mischief.
I smiled. Though I regretted having yawned, and would surely be rebuked for it, there is the common fact that yawns are contagious and my indiscretion had triggered a similar response in my elusive companion!
10:51 Heard yawn from kitchen.
I wanted to pop into the kitchen to see for myself, but I thought it best not to. If the lad was there to fool me, it would be more beneficial if he believed that I was unaware of his existence and intentions. So there was nothing left to do, yet, except keep on listening and watching and recording my notes.
Maybe later on I would catch him out again. Still, his yawn was only in response to mine, so could hardly be called a mistake.
I pinched myself for having been so careless. Determined not to make the same mistake again, I concentrated very hard on performing the duty for which I was tasked. There was only one reason, after all, why I found myself in the horrid house, and that was because I was in the Professor's employ.
As I sat, I thought a little more about the stranger in the house, and what he might be up to. What if, I thought, the stranger was an apprentice like myself, and while I was in the larder listening out for him, he was in the kitchen doing the same!
Each of us could be secretly noting the other's movements and noises, and the Professor, of course, would have instructed both of us to remain as quiet as possible.
Well, if that did not make the Professor a rotten cheat, lying to his apprentices like that!
Still, he was paying me, and I was his dutiful (and only, as far as I knew) assistant, so his word was my command. I rubbed my nose a little, adjusted my britches and kept vigil on my watch.
10:55 Larder. E-Scope = flat. Thermo = -0.5
So it had gotten colder. Not perceptibly, not that I could feel it with my own senses. I thought about the room, how it, being a larder, was supposed to be cooler than the rest of the house. My attention then turned to the matter of thermal energy.
The sources of heat in the room were myself and my lantern. It, burning brightly, may have been letting out heat, so artificially altering the temperature of the room, or, at least, of the air about the thermometer, so I stood up and moved it to the far end of the larder, near the door.
The floorboards creaked a little under my weight, even though I tried very hard to mask my footsteps by rolling my feet as I trod.
Sque-eak!
I thought I made a very good effort of it, but they emitted noise, nonetheless.
My face flushed red as I wrote in my journal.
10:57 Larder. Floorboard squeaked. My apologies once more.
As I returned to my seat on the tin, I heard the distinct sound of a floorboard creaking from the kitchen. It sounded like a mocking parody of the noise that I had just made.
Sque-eak!
Well! I am not one to be mocked. I could not help it if the house was noisy. That noise I emitted was due in no part to my clumsiness, but the returning noise was an outright offence! Infuriated, I defiantly pressed my foot on the loose floorboard to let it squeak again.
Again I heard a replying groan from the kitchen, a little louder this time. Not one to be outdone, I pushed with all my might on the board, letting it ripple out a high-pitched squeak.
Squeee-eak!
I listened to the silence that ensued. After a minute without any event, I considered that I had made my point well enough, and sat back down, preparing to take the next reading.
11:00 – Larder. E-Sco –
But I got no further, for there was an almighty door slam that rippled through the house! Boom! Just like that!
I dropped my pencil with the shock and raced into the kitchen, looking about for the offending little scamp, keen to teach him a thing or two about respecting his seniors. If he turned out to be my peer, well, I should have given him something to think about, let me tell you!
When I turned the corner, however, there was nothing there but our bags upon the floor and some equipment on the table. The house sounded like it had since we entered. Outside the branches rubbed themselves mournfully against the wall.
I listened carefully, expecting to hear breathing or running footsteps, anything that might betray the presence of the interloper, but there was nothing. I remained there, standing next to a ruined, smelly sink, looking and listening. I was furious.
When anger boils over without release, it has to escape any way it can. My cheeks were burning, my breathing was heavy. My pulse raced not with fear, as I might have thought it would, but with ire.
I was convinced that the scamp was hiding from me. He was, I pictured, tucked down behind a wall or squatting in some recess in the hallway just outside. If this was the case, I concluded, then he was not the Professor's underling.
