During refurbishment, a small
item is spotted glinting dully under a darkly stained section of
rotting floorboards. It is recovered by the foreman in charge, Jacques
Dumonte, who handed in his notice the next day having apparently come
into a considerable amount of money.
The item he found was a
white and yellow gold Masonic signet ring, decorated with rich enamels
and embellished with the Masonic symbol on one side and a LeMarchand
'gateway' motif on the other. The room being refurbished was the very
same that had seen the mysterious disappearance of LeMarchand all those
years before in 1811.
M. Dumonte, it would
appear, not only knew of this fact, but appeared exited and expectant
when at work. He hurried along a disgruntled workforce as room by room
the refurbishment went ahead until reaching 101**, where he slowed work
down and insisted on the utmost care in all things. It would also
appear that others knew of this room and its meaning, as the ring was
sold on the night of its discovery at an auction held at a secret
location in the heart of Paris.
Since that night it has passed
though many hands, most notably those of Philippe Pétain, war
hero from the 1st World War and Nazi collaborateur from the 2nd. It is
believed that his rise to head of state after the successful invasion
of France in 1940, and the subsequent granting of extraordinary powers
by the new Nazi overlords, was due in no small measure to his gift of
LeMarchand's Ring to Adolf Hitler.
The ring stayed in Hitler's hands until his suicide on April 30, 1945,
when it was presumably picked up by a Russian soldier upon discovery
of the body in his bunker.
The last known owner of the
ring was a LeMarchand collector of some repute known as N.G. This individual also
has in his possession, amongst other items, the 'Box of Grief,' sister box to the infamous 'Box
of Sorrows.'
N.G. went into hiding
rather hurriedly after receiving death threats from a fellow scholar,
taking his entire collection with him, leaving only a few scattered and
relatively unimportant items, one of which was a photographic record of his acquisitions, including the Ring***.
** The 'Room 101' myth is
thought to originate from L'Hotel D'Arnais. This was popularized by George Orwell,
a
respected LeMarchand scholar, in his book1984 where Room 101 is
described :
"You asked me once," said
O'Brien, "what was in Room 101. I told you that you know the answer
already.
Everybody knows. The thing in Room 101 is the worst thing in
the world."
