by Claryn Vaile
Before Rebecca had the chance to respond with the rude counterpoint she had in mind, Mr. Branson appeared.
“Oh, Rebecca,” he said, somewhat at a loss. “We had a meeting, didn’t we? Come in, come in,” he beckoned. “So sorry to have kept you waiting.”
He ushered her through the door that had replaced one of the archives windows and connected, via a build-out, to his office. Marjory’s patio screen door was gone.
“Good to see you,” he began, indicating the seat she should take. The furnishings in his office were black and taupe. The walls were covered with oversized photos of showcase TITHE properties, including, of course, Wallaby Wunderland and Haunted Haggis Castle. Rebecca clenched inwardly. “What can I do for you today?”
“I’m here to talk about the hotel archives,” she began bravely, “or rather, the items that used to be housed in the hotel archives.”
Mickey Branson assumed his position of authority, enthroned behind the big black desk in a high-backed leather chair. “Oh, that,” he said, looking only mildly uncomfortable. “Must have come as something of a shock to you, I suppose. But you took all those days of vacation, and once I decided to establish my office up here, there was no time to waste. Hated Beaumont’s old office. Had to move those things out to get the remodeling started. You understand.”
She understood. She seethed.
“These new executive offices are beautiful,” she lied. “Put you right where you should be – on top of things.”
Mickey chuckled appreciatively at her faux fawning. “We like it,” he said. Rebecca wasn’t sure if he was speaking of himself and his assistant, or in the royal plural.
“So, I understand all the documents and artifacts are currently in locked storage in the sub-basement. And I wanted to discuss your plans for them.”
“Of course,” he said, stalling. “Of course you do. I’m assuming you have some thoughts.”
“I do, yes, thank you,” she began. “I think, in a way, dissolving the hotel archives was the right thing to do. So many of the irreplaceable artifacts have never been properly cared for. I’d like permission to select some of the most important pieces to conserve and feature in a small onsite hotel museum and gift shop. The planned remodel of the Mezzanine level provides the perfect opportunity to set aside a space for that. Then, were the hotel to donate the remaining items to the historical society or the public library, not only would they be stored properly, but also they would be available to researchers.”
Brabson smiled tolerantly and shook his head. “I get what you’re saying, Rebecca,” he said, “But we can’t pay the bills with the gratitude of history nerds, can we?”
She stared at him, not wanting to comprehend his meaning. “I beg your pardon?” When he didn’t respond, she pulled out the papers she’d brought. “I’ve prepared these executive summaries to overview my museum proposal and the simple process for donating to the local historical repositories. Please look them over and let me know if you have any questions.”
Branson refused to take the papers, waving them away. “No, no point. Chad – Mr. Tagawa – has another idea for the stuff that will bring in some great PR, as well as some cash.”
Fighting to quell her rising dread. Rebecca echoed, “Cash?”
“We’ve got one of those ‘Antiques Road Show’ guys, lives in Denver now, coming in Saturday to scope out the whole collection, do some cataloging and appraising. You don’t happen to have a complete inventory of all the archives stuff, do you?”
Rebecca managed to shake her head. “None of the historians has ever had time or resources for such an undertaking.”
“Didn’t think so. Anyway, we’ll need you to work with this guy to explain some of the things to him. Just give him a general idea what he’s looking at. Decide which stuff is valuable and which isn’t really worth anything.”
“Toward what end?” She had to hear it to believe it.
“An auction, of course. Chad’s awesome idea. Give all these people who love the Griffins Keep so much a chance to bid on their own little piece of its past. At first he thought about putting the main stuff on eBay. But then he thought, Live event! How cool is that? It’s gonna attract mega-attention. And some of that junk is probably worth a bunch, right?”
Rebecca found she that could not speak, horrified by Branson’s enthusiasm. If he saw it in her eyes, he didn’t care.