Rather he was a brat off the streets, perhaps homeless, perhaps not. In any case he was intruding where he should not.
For a few minutes I heard nothing but the rain outside. I saw nothing but the still shadows of the kitchen. I smelled nothing but the rank sink. I felt nothing but a slight chill from the night air. The chill cooled me down gradually and let the last of my anger waft into the air.
It was such that I began to doubt that I had even heard the slam! But I had, my ears reminded me, without a doubt. Why else would I be standing there?
Returning to the larder, I picked up my pencil from the floor and lowered myself down carefully, listening intently all the while.
11:07 Interrupted by loud bang. Suspected intruder. Chased him, but he was gone.
After this I sat perfectly still, noting my readings in five minute intervals, until the time came to return to the kitchen. I was in the process of gathering up the various devices, when I turned to check to make sure I had not left anything next to my seat. The lantern showed up a light cloud of dust, barely perceptible, falling down to the ground.
The particles were visible for only a second or two, after which they camouflaged themselves among the similarly sized specks upon the floor. I blinked, waiting to see if more dust would fall, perhaps thrown off by some wind or unsettled by my motion, but there was nothing.
While falling dust is not curious in and of itself, I felt compelled to investigate a little closer, given the scientific observations I was charged with taking that night.
As I crept back to where the dust fell, my lantern shone its light upon the shelf whose surface I had touched earlier with my hand. The mark I had left was still there, along with another, somewhat smaller sized, placed alongside it. I looked at it, blinked, and looked at it again.
It did not change in any way, no matter how hard I pressed my eyelids together before bringing them open. It was there, a hand print, right next to mine.
Clearly this was an oddity, and I put my equipment hastily down to make a note in my journal:
11:14: Saw falling dust. Found a hand print made in dust upon a shelf. I did not see the hand print there when I entered.
For a minute I peered at the hand print, trying to decide whether I was just unobservant, as I had so often been accused, and that it was already there to being with, or whether it truly had been made after I entered the room.
Considering the amount of dust upon the shelves, and how little there was in the that print, and in mine, I decided that it must have been created that night, at least. There was a good chance, then, that someone was in the house, or had been in the house, that evening. The thought crossed my mind that this would void the entire investigation: If we could not ensure that it was only us, then the evidence might be contaminated.
I sat looking at my journal, wondering whether I would be criticised for such weak observation. I thought that the Professor might bail me up about wasting time jotting down things that were of no concern, or that I should have noted that there was no other hand print a I entered the room. But how could I have noted the absence of something?
I remembered, then, that he had mentioned that any observation was to be recorded, and was to be assessed after, not during, the investigation.
So I stopped myself from amending it or crossing it out and appended:
Not my hand print. Looks smaller than mine. Is fresh.
I picked up the rest of my gear and walked back into the kitchen, listening to the noises of the house as I shifted my weight across its bearers. The Professor came in shortly afterwards, quite wet.
He had been outside, it would seem.
I made a signal as if to speak. He held up his hand, decoupled the vibrometer, and pointed to my journal. I handed it over.
After scanning the page with his finger, he frowned.
“Yawn?” he whispered, “You've written here, yawn.”
“Yes, I had yawned.”
“You had yawned.”
“Yes, I had yawned,” I repeated.
“Then you should have written, I have yawned. Otherwise it implies that someone else yawned.”
“Yes, Professor, someone did...”
But my words were ignored.
“And here, again, you have floorboard squeaked. Was that you upon the floorboard, or did the floorboard squeak for some other reason?” he clarified.
“Me again, Professor. Hence the apology.”
“I don't want apologies, lad, I want data! It's well that you have attempted to record your own mistakes, and this is admirable, but, really, you need to be a more thorough in your note taking,” he hissed, raising his voice a little, “I know this is your first time in the field, I do, so I can only expect that such mistakes are part of the territory. And you've left this entry undone.”
“I left it to chase the intruder.”
He looked alarmed,