The Ancient Nine

by Ian K. Smith, M. D.

  “So, what did you see?” Dalton said.

  “I’ve shared that information with only one other person,” Dunhill said. “My first wife, Eleanor, who I met at a dance at Wellesley. She’s long gone, God rest her soul.”

  “Will you share it with us?” I asked.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether you stop feeding me a load of horseshit and come clean about your reasons for wanting to know about Ras.”

  Dalton and I exchanged glances. It was time to be honest. Dunhill was nobody’s fool.

  “I’m being punched by the Delphic,” I said.

  “Is that so?” Dunhill smiled. “And you want to learn all their dirty secrets behind that blue door.”

  “I think it’s only fair to know what I could possibly be getting myself into,” I said. “I want to know everything I can.”

  “You’ll never know everything until you become a member,” Dunhill said. “And even then, I’m not sure. How far along are you?”

  “We just finished the first round,” I said.

  “And the outing?”

  “I just got the invitation yesterday.”

  “That’s a strong showing, Collins. I don’t know if it’s the same anymore, but in my day, about a third of the initial list was cut before the second round.”

  “Hasn’t changed,” Dalton said.

  Dunhill looked at Dalton. “Have you been punched too?” he asked.

  “I’m not the club type,” Dalton said.

  “Must be killing your father,” Dunhill said. “He was a Porker, from what I remember.”

  “Yes, he was. But my uncle Randolph is a Delphic man.”

  “Have you asked him the questions you’re asking me?”

  “Some of them, but like I said, he hasn’t been doing too well. His mind is in and out.”

  “That’s too bad. He’d know a helluva lot more about this than I would.”

  “But he wouldn’t know more about the night Abbott disappeared,” I said. “You were actually there.”

  “Yes, I was.” Dunhill sat back in his chair, his broad shoulders falling to his sides. He played with the cigar in his mouth. “After dinner, I left with Ras. We went back to his room and talked for a bit. Then he changed into a black shirt and pants. He was convinced that he had to wear black for the break-in to be successful. He had read it in some book or something. We walked up Linden Street to the club. The lights were usually on in the Gas, but for some reason, that night they were off. It was all the better so that we wouldn’t be seen. We waited for the street to clear and then climbed the trellis on the side of the mansion and dropped into the courtyard.” Dunhill stopped and shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?” Dalton asked.

  “Ras had always been clumsy, but that night he was as agile and coordinated as a ballet dancer. He was a totally different person. He finally had his chance to prove himself, and I was his audience. He walked to one of the back doors, opened up his kit, and started working on the lock.”

  The waiters came to clear our plates and refresh our glasses. The sun was still sitting high in the sky, but out of nowhere, sheets of rain started pouring down. The waves crashed hard against the rocky coastline. We stayed dry underneath the portico and ordered ice cream and cake for dessert. Once the waiters headed back to the main building, Dalton asked, “Did you see him go in?”

  “He’d been practicing, and it paid off,” Dunhill said. “I couldn’t believe he had actually gotten that lock open in under a minute.”

  “So, you went in?” I asked.

  Dunhill shook his head slowly.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “’Cause I was scared as hell,” he said. “I just knew we’d get caught. There was a new steward living there, a hulk of a man named Moss Sampson. They hired him after the Irishman was found in the Charles. Rumor had it he had done time for killing two men down in Mississippi. Big, dark-skinned ugly man with hands that looked like they could twist steel. I had seen him once carrying firewood into the club. He was massive. But besides being leery of Sampson, I was worried that if word got out that I had broken into the Delphic, I’d get kicked out of my own club. There had been a string of club burglaries, members pulling pranks on other clubs, so the inter-club council put together a very strict set of rules about territory breach. Any club member caught entering another club without authorization was immediately suspended for the rest of the semester. A second offense brought expulsion. Don’t get me wrong, I was as interested in the Delphic’s secrets as anyone else, but I loved the Spee too much to risk losing my membership. Ras didn’t belong to any club, so he had nothing to lose.”

  “So, you did see Abbott go in?” Dalton said.