“Look, I get how you could imagine all this hotel history stuff falls under your personal purview. But it isn’t yours. It belongs to the Griffins Keep, and The Keep belongs to TITHE. The decision is not up for discussion. As a hotel employee, your job is to perform whatever duties management assigns. I’ll expect you Saturday morning at 7:00 to meet the appraiser – Mr. Duncan, I think – and offer him any assistance or expertise he requires.”
Go to hell, Rebecca thought. “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” she said. To help save the artifacts from being scattered like chaff on the wind.
A ray of hope shone at the end of the archives dismantlement tunnel. Other than Rebecca and previous historian Gloria, no one knew exactly what comprised the collection. Lochlan had a good idea, but not even he could list the specific guest registers included, the precise number of silver pieces, china pieces, historic menus, or scrapbooks. The art appraiser who had inventoried display items in the hotel’s public spaces a few years ago had evidenced little interest in the archival contents. As Rebecca had told Mickey Branson, no comprehensive inventory existed. .
If no one knew what was supposed to be there, neither would they know if any of the artifacts went missing. Rebecca vowed that, before the antiques appraiser got his hands on them five days hence, the most significant treasures would disappear. But how?
“Unacceptable,” Lochlan said when Rebecca told him about the imminent auction. “Ownership shouldn’t give them the right to loot and pillage The Keep’s past. I know what you’re thinking, and I’m with you all the way. This’ll take a good bit of planning.”
“There’s not much time,” she reminded him. “The ‘Road Show’ guy will be here first thing Saturday morning.”
Trying to manage her expectations, he cautioned, “We won’t be able to save much. You’ll have to give careful thought to what’s most important, most irreplaceable. We can start tonight. Pick a few of the old registers with VIP signatures – Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Queen Marie. No security cameras in the sub-basement where they dumped everything. And we should be able to smuggle out a few things at a time via the abandoned auto elevator that used to go down to the underground garage. Hasn’t been used since the 60s. I can park right around the corner at ground level.”
“If we’re caught, we’ll lose our jobs,” Rebecca said.
“If we’re caught,” Lochlan amended soberly, “we could go to jail.”
The meandering subterranean space of The Keep’s sub-basement was pungently musty from decades of periodic flooding. Parts of the uneven concrete floor were still damp. Lights were few and far between. The sub-basement’s shelves and cages held heaps of discarded construction materials, buckets of unused paint, and countless wooden palettes. Cartons of discarded glassware, silverware, and china. Broken chairs and tables of all sorts and sizes. Retired bureaus, night stands and desks. Lamp bases, lamp shades. Framed mirrors and framed artwork. Stacks of old wastebaskets featuring The Keep logo, custom-made for the hotel’s centennial and now obsolete. This was where old Keep supplies and adornments came to die.
The plastic recipe box with file cards painstakingly compiled by Charlotte Woods, listing the register numbers containing notable guest signatures, had been gathered up with all the other archive contents. Except for the few she had memorized, Rebecca had no idea which books she should try to rescue. As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Assessing the disheveled mess in the sub-basement storage area by the dim light of a single bare bulb, the historian realized that the registers, and most of the hotel artifacts, were hopelessly disordered. How was she ever going to find anything? She
bit her lip and fought back tears.
Lochlan put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s going to be OK,” he whispered. “The spirits of The Keep will lead us to the things that matter. This means as much to them as it does to us. Be still and open to their guidance.”
It seemed they had no choice. The engineer produced a key to the padlock on the metal cage doors and opened them. Rebecca sank to her knees on the cold cement floor in utter discouragement. How to begin?
On a lower shelf, Lochlan spied the hotel blueprints. “At least they kept them flat,” he said. “We can’t take them all, of course. I’d say the ground floor, the eighth and ninth-floor plans. They’re the most changed over the years, the only record of the original layouts.”
Rebecca concurred. Her co-conspirator gently, loosely bent the 38 by 46” plans in half to carry them. “Pick a couple registers,” he instructed, “and let’s get the hell outta here.” Rebecca stared at the fragile and crumbling ledgers, carelessly stacked in tipsy piles on the concrete. The indignity of their treatment broke her heart.
