The Professor, I had decided early on, was not what I would define as a typical employer, and I should know. My poor family, in a bid to get me employment, had called upon all of their resources, and those of family and friends, to pull whatever strings could be pulled.
I had set out under my first employer, the Baker, with great enthusiasm. I woke up early to haul bags of flour and mix gigantic bowls of dough for the morning rush. Under close scrutiny I kept the ovens stoked, the flues clean and the shelves stacked. I pride myself on being a fast learner, and this is undeniable. My problem lies, however, in my inherent clumsiness.
One might consider it a family tradition: My father has fallen off more horses than he has ridden. My mother keeps a pot of glue handy for the plates and bowls she breaks on a daily basis. My brother retired from the army with two bullet wounds to his foot, self inflicted.
Apparently he did not learn the first time to ensure that his musket was empty before cleaning it.
I, on the other hand, was determined to hold my family name high and dispel the notion that our fingers were all thumbs, that our feet were clubs. My second week on the job, however, proved the inescapable fact that a trait is a trait, ingrained into the flesh of the family, and cannot be removed with the sharpest scalpel.
Carrying a bag of flour one morning, the top of the sack came open. Perhaps a rat had nibbled at it, or perhaps the knot was not as securely tied as I thought it might have been. In any case, when I plonked the bag of flour onto the ground, a plume of white dust billowed into my face.
Naturally enough, I staggered about trying to clear the dry, stinging dust from my eyes, clumsily stumbling here and there. In my throes I knocked over a pitcher of oil upon the floor. Without labouring too much on the story, which, I must admit, is one of the most shameful episodes of my life, I slipped on the oil, bumped into the other apprentice who was coming in behind me, sending him sprawling across the floor.
I tripped over him, headlong into the shelves upon the wall, sending huge pots and metal poles clattering down onto the oven, one of which must have knocked the flue which sent a dark cloud of burning soot over everything.
Suffice to say, I was sent packing before the morning was out. I remember the heat in my ashen cheeks as I sadly returned to my house, unemployed and forlorn.
My subsequent vocations ended in similar tragedies, though none so horrible as that day with the Baker. For the glazier, I managed to break a series of window panes. With the courier, I lost too many packages (which were stolen from under my nose, might I add). With the painter, well, let us just say that my fear of heights did nothing to aid my balance upon the scaffolding.
Pretty soon, every master in town knew of my reputation, and none would have me. Moving Heaven and Earth, my parents pleaded and persuaded anyone who would lend an ear, until we were out of options.
The Professor came as a blessing from the great blue.
Whether he was simply not up with current events, or if he did not care, I shall never know. Quite frankly I shudder to think what would have happened should we not have called upon his favour to give me employment.
I remember, quite distinctly, him rubbing his goatee beard, adjusting his hat a little, thinking hard. I feared his dark eyes and his thin mouth, and I trembled at his direct manner of speech but, to this day, I am grateful for the opportunity he afforded me.
So, determined to please, determined to be more than a bumbling fool, I had listened and learned as much as I could from the Professor, taking mental notes of everything. So concerned was I to keep me in his favour, that I took extra care when handling anything in his lab, lest I should drop it, and listened so intently that he never needed to repeat himself.
Still, this errand he had me on, it rattled me somewhat. Cleaning up a laboratory or preparing samples or taking notes, these were things I could do easily. Exploring the possibility of a haunted house, well, that simply is not something that I would consider normal.
As the hour drew near, I found that my stomach was all butterflies, my palms were a little sweaty, and my head had that giddy feeling. I practised my breathing, as best I could, and tried to stay focussed as I prepared myself for the night ahead.
That evening I met up with the Professor once more. It was drizzling out, and the cloud cover made the shadows a shade or two darker than usual, denying the light from the gas lamps dotting the street any penetration into their corners.
“It's a fine night you've chosen,” I grumbled, pulling my moth-holed coat around me a bit tighter, “Could you not have waited until spring?”
The Professor, dressed in suitable cold-weather attire, complete with his worn bowler, thick scarf and woollen waistcoat, seemed unperturbed by the chill and damp. In fact, he was positively glowing.
“It's the perfect weather for it, lad. I'll explain on the way. Here is our carriage, late as expected,” he announced, pointing to the growling carriage that heaved up alongside, “Help me load these bags up there, will you? Careful with that one, there are the plates in there.”
Between myself and the driver we managed to stow the bags of equipment safely, and I got into the cabin with the Professor. It was not much warmer than the outside, but at least the drizzle, which had mustered enough strength to turn into rain, was not upon us.
“South Entrance, my good man,” the Professor called from the window.
The cabby, his oils slicked down against the miserable precipitation, called out the side of his mouth, “An' where'bouts 'n the Sou' Entrance you be wantin', sir?”
