The Ancient Nine

by Ian K. Smith, M. D.

  “But that doesn’t explain how these paintings got here,” I said.

  Davenport raised his hand. “One of Hitler’s early propagandists was a guy named Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl. He was a German American. His father was a German art publisher, his mother an American. He spent his early years in Germany before moving to the U.S. He attended Harvard and graduated in the class of 1909. He started out working for the American Embassy in Germany as a liaison, but began to admire Hitler and fell under his spell. He also happened to be a very good piano player, and Hitler loved that about him. There was no denying that Putzi was a Nazi sympathizer, but what few alive today know is that he and Morgan actually knew each other.”

  “But Morgan was the class of 1889 and Putzi was class of 1909,” I said. “Their years here didn’t overlap.”

  “That’s correct,” Davenport said. “But they met several times after Putzi graduated. Secretly. Morgan was aware of Putzi’s reputation, and he knew that any public meeting of the two could be detrimental to his reputation and his business, so they met here. It was perfect. Putzi being seen on Harvard’s campus was nothing out of the ordinary, so no suspicions would be raised. Once he was here in Cambridge, they could easily slip him in and out of the chamber late at night. There’s a hidden stairwell behind the walls that leads from the chamber into a tunnel that opens up through a grate in the far end of the courtyard, behind the back hedges.”

  Now it made sense why I didn’t hear the Ancient Nine leave through the library that night. They left through the private stairwell and exited through the courtyard.

  “Morgan’s father left him fifty million dollars,” Davenport continued. “But the Germans brought him the kind of money he had never seen before. He loved this room and these paintings. The Klimt belonged to his father, who kept it in his master bathroom at his mansion in New York City. He wouldn’t hang it in one of the public rooms for fear of someone discovering that it was a stolen masterpiece. The very day Morgan got word that his father had died during a vacation in Italy, he had the valet take down the Klimt, wrap it up, and ship it here to be installed in this room.”

  “How did the Canaletto get here?” I asked.

  “That came much later,” Davenport said. “Putzi knew about Morgan’s obsession with rare art. So, he used back channels to get Morgan the stolen painting. A gift from the Führer himself. As fate would have it, after it was installed, Morgan got a chance to see it only once before he died of a stroke in Florida.”

  “With all due respect, it’s hard to believe a family as wealthy and American as the Morgans was tied to Nazi Germany.”

  “And they weren’t the only ones,” Davenport said. “Very powerful men, titans of industry, even leaders of this great university. The connections are deep and wide and convoluted. Morgan was a brilliant man. He kept his circle close and he made it worth their while to protect his secrets.”

  “How?”

  “The way people respond to most. Money. Lots of it. He set up a trust which is now worth almost three hundred million dollars. Everyone benefits from this trust, and you will too once you graduate and receive your gift. Many have heard rumors that the club is rich, but few truly know how rich it really is. The clubhouse, the staff, the paintings on open display throughout the mansion; those are valuable, but nothing like what’s back here, this gold and amber room, the endowed trust, the Nazi-looted treasures, and the secrets that tied them all together. You must remember, these men are bound together forever, complicit in keeping these secrets, and beneficiaries of what these secrets have produced. If one fails, they all fail, the risk from exposing their complicit malfeasance too great to measure. And so the bond has never been broken.”

  We sat there in silence for the next few minutes as I looked around the sumptuous room, unsure of when or if I would ever see it again, and wondering what it now meant that I knew the buried secrets of the Ancient Nine.

  “It’s late,” Davenport said, finally standing up and hobbling toward the exit. He beckoned me to follow. “You must be out of the club before the staff arrives.”

  We walked back into the chamber, and the wall closed behind us, hiding Morgan’s Amber Room. We stood in front of the glass case.

  “How did the missing pages get here?” I asked.

