(familiar theme music: acoustic guitar, church bells, a faraway female voice)
NEWT GEISZLER: Welcome to Season Two of the Black Tapes Podcast.
This season, we’re continuing our exploration of belief and the search for truth, and our profile of the enigmatic Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. We are examining his collection of unsolved cases, pursuing the theory that they are connected.
Our story progresses in order, week by week. So, if you’re a first-time listener, welcome to the show! You’ll have to start at episode one if you want to have the faintest idea what I’m talking about.
(theme music fades out)
NEWT (VO): We ended our last episode on a sort of cliffhanger. My apologies, kids.
I flew up to Quebec City in a state of, let’s say, semi-panic. Did my break help me relax? A bit. But since returning to work, I confess, the paranoia was creeping back in. I’m hovering around four hours of sleep per night, at press time. Nothing for July Newt to sneeze at, but nothing for, say, a healthy person to envy.
In short: I was a little stressed. Dr. Gottlieb had skipped town at the urging of a message he believed was from his long-missing wife, Vanessa Gottlieb. He interpreted the message as telling him to return to the hotel where they were married, 16 years ago, in Quebec City, Canada.
A few days after that, we received a similar message, with a similar computerized voice. It said simply: “Don’t go. They know.”
But Hermann was already gone. And he wasn’t answering his phone.
(interlude music #4)
NEWT (VO): The (poor French pronunciation) Château Frontenac is quite the chateau. It’s so big you can see it from the air. Quebec City is a fortified island, a web of cobblestone streets winding up the main hill. The Château Frontenac sits at the top of all that, towering over the city below. Its architecture and scale can only be described as Hogwartsian. I could easily imagine Jack Nicholson wreaking havoc in those halls, or ghosts trapped in there, drifting down the endless corners, wandering for eternity and never finding a way out... (Was I projecting?)
Anyway, when I got there, reception told me that Dr. Gottlieb hadn’t checked in yet. I was relieved. So I waited in the lobby, in a leather armchair with some serious sink, for over an hour.
(Interior activity sounds: people talking, faint string music, footsteps, doors opening and closing. Cars are heard outside.)
(swish of revolving door)
(creak of leather chair)
NEWT: Hermann!
(quick footsteps)
NEWT: Hermann--
HERMANN: (getting louder as mic approaches) Newton... What are you doing here?
NEWT: (exasperated but relieved) Well, I could have told you from Boston, if you were answering your phone...
HERMANN: I turned it off. (...) Did you fly here?
NEWT: Yes--
HERMANN: (distant) I thought you hated flying.
NEWT: I don’t much care for it. Don’t really care for driving, either. Just stay in one place, that’s what I say. Listen--
HERMANN: (brisk again) I don’t know why you came, Newton. If you’ll excuse me. I have something to attend to.
NEWT: Hermann, wait! (hurried footsteps) I came to tell you something. Will you listen for one second?
HERMANN: (stopping) (exasperated) Yes?
NEWT: We got another message. Same computerized voice. It said, “Don’t go. They know.”
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: So I...
HERMANN: Very well. Thank you for informing me. If you’ll excuse me.
(footsteps with cane)
NEWT: I don’t think it’s safe! Hermann, please!
(Hermann keeps walking)
NEWT: (whispering) God dammit. (louder) Wait for me!
(footsteps as Newt follows)
NEWT (VO): Hermann checked in while I hovered. The interior of the hotel, I should mention, was no less extravagant than the exterior. All mahogany and mirrors, richly colored rugs, and chandeliers dimmed enough to make you think it was cocktail hour. Which, actually, it could have been by then. The sun was setting outside by the time Hermann finished checking in. He headed for the elevators.
HERMANN: I’m going to the top floor. I suppose... I suppose we are going to the top floor.
NEWT: I’m sorry, dude. Like, I respect your privacy and all, like, I know I haven’t always in the past, but I really do; and I know this is a sensitive one, being as it’s your, like, honeymoon suite from over a decade ago. I get it. But I am coming with you.
HERMANN: (clears throat) Since there seems to be nothing I can do to stop you, let’s go.
NEWT: Believe me... I also hope I’m wrong.
(elevator dings)
(footsteps)
HERMANN: (to others in elevator) Excuse us. (to Newt) I’m quite certain you are. But what about?
NEWT: This being... a trap. Or whatever.
(doors close)
NEWT: (whispering) Or whatever other worst-case scenarios my mind may or may not have conjured up in the last twelve hours.
HERMANN: (low, delicately sarcastic) I shudder to think.
(elevator dings)
(others exit)
(pause)
NEWT: (hushed) I know you think the message is definitely her, but what if--
HERMANN: (angry murmur) It is her. Will you drop it?
(elevator dings)
(others exit)
(pause)
NEWT: (quiet) Is it the same...
HERMANN: Yes. I requested the same room.
NEWT: ...Oh.
NEWT (VO): We got off on the top floor, floor 18. The door dinged shut behind us. If I wasn’t feeling nervous already, the long, quiet hallway did nothing to alleviate my angst. Stanley Kubrick couldn’t have built it better. The garish carpet snaked away, impossibly far, past door after silent wooden door. The elevator dinged away, more and more distant down the shaft, and then all was muffled hotel quiet.
We made our way silently down the hallway. Of course, the room was all the way at the end.
(key card slide)
(key card being pulled out)
(mechanical click)
(someone takes a breath)
HERMANN: (murmur) Everything will be all right, Newton.
