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.”
“I see no supposition in the statement,” Pendergast replied.
A silence fell, and Pendergast half closed his eyes and tented his hands. “Odd, isn’t it,” he said languidly, “that such a crime occurred here, of all places?” And, finishing his tea, he helped himself to another cup.
8
THE CHANDLER HOUSE WAS a historic hotel on Chatham Square, a long building with a pressed-brick exterior and an ornate iron veranda that stretched the length of the second and third floors, with decorative supporting columns. To Coldmoon, it looked more like an industrial-size southern cathouse than anything else.
“How lucky Constance was able to secure us such an extensive suite of rooms,” Pendergast said.
After their interview that morning, Pendergast had disappeared for several hours before showing up at the hotel. Coldmoon knew better than to ask him where he’d been. They were now sitting in overstuffed chairs in the hotel’s ornate parlor, drinking mint juleps. The canary-yellow room was overflowing with historical memorabilia, in the form of silver trophy cups and giant soup tureens, photographs, faded flags, marble busts, clocks, framed documents, and other obscure objects displayed behind glass, sitting on mantelpieces, or hiding within shaded alcoves.
“Yeah, very lucky,” Coldmoon said without enthusiasm. It was an “extensive suite of rooms” for sure, but his own set were separate from those of Pendergast and Constance. Not for the first time, he wondered exactly what was going on between the two of them. Pendergast called her his “ward,” but Coldmoon often wondered if that was simply a title of convenience.
The julep had been pressed into his hand before he’d had a chance to order anything, and the more he sipped it, the less he liked it. He wondered if he could exchange it for a cold beer but couldn’t quite work up the nerve to ask.
“Is the julep tart enough for you?” Pendergast asked.
“It’s tart,” Coldmoon agreed.
Pendergast looked around with satisfaction. “This is one of the more notable buildings in Savannah’s historic district,” he said. “That’s no mean feat, when you consider that almost half the structures in town are significant architecturally or historically.” His tone had taken on a faintly didactic air, and in this antique parlor, at the heart of what had once been the Old South, he seemed more in his element than Coldmoon had ever seen him. The phrase like a pig in shit came to mind, but he didn’t voice it.