Bloodless (Aloysius Pendergast #20)(9)

The detective came forward, and Pendergast took his hand. “How do you do?”

Another man, newly arrived, appeared out of the shadows. “Gordon Carracci, FBI liaison supervisor,” he said. “Just seeing the evidence samples off to Atlanta.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” said Pendergast.

Coldmoon was amazed to see how this had developed: Pendergast sitting like some pasha on his throne, receiving obeisance as various people came forward, one after the other.

“Now, Mr. Cobb,” Pendergast said. “Excuse me—or is it Doctor?”

“It’s Doctor,” the man said stiffly.

“Dr. Cobb, I understand you found the body.”

“Yes.”

“The body isn’t on the way to your office, is it?” Pendergast asked. “How did you happen to come upon it?”

“I like to come in early from time to time to do work before the museum opens. I always do a quick walk-through.”

“Why?”

“It’s a habit. The house is beautiful. It refreshes me. Besides, this being a museum…well, it’s always good to check on things.”

“Naturally. So you saw the body: what then?”

“I immediately checked to see if he was still alive. He was cold to the touch. I backed away so as not to disturb anything and called the police. I then waited for them in my office.”

“I see.” Pendergast turned to Delaplane. “A general question, if I may, Commander: have you had any recent reports of animals being killed or mutilated, unusual signs or symbols painted on the street, or anything else that might suggest cult activity—or the presence of Satanists?”

“God, yes,” said Delaplane. “Savannah draws those people like magnets. We look into them, of course, if we have good reason to think a crime has been committed. We have to be careful, though: those activities can be considered to fall under the religious freedom laws.” She paused. “You think this might be something like that?”

“I refrain from thinking at the beginning of an investigation, Commander.”

“What do you do in place of thinking?” Delaplane asked drily.

“I become a receptacle for information.”

Delaplane gave Coldmoon a pointed glance, raising her eyebrows. Coldmoon shrugged. It was just Pendergast being Pendergast.

Pendergast stared at the floor for a long moment, and then he turned abruptly to Cobb. “Can you kindly tell us a bit about the history of this house?”

“I’d be glad to. But I’m not sure it’s relevant.”

“Right now, nothing is irrelevant.”

Cobb launched into what was obviously a well-rehearsed lecture. “The Owens-Thomas House was built in 1819 by the English architect William Jay, in the Regency style, for Richard Richardson and his wife, Frances. Richardson had made his fortune in the slave trade. He found a profitable niche in shipping enslaved children who’d been forcibly separated from their parents or orphaned from Savannah to New Orleans, where they would be sold.”

Coldmoon felt a shiver of disgust in the matter-of-fact way this was mentioned.

“This house,” Cobb went on, “was built by slave labor. When it was finished, Richardson and his wife and family—along with their nine enslaved people—moved into the house. The enslaved people were housed in that old brick building in the back. Over the course of the next decade, Richardson’s wife and two children died. He fell into economic difficulties and was forced to sell, moved to New Orleans, and then died at sea in 1833. The house was eventually purchased by the mayor of Savannah, George Owens, who moved into the house with his own fifteen enslaved people.”

“Fifteen?” Coldmoon said in disgust. The idea of a man owning a single human being was hard enough to conceive of.

Cobb nodded. “Owens also owned some four hundred other enslaved people on various plantations in the area.”

“Zuzeca,” Coldmoon muttered under his breath.

“The family’s fortunes declined after the Civil War, but they managed to retain the house up until 1951, when the last descendant died with no heir. The house then passed to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, which turned it into a museum, as you see now. It is, in fact, one of Savannah’s most popular tourist attractions.”

Tea was now being served, with some bland-looking biscuits. Pendergast picked up his cup. “Tell me more about the slave quarters in the back.”

“Certainly. Its two stories hold six rooms, in which the enslaved people all lived. The rooms are as barren now as they were then, and many of the residents had to sleep on the floor, with no beds and only threadbare blankets. When slavery was abolished, most of them simply became ‘servants’ and continued living back of the big house, doing the same work as before. But as the Owens family fell upon hard times, the servants were gradually let go. The quarters remained intact, however, until the house was turned into a museum.”

“Most instructive, thank you,” said Pendergast. “So one might say, Dr. Cobb—as we look about at all the beauty and wealth on display here, the erudition and elegance, the fine crystal and silver and rugs and paintings—that all of this, the house and its contents, is a physical manifestation of pure evil?”

This was greeted with a stunned silence, until Cobb finally said: “I suppose you might put it that way.”