  “That’s a question I’ve never been able to answer,” Davenport said. “The display was already set up by the time I took the job. They’ve never discussed in front of me how it actually got here. But I remember what Collander Abbott said to me the last initiation dinner he attended. He was old and dying from bone cancer, but he wanted to come back to this chamber one more time. He stood right where we stand now and said, ‘The whole of Christianity will forever be indebted to the nine men who put God ahead of family and personal jeopardy to guard this document and the dark secrets that could irrevocably stain Christianity.’ I don’t know if I’d take it that far, but at the time, it was inconceivable to these very religious men that the namesake of modern Christianity was not only homosexual, but there was hard evidence to prove it. They couldn’t erase the historical rumors, but they could at least hide some of the physical proof. Rather than destroy the pages, they kept them back here as a symbol of their conviction and a reflection of the power they had to do so.”

  “But why have they allowed me to live and discover all of this?”

  Davenport paused and carefully chose his next words. “Because killing you could’ve cost them everything.”

  * * *

  I BARELY REMEMBER my feet touching the ground as I raced back to Lowell House. I slipped into my room and locked the door behind me. My fingers tingled as I pulled the shade down over the window and turned on the desk lamp, I pulled the lid off the box. I looked at Moss Sampson’s military tag again, then at his boyhood picture, which I took out of the bag and propped up on my desk. I carefully opened the last bag and pulled out the long envelope.

  The edges were worn and slightly frayed. A couple of smudge marks were visible on the back flap, and a tiny grease mark stained the upper right corner. It seemed ordinary enough. I took a pen off the desk and slid open the flap, then reached inside and pulled out the folded papers.

  The first sheet was a note written in black marker. The handwriting was neat and careful.

  Spenser,

  If you are reading this letter, then all has gone as planned. I have shown you the chamber and told you about my dear friend Moss Sampson, who is also your great-uncle. I’ve waited a very long time for you to hold these papers. Knowing that they are in the hands of their rightful owner, the most important part of my life’s work is now done.

  What I didn’t tell you is that the papers in this envelope have made you a wealthy young man. I cannot tell you which choices you should make from this point on, but I can tell you to proceed with great caution and trust few. You have proved your rigor through this process. Money has an insidious way of making decent human beings behave in a most indecent way.

  The Ancient Nine have made you a member of the Delphic Club in order to watch your movements more closely. Be certain that one day they will groom you to become a Knight of the Order. Do not be swayed by their generosity and charm, for their evil and cunning have no limits. Do not be flattered into complacency. Find good counsel that will guide you on this treacherous and winding path. Above all, remember the sacrifice that has been made so that you now might find yourself in this position of privilege. I have done what I can do, and now you must carry on and ensure that Samps, your great-uncle and my dear friend and mentor, did not die in vain.

  —Charles Davenport

  I read the letter a second time and couldn’t make sense of him calling Moss Sampson my uncle. I felt dizzy and short of breath at the same time. How was this possible? I opened the other two sheets of paper—thick parchment with a stamped seal and several signatures lining the bottom of the pages. I read each sentence carefully, disbelief growing as the words ricocheted in my head. I held in my hands the last will and
testament of Tyrone Ludley, a.k.a Moss Sampson. In simple language, he had bequeathed all his earthly possessions to any living male relative who could prove his bloodline and had possession of the document that I now held.

  The second sheet of paper shocked and confused me even more. I looked at the deed and title to the land and building at 9 Linden Street. Moss Sampson’s name had been typed on the owner’s line. It was to remain in his possession until his death and passed on to his designated male beneficiary. If there were ever an intent to sell such assets, a first offer of sale had to be made exclusively to the trustees of the Delphic Club at a price no greater than 20 percent above fair-market value. There was, however, one important stipulation. If any of Sampson’s male descendants joined the ranks of the Most Noble Order of the Ancient Nine, all rights and claims to the mansion and its surrounding property would immediately revert to the Delphic trustees in exchange for one U.S. dollar.

