Lincoln Child - The Strange Case of Monsieur Bertin

A silence settled in the stuffy library. At last Pendergast stirred. “Was he invented, then?”

“It would seem so.” She paused. “I assume the Rochenoire catacombs no longer exist?”

“The fire consumed the entire house down to its foundations. Afterwards, the lot was cleared with bulldozers and paved over. It now functions as a parking lot. The idea was to seal up the catacombs forever, with no access.”

“Are there any Pendergast graves outside of those catacombs?”

“The family had a small mausoleum in the St. Louis Cemetery Number One, not far from the house. Comstock Pendergast, brother of my great-grandfather Boethius, was responsible for its construction well before the turn of the century. And there’s a graveyard out at Penumbra Plantation.” He paused, then said: “It would seem we’re now on some sort of malign treasure hunt, and this Edmond Pendergast is the next clue. I would presume we’re meant to visit his tomb, if in fact there is such a tomb.”

A muffled rumble of thunder announced an approaching storm.

“The St. Louis Cemetery Number One is just around the corner,” he went on. “Let us go.”

By the time they reached the cemetery, the heavens had opened up and rain was driving down, lightning forking through the black skies, peals of thunder echoing across the city. The branches of the live oaks along Basin Street lashed and twisted in the wind, as if under torture.

It was a small and ancient cemetery, surrounded by a whitewashed wall, in which ancient and dilapidated tombs were jumbled together amid meandering alleys, cheek by jowl with marble and granite mausoleums in various stages of decay. It was very different from the splendor of the Metairie Cemetery.

Hunched under her umbrella, Constance followed Pendergast through mazelike passageways. They finally reached the southeastern corner, up against the Basin Street wall, where a sadly neglected mausoleum in marble announced the name PENDERGAST.

It was a miniature temple with a pillar on either side holding up a pediment, with a bronze door in the middle. Above the door a shield had been carved, containing a lidless eye over two moons: one crescent, the other full. Beneath was a lion couchant. The entire plot was surrounded by a wrought iron fence with broken spikes, the gate rusted ajar.

They squeezed through the gate and Pendergast approached the bronze door. Most unusually, the lock on the door resisted his overtures — he fumbled with it for almost two minutes before succeeding. He pressed against the door and it inched open with a groan. One after the other, they squeezed into the tiny interior space.

Constance shook out her umbrella, leaned it against the door, then looked around curiously, following the beam of Pendergast’s penlight as it roved around, illuminating crypts along the two walls and the back. A few of the closest crypts, she saw, were apparently occupied, but there was no carving on them save for death’s heads. She was as curious about who might be interred in them as she was about the existence of this mausoleum in the first place. She could understand why a family plot existed at Penumbra, the old family plantation, but why had Comstock Pendergast insisted on this structure when the family had a large private crypt beneath the Maison de la Rochenoire? Pendergast had never told her what happened to the remains of his parents, both killed in the fire. Maybe this was their final resting place.

“Ah. Here it is.” Pendergast’s light fell on a crypt in the back row that, unlike the others, had a bronze instead of a marble door.

“I can’t begin to imagine,” he murmured, “who might be resting peacefully within. I should like to see for myself.” He handed her the flashlight. “Hold this, if you please.”

Constance shone the light over his shoulder while Pendergast knelt before the tomb. Taking a small knife from his suit coat, he slid it between the door and the marble jamb, working it around and loosening years’ worth of encrustation. After a minute of prying, it came free. Pendergast eased out the knife and laid it aside; Constance handed him the light and he shone it in.

“Empty,” he said. “No bones.”

“Not surprising,” Constance replied, “considering it’s the tomb of a nonexistent person.”

He continued shining his light around. “Not only empty, but clean. Too clean. And... look!”

Constance knelt and peered in while the light played on the back panel of the crypt. At the bottom of the panel was a handle.

“How peculiar.” Pendergast reached inside, grasped the handle, and pulled. Immediately, the bottom of the crypt swung open on hinges, revealing a staircase descending into blackness.

They paused a moment, staring into the dark passage beneath the crypt.

“Isn’t this an occasion for one of your imperishable bon mots?” Constance asked.

“I find myself too surprised for speech.” He took a step forward. “I’ll be back shortly.” He paused to reach into his suit coat, remove his Les Baer 1911 Colt.45 pistol, rack a round into the chamber, and reholstered it.

“Aloysius, please .” And with that, Constance withdrew the antique Italian stiletto she always kept hidden on her person. “I’m armed as well.”

“Very well — if you insist. I hope you won’t mind if in this instance I don’t allow the lady to go first.”

“As you wish.”

Pendergast nodded. He eased himself down the stairs and Constance followed. As they descended, the ceiling gradually rose until there was enough room to stand. The narrow staircase went down steeply about ten feet before leveling out into a brick passageway, its walls covered with niter. The tunnel ahead was flooded.

Pendergast stopped on the second-to-last step, eased his leg into the water, found the bottom, put the other foot in, and waded out.

“It’s only a foot deep.”

Constance hesitated, looking down at herself. Her pleated skirt fell just below the knee, and could of course be cleaned, but her leather flats were custom-made Perugias with a gommato finish and had cost $1,000. The foul water would surely ruin them, if they hadn’t already been destroyed by the tramp through the muddy cemetery. But the dark passage ahead appeared curiously alluring.

She followed Pendergast into the water.

A damp, unwholesome odor arose as they moved slowly along the corridor, tracing the winding course of the tunnel. It appeared to be heading southeast. A bloated rat drifted past. Insects, disturbed by Pendergast’s light, skittered along the walls — greasy centipedes, water bugs, and giant vinegaroons, some so startled that they dropped into the water and thrashed about, trying to climb up on their legs.

As they waded along, the humidity and the foulness of the air increased. The passage continued a few hundred yards farther, turning here and there but generally maintaining the same southeasterly direction.

And then Pendergast’s light fell upon a stout doorway that marked the end of the passage. It was also of bronze, heavily corroded with verdigris. Once again, Pendergast worked on the lock and the door reluctantly yielded, swinging open to reveal a vast, dark space.

As they stepped through, the beam of light revealed a capacious crypt, with a vaulted and groined ceiling held up by pillars. Like the passage, it was partially flooded. Row after row of marble sarcophagi stood half-submerged in the water.

“Good Lord,” Pendergast breathed. “We’re in the Pendergast family catacombs. We must be directly beneath the site of Rochenoire!”