The Ancient Nine

by Ian K. Smith, M. D.

  “Let’s hope it’s in one of these,” Dalton said, standing up. We began to replace the books on the shelves.

  “When we get downstairs, you start searching those papers, and I’ll look through some of the old Crimsons,” I said.

  “Sounds like a plan. If we hurry, we can get this done before the closing bells.”

  * * *

  THE MICROFILM READING room was located on the first floor of the library in a meticulously organized area filled with tall metal cabinets and several rows of bulky microfilm readers. All but one machine was occupied. We approached a middle-aged man with a deeply receding hairline and a long angular nose seated behind the information desk. When he turned to the side, he looked like a bird sitting on a streetlamp.

  “How can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for early Crimsons that might be on microfilm,” I said.

  He wrinkled his forehead. “I’m pretty sure we don’t have the Crimson on microfilm,” he said. “But let me check to be sure.” He played with the computer keys for a few seconds, then shook his head. “As I expected, not on microfilm,” he said. “They’ve been publishing since 1873. I know they keep bound copies of the papers in their offices.”

  I turned to Dalton. “What should I do?”

  Dalton looked down at his watch. “They’re definitely closed, but there’s usually someone in the newsroom all night, trying to make deadline. Go to the delivery entrance and knock on the side door. The newsroom is in the back of the building.”

  “I’ll give it a try,” I said, gathering my backpack. “Give me a call when you get back to your room.”

  “May the Force be with you,” Dalton said before giving me a fist bump, then turning toward the microfilm machine in the center of the room.

  8

  THE YARD WAS completely deserted as I descended the Widener steps. I cut around the corner of the library and into a dark alley that separated Widener from the more provincial Houghton Library. Light from the occasional lamppost cast long shadows across the pavement. I sensed that the story of Erasmus Abbott might be a loose thread that could unravel the mysterious tale of the Ancient Nine.

  As I neared the middle of the walkway, I heard footsteps behind me. Nothing alarming or unusual, but the cold air echoed their rhythmic cadence between the buildings. It was the sound of hard rubber grinding loose sand. I stopped to zip up my coat, and the footsteps fell silent. Was I imagining this? I was tempted to turn around, but instead I started walking again toward the gate that led out of the Yard and into the Square. I walked faster, and the footsteps returned, keeping pace with mine. At the gate, I encountered a line of cars heading into the Square, but I took my chances, found a small gap, and hustled through them across Mass Ave to the opposite sidewalk. The Crimson was located on Plympton Street to my left, but instead I took a quick right and walked ten yards toward the heart of the Square. I turned my head slightly and looked back. I picked up my follower out of the corner of my eye—a man, definitely over six feet, wearing a black puffy ski jacket and baseball cap. That was all that I could make of him without committing to a full turn. He continued to walk into the Square but on the opposite side of the street. After several more steps, I made a U-turn and walked back in the direction of Plympton Street. I waited a few seconds before looking to see if he had done the same. He was gone. No sign of him anywhere. Maybe all this talk of a disappearing student and a secret room was really starting to get to me.

  I reached the corner of Linden Street, one block away from Plympton. It wasn’t until I was passing the windows of the Ferrante-Dege camera store when I saw his reflection. He must’ve been no more than ten feet behind me, his hands jammed into the pockets of his coat. There were no markings on his blue baseball cap.

  I crossed Linden Street and continued along Mass Ave. I passed the Harvard Book Store, then Mr. and Mrs. Bartley’s burger joint. I pretended to look in the window, and saw him again, still following at a comfortable distance but steady in his pursuit. Who was this man, and why was he following me? My heart thumped against my rib cage.

  I broke into a light jog, then took a hard right on Plympton, a dark narrow street that fed down to Hearst Castle, Cambridge’s version of the more famous one in California. After I turned the corner, I kicked into a full sprint. I reached the parking lot of the Crimson in a matter of seconds and hid in the shadows of a large dumpster. I had just crouched down when I saw him. He was caught between a fast walk and a jog, like someone trying to disguise their eagerness to reach a destination. He stopped directly opposite the Crimson. It was difficult to make out the details in his face because of the cap pulled down over his eyes, but I could tell that he was a slim white man with a hard cut to his jaw. I could see only the bottom of his eyeglass frames. They were wire and rectangular. He stayed there for several minutes, looking up and down the street, then focusing on the Crimson. He pulled out a pad from his pocket and quickly scribbled something down. Then he took one last look in my direction before he turned and walked back up the street and disappeared.

  I sat there for a few minutes not only to make sure he had truly gone, but also to allow my heart to settle. Sweat poured out underneath my jacket, and I leaned my head back against the side of the building, the cool wind feeling good against my damp skin. I finally stood up and walked to the door, taking in the building before knocking. The Crimson was the nation’s oldest continuously published daily college newspaper. Its former editors and writers had become the who’s who of journalism, numbering not only many Pulitzer Prize winners in its ranks, but also two U.S. presidents as past editors—Franklin D. Roosevelt ’04 and John F. Kennedy ’40. Only at a place like Harvard could the competition to join a student newspaper be fiercer than making it onto one of the varsity sports teams. Earning a spot on the Crimson masthead was like getting accepted into Harvard a second time.

