Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [87]
Still, D’Agosta stared at the painting. There was something, a thought that wouldn’t quite rise into consciousness. The painting was trying to tell him something. He stared at it.
Then, all of a sudden, he realized what it was.
“This painting,” he said. “Look at it. It’s like those watercolors on the table. The ones he did later in life.”
Pendergast did not look up. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
“You said it yourself. The mouse in the painting—it’s clearly an Audubon mouse.”
“Yes, very similar to the ones he painted in Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America.”
“Okay. Now look at that mouse on that pile of early drawings.”
Slowly, Pendergast raised his head. He looked at the painting and then the drawings. He glanced toward D’Agosta. “Your point, Vincent?”
D’Agosta gestured toward the refectory table. “That early mouse. I’d never have thought Audubon drew it. Same for all that early stuff, those still lifes and sketches. I’d never have thought those were by Audubon.”
“That’s precisely what I said earlier. Therein lies the conundrum.”
“But I’m not so sure it’s a problem.”
Pendergast looked at him, curiosity kindling in his eyes. “Go on.”
“Well, we have those early, mediocre sketches. And then we have this woman. What happened in between?”
The glimmer in Pendergast’s eyes grew brighter. “The illness happened.”
D’Agosta nodded. “Right. The illness changed him. What other answer is there?”
“Brilliant, my dear Vincent!” Pendergast smacked the arms of his chair and leapt to his feet, pacing about the room. “The brush with death, the sudden encounter with his own mortality, somehow changed him. It filled him with creative energy, it was the transformative moment of his artistic career.”
“We’d always assumed Helen was interested in the subject of the painting,” D’Agosta said.
“Precisely. But remember what Blast said? Helen didn’t want to own the painting. She only wanted to study it. She wanted to confirm when Audubon’s artistic transformation took place.” Pendergast fell silent and his pacing slowed and finally halted. He seemed stuck in a kind of stasis, his eyes turned within.
“Well,” said D’Agosta. “Mystery solved.”
The silvery eyes turned on him. “No.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why would Helen hide all this from me?”
D’Agosta shrugged. “Maybe she was embarrassed by the way you met and the little white lie she told about it.”
“One little white lie? I don’t believe that. She kept this hidden for a far more significant reason than that.” Pendergast sank back into the plush chair and stared at the painting again. “Cover it up.”
D’Agosta draped the cloth over it. He was beginning to get worried. Pendergast did not look completely sane himself.
Pendergast’s eyes closed. The silence in the library grew, along with the ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner. D’Agosta took a seat himself; sometimes it was best to let Pendergast be Pendergast.
The eyes slowly opened.
“We’ve been looking at this problem in entirely the wrong way from the very beginning.”
“And how is that?”
“We’ve assumed Helen was interested in Audubon, the artist.”
“Well? What else?”
“She was interested in Audubon, the patient.”
“Patient?”
A slow nod. “That was Helen’s passion. Medical research.”
“Then why search for the painting?”
“Because he painted it right after his recovery. She wanted to confirm a theory she had.”
“And what theory is that?”
“My dear Vincent, do we know what illness Audubon actually suffered from?”
“No.”
“Correct. But that illness is the key to everything! It was the illness itself she wanted to know about. What it did to Audubon. Because it seems to have transformed a thoroughly mediocre artist into a genius. She knew something had changed him—that’s why she went to New Madrid, where he’d experienced the earthquake: she was searching, far and wide, to understand that agent of change. And