2

2

A FTER A FIFTEEN-MINUTE RIDE down bustling, carriage-filled streets, the wagon stopped at a secure rear entrance to Bellevue—a structure whose thick stone walls resembled the Bastille more than a hospital.

The fly carrying Diogenes stopped across the street as Ferenc was being manhandled inside the hospital, metal door slamming shut behind him.

"Twenty cents, an' you please, mister," the coachman told Diogenes.

"I'd like to wait for a spell, if you don't mind," Diogenes replied, conforming his speech to ne varietur rhythms of the 1880s. "I may require your services further." And he handed the man a Morgan silver dollar that, an hour before, had been in the pocket of a portly gentleman on Broadway.

"All right, guv," the man said, more than happy to idle away the time with a fare willing to pay for the privilege.

Diogenes stared at the thick metal door behind which Ferenc had disappeared. This was most unfortunate. He should have killed him when he had the chance—indulging his own perverse curiosity had caused problems before.

He pondered the situation. Since Ferenc had been taken as a prisoner to Bellevue rather than the nearest station house, Diogenes knew he was bound for the insane ward. Given that, what should he do about it? He could still attempt to kill the man. That would require obtaining a disguise, putting on the false persona of an orderly or cleaner, and gaining access to the proper ward. None of these presented real problems; the most pressing issue was time.

Time… Time, indeed. He looked down at his shoes and trousers—the only articles of clothing still remaining from his own time, and which had gone unnoticed thanks to the mud and the Inverness cape. As he stared, he saw—beneath the mud—evidence of unusual charring on the cuffs of his trousers and on his work boots. He knew that Ferenc had, in effect, put that infernal machine of his on a timer of sorts—keeping the portal open long enough for him to get the coins and return. But this odd charring, along with the screaming and smoking of the machine Diogenes had observed as he followed Ferenc into the portal—

His thoughts were interrupted as a large black barouche pulled up to a different hospital entrance, one reserved for staff. The carriage door opened and a man in elegant attire stepped down. "Elegant" was perhaps an understatement: the man wore a long black double-breasted frock coat with a starched white collar, a silk ascot with a diamond pin, and a buttoned vest across which a gold watch chain traced a glittering arc. An orchid boutonniere—a purple dendrobium—was set off on his left lapel by a small fern curl.

Of intense interest to Diogenes was the pale, aquiline face, with its deep-set sapphire eyes behind small, oval-shaped glasses, and the fair hair and chiseled features that distinguished members of his own family. On his face was a look of distraction, preoccupation… or, perhaps, coldness.

Diogenes knew immediately this must be Professor Enoch Leng, famous for his novel treatment of mental alienation by operating directly on the brain. He was also known by another, even more distinguished name: Antoine Leng Pendergast, scion of the ancient New Orleans family, and the great-granduncle of Diogenes.

He watched as the consulting surgeon vanished into the walls of Bellevue.

What before had seemed a bad outcome might now become the worst possible. In short order, Diogenes felt sure, Leng would become acquainted with Gaspard Ferenc, the "madman" claiming to be from the future… and crying out for a man named Pendergast to save him.

Entering the hospital himself was now moot. Everything depended on what Leng did next. Although the cabbie protested it wasn't necessary, Diogenes flipped him another silver dollar and waited.

In less than an hour, Ferenc emerged from the employee entrance, hardly able to walk, and was assisted into the carriage by a young man in a doctor's uniform, with Leng following. Within moments, the carriage was trotting away—Diogenes giving his own driver instructions to follow at a distance.

Leng's glossy carriage wound its way southward into the poorer neighborhoods of the city, finally arriving at the Five Points, New York's most notorious slum: a maze of narrow alleys and filthy backstreets housing the most desperate and abandoned of the city's residents. The fact that a carriage such as Leng's could travel unmolested through this cesspool of vice and squalor was telling. Diogenes's coachman now earned his two dollars by drawing a conspicuous pistol, ensuring their own less elegant vehicle remained untroubled.

Leng's carriage pulled up near a Gothic Revival building on Catherine Street. An unsavory crowd was gathered before it, drawn by the gold-lettered sign over the entrance: J. C. SHOTTUM'S CABINET OF NATURAL PRODUCTIONS a winter dark began creeping up over the city. Finally, with evident frustration, Leng stalked from the alley and—with a curl of his index finger that reminded Diogenes of Titian's St. John the Baptist —summoned another cab and was quickly lost in the gloom.

Diogenes could have followed, but decided against it. The disaster he feared had happened. Ferenc, of course, was either dead or would soon be—but Leng had already gotten from him everything he needed. That meant Leng knew about Pendergast, Constance, and the time machine. He knew where the portal had appeared and had been searching for it. If he'd managed to jump through it and into the twenty-first century, that would have been disastrous… because the fate of his world, his own world, hung in the balance. Diogenes thanked providence the portal was gone. He strongly suspected Ferenc had red-lined the machine and left it on too long while he'd lingered in this alternate universe. Even as he'd followed Ferenc through the portal, the machine had clearly been overheating. It had likely burned out, and the portal was gone, perhaps forever.

Diogenes had been so preoccupied with the immediate danger, he hadn't stopped to consider that now he very well might be marooned here—with the others—for good.

He departed the grogshop and climbed back into the waiting cab.

"Where now, guv?"

Diogenes remained silent a moment, considering his new situation. Portal or no, there were many things he had to accomplish. First things first: he needed to set up a chessboard in his mind, ponder the placement of the pieces, and decide what the next moves should be. And to do that, he needed a base of operations. Leng knew about not only the presence of Constance Greene, but that of his own brother, Aloysius—and this knowledge made the man infinitely more dangerous.

But there was something else that Leng knew nothing about.

Diogenes cleared his throat. "My good man," he said. "Do you happen to know of any rooms to let? Preferably quiet and out of the way—perhaps a neighborhood where people can be relied upon to mind their own business?"

"I do indeed, sir," said the man. And he shook the reins again.