NEWT: (exhales quietly)
(door opens)
(two sets of footsteps, slow, muffled on carpet)
(door closes heavily behind them)
(beat)
NEWT: (quietly, into mic) Okay... first impressions: nothing immediately jumping out to murder us...
HERMANN: (tense sarcasm) I did notice that.
(more footsteps)
(creak of opening door)
NEWT: Nothing in the bathroom. I’m checking the closet.
HERMANN: (from other room) Go ahead.
(rumble of sliding closet door)
NEWT: Nothing in here...
(wire hangers clattering lightly)
NEWT: ...Just an extra duvet. And the safe.
(rumble and clack of closet door closing)
NEWT: Anything out there?
(footsteps as he walks into the main room)
NEWT: Sheesh, what a view. Is there anything you... Hermann?
HERMANN: (...)
(footsteps stop)
NEWT: Is everything all... (gasps) Holy [expletive bleeped]. Is that--
HERMANN: Yes. It is.
NEWT: Oh my god. (...) Oh my god. It’s red. Not green. It’s the real one.
HERMANN: (strained) Possibly. But you--
(hurried footsteps)
HERMANN: (urgent) Newton!
(bedsprings creak)
HERMANN: What are you doing?
(click and slide of something being removed from the wall)
(object hits fabric bedspread)
NEWT: It’s the painting.
HERMANN: Newton. That is a priceless artifact. It is also highly sought after by the international authorities. Please, for the love of god...
NEWT (VO): I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, in some subpar poster frame hanging above the hotel bed, was Il Sorriso Capovolto. Oil on canvas. Edges torn.
Of course it occurred to me right away that this might be a replica--maybe it was just a convincing fake. How would I know? I don’t have an eye for art forgery. But I have spent a fair amount of time looking at this particular work. A fair amount looking at a particular section of it.
My eye went to the code immediately.
The book in the painting was red. The one Dr. Byrne described. Here it was: the code that had fascinated scholars, cultists, and podcast reporters for generations. At first glance, it looked right to me.
I had no idea how Vanessa Gottlieb could have gotten her hands on this, but my mind was racing with the possibilities.
In that moment, if I had been a betting man, I would have said it was the real one.
It was high up on the wall. I pulled it down and set it on the bed for a closer look. Dr. G hurried over to see. He didn’t believe it was the real one, but he still didn’t like me manhandling it.
HERMANN: Please, for the love of god be careful...
NEWT: It’s the real one. On my god. Hermann. Did your wife leave this for you? How the hell did she find it?
HERMANN: I have no idea, but Newton. We have no reason to believe this was left here by Vanessa, nor that it is the actual five-hundred-year-old Renaissance masterpiece that has been missing for over twenty years, nor any combination of these two theories...
(beat)
HERMANN: Newton?
NEWT: (distant) Yeah?
HERMANN: You’re staring. Do you see something?
NEWT: What? No--yeah. Uh, yeah. The code.
HERMANN: What about it?
NEWT: I don’t... I don’t think this is the real one.
HERMANN: No? Why not.
NEWT: The code isn’t the same.
HERMANN: Isn’t it?
NEWT: No. Look, it’s words. It’s just words. Maybe it’s decoded. Or a decoy.
HERMANN: I... I don’t think I see what you’re seeing.
(tap on plastic)
HERMANN: (wincing) Newton, please!
NEWT: What? It’s protected.
HERMANN: This is obviously a flimsy frame someone bought at a craft store--
NEWT: (interrupting) Anyway--right there.
HERMANN: I don’t understand.
NEWT: In the book, Hermann. It says:
When the hour is at hand
The few, the one, will know
When the call is given
He appears.
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: ...And then the numbers. 101364326 (...) Not the best poetry I’ve ever read, but not the worst.
(beat)
NEWT: Hermann?
(footsteps with cane, moving away from the mic)
NEWT: Dude? Where are you going?
(slide and swish of Hermann closing the curtains)
NEWT: Uh...
HERMANN: Sun damage.
NEWT: Okay... (pause) Spoken like someone who thinks this might be... the genuine article...
HERMANN: I’ll (...) wait for verification. But I’d rather err on the side of not damaging the five-hundred year old Renaissance painting, if you don’t mind.
NEWT: Okay, okay, I’ll put it down...
(footsteps--footsteps halt)
HERMANN: (urgent) Wait--stop.
NEWT: What?! Put it down, or don’t put it down?
HERMANN: No! Look. There’s something written on the back of the frame.
NEWT: Really?
HERMANN: Yes, on the cardboard. It looks like num--
(knocking on the door)
(tense pause)
NEWT: (whispering) Are you expecting someone?
HERMANN: (hissing) Absolutely not.
NEWT: What should we--
(knocking)
HERMANN: (quickly, hushed) Take a picture of the back. With your phone. Now. (louder) Just a moment, please!
(sound of Newt rummaging)
(more knocking)
(sound of iPhone camera shutter)
NEWT: (whispering) Okay. Got it.
HERMANN: (hushed) Get the painting out of sight. (louder) I’m coming!
(footsteps with cane cross the carpet)
(pause)
(door opens)
HERMANN: (muffled in other room) Yes?
MAN: (speaking in French) Excusez-moi, monsieur. La réception vous appelle, mais votre téléphone de chambre ne sonne pas. On a besoin de vous parler, monsieur, en bas.
