“What intruder?”
“The, um, there was someone in the kitchen here,” I faltered, “He, um... when I creaked the floorboard, um...”
“What the devil are you talking about? What intruder? Where is he?” he whispered, looking about.
“I don't know, Professor, I didn't see him.”
His mouth dropped a little. He shook his head.
“Then how did you know that there was an intruder?”
“Well, there was the yawn, and the floorboards squeaked, and then there was that loud door slamming.”
“Which door?”
“Didn't you hear it?”
“No, I didn't.”
“You didn't?”
“No, I didn't. And I know this because I didn't write it down in my journal, see?”
He held his up to show me. Meticulous notes, lined up perfectly, repetitive and neat, filled the journal. I studied them, mentally comparing them to my own, hastily jotted points.
“Now, if you say a door slammed, which door was it?”
I began to sweat, “I don't know! I heard a door slam, which made me come out to find him...”
“Him? You said yourself you didn't see anyone. How do you know the gender of a person you cannot see, hey?”
My mouth flapped uselessly. I had that sinking feeling in my stomach, the same I had gotten every other time shortly before my employer handed me my papers.
“Now, look here! I brought you in to take notes, not to go making stories about intruders and slamming doors.”
“It's not a story.”
“Then where is it written? You've said something about a loud bang, and then an intruder, neither of which give much detail about any such event,” he seethed, “It's worse than useless.”
Worse than useless? I felt a little warm under my collar from that remark. My work has been called many things from my past employers, from wanting to half-baked, but being something worse than useless was new to me. It cut me to the bone.
“I must protest!”
“You can protest all you like, later,” he grumble, ignoring me and turning back to the journal, “Now, what about this mark in the dust?”
“That? Well, I had made a mark in the dust with my hand, you see...”
“You made the mark?”
I nodded, “Yes, but not that one.”
He blinked with confusion, “Come again? Did you make a mark?”
“Yes, but that was before.”
“Before? When?”
“About ten forty five, I think,” I muttered, immediately regretting my words.
“You think? You think? I'm beginning to believe that you don't think! Where is that written?”
“Well, it's...”
“You interfered with an environment and didn't bother to jot that down? A little note saying, made a mark? Hmm?”
“But Professor...”
“This kind of nonsense renders this data useless! How much more did you decide not to record?”
“Well, I...”
He had finished his castigation and was waiting for an answer to his final question. I fought to think but my brain was only just keeping up.
“I didn't record a few things, I suppose,” I confessed, determined to put everything on the table so that he might see me as being ignorant, rather than lazy or insolent, “Thinking back upon it, I did not note where I sat...”
“Hmph.”
“...nor when I moved the lantern away from the thermometer.”
“Pfft.”
“And I could certainly have written more about when I entered the kitchen to investigate.”
“Pah.”
“Looking at your notes, and comparing them to mine,” I relented, penitent, “I can see that my skills are still wanting. Like with whoever was in the kitchen, I thought...”
His face had turned an unsightly colour of red, and he blustered, “No, you didn't think, you assumed! You assumed! Didn't I tell you to take a note of any observation? Hmm?”
“Yes, you did, Professor.”
“And that it is during analysis that we assess the data, not during an investigation.”
I nodded, quickly pointing to the entry regarding the dust, “That's why I noted this. I was about to ignore it, thinking that it might be trivial, but then I remembered your words...”
“It's a pity you did not remember them back here. And here. And here!”
“Well, now that I'm aware, can't we note the missing entries down now?”
His eyes blinked in disbelief, “What? No! You can't insert it after the fact! That would be falsifying evidence!”
“But it won't be false,” I protested, “It happened!”
“It was not recorded!”
“I can record it now!”
“No, you should have recorded it then.”
He sighed, wearily. It was not a sigh born of anger, but a realisation.
He put his hand on my shoulder and said, nodding, “This is all my fault. I'm sorry. I brought you into this too hastily, and for this I'm sorry, lad. I shouldn't be berating you for something which, really, was a product of my creation.”