“Grosvenor Lane, off Turner and Cummins. Do you know it?”
“I know it well 'nough, sir.”
“If you need directions, I can happily guide you. I've been there once or twice.”
“Won't be nec'rry, sir.”
“Jolly good. Number forty two, then, my good man.”
The cabby's call sounded definitive, “Right y'are, sir.”
And with that, a click of his tongue and flick of the reigns, the carriage grumbled its way about the streets. There were a few pedestrians still about. Some were shop owners closing up for the night. Others were certainly of a more nefarious breed, skulking out of sight as the carriage approached, only to leer in from the shadows as we passed.
“South Entrance?” I enquired, hoping to know a little more about what lay before me.
“Yes, there's a house there.”
He paused, looked out the window as if he were gathering his thoughts, but then fell silent.
I joked, “I should think there are many there.”
“But not like this one.”
After a few moments silence, I prodded, “And what would make this house so special?”
“Aha! I know what you want me to say, and I won't say it! No! You want me to say it's haunted, that it's filled to the brim with spirits of the dead, that it's crawling with unspeakables and unmentionables and unholies, oh!” he laughed mightily before settling down to his usual rhythm. “You want me to bring out a pentagram? A cross? Sprinkle some salt across the path and brush it with a widow's broom?”
“No, Professor.”
“But you want me to say that it is haunted. No. That is something that I simply will not declare. For to do so would bias your opinion. For this is a training exercise, and as such I cannot allow my words to pollute your experience.”
“But I will need some guidance, surely!” I implored. “Otherwise what is the point?”
“Guidance you will get. But we have an array of tools here, implements of measure, and these need to be calibrated.”
“Calibrated?”
“Yes, measured against a base sample so that we can see what is, shall we say, normal, and what is abnormal.”
“Abnormal or paranormal?”
“Abnormal, Laddie, is the word I choose to use, and deliberately so. For it implies that a measurement was something that was merely out-of-place, you see, that it was unexpected. Whether or not it relates to something being paranormal, well, that comes with the analysis that follows, whether it can be explained through natural phenomena or not.”
“And if it cannot?” I asked, eagerly.
The Professor chuckled a little.
“You're eager, I know. But I must impress this upon you: In the limited experience that I have had so far, most anomalies can be attributed to very reasonable happenings. If I were to label every noise, every flash, every whisper as a spirit, well, I might just as well slap a fools cap on my nonce and spend the rest of my days ranting to the wall. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
I nodded. “I do, Professor. In essence, I should look for the obvious before turning to the not-so obvious.”
“Precisely. More than that, you need to be attentive to your record taking. Record everything and filter nothing. Do not suppose during an investigation, for there will be plenty of time afterwards, when we collate notes, for sifting through the evidence.”
“I see.”
“Think of it as gold mining. You need to churn through rocks and dirt and mud and muck! You need to sift and poke and prod! It's tiresome, laborious and thankless,” he went on, “and people will call you a fool! They'll say that you're wasting your time and talents! At times like that you need to persevere, persist until you find that fleck of gold, that nugget that makes it all worthwhile!”
We rolled past Callington station, smoke and steam still issuing from the coach that had rolled in that evening. Excited chatter from the remnants that were still rolling out from the doors disturbed the noise within the cabin, then, a few seconds later as the cabby took a sharp right, the noises from the street settled down once more and the rain resumed its thrumming upon the cabin.
His words had inspired me inside the cabin but, looking out, I could not help but feel a sense of the morose creeping in from the windows.
“So why tonight, Professor?”
He looked back from the windows, “Hmm?”
“Why this weather? Why tonight? Of all the miserable times of the year to spend a night at a house in South Entrance...”
“I hear your concerns, but tonight is ideal for calibration, believe it or not.”
“I'll believe it more if you would explain your reasoning behind it.”
“How familiar are you with the sounds and smells and sights of an abandoned house, my lad, hmm? One that has not had a person living inside it for a year or more?”
“I, er, cannot say for certain. I can imagine...”
“Do not imagine. How much experience have you had?”
“Um.”
I did not wish to sound stupid, however that was exactly how my monosyllabic response came out. I wanted to say that, although I could not reasonably be expected to have such knowledge, I was more than capable of learning. The silence of the cabin only made my tongue lazier.
I hastily followed it up with what I thought would come out more eloquently than it did.
“Er?”
The Professor cleared his throat. That was an ominous sign, for it meant that he was getting ready to settle in for a long lecture.
“You have spent a lot of your life inside your house, I might assume, and your house is young and fresh and well established. You light a fire during the colder months? There is food that isn't rotten in your pantry? You have plumbing?”