  This is why they had not killed me, and why my name had been proposed in Uncle Randolph’s succession book. This was why Jacobs knew so much about me the night of the cocktail party and why he had pressed me about whether I had been in contact with my father’s side of the family. They knew my bloodline to Moss Sampson, and they knew what it could bring me as well as them. This also explained the money my father had been given by a relative with the instructions for it to be used only for my education. Despite great need, my mother said he had never spent any of it. Uncle Moss knew they would bring me to Harvard. They had been recruiting me before I even arrived on campus.

  I heard Davenport’s calming voice. These men are bound together forever. Complicit in keeping their secrets and benefits of what these secrets have produced. If one fails, they all fail. And so the bond has never been broken.

  My chest expanded with pride as I thought about my father and Uncle Moss, both strong, wise men, my history and bloodline. I was overcome with emotion as I realized how the courageous decisions they had made so many years ago at some of their most challenging times were now going to make life easier for me and future generations of the Collins family.

  In the darkness of my room, while the rest of the campus slept under a chilled Cambridge night, the buried truths had emerged. For more than a century, the secrets of the Ancient Nine, the missing pages of The Christian Warfare, the deaths of Erasmus Abbott and Moss Sampson, and two of the world’s most significant lost art treasures have been buried behind the walls of the Delphic mansion, concealed underneath layers of oaths and deceits—that is, until now.

  EPILOGUE

  TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago, I stood just as he now stands, blindfold wrapped around my eyes, my tuxedo soiled and wrinkled from the initiation rituals. I can only guess what’s going through his mind at this precise moment, but I’m certain that his concerns and fears are much different than mine were so long ago. I was alone, a foreigner in a new world that mysteriously embraced me. I pictured him laughing with confidence during the exploits of pre-initiation, waving his hands in the air, dancing blindfolded on the Widener steps.

  “Gentleman, I now present to you Quentin S. Collins, our newest brother. Long live the Gas!”

  His blindfold fell, and the room quickly filled with thunderous applause. I had purposely assumed a position in the back so that I could take the moment in its entirety. Most of all, I wanted to see him in full, standing on that same table I once stood, looking over the crowd that cheered and welcomed him into the brotherhood.

  I felt the tears coming, but this time I refused to stop them as I did so many years ago. They felt good on my face, warm and heavy, salty when they collected in the corners of my mouth. I looked at his face, youthful and strong, handsome beyond what I could ever hope for one of my children. He had Ashley’s eyes and nose, even her curly hair. I tried to convince myself that I had contributed something, but it was obvious whose chromosomes had dominated. His younger brother and sister got the best of both of us, but all three of them had Ashley’s stubborn determination.

  Quentin flashed that big smile that always made my heart flutter. Then he waved to his new Delphic brethren gathered beneath him. He found me in the back and the smile grew impossibly wider. I returned his wave as I wiped away tears. He stepped down into the waiting arms beneath him while I hung back. As he received the congratulatory hugs and pats, I looked around the room. The mansion hadn’t changed much in the last two and half decades. The pair of Napoléon tankards still sat in their corner on the long shelf high up near the ceiling. The commemorative china set donated by the parents of Ralph Blake Williams III still shone on the mantelpiece, and the walls remained dark and sturdy, full of stories about young boys who had bravely become men only to become boys again. But the faces had changed dramatically. There were several African Americans both in the neophyte class as well as the graduate members saluting them. There had even been high-level conversations about allowing women to finally join our ranks.

  I wasn’t sure how much I was going to tell Quentin. As the son of a graduate member, his path into the Delphic had been so much different from mine. One day I would have to sit him down and tell him that the comforts he and his siblings had enjoyed all their life had not only been due to my success as a surgeon and his mother’s prosperous bridal business, but because of two brave men from an out-of-the-way town in Mississippi. I would show him that childhood picture of his great-great-uncle, Moss Sampson, then tell him how a poor boy from the Deep South, who once mopped these floors and polished the same oak tables he’d be sitting at for Wednesday-night dinners, had the courage and foresight to stand up to a group of powerful men who would eventually kill him.

