Logan nodded slowly. Hard as it was to believe, it appeared that — for many decades — Lux academics and scientists had worked and studied and experimented here in the West Wing…never knowing that, all the time, a secret room had lain hidden in their midst.
“Good lord,” Olafson said, following the beam of Logan’s flashlight as it settled on the heavy, armorlike metal suits that hung from the projecting bar in one corner. “What on earth could have gone on in here?”
“You’re the director,” Logan said. “I realize there’s not much to go on. But does anything you see here suggest projects that may have been undertaken during Lux’s early years at Dark Gables?”
Olafson thought a moment. Then he shook his head. “No.” He hesitated. “I don’t see any door. How did you find this room, exactly?
“That tarp had been carefully nailed over the exposed lath, along with this.” Logan reached outside, picked up the scrawled sign that read HAZARDOUS AREA — OFF-LIMITS. “I noticed a fist-sized hole in the lath, recently plugged with plaster. It aroused my curiosity. So I investigated.”
“And you said Strachey had just sent the workmen away,” Olafson murmured. He looked around again. “Do you suppose he was the one who made that hole, discovered this room?”
“He’d be an obvious choice. But then, why seal it up again, send the workers away on a pretext?” Logan pointed to the sign. “Does this look like his handwriting?”
“Impossible to say, given the block letters.”
“Want to hear something else interesting? I tried contacting the general contractor. William Rideout, based in Westerly. All I got was an answering service. It seemed that Mr. Rideout has abruptly retired, and is currently traveling, exact location unknown.”
Olafson took this in. He seemed about to speak, but then he simply shook his head.
Logan let the sign slip to the floor. “Who here could tell me more about the West Wing?”
“Ironically, Strachey would have been your man. He’s been living and breathing the place for the last six months.” Olafson paused, as if considering something. “Look here. We’d better not tell anybody about this place — at least, not until we have a better idea of what its purpose was and why it was boarded up.”
“And I’m going to examine the original blueprints in Strachey’s office. I’d like to see how this room relates to its surroundings — and figure out if the West Wing houses any other secrets we should know about.” Logan glanced at the director. “There’s something else. At dinner the other night, Roger Carbon told me that I should be asking about ‘the others.’ ”
“The others,” Olafson repeated slowly.
“I mentioned it to Perry Maynard, but he sidestepped the question.”
A frown crossed Olafson’s face. “Carbon is a brilliant psychologist, but he can be rather a divisive influence.” He hesitated. “Before Strachey’s death, there were a few reports of…ah…rather odd incidents involving some other residents here at Lux.”
“Odd how?”
“Nothing all that alarming. Certainly nothing anywhere near what happened to Will. Hearing voices, seeing things that weren’t there.”
Nothing all that alarming. “When was this, exactly?”
Olafson thought for a moment. “A month ago, maybe. Six weeks, at most.”
“And it went on for how long?”
“A week or two.”
“How many were affected?”
“A handful. We didn’t think there was a connection. And we didn’t want you to start barking up the wrong tree.”
“Can you get me a list of names of the affected personnel?”
Olafson frowned. “Now, Jeremy, I really don’t think—”
“I can’t afford to ignore any leads. And this sounds like a lead to me.”
“But…well, I doubt those involved would want others to know.”
“Carbon knew.”
Olafson hesitated again. “And I’m sure they’d be disinclined to talk about it. It’s…I imagine it’s a little embarrassing.”
“I’ve had plenty of experience dealing with embarrassing experiences. I’ll let them know they can rely on my utmost discretion.” When Olafson didn’t reply, Logan continued. “Look, Gregory. You brought me here. You can’t ask me to open an investigation and then tie my hands.”
Olafson sighed. “Very well. But I’ll require your utmost tact. Lux’s reputation as a conservative, serious-minded institution is its most important asset.”
“So I’m told.”
“Well, then. I’ll see about furnishing you with a list.” Olafson took another look around in the reflected beam of the flashlight, disbelief once more settling over his features. Then he turned and, without another word, allowed Logan to lead the way out of the shadow-haunted chamber and back toward the tenanted regions of Lux.
14
Late that evening, Logan returned to the room. He waited until, once again, most of the activity at Lux had subsided for the night; it was highly unlikely of course that anybody else would be in the West Wing, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
He unpinned the tarp, tucked it aside, then ducked through the opening he had made previously. In one hand, he held a flashlight; in the other, a large, tungsten barn door lamp of the kind used on movie sets, which he had borrowed from a mystified Ian Albright. He placed it on its collapsible stand in one corner, then ran the cord to an outlet beneath the worktable. Returning to the lamp, he snapped it on. The space suddenly was flooded with brilliance. He wanted — needed — that brilliance for the kind of minute examination he now planned to undertake.
The danger he had sensed upon first crossing the threshold of the forgotten room had not gone away. But — under the eight hundred watts of luminescence provided by the stage lamp — it maintained its distance.
Under one arm was a set of rolled papers. Logan let his duffel slip from his shoulder, placed it on the worktable along with the flashlight, then placed the rolled papers beside them and smoothed them out. These were original blueprints of Lux, which he had appropriated from Strachey’s office that afternoon. He leafed through them until he located the plans for the West Wing. Within a small rectangular box at the bottom were the words DELAVEAUX RESIDENCE. M. FLOOD, ARCHITECT. 1886.
The oversized blue sheet was dense with lines, measurements, and tiny technical notations, but little by little he managed to decipher it. Mentally, he compared the original state of the wing with the new conception that Strachey and his workmen had been assembling. It was clear that the room he had discovered was not in the blueprints. In fact, it appeared that the space he was currently standing in had been designated, at least in part, as a stairwell. That meant one of two things — either the room had been retrofitted into the wing after the mansion’s initial construction…or the plans had been redrafted with the specific intention of hiding the room’s existence.
He rolled the blueprints up and put them aside.
Under the pitiless glare of the light, things he had not noticed before now became visible. A round disk was set flush with the ceiling, decorated with elaborate chasing — no doubt it covered the hole left by a previously installed chandelier. Had this room once been part of a larger, more elegant space? While five framed pictures remained on the walls, there were three bare spots where other objects had once hung — betrayed by the slight yellowing of the paint beneath. While he had originally believed the room to be spotless, he now made out the remains of ash in the fireplace grate.
He stepped into the middle of the room, turning his attention to the large central device. He walked around it slowly several times, examining it curiously. It was unevenly shaped, as long as a coffin and almost twice as high, with appendages of an unknown nature sprouting from its sides and its top. Each appendage was hidden beneath bulging, carefully fitted pieces of protective rosewood, fixed and locked into place like old sewing machine covers, so that it presented a uniform, monolithic surface of polished wood grain.