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circumstances of his death.”
    “Right. Terrible bit of business,” Albright repeated, then leaned forward conspiratorially. “How much do you know?”
    “About?”
    “About his manner of death.”
    Logan hesitated. “Just about everything.”
    Albright nodded. Then he whispered:
“It was me as found his…”
He fell silent and pointed to his own head. “Trimming the verge at the time, I was, down near the East Wing, banking the soil and adding some plant food.” He grimaced, reliving the moment. “Been told to keep my mouth shut about it.”
    “I think that’s a very good idea. Morale’s low enough as it is.” Logan paused a moment. “Up until recently, how would you characterize Dr. Strachey’s frame of mind?”
    “Beg pardon?”
    “What was he like? Withdrawn, contemplative, friendly, moody?”
    Albright considered this a moment. “Do you know the expression ‘Snug as a bug in a rug’?”
    “Of course.”
    “Well, that was Dr. Strachey. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a man better fitted for his line of work—or more suited temperamentally, like.”
    This jibed so closely with what others had said that Logan decided that in the future he’d stop asking the question. “I’d like to talk to you about the West Wing, if I may.”
    Albright looked at him curiously. “The West Wing? What about it?”
    “Well, can you tell me its history? Why has it been closed down for so long?” During Logan’s own tenure at Lux, the subject of the West Wing had rarely come up; it was almost as if it had never existed.
    “Can’t say as I know for sure. It was in pretty constant use through the sixties and seventies—that’s when I came on staff, in 1978. But by that time the Fellows were starting to complain.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, it was just getting…down at the heels, like. Offices and labs were small and cramped—not to mention very confusing to get around, what with no central connecting corridor. And when the East Wing renovation was completed in 1976, and everyone saw how much nicer the quarters were over there, they started asking for transfers. The staff was smaller then, and the main structure and the East Wing could accommodate just about everyone. So the West Wing fell into disuse. It was shut up completely in 1984.”
    “Why?”
    “There just didn’t seem any reason to keep only a handful of blokes working in there. Waste of electricity. Besides, it was overdue for a lot of repair. The heating and plumbing systems were out of date. And so they just closed it up.”
    “Until recently,” Logan said.
    Albright nodded. “What with the new Fellows and research associates, I guess they needed more room.”
    “And they assigned Dr. Strachey to oversee the redesign.”
    “Yes. Along with Miss Flood.”
    “The architect.” Logan had spent a few hours the night before going over Strachey’s memos, charts, and blueprints for the redesign, and the name Flood Associates had appeared again and again. “And were your men going to take on the actual reconstruction?”
    “Oh, no. They’d handle the finishing work, the plumbing andpainting and HVAC. But this was to be a big job, a first-class job. You need professional builders for that—and specialists, as well.”
    “Specialists?”
    “For stonework and the like. Dr. Strachey had some pretty grand designs for the place.”
    “But you were involved yourself, I assume?”
    “Primarily in terms of arranging the construction schedule with the general contractor.”
    “Did Strachey seem to enjoy the work?”
    “Funny you should ask that,” Albright said. “I’d have thought he’d have disliked it. Being torn away from his beloved equations and whatnot. And at first he did seem to be on the fence about things. But from what I could see, he grew more and more fascinated with the work. The
design
work, mind you—he wasn’t interested in knocking down walls or putting up Sheetrock. But the look of the place—now, that was something else.