  I banged on the door several times, scaring a homeless man sleeping underneath the fire escape in the alley. The door finally opened. A short girl with curly black hair and eyeglasses thick enough to be bulletproof stared up at me.

  “We’re not open,” she announced in a nasal voice. “You’ll need to come back tomorrow morning.”

  She started to close the door in my face, but I stuck my hand out and stopped her. I recognized her from my Music and Verse class. She was the brainiac who always got Professor Rothman’s questions right after the rest of us had made fools of ourselves.

  “You’re in Rothman’s Music and Verse,” I said. “First row, third seat from the right. You wear a red coat with a hood.”

  “That’s right,” she said, and smiled a mouthful of big, crooked teeth.

  “My name is Spenser,” I said. “What’s yours?”

  “Gert Stromberger.”

  “Gert, I was hoping you could help me with a little jam I’m in,” I said. “I’m working on something that’s really urgent, and I think my answer is here at the Crimson.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I need to check out your bound copies from 1927.”

  “You know the exact date?”

  “November 1.”

  Stromberger looked down at her watch and shrugged. “Well, I really can’t help you search them, but I can show you the bound copies, and you can look through them yourself. I have three more articles to copyedit before midnight, and I’m here by myself.” She stepped to the side.

  “I owe you big-time, Gert,” I said. “Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll go from there.” Little did I know that Gert Stromberger would be just the luck I needed.

  She led me down a short corridor and into a small office filled with stacks of newspapers piled almost to the ceiling. There were two metal desks in the center of the room, facing each other. Both were empty except for two Harvard mugs jammed with pens and pencils. Several tattered legal pads sat next to a telephone.

  “Make yourself comfortable in here,” she said. “I’ll go and get the 1927 volume from arch
ives.”

  Stromberger returned a few minutes later, dropping the thick volume in front of me. “Try to be careful with these pages,” she said. “They’re kind of delicate, and the preservative they used back then wasn’t too good. I’ll be in the main newsroom if you need anything else.”

  “Is there a photocopier I can use?” I asked.

  “Sure, two doors down on your right. But don’t break the spine of the books when you do the photocopying. It drives our managing editor crazy.”

  Stromberger went back to her articles, and I quickly dived into the bound newspapers. I flipped to the Halloween paper. The headline wasn’t exactly a jaw-dropper: SEEK NEW METHODS OF ORE DISCOVERY. This article focused on graduate students in the engineering school conducting experiments in scientific methods for locating ore deposits. Breathtaking. I moved on to a second article, which was equally thrilling. Three English debaters who recently met the debating team were guests of the liberal club at a luncheon. The last article was about the ticket manager of the Harvard Athletic Association, C. F. Getchell, announcing the order in which the graduate classes would be awarded their coveted seats to the Harvard–Yale football game that year.

  It wasn’t until I turned to November 2 that I found something. The major articles included an announcement about W. A. Purrington, a New York lawyer from the class of 1873, bequeathing $150,000 to the school for medical research in the field of dentistry. Important sporting news announced that the 150-pound crews from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale would meet the coming spring in a triangular race. On the third page along the right margin of advertisements, I found gold.

  ABBOTT POSSIBLY MISSING

  Erasmus D. Abbott, a Quincy House senior, was last seen at dinner on night of October 31. His roommates haven’t seen or heard from him since. His professors have noted his repeated absences from class.

  Earlier, the Dean’s office had little to say of Abbott’s mysterious disappearance, surmising he had probably gone home for the weekend and was extending his visit. As time progressed, this explanation seemed less likely, and students expressed their concern that something unfortunate has happened.

  Calls to Abbott’s parents in Newport didn’t return any new information about his whereabouts. They reported he hasn’t been home since the beginning of fall semester. The only irregularity they noticed in his behavior was a special request to have his monthly allowance sent early. They take comfort in the belief that he went on one of his impromptu vacations to visit friends and decided to stay longer than planned, something he’s been known to do in the past.

  All parties concerned are sure he will return soon.

  I went through every article for the rest of the week, expecting some follow-up on Abbott’s disappearance, but couldn’t find anything. I slid a bookmark inside the November 2 paper so that I could photocopy it later, then moved to the next week’s papers. Monday, November 7, 1927. The lead article was a call to action for students to take on the challenge of social responsibility. It was written by the secretary of service for the Phillips Brooks House, the oldest and longest student-run public service organization at Harvard.

  Then I found something buried on the fourth page.

  SEARCH CONTINUES FOR ABBOTT

  According to a Cambridge Police report, Erasmus Abbott, a physics concentrator from Quincy House, has been officially reported missing. His whereabouts have been unknown since dinner on October 31.

  A national search has been under way, but no useful leads have been found. His parents, Collander and Elizabeth Abbott of Newport, Rhode Island, have offered twenty-five thousand dollars for any information leading authorities to his safe return.