HERMANN: (in French, Britishly overpronounced) À propos de?
MAN: Je vous en prie. On vous l’explique en bas.
HERMANN: La téléphone n’a pas sonné. What is this about?
MAN: (heavy Quebecois accent) Zere is some confusion about the rooms. We apologize deeply for this. It seems another couple was booked in this room on this night. They are waiting in the lobby.
HERMANN: (...)
HERMANN: Very well. (severely) This is a great inconvenience, I’m sure you know. I’ll need a moment.
MAN: Certainly. Vous êtes seul ici?
HERMANN: Oui.
MAN: Est-ce que je pourrai entrer pour faire un check sur le téléphone?
HERMANN: (still severe) Non. Excusez-moi.
MAN: Bien sûr.
(door closes)
NEWT: (exhales) What was that about?
HERMANN: I’m needed downstairs. Apparently there’s a problem with the room reservation.
NEWT (VO): It was a debacle. Apparently, the hotel had accidentally double-booked the suite that weekend. The other couple was downstairs, kicking up some kind of fuss.
On the surface, was it suspicious? Nothing about the situation suggested it was anything other than bad luck. But it did not escape my notice that Hermann told me to hide the painting and, by extension, myself. My French is pretty rusty, but I know he lied to the man at the door and said that he was there alone.
If I thought there was something to worry about, I wasn’t the only one.
Hermann and I then found ourselves in the awkward position of possessing a possibly-priceless stolen painting while resolving a bureaucratic vacation hiccup. The hotel apologized profusely for the confusion. They offered to put us up for free in restitution. They were not impressed when we asked for separate rooms.
-----------OFF THE RECORD-----------
RECEPTIONIST: (neat Parisian accent) I’m sorry, no. Two rooms would simply not be possible. The original reservation was only for one room. For you, Monsieur Gottlieb, we can make arrangements, but not--
HERMANN: (dangerously) No, no. After all this, you cannot seriously expect us to--
NEWT: Um yes--sorry--excuse us a moment, would you?
RECEPTIONIST: (indistinct)
(shuffling footsteps)
NEWT: (undertone) Hermann, it’s fine.
HERMANN: (angry undertone) It’s ridiculous. They fumble the bloody rooms and then can’t provide the necessary solution--
NEWT: No, it’s fine, I don’t mind--
HERMANN: It is not, it is absolutely not fine--it will be impossible for you to find accommodations at the last minute on a holiday weekend, do not pretend--what do you suggest? Do you propose to sleep in your car? Oh wait, you haven’t got a car. It--
NEWT: Hermann! Listen! It’s fine. Let them give us one room.
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: Why would I need a place to sleep? I don’t, remember?
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: (quiet) Hm?
HERMANN: I thought you...
NEWT: You thought I what?
HERMANN: (deep breath) I thought you... that your condition was improving.
NEWT: (...)
NEWT: So-so. (quiet) Three or four hours on average.
HERMANN: Newton...
NEWT: (rallying) I’ll be fine. Take the room. We’ll put our stuff up there, wait for the painting people, eat a ritzy dinner in the lounge. Then you can go back upstairs, I’ll stay in the lounge working for the rest of the night, while you sleep. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky, and doze off.
(pause)
HERMANN: (...) All right.
NEWT: Yeah?
HERMANN: Yes.
-----------RESUME RECORD-----------
NEWT (VO): ...I won’t tell you which one of us asked for separate rooms.
Once we worked it out, we contacted the ISG. They were going to either love us for discovering a second painting or hate us for opening Pandora’s international jurisdiction box. After some kerfuffle, the FBI and someone from the museum were sent up on the quickest flight.
They didn’t arrive until late in the evening. Dr. G and I had been too nervous to keep the painting unattended in the room, so we put it in the hotel room closet and sat on our hands waiting. We were pretty relieved to hand it over.
I asked the ISG guy if it was legit. He said, on first glance, yes. But it would take lab work and real experts to authenticate.
They brought it back to Boston that night. We bought tickets for the first flight out the next morning.
--------- ⏹ Stop ---------
It was late when Newton let himself back into the room. He opened the door as quietly as he could, Hermann could tell. But the click of the key card still woke him.
He kept his eyes closed as Newton walked across the room, set his laptop down, unzipped his suitcase, and rooted around for something. He found it, pulled it out—it sounded like it was his laptop charger. Then there was the quiet thunk of him plugging it into an outlet.
He clicked rapidly on his laptop, waking it back up. “Come on, come on...” he murmured, almost inaudible.
Abruptly, the AC unit turned off. Silence washed around them.
Hermann opened his eyes.
The moon was high outside the wide windows. Hermann was facing the bathroom. Newton sat at the windows, behind him. The blue light of nighttime was flooding in, washing through the open door of the bathroom. In the bathroom mirror, Hermann could see the night sky, the distant hills beyond the city, and Newton. He was a dark silhouette against the sky outside, except his face, bathed in white computer light. He slouched, staring with blank, heavy-lidded focus at his computer.
Hermann watched him for a moment. He could see two tiny screens reflected in his glasses, but it was too far to see what he was working on; too far and too many refractions from reality. He closed his eyes again.
The quiet sounds of Newton working gave a shape to the darkness. Without the AC, he was the loudest sound in the room. Hermann tried to half-focus on the sounds, and let them lull him back to sleep—but instead, he felt rather awake.
