Текст книги "The Cabinet of Curiosities"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Smithback stood, dumbstruck. It was an astounding specimen, of incalculable value to science. Recent scientists had theorized that some dinosaurs, even T. Rex, might have had a covering of feathers. Here was the proof. He glanced down: a brass label read Unknown coeloraptor from Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada.

Smithback turned his attention to the cabinets, his eye falling on a series of human skulls. He moved closer. The little brass label below them read: Hominidae series from Swartkopje Cave, South Africa.Smithback could hardly believe his eyes. He knew enough about hominid fossils to know they were exceedingly rare. These dozen skulls were some of the most complete he had ever seen. They would revolutionize hominid studies.

His eye caught a gleam from the next cabinet. He stepped up to it. It was crowded with gemstones, and his eye landed on a large, green cut stone the size of a robin’s egg. The label below read Diamond, flawless specimen from Novotney Terra, Siberia, 216 carats, believed to be the only green diamond in existence.Next to it, in an especially large case, were immense star rubies, sapphires, and more exotic stones with names he could hardly pronounce, winking in the dim recesses—gemstones equal to the finest ones at the New York Museum. They seemed to have been given star billing among the other exhibits. On a nearby shelf lay a series of gold crystals, perfectly beautiful, lacy as frost, one as large as a grapefruit. Below lay rows of tektites, mostly black misshapen things, but some with a beautiful deep green or violet coloring.

Smithback took a step back, his mind wrestling with the richness and variety of the display. To think all this has stood here, in this ruined house, for a hundred years . . .He turned away and, on impulse, reached out and twitched off the sheet from a small specimen behind him. The sheet dissolved, and a strange stuffed animal greeted his eye: a large, tapirlike mammal with a huge muzzle, powerful forelegs, bulbous head, and curving tusks. It was like nothing he had ever seen before; a freak. He bent down to make out the dim label: Only known specimen of the Tusked Megalopedus, described by Pliny, thought to be fantastical until this specimen was shot in the Belgian Congo by the English explorer Col. Sir Henry F. Moreton, in 1869.

Good lord,thought Smithback: could it be true? A large mammal, completely unknown to science? Or was it a fake? Suddenly the thought occurred to him: could all these be fakes? But as he looked around, he realized they were not. Leng would not have collected fakes, and even in the dim light he could see that these were real. These were real.And if the rest of the collections in the house were like this, they constituted possibly the greatest natural history collection in the world. This was no mere cabinet of curiosities. It was too dark to take notes, but Smithback knew he wouldn’t need notes: what he had seen had been imprinted upon his mind forever.

Only once in a lifetime was a reporter given such a story.

He jerked away another sheet, and was greeted by the massive, rearing fossil skeleton of a short-faced cave bear, caught in a silent roar, its black teeth like daggers. The engraved brass label on the oak mounting stand indicated it had been pulled from the Kutz Canyon Tar Pits, in New Mexico.

He whispered through the reception hall on his stockinged feet, pulling off additional sheets, exposing a whole row of Pleistocene mammals—each one a magnificent specimen as fine or finer than any in a museum—ending with a series of Neanderthal skeletons, perfectly preserved, some with weapons, tools, and one sporting some sort of necklace made out of teeth.

Glancing to one side, he noticed a marble archway leading into a room beyond. In its center of the room was a huge, pitted meteorite, at least eight feet in diameter, surrounded by rows upon rows of additional cabinets.

It was rubyin color.

This was almost beyond belief.

He looked away, turning his attention to the objects ranged about mahogany shelves on a nearby wall. There were bizarre masks, flint spearpoints, a skull inlaid with turquoise, bejeweled knives, toads in jars, thousands of butterflies under glass: everything arranged with the utmost attention to systematics and classification.

He noticed that the light fixtures weren’t electric. They were gas,each with a little pipe leading up into a mantle, covered by a cut-glass shade. It was incredible. It hadto be Leng’s house, just as he had left it. It was as if he had walked out of the house, boarded it up, and left . . .

Smithback paused, his excitement suddenly abating. Obviously, the house hadn’t remained like this, untouched, since Leng’s death. There must be a caretaker who came regularly. Somebody had put tin over the windows and draped the collections. The feeling that the house was not empty, that someone was still there, swept over him again.

