The Forgotten Room

12

Beyond lay a room. As Logan played his flashlight around it, he saw it had been a laboratory of some kind. There was a single worktable, surrounded by straight-backed chairs, on which sat a few old-fashioned pieces of equipment. A much larger device — waist-high and even more mysterious in appearance — sat in the middle of the floor.

The room was not large — perhaps twenty feet square — and was constructed of the same tasteful cast as the rest of Lux. An elegant fireplace was set into one wall. A few pictures in antique frames hung here and there, but they were not like the pictures seen elsewhere in the mansion: one frame held a Rorschach inkblot; another a painting by Goya. An old-fashioned percolator sat on a corner table. A vintage phonograph stood on a stand in one corner, with a large brass amplifying horn fixed to its top and a hand crank on one side. A stack of 78s in paper sleeves was set on the floor beneath it. Beyond the worktable was a stainless-steel dolly containing a row of what appeared to be medical instruments: forceps, curettes.

In the beam of his flashlight, Logan could see a metal bar fixed to one wall, from which hung bulky suits made of some heavy metal, perhaps lead, with fanlike joints at the elbows, wrists, and knees. Their helmets had faceplates into which thin grilles had been set. The bizarre uniforms looked like alien suits of armor.

He made out, above the wainscoting near his feet, an old-fashioned electrical socket. On a whim, he pulled a circuit tester from his duffel and plugged it in. A green light came on. Odd that this room should have electrical power, when the spaces he’d just passed through did not: perhaps Strachey’s crews shut off the power only to rooms they were actively demolishing.

Except for a pile of plaster chips and pieces of lath caused by Logan’s forced entry, the room was spotless. No dust had accumulated on any of the surfaces. It was like a time capsule, hermetically sealed.

Stranger still — and Logan only now became aware of this fact — was that the room had no apparent means of entry. He shone his flashlight carefully around the walls, but could see no breaks in the polished wood to indicate a doorway of any kind.

What kind of a room was this? And what on earth had it been used for?

Logan took a step forward, then stopped abruptly. Something — some sixth sense or instinct for self-preservation — warned him that he proceeded at his peril, that there was danger here. For a moment, he stood absolutely still. And then he began backing out; but slowly, quietly, as if not to disturb some slumbering thing. He bent down slightly, feeling his way through the hole he’d created. Then — replacing the tarp over the wall as carefully as he could — he made his way stealthily back through the ruins of the West Wing, flashlight licking over the broken surfaces as he went.