He could hear everything. His quiet breath, the tiniest sound of him adjusting, or a soft sigh of frustration; the strokes of his mouse, his fingers on the keyboard.
It started to feel like Newton was right next to his head, clacking on a typewriter in Hermann’s ear. Hermann almost considered sitting up and asking him to go back to the lounge, when he heard a quiet snap of the laptop shutting.
Now, the sound of Newton getting up, shuffling across the carpet in front of the window. He sat down—in the armchair, Hermann thought, the one in the corner. It hadn’t looked very comfortable. But maybe he had finally grown tired.
There was a quiet raveling and then two thumps, one after the other, as Newton took his shoes off and tossed them onto the carpet. Then a quiet clack as he took off his glasses and set them down on the other nightstand—the one that would have been his, if he had been sleeping on the other side of the bed.
Hermann was thinking about that side; about the person-sized expanse of bed that was now the only thing between the two of them. Newton would never put himself there, and they both knew it. But the possibility that he could, the parallel universe where he might, opened a terrifying tension.
Hermann tried to breathe steadily, silently. He had never felt further from sleep.
There was a slow slide of fabric on fabric as Newton slouched in the chair. He let out a long, exhausted sigh.
Newt was thinking about that space too. It was like a space that couldn’t exist, or one that should be conceptual only. Like an electron orbital or a DMZ. He closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose where his glasses had made their daily indents. If he was going to sleep—and he felt like he might, actually—this armchair was the place.
Eyes still closed, he started on a sleep exercise he’d learned from Dr. Mitchell, and then modified for his own purposes. It often worked. He would pick a location he knew well and then visualize it as clearly as he could. He rebuilt the place in his mind’s eye, down to the last detail. Everything he could remember. The internally directed focus was a great help. If his brain was obligingly quiet, he could drift off within minutes.
Usually he would describe his grandparents’ old house, or sometimes, his uncle’s house in Florida. But tonight, his mind swung like a compass needle southwards. To Lincoln, Massachusetts.
His mind wandered down the hall he had seen only twice, transplanted there like a dream. What was there to remember? Every doorway opened on a bright hardwood floor, spotless, furniture just unwrapped... At the end of the hallway, a door was swinging shut. Someone had just walked through ahead of him. Hermann. Who else?
Sitting slumped in his armchair, Newt could not hear Hermann at all. He couldn’t hear him moving or even breathing.
He imagined that he was sitting just in front of him, listening silently.
Newt spoke softly. “I know this isn’t the right time,” he said. “I know a lot of things are more important right now. But...”
His voice came out less hoarse than he expected. Clear. But quiet. He went on.
“I had a lot of time to think, on my break.”
He didn’t speak for a moment.
“When you disappeared, I wasn’t sure. And when you came back, I really wasn’t. I was torturing myself with regret and guilt and thinking, I don’t know, that it was all in my head... or that it was too late. Over before it began. Something like that. But I had a lot of time to think, on my break,” he said again. “This isn’t some want-it-cause-you-can’t-have-it thing. This is real. It’s the real deal.
“And I know—it’s complicated. You’re married? To someone who seems to be a fugitive? And I don’t know how you feel about all that, especially being here, again. I’m afraid to ask you. Maybe you don’t know how you feel about it, either; maybe you’re waiting to figure it out.
“But I know how you feel about me. People say, people who have been—been together for a long time. For years and years. They say when they knew, they knew... Well I know. It’s you and me.
“So maybe you won’t say anything—not now. I won’t push it either. Not anymore. I decided. I’m just waiting. Waiting for you.”
Newt kept his eyes closed. He felt like he had untethered himself from shore and was drifting away. The AC became the wind and Hermann’s distant breathing became the waves, and he drifted down into sleep. And Hermann lay awake in the bed, his back to Newt, his eyes wide open, for a long time after.
In the morning, Hermann woke first. Newton was still sound asleep, snoring lightly in his chair with his jacket over him as a blanket. Hermann brushed his teeth, dressed, made coffee for Newton on the room’s tiny machine, adjusted his jacket over him, hesitated there a moment; then he went downstairs to wait.
---------SPONSOR BREAK #1---------
⏮ ⏯ ⏭
NEWT (VO): You would think, after everything that happened in Quebec City, well... Something. But when we got back home to Massachusetts, all the mysteries I’d left behind were still waiting. Inert.
We still didn’t know much about Rothco. We still didn’t know where Vanessa was. We had leads on the Alex Calder case, but we still hadn’t questioned Dr. G about it. And I felt that time was coming soon.
We also hadn’t heard from Raleigh, our European correspondent, in almost two months. His family has contacted the French authorities, but so far, there’s nothing. We’re doing everything we can to locate him.
(interlude music #5)
So where were we?
The recovery of the painting felt like a major breakthrough at first brush. (Pun intended.) However, it wasn’t authenticated yet. The process was proving much longer, for reasons the museum admin was being taciturn about.
In journalism, you should not go in expecting big breaks like this--but everyone does. I don’t think it’s just me. The sad truth of it is this: a big break--even a long-awaited casebreaker like a stolen painting or a message from the missing--opens more questions than it closes.
Who left us that painting? How did they get it?
Did they give it to us out of the goodness of their heart, or to some other end? What end?
Was it Vanessa? Where was she, and why was she hiding? Was she working with us, or against us?
