We brought ourselves into a kitchen area, complete with an aged table. The wood worms had had their fill, and what was left could barely be called the skin and bones of it. The lantern and the lighter pieces of equipment were set upon it and it held them sturdy enough. The rest, for fear of them being too much of a burden for the poor piece of furniture, were placed carefully on the floor.
The Professor, double checking the pieces, drew near and whispered, “Now, we shall begin our calibration.”
I nodded, indicating that I was ready to do what needed to be done, but I was very unsure what that entailed.
“This is our base of operations, you may say, where our equipment lies. If you need me, or if I need you, we shall meet up here. It is central enough to the house. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Good lad. Now, let me show you some pieces you will be observing. Don't worry, it doesn't take a scientific eye to read a measurement, although there is a lot of science behind them,” he hummed, not letting his voice go much higher than the permeating sound outside.
He pointed to the camera box. “No one but myself will operate this. However, I will require you, later on, to feed me the plates and handle the spent ones. Have you done so before?”
I nodded. I had worked for a couple of months during a visit to Amsterdam as a photographer's lackey. The pay was not good, and the conditions were terrible. For hours I would wait around while his Grand Highness, the Maestro (as he insisted I call him), prepared his equipment and set up the flash and measured the angles and readjusted the lens, only to be yelled at and clipped across the ears as I hastily reset the camera plates after his shots.
Only once had I dropped the plate. Well, it was several plates. The whole box, in fact. After a long day of shooting, I was carrying the plates back with me to his studio, when I noticed that his Greatness, the Maestro, had left a shroud on the ground. I stopped and turned to go back and pick it up, naturally enough, only that I had not noticed that his Eminence, bringing with him his mighty stomach, was walking closely behind me.
He brushed past me, well, more of a bump than a brush. Actually, one might describe it that he slammed into me with his gut and bowled me over like a skittle! In any case, the box flew from my hands, spilling its contents about the grass. Each plate was exposed to the burning sun, ruining the day's work.
For this I endured such a broadside that I shall never forget, followed closely by the dreaded stare and those ominous words I would hear all too often from my employers.
“Fresh plates are here. Used ones go in here. I shan't need to explain the manner in which they must be treated?” asked the Professor carefully.
“Do you have a shroud?” I whispered, my voice sounding strangely foreign to me for having been silent for more than a few minutes.
“Yes, in that bag there. And the flash powder is a concoction of my own, designed to produce a more dull light, suitable for indoors. So the process will be,” he said as he held up one finger at a time, “load the plate, charge the flash, I take the photograph, unload the plate, clean the flash, repeat.”
I nodded. My neck was feeling a little loose from it all. Sitting in the dark like that, huddling about a lantern on a mouldy table, the situation became a little more clear to me. This was something very out of the ordinary.
Sure, I wanted the experience, I wanted to learn what it was like to be a scholar of a scientific field. I had visions of peering through a microscope or handling a crucible filled with a bubbling, molten concoction, not squatting in decaying houses taking photographs of rotten furniture.
“First we need to do some base readings. Now, to the equipment. This,” he said, pointing to the glass bell-jar he had showed me earlier, “is an electroscope. If the air above the plate here becomes charged, the repulsion of these filaments here becomes greater than the gravity that restrains them, and they will separate.”
“Charged?” I whispered. “But how?”
“Good question. One that I greatly wish to investigate. I've only witnessed it directly a handful of times, and each time I've scored a hit or two on my other instruments,” he explained with more than a little enthusiasm. “Although this really only gives a qualitative analysis. It cannot, for example, demonstrate the sign of the charge, or the amount, so I use it as an indicator. Should you see motion of the filaments inside, please note it in your journal.”
My stomach sank. “Journal?”
“Yes. I did ask you to bring one.”
I bit my lip. “I'm afraid I must not have heard.”
“Humph. Well, clean your ears out next time. Here, use this one. Mark the date and time of any occurrence, in this border here, then as much detail as you care next to it,” he said, handing me a leather journal. “If it is too dark to see by, then use these bumps at the edge of the page to begin your pencil. Messy notes are better than no notes.”
“What do I record?”
“Anything and everything. Nothing is insignificant during an investigation! It may be deemed as such during the analysis, but a measurement is a measurement, a reading is a reading, and an observation is an observation. Note it down, note it well,” he lectured, letting his voice rise above his whisper.
He stopped and settled himself down.
He pointed to the other instruments on the table, saying, “This is a thermometer. I've had it constructed to show fine degrees of separation from a base reading. Note that I have turned this dial to squeeze the mercury to zero. Note also that the increments go both positively and negatively. This is so that we can detect fluctuations in temperature from a base reading, for I have found that ambient temperature itself is not so much of an indicator as the change in the temperature.”
He held his hand on the bulb, letting it warm the contents. The mercury within rose noticeably. He released it and it slowly came back down again.
“I see.”
“Please record this temperature change, and the time of course, whenever you pass by. Here is another one for your personal use. Hold it by the handle there, that's right, and try not to interfere with it too much by breathing on it or holding it close to your own body.”
“I will,” I said, taking a thermometer. “What is that?”
“That is a vibrometer. This stretched diaphragm is attached to that levered stylus you see in there. See? Notice that it is moving ever so slightly as I speak. If I tap the table,” he demonstrated, “like so, the vibrations in the air move the diaphragm which, in turn, moves the stylus which, in turn pushes upon this indicator here. So the indicator will stop at the loudest vibration, allowing you to take a reading. To reset it, wait until the noise has diminished and press this little catch. But you'll note that the ambient noise from the rain tonight is preventing it from reaching stability?”
“Yes, Professor. I see.”
“Yes, you do. Mark my words well, this is a very sensitive device and must be used with utmost care. It took me that long to design it, and even longer to have it built to a satisfactory level. The stylus is as light as a feather and will not suffer undue force,” he warned, replacing it gently on the table and resetting the marker.
“Is that all?” I asked.
“Yes. Between the thermometer, the vibrometer, the electroscope, plus, of course, your own highly sophisticated senses, you should end this night with a journal filled to the brim with measurements. Remember to note anything you see or hear, or even smell!”
“Jolly good,” I muttered, resigning myself to the long night ahead.
“And I will enforce, once more, my policy of silence. I do not want to have spent my night recording your grumblings!”
I held up my hand. I knew this may provoke the ire of the Professor, considering he had just reiterated how essential silence was, but I had to ask.
“Yes,” he sighed, “What is it?”
“It is just us in this house, Professor?”
“Of course, lad! Otherwise I'd be clamping their mouths as well as yours! Now tread carefully. We shall begin by taking base readings, then return here to the kitchen. You take the larder, just over there, for half an hour, I shall be at the front.”
“What about upstairs?”
“We shall look upstairs later, laddy,” he said impatiently. “Now shh! Go!”
He waved me off.