderers, vaudeville performers and violin prodigies. At last he stopped beside a mausoleum grander than those around it: a ponderous conflation of white marble, carved into an exact replica of the Pendergast mansion itself. This was the tomb of Hezekiah Pendergast, his own great-great-grandfather.
Pendergast let his eye roam over the familiar turrets and finials, the gabled roof and mullioned windows. When Hezekiah Pendergast arrived on the scene, the Pendergast family fortune was almost gone. Hezekiah was released into the world penniless, but with big ambitions. Originally a snake-oil salesman allied with traveling medicine shows, he soon became known as a hippocratic sage, a man whose patent medicine could cure almost any disease. On the big bill, he appeared between Al-Ghazi, the contortionist, and Harry N. Parr, Canine Instructor. The medicine he peddled during these shows sold briskly, even at five dollars the bottle. Hezekiah soon established his own traveling medicine show, and with shrewd marketing, Hezekiah’s Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative quickly became the first widely marketed patent medicine in America. Hezekiah Pendergast grew rich beyond the fondest visions of avarice.
Pendergast’s eyes swept downward, to the deep layers of shadow that surrounded the tomb. Ugly rumors began to surface about Hezekiah’s Compound Elixir within a year of its introduction: tales of madness, deformed births, wasting deaths. And yet sales grew. Doctors protested the elixir, calling it violently addictive and harmful to the brain. And still sales grew. Hezekiah Pendergast introduced a highly successful formula for babies, “Warranted to Make Your Child Peaceful.” In the end, a reporter for Collier’s magazine, together with a government chemist, finally exposed the elixir as an addictively lethal blend of chloroform, cocaine hydrochloride, acetanilid, and botanicals. Production was forced to cease—but not before Hezekiah’s own wife had succumbed to the addiction and died. Constance Leng Pendergast.
Antoine’s mother.
Pendergast turned away from the tomb. Then he stopped, glancing back. A smaller, simpler mausoleum of gray granite lay beside the greater one. The engraved plaque on its face read, simply, Constance.
He paused, recalling the words of his great-aunt: And then he began spending a lot of time down… down there. Do you know where I mean? Pendergast had heard the stories about how the necropolis became Antoine’s favorite place after his mother’s death. He’d spent his days here, year in and year out, in the shadow of her tomb, practicing the magic tricks his father and grandfather had taught him, performing experiments on small animals—and especially working with chemicals, developing nostrums and poisons. What else was it Aunt Cornelia had said? They say he always felt more comfortable with the dead than with the living.
Pendergast had heard rumors even Aunt Cornelia had been unwilling to hint at: rumors worse than the bad business with Marie LeClaire; rumors of certain hideous things found in the deep shadows of the tombs; rumors of the real reason behind Antoine’s permanent banishment from the house on Dauphine Street. But it wasn’t just the prolongation of life that had fixed Antoine’s attention. No, there had always been something else, something behind the prolongation of life, some project that he had kept the deepest of secrets…
Pendergast stared at the nameplate as a sudden revelation swept over him. These underground vaults had been Antoine’s workplace as a child. This is where he had played and studied, collected his appalling childhood trophies. This was where he had experimented with his chemicals; and it was here, in the cool, dark underground, where he had stored his vast collection of compounds, botanicals, chemicals, and poisons. Here, the temperature and humidity never changed: the conditions would be perfect.
More quickly now, Pendergast turned away, walking back down the pathway and passing beneath the tunnel, beginning the long climb back toward consciousness. For he knew, at last, where in the house on Riverside Drive the missing collection of Antoine Pendergast—of Enoch Leng—would be found.
TWO
NORA HEARD THE FAINT RATTLE OF A CHAIN, THEN A FAINT, WHISPERED exhalation of breath from out of the nearby darkness. She licked dry lips, worked her mouth in an attempt to speak. “Pendergast?”
“I’m here,” came the weak voice.
“I thought you were dead!” Her body spasmed in an involuntary sob. “Are you all right?”
“I’m sorry I had to leave you. How much time has passed?”
“My God, are you deaf? That madman’s doing something terrible to Bill!”
“Dr. Kelly—”