Waiting there was a servant who, without a word, lifted his coat from his shoulders as he hurried past. He continued quickly along a hall and down a spiral staircase that led to the farthest corner of the house. He drew out an old iron key from his waistcoat pocket that turned a lock in a door that revealed a winding corridor that came to an end in a strange, secret room that seemed buried in the heart of house.
A single shaft of sunlight stole in from a high window. This seemed to pain the man and, after placing the parcel gently on a desk, he slammed the shutters shut. In the sudden black he struck a match and raised it up and lit two tall candles that crowned two brass candlesticks.
He turned his attention to the task at hand. He cut the paper packet open and, holding his breath, pinched the clasp on the rich red casket and lifted up the lid. Resting there, the curious thing glowed golden yellow in the candlelight, and with infinite care he helped it out into this manmade night.
This man was named Mandrake. And this room, this horrible room, was his most private place. It was here that he entertained his most horrible thoughts and the ugliest of his desires. Here, unseen and undisturbed, he lusted after wealth and power. The room had gathered objects; put there to stir his fantasies and greed: a shrouded mirror, a golden chalice, beads and charms, and books and cards. And fixed upon a thorny branch, was a great black bird, a carrion crow, long dead and stuffed; its face fixed in rigid anger, its wings out stretched, its black dagger-mouth full of hunger. The light of the high candles played shadows across its wings and it looked for all the world that it was on the brink of flight.
The crow’s glassy eyes seemed to follow Mandrake as he ran his finger along the spines of the hundred ancient leather backed books that lined the wall. He reached one down, and turned the pages, each dense with script and signs and symbols, each one decorated with contorted faces and figures.
His eyes jumped back from the book to the skin of the curious thing. He eyed the mysterious markings that covered its body. In these signs Mandrake sought meanings and direction, glimpsed connections between word and sign and machine.
Paths opened up; but none led far. The minutes passed, pages turned faster and his frustrations grew. His red face became redder still as anger took hold, and his small eyes grew smaller still as his dark ambitions met with terrible disappointment.
He cried out “This blasted thing is incomplete! A missing piece bars my progress here!” And he threw the curious thing down onto his desk.
It came down with a jolt. The jarring sent a signal to the curious thing to come to life. What little power was left inside its golden body was stirred, and from nearly nothing it summoned the strength to start its work.
Music issued from it. A phrase as yet unheared by any living man: not quite a melody. Sour tones of biting discord discharged from its dateless memory. A wavering, a haunted sound, that chilled the heart, unwound and rose then fell, then fell into a silence more complete than any silence since.
Mandrake, his face afire, span round and gripped the curious thing hard in both hands. But no more music came. He shook it. Then shook it harder still. But the curious thing disdained to sound.
But had something changed? The room, already bleak and ghostly, had chilled and closed around him. A sullenness, a heaviness in the air took hold. He looked about. Had some magic worked?
He eyed the bird, stiff upon its thorny branch, and something in him, something older and more terrible than his sinful soul, willed and wished it muster life. All the blood in him turned colder than the coldest dread as the crow, ten years dead, from nothing found life and breath within the hollow cavity of its chest and cried out in pure contempt and in black rage flew out of its frozen death and made, with murderous intent, for its master.
For Mandrake, all went black.
3
When Mandrake woke from this terrible night, face down on the floor of his secret room, pain, sharp and tight, held him motionless. When strength and consciousness returned enough to make him move, his first thought was for the curious thing. But when he dragged himself up onto his feet, he saw no trace of it.
In his confusion he panicked his way through the story of the night before: around him broken glass ground under foot. His books and painting were thrown about. Cold air made him cough. The small window up above was smashed clean through.
It must have been that some criminal had stolen in and finding Mandrake there, transfixed in the midst of his researches, had struck him hard upon the head. He had ransacked the room in search of treasure but, it seems, had taken no more and nothing other than the curious little music box.
