The Lantern & Key

Nobody knows exactly when The Lantern & Key first opened its doors. Nor is there any agreement as to where it is.

Some claim to have visited it in a back alley of Victorian London, on a night of fog so thick that the gas lamps could barely be made out. Others remember an establishment of the same name in a bustling American city of the 1950s, where private detectives shared the bar with journalists, jazz musicians and the occasional individual of doubtful reputation.

There are even recent accounts placing the pub in a small Andalusian village, where a quiet gathering of friends ended up, nobody quite knows how, as a criminal investigation.

Naturally, historians consider these accounts incompatible.

The members of the Society, on the other hand, see no contradiction in them whatsoever.

For The Lantern & Key has one peculiarity that sets it apart from any other establishment: it does not appear to be bound by the usual conventions of space or time.

It appears on no map, has no known postal address, and its opening hours are entirely unpredictable.

And yet its regulars always know how to find it.

Tradition has it that, at some moment impossible to pin down, a group of friends began meeting to share good conversation, the odd drink and their fondness for mysteries.

One night they decided to investigate a particularly intriguing puzzle. They settled around a table, handed out the documents, examined the evidence and began to argue their theories.

Someone remarked that it looked very much like a meeting of an old English detective society. Another suggested they needed a name. A third pointed out that, before a society, what they really needed was a good pub.

And so The Lantern & Key was born.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was discovered.

For there is certain evidence, as old as it is baffling, that the establishment had opened its doors long before that first meeting.

In time, its regulars discovered something extraordinary: the pub seemed to follow them wherever they gathered.

All it took was a table, a few friends, something to drink and a mystery to solve. It hardly mattered whether they were in a Victorian mansion, a New York apartment in 1955 or the courtyard of an Andalusian house on a warm summer night.

As soon as the evening began, the place was transformed, as naturally as it was inexplicably, into The Lantern & Key.

The table became the centre of the investigation. The guests became respectable regulars. Conversations took on a conspiratorial tone, and even the most innocent person present might end up a suspect.

The truly curious thing was that, although the world outside changed century, country or customs, the spirit of the pub remained unaltered.

There was always a lantern ready to shed light on the clues, a key that promised to unlock some secret, and a table around which to share theories, suspicions and, above all, a good laugh.

There was never any shortage of unfounded accusations, suspiciously convenient alibis, or some investigator who, three drinks in, claimed to have solved the case.

Nor was there any shortage of good stories, endless conversations and the pleasure of sharing an evening out of the ordinary.

In time, those friends founded The Society of Most Peculiar Affairs, a society devoted to the noble art of enjoying mysteries, solving puzzles and cultivating good company.

The Lantern & Key became its unofficial headquarters.

A headquarters that cannot be bought, rented or located by geographical coordinates.

A headquarters that may exist yesterday, today or tomorrow, for time, it seems, holds no authority over it either.

Some members maintain that the pub travels through the centuries. Others suspect that there are many identical establishments in different eras. The more pragmatic consider all these explanations needlessly complicated.

The Society, true to tradition, has decided not to make any official statement on the matter.

For The Lantern & Key is not exactly a place. Nor is it an era. It is something that happens.

It happens when friends decide to get together, leave their everyday worries behind for a few hours and venture together into an extraordinary story.

It can appear in any city, in any house and in any century.

Its walls are imaginary, but its gatherings are very real.

And when the evening is over, the pub quietly disappears, leaving no trace but a few empty glasses, a mystery solved (or perhaps not) and the promise to meet again.

Hence the words on its sign:

And if ever, anywhere and in any age, you find yourself surrounded by friends, with a puzzle on the table and a story worth telling, pay attention.

You may, without realising it, have stepped into The Lantern & Key.