If you’re just joining this story, you may want to start from the beginning.
This story follows the first in Jenn’s Rediscovered series, Last Assault on Oak Island.
New chapters to Room of Fire will now be weekly.
Carlos was not pleased Lauren had spent what he thought was a considerable length of time with Reuben Tolchov. In defense she recounted nearly every word spoken by the fellow houseguest and found nothing that could be deemed intolerant.
"You haven't liked him since you first met," she said as they strolled along the patio garden after dinner that evening. "He was a gentleman and good company."
"Better than Elden?"
She sighed, admiring the late-blooming four-o'clock flowers the edged the slate cobbled path. "He's good company, too." She looked shrewdly at the curator. "You don't really want a comparison, do you?"
His face creased into a smile. "Not the type you're entertaining, dear." The smile dropped as his voice hushed. "I think I've met Mr. Tolchov before."
She raised an eyebrow. "When? Are you sure?"
"No. That's what bothers me, Lauren," he admitted gravely. "I'm not sure if he is the same man." He gestured to the walk leading onto the lawn. "I was in Berlin, on business for the museum, about thirteen years ago. I could almost stake my reputation that it's him."
She frowned, then smiled and nodded as they passed Chatillier and Poussin on the walk. "He would have been but a boy. Well, still a teen or so," she calculated, thinking back on her own life in the mid-1980s. Before the Berlin Wall had fallen, she realized. She looked to Carlos' face as he put to words the tumultuous time.
"He was." He took a breath, focusing on the Rhine in the distance. "There was a Russian youth who spoke very good German, and a handsome dialect, too. He was working with a man named Eischmidt at the time. He wasn't a criminal, this youth, and I don't think he broke any rules of the game, but I had the distinct impression he would if necessary."
She didn't like the gravity of the discussion. "And you've never broken any of the rules, Dr. Sheldon."
"Infractions," he corrected gruffly, not meeting her eyes.
She was urgent to change the subject, but also wanted to know the rest of Carlos' story. "So now we find a man who is probably Russian, who speaks German—"
"Who looks like the young man I remember, yes," he finished, shaking his head and stopping. "Lauren, I am not sure, but he seems very familiar. Please," he implored with a rare protectiveness, "please watch him. I'm not telling you this as an authority figure." He looked to the river. "I don't think he's altogether truthful."
She knew this was an understatement, and she didn't voice her first thoughts. Carlos was being fatherly again, and she knew she should appreciate and heed his advice, but sometimes it interfered with her position as assistant. With a sigh, she heard herself say, "It was only lunch and a horse ride, Carlos. I've hardly been swept off my feet."
For a long while they walked in silence, watching gulls that flew in from the slow moving river waters in the distance. After considerable debate, she asked, "Does he recognize you?"
He shook his head. "I doubt it. I had a lot more hair then, and a bigger mouth."
"I can't imagine you as ever being the chatty type," she mused. "Why did he pick us up at the station?"
"From what I gathered, he overheard Elden speaking with the Duke and offered. He had other business in Colmar, as it were."
She nodded. "So he didn't recognize your name?"
"It does not appear so."
They turned around and headed back to the chateau. "Dr. Sheldon," she said, "why didn't you tell Cooper and Stends about the chamber?"
He looked at her sharply. "What makes you think they don't know?"
"Because if they knew, they would have sent Dr. Karen and Paul, not us."
He mumbled something she didn't quite hear. "Bill's expertise lies in the furnishings of medieval abbeys and priories."
"This would be more his field than yours," she persisted.
"He'll get his hands on it soon enough. Assembly. Fumigation, if it all smells like the sample. Opening exhibition. We merely found it on an acquisition," he grunted. "If we get to acquire it at all."
She wasn't wholly convinced. She watched him expectantly. For a long moment, he refused to look at her. He finally sighed heavily, allowing her to see beneath the veneer of professionalism he usually maintained.
"All right, Lauren," he relented, his voice leveling. "The chamber has always held a fascination for me like few other lost treasures. So tangible. So recent. Even among other treasures of the war era. Nothing—the gold of Troy, the Austrian Crown Jewels, the treasure of Charlemagne—none of them compare to this. A whole room, dear, swallowed in time, and at our fingertips now. Perhaps."
