The Forgotten Room

6

It was half past seven when Logan left his rooms, descended the sweeping central staircase, and entered the main dining room. Dark Gables, Lux’s home, had been the product of the febrile imagination of Edward Delaveaux. During its construction, the reclusive, bizarre millionaire had purchased an ancient French monastery, disassembled it stone by stone, and brought sections wholesale back to Rhode Island to incorporate into his mansion. The dining room had once been the monastery’s refectory. It was a large gothic space, with huge wooden beams forming a vaulted ceiling and decorative arches lining the tapestried walls. The only things breaking the illusion were the two opposing Solomonic, or barley-sugar, columns that — with their inlaid bands spiraling from bottom to top — matched those at the mansion’s main entrance. Such columns were the primary load-bearing supports of the building, and could be found, in varying sizes, throughout Lux.

Logan paused just within the doorway a moment, looking around at the tables, the people dining at them, and the tuxedoed waiters hovering attentively here and there. There were several vaguely familiar faces, still more that he didn’t recognize. The tables were all identical: round, seating six, covered with crisp white linen tablecloths.

One of the closest tables was almost empty. There were just two people seated at it, a man and a woman, and another place setting indicating that a third person had temporarily left the table. Logan recognized the seated man. He was Jonathan King, a specialist in game theory. While Logan hadn’t been close to King during his time at Lux, the man had always been friendly. He began walking toward the table. As he did so, he was aware of people doing double takes as he passed. He’d had his image on the cover of enough magazines that he was used to this.

King looked up as Logan approached. He looked blank for a moment; then his face broke into a smile. “Jeremy!” he said, standing up and shaking Logan’s hand. “What a surprise. And a pleasure.”

“Hi, Jonathan,” Logan replied. “May I join you?”

“Of course.” King turned toward the woman who was seated beside him. She was perhaps thirty years of age, with black hair and bright, inquisitive eyes. “This is Zoe Dempster,” King said. “Joined Lux six months ago as a junior Fellow. She’s a specialist in limits and multivariable calculus.”

Hearing this, Logan remembered how, at the think tank, people were automatically introduced not only with their name but their specialty. “Hello,” he said with a smile.

“Hello.” Dempster frowned. “Have we met before?”

“This is Jeremy Logan,” King said.

The frown remained for a moment. Then a lightbulb went on over her head. “Oh. You’re the—” and she stopped suddenly.

“That’s right,” Logan said. “The ghost detective.”

Dempster laughed with something like relief. “You said it, not me.”

Logan caught a glimpse of Olafson. He was seated at a table in the rear of the dining room, along with vice director Perry Maynard and several others. Looking up, the director noticed Logan’s glance and nodded.

“Jeremy was in residence here for a time,” King said tactfully. “That was — How long ago was it, Jeremy?”

“Almost ten years.”

“Ten years. Hard to believe.” King shook his head. “Are you back here for more research?”

Logan noticed the way the two were looking at him. He knew they were curious about his presence here, and he was considering the best way to answer, when somebody sat down at the third table setting: a man in his late fifties, with close-cropped black-and-silver hair and a beautifully trimmed beard that would have done Sigmund Freud proud. He set down a cup full of black coffee beside his plate, then looked over at Logan with an expression of theatrical surprise.

“Well, well,” he said. “I was wondering if you might be showing up about now.”

“Hello, Roger,” said Logan.

“Hullo, yourself.” Roger Carbon had a honeyed English accent that somehow made everything he said sound slightly disdainful. He turned to the others. “Jonathan, you remember Jeremy Logan, no doubt. Zoe, you wouldn’t. Although you might have seen him on television. I happened to catch you on CNN just the other night. ‘There ain’t no Nessie.’ How droll.”

Logan merely nodded. Roger Carbon, specialist in evolutionary psychology, had been Logan’s nemesis during his time at Lux, considering his work on enigmas and the qualification of supernatural phenomena to be sensationalist, beneath the institution. Carbon had been one of a small group that had been instrumental in seeing that Logan was asked to leave.

A waiter appeared at Logan’s side with a small printed menu; Logan glanced at it, checked off his choices, and passed it back to the waiter, who quickly vanished.

“I must say, the modus operandi you described sounded remarkably scientific,” Carbon went on airily. “And you have a name for your, ah, discipline now — don’t you?”

“Enigmalogy,” Logan said.

“That’s it. Enigmalogy. As I recall, you had not yet gotten as far as a name during your time here at Lux.”

“Remarkable what can happen in a decade,” Logan replied, tolerating the man’s snide tone.

“It is indeed. Can I assume, then, that you’ve codified this new field of yours? Systematized it, established its principles? Can we expect a textbook any time soon? Ghostbreaking 101, perhaps? Or, no — Spooks for Dummies?”

“Roger,” Jonathan King warned.

“I’ve gotten very good at ancient curses, too,” Logan said, careful to keep his tone light. “In fact, I’m offering a special today: I’ll hex two people of your choice for the price of one.”

Zoe Dempster chortled, covered her mouth with one hand. King smiled. Carbon took a sip of coffee, ignoring the remark.

“But you are here about Strachey, right?” he asked, changing the subject.

“More or less,” Logan said.

“Well, let’s have some details, then!”

“Another time. Suffice to say the board has asked me to make some inquiries into the nature of his death.”

“The nature of his death. Nobody’s talking much about that, but the word is it was pretty ghastly.” Carbon gave him a penetrating gaze. “Is it true Strachey’s head was found in a rosebush?”

“I couldn’t say,” Logan replied, with a double meaning.

“Well, at least tell us how you’re going to get started.”

“I’ve started already.”

Carbon digested this for a moment. Clearly, he did not like the insinuation.

Logan’s first course appeared: frisée salad with lardons and a poached egg. “Actually, I thought I’d drop in on Perry Maynard.”

“Ah. Well, when you do, be sure to ask him about the others.”

Logan stopped in the act of raising his fork. “Others?”

“Others.” And Carbon finished his coffee, dabbed primly at his mouth with a linen napkin, smiled at King, winked at Zoe Dempster, then rose and left the table without another word.