The Ancient Nine

by Ian K. Smith, M. D.

  “In 1985, Congressman Jones from North Carolina put forth a report to support making the Titanic an international maritime memorial and to create international agreements on exploration and salvage of the sunken ship,” Dalton said.

  “And that report isn’t in this room by accident,” I said. “None of this is. Think about it. The RMS Titanic sank into the icy waters off the coast of Newfoundland. My sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Milton had given me an A minus, because I forgot to include how long it took for the ship to sink.”

  “What’s the answer?” Dalton said.

  “Two hours and forty minutes.”

  “You did it!” Dalton screamed, grabbing and hugging me. “We were completely on the wrong trail with Sampson and Swigert. This poem was an ode to Astor.”

  I looked up at the portrait. “And a reminder to the Knights where their secret chamber was hidden,” I said. “‘Now stands as our protector with loyalty and pride.’”

  * * *

  99TH CONGRESS 1st Session }   HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES   { REPORT 99–393

  THE R.M.S. “TITANIC” MARITIME MEMORIAL ACT OF 1985

  ________________________________

  NOVEMBER 21, 1985—Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed

  _______________________________

  Mr. JONES of North Carolina, from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, submitted the following

  REPORT

  [To accompany H.R. 3272]

  [Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]

  The Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 3272) to designate the shipwreck of the Titanic as a maritime memorial and to provide for reasonable research, exploration, and, if appropriate, salvage activities, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with amendments and recommend that the bill as amended do pass.

  The amendments are as follows:

  Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the following:

  SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

  This Act may be cited as “The R.M.S. ‘Titanic’ Maritime Memorial Act of 1985.”

  SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

  (a) FINDINGS. —The Congress finds that—

  (1) the R.M.S. Titanic, the ocean liner which sank on her maiden voyage after striking an iceberg on April 14, 1912, should be designated as an international maritime memorial to the men, women, and children who perished aboard her;

  (2) the recent discovery of the R.M.S. Titanic, lying more than 12,000 feet beneath the ocean surface, demonstrates the practical applications of ocean science and engineering;

  (3) the R.M.S. Titanic, well preserved in the cold, oxygen-poor waters of the deep North Atlantic Ocean, is of major national and international cultural and historical significance, and merits appropriate international protection; and

  (4) The R.M.S. Titanic represents a special opportunity for deep ocean scientific research and exploration.

  (b) PURPOSES.—The Congress declares that the purposes of this Act are—

  (1) to encourage international efforts to designate the R.M.S. Titanic as an international maritime memorial to those who lost their lives aboard her in 1912;

  (2) to direct the United States to enter into negotiations with other interested nations to establish an international agreement which will provide for designa- 71–006 O

  * * *

  I steadied the flashlight on Astor’s face, slowly working my way down. We examined every brush stroke and color change, from the texture of his slicked-back hair to the subtle wrinkles pulling at the corners of his eyes. Then I flashed the light on the top button of his coat and motioned for Dalton to take a step closer. Our faces were only inches away from the canvas. I worked the light down his coat from the first to the second button, but when I reached the third button, I stopped.

  “Why did you stop?” Dalton said.

  “Look closer,” I said. At a quick glance, this button looked like the others, but on closer inspection there were subtle differences. The other buttons were a solid black with streaks of silver running through them. But the third button was different. It was solid black, no streaks.

  I rested the flashlight on the mantelpiece while Dalton brought over two chairs. We stood and carefully grabbed the heavy wooden frame and slowly lifted it off the hanging pin. Once we had it secured, we carried it across the room and rested it on the table. I picked up the flashlight and scanned the wall. There it was, right in the middle of the oak panels, a tiny black button that was serving double duty as the third button on Astor’s coat.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Dalton said. We stood there for a while, focused on the button. He finally said, “Go ahead and push it. You’re the one who figured it out.”

  I stepped closer to the button, but started to have second thoughts. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” I said. “How do we know this thing isn’t alarmed? They wouldn’t leave the chamber so vulnerable.”

  “There’s no guarantee that pushing this button will put us right into the chamber,” Dalton said. “This could be just a first step of many.”

  “Maybe we should go home, think this through, and come back later,” I said.

  “Hell no! We worked too hard to get here. I’m not turning back now. If you wanna leave, go ahead. I’ll do it myself.”

  I thought about that Halloween night in 1927. Dunhill left Abbott and had lived to regret it. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake. Then I started having flashbacks of initiation night and my standing there in front of Brimmer and Purnell, swearing my oath. How ironic that I was going to break the oath in the very room where I had been sworn to uphold it.

  “What the hell,” Dalton said, and before I could stop him, he reached up and pushed the button. Nothing happened at first, so we just stood there looking at the wall, then each other. But just as he lifted his hand to push the button again, the center of the wall divided, and the two halves drew away from us. My chest tightened.

  “Holy shit!” Dalton said.

  I aimed the flashlight into the darkness. Dalton took a couple of short deliberate steps forward, and I followed close behind. When we were no more than five feet inside, the walls closed behind us.

