Douglas Preston - Relic

“That’s easily explained,” said Cuthbert. “There’s no mystery about it. The crates are from an old expedition.”

“I gathered that,” Pendergast said. “Which expedition?”

“The Whittlesey expedition,” Cuthbert replied.

Pendergast waited.

Finally Cuthbert sighed. “It was a South American expedition that took place over five years ago. It was ... not entirely successful.”

“It was a disaster,” Frock said derisively. Oblivious to Cuthbert’s angry glance, he continued. “It caused a scandal in the Museum at the time. The expedition broke up early, due to personality conflicts. Some of the expedition members were killed by hostile tribesmen; the rest were killed in a plane crash on the way back to New [117] York. There were the inevitable rumors of a curse, that kind of thing.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Cuthbert snapped. “There was no scandal of any sort.”

Pendergast looked at them. “And the crates?” he said mildly.

“They were shipped back separately,” Cuthbert said. “But this is all beside the point. There was a very unusual object in one of these crates, a figurine created by an extinct South American tribe. It’s to be an important element in the Superstition exhibition.”

Pendergast nodded. “Go on.”

“Last week, when we went to retrieve the figurine, I found that one of the crates had been broken into.” He pointed. “So I ordered all of the crates moved temporarily to the Secure Area.”

“What was taken?”

“Well, now, that was a little odd,” said Cuthbert. “None of the artifacts were missing from the crate. The figurine itself is worth a fortune. It’s unique, the only one of its kind in the world. The Kothoga tribe that made it vanished years ago.”

“You mean nothing was missing?” Pendergast asked. “Well, nothing important. The only thing that seemed to be missing were the seed pods, or whatever they were. Maxwell, the scientist who packed them, died in the plane crash near Venezuela.”

“Seed pods?” asked Pendergast.

“I honestly don’t know what they were. None of the documentation survived except for the anthropological material. We had Whittlesey’s journal, you see, but that was all. There was a little reconstructive work done when the crates first came back, but since then ...” he stopped.

“You’d better tell me about this expedition,” said Pendergast.

“There’s not much to tell. They had originally assembled to search for traces of the Kothoga tribe, and to do [118] a survey and general collection in a very remote area of the rain forest. I think the preliminary work estimated that ninety-five percent of the plant species in the area were unknown to science. Whittlesey, an anthropologist, was the leader. I believe there was also a paleontologist, a mammalogist, a physical anthropologist, perhaps an entomologist, a few assistants. Whittlesey and an assistant named Crocker disappeared and were probably killed by tribesmen. The rest died in the plane crash. The only thing we had any documentation on was the figurine, from Whittlesey’s journal. The rest of the stuff is just a mystery, no locality data, nothing.”

“Why did the material sit in these crates for so long? Why wasn’t it unpacked and cataloged and put in the collections?”

Cuthbert stirred uncomfortably. “Well,” he said defensively, “ask Frock. He’s the chairman of the department.”

“Our collections are enormous,” said Frock. “We have dinosaur bones still crated up from the 1930s that have never been touched. It costs a tremendous amount of money and time to curate these things.” He sighed. “But in this particular case, it’s not a question of mere oversight. As I recall, the Anthropology Department was forbidden to curate these crates upon their return.” He looked pointedly at Cuthbert.

“That was years ago!” Cuthbert replied acidly.

“How do you know there are no rare artifacts in the unopened boxes?” Pendergast asked.

“Whittlesey’s journal implied that the figurine in the small crate was the only item of importance.”

“May I see this journal?”

Cuthbert shook his head. “It’s gone missing.”

“Were the crates moved on your own authority?”

“I suggested it to Dr. Wright after I learned the crates had been tampered with,” Cuthbert said. “We kept the material together in its original crates until it could be curated. That’s one of the Museum’s rules.”

[119] “So the crates were moved late last week,” Pendergast murmured, almost to himself. “Just prior to the killing of the two boys. What could the killer have been after?” Then he looked back at Cuthbert. “What did you say had been taken from the crates? Seed pods, was it?”

Cuthbert shrugged. “As I said, I’m not sure what they were. They looked like seed pods to me, but I’m no botanist.”

“Can you describe them?”

“It’s been years, I don’t really remember. Big, round, heavy. Rugose on the outside. Light brown color. I’ve only seen the inside of the crate twice, you understand; once when it first came back, and then last week, looking for Mbwun. That’s the figurine.”

“Where is the figurine now?” Pendergast asked.

“It’s being curated for the show. It should be on display already, we’re sealing the exhibition today.”

“Did you remove anything else from the box?”

“No. The figurine is the unique piece of the lot.”

“I would like to arrange to see it,” said Pendergast. Cuthbert shifted irritably on his feet. “You can see it when the show opens. Frankly, I don’t know what you’re up to. Why waste time on a broken crate when there’s a serial killer loose in the Museum and you chaps can’t even find him?”

Frock cleared his throat. “Margo, bring me closer, if you will,” he asked.

Margo wheeled him over to the crates. With a grunt he bent forward to scrutinize the broken boards.

Everyone watched.

“Thank you,” he said, straightening up. He eyed the group, one at a time.

“Please note that these boards are scored on the inside as well as the outside,” he said finally. “Mr. Pendergast, are we not making an assumption here?” he finally said.

“I never make assumptions,” replied Pendergast, with a smile.

“But you are,” Frock persisted. “All of you are [120] making an assumption—that some one, or some thing, broke into the crate.”

There was a sudden silence in the vault. Margo could smell the dust in the air, and the faint odor of excelsior.

And then Cuthbert began to laugh raucously, the sound swelling harshly through the chamber.

As they approached Frock’s office once again, the curator was unusually animated.

“Did you see that cast?” he said to Margo. “Avian attributes, dinosaurian morphology. This could be the very thing!” He could scarcely contain himself.

“But, Professor Frock, Mr. Pendergast believes it was constructed as a weapon of some sort,” Margo said quickly. As she said it, she realized that she wanted to believe it, too.

“Stuff!” Frock snorted. “Didn’t you get the sense, looking at that cast, of something tantalizingly familiar, yet utterly foreign? We’re looking at an evolutionary aberration, the vindication of my theory.” Inside the office, Frock immediately produced a notebook from his jacket pocket and started scribbling.

“But, Professor, how could such a creature—?” Margo stopped as she felt Frock’s hand close over hers. His grip was extraordinarily strong.

“My dear girl,” he said, “there are more things in heaven and earth, as Hamlet pointed out. It isn’t always for us to speculate. Sometimes we must simply observe.” His voice was low, but he trembled with excitement. “We can’t miss this opportunity, do you hear? Damn this steel prison of mine! You must be my eyes and ears, Margo. You must go everywhere, search up and down, be an extension of my fingers. We must not let this chance pass us by. Are you willing, Margo?”