  Dunhill continued to look out aimlessly into the bay.

  “Mr. Dunhill, did Abbott go in?” Dalton asked more firmly.

  The two waiters reappeared, walking underneath large umbrellas. They placed our desserts down and disappeared. I still couldn’t figure out how it was raining and there was barely a cloud in the sky.

  “When are the two of you leaving?” Dunhill asked.

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Dalton said.

  Dunhill nodded his head as he lifted what seemed like half the slice of cake to his mouth. The rain suddenly stopped as if it had been turned off by a switch. The waves fell down and slid easily to shore.

  “That’s enough for today,” Dunhill finally said. “That’s as much as my wife knew and about as far as I want to go. Come back tomorrow morning for breakfast.”

  11

  AT NINE O’CLOCK sharp, we rolled onto the grounds of the Thompson Home. Little had changed since yesterday—majestic water fountains shot toward the sky, Cuban men worked the property in pale blue uniforms, and the same collection of old people sat on the front veranda, dozing off to the chimes knocking softly in the wind. The sun was barely up, but the temperature was already hovering somewhere in the nineties. The heat didn’t exactly help the banging in my head, thanks to last night’s raucous party at a club that Juan Carlos had recommended.

  We entered the lobby and approached the desk, but this time the receptionist was expecting our arrival and escorted us to the other side of the complex and up a winding staircase to a small, ornate dining room surrounded by tall windows that opened up on the bay. A couple of tables were occupied by residents hunched over their plates, being fed by aides who held up their drinks and wiped the corners of their mouths.

  Dunhill, however, was a different story. A lion of a man, he was seated at a table on a patio that offered a grand view of the water and the jagged skyline along the beach. He wore a yellow polo shirt and white linen pants. His thick silver hair was wet and combed back into a helmet. The sun made his blue eyes look translucent. He was sipping from a glass of orange juice as we sat down.

  “Did you sleep well last night?” he asked with a wink.

  “Nothing like falling asleep to the sound of the waves,” Dalton said.

  “Especially when you have someone sleeping beside you,” Dunhill said.

  “That doesn’t hurt either.”

  A waiter came, and we quickly ordered breakfast. Our plane was leaving in a few hours, and we had been warned that our ride back to the airport could be long, depending on traffic. We all sat in silence for a moment, looking at the long sailboats and watching the seagulls circling effortlessly.

  “I often wondered if things might’ve worked out differently if I had gone in with Ras,” Dunhill said without prompting. “Maybe we could’ve protected each other. I’ve gone back and forth about this over the years. It’s been one of only a few regrets I’ve had in my entire life.”

  Dalton nudged me with his leg under the table before saying, “So you did see Abbott go into the mansion?”

  Dunhill nodded slowly. “Yes, Ras went in. I stood right there and watched him with my own eyes. Once I knew he was inside, I felt like my feet were glued to the ground. I didn’t know if I should run in
to find him or if I should get the hell out of there before someone caught us. Life comes down to a few critical decisions. I decided to leave. Maybe that saved my life, but it probably cost Erasmus his.”

  “So, all you saw was Abbott go in?” Dalton said.

  “Not exactly,” Dunhill said. “Before Ras got in, I saw Moss Sampson. He was on one of the top floors, looking out the window. It definitely was him. Looked as mean as a bull with swollen testicles. We had all heard about him, but actual sightings of him outside the clubhouse had been rare. He must’ve seen us approach. I wanted to scream out to Ras, but he was already inside, so I turned and ran like hell. Jumped back over the fence and didn’t stop running till I got back to Leverett House.”

  “And that was the last time you saw Abbott?” Dalton said.

  Dunhill nodded slowly.

  “Do you think he ever made it out of the Delphic?” I asked.

  Dunhill shrugged his shoulders. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t ask myself that question. I just wish I knew what happened.”

  “Did anyone question Sampson about Abbott’s disappearance?” I asked.

  “Supposedly,” Dunhill said. “But nothing came of it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone that you saw Sampson in the window after Abbott got in?” Dalton said.