The silence; the watchful exhibits and grotesque specimens; the overpowering darkness that lay in the corners of the room—and, most of all, the rising stench of rot—brought a growing unease that would not be denied. He shuddered involuntarily. What was he doing? There was already enough here for a Pulitzer. He had the story: now, be smart and get the hell out.

He turned and swiftly climbed the stairs, passing the chimpanzee and the paintings—and then he paused. All the doors along the hall were closed, and it seemed even darker than it had a few minutes before. He realized he had forgotten which door he had come through. It was near the end of the hall, that much he remembered. He approached the most likely, tried the handle, and to his surprise found it locked. Must have guessed wrong,he thought, moving to the next.

That, too, was locked.

With a rising sense of alarm he tried the door on the other side. It was locked, as well. So was the next, and the next. With a chill prickling his spine, he tried the rest—all, every one, securely locked.

Smithback stood in the dark hallway, trying to control the sudden panic that threatened to paralyze his limbs.

He was locked in.

FOUR

CUSTER’S UNMARKED CRUISER pulled up with a satisfying squeal of rubber before the Museum’s security entrance, five squad cars skidding up around him, sirens wailing, light bars throwing red and white stripes across the Romanesque Revival facade. He rolled out of the squad car and strode decisively up the stone steps, a sea of blue in his wake.

At the impromptu meeting with his top detectives, and then in the ride uptown to the Museum, the theory that had hit him like a thunderclap became a firm, unshakable conviction. Surprise and speed is the way to go in this case,he thought as he looked up at the huge pile of granite. Hit ’em hard and fast, leave them reeling—that was what his instructor at the Police Academy had always said. It was good advice. The commissioner wanted action. And it was action, in the form of Captain Sherwood Custer, that he was going to get.

A Museum security guard stood at the doorway, the police lights reflecting off his glasses. He looked bewildered. Several other guards were coming up behind him, staring down the steps, looking equally perplexed. A few tourists were approaching up Museum Drive, cameras dangling, guidebooks in hand. They stopped when they saw the cluster of police cars. After a brief parley, the group turned around and headed back toward a nearby subway entrance.

Custer didn’t bother to show the grunt his badge. “Captain Custer, Seventh Precinct,” he rapped out. “Brevetted to Homicide.”

The guard swallowed painfully. “Yes, Captain?”

“Is the Museum’s security chief in?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get him down here. Right away.”

The guards scurried around, and within five minutes a tall man in a tan suit, black hair combed back with a little too much grease, arrived. He’s an unsavory-looking fellow,Custer thought; but then, so many people in private security were. Not good enough to join the real force.

The man held out his hand and Custer took it reluctantly. “Jack Manetti, director of security. What can I do for you, officers?”

Without a word, Custer displayed the embossed, signed, and notarized bench warrant he’d managed to get issued in close to record time. The security director took it, read it over, handed it back to Custer.

“This is highly unusual. May I ask what’s happened?”

“We’ll get to the specifics shortly,” Custer replied. “For now, this warrant should be all you need to know. My men will need unlimited access to the Museum. I’m going to require an interrogation room set up for the questioning of selected staff. We’ll work as quickly as we can, and everything will go smoothly—provided we get cooperation from the Museum.” He paused, thrust his hands behind his back, looked around imperiously. “You realize, of course, that we have the authority to impound any items that, in our judgment, are germane to the case.” He wasn’t sure what the word germanemeant, but the judge had used it in the warrant, and it sounded good.

“But that’s impossible, it’s almost closing time. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“Justice doesn’t wait, Mr. Manetti. I want a complete list of Museum staff. We’ll single out the individuals we want to question. If certain staff members have gone home early, they’ll need to be called back in. I’m sorry, but the Museum will just have to be inconvenienced.”

“But this is unheard of. I’m going to have to check with the Museum’s director—”

“You do that. In fact, let’s go see him in person. I want to make sure we’re clear, clear as crystal,on all points of order, so that once our investigations are underway we will not be inconvenienced or delayed. Understood?”

Manetti nodded, displeasure contracting his face. Good,thought Custer: the more upset and flustered everyone became, the quicker he’d be able to flush out the killer. Keep them guessing, don’t give them time to think. He felt exhilarated.

