The Forgotten Room

9

Willard Strachey’s private apartment — his “rooms,” in Lux parlance — was on the third floor of the mansion, just a dozen or so doors down the Lady’s Walk from where his office was located. Logan let himself in with a key provided by Dr. Olafson, closed the door behind him, let his bag drop to the floor, and stood still a moment, taking in the feel of the space beyond. It was just past nine p.m., and the chamber was dark, its furnishings mere dull shapes. After about a minute, Logan turned on the lights.

He hadn’t known what to expect, and the room he was standing in — apparently a combination library and parlor — was a pleasant surprise. The furniture was upholstered in mahogany-colored leather, well lived in and equally well cared for. One wall contained recessed bookcases which — Logan noted — were devoted to a wide variety of subjects: nineteenth-century English novels; Latin classics in translation; a few recent whodunits; biographies; and numerous books on sailing, architecture and design, and the history of computing. The books were not just for display: Logan pulled a few from the shelves and found them to be lovingly read. Several displayed marginal glosses in Strachey’s small, meticulous hand. The Edwardian trappings of the mansion had been tastefully accentuated in this room by a hundred additional touches — vintage sconces, Astrakhan carpets, oil paintings of the English romantic school. There was an old mechanical doll; a vintage wooden radio; a worn sextant — apparently, Strachey was a collector of antique technology. A rolltop desk sat in one corner, with several old fountain pens lined up at one side. Another corner was monopolized by a Steinway Model B, its glossy black finish shining in the mellow light. The room exuded the warm, welcoming feeling of a London gentleman’s club from the turn of the last century. It had taken money to create this atmosphere — Olafson said money wasn’t a problem for Strachey. But it had taken more than that: it had taken time, and patience, and loving care. It was subtle; it was refined; it was delightful. Logan could imagine himself living in a place such as this.

He moved through the rest of the apartment. It was not especially large — a dining room, a compact but expensively supplied kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom — but each space displayed the same care and consideration as the library had. Nowhere did Logan find any evidence of Strachey’s work: that was left in his office, down the hall. Rather, these rooms were devoted to private relaxation with the man’s many avocations: sailing, art, industrial design.

Logan had spent almost the entire afternoon in Strachey’s office, going through his papers, notes, manuscripts, sometimes on his own and sometimes with the assistance of Kim Mykolos. It had been as expected: there were clear signs that the pace of Strachey’s research had been slowing. But as Mykolos had told him, the man had been in essence sealing the cap on a lifetime career, and greatly enjoying the process. Nowhere among the man’s various notes and writings was there any indication of disappointment: just quiet satisfaction at having made significant accomplishments in his field. Logan now felt certain that, whatever might have prompted Strachey’s suicide, it had nothing to do with the twilight of his career.

There had also been several large folders in the office relating to the West Wing renovation, and — feeling overwhelmed — Logan had packed these up and sent them back to his own rooms for later examination. He had then gone to speak with Lux’s doctor in residence. The two spent twenty minutes going over Strachey’s physical and psychological history. As Olafson had indicated, all tests and examinations showed Strachey to have been in excellent health for a man of his age, emotionally stable, with no indications of either preexisting conditions or future complications.

Now he returned to the parlor. He’d held out mild hope that Strachey had kept a diary or private journal, but there was no sign of any. So instead he reached into his duffel, removed the video camera, and made another tour of the apartment, filming each room. Replacing the camera, he took out a small notebook and a rectangular device about the size of a police radio, with a control knob centered at the bottom and a large analog gauge monopolizing the top: a trifield natural EM meter. He made yet another tour of the apartment, carefully watching the needle of the meter and making occasional jottings in his notebook. Finally, he pulled another handheld device from the duffel, studded with knobs, toggle switches, and a digital readout: an air-ion counter. He took several readings, but found the air ionization to be no different from that of the other areas of the mansion he’d sampled already.

His eye drifted around the room, stopping at the antique radio. It was a cathedral-style tabletop model of rose-colored wood. Absently, he turned the power knob to the on position. Nothing happened. Curious, he picked up the radio, turned it over in his hands, opened the back. There was a jumble of old brown and yellow wires and machinery, but the vacuum tubes had been replaced with what at a brief glance appeared to be more modern equipment. He shrugged, replaced it on its shelf, and turned away.

Placing the tools and the notebook back in the duffel, he glanced around again, selected the most comfortable-looking armchair — judging from the nearby book stand and the well-used footrest, Strachey’s favorite chair as well — settled into it, closed his eyes, and waited.

At quite a young age, Logan had discovered he was an empath — someone with a unique, almost preternatural ability to sense the feelings and emotions of others. At times — if those feelings were strong enough, or if the person had resided in one place for a sufficient length of time — Logan could still sense them even after the occupant had departed.

He sat in the chair, in the dim amber light, emptying himself of his own feelings and preoccupations and waiting for the room to speak to him. At first, there was nothing save a vague, dissociated sense of security and comfort. This was not surprising: there were clearly no smoking guns, no hidden skeletons, no emotional issues, that would have prompted Strachey to...

And then something odd happened. As Logan sat there, eyes closed, relaxed, he began to hear music. At first it was soft — so soft it was barely audible. But as he waited, growing attentive, it began to grow clearer: lush, deeply romantic.

This had never happened before. As a sensitive, Logan was used to receiving emotional impressions, strong feelings, occasionally bits and pieces of memories. But never any sensory stimuli such as music. He sat up in the chair and opened his eyes, looking around, to see if perhaps the music was coming from an adjoining set of rooms.

Immediately, the music stopped.

Logan got up, shut off the lights, then returned to the chair. Once again, there was nothing at first. The sense of comfort was gone; so was the music. Gradually he began to be aware that, instead of the well-being he’d felt earlier, he now felt a faint — very faint — sense of uncertainty, perplexity, unease.

And then the piano music returned: once again, softly at first, then louder. The lush, romantic melody was still there — but as Logan listened, it slowly changed. It grew strange, haunting, maddeningly complicated: long rushes of rising arpeggios in a minor key, played faster and faster. There was something disturbing and ineffable in the music — something interwoven into the complex passages, almost below the threshold of comprehension, that seemed to Logan, as he listened, to be almost diabolical.

And then, along with the music, he began to smell something — a smell that was somehow part and parcel of the music itself — an increasingly strong and nauseating reek of burning flesh. A memory came to him suddenly, or perhaps it was precognition: an old house, flames billowing ferociously from its windows...

Suddenly, he jumped up from the chair. His mouth had gone dry, and his heart was hammering in his chest. He staggered through the darkness to the light switch, snapped it on, then leaned against the wall, gasping in breaths, shaking his head to clear away the terrifying music.

Within a few minutes his breathing had returned to normal. Gathering up his duffel and slinging it over a shoulder, he stepped out of the door and into the hall — reaching inside to switch off the lights again — and then, locking the door, pocketed the key and made his way back down the elegant corridor to his own rooms, careful as he did so to keep his mind as blank and as empty as possible.