Logan placed it on a side table. Then he turned toward Strachey’s cathedral-style antique radio, picked it up, opened its back, and showed it to the director. “Remember my asking whether Lux ever did any radio research?” he asked. “Look inside.”

Olafson peered in. For a moment, a confused expression came over his face. Then his eyes widened as he made the connection. He looked over at the device sitting on the side table.

“That’s right,” Logan said. “They’re the same — except that the one in the radio has been enhanced, updated, with an integrated circuit instead of vacuum tubes and a twenty-first-century battery instead of electric power. If you reach into the radio and turn the device over, you’ll see for yourself. They’ve been installed on the underside — no doubt to be better concealed.”

Olafson took a step back. “What does it mean?”

“I’ll tell you,” Logan said. “But I don’t think you’ll like it.”

When the director did not reply, he picked the unit off the side table and went on. “Last night, while investigating the secret room, I found a holding tray for four devices just like this. Two were missing.” He patted the radio. “One of those is in here.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know what the devices do, exactly. But I think that whoever was accessing the secret room put one into the radio and, knowing Strachey’s penchant for antiques, gave it to him as a present. Also, knowing of Strachey’s mechanical incompetence, they felt confident he’d never mess with the radio’s innards, try to get it to work. Because the ironic fact is that it did work — at least, in the way our unknown friends meant it to.”

“You don’t mean…” and Olafson went silent.

“Yes.” Logan waggled the device in his hand back and forth — gently. “I think one of these was used to prevent Strachey from continuing his work in the West Wing.”

“And you think that thing is responsible for what happened to him?”

Logan nodded. “As I said, I don’t know how it works — not yet. But, yes, I think it caused Willard Strachey’s psychotic break.” He slipped the device back into his jacket.

“That means we have a murderer here at Lux,” Olafson said.

“Clearly, someone who believes the technology in that room is valuable enough to kill for.” Logan closed the back of the radio and replaced it on its shelf. “My guess is that whoever is responsible was close to completing their research. They knew Strachey’s demolition crews were only days away from uncovering the room. But they still needed to finish their work. Nothing else makes sense. If they weren’t so close, why get rid of Strachey like that? No, they figured they needed just the amount of time it would take for Lux to recover from Strachey’s death and assign somebody else to the renovation. By then, their research would be done and they’d be gone. They hadn’t counted on…” And here he went silent.

“They hadn’t counted on you,” Olafson finished the sentence for him.

“When they learned I was here, this person — or people — must have guessed why. I believe it was then that the room was emptied of its contents — at least, those that were movable.” Logan ran a hand through his hair. “Once or twice, those first nights examining the room, I felt certain there was someone nearby, listening, watching. No doubt it was the killer, trying to determine whether or not I’d discovered the space.”

“If you’re right,” Olafson said after a moment, “then shouldn’t we stake out the room? Have it guarded, twenty-four hours a day?”

“I considered that. It wouldn’t work. As I said, the person, or people, know we’ve discovered the room. They would find a way, some way, to continue using its technology.”

Olafson did not reply to this.

“What I can’t understand is how this person learned about the old research. Obviously it’s not one of the original scientists — they must all be deceased by now. My guess is that it’s somebody at Lux who’s been snooping around the files in archive two and came across the redacted Project Sin files accidentally.”

“That’s not possible,” Olafson said in an odd voice. “First of all, I doubt there are any relevant redacted files in archive two. Even if there were, nobody could get access to them. Fellows are only allowed to file, or remove, folders directly related to their own work — we’re very careful about that.”

Over the course of the conversation, a parade of emotions had marched across the director’s face: first anger, then disbelief, then shock, and now something that not even Logan could read. Something in it alarmed him. “What is it, Gregory?” he asked.

Slowly and carefully, like an old man, Olafson gripped the arms of a nearby chair, then lowered himself into it. “There’s something I need to tell you, Jeremy,” he said in a solemn voice. “If I do, I’ll be breaking a solemn vow that’s held for many decades. But I think you need to know. You need to know, but I don’t know how to begin.”

Logan took a seat across from the director. “Take your time,” he said.

Then he waited, in the dim light of the parlor, for Olafson to speak.

After a few minutes, Olafson shifted in his chair, cleared his throat.

“Several days ago,” he began, “you asked me if I’d known the forgotten room existed, or what it might have been used for. I told you I didn’t know.” Olafson hesitated again. “That’s not true. At least, not precisely true.”

All of a sudden, the director — whose eyes had been roaming the room as he spoke — met Logan’s. “There’s something you have to understand. When you showed up here in answer to my summons, I was in shock. I was completely overwhelmed by what had happened to Will Strachey — by what he’d done. There were things you said, things you asked me, that I didn’t fully absorb at the time. If I had absorbed them, I might have forbidden you to examine that room. But I’ve had time now to reflect on what you’ve said. And I’ve had time to…remember.”

Watching Olafson, Logan was suddenly reminded of their conversation in the director’s office, before they’d gone down to dinner, when he’d told Olafson about Project Sin and the missing files, and of his suspicion that the forgotten room had been the location of some mysterious research. At the time, a look had come across the director’s face: the look of a man who’d just come to a realization.

“Go on,” Logan said.

“The fact is, you’re quite right, Jeremy — more right than you know. Secret work was going on here in the late twenties and early thirties. I can’t tell you the nature of that work, because I don’t know what it was. But I know knowledge of the work was confined to just the small group of scientists undertaking it — and the director of Lux at that time. I do know the work was being conducted in an undisclosed location here, on the Lux campus. I think it’s safe to assume that location was the secret room that you — and, I fear, poor Will — discovered.”

The director rubbed absently at his chin. “I don’t know any details. What I do know is that those few who knew about the work held out great hope for it; that it would prove to be a true boon to mankind. But as the nineteen thirties progressed, the mood of hope turned to one of concern. You know, of course, that Lux’s charter prevents it from undertaking any research that could possibly be used to harm humanity.”

Logan nodded. “So I assume this secret research began to lead in that direction.”

“Yes. Or at least, the promise of that direction was there…should people have decided to act upon it.”

“So the research was abandoned, permanently.”

“Abandoned, yes. But not permanently. A decision was made to mothball the work — to seal it away, in essence — until such time when it could be reexamined, and a determination made as to whether technology had sufficiently advanced so the work could be accomplished in such a way that it couldn’t be retasked to harm humanity.”