So we had to wait. It was all we could do.
I handled the agonizing monotony of patience for about six minutes before I tossed our secondary mysteries aside and started trawling alternative sources for answers about the painting. All I had was the pictures I had taken with my phone. Photos of the front and the back of the painting, and one close-up of the code page.
The numbers on the back were a good place to start. I, amateur cryptographer extraordinaire, identified it as a book code. Dr. G said he thought he knew what book Vanessa would have chosen: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Now we had to find the right edition.
The code page on the painting itself presented another tricky problem.
MAKO: So Newt. We’re looking at the picture you took of the painting you and Dr. G recovered in Quebec. In the recording from when you discover it, you read something off of it. A few lines and a number.
NEWT: Yeah. It’s weird, cause in this picture...
MAKO: ...Yeah. In this picture, there’s nothing. Just the usual code.
NEWT: (uncomfortable) Yeah.
MAKO: Did you see something? Something different than what this picture shows?
NEWT: (uncertain) I don’t think so... I mean, I was a little hyped up on adrenaline.
MAKO: Enough to hallucinate?
NEWT: Enough for my mind to form patterns that aren’t there, maybe?
MAKO: Okay, Dr. Gottlieb. (Newt laughs) Well, I’m looking into the lines you read. I haven’t found any hits yet. The language was pretty vague. So maybe it was just synapses misfiring.
(interlude music #5)
NEWT (VO): I wanted very much to show the pictures of the painting to an expert. But Dr. Wagner, our rare books expert, was not available. I tried Dr. Byrne up in Canada too. She couldn’t be reached.
On a whim, I turned to another earlier source.
DR. MILTON RESNICK: (English, cheerfully brisk) Mr. Geiszler. So excellent to hear from you again.
NEWT: And you, Dr. Resnick! Thanks so much for giving us your time. Again.
RESNICK: Of course, that's quite all right. I was very glad to hear from you again, actually.
NEWT: Yeah?
RESNICK: Yes. After we spoke, I had an attack of vanity and listened to our interview on your show. Then I got intrigued, and listened to the rest of the episodes. Fascinating stuff.
NEWT: (chuffed) Aw. Thanks.
RESNICK: A little sensational for my academic side. But just juicy.
NEWT: Hm, well--
RESNICK: So I’ve been listening since. But I absolutely kicked myself when I heard your last episode. Your books expert was talking about the Pilori and the herald mythos.
NEWT: That’s right. Do you know anything about those?
RESNICK: As it happens, I know a similar story, from a different place. I’m not as familiar with the Pilori, who are, I believe she said, fae folk? Yes, well--the story I’m familiar with is of a real group. Not fae, but a cult. They were called the Cult of la Torre di Tierra. They were pagans in Northern Italy, and they had a similar belief about the power of the spoken word. Their beliefs and practices centered around invocations that only a chosen few could read or speak.
NEWT: That sounds interesting.
RESNICK: Yes. The reason I know about them is because of their influence on a rather radical monk working in their area in the 16th century. And this was why I was kicking myself, because I wished I had told you this story when we first spoke!
NEWT: What’s the story?
RESNICK: The Cult of la Torre di Tierra, despite their paganism, was a major influence on a certain apocryphal scholar named Stefano de Ercole. He was a monk at the Monasterio Santa Maria Alborense, and it’s through his writing that we primarily know of the Ceonophus.
NEWT: (realizing) ...Oh!
RESNICK: Yes! He spent his life studying the writings of Adémar de Chabannes.
NEWT: Wow!
RESNICK: As you remember, no modern scholar has ever seen or studied the Ceonophus. We only know of it secondhand, through citations from scholars of the middle ages. Stefano is our primary source for these accounts. It is Stefano who gives us the concept of the Ceonophus as the sort of “apocalypse manual” we now consider it. He spent his life studying this book, supposedly.
There are a few reasons historians consider him--Stefano, and the Ceonophus by extension--apocryphal. There is no evidence the book exists, because he never quotes it directly. Stefano is happy to summarize passages for us, but he makes no citations. He does not refer to where the book is stored, and no one else seems to have ever laid eyes on it. It’s entirely possible he made it all up.
NEWT: (excited) Okay--yes. Sure. Could be. But assuming, pretending he didn’t, for a minute. What did he say about the book?
RESNICK: In short, Stefano believed that the words had been written by Adémar, the messenger, but that they could only be truly understood by a figure he called “the herald.” The herald would come after Adémar, to make his written word into spoken truth. Your scholar Dr. Wagner used this same term, and it’s what flipped the switch in my mind. Stefano believed himself to be that very herald.
This is where the influence of the Torre di Tierra cult comes in. His herald idea was similar to theirs, or the Pilori’s, “powerful words” theory, but more specific: specific to one person. The incantations in the Ceonophus were not a normal spells--they were not arbitrary signifiers to be spoken by anyone, not traversable passageways, like your demon board. The words would mean nothing in the mouths of others. Only the herald could speak them truly.
NEWT: And Stefano believed he was that herald?
RESNICK: It seems he did.
NEWT: This is fascinating.
RESNICK: Unfortunately for Stefano, the role of apocalyptic messenger did not come with job security. He was excommunicated in 1610. The recorded reason is “Heresy,” which could mean a number of things.
NEWT: 1610? When did Stefano live?
RESNICK: He lived from 1543 to 1629.
NEWT: And where? In Italy?