He turned. “Lieutenant Detective Cannell, take three officers and have these gentlemen show you to the staff entrance. I want everyone leaving the premises to be ID’d and checked against personnel records. Get phone numbers, cell numbers, and addresses. I want everyone available to be called back at a moment’s notice, if necessary.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lieutenant Detective Piles, you come with me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Custer turned a stern eye back on Manetti. “Show us the way to Dr. Collopy’s office. We have business to discuss.”

“Follow me,” said the security director, even more unhappily.

Custer motioned to the rest of his men, and they followed him through great echoing halls, up several floors in a giant elevator, and along yet more halls filled with displays—Christ, this place had more than its share of weird shit—until at last they reached a grand paneled door leading to an even grander paneled office. The door was half open, and beyond sat a small woman at a desk. She rose at their approach.

“We’re here to see Dr. Collopy,” said Custer, looking around, wondering why a secretary had such a fancy office.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said. “Dr. Collopy’s not here.”

“He’s not?” Custer and Manetti said in chorus.

The secretary shook her head, looking flustered. “He hasn’t been back since lunch. Said he had some important business to take care of.”

“But lunch was hours ago,” Custer said. “Isn’t there some way he can be reached?”

“There’s his private cell phone,” the secretary said.

“Dial it.” Custer turned to Manetti. “And you, call around to some of the other top brass. See if they know where this Collopy is.”

Manetti moved off to another desk, picked up a phone. The large office fell silent, save for the beep of numbers being dialed. Custer looked around. The space was paneled in very dark wood, and it was chock-full of bleak oil paintings and forbidding-looking displays parked behind glass-fronted cabinets. Christ, it was like a house of horrors.

“The cell phone’s turned off, sir,” the secretary said.

Custer shook his head. “Isn’t there any other number you can call? His house, for example?”

The secretary and Manetti exchanged looks. “We aren’t supposed to call there,” she said, looking even more flustered.

“I don’t care what you’re supposedto do. This is urgent police business. Call his house.”

The secretary unlocked a desk drawer, rummaged through a file of index cards, plucked one out. She looked at it a moment, shielding it from Custer’s and Manetti’s view. Then she replaced the card, locked the drawer, and dialed a number.

“Nobody’s picking up,” she said after a moment.

“Keep ringing.”

Half a minute went by. Finally, the secretary replaced the phone in its cradle. “There’s no answer.”

Custer rolled his eyes. “All right, listen. We can’t waste any more time. We have good reason to believe that the key to the serial killer known as the Surgeon—perhaps even the killer himself—will be found here in the Museum. Time is of the essence. I’m going to personally supervise a thorough search of the Archives. Lieutenant Detective Piles will be in charge of questioning certain staff members.”

Manetti was silent.

“With the Museum’s cooperation, I think we can get through this by midnight, if not sooner. We’ll need a room for interrogation. We will require power for our recording machinery, a sound engineer, and an electrician. I will require identification from everyone, and access to personnel files on an ongoing basis.”

“Just which staff members are you going to question?” Manetti asked.

“We will determine that from the files.”

“We have two thousand five hundred employees.”

This temporarily floored Custer. Twenty-five hundred people to run a museum? What a welfare program.He took a breath, carefully recomposing his features. “We will deal with that. As a start, we’ll need to interview, let’s see . . . night watchmen who might have noticed any unusual comings or goings. And that archaeologist who excavated those skeletons, found the others down on Doyers Street, and—”

“Nora Kelly.”

“Right.”

“The police have already spoken with her, I believe.”

“So we’ll be speaking with her again. And we’ll want to talk to the head of security—that’s you—about your security arrangements, in the Archives and elsewhere. I want to question everyone connected with the Archives and the discovery of, ah, Mr. Puck’s body. How’s that for a start?” He gave a quick, artificial smile.

There was a silence.

“Now, direct me to the Archives, please.”

For a moment, Manetti just stared at him, as if the situation was beyond his powers of comprehension.

“Direct me to the Archives, Mr. Manetti, and make it now, if you please.”

Manetti blinked. “Very well, Captain. If you’ll follow me.”

As they walked down the storied halls, cops and administrators in tow, Custer felt a huge swelling of excitement at his newly found self-confidence. He’d finally discovered his true calling. Homicide was where he should have been all along. It was obvious he was a natural; he had a knack for the work. His being put in charge of this case had not been a fluke. It had been destiny.