I nodded, “Yes.”
“Fresh water? Drainage?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the luxury of piped gas?”
“No.”
“Not to worry. What's on your roof? Thatch or wooden slats or tiles?”
“Tiles, sir.”
“And I assume that you have neighbours upon either side of you? It's a busy neighbourhood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you would have carpets and alcohol lamps, candles and perhaps even a gramophone?” he enquired.
“Yes, I do.”
“So your house is very much alive! It's as alive as you are! It's filled with warmth and colour and movement! I dare say you've spent many nights awake in bed, next to your lamp, reading a solid book? Well, that's just fine, that is, but it won't help you tonight,” he said, poking about inside a gladstone bag, “because tonight you'll be entering a house with no presence of humanity left. There are no lamps, no candles, no lanterns, no artificial sources of light. No carpets are upon the floorboards, no pictures upon the wall. The walls have been stripped bare. No water flows within the pipes, neither from a tap nor a pump, nor down a drain.”
“No gramophone either, I suppose?”
“None. So any noises you will find will be that of the house, and the house only, that one may assume occur every night of the year, whether anyone is about to hear them or not,” he said, bringing up a glass jar from his bag. “Here, hold this, will you? By the base! By the base! Any lights you may see belong to the house. Any smells you may smell, any sensations you may feel, all of it is uncontaminated by human presence.”
“What is this?”
“A piece of equipment that I've had crafted, an electroscope, that we will use upon this visit, you know, get some base readings.”
I felt a little deflated. “This is how we'll get our calibration, then? By visiting a house with no, um, interest? Nothing going on?”
“Precisely. From my previous exploits, I have found this house to be reliably uneventful.”
“Uneventful?” I asked again, hoping that my ears had deceived me.
“Decidedly. Unfortunately, for your expectations at least, this may well prove to be a very tedious night.”
He was right. I was quietly hoping to be surprised tonight, to exact a find that the Professor might consider worthy to present before his peers. Admittedly, I had butterflies in my stomach up to that point but upon his admission that there was nothing of interest to be expected, they quickly dispersed into the blackness of the night.
He leaned in. “Your face speaks volumes, lad. You do know that science is not all about amazing discoveries and fantastic notions?”
I openly admitted, “Of course, of course. But I cannot help but feel a little disappointed. I can understand completely, however, the need for some sort of calibration. If not only for the instruments but for myself.”
“Well said!”
“So the house in question would necessarily need to be void of activity.”
He took the electroscope from me and stowed it into his bag, looking distractedly out the window.
“Still, I've a lingering question. The rain, you see...”
“Ah! Just a second,” he piped up, leaning out from the window, ignoring the rain that was collecting in his beard and on his spectacles, “Just off Turner now, my good man!”
“Right y'are, sir,” the cabby replied gruffly, adding, “Nummer for'y two, if my mem'ry ain't as bad as ye thinkin'.”
The rebuke flew past the Professor. “Quite right, number forty two. And we'll not be needing a ride back tonight, so I'll thank you to help with the luggage when we stop.”
The driver's reply was as wet as his slicks, “Very good, sir.”
The carriage rolled to a stop. The horses, although thoroughly sodden, were content to droop their heads and examine the reflections off the cobbles while the rain trickled over their muscles in great drops. One let out a whinny, but was admonished promptly by the cabby.
“Easy, there, Bessy! Easy on, girl!” the cabby soothed, getting down from his seat, and helping unload the gear and port it to the door.
I looked about carefully, conscious that South Entrance was not the most cosmopolitan of areas, and that its shadows were rumoured to hide all sorts of creatures of the night. On such a dreary evening, however, I settled myself by considering that anyone up to no good would be more likely within a tavern or holed up in a hovel. The cabby seemed unperturbed, likewise the Professor.
“Don't just stand there gaping, lad, help with that bag there!” he barked.
It could have been the Professor's outburst, but something got into Bessy. She was no longer content to stand in the rain, rather she was tapping the ground anxiously with her feet, clearly keen to keep moving.
The cabby, setting a bag down, clicked his tongue and called out softly to his horses.
I picked up a solid, leather satchel and slung my own knapsack over my shoulder and ported them to the waiting house. It was a derelict hulk, for sure, with dirt covered windows, hazy and discoloured from lack of attention, curtainless and boarded up from within.
The front garden, the little of which could be called such, was overgrown with weeds and grass and a nasty bush that seemed resentful at having had the bad fortune to be grown in such a rude patch. One side of it had been crushed and broken, no doubt the result of children larking about.
The door was plain but solid. It appeared that there would have been, at some stage, a knocker or a bell attached, along with perhaps some ornate trimmings, but these had all been removed. Even the post-hole's brass edging was no longer present, having been replaced with a hastily applied plank of wood secured with a few nails.