RESNICK: That’s right. Stefano de Ercole. Of Porto Ercole, Tuscany.
NEWT: (surprised) But that’s...
RESNICK: Yes.
NEWT: Porto Ercole is where Caravaggio died.
RESNICK: Yes.
NEWT: In 1610.
RESNICK: Yes.
NEWT: Whoa.
RESNICK: Stefano’s monastery was a two days journey away. The Cult of la Torre di Tierra was in Porto Ercole. You can still visit the Torre today. It’s still there. It’s the oldest structure in the town.
NEWT: Dr. Resnick, you found it--you found a possible connection! Do you know how long I’ve been looking? I don’t know if I want to kill you or kiss you!
RESNICK: (laughing) Well, how about neither?
NEWT: (hurried) Wow. This is great. Okay. I’ve got about 6,000 ideas pulling my brain in 6,000 directions right now, so bear with me, Doc. What are the chances Stefano ran from the monastery and joined the cult?
RESNICK: I’ve no idea. We have nothing on him after his excommunication except a death record. No writings whatsoever.
NEWT: Is it possible he took his radical ideas to them, after the Church rejected them?
RESNICK: I suppose anything is possible.
NEWT (VO): Was this, at last, the concrete connection between the Ceonophus and the Capovolto Code that I had been searching for? Was it a stretch? Did I have any business searching for such a connection in the first place?
What if Caravaggio, working in that area at that time, had come into contact with Stefano the herald? Was it possible he had copied a page out of the Ceonophus for his painting? What if that had angered Stefano, or the cult? Would we ever find out?
Whether it was true or not, this must have been the connection Tomás Hawking made. Was that why he went to Porto Ercole and started following the trail of Adémar the monk?
And where was he now?
And where was Raleigh?
NEWT (VO): When we come back, we set ancient history aside in favor of recent history. It’s time to dive back into the mystery of Alex Calder.
---------SPONSOR BREAK #2---------
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NEWT (VO): Last episode, we made a major discovery: young Dr. Gottlieb was the one who found the body of the missing Alex Calder. According to one witness, he seemed to do so on instinct.
This goes against pretty much every single thing Hermann Gottlieb spent his life writing, stating, asserting, disputing, and controverting. As such, I had yet to ask him about it. I had decided to interview one last witness before I spoke to him directly--before Dr. G could bias or distort my perspective on the story.
JACKSON: (voice personable but airy) Oh, yeah. It must be twenty years since I saw him. Maybe longer.
NEWT (VO): That’s the voice of Jackson Styll--older brother of Clifford, whom we spoke with last episode, and childhood best friend, apparently, of Hermann Gottlieb. He’s now a software engineer living in South Carolina.
NEWT: So you and Dr... You and Hermann grew up together?
JACKSON: Yeah, Hermie and I became friends in preschool. I don't ever remember not knowing him. We must have been 2 or 3... Well, I do know that it was soon after he moved over from Germany, cause he didn’t know any English yet. (wryly) Instead, he expressed himself by biting. That's how we became friends.
When we got to first grade, he started going away for school. But he came back every summer, and we would spend the whole vacation together. We just picked up right where we left off. It was like he never left.
NEWT: How exactly would you describe your friend Hermann?
JACKSON: I don’t really know... He was just... a part of me, at that time. You're barely a person yourself, at that age, you know? And it’s been such a long time since we saw each other.
NEWT: Did you have a falling out?
JACKSON: No, no, nothing like that... I don’t know. Sometime around... college, I guess, we fell out of touch. You change so much around then.
NEWT: Yeah. Of course.
JACKSON: I mean, I’d love to see him again. I reached out after Mrs. G died, but I never heard back. I just figured he and Karla were going through it, and then, well...
NEWT: Right. (pause) So, August 1984. Can you tell us what you remember about Alex Calder’s disappearance?
JACKSON: Of course. I remember it really well. Me and my hometown friends had just started at Lincoln-Sudbury High, it was the summer after freshman year. I was dragging Hermie around with the Lincoln-Sudbury guys. He was a good sport about it.
I remember the day it happened. Mom wasn’t around, and Cliff had been nagging me, so I was spending the day over at Ritchie’s.
NEWT: Not at um, at Hermann’s?
JACKSON: No, no. We never went over his house.
NEWT: No?
JACKSON: No. Once we were old enough to choose where we hung out, he never invited me over. I got the feeling it was for a reason... Like that he didn't want his parents to meet me.
NEWT: Huh.
JACKSON: So on this day, Hermann was with us. He didn’t know Ritchie or the other guys too well, and he was always a bit shy, but I could usually talk him into coming. They all thought he was a little weird. Which, like, he was. With his glasses and his bad leg and his little British accent. But in the end, wherever I was going, he was going too.
Well, Alex was the only thing on the news that week. Hermann and I had talked about it a few times. He seemed worried about it, but he didn’t seem to know how to say why. I couldn’t get it out of him, so I didn’t push it. But the guys got to talking about it. We talked about what might have happened--like, was there a killer or a kidnapper loose in town? Or had he just gotten lost?
But Hermie got real quiet, all the sudden. He was in the middle of a sentence--I forget what he was saying, but he suddenly got this look on his face. Like he’d seen something out the window. I turned to look. Nothing there. I asked him what was wrong. He said he didn’t know, then got up and walked out.