Register #64. Right in front of her. How many times had she opened it on the worktable in the archives to show a visitor Thomas Edison’s 1903 registration signature? She picked it up and reached for another. Register #37. And #82. She had no idea what famous names might be listed on their pages. She prayed Lochlan was right about the spirits guiding them.
It was 1:15 AM, Tuesday morning. The bowels of the hotel were as quiet as a mausoleum. Lochlan replaced the padlock, and they moved quickly in the direction of the old parking elevator. Rebecca didn’t remember it being so far away.
“Hello?” called a voice from behind them and around a corner. “Who’s here?” A woman’s voice. Salma. She was making her nightshift security rounds. She’d heard them. Rebecca and Lochlan froze.
She spoke into her radio “Salma to Security. Over… Hey, Brian. Thought I heard something down here. Probably nothing, but I’m checking around. Over.” Moments later she rounded the corner and caught her breath. There was no point in running. She’d seen the thieves clearly. Their crime-in-progress was obvious.
Rebecca and Lochlan stood silently. The historian’s wide eyes beseeched Salma’s understanding. The security guard hesitated a moment, considering what to do. A sly smile crept across her features. She gave them a knowing thumbs up, then turned and casually walked back the way she’d come.
“Salma to Security. Over... No sign of anybody here. Brian. Everything’s good. Just a couple ghosts. See ya soon. Over and out.”
Rebecca and Lochlan dared to breathe again.
“Too close,” Lochlan whispered. “Salma’s cool, but we got lucky. This was a warning. The Keep isn’t down with our plan, doesn’t want us taking these things to hide at my place.”
Rebecca nodded. “I think we both sense it’s not the thing to do. Despite our good intentions, it’s stealing. And it puts you at such personal risk. But we can’t sacrifice these artifacts to auction. What else can we do?”
“I don’t know. But for now, let’s stash these elsewhere down here until we think of something better. I know just the place. Come on.”
Unlike the artifact cabinets which had been emptied, their contents tossed into cartons without rhyme or reason, the filing cabinets had been moved down to storage intact and unrifled. With the aid of an Excel spreadsheet she’d created when first acquainting herself with their contents, Rebecca could quickly locate particularly valuable files with relative ease. On her next wee-hours foray into the sub-basement with Lochlan, she planned to do exactly that.
The first hotel publication, an 1890 hardcover booklet produced in-house describing the hotel’s features to guests in flowery phraseology and color lithographic prints, topped her list of file cabinet treasures to be rescued. She would take only one of the two copies in the drawer. The printed menu from the lavish seven-course banquet prepared for the Triennial Conclave of the Knights Templar, the inaugural event held on the Keep’s opening day; another menu from the banquet feting President Teddy Roosevelt, and a third from the visit of young Queen Elizabeth in 1954 were essential to preserve. An ostrich-feather and ivory fan carried at the Keep’s Grand Opening and donated by the history-conscious ladies of the Aspen Thrift Shop; exquisite promotional pamphlets from the 1890s, printed on silk and bound with satin ties; photographs and etchings of the hotel and interior spaces, changed beyond recognition in subsequent decades; historical wine lists and chef’s recipe books. The historian scarcely slept, obsessed with compiling her wishlist of items to retrieve from the displaced files before time ran out.
She had become griffin, gathering bits for a nest on the craggy cliff face to fiercely defend from pillagers.
Just after midnight Wednesday morning, the two-person artifact rescue team ventured once again into the sub-basement storage area. This time their objectives were clearly defined. Rebecca went straight to the filing cabinets. She used her locator guide to pull pre-determined items from the drawers and stow them in a canvas tote bag she’d brought from home. Lochlan shone his flashlight on framed photographs stacked against the wall, flipping through them and extracting only the best images of former Keep owners, management, and staff. Into a small duffle bag, he carefully slipped select custom Reed & Barton silver pieces from the hotel’s early years.
In less than 15 minutes, they were hustling their priceless retrievals up a dimly lit flight of stairs to the obscure basement corner which already concealed the blueprints and registers removed the night before. Over them all, Lochlan tossed an opaque plastic tarp he’d snatched from the paint shop. It was the best they could do for now.