FIVE

SMITHBACK STOOD IN the dark hall, struggling to control his fright. It was fright that was his problem here, not locked doors. Clearly, at least one of them must be unlocked: he had just come through it.

As deliberately as he could, he went down the hall once again, trying all the doors, shaking harder this time, even at the cost of making some noise, pushing at the jambs, making sure they weren’t simply stuck. But no, it wasn’t his imagination. They were all securely locked.

Had somebody locked the door behind him? But that was impossible: the room had been empty. A gust of wind had closed it. He shook his head, searching unsuccessfully for amusement in his own paranoia.

The doors, he decided, must lock automatically when shut. Maybe that was a feature of old houses like this. No problem: he would find another way out of the house. Downstairs, through the reception hall and out a first floor window or door. Perhaps out the porte-cochère door, which had every appearance of being functional—in fact it was probably the very door used by the custodian. Relief coursed through him at this thought. It would be easier; it would save him the trouble of having to climb back down that outside wall.

All he had to do was find his way to it through the dark house.

He stood in the hall, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. The place was so quiet, so unusually quiet, that he found his ears alert for the faintest sound. The silence, he told himself, was a good sign. No custodian was around. He probably came only once a week, at most; or maybe only once a year, given all the dust in the place. Smithback had all the time in the world.

Feeling a little sheepish, he made his way back to the head of the stairs and peered down. The carriage door, it seemed to him, should be to the left, somewhere off the reception hall. He descended the stairs and paused warily at the bottom, peering again at the strange, endless displays. Still, no sound. The place was clearly deserted.

He remembered Pendergast’s theory. What if Leng reallyhad succeeded . . . ?

Smithback forced himself to laugh out loud. What the hell was he thinking about? Nobody could live 150 years. The darkness, the silence, the mysterious collections were getting to him.

He paused, taking stock. A passage ran off from the hall to the left, in what he thought was the right direction. It lay in complete darkness, yet it seemed the most promising. He should have thought to bring a damn flashlight. No matter: he would try that first.

Stepping carefully, avoiding the display cases and sheeted objects, he walked across the hall and into the side passage. His pupils refused to dilate further and the corridor remained pitch black, the darkness an almost palpable presence around him. He fumbled in his pocket, found the box of matches he’d picked up at the Blarney Stone. He lit one, the scraping and flaring of the match unpleasantly loud in the still air.

The flickering light revealed a passage leading into another large room, also crammed with wooden cabinets. He took a few steps forward until the matchlight died away. Then he went on as far as he dared into the blackness, felt around with his hand, found the doorframe of the room, drew himself forward again. Once he was inside, he lit another match.

Here was a different kind of collection: rows and rows of specimens in jars of formaldehyde. He caught a quick glimpse of rows of gigantic, staring eyeballs in jars—whale eyeballs? Trying not to waste the light, he hurried forward, stumbling over a large glass jeroboam on a marble pedestal, filled with what looked like a huge floating bag. As he got back on his feet and lit another match, he caught a glimpse of the label: Mammoth stomach, containing its last meal, from the icefields of Siberia . . .

He went quickly on, passing as fast as he could between the rows of cabinets, until he arrived at a single wooden door, battered and scarred. There was a sudden sharp pain as the match burned his fingers. Cursing, he dropped it, then lit another. In the renewed flare of light, he opened the door. It led into a huge kitchen, tiled in white and black. There was a deep stone fireplace set into one wall. The rest of the room was dominated by a huge iron stove, a row of ovens, and several long tables set with soapstone sinks. Dozens of pots of greenish copper were suspended from ceiling hooks. Everything looked decayed, covered with a thick layer of dust, cobwebs, and mouse droppings. It was a dead end.

The house was huge. The matches wouldn’t last forever. What would he do when they ran out?

Get a grip, Smithback,he told himself. Clearly, no one had cooked in this kitchen in a hundred years. Nobody lived in the house. What was he worrying about?