  “Because I felt guilty and confused, and I was scared to death. If it had gotten out that I had actually gone with Ras that night and I had seen Sampson in that window, then I didn’t know where that would put me. But I just knew they would call me a coward for not going in with Ras. Even worse, they might blame me for his death.”

  Dunhill paused for a moment and clenched his jaws.

  “I was just a kid,” he said. “If I had to do it all over again, of course, I’d do it differently. I would’ve gone right to the police and told them everything. I was scared. I had heard all the rumors about the Delphic mansion and their secrets and what they were willing to do to keep their privacy.”

  “I could understand not telling the police,” I said. “But you could’ve at least told some of the other guys who were at dinner that night.”

  Dunhill had that distant look in his eyes again. “Not a word.”

  “You went to Choate with Abbott,” Dalton said.

  “That’s true,” Dunhill said. “We had known each other for most of our lives. But we were from very different backgrounds. The Abbott family was extremely wealthy and lived like recluses down in Newport. Ras and I really didn’t become friends until we got to Harvard. He was a difficult kid to know. He didn’t play sports with the rest of us, stayed to himself most of the time reading books, and he went home a lot on the weekends to see his family. He was an only child and they were constantly after him about everything.”

  “It seemed like no one really cared about his disappearance,” I said. “The Crimson ran only three articles the entire time. You’d think the sudden disappearance of a student, especially an heir like Abbott, would’ve caused a lot more commotion than what was reported.”

  “It caused plenty of commotion, all right,” Dunhill said. “The students were petrified. There were all kinds of rumors going around. Some were saying his body had been found in the Charles like the Irishman’s. Others said he had been kidnapped walking home and decapitated when the family wouldn’t pay the ransom. It was a wild time. We kept hoping he’d eventually turn up, but he never did.”

  “Why didn’t the papers keep the pressure on?” I asked. “They just let the story die.”

  “Times were different then. None of the university officials wanted to talk about it. The family and administration put pressure on the paper to back off. A kid who lived down the hall from me was one of the editors. He told me the Abbotts and President Lowell wanted it to go away as quietly as possible. At first the paper refused to keep quiet, but then Lowell called the editorial staff into his office for a meeting. The editors changed their position. That’s really the only reason I talked to Fleming. I knew that no one else would touch the story. I’d heard there was this reporter nosing around on campus who said he wanted to help find Ras. He’d been asking students what they knew of that night and giving out his number for people to call if they had something to tell. I got the number and called him. The guilt was killing me.”

  “What’s the possibility that Abbott is still alive?” Dalton asked.

  “Slim to none,” Dunhill said. “Knowing Ras, if he were still alive, he would’ve tried to contact one of us over the years. I’m sure of that. None of us ever heard a word.”

  The waiters arrived with a spread big enough to feed an army. Dunhill dumped every condiment within arm’s reach on top of his omelet then attacked it like he hadn’t eaten in a year. He chased the first couple of bites with a glass of orange juice and cleared his throat.

  “What can you tell us about the Ancient Nine?” Dalton asked.

  “You’ve been doing your homework,” Dunhill said, devouring another big bite of the omelet. “The old-timers believed Morgan started the Ancient Nine to build a mystique around the club. Remember, he had been rejected by two other clubs, so he wanted to do something that would make the Delphic stand out from the others. Rumor had it that a bunch of his poker buddies were sitting around the clubhouse after dinner one night when someone came up with the idea to start a small brotherhood within the club. No one was ever able to identify the members, but it was believed they had bonded together to protect a secret. No one knew for sure what that secret was, but some said they had hidden something extremely valuable in their mansion. They called it Harvard’s Holy Grail. The less people knew, the crazier the rumors got.”

  “So, you think the Ancient Nine really exist?” I asked.

  Dalton shrugged. “Probably in some form or another,” he said. “But it’s hard to separate rumor from facts, because no one really knows anything about the members who started the brotherhood. Their identities have been protected for almost a hundred years.”

  “Let’s suppose the group does still exist,” Dalton said. “What do you think they’re hiding?”