The next step in Operation Archives Retrieval required neither Lochlan nor stealth. Approaching the Security office Thursday morning, Rebecca prayed silently that Salma would be on duty. To her dismay, the hulking Max Barnes filled the window this morning..
The big man, long past retirement age, had disliked the new historian at first. Max thought the job should have gone to him, with his decades of first-hand Keep knowledge as a Pub server and room service waiter. For the first year, he’d quizzed Rebecca at every opportunity, trying to gauge her level of local historical competence. Finally convinced that she knew almost as much as he about Keep history, and possibly even more about Denver and the West, he’d lightened up. Occasionally he brought in a historical photo or artifact to share with Rebecca: old Denver Tramway tokens, poker chips from the Silken Rose, a Pirates Pub paper napkin autographed by John Wayne. Once Max pulled out a photograph of Arapaho Chief Little Raven posing with several other Indians at a treaty negotiation. “My high school graduating class,” he had declared deadpan.
“Good morning, Max,” Rebecca said brightly. “I need someone to take me to wherever they moved the archives things and unlock it so that I can get a few personal items they moved along with the hotel stuff.”
Max peered at her suspiciously. “Why’d ya have stuff of yer own with the hotel things?”
“Well, you know they cleared it all out while I was gone. Didn’t give me any chance to go through it. Along with the artifacts, they moved all the items I used for the changing lobby display cases. Some of those things were my own from home. A miniature tea set, an old stereopticon, my grandmother’s opera glasses…”
“How do we know they’re yours?”
“Because I wouldn’t lie about that. I’m trustworthy.”
“Hmmf,” Max snorted. “Sure ya are.”
At that moment, Salma walked into the Security office. “Hey, Max. Hey, Rebecca,” she said. “Anything I can help you with?”
Max began the slow process of rising from his chair. “Yeah,” he said. “You can man the fort while I take her down to sub-basement storage. Don’t wait up.”
“OK, Max. Take your time.” Salma winked at Rebecca as the old man shambled out ahead of her. “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.”
“So where’d they put this archives stuff?” Max asked as they start
ed down the stairs.
“How should I know?,” Rebecca replied innocently. “I’m a rooftop dweller – was a rooftop dweller,” she corrected herself. “I’m counting on you to know the basement layout.”
“Yeah, OK. Should be over this way.” The big man moved slowly and deliberately through the maze of sub-basement corridors until they came at last to the locked storage cage imprisoning the archival treasures. Max fumbled overlong with the key and unlocked the padlock. “It’s all yers.” he said.
Rebecca flashed back to the uncomfortable exchange with Mickey Branson just a few days earlier. The hotel history stuff…It isn’t yours. It belongs to the Keep, and the Keep belongs to TITHE.
“Not all mine,” Rebecca corrected. “Only a few things. Hopefully they’re all together in one of these boxes.” Scanning the shelves, she spied a distinctive lidded box that held many of the display items, and a large paper shopping bag stuffed with more of them. She found her miniature tea set, the opera glasses, a pair of elbow-length gloves, a heart-shaped antique porcelain box, some old Colorado scenic postcards, the stereopticon.
“That stereo-viewer thing your grandma’s, too?” Max asked.
“No. It belonged to my husband’s grandparents.”
“You don’t have a husband,” the security staffer said suspiciously, looking unsubtly at her bare ring finger.
“I don’t,” Rebecca confirmed, “but did once. We found these in a trunk in the barn on their Nebraska farm after his grandpa passed.”
“That everything, then?”
“That’s it. But I didn’t bring anything to carry it in. Think I could use this lidded box and set the other items in it on a shelf?”
“Don’t see why not.” With that accomplished, the historian exited the storage cage and Max snapped the padlock shut. He paused for a moment, seemingly pondering the displaced archival contents. Still perusing the shelves, he asked Rebecca, “Ever think of smuggling any of this Keep stuff home with you?”