and mine, anything that might point to a third party being present,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Well, was there anyone outside the house?”
“Yes, Missus Butterfield.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“Yes, I did.”
“While you were speaking to her, was there anyone else about?”
I sat and thought, “No. I mean, I remember seeing the coalman come by. And Mister Floren with his potatoes was visiting a few doors down.”
“Any wildlife? Dogs, cats, rats, anything like that?”
“No, Professor. Apart from the horses in the street,” I said, thinking, “And there are always birds in the trees on the other side. They were settling down to roost.”
He cracked his knuckles, “Well, make a note of all you can remember, any detail whether it is necessary or not, there's a good lad, then compare our notes well. I shall ponder the harder evidences.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“And see if you cannot reassemble your old notes. We'll need your observations if we can.”
“Yes, Professor,” I said, looking glumly at the pile of shredded paper.
“Oh, and laddie?”
“Yes, Professor?”
“Brew a stronger pot of tea, would you? This might take a while.”
I sighed, “Yes, Professor.”
After the intense experience in the cellar of Jolimont and the long, fearful night I had suffered, sitting down to line up and glue torn pieces of paper was anticlimactic.
By lunch time, I had arranged all of the pieces and copied the notes meticulously onto a fresh notepad. Miss Fitzgerald came in with lunch, a more than welcome distraction. After we ate, the Professor called me over to discuss matters.
“I shall start with the footprints, since they represent the most physical and testable evidence we have, for both you and I witnessed them, and I have a sketch and measurements upon which to base any analysis. Now, from these measurements, and of the features of the print, I can demonstrate that they appear to be human in nature.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Once I get the photographs developed, that will sure up any doubt, but even from the sketch you can see a heel here, here is the ball of the foot. These are toes.”
“Yes, Professor. It certainly is not that of a dog or mouse. A person must have made those footprints.”
“Disregarding any bizarre, convoluted way of creating such a pattern from another source, I agree. Hmm, still... Anyway, running with the assumption that these prints were made by a person, I can say with confidence that they are not from anyone around here, and they are singular in nature,” he said, holding up a book and flipping to a marked page, “For, as you can see here, the length from the heel to the first toe is extraordinarily long, a good thirteen inches, whereas the width of the foot is closer to six inches. The separation of the toes, if toes you can call them, is in a fan shape, reminiscent of a more deformed foot, like one who puts more pressure on his toes than his heel.”
I nodded at the various figures he was showing me, hoping not to appear like an idiot, while at the same time feeling very much out of my depth.
“Um. You said, 'he'.”
“Good observation! Shows you're listening.”
“Is that intentional?”
“Yes. No woman has a foot this large. Why, if we use the lateral measurement as a basis, we can estimate that our mysterious person is well over eight feet tall!”
“Could it not be an anomalous woman?”
“Perhaps. I'd argue against that, though. The tallest woman in the local area according to this source, which is only five years old mind, is six foot two inches. Well short of the seven and ten my calculations come out at. Whereas the tallest man is six nine, which is closer, but still off by a good foot. Besides, does gender make a difference?”
“Well, um, I only brought it up because I thought you may have a conclusion.”
“No conclusion yet, I'm afraid, only assumptions based upon the available evidence, but that's all we need so far.”
“Need?”
The Professor straightened himself up, “We need to make an educated guess as to what we're up against. If it is a case of natural disturbances, we need to figure out a way to detect or eliminate each one. If we find that the phenomena are unexplainable from a reasonable standpoint, then we must look to alternate solutions.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Now, if the owner of the feet was indeed eight feet tall, then standing up inside the cellar would prove difficult. So either your observational skills are extremely wanting, or there is some kind of hiding place inside the cellar that is not apparent, or,” he said, “The beast is invisible. I would not say ethereal, since that would be in direct opposition to the corporeal nature of these prints. Did you hear, at any stage, the sound of a head hitting the top of the cellar?”
“No, Professor. Just the growling.”
The Professor leaned in, “And from where did the growling come in relation to you?”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to remember, but trying all the same, “To be perfectly frank, it sounded like it came from behind me, as I was at the stairs, so from within the room.”
“I see. Too much speculation in analysis is fraught with danger, for building the fundamentals of a case on assumptions magnifies the inherent errors of those assumptions. Let us leave that alone for a minute. What did you find with the observations?”
My mathematical skills have improved since I joined with the Professor. I am able to plot charts, derive boundaries of certainty, calculate averages and trends and even perform some rudimentary correlation analysis.
Still, each time I had to show my workings to the Professor, I would bite my lip and stumble over my sentences. It was fear of being criticised, certainly. I have come to accept that the Professor's criticism was derived from experience and wisdom, yet the sting of rebuke bites like no other.
“This, ah, this is the chart of temperatures, I mean deltas, because that's the chart axis there...”
“I can see that.”
“Yes, um. I have marked your readings in red, mine in blue. You can see that at the start they trend similarly, with the cellar remaining more constant throughout, while upstairs, ah, where you were -”
“I know where I was.”
“Well, they all fluctuated within half a degree of each other, which is what we've come to expect from Jolimont -”
I knew I should not have said it, but I said it anyway, as my mind was too busy worrying about being mathematically incorrect rather than scientifically.
“Laddie! Are you performing an analysis based on a single investigation, or a series of investigations?”
“Um, single.”
“Right, so you can make no references to other investigations in this analysis. We've been over this before.”
“Yes, Professor. It just slipped out. Sorry, Professor.”
He waved his hand, “Never mind, lad. Just bear in mind that my peers are more critical than I am. Continue.”
“Right. Um.”
“And try not to say um.”
“U- Yes. Yes, Professor,” I took a breath and continued slowly, “The fluctuations of temperature and pressure between rooms upstairs were, were consistent with each other. The cellar, by reference, maintained a constant temperature, until this point here where it drops significantly.”
“It?”
“The temperature delta, Professor. The pressure and humidity remain largely unaffected...”
“Largely unaffected? Lad, do I need to...”
I quickly rectified, “A four percent difference in pressure and a one percent in humidity, consistent with the readings of the rest of the night.”
“So what you are saying is that only the temperature was affected?”
“Yes, Professor. And the electroscope as well.”
“Why didn't you mention this?”
I held my palms o
ut, “I was going to, just before you asked about them, Professor.”
“Humph. Well, let that be a lesson to you: If you're performing a presentation, you own the presentation. Don't allow for interruptions.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Unless it's me.”
“Really, I – Yes, Professor.”
“Carry on.”
I looked back at my notes, “The, ah, electroscope. Yes. It, ah, they, that is to say, the electroscopes upstairs, showed no deflection all night, whereas mine, I mean, the one downstairs in the cellar, was shown to have a significant deflection at several recordings. The electroscope was discharged after each reading, yet continued to deflect.”
“Interesting...”
“Indeed. Without any apparent direct cause. The level of deflection ranged in each observation, from one eighth of an inch up to five eighths, implying that whatever caused the deflection was not constant as we might find with, say, a mechanical device.”
“Curious...”
“Quite. So if we put the readings together, we can see that at twenty five minutes to eleven we have reached what one might describe as an excited state, with several devices showing elevated readings. No further readings were conducted after the lantern went out, except for the final reading, in which all devices, including those previously excited, returned to their base readings.”
“Well said,” the Professor cried, clapping, “Spoken like a true scientist! Well, there are a few things I'd like to change, but that was a very good effort.”
I smiled, “Yes, Professor. Thank you, Professor.”
“Indeed. Now, from this we can rule out any kind of weather anomaly. With a well-sealed house, and no pressure, temperature or humidity fluctuation detected upstairs, and no observations of wind or