Relying on memory, without lighting any more matches, he backtracked into the large room, feeling his way along the glass-fronted cases. At one point he felt his shoulder brush against something. A second later, there was a tremendous crash at his feet, and the sudden biting stench of formaldehyde. He waited, nerves taut, for the echoes to abate. He prepared to light a match, thought better of it—was formaldehyde flammable? Better not experiment now. He took a step, and his stockinged foot grazed something large, wet, and yielding. The specimen in the jar.He gingerly stepped around it.

There had been other doors set into the passageway beyond. He would try them one at a time. But first, he paused to remove his socks, which were sodden with formaldehyde. Then, stepping into the passageway, he ventured another match. He could see four doors, two on the left wall, two on the right.

He opened the closest, found an ancient, zinc-lined bathroom. Sitting in the middle of the tiled floor was the grinning skull of an allosaurus. The second door fronted a large closet full of stuffed birds; the third, yet another closet, this one full of stuffed lizards. The fourth opened into a scullery, its walls pocked and scarred, ravaged by traceries of mildew.

The match went out and Smithback stood in the enfolding darkness. He could hear the sound of his own stertorous breathing. He felt in the matchbook, counted with his fingers: six left. He fought back—less successfully this time—the scrabbling panic that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d been in tough situations before, tougher than this. It’s an empty house. Just find your way out.

He made his way back to the reception hall and its shrouded collections. Being able to see again, no matter how faintly, calmed him a little—there was something utterly terrifying about absolute darkness. He looked around again at the astounding collections, but all he could feel now was a rising dread. The foul smell was stronger here: the sickly-sweet odor of decay, of something that by all rights belonged under several feet of earth . . .

Smithback took a series of deep, calming breaths. The thick layers of undisturbed dust on the floor proved the place was deserted; that even the caretaker, if there was one, hardly ever came.

He glanced around again, eyes wide against the faint light. On the far side of the hall, a shadowy archway led into what looked like a large room. He walked across the hall, bare feet padding on the parquet floor, and passed beneath the archway. The walls of the room beyond were paneled in dark wood, rising to a coffered ceiling. This room, too, was filled with displays: some shrouded, others raised on plinths or armatures. But the displays themselves were utterly different from what he had seen before. He stepped forward, looking around, bafflement mixing with the sharp sense of trepidation. There were large steamer trunks, some with glass sides, bound in heavy leather straps; galvanized containers like antique milk cans, their lids studded with heavy bolts; an oddly shaped, oversized wooden box, with copper-lined circles cut out of its top and sides; a coffin-shaped crate, pierced by half a dozen swords. On the walls hung ropes, strings of moldering kerchiefs tied end-to-end; straitjackets, manacles, chains, cuffs of various sizes. It was an inexplicable, eerie display, made the more unsettling by its lack of relation to what he had seen before.

Smithback crept on into the center of the room, keeping away from the dark corners. The front of the house, he figured, would be straight ahead. The other side of the house had proven a dead end; surely he would have better luck this way. If need be, he would batter down the front door.

At the far end of the room, another passageway led off into darkness. He stepped gingerly into it, feeling his way along one wall, sliding his feet forward with small, tentative steps. In the faintest of light he could see the hall ended in another room, much smaller and more intimate than the ones he had passed through before. The specimens were fewer here—just a few cabinets filled with seashells and some mounted dolphin skeletons. It seemed to have once been a drawing room or parlor of some kind. Or perhaps—and at the thought, fresh hope surged within him—an entryway?

The only illumination came from a single pinprick of light in the far wall, which sent a pencil-thin beam of light through the dusty air. A tiny hole in one of the boarded windows. With a huge sense of relief he quickly crossed the room and began feeling along the wall with his fingers. There was a heavy oak door here. The hope that was rising within him grew stronger. His fingers fell on a marble doorknob, oversized and terribly cold in his hands. He grasped it eagerly, turned.

The knob refused to budge.

With desperate strength, he tried again. No luck.

He stepped back and, with a groan of despair, felt along the edge of the door with his hands, searching for a deadbolt, lock, anything.An overwhelming sense of fear returned.

Heedless of the noise now, he threw himself against the door, once, twice, rushing at it with all his weight, trying desperately to break it down. The hollow thumps echoed through the room and down the hall. When the door still refused to budge, he stopped and leaned against it with a gasp of panic.

As the last echoes died away, something stirred from within the well of blackness in a far corner of the room. A voice, low and dry as mummy dust, spoke.