I went out after him. He was standing on the front steps, by the bikes, looking down the street. I asked him if he was okay. I wasn’t sure if maybe his leg was acting up, or if it was Alex. Sensitive guy, you know. I don’t remember, exactly, how the conversation went, but he--I forget what I asked, but he said--“I know where he is.”
That was when things started to get... weird.
NEWT: (hushed) What did you think... when he said that? What went through your mind?
JACKSON: I didn’t know what to think at all. But I didn’t get scared. Like that he knew... (darkly) something. I didn’t get like... suspicious.
NEWT: You didn’t?
JACKSON: No. I trusted him.
NEWT: Okay. (...) Did he say anything else? Or did he start leading you guys to the body at that point?
JACKSON: No... yes. He said one more thing before we left. He said he’d had a dream. The night before. About Alex. He said... Yes. He said he had a dream last night, and it was so vivid and real that when he woke up, he felt like he was still in that world. That the dream had been the real thing, and that he was still asleep. Even now. On the porch. With me. That stuck with me.
NEWT: Yeah... I bet.
JACKSON: Yeah. God. It’s been years since I thought about all this.
(beat)
JACKSON: Well he said, in the dream, he saw a pond in a clearing.
NEWT: What did that have to do with Alex Calder?
JACKSON: Hermie said that Alex was there. Alex was standing next to the pond, wearing a red sweater, pointing at the ground.
NEWT: Okay. And Herm...ann, he knew where that pond was? That specific pond? There must be loads of ponds around Lincoln. I mean, Walden is right there. How did Hermann know it was this one? Your brother Clifford said he had never been there before. He said it wasn’t even a pond. It was a...
JACKSON: A vernal pool. Yeah. No, but Hermann was real specific about it. It was a little pond, with trees growing out of it, on a hill. He and I, we grew up riding and exploring all over town. We knew those woods. He said he knew how to get there.
NEWT: But it just seems impossible. I mean. If you’ll excuse my skepticism.
JACKSON: Believe me. I know how it sounds.
NEWT: I know you said you didn’t feel suspicious, but... Did the thought even cross your mind? That the reason Hermann knew was because he had something to do with the boy’s disappearance? Or that he knew whoever did?
JACKSON: Honestly... it would have crossed my mind with anyone else. If anyone else had told me they had a prophetic dream about Alex’s disappearance, I would have been completely skeptical. Or suspicious. But Hermie wouldn’t lie. He wasn’t talkative, and when he said something, he meant it. He would never have... lied to me or misled me. He was loyal. Devoted. Even, like, to a fault.
NEWT: How do you mean?
JACKSON: Like, oh... Like this. One time, when we were probably ten or eleven, we found this rotten canoe in the woods. Not at all seaworthy, but we took it downstream anyway. We're having a great time, getting soaked, and then the river takes a turn and there's rapids ahead. Hermie starts steering us towards shore. He manages to scramble out, somehow, and he's holding onto the canoe so I can get out.
I start to stand up, when boom, this huge hunk of wood comes down the current and smacks the side of the canoe. I tip over and fall back into the canoe, and Hermie loses his grip.
I get swept away towards the rapids. And I’m trying to get back up, paddle, jump out or something, and I can hear Hermie yelling my name, trying to grab on, and I’m getting swept away, and then--boom again! He’d caught the canoe but he couldn’t stop it. So he jumps back in. I don’t even know how he kept pace with his leg, but he did it. He left safety and got back in, so that I wouldn’t get swept away alone.
NEWT: Wow.
JACKSON: And those rapids were no joke. We tried to steer, then just to hold on, but we finally hit a big rock and the canoe just split open. We made it to shore in one piece--we were lucky. I had to help Hermie out, cause he’s not the greatest swimmer. And when we caught our breath, I asked him why he jumped back into the boat. He just looked at me like I was crazy. Of course he got back in. Of course he wouldn’t let me go alone.
(beat)
JACKSON: Hello? Mr. Geiszler?
NEWT: Yeah. Hi. Sorry. I’m just... having a hard time putting it all together.
JACKSON: (distant) I haven’t seen him in such a long time. But that was the kind of person Hermie was.
NEWT: Ride or die?
JACKSON: Ride or die. (laughs, but sadly) Exactly. And he still is, I’m sure. (...) Last I heard, he’d settled down with a girl and was getting his PhD. His mom died around then, I think. That was the last time I reached out. I never heard from him.
NEWT: I’m sorry.
JACKSON: It’s okay... It happens.
NEWT: How do you think he knew where Alex’s body was?
JACKSON: The dream.
NEWT: You believe that?
JACKSON: I do.
(interlude music #3)
NEWT (VO): It was strange to hear younger Hermann described in this way. A sensitive, quiet kid, the kind of kid who would follow you over a cliff just to make sure you don’t get hurt. I guess, once I thought about it, he really wasn’t that different now. He’ll plant his flag on his hill and die for the things he believes in, no matter how unimportant or absurd others might think they are.
The thing I still couldn’t reconcile was the dream. Young Dr. Gottlieb the psychic. What did it mean?
By now, I had exhausted my alternate avenues. I knew he was going to be upset, but I couldn’t avoid the conversation any longer.
(interlude music #5)
NEWT (VO): A week had gone by since the Quebec City escapades. The museum was still keeping the authentication process under wraps, and our work on the Pynchon book code was nearly done.
NEWT: So, two things. First thing: I talked to your friend at Oxford again.