  I followed Davenport’s advice and found counsel that had no connection to Harvard or any of the clubs. It had been an uncomfortable meeting with their representatives, but in the end, we reached an amicable agreement. I signed over the property and clubhouse to the trustees, and in return, they were extremely generous in their financial settlement and commitment to be more inclusive as they elected new members. What I wouldn’t sign, however, was the gag order that prevented me from ever speaking about the secrets hidden within that chamber. The missing pages from The Christian Warfare, the tragic story of Erasmus Abbott and Moss Sampson, as well as the dogged curiosity of his godfather, Dalton Winthrop, were all a part of Quentin’s legacy, a history that he had a right to learn, and no agreement would ever take away from him.

  “I’m proud of you, son,” I said to him as we embraced in the back of the room on the other side of those curtained windows.

  “It’s great to have you here for this,” he said. “Too bad Mom couldn’t’ve seen it all.”

  “Club rules,” I said. “But don’t worry. We’ll tell her every detail when we get home.”

  Quentin smiled. “Almost every detail,” he said.

  * * *

  DALTON WAS WAITING for me at the bottom of Linden Street in front of the Lampoon Castle. Gray had begun to speckle his closely cut blond hair, but his eyes were as blue as hot tropical water and as youthful as that first day we met in Memorial Hall. His handsomeness had withstood the punishing assault of time, and regular exercise kept his lean body tight and capable. Elsie’s and the Tasty had gone the way of expensive rents and new development, but we were happy to settle on Tommy’s, still serving the best New York–style pizza in all of Boston. It was almost midnight and the restaurant was packed. And while the jukebox had been replaced with a machine half its size that played CDs instead of records, not much else had changed.

  “How was it?” Dalton asked as we cut into a large cheese pie.

  “More emotional than I thought it would be,” I said.

  “Brought back a lot of old memories?”

  “Some good, some bad.”

  “How was Q?”

  “A champion.”

  “Any of the old guys still around?”

  “Jacobs is gone. Thorpe was hobbling along on two canes, but the man remembers everything. Bickerstaff was there, looking strong as an ox
. He’s on his fifth wife, who’s not much older than the kids in here.”

  “You happy with your decision to give it all back?”

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  “Have you told Q the story?”

  “Not yet. I will at the right time.”

  We finished off the pizza and our discounted two-liter soda. Once we had gotten tired of seeing our own mortality reflected in the young faces around us, we settled the check and headed outside. Dalton had replaced his Aston Martin with a black Bugatti. We folded into the bucket seats. I imagined what Erma would say, seeing us squeeze into that car.

  “You still driving like a damn maniac?” I asked, strapping on my seat belt.

  “Gave that up a long time ago.” Dalton smiled. “Kids have a way of changing your priorities.”

  The Bugatti engine suddenly growled, and that mischievous smile returned on Dalton’s face. The first push on the accelerator snapped my head back against the seat. Within seconds, we were racing through the narrow streets of Cambridge on our way to the Winthrop mansion on Beacon Hill. Just like old times.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I STARTED WRITING this book a very long time ago when the idea was fresh in my head and I still had a mastery of the Harvard geography and history that would be critical in getting this as right as possible. I don’t remember all the names, but I want to thank the Harvard librarians and those librarians at the University of Chicago who endured my endless questioning and hypotheticals as I dug into the research minutiae. A shout-out to the professors in the Classics department at the University of Chicago who opened their doors and helped me understand the Latin phraseology I had encountered. I also want to thank my agent Mitch Hoffman, who believed in this project from the beginning, championed this book, and had the patience and determination to see it through. Thanks to Daniel Hutchinson, in memoriam, a big guy with a big heart who was a big reason why I joined the Delphic Club in the first place. I will never forget how he welcomed me, the most unlikely of punchees. And as always, an extra-special thanks to my A-team, who cheer me on and encourage me endlessly, inspiring me to always chase my dreams and try new things, regardless of how crazy they may sound—Declan, Dashiell, and Tristé.