Thank You, Mr. Poe
53
madman who possibly used it as one of the “botanicals” in his elixir that was
responsible for the “addictively lethal blend of chloroform, cocaine
hyi-ochloride, acetanilide, and botanicals” that caused “madness, deformed
births, wasting deaths” {Cabinet o f Curiosities 538).
Moving now to the interior of Pendergast’s familial mansion, this
dilapidated structure has been refurbished by the time the action of Brimstone
begins, but the details upon its introduction in Cabinet o f Curiosities are very
reminiscent of any number of Poe’s works that contain details of underground
chambers, including “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Pit and the
Pendulum.” The spaces below 891 Riverside Drive are referred to as “the
underground vaults” (539), complete with “cells” (543), and a “false wall”
(556); the dwelling possessed a “staircase [that] spiraled down, down,
corkscrewing endlessly into the earth” which eventually ended “into a dark,
murky room, heavy with the smell of mildew, damp earth . . . ” (556-557). In the
chase through the underground maze of 891 Riverside Drive at the conclusion of
the novel, the villain pursued Detective Pendergast through “a narrow stone
chamber, [with] pillars rising toward a low, arched ceiling. . . ” leading into “a
Romanesque vault at the end of the forest of cabinets. A hanging tapestry with a
fringe of gold brocade covered the archway beyond” (559) which finally found
its conclusion in a room filled with “all weapons and armor. . . a veritable
arsenal, dating from Roman times to the early twentieth century” (582). The
descent into the dampness of the underground maze of rooms hearkens back to
“The Cask of Amontillado”; the room of weapons reminds the reader of the
various dungeon-like torture rooms found in “Pit and the Pendulum.”
The Poe-like element of dark imposing architecture is prevalent also in
Brimstone. The entire second half of the book takes place in Italy in various
medieval structures, probably the most technically Gothic in these three of
Preston and Child’s novels. One character lives in Machiavelli’s villa, and at one
point, pictures what it would have been like to look out the window 500 years
earlier, as Machiavelli had done (439).
Within a second Gothic setting in Brimstone, Pendergast finds himself
having “descended a staircase to find [himself] in a low vaulted space. [His
assistant] D’Agosta’s nostrils filled with the smell of mold. To the left, the
flashlight revealed some medieval sarcophagi, several with the bodies of the
deceased carved in marble on the lids, as if asleep. One was shown in a suit of
arm or. . . ” (540). It is in this underground mausoleum that Pendergast and
D’Agosta exhume the body of a former murder victim in order to help solve the
current crime under investigation. The setting is quite dark and dreary and
definitely reminiscent of Poe’s horror tales.
The final and most notable of the terrible Gothic structures in Brimstone, of
course, is Castel Fosco, which “dates back a millennium” (582). It is in the
underground vaults of this structure where he ensconces Pendergast, as I
described at the beginning of this essay. As he quitted the scene of the crime.
Count Fosco “stepped back, kicked a pile of scattered bones into position before