Columbia University, Morningside Heights, New York City
It had been a long and chilly walk from the I25th Street—Harlem station to his office, but Verlaine had buttoned his coat and was determined to face the freezing winds. Once he arrived on the Columbia University campus, he found everything utterly quiet, more still and dark than he’d seen it before. The holiday had sent everyone—even the most dedicated students—home until after the New Year. In the distance, cars drove along Broadway, their lights opening over the buildings. Riverside Church, its imposing tower stretching above even the highest of the campus buildings, sat in the distance, its stained-glass windows illuminated from within.
The cut on Verlaine’s hand had somehow reopened on the walk, and a fine trickle of blood blossomed through the silk of his fleur-de-lis tie. After some searching he found his office keys and let himself into Schermerhorn Hall, the location of the art history and archaeology department, an imposing brick building in proximity to St. Paul’s Chapel that had once housed the natural sciences departments. Indeed, Verlaine had heard that it had been the site of early work on the Manhattan Project, a bit of trivia he found fascinating. Although he knew he was alone, he felt too ill at ease to take the elevator and risk being trapped inside. Instead, Verlaine ran up the stairs to the graduate-student offices.
Once in his office, he locked the door behind him and removed the folder containing Innocenta’s letters from his desk, taking care not to let his bloodied hand come into contact with the desiccated, fragile paper. Sitting in his chair, he flicked on his desk lamp, and in the pale ring of light he examined the letters. He had read them numerous times before, noting every possible distinguishing innuendo and every potentially allusive turn of phrase, and yet even now, after hours of rereading them in the spooky solitude of his locked office, he felt that the letters seemed strangely, even bizarrely banal. Though the events of the past day prodded him to read the slightest detail with a new eye, he could find very little that pointed to a hidden agenda between these two women. Indeed, beneath the puddle of light from his desk lamp, Innocenta’s letters appeared to be not much more than sedate tea-table discursions on the quotidian rituals of the convent and on Mrs. Rockefeller’s unerring good taste.
Verlaine stood, began packing his papers into a messenger bag he kept in the corner of his office, and was about to call it a night when he stopped short. There was something uncanny about the letters. He could detect no obvious pattern—in fact, they were almost purposely jumbled. But there was an unaccountable recurrence of some very odd compliments Innocenta paid Mrs. Rockefeller. At the end of several missives, Innocenta praised the other woman’s good taste. In the past, Verlaine had skimmed these passages, believing them to be a trite way to bring the letters to a close. Taking the letters from his bag, he reread them again, this time noting each of the many passages of artistic praise.
The compliments revolved around the choice of Mrs. Rockefeller’s taste in a picture or design. In one letter Innocenta had written, “Please know that the perfection of your artistic vision, and the execution of your fancy, is well noted and accepted.” At the close of the second letter, Verlaine read, “Our most admired friend, one cannot fail to marvel at your delicate renderings or receive them with humble thanks and grateful understanding.” And yet another read, “As always, your hand never fails to express what the eye most wishes to behold.”
Verlaine puzzled over these references for a moment. What was all this talk about artistic renderings? Had there been pictures or a design included in Abigail Rockefeller’s letters to Innocenta? Evangeline hadn’t mentioned finding anything accompanying the letter in the archives, but Innocenta’s replies seemed to suggest that there was in fact something of that nature attached to her patron’s half of the correspondence. If Abigail Rockefeller had included her own original drawings and he discovered these drawings, his professional life would skyrocket. Verlaine’s excitement was so great he could hardly think.
To fully understand Innocenta’s references, he would need to find the original letters. Evangeline had one in her possession. Surely the others must be somewhere at St. Rose Convent, most likely archived in their vault in the library. Verlaine wondered if it was possible that Evangeline had discovered Abigail Rockefeller’s letter and had overlooked an enclosure, or perhaps had even discovered an envelope with the letter. While Evangeline had promised to look for the other missives, she had no reason to search for anything more. If only he had his car, he would drive back to the convent and assist her in the search. Verlaine fumbled through his desk, looking for the telephone number of St. Rose Convent. If Evangeline couldn’t find the letters in the convent, it was more than likely that they would never be found. It would be a terrible loss for the history of art, not to mention Verlaine’s career. He suddenly felt ashamed that he had been so afraid, and of his reluctance to return to his apartment. He needed to pull himself together immediately and get back upstate to St. Rose by whatever means possible.