“My dear fellow, leaving so soon? You’ve only just got here.”

SIX

CUSTER BURST THROUGH the door to the Archives and planted himself in the middle of the entryway, hands on his hips. He could hear the patter of heavy-shod feet as his officers fanned out behind him. Fast and furious,he reminded himself. Don’t give ’em time to think.He observed—with more than a little satisfaction—the consternation of the two staff members who had leapt up at the sight of a dozen uniformed officers bearing down on them.

“This area is to be searched,” Custer barked out. Noyes, stepping forward out of Custer’s shadow, held up the warrant in a superfluous gesture. Custer noted, with approval, that Noyes was glaring almost as balefully at the archivists as he was himself.

“But, Captain,” he heard Manetti protest, “the place has already beensearched. Right after the body of Puck was found, the NYPD had forensics teams, dogs, fingerprint sweepers, photographers, and—”

“I’ve seen the report, Manetti. But that was then. This is now. We have new evidence, important evidence.” Custer looked around impatiently. “Let’s get some light in here, for chrissakes!”

One of the staff jumped and, passing his hand over a vast cluster of ancient-looking switches, turned on a bank of lights within.

“Is that the best you can do? It’s as dark as a tomb in here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right.” Custer turned to his detectives. “You know what to do. Work row by row, shelf by shelf. Leave no stone unturned.”

There was a pause.

“Well? Get to it, gentlemen!”

The men exchanged brief, uncertain glances. But without a questioning word they dutifully fanned out into the stacks. In a moment they were gone, like water absorbed into a sponge, leaving Manetti and Custer and the two frightened staffers alone by the reference desk. The sound of thumping, banging, and rattling began to echo back down the stacks as Custer’s men started to pull things off the shelves. It was a satisfying sound, the sound of progress.

“Have a seat, Manetti,” said Custer, unable now to keep condescension completely out of his voice. “Let’s talk.”

Manetti looked around, saw no available chairs, and remained standing.

“Okay.” Custer removed a leather-covered notebook and gold pen—purchased in Macy’s just after the commissioner gave him the new assignment—and prepared to take notes. “So, what we got here in these Archives? A bunch of papers? Newspapers? Old takeout menus? What?”

Manetti sighed. “The Archives contain documents, as well as specimens not considered important enough for the main collections. These materials are available to historians and others with a professional interest. It’s a low-security area.”

“Low security is right,” Custer replied. “Low enough to get this man Puck’s ass hoisted on a goddamned petrified antler. So where’s the valuable stuff kept?”

“What’s not in the general collection is kept in the Secure Area, a location with a separate security system.”

“What about signing in to these Archives, and all that?”

“There’s a logbook.”

“Where’s the book?”

Manetti nodded at a massive volume on the desk. “It was photocopied for the police after Puck’s death.”

“And what does it record?”

“Everybody who enters or leaves the Archives area. But the police already noticed that some of the most recent pages were razored out—”

“Everybody? Staff as well as visiting researchers?”

“Everybody. But—”

Custer turned to Noyes, then pointed at the book. “Bag it.”

Manetti looked at him quickly. “That’s Museum property.”

“It was. Now it’s evidence.”

“But you’ve already taken all the important evidence, like the typewriter those notes were written on, and the—”

“When we’re done here, you’ll get a receipt for everything.” If you ask nicely,Custer thought to himself. “So, what we got here?” he repeated.

“Dead files, mostly, from other Museum departments. Papers of historical value, memos, letters, reports. Everything but the personnel files and some departmental files. The Museum saves everything, naturally, as a public institution.”

“What about that letter found here? The one reported in the papers, describing those killings. How was that found?”

“You’ll have to ask Special Agent Pendergast, who found it along with Nora Kelly. He found it hidden in some kind of box. Made out of an elephant’s foot, I believe.”

That Nora Kelly again. Custer made a mental note to question her himself once he was done here. She’d be his prime suspect, if he thought her capable of hoisting a heavyset man onto a dinosaur horn. Maybe she had accomplices.

Custer jotted some notes. “Has anything been moved in or out of here in the past month?”

“There may have been some routine additions to the collection. I believe that once a month or so they send dead files down here.” Manetti paused. “And, after the discovery of the letter, it and all related documents were sent upstairs for curating. Along with other material.”