The Forgotten Room

15

The elevator doors whispered open onto a dimly lit basement hallway. Jeremy Logan knew that — as with several other areas of the mansion — Lux’s underground complex was strictly off-limits to visitors, day researchers, and even some part-time staff. As a result, it did not need to maintain the rococo elegance of the more public spaces. The hallway in which he found himself, for example, had walls of dressed stone and a curved ceiling faintly reminiscent of the Roman catacombs. The air was pure and chill, however, with no smell of damp or niter.

He glanced at his watch: quarter after one in the afternoon.

The discovery of the forgotten room, along with its overpowering foreignness and mystery, had affected him more than he’d initially realized. He had awoken that morning with an uncharacteristic sense of listlessness, as if he did not know what to do next or where to turn. Newport, however, was possessed of a remarkably comprehensive public library, and a visit to it after breakfast — in particular, to its microfiche and DVD collections — had dispelled his feelings of doubt. If he did not know precisely what to do next, he at least had the germ of an idea.

He’d never been in the mansion’s basement during his tenure at Lux, and there were no signs indicating which way to go, so on a whim he headed left, past the base of the mansion’s central staircase, lacking in these subterranean depths its skin of polished marble. Within a hundred feet he was brought up short by a door of gleaming steel — a remarkable anachronism in this Poe-like space — with a single thick window of tinted Plexiglas, punctuated every few inches by small round holes set into an otherwise featureless surface. A sign on the door read RESEARCH LABORATORIES: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Looking through the window, Logan made out a long hallway of exceptionally modern, high-tech design, lit by recessed fluorescent panels. Closed doors with airbrushed labels lined both sides of the hallway, receding into the distance. It looked like the laboratory complex of a research hospital, save the fact that it appeared to be utterly empty.

There was a keyed panel beside the door, and a card reader, but no phone or buzzer for admittance. Somehow, knocking didn’t seem appropriate. Logan knew that Lux kept its most modern labs here in the basement — not only did this sequestration preserve the antique feel of the other floors, but the building’s status as a historic structure made it a requirement. With a shrug, he turned away from the polished door and decided to try his luck in the other direction.

This yielded better results. After passing the elevator again and following the passage around a bend, he arrived at an open door with a sign that read ARCHIVES. Beyond the door, the walls and ceiling fell away, revealing a most impressive space bathed in bright yet pleasingly mellow light. Row after row of filing cabinets ran from front to back in achingly regular lines, but they were spaced far enough apart to forestall any sense of oppressiveness. At the far end, Logan could just make out another, smaller door, with what looked like a security station beside it. He stepped inside. Decorative wooden columns carved with encircling grape vines marched in serried ranks down the walls of the room. On the ceiling was an elaborate trompe l’oeil painting of Bacchus reclining in a glade, wineskin on his lap, his tresses and limbs being caressed by what appeared to be maenads.

Just inside the door, an elderly woman was seated at an official-looking table. A nameplate on one side of the desk read J. RAMANUJAN. She ran her eyes up and down Logan, lips pursing with an expression he could not decide was appraising or disapproving.

“May I be of assistance?” she asked.

“I’m here to research some of Lux’s early files,” Logan replied.

“ID, please.”

Logan rummaged through his jacket pockets and produced the card that had been provided him during his initial processing. The woman looked at it.

“This is a temporary card,” she told him. “I’m very sorry, but temporary staff are not allowed access to the archives.”

“Yes, I know,” Logan said, half apologetically. “That’s why I was given this, as well.” And he slipped out a letter on Lux stationary. It was written by Olafson, overriding Logan’s temporary status and giving him unrestricted access.

Ms. Ramanujan read the letter over, then handed it back. “How can I help you?”

Logan slid the letter back into his jacket. “I’m not sure, exactly.”

The woman frowned in confusion. “The researchers and scientists who use the archives are always looking for something specific.” Picking up a clipboard from her desk, she turned it toward him. It contained blank document requisition forms. “Before I can be of assistance, I’ll need to know the particular project or assignment you wish to research.”

“I fear the nature of my research is rather…amorphous. Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific until I actually investigate the files.”

This was clearly outside the archivist’s purview. “If you can’t give me a project title, or even a name, perhaps you can provide a time frame? A particular month, say, during which the work took place?”

Logan nodded slowly. “That might work. We could start with the thirties.”

“The thirties?” Ms. Ramanujan repeated.

“The nineteen thirties, yes.”

The woman’s face went strangely blank. She picked up the ID card, which she’d placed on the desk, looked at it, then replaced it on the polished wood. After a moment, she looked up again. “Dr. Logan,” she said, “there are records chronicling over eleven thousand research projects here. The total number of documents attached to those projects approaches two and a half million. Do you expect me to retrieve” — she did a quick calculation — “some two hundred thousand documents for your perusal?”

“No, no,” Logan said quickly.

“Then what do you suggest?”

“If I could just do my own, ah, browsing through the stacks, it would probably give me a better indication of what I’m searching for — and perhaps very quickly, as well.”

There was a pause. “Researchers are not normally admitted to the stacks themselves,” the woman said. “Especially temporary researchers. It is most unusual.”

In response, Logan let Olafson’s letter peep out again from his jacket pocket.

The archivist sighed. “Very well. You may use that table over there, if you need to. But take no more than five folders from the stacks at a time. And please be careful when you refile them.”

“I will,” Logan assured her. “Thank you.”

Over the next three hours, Logan — under the watchful gaze of the archivist — moved back and forth between the stacks and the research table, thick folders in hand each time. He opened the folders and scanned them quickly, scribbling observations into a small notebook with a gold pen. At first, his investigations took him all over the large room. But later, he narrowed his concentration to a much smaller area. Now his examination of the folders became more studious, his reading slower. At last he put the final set of folders away, and — instead of doing additional reading — moved from stack to stack, gazing into various drawers, all the time making notations in his journal as if tallying something. Finally, he put the notebook away and returned to the archivist.

“Thank you,” he said.

Ms. Ramanujan inclined her head as she returned his ID card.

“I have a question. Extensive as these files are, there doesn’t seem to be anything more recent than 2000.”

“That is correct. These archives contain only files of closed or inactive research.”

“Then where is the more recent documentation kept?”

“Some of it, of course, is kept with the scientists doing the research. The rest is in archive two, beyond that door.” And she pointed toward the far end of the room.

“I see. Thank you again.” And Logan turned away, heading in the indicated direction.

“Wait—” the woman began. But Logan was already moving quickly toward the back of the room, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor.

At the back of the vast space — as he’d noticed upon first entering — was a security station, blocking the door beyond. A lone man in the garb of Lux’s security staff sat at a desk within it. He stood up as Logan approached.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“I’d like to examine the recent archives,” Logan said, nodding toward the door.

“Your ID, please,” the guard said.

To save time, Logan presented not only the ID but the letter from Olafson as well.

The guard examined them, then handed them back. “I’m sorry, sir, but you have insufficient privileges to access archive two.”

“But this letter from Dr. Olafson—”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the guard repeated in a firmer tone, “but only persons with a level-A access or greater are permitted past this door.”

Level A? Logan had never heard of such a thing. In fact, during his time at Lux, he hadn’t been aware of any access levels at all. “But—” he began, taking a step forward.

In response, the guard moved to block his progress. As he did so, Logan caught sight of a nightstick and a can of Mace snugged into the man’s heavy service belt.

“I see,” Logan said slowly. Then he nodded, turned, and made his way back through the stacks and into the basement corridor beyond.