The larder was smelly. It was cold and it was dark and it was, as one might imagine, exactly what the larder of a disused, neglected house might be. My lantern lit the room quite nicely, it being only a small room, showing up the empty shelves littered with black scraps and mouse droppings.
I set my equipment down, the thermometer and the electroscope, and sat on an old tin. It was not the most comfortable position, but it was preferable to standing for half an hour, and much better than sitting on the floor.
The vibrometer was with the Professor. He said that he wanted to see how it would perform in taking readings of the noises reaching in from the street. Personally I think that he did not want to leave such a delicate instrument in the hands of one so inexperienced as myself.
As I sat on my tin, it dawned on me why he wanted the night to be raining as it was: the constant background noise, the hiss, the hush, was a regular pattern against which to compare notes. A normal, 'silent' night would easily be broken by the clopping of horses, or the rolling of wheels, or the care-free yawping of drunkards stumbling home from the tavern.
Such a silent night was, then, anything but silent. On a fierce and raining night such as this, however, the only folk who would be outside would be those hurrying to get indoors. The birds would not be calling their good-nights, the drunkards would spend a little longer in the warm environs of the tavern, or even give the night a miss and stay at home.
Any noises, then, that were manifest, would be more likely to come from within than from without. I patted myself on the back for being so clever. Perhaps, I remember thinking, perhaps being a scientist was not all that hard. It was just a matter of putting details into some sort of context.
I sat and listened, having very little to look at. There was the odd pop or groan as the house settled itself down for the night. Every now and then I could hear the rattle of the windows as the wind tried to open them, or the rough scraping of overgrown branches against the outside wall.
This was what the Professor was on about, I realised, this was the noise of a house with no life left inside it. Whether my eyes were closed or open, it made little difference. The same as if I was there or not. The house would have made those noises regardless; I was not a factor.
So the pops and groans continued along and on top of it all was the humming, thrumming rain and the faint gurgle of water running down the drain-pipes.
It was soothing, in a way, being surrounded by nothing but the sound of falling water. I took the journal to hand and noted the time from my watch, and the readings of the thermometer. The electroscope's filaments were pointing down. There was nothing left but to record my findings:
10:38 Entered Larder. Smelly. Rain Falling. A little cold.
10:40 E-Scope = flat. Thermo = +0.2
After five minutes, looking at the walls and thinking about how I should keep myself occupied, I noted the readings once more. At the rate I was going, I would fill a page of the journal within an hour:
10:45 Still in larder. E-Scope = flat. Thermo = +0.2. Still raining. Still smelly. Can hear branch outside.
It was slightly warmer in the larder than in the kitchen, I mused, perhaps because the decaying rodent faeces let off slightly more warmth, or, I pondered, because the larder was more enclosed than the kitchen, with fewer recesses through which the ambient air might leech its warmth. As an experiment, I touched a marble shelf with my splayed hand.
It was as cold as could be expected, being a smooth, polished shelf. There was nothing unusual about it, I thought. It was, however, quite dusty.
My fingers and palm left a deep, dark print in the fluffy coating. I wiped my hand on my pants, and rubbed my fingers together, watching the dust sparkle to the floor in the glow of my lamp. I smiled to myself, remembering the Professor's lecture about dust and photography.
10:50 Larder. E-Scope = flat. Thermo = +0.02.
Then, unwittingly, I let out a yawn. It just popped out. It was not a very loud yawn, and on any other day of the week it would not have bothered me, but I knew the Professor was only a few rooms away. There was a chance he would have heard it, even above the rain, and would be noting the event, right now, in his journal.
I bit my lip and rolled my eyes, thinking about the lecture that I would have to endure when we next met. I wanted to call out, to apologise, to let him know that it was only me. Wisely, I went against my feelings and stifled the rest of my yawn. Inspiration took me, and I noted it down in my journal.
10:51 Yawn. My sincerest apologies. It won't happen again.
And that would be the end of the matter. Afterwards, when we compared notes, I would point out my transgression and he would consider any note he may have taken at that time void.
Just as I closed the journal, however, I heard, quite distinctly, a yawn carry through from the kitchen. It sounded like a youngster, I declare, and the suddenness of the out-of-place noise gave me a jolt. Unless the Professor could project his voice like that of a child, then there was someone else skulking about in the kitchen.
Aha! So that was the Professor's game. He was to make me think that we were alone, alone in this smelly house, when, in reality, he had hired another body to poke about. Perhaps he was there to test me, or to cause 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 begin 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 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 as 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 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. “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, Laddie, 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.