HERMANN: Dr. Resnick?
NEWT: Man, sometimes, on this show, it feels like everyone has a doctorate except me. You know?
HERMANN: Well. You don’t.
NEWT: No need to rub it in. Dr. Resnick had an interesting tale to tell about an Italian monk named Stefano.
HERMANN: I don’t think I’m familiar with that particular monk.
NEWT (VO): I played Dr. G the interview. He seemed intrigued, but not quite as excited as I was.
HERMANN: As always, Newton, I feel you are seeing connections where they don’t exist.
NEWT: So you’ve never heard of this story before? Nothing about the Ceonophus?
HERMANN: As I said, I know very little of the Ceonophus myth.
NEWT: I’m sensing a “but”...?
HERMANN: ...But... The herald idea is interesting.
NEWT: Yeah?
HERMANN: Yes. I’ve never heard it in this form, but it reminds me of a story my father used to tell, actually.
NEWT: (surprised) Really?
HERMANN: Yes. He was not exactly the storybook-at-bedtime parent, but there were a few stories of his that I liked. He had one about a herald. I forget the specifics.
NEWT: Completely?
HERMANN: Mostly. It stood out because at that age I thought “herald” was meant “newspaper,” as in The Boston Herald. (Newt laughs.) I think he came in a boat... Perhaps someone had built the boat for him. The story may have been about the boat builder, actually. I can’t really recall.
(interlude music #6)
NEWT: So, that’s the first thing.
HERMANN: All right.
NEWT: The second thing is... Well.
HERMANN: Is something wrong?
NEWT: No. Yes. Well. You’re not going to like it.
HERMANN: No?
NEWT: No... You remember when we spoke to your sister? Earlier this year?
HERMANN: Yes.
NEWT: She told us to look for the boy in the pool. You said you didn’t know anything about that.
HERMANN: I remember.
NEWT: Well, we found him. Alex Calder.
HERMANN: (quiet inhale)
NEWT: ...Does that ring a bell?
(beat)
HERMANN: (low) How much do you know?
NEWT: I know you found his body.
HERMANN: How?
NEWT: How did you do it? I think that’s supposed to be my question--
HERMANN: No--how? How did you find out? Who did you talk to?
NEWT: I spoke to Clifford Styll. He was the one who told the police. But he told me you... that you found him.
HERMANN: (distant) I... Yes. Clifford was with us. As I recall.
NEWT: So you do remember.
HERMANN: Yes. Yes, of course I remember.
NEWT: But that’s not the whole story. Right?
HERMANN: (...) What are you asking?
NEWT: Clifford said you led the group. So did his brother. His brother said it was you.
HERMANN: (faintly) His brother.
NEWT: Yeah, he said you led the way. That you had a dream. About Alex.
HERMANN: (quiet) You spoke to Jacks.
NEWT: I’m... sorry. I can see you’re upset. That must have been a traumatizing experience.
HERMANN: (voice coming back to normal) It wasn’t pretty.
NEWT: Could you... tell us about it?
HERMANN: There’s nothing to tell.
NEWT: What?
HERMANN: There’s nothing I could add to Jackson’s account. I’m sure it was perfectly thorough.
NEWT: I could play you his interview...
HERMANN: Please don’t.
NEWT: Okay... (pause) Did you really have a prophetic dream?
HERMANN: There are no such things as prophetic dreams, Newton.
NEWT: ...So you’re not going to tell me?
HERMANN: There’s nothing to tell.
NEWT: (...) (evenly) Okay.
(beat)
HERMANN: ...Is that all? You’re not going to keep pushing?
NEWT: Do you want me to?
HERMANN: It isn’t my radio program.
NEWT: (amused) Podcast, dude. But no. I’m not. If you say that’s it, then, that’s it.
HERMANN: Oh. (...) All right.
NEWT: Yeah. And if you change your mind, you’ve got my number.
(interlude music #1)
(music fades out)
NEWT (VO): A few days later, we found the right edition of The Crying of Lot 49. The message on the back of the painting was instructions and a date. I won’t say the exact date on air, but it’s in November. Next month. It asks the recipient--Hermann, or me, or both?--to meet the writer on Rainsford Island, a.k.a. Quarantine Island.
I called Hermann with the news.
HERMANN: (through phone) Are you going to go?
NEWT: Me? What do you think? Of course I’ll go.
HERMANN: You still expect answers, don’t you? After all this time?
NEWT: Well...
HERMANN: I’ve been looking for almost twenty years, Newton. I’ve been waiting for answers about Vanessa for eleven. You’ve been on this for less than two.
NEWT: And?
HERMANN: I’ve learned not to expect a resolution.
NEWT: Well, two years is nothing to sneeze at. But I don't know. Maybe I’ve learned that too. Maybe I’m not expecting anything concrete, but going anyway. Call me an optimist.
HERMANN: You’re an optimist.
NEWT: (audibly smiling) You’re damn right.
HERMANN: (slight laugh)
NEWT: And you? Are you going?
HERMANN: Am I--what?
NEWT: To the island. Are you coming?
HERMANN: Newton, you really ask the most foolish questions. Of course I am.
(outro music begins)
NEWT (VO): Next month, our season finale. Depending on funding decisions, our series finale. We’ll be seeing what’s on Quarantine Island, if anything, and spin our threads closed however we can.
(outro music ends)
NEWT (VO): See you then.
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