I started, but he held up his hand for me to stop and opened a bag, packing the equipment away.
“Professor...”
“We'll call it a night, eh?”
“I must protest. The lessons I have learnt already, um, can be built upon. Should we give up so easily?”
He sighed again, “We're not giving up, laddy, we're going home to plan a little better, eh? Get a bit more experience into you before we try again.”
“But we are here, now, and I understand more fully what is required,” I urged, conscious that the house was listening.
It was like the walls were holding their breath. Even the branches outside ceased their rustling for an instant, leaving only the rain tumbling down to fill the void.
“Give me another chance.”
He paused, fingering the dial on the vibrometer as he held it above the bag. He was considering my appeal, it seemed, so I pushed a little harder.
“The night is still young, and my journal is quite empty.”
“Can you be trusted to record everything? Will you stay at your post no matter what? Will you follow my instructions without question?”
“Now that I understand, of course,” I said, adding, “Come on, Professor. If I learn tonight or back in the lab, what is the difference? Surely it would be more effective to learn in the field?”
His eyebrows lifted a little from their furrowed state. He nodded slowly to himself.
“I guess we've still got a bit more investigating to do,” he said, “I didn't haul this camera and these plates here for nothing, now, did I?”
My shoulders dropped a little from relief and, I declare, the house did so too.
The Encounter
We left the kitchen and went back to the stairwell near the parlour.
He took the lead, taking me up the stairs to the first floor, aiming for the room, a bedroom it would appear, positioned above the kitchen. I kept my eyes open all the while, scanning every corner, every nook, every shadow.
To be honest, I had fully expected to find a cheeky face hiding out among the rooms or running down the stairs as we ascended. The fact that we discovered neither was a little disconcerting. However, if the brat was hiding somewhere on the first floor, we should find him. The stairs were the only means of getting up or down, and they creaked and groaned with even the lightest touch of my foot.
I indicated that I wished to speak. The Professor shook his head, sternly. Knowing that I had already tested his patience to its limit, to the point where he was prepared to leave, I accepted his decision and kept mum.
Quickly ducking my head into the two rooms at the head of the stairs, I scouted for any signs of the presence I saw when I first came up to the house. All I found was dust and shadows.
The rooms were void of all furniture except for a couple of chests, a broken chair, a bed-head and what may ha
ve been a desk. The rooms I checked had nowhere to hide, so I had to remain content that who I saw was still in one of the rooms yet to be investigated, or, more likely, that he was no longer in the house, having sneaked out the back way when we entered.
If the former, we would most certainly hear and see him should he attempt to move about. If the latter, well, at least he could not contaminate the measurements any more.
11:35 Upstairs Bedroom (Above Kitchen). Professor and myself. No others present. Raining heavily. Thermo -0.6.
We set down the other pieces of equipment and I noted their readings. Finding a place on the floor, resting my back against the wall, I faced the door, keen to see if anything should move about in the shadows without the room. From my vantage point, I could see clearly the railings of the stairs. Unless a body were to noiselessly slither down like a snake, I should see and hear them plainly.
The room in which we set up looked oddly familiar. I had not seen it before, of course, having never been inside the house, or having ever even been in this district of South Entrance. Still, while I sat and watched and waited and listened, I could not help but think that I knew more of this place than I perhaps should.
My mind played around with this thought, forgetting for a second the unease which I had felt up until now.
The Professor seemed unconcerned. It was because he was use to such investigations, I told myself, and that I was just being silly. I watched as he fixed the camera upon a tripod, screwing this bit in here and tightening that bit there.
He peered through the portal, adjusting this and that, getting everything in focus. With a final nod of approval, he held his finger up and indicated that I should cover my eyes. I did so, and, a moment later, my retina was scarred with the brilliant light that sneaked its way through the cracks between my fingers.
When they had adjusted themselves back to cope