Douglas Preston - Two Graves

“No harm, but I shouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

“I won’t. If I could just have the address—” Felder took out his handwritten note, preparing to jot it down.

“Oh, you won’t need that. You can’t miss it. It’s that big mansion on Center Street, just down from the library.”

“Not… not the one that’s falling apart?” Felder asked, his spirits sinking farther still.

“The very one. Dreadful how she’s let the family estate go to rack and ruin. A real eyesore to the community. As I said, quite a few around here are waiting…” Her voice trailed off decorously as she picked up her needlepoint again.

21

DR. JOHN FELDER DROVE—SLOWLY, VERY SLOWLY—DOWN Center Street, the dead December leaves skittering and whirling in his wake. He kept his head low, as if not wanting to look much past the dashboard of his Volvo. The dejection he felt seemed quite out of proportion to the disappointment he had just experienced. He realized he’d allowed himself to believe this one trip to Connecticut might already be the end of his quest.

It was still possible. Anything could happen.

The houses slid by, one after the other, with their crisply painted fronts and well-tended plantings, mulched and protected for winter. And then the prospect ahead seemed to darken, as if a cloud was passing over the sun… and there it was. Felder winced. He took in the wrought-iron fence, topped with pitted spikes; the dead, frozen weeds covering the front yard; the dreary mansion itself, with its too-heavy gabled roof beetling over the dark and discolored stone of the façade. He half imagined he could make out a huge crack, running, Usher-like, from foundation to roofline; all it would take was a puff of wind from the wrong direction to bring the whole thing shivering down into perdition.

He pulled over, killed the engine, and got out of the car. As he pushed the gate open with a hollow groan, red grains of rust and chips of black paint came off on his hands. He made his way up the cracked and heaving concrete walkway, trying to think of what to say.

The problem was, Felder realized, that although he was a psychiatrist by profession, he wasn’t any good at manipulating people. He was a terrible liar and easily gulled himself—as recent events had made painfully obvious. Should he continue the academic ruse he’d used at the historical society? No—if old Miss Wintour had turned away a delegation from Harvard, she wouldn’t have anything to do with a lone scholar who’d misplaced his credentials.

Maybe, then, he should play on her family pride, tell her he wanted to resurrect her great-uncle’s artistic reputation from lonely obscurity. But no—she’d had plenty of opportunity to do that herself already.

What on earth was he going to say?

All too soon he reached the front steps. He mounted them, the mortared stones tilting treacherously beneath his feet. A massive black door stood before him, scuffed, the paint crazed and flaking. Set into it was a large brass knocker in the shape of a griffin’s head. It glared at Felder as if it were about to bite him. There was no doorbell. Felder took a deep breath, grasped the knocker gingerly, and gave it a rap.

He waited. No response.

He gave the knocker a second rap, a little harder this time. He could hear the echo of it reverberating hollowly through the bowels of the mansion.

Still nothing.

He licked his lips, feeling almost relieved. One more try—then he’d leave. Taking firm hold of the knocker, he rapped with severity.

An indistinct voice sounded within. Felder waited. A minute later, footsteps could be heard echoing across marble. Then came the rattling of chains, the sliding of locks badly in need of oil, and the door cracked open.

It was very dark inside, and Felder could see nothing. Then his gaze drifted downward and he spotted what appeared to be an eye. Yes, he was sure it was an eye. It looked him up and down, narrowing with suspicion, as if perhaps believing him to be a Jehovah’s Witness or Fuller Brush man.

“Well?” a small voice demanded from out of the dark.

Felder’s jaw worked. “I—”

“Well? What is it?”

Felder cleared his throat. This was going to be even harder than he’d expected.

“Are you here about the gatehouse?” the voice asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, are you here about renting the gatehouse?”

Seize the opportunity, you fool! “The gatehouse? Ah, yes. Yes, I am.”

The door closed in his face.

Felder stood on the top step, perplexed, for a full minute before the door opened again—wider this time. A diminutive woman stood before him. She was dressed in a fox fur, slightly moth-eaten, and—bizarrely—a broad-brimmed straw hat of the kind one might take to the beach. An expensive-looking black leather purse hung from a narrow arm.

There was a shifting in the darkness behind her, and then the entire doorway seemed to move. As it resolved into the light, Felder realized the shape was a man. He was very tall—at least six and a half feet—and built like a linebacker. His features and complexion made Felder believe he might be from ancient Fiji, or perhaps the South Sea Islands. He wore an odd, shapeless garment with an orange-and-white batik pattern; his hair was cropped very close to his head; crude but remarkably complex tattoos covered his face and arms. He looked pointedly at Felder but did not speak. That must be the manservant , Felder thought. He swallowed uncomfortably and tried not to stare at the tattoos. All that was missing was a bone in the nose.

“You’re lucky,” the woman said, pulling on a pair of white gloves. “I was about to stop running the advertisement. It seemed like a good idea—after all, who wouldn’t be honored to rent such a place?—but then again, one doesn’t understand the modern mind. Going on two months now in the Gazette —waste of good money.” She walked past him, down the steps, and then turned back. “Well, come along then, come along .”

Felder followed as she led the way through the dry weeds, rattling in the winter wind. From what the woman at the Southport Museum had implied, he’d expected Miss Wintour to be a superannuated, withered crone. But instead she appeared to be in her early sixties, with a face that reminded him vaguely of an aging Bette Davis—well maintained, even attractive. She had an accent to match—the kind associated with the North Shore of Long Island in better days, where his own family came from, only rarely heard anymore. As he walked, he was all too aware of the hulking manservant trailing silently behind them.

“What is it?” she asked out of the blue.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “What is what?”

“Your name, of course!”

“Oh. Sorry. It’s… Feldman. John Feldman.”

“And your profession?”

“I’m a doctor.”

At this, she stopped to look back at him. “Can you furnish references?”

“Yes, I suppose so. If it’s necessary.”

“There are formalities that must be seen to, young man. After all, this isn’t just any gatehouse. It was designed by Stanford White.”

“Stanford White?”

“The only gatehouse he ever designed.” Her look turned suspicious again. “That was in the advertisement. Didn’t you read it?”

“Ah, yes,” Felder said quickly. “Slipped my mind. Sorry.”

“Hmpf,” the woman said, as if such a fact should be seared into one’s memory. She continued wading through the dead grass and weeds.

As they rounded the rear edge of the mansion, the gatehouse came into view. It was of the same dark stone as the main building, guarding an entrance—and driveway—that apparently no longer existed. Its windows were cracked and hazy with grime, and several had been boarded up. The two-story structure did have graceful lines, Felder noted, but they were overcome by shabbiness and decay.