“What other assumption can I make?”
For a moment, a strange look came over Olafson’s face. Instantly, Logan sensed what it was: the look of a man who had just fitted two pieces of a puzzle together.
“What is it?” he asked quickly.
Olafson did not answer immediately. Then he roused himself. “I’m sorry?”
“You’ve just thought of something. What is it?”
Olafson hesitated. “Oh, nothing. I’m just trying to absorb all these deductions of yours, that’s all, get them straight in my mind.”
“I see. Well, I’d like to ask you a favor. Could you get me a list of all the Fellows who were working here at Lux from, say, 1930 to 1935?”
“A list,” Olafson repeated.
“As I told you, all the names of the scientists had been redacted from the files. If I could learn who was involved, perhaps I could work backward and discover more about the actual project.”
“I’m afraid that would be quite impossible. We don’t keep any such list — never did. Some people have reasons to keep their work, and their time at Lux, to themselves. If somebody wants to add their period at Lux to their curriculum vitae, that’s their business…but we make it a point never to broadcast it.”
Logan looked speculatively at him for a moment. Throughout the conversation, the director had proven singularly unhelpful.
“In any case, I don’t see what any of this has to do with Strachey’s death,” Olafson went on. “And that, after all, is why I summoned you here.”
Logan took a new tack. “I wasn’t allowed into archive two,” he said. “I was told something about level-A access. What is that? I thought I had unrestricted access to Lux’s records.”
It took Olafson a moment to parse this sudden change in subject. Then a slightly chagrined look came over his face. “I’m sorry. You have access to ninety-five percent. But there are a few recent projects, still ongoing, that deal with extremely sensitive kinds of work.”
“Work so sensitive it requires a dedicated guard?” Logan asked. “I thought you told me you had a — what was the phrase? — skeletal security force.”
Olafson laughed a little uncomfortably. “Jeremy, just because we won’t work for the military doesn’t mean there aren’t projects at Lux that don’t have their…classified aspects. It’s something you had no experience with during your tenure here, and you have no reason to concern yourself with it now. The vast majority of Lux’s work, while of course proprietary, doesn’t fall under that rubric. Fellows working on current projects have the option of keeping their files in archive two. Will Strachey didn’t avail himself of that option — as you’ve seen, he was the most open of men, kept all his files in his office. Like almost everyone, yourself included, Strachey had level-B access. Level-A access is restricted to those few working on high-security projects.”
When Logan didn’t reply, Olafson continued. “Really, Jeremy, there’s no connection between any classified work going on here at Lux and Will’s death. None at all. And he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
For a long moment, Logan didn’t say anything. Then he nodded.
The director put his hands on his desk. “Well. Anything else?”
“Do you have that list I requested earlier? Of, ah, ‘affected personnel.’ ”
“Yes.” Olafson unlocked a drawer of his desk, reached in, and withdrew a sealed envelope, which he handed to Logan.
“Just one thing more. Did Lux ever do any radio research in the early part of the century?”
Olafson thought a moment. “I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of any. Why?”
“Because I found a vintage radio in Strachey’s rooms. Well, it looked like a radio from the outside, anyway. I thought maybe he’d picked it up around here from some abandoned project.”
Olafson chuckled. “Will was always collecting strange bits of antique technology and mechanical curiosa. You must have noticed examples of it in his rooms. He loved to haunt flea markets for the stuff.” He shook his head. “It’s funny, really, because as brilliant as he was with software, he was terrible with anything mechanical or electrical. It was all he could do to screw in a lightbulb or sail his beloved boat.” He stood up. “Well, despite everything, I’ve worked up an appetite. Shall we go down to dinner?”
“Why not?” And picking up his satchel, Logan let Olafson usher him out of the office.
17
Pamela Flood leaned over the drafting table in her office, both elbows resting on an overlapping assortment of plans and schematics, completely absorbed in the west elevation of a building she was sketching. Although, like almost all modern architects, she rendered her final drawings via software — her own choice was AutoCAD Architecture — Pamela preferred doing her initial sections for a project by hand, allowing ideas to flow naturally from the point of her pencil. And this was a very special project — the renovation, from footing to roofbeam, of an old cannery on Thames Street into a condominium complex. She had always wanted to do more commercial work, and this might well lead to a series of —
She suddenly realized that — thanks to her absorption in the sketch and the Birth of the Cool CD playing in the background — she hadn’t noticed the doorbell ringing. Straightening up, she left her office, went down the passage beyond, through the parlor of the rambling old house, and into the front hall. She opened the door only to look into the gray eyes of a tall man with light brown hair, who, judging by his face, was perhaps forty years old. It was a nice face, she thought: reflective, with sculpted cheekbones and the faintest hint of a cleft in the chin, the skin smooth in the rays of the late morning sun. It looked vaguely familiar, somehow.
“Ms. Flood?” the man said, handing her a business card. “My name is Jeremy Logan. I wondered if I could have a few minutes of your time.”
Pamela glanced at the card. It read merely DR. JEREMY LOGAN, DEPT. OF HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY. The man didn’t look all that much like a history professor. He was a little too tanned, with a slender but athletic build, and he was wearing a bespoke suit instead of the usual hairy tweeds. Was this a potential client? And then she realized she was leaving him standing on the doorstep.
“I’m so sorry. Please come in.” And she ushered him into the parlor.
“This is a very attractive house,” he said as they sat down. “Did your great-grandfather design it?”
“As a matter of fact, he did.”
“The Victorian lines are refreshingly unique among so much Colonial and Italianate architecture here in Newport.”
“Are you a student of architecture, Dr. Logan?”
“To quote a line from an old movie, ‘I don’t know a lot about anything, but I know a little about practically everything.’ ” And the man smiled.
“You must know a lot about history, at any rate.”
“The problem with history, Ms. Flood, is that it keeps on happening whether you want it to or not. At least a Shakespeare scholar, say, can go about his or her work fairly confident that new plays aren’t going to turn up.”
Pamela laughed. The man might be charming, but she had a condominium to design. The initial plans were due to be submitted in just two weeks. “How can I help you, Dr. Logan?”
The man crossed one knee over the other. “As it happens, I’m here about your great-grandfather. His name was Maurice Flood, right? An architect like yourself.”
“That’s right.”
“And, among other grand residences, he designed the Delaveaux mansion in the mid-1880s. The mansion that came to be known as Dark Gables.”
At this, the slightest tickle of alarm coursed through Pamela. She did not reply.
“Now, of course, home to Lux.”