I went back to grab the last bag from the cab.
Bessy whinnied again and paced a little, upsetting the other horse and jiggling the carriage behind her. The cabby, having taken his payment, raced back to his seat to settle his horses. Bessy, however, was having none of it, and used her insistence to take off. The driver called and clicked his tongue, but Bessy refused to listen, taking him and his carriage off down the street.
“Fair ye well, thanky for ye custom,” he called, doing his best to save face. “Come on, girl! Slow up! Eas' now!”
I was left by the side of the road looking after the driver. It was odd, but, then again, what cabby is without his quirks?
I turned back to the house and stopped, with a queer sensation that I was being watched. I stole a glance left and right, then behind me, before raising my eyes some.
Looking up to the first floor, guarding my eyes from the stinging rain, I was surprised to see a face peeking over the sill, looking down upon me from an upstairs window. It was only the top of a head, beginning with a nose and ending in a sad, floppy cap.
Evidently the Professor had another underling to aid him tonight. It was strange that he did not mention it. Still, mine was not to question.
I waved courteously.
“What are you doing standing out there, lad?” the Professor called out from the shelter of the porch. “You'll catch your death! Come over here at once!”
I hurried over to the doorway and hurriedly put the bag down.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I was only waving to the chap upstairs. Is he to accompany us also?”
“What are you on about? Come on, it's dry enough on the porch, but it's drier still inside. Well, mostly. The back area has a spot that leaks a bit, but it's easy enough to spot. Do try and stay warm.”
He took out a keyring and flipped through the various shapes and sizes.
“But, Professor, the gentleman upstairs...”
He looked up from the keys, “God? What about him?”
“No, no, no. Upstairs, in this house. Just before, I saw...”
“Aha!” he sniffed, presenting an ordinary key. “It's the one with the point at the end, see? We'll have to lock up when we're done, so take note. I do tend to be a little tired by the end of these exercises, so I'll be getting you to make the place secure when we leave.”
“Yes, Professor. About the...”
“And one last thing,” he said, standing to his full height and looking me square in the eyes. “No more talking until I say. Understood?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Not a peep.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Any noise you make may contaminate what I am noting. And, by the same token, no smoking, no matches. We have lanterns, and we shall use these after we have set up. Keep your auditory contamination to a minimum.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“And this is very sensitive equipment. The auditory sensor you are holding is especially fragile, and even a loud bang can set it wrong in such a way as that it cannot be set right without sending it back to the manufacturer.”
“And where's that?”
“Dublin. And you've already gone and forgotten what I've just instructed you!” he grumbled. “No more sound, no more chit-chat, and if you really, really must relieve yourself of the noises within you, be a good chap and come out here in the rain!”
“But that's...”
His eyes were very sharp. There was no nonsense in them, and I understood this as his final word. I gave in, made a motion with my fingers next to my lips to indicate that they were locked tight, and picked up the bag.
He relented a little, leaned in and whispered in a voice barely audible above the chatter of the rain on the portico, “I understand that at times it is necessary to communicate in the most punctual way possible. This house is quite old and may be rotting in a few spots, so keep your eyes and ears open and if you have such a need, try first whispering, like this.”
I nodded, lips tight, not daring to open my mouth. He smiled a satisfied smile and patted me lightly on the cheek.
“Good lad,” he whispered.
For such an old door, the key turned easily, with the faintest of clicks to betray its complete revolution and the hinges swung with just as much noise. I suspected that, since the Professor had been here before, and that he was so sensitive to contaminating noises about the place, that he would have oiled the mechanisms well.
Now I must say that I had crossed many thresholds in my comparatively short lifetime. It is a simple matter. One puts a foot over the door line, shifts one's weight to that foot, and then brings the other foot to follow.
This door, I remember distinctly, was not so easy to cross. My right foot, being in the lead, refused to budge. My muscles felt a little weak, in truth, like I might collapse from the effort. I lowered my foot and tried with the other, with similar results.
“Oh, come on!” the Professor hissed, pulling me roughly inside. “Enough horseplay.”
I was more than a little shocked at the behaviour of my limbs. Looking back at the door, there was nothing there that should have cause such a strange sensation. I put it down to nerves, inexperience, that which separates the novice from the amateur.
I looked about.
Inside was, naturally enough, dark. The light from the street lamps outside were only just able to penetrate in through the front door and through the various crack in the boards on the windows. The floorboards were clearly defined, with not an ounce of a carpet or a tile to cover their shame.
The room to the left, facing the street, had a fireplace set into the far wall. A smattering of ash and creosote had burst from its stomach across the floor, made recently, it would seem,