The Forgotten Room

After a moment, a woman’s voice rasped through the speaker. “Yes?”

“Dr. Jeremy Logan,” Logan said, leaning in toward the microphone.

A brief delay. “Please come in.”

There was a buzz; the doors sprang open; and Logan entered. Ahead lay the long, broad corridor he remembered. It quite clearly conveyed the double uses of the vast mansion. While the walls and ceilings were trimmed with elegant, almost rococo molding — implying the palatial abode of some robber baron of a previous century — the book-covered tables, heavily used wall-to-wall carpeting, door signs, and conspicuous red exit signs bespoke its second and quite different purpose.

Logan walked about ten yards down the hall, then turned in at the door marked RECEPTION. Telephones rang, and fingers tapped busily on keyboards. And yet there was a strange, subdued feeling in the air that Logan was immediately aware of: something that, for him, cut like a knife through the normal, professional tone of a busy office at work.

A woman was seated behind a long desk, and she watched him enter. “Dr. Logan?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“I’ve notified the director. He’ll be down in just a moment.”

Logan nodded. “Thank you.”

He looked around at the leather-upholstered wing chairs and sofas that made up the waiting room, decided on one, and was about to take a seat when the familiar form of Gregory Olafson appeared in the reception doorway. He was older, of course — his thick black hair had turned pure white, and there were wrinkles around his eyes that had once been merely laugh lines — but something other than years had aged his face. He smiled at the sight of Logan, but it was a brief smile, quickly gone.

“Jeremy,” he said, walking forward and taking Logan’s hand. “Good to see you again.”

“Gregory,” Logan replied.

“I know you must be wondering what this is all about. Come with me, please — I’ll explain everything in my office.” And he led the way out of the room and into the main hallway, Logan following.

3

Olafson’s office was much as Logan remembered it. Dark, Edwardian-era wood panels, polished brass fixtures, and the anachronistic scribbly paintings hanging on the walls — Olaf son favored abstract expressionism. Along one wall, tall, thickly framed windows afforded a view of the well-tended landscape: greenery that swept down southward toward the rocky cliffs overlooking an angry ocean. The lower sashes of the leaded windows were slightly raised, and Logan was aware of both the distant crash of waves and the briny odor of the sea.

The director motioned Logan toward a chair, then took a seat beside him. “I appreciate your coming so quickly.”

“You said the matter was urgent.”

“And so I think it is. But I’d be hard-pressed to tell you precisely why. That’s…” Olafson hesitated a moment. “That’s where you come in. I wanted to secure your services before another assignment came up.”

The room fell silent for a long moment as the two men looked at each other. “Before I say anything more,” Olafson continued at last, “I need to know that you can put aside any prejudice, any ill will, that might have been caused by — ah — past differences.”

This prompted another silence. From his armchair, Logan regarded the director of Lux. He’d been sitting in this same seat the last time he spoke to Olafson, a decade earlier. It had been about this time of year, as well. And the director had worn the same expression on his face: at once both anxious and eager. Fragments of Olafson’s short speech came back to Logan now, filtered through a veil of time and memory: Certain members are rather concerned…perceived lack of academic rigor…the good of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious policy institute must come first….

Logan shifted in his chair. “It won’t be a problem.”

The director nodded. “And I can be assured of your complete discretion? Much of what I’m going to tell you is secret, even from the faculty, Fellows, and staff.”

“That’s part of my job. You shouldn’t even have to ask.”

“Ah, but I had to, you see. Thank you.” Olafson glanced briefly out at the sea before returning his attention to Logan. “Do you remember Dr. Strachey?”

Logan thought a moment. “Willard Strachey?”

Olafson nodded.

“He’s a computer scientist, right?”

“That’s right. Strachey was recently at the center of a…very tragic event that took place here at Lux.”

Logan recalled the atmosphere he’d sensed during his brief wait in the reception area. “Tell me about it.”

The director glanced seaward again before answering. “Strachey hadn’t been himself for the last week or two.”

“Can you be more specific?” Logan asked.

“Restless. Apparently not sleeping, or sleeping very little. Irritable — which if you have any recollection of him, you’ll know was completely out of character. And he…” Olafson hesitated again. “He’d begun talking to himself.”

“Indeed?”

“So I’ve been told. Under his breath but extensively, sometimes even animatedly. Then, just three days ago, he experienced a sudden breakdown.”

“Go on,” Logan said.

“He became violent, began assaulting his assistant.” Olafson swallowed. “As you know, we have only a skeletal security force here — we really aren’t equipped to handle any…well, scenes of that sort. We restrained him as best we could, locked him in the visitors’ library on the first floor. And then we called nine one one.”

Logan waited for the director to continue. But instead, Olafson stood up, walked to one wall, and pulled away a decorative curtain, revealing a projection screen. Then he opened a drawer in the same wall, took out a digital projector, and plugged it in, aiming it at the screen.

“It would be easier — for you, and certainly for me — if you just saw for yourself,” he said. Then he moved toward the door, flicked off the lights, and turned the projector on.

At first, the screen was black. Then a series of numbers scrolled quickly up its face. And then an image appeared, black-and-white, slightly grainy at this level of magnification: the video feed from a security camera. A date and time stamp ran continuously along the lower edge of the frame. Logan recognized the room. It was, as Olafson had said, the Lux visitors’ library: an ornate space with elaborate sconces and a coffered ceiling. Three of the walls were lined floor to ceiling with books; the fourth wall contained several very tall windows of the same heavy sash construction as those in Olafson’s office. Armchairs, ottomans, and banquettes were arranged around the gracious space. It was not a working library — that was elsewhere in the mansion, and much more fully stocked — but was instead meant to impress guests and potential clients.

From the bird’s-eye perspective of the security camera, Logan could make out a man pacing back and forth over the expensive carpeting, clearly afflicted by extreme agitation. He plucked at his clothes, pulled his hair. Logan recognized him as a decade-older version of Dr. Strachey, perhaps sixty or sixty-five years of age. Now and then the scientist stopped and bent forward, clapping his hands over his ears as if to block out some unbearable sound.

“We put him in there,” Olafson said, “so that he wouldn’t harm himself or anyone else until help could arrive.”

As Logan watched, Strachey went up to the door and yanked at it violently, crying out as he did so.

“What’s he saying?” Logan asked.

“I don’t know,” Olafson replied. “Raving, I’m afraid. The audio quality is poor — only a few of our security cameras even have integrated microphones.”

Now Strachey’s agitation increased. He pounded the walls, yanked books from their shelves and threw them across the room. Again and again he stopped and covered his ears, shaking his head like a dog shaking a rat. He approached the windows and beat them with his fists, but the leaded glass was too thick to be easily broken. He began to stagger, flailing, almost as if blind, ru