  “This is crazy,” Dalton whispered. “Damn. We found it.”

  “It feels like a dungeon,” I said, flashing the light around our small enclosure.”

  Wispy cobwebs dangled from the corners of the black walls. It was damp and musty. I slowly panned the flashlight, starting on the left wall, then working my way to the right. It wasn’t until I moved across the center panel that I saw a hunched figure standing in a small doorway.

  “Shit!” Dalton yelled, jumping back.

  I hit my head against the back wall. I shined the light directly in the man’s face as he shielded his eyes with his left hand. He was wearing heavy black rectangular glasses and was gripping a cane in his right hand. An entangled network of blood vessels coursed underneath his translucent skin.

  “If you would spare me the light, Mr. Collins,” he said. “My eyesight is bad enough already.”

  “Professor Davenport?” I said, moving the light down from his face.

  He nodded his head slowly. “And a good evening to you also, Mr. Winthrop.”

  Dalton looked at Davenport, then at me. “You know him?” Dalton said.

  “So do you,” I said. “This is Professor Davenport from the Divinity School. The one who’s been helping me with the passages.”

  “If you care to follow me, I’ll explain everything,” Davenport said.

  He turned and started walking through the small door.

  Dalton and I looked at each other, then walked across the concrete floor and followed him through the crooked doorframe. He hobbled a few feet down a narrow hallway, then grabbed a lantern hanging on a nearby wall and fiddled with a knob until the light came on. At the end of the hallway, he le
d us down a small rickety staircase, then paused at the bottom of the steps and punched a code into a keypad attached to the door. Next, he lifted up a metal flap and held his thumb in a black box for a few seconds. A series of lights flashed underneath the box; then we heard the loud sound of a lock unclasp and the heavy steel door spring open. He pushed the door open with his cane, and we followed him down another short hallway. We came to a third door, where he stopped and stood facing what we thought was a peephole. But when he pushed a small white button against the wall, a red laser shot from it and into his eye. The scanner glowed for no more than a couple of seconds before going dark.

  The second door popped open, and we followed him into a wide room with a low ceiling. Two standing lamps burned against the back wall.

  “Welcome to the chamber, gentlemen,” Davenport said. “The reward for your admirable efforts.”

  Dalton and I stood just inside the door and slowly took in the dark room. The walls were a deep mahogany and lined with tall wooden chairs whose backs rose to pointed spears. A series of colorful pendants hung above each chair as well as a column of black-and-white photographs pressed in gold oval frames. All white men, most of them middle-aged or older. None of them smiled. Gold was everywhere—picture frames, lamps, candle holders, vases, tables, even the massive chandelier hanging in the middle of the ceiling was covered in gold leaf. A bookshelf with glass doors ran along the entire back wall, stuffed with books and gold trinkets. There was an elevated platform in the center of the room and a tall glass enclosure that had been roped off like a piece of art in a museum exhibit. A dark maroon Persian rug covered the floor.

  “Please have a seat, gentlemen,” Davenport said. “It’s been a long night for all of us.”

  Dalton and I eased back on the long sofa that squeaked as we settled.

  “So, this is the chamber,” Dalton said. “And you’re the old man everyone says leaves the clubhouse late at night.”

  Davenport opened a large snakeskin humidor on the table beside him and pulled out a long cigar. He unwrapped it, took his time smelling the tobacco, and clipped one end and moistened the other with his lips before lighting it.

  “Yes, this is the chamber, Mr. Winthrop,” he said between puffs. “You saw it diagrammed inside the succession book you took from your uncle.”

  “How did you know we had that book?” Dalton said.

  Davenport took a long pull on the cigar, blew a heavy cloud toward the ceiling, and smiled. “I know almost everything,” he said. “At least as it pertains to the Order.”

  “You’ve known what we were doing since I walked into your office with the passage,” I said.

  “Before then,” Davenport said. “When Lenny called and told me a student had shown up on his doorstep with this mysterious religious passage, I knew the two of you had betrayed your word to Randolph and opened the book. Any student who possessed a copy of that passage must’ve seen the Creed.”

  “You knew my Uncle Randolph?” Dalton said.

  “Since I was almost your age. He was a good and noble man, so noble that in the end, he was more worried about your lives than his.”

  “How are you connected to all this?” I asked. “Are you a Knight also?”

  “Far from it,” Davenport said. “I was once employed by the club a long time ago. I was born in Germany and came here via Great Britain. My mother and I moved to America when I was only ten years old for fear Germany would destroy England. She worked on the docks selling odds and ends to the men when they came in from a day out on the ocean. When I was thirteen, I got a job here at the club as an errand boy. They paid me well, ten dollars a week.”

  “Were you working here on Halloween night of 1927?” Dalton asked.

  “No, but I wish I had been,” Davenport said. “I might’ve been able to save my friend’s life.”

  “You knew Erasmus Abbott?” I said.

  “Never met him in my life,” Davenport said. “I was referring to Samps. At least that’s what I called him. He went by the name Moss Sampson, but that wasn’t his real name either.”