She sighed slowly, nodding.
His tone sharpened, faded blue eyes frowning at her. "No. Stends and Cooper aren't aware of the sample. I know it's not a good practice to keep it from them, but . . . Well, they'll know soon enough. With any luck."
They were at the patio now, lit by torches burning from elevated Grecian urns that lent a flickering light across the fitted stone. They found a table on the emptier side of the polychrome tile as Elden entered the patio and met them.
"Good evening, Dr. Sheldon, Ms. Gates."
"You two are beyond formalities, I hope," Carlos said more to his assistant as they sat down.
"Of course we are," she said.
Elden grinned at her. "That was more for Madame Chatillier's benefit than ours," he excused. He made a slight nod to where Madame Chatillier and her cousin were seated at the other end of the patio.
They were approached by a server bearing trays of glasses, but Carlos waved her away quickly.
"Lauren told me about the crypt," he said lowly. "You believe it's the same crates that yielded the samples?"
Elden nodded. "I do. The whole room smelled . . . tart. Sharp."
"Acidic. Like what you received," she told Carlos.
"Actually," Elden reconsidered, "it smelled like the raw hygroscopic glass plates we used to run in Treviso. It was about five or six years ago, when Marlon wanted to combat Lalique's crystal series. It resulted in more of a Sandwich design." He scowled briefly. "It was a nice change, but not very popular. We discontinued the series in two years time. Anyway, the crypt smelled like the glass we made from the Göttingen mine stock."
"Göttingen?" she repeated.
"Yes. About thirty kilometers northeast of Kassel," he explained. "Germany."
"What kind of mine?" Carlos asked quietly.
Elden shrugged. "A sort of feldspar. There's another industrial name for it in the West."
"Potash," Carlos and Lauren said together.
Elden nodded. "That's it." He looked curiously from her to Carlos. "That means something?"
The curator sat straighter, watching a smile creep over Lauren. "My young friend," he began to him, "there are many stories surrounding the chamber. Some concern the Rhodes family, others the Koch, both of which involve a single family secretly housing and protecting the chamber. This past week I was beginning to think Gustalav's family was involved, or perhaps they all were. Keep the panels moving.
"But that would mean too many people would know," he added. "Eventually the secret would be passed on to a generation that hasn't lived through the war or wished not to remember it."
She nodded. "Edmund's generation."
Carlos let the server bring drinks when she reappeared this time and continued after she left. "Exactly. Another theory was that the chamber had been destroyed in the Königsberg bombing. But Norbert Vanlisht, former art director of the castle there, his records claim the panels were wrapped again in cigarette paper and removed a month before the British raid. They didn't melt down in the bombing. Another story states the room was on a luxury liner serving as a hospital and refugee unit that sank in 1945. It's been labeled Wreck 73 on the Baltic Sea, and the Polish government will not allow treasure or salvage licenses for that area.
"But one of the most enduring theories is that the Amber Chamber is stored in crates in an abandoned salt or potash mine," he said, leaning an elbow on the table as he leaned closer. "Until a few decades ago, the Soviets reported it was destroyed in a fire. Since 1990, however, the Russians claim it's in the Jonastal cliffs or the Weimar underground with old Nazi bombs as company. The German government made a search of Karl-Marx-Platz, thanks to a tip from then President Yeltsin. Nothing was found."
"It seems there's some truth to the mine theory," Lauren said. Anticipation edged her voice. "I read it took three trucks to hold the metal crates and four men to move each crate. Whatever made the gouges we seen in the crypt, Dr. Sheldon, was heavy."
"How many crates were there?" he asked.
Lauren and Elden looked at each other, both shaking their heads.
"Judging from the width of the gouges and size of the pile," Elden estimated, "maybe two and a half meters by about one and a half and about one and a half in height."
Carlos visualized this for a moment, looking around the patio that was slowly emptying of guests. "About the size of that clump of rhododendrons?" he asked with a nod.
Both Lauren and Elden glanced at the mound of red flowers on the lawn Carlos indicated. Elden nodded.
"Then he doesn't have it all," Carlos said lowly. "If your dimensions are near accurate, Elden, Gustalav's collection is incomplete." He stood up as this idea sunk in to Lauren. "It's late. Let's go in."
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