  Experts suspected a possible kidnapping, as Abbott is the only heir to the famous Abbott fortune. However, no ransom notes or calls have been received.

  The President’s office, in conjunction with the Cambridge Police Department, has requested that anyone with information pertaining to Abbott’s activities on that night please come forward.

  My nose was practically rubbing the pages by the time I had finished the article. A nationwide search, fortunes, a Halloween-night disappearance—it was like a movie. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what the night of October 31, 1927, might’ve been like, with the Delphic mansion probably empty and locked as costumed students passed by in its shadows.

  I continued to search through the rest of the November papers, but there was no mention of Abbott. I double-checked them to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, but found nothing, not even a sentence updating the previous reporting. How could the disappearance of a student, especially one from such a wealthy and connected family, not be reported? I took the entire volume to the photocopier. I carefully placed the papers on the glass without breaking the spine. When I was finished, I found Stromberger sitting behind an enormous desk that swallowed her tiny frame. Her face was about half an inch from the screen, and she was surrounded by five Styrofoam cups filled with varying amounts of cold coffee. She was so engrossed in her work, she didn’t hear me enter.

  “I need some help, Gert,” I said.

  She jumped at the sound of my voice. “Oh my God!” she said, holding her hand to her chest. “I didn’t hear you come in. How’s it going?”

  “I found some of what I want, but I think I need to look at a couple more months. Can you get me December of 1927, then the first three months of 1928?”

  “You’ll be here all night,” she said. “That’s more than a hundred papers. Do you have a specific date in mind?”

  “That’s the problem,” I said. “I had a date at first, but now I’m looking for follow-up articles.”

  “What are you looking for, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Articles about a student who disappeared in 1927.”

  “You know his name?”

  “Erasmus Abbott, class of ’28.”

  “I can probably help you figure out where those articles are. We just indexed our archives. Give me a sec.”

  She stood up and walked to another computer along a back counter and began beating the keyboard. She had something in less than a minute. “Three articles,” she said. “November second and eighth of 1927 and May twenty-seventh of 1928. You’ve already got the first two, so let me give you the May volume.”

  Stromberger disappeared down a dark hallway only to return minutes later.

  “Good luck,” she said, handing me a large book identical to the one I had just searched.

  I went back to my temporary office and jumped in. It didn’t take long to find the article plastered on the front page.

  ABBOTT PRESUMED DEAD

  A joint announcement from the President’s office and the Cambridge Police Department acknowledges that missing Quincy House senior Erasmus Abbott of Newport, Rhode Island, is presumed dead. A seven-month search has produced no evidence of the Harvard senior’s fate or that he is even alive.

  Much had been made of statements from Kelton Dunhill ’30, biological sciences concentrator in Quincy House, who said Abbott had told him of his plans to enter the Delphic mansion on Linden Street to pull a Halloween prank. Rumors of a secret room in the club have been bandied about for years, but have been staunchly denied by club members and the university administration.

  Abbott was one of the college’s lead debaters and very involved in house activities. The office on academic affairs has decided to decree Abbott his diploma with the rest of his class in June. The Abbotts have already donated monies to the college for the establishment of an endowed professorial chair in their son’s name.

  A memorial service is planned for noon on June 4 in the Appleton Chapel on what would have been Abbott’s twentieth birthday.

  I photocopied the article, then returned the book to Stromberger, who was sitting back in her chair with her feet on her desk, sipping from one of the cups of coffee. Her eyes were dark and sunken, her hair more disheveled.

  “Did you find it?” she asked.

  “It was there,”
I said. “I couldn’t’ve done it without you.”

  “So, what happened to the student?”

  “It doesn’t say. He just disappeared, and eventually they presumed him dead.”

  “That’s kinda scary. Did they ever find his body?”

  “Doesn’t say anything about that either. Seems like the case was closed and everyone just moved on. Not a single reference in later papers about what might’ve happened.”

  Stromberger gazed toward the ceiling, strumming her chin. “Reopening the case of a Harvard missing student sixty years later,” she said. “Could make a good article.” She scribbled something on her pad.

  I suddenly thought of Kelton Dunhill, who had been mentioned in one of the articles. “Do you guys keep an alumni directory around here?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “You can’t walk five feet without bumping into one. Those things are like gold. Alums are our main funding source.” She swiveled in her chair. “There’s one right over there, next to that computer on the back desk.”

  “Does it say if the alums are still alive?” I asked.

  “It tells you everything. Their graduating class year, the last known address, phone number if there is one, and if they died, the year of their death.”

  It was a long shot, but I had a hunch. I walked over to the corner of the office and flipped through the thick directory until I found the class of 1930. Many of the names had a (D) next to them with the date of death at the end of the entry, except for Kelton Dunhill. He was living in the Thompson Home for the Aging in Miami, Florida, and there was a contact number where he could be reached.

  9

  “WHERE THE HELL have you been?” Dalton was on the other end of the phone, trying to crack my eardrum.