  “You name it and I’ve heard it,” he said. “Jewels from one of the early popes, priceless artwork that’s been missing for centuries, Egyptian mummies in sarcophagi. Lots of stories, but no one has been able to penetrate that damn fortress up on Linden Street to really know. No member has ever gone on record to talk about it and probably never will. At least not in my lifetime.”

  “I know you don’t have any proof of what happened that night,” I said. “But do you think they really killed Erasmus Abbott to protect a secret?”

  Dunhill worked his jaws hard for a moment and looked out into the water. Then he said, “I think it’s possible that night Ras got too close to their secrets. He was alone in their clubhouse in the middle of the night. Moss Sampson knew he had gotten in. Sampson took his orders from someone. You can fill in the blanks.”

  “Is there anyone you know who might be able to help us find out more?” Dalton asked. “Anyplace where we might be able to go and read more about Abbott or the history of the Delphic?”

  “I appreciate your determination, but I think you boys should leave well enough alone,” Dunhill said. “You open too many doors and you might find skeletons. You open the wrong door and those skeletons might end up being yours.”

  12

  THE MORNING OF the outing was one of those overcast days where it seemed like the sun just gave up and went back to bed. The campus was still sleeping off Friday night’s round of parties, except for a few red-eyed, hungover souls who reported to the Delphic’s courtyard at the profane hour of 7 A.M. Linden Street was a straight shot from Lowell, just on the other side of Mt. Auburn Street. When I reached the bottom of the road, I noticed three yellow school buses in front of the weathered mansion parked half on the sidewalk, half in the street.

  I wasn’t in the best of moods. The week after returning from Miami had been a disaster. Coach ran us in practice like he was training the Oly
mpic sprint team, Harvey “C Minus” Mettendorf decided to tack on a final paper in addition to the final exam, and Percy spent every night in front of the television in our common room with prospective members from the Hasty Pudding Club. On top of everything, I got a call from one of my high school teammates, who confirmed that my ex-girlfriend really was dating Dallas Holton, my biggest rival from Simeon High School, who got me fouled out in a state championship game during my senior year. Now here I was dressed in a blazer and tie, with a sweat suit and sneakers in my duffel bag, heading off for a day of sports and male bonding at some undisclosed location.

  The Delphic’s garden was located behind the clubhouse, adjacent to the Bureau of Study Counsel building. A tall gate shielded it from the view of passersby on the street, and some fleshy kid in a Delphic bow tie was standing there, greeting people with a smug grin on his face simply because he was a member and we weren’t. When I approached and gave my name, he looked down at a small clipboard in his chubby hands and instructed me to put my bag with the others along the far corner of the wall. As I walked through the entrance, he informed me that I would be riding on the second bus.

  The courtyard was larger than I had expected, with a palpable air of history and privilege. It was completely enclosed by the mansion and a tall brick wall along the back of the property. A replica of Manneken Pis, the famous sculpture of a naked boy urinating in a fountain, stood in the center of the garden, surrounded by a circle of meticulously trimmed rosebushes. A tall row of manicured hedges lined the back. Bagels, doughnuts, and juice had been neatly arranged on one table, while an adjacent table was crammed with the biggest bowls of fruit I had ever seen in my life along with mounds of smoked salmon. on bagels. Two uniformed servers stood behind the table, keeping things tidy as everyone picked over what they wanted and ignored any mess they made while doing it. A small bar had been set up adjacent to the back porch, and I noticed the same woman who had been serving drinks at the cocktail party.

  Several guys were crowded around a keg, taking turns sipping from the tap, spilling beer all over their ties and shirts, grabbing each other in headlocks, and singing drink songs as they choked back the cold beer. I immediately knew it was going to be a messy day. There must’ve been about ninety of us, everyone dressed up like we were going on a job interview, most still smelling of last night’s alcohol. I scanned the faces, but I didn’t see Clint McDowell, the sweaty guy I had met at the cocktail party with the winning formula for making it to the next round. Binky Grunwald was holding court as usual, standing on the top step of the porch, surrounded by a bunch of guys holding up their mugs of beer in a toast.