  Dalton and I shot glances at each other.

  “His birth name was Tyrone Sampson Ludley,” Davenport said.

  “How well did you know him?” I asked.

  “As well as anyone could, I guess,” Davenport said. “Samps was a very quiet man. Didn’t open up much about his private life. He started out as a third porter and worked his way up to captain. He was a good man and an even better friend. He taught me a lot about life.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  Davenport shook his head and looked away. He took a moment to gather himself.

  “Samps was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “He told me he saw the two boys that night when they climbed over the fence. He was up in his room when he heard the noise. When they landed in the courtyard, one stayed behind while the other broke in through the kitchen. Samps went down to see what was going on, but by the time he made it to the kitchen, the kid had already made it upstairs. Then Samps heard some knocking coming from one of the rooms on the third floor. He realized the intruder had made it up to the library. When he opened the door, he found the kid standing against one of the walls, tapping it with a hammer. He was looking for a way in.

  “Samps yelled at him to stop, and that’s when the kid turned and rushed Samps with the hammer raised above his head. Samps started fumbling in the dark for the light switch, but the kid kept coming at him. Fearing for his own safety, Samps met the kid’s charge, tackled him, and knocked the hammer out of his hand. They wrestled on the ground for a while before the kid finally broke free and ran out the door.”

  “Did he know it was Collander Abbott’s son?” I asked.

  “Not at the time. But he knew the kid wasn’t just a common thief. He had bypassed several rooms filled with very expensive items and made a beeline for that wall in the library. It was obvious the kid knew things that he shouldn’t have, so Samps ran after him into the dark hallway and grabbed him from behind. There was a dumbwaiter at the end of the hall that went from the kitchen all the way up to the fourth floor. The servants used it to transport food for the dinners in the banquet hall. Samps grabbed the kid from behind and they tumbled to the end of the hallway. Too late. The dumbwaiter’s door was still open. Samps tried to stop him, but he fell through. Samps described it as the most desperate scream he’d ever heard. There wasn’t a night that went by that he didn’t have some kind of nightmare, hearing that cry, then the thud of Abbott’s body hitting the bottom of the shaft.”

  “So, it was an accident,” Dalton said.

  “It was more than an accident, Mr. Winthrop,” Davenport said. “It was a tragedy of the greatest proportions, and one that was completely avoidable. Two innocent people lost their lives that night because of the secrets in this room. The events of that night changed me and everyone else who knew about it, forever.”

  Davenport rested his cigar in the ashtray, then stood with the help of his cane and hobbled toward us with great effort.

  “And now, Mr. Winthrop, your visit has come to an end,” he said, extending his hand. “There are a few housekeeping items that Mr. Collins and I need to discuss privately.”

  Dalton and I locked eyes before Davenport led him out of the room.

  44

  “WELL, I THINK it’s time I showed you something,” Davenport said. “Tonight, I want you to leave here with everything.”

  He disappeared through another door in the opposite corner of the room. He soon reappeared carrying a small leather box. He hobbled over and handed it to me.

  “You’ve worked very hard since the cocktail party invitation arrived under your door,” he said. “They tracked every move you’ve made, from finding the original Abbott article in Widener to the books in Houghton, then the Jenkins donor file in the University Archives. Your progress was steady and thoughtful. They’ve been as impressed by your tenacity as they have been fearful.”

  �
��If they knew I was getting closer to the truth, why didn’t they stop me?” I said.

  “Everything is not as it seems,” Davenport said. “You’re alive because they’re afraid of the uncertainty your death would bring.”

  “Uncertainty?”

  “It will become much clearer when you peruse the contents of that box.”

  I ran my hand over the thick, pebbled leather. “What’s inside?” I asked nervously.

  “Your legacy and destiny,” he said.

  I slowly lifted the lid. The contents were wrapped in plastic bags. I pulled the first one out and felt a small metal object attached to a beaded chain.

  “That was one of Samps’s army tags,” Davenport said. “He always wore two of them. The only time I ever saw him take them off was when he gave one to me before he left the club for good.”

  I examined the stainless-steel tag through the plastic. It included the pertinent information—name, social security number, blood type, and religion. I ran my finger over a big dent just off center.

  “That saved his life,” Davenport said. “Some drunk in a bar in Mississippi shot at him after he thought Samps was looking at his woman. That dog tag deflected the bullet into his right shoulder. Just a quarter of an inch lower, and that shot would’ve gone through the center of his heart.”

  I pulled out the second bag. It was a black-and-white photograph of a skinny boy who couldn’t have been more than seven. He stood against a porch with his hands in his pockets. He was squinting from the sun and smiling wide.

  “That’s him in front of his grandparents’ house,” Davenport said. “The only picture he had of himself as a boy. He kept it in a Bible his grandmother gave him at his baptism.”

  I looked down at the picture. He was a cute little boy with skinny legs and socks gathered at his ankles. I imagined him playing baseball in the summer or buying penny candies at the general store. His clothes were tattered and too large for his tiny frame, but he stood proud in front of the camera. A child’s innocence.