He staggered from his room and called out for his manservant. The man appeared and at once began to attend to his wounds. “Not now you fool!” His man drew back. “Bring the car around, I’ve been robbed of the thing I hold most dear. It must be found at once and this terrible crime avenged. Take me to see McMadden. He’s the man to make amends.”
And so the heavy black car roared across town and it turned down a narrow street and halted at a smallish house. And Mandrake clambered out and in the rain he crashed his blackthorn cane upon the door to rouse the man within.
After some delay the door swung open and the man, named McMadden, squinted out. When his eyes met the visitor’s he groaned: “For heaven’s sake Mandrake, what’s the meaning of all this noise? Can a man not sleep, not dream?”
Mandrake answered back: “Sleep when you’re dead McMadden, and whatever dreams you dream they will not match the things I’ve already seen in my philosophy. Today, there is much work to be done. My privacy, my person and my property have been much abused. Some common thief has robbed me of a treasure that is rightly mine. I want it back and soon. And as for the man that did the deed, I’ll make him rue the day he meddled in my plans.”
“And what is this thing I seek?” McMadden inquired, half laughing. “Its value must be great to have stirred old Mandrake into such a pitch of rage.”
“Its value is as nothing compared to the power it contains. But I have said too much. Ask no more. When you find what you are looking for you will have found a simple golden box, marked with coloured stones and signs. When you find it, mark no delay in returning it to me. Now are you able to do this simple thing?”
“Pay me well enough for my time and I will set to work. I believe the man that did this crime is known to me.”
“So be it. It takes a thief to know the ways of thieves. And there is little honour left amongst your class. You have your commission, I’ll take my leave. But mark my words, do not let the sun set upon this uncompleted task.”
McMadden shrugged: “As you wish. I’ll waste no more of your time, and you no more of mine.” And the door between them closed.
Within the hour McMadden was out and on his way. He had heard word that a thief named Manson was out at night and working hard, breaking into homes and taking what he wished. His whereabouts were known.
And so it was that Mandrake’s man McMadden made his way to the back of Manson’s house. Like a cat he weaved his way noiselessly to the old backdoor. It wasn’t locked, it opened easily and he stepped within. Odd, perhaps, that a thief would leave his house unguarded. So he paused and listened out for signs of life, but the house, it seemed, was silent.
He picked his way through kitchen trash, and then into a room that was strewn with the wages of Manson’s thievery. Silver pots and painting, watches, and fine glass glasses, necklaces, wallets and rings and other things, were thrown about. He cast his eye about the impressive hoard, and smiled in admiration of his industry. But the thing that Mandrake wanted back so desperately did not show itself. He went on; and the next room was like the last, a nest of looted property. Still the curious thing could not be found.
He was close to giving up his search, but at that moment heard movement up above his head. A floorboard creaked; footfalls percussed the upper floor: there was someone here.
A rush of fear – that in you or I, would hold us back o
r make us turn and run – fired his will, and spurred McMadden on. With terrible purpose he took the stairs and made his way upwards and towards the upper quarter of the house where, he surmised, Manson would be found.
McMadden reached a door and crashed into the room. “Manson!”, he screamed. The thief was there, crouched and pressed into the farthest corner. A thin and reedy specimen he was; small and hunched. His eyes were wild and sleepless-red. And holding in his arms, as tight and tenderly as one holds a sleeping child, he seemed to nurse a little golden box.
“Leave me! Leave me be!” the stricken Manson sobbed. In terror he drew the curious thing closer to his chest. “Take anything you want and go!”
McMadden towered over him and told him cold and clear: “All I want is that box you hold, the man you stole if from holds it very dear. Give it up and I’ll be gone.”
“But no, not this! I need more time. It is nothing but a harmless toy. Take something else as recompense. I have a thousand treasures stashed in here, any one of them worth ten times more than this mere music box. And for your trouble, take something for yourself. But let the box remain with me.”
“Keep your gaudy trash old man. It’s the box I’ve come take, no more, no less. Do as I say, and do it now for now my patience breaks.”
Sobbing hard, Manson