I had to make three trips, for without six arms, I could not possibly hold the hygrometer, the barometer, the thermometer, the lantern, my notepad, watch and pencil as well as the vibrometer and electroscope.
Thank Goodness the Professor did not require me to bring the magnetoscope and camera as well!
Muttering under my breath, for fear the Professor might mistake my annoyance for ingratitude – I was, and am, very grateful for the employment – I made my last trip to the bottom of the steps, made sure my lantern was full of oil, checked that the watch was wound and looked about for a place to sit.
I spied a large, rusted milk can, about the right size for a seat, wedged up in the back corner underneath a crate filled with empty bottles which, in turn, was covered by an old rag.
On top of all of this was a smooth, heavy stone, holding everything down. The whole arrangement appeared almost as a shrine, precariously and deliberately placed.
Now, I was not about to stand the whole time and while we did promise Mister French to leave his house in the same state in which we found it, I considered the removal of a stone, a crate of bottles, and an old rag to be of no great significance.
I hooked my lantern on a nail in the roof, set my notepad to one side, and lifted the stone. It was astonishingly heavy given its size, much like lead, and I struggled to lower it onto the ground.
The rag was much lighter. On closer inspection, the linen I was shifting was made of a curious cloth, very closely woven with small figures of stars, cursive shapes and symbols embroidered in intricate patterns. It was greatly aged and felt so delicate, as though it might tear under its own weight.
I set the bundle down on the floor. For all I knew, it could have been a precious heirloom for the French family, even though being left out in the open like that was only asking for rats, mice and moths to make their home within.
I lifted up the crate of bottles, hefting it against my chest, when I noticed a lump of fur in which were embedded two black orbs, shining orange in the light of the lantern. The mouse had scuttled out of one of the bottles and was now eye-level, so close to my nose that it looked a whole lot bigger than actuality.
With a stifled shriek, my mind told my legs to run backward and my arms to thrust forwards, and before I knew what had happened, the crate, and its cargo, was shattered across the floor, and I had tangled my feet in the rags.
I danced to free myself, but only succeeded in tearing the fragile cloth. I pirouetted, clashed against a shelf of preserves, tottered like a burnt out tower and thudded to the dirt.
A few seconds later, the Professor was at the top of the stairs to the cellar, blocking the doorway. His form was only barely visible against the darkness upstairs, yet his angry face was illuminated in the lantern's amber glow.
“What have you done, laddie?” he called, peering down, “Have you broken anything?”
In truth, I still do not know if he meant bones or bottles.
“Hello, Professor. There was a mouse...” I groaned, pulling myself from the floor while avoiding the broken glass.
“A mouse? Did I not say that you were to only observe any vermin?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Oh, look, there's glass everywhere. Tsk! You had better clean up. There's a broom in the kitchen.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Anything that needs replacing will be coming out of your wages.”
“It was an accident,” I said, reaching the top of the stairs. “I did not mean to do it. I was startled.”
“Of course you didn't mean to do it. That's why it's called an accident,” he said.
He looked over my shoulder to the mess below.
“Really, lad, haven't you outgrown your clumsiness yet?”
“I'm not sure I ever will,” I said, searching about for the broom.
“Well, at least we have established that vermin inhabits the basement. Be sure to make a recording of everything you see and hear, once you've cleaned up of course, oh – you haven't broken any equipment, have you?”
I shook my head, “I don't know, Professor. I'll let you know as soon as I have taken stock.”
“Yes, well, do that. We've already lost enough time,” he went off shaking his head and mumbling. “Scared of a bloody mouse...”
Well, I knew I was clumsy, and I knew I had a lot to learn, but I was not about to be considered a coward!
I swept and cleaned as quickly as I could, keeping watch for that little fur-ball in case it should present itself enough for me to smite with my broom.
Many of the bottles that had fallen from the crate were shattered, others were intact but had spilled their contents: white and black powders, fragments of bone, hair and feathers. The larger items I replaced into the bottles, but the powders and hairs proved too difficult and ended up adding to the confusion.
Curious as the contents were, I was more concerned with the broken glass that littered the dirt floor in irregular, tiny shards. The more I swept, the more the little shards buried themselves into the dirt, refusing to be collected.
With that sorted as best I could manage, I picked up the tangled cloth, inspected a large hole where my foot had torn it, assessing if the damage done was even repairable. My heart sank. From the age of it, I figured that any repair would be insufficient, so I would need to pay for it in full. My only hope was that it was merely a rag left in the basement by one of Mister French's servants.
Some preserves had fallen from the shelves, two of which were leaking red vinegar – yet more items to be paid for upon Mister French's return – and the mouse, that rotten mouse, was nowhere to be seen.
The stone, it seemed, was the only thing to come out unscathed.
Notepad in hand, I sat down on my hard-won drum, disconsolate, trying my best to keep my mind on the job.
Observation is an arduous task. One might consider that sitting in a room, watching, listening, feeling, with only a few hidden mice for company, might not be so taxing. In part, this is true. There is no manual lifting or bending or awkward postures to maintain, and it felt good to get off my feet after a long shift at the library, but the mind, like a muscle, gets fatigued.
Keeping regular recordings throughout the night is one way to keep myself occupied, to stop my mind from wandering too much. After a while, one looks forward to the blessing of any kind of activity to break the monotony.
Jolimont House, Basement.
Time: 10:25
Temp Delta: -0.5
Baro: 29.89
Hygro: 28
Vibro: 0.1
Electro: Flat
No sounds can be heard.
My face went red, even though no one was about. I knew what I had to do, to be thorough, to be scientific. Yet the thought of immortalising my clumsiness in writing for peers to laugh at was agonising. Still, I had a duty, and there was a good chance I would never meet my critics, so I did the right thing and wrote:
Saw a mouse while moving crate. Dropped crate, breaking bottles. Cleaned up. Damage is seven broken glass bottles and their contents, two preserve jars are opened, one cloth is torn, glass fragments are in the cellar floor.
With that done I put my notepad and chagrin to one side and nestled down for a long night. The Professor was operating the camera upstairs. He did not mention that he wanted photographs in the basement, which suited me just fine, since the high level of dust in the air would only make each photograph a field of specks, each of which would need to be individually investigated and dismissed.
Imagine being hunched over a pile of photographs, magnifying glass in hand, for hours, documenting the position and description of each speck, blur or haze, then categorising them as 'dust', 'insect' or 'fluff'.
It was not as if we needed more samples of what constitutes false positives. The filing cabinet is fairly brimming with them!
Still, for every hundred photographs that show nothing, we come across one that shows something. Something that cannot be rationally explained away. Something that ties into the history of the house we investigated, into the anomalous happenings we recorded.
One can think of it as mining, sifting through piles and piles of muck and dirt to find the few glittering specks we so crave. As the Professor labours, we do not know where or when these precious gifts might present themselves, and should be conscious, at all times, for their manifestation.
A goal of our observational approach is to define environmental trends that can increase the possibility, and therefore reliability, of detecting anomalies.
I understood this, agreed with it whole heartedly, yet I also despised the unrewarding labour that resulted in defining 'normality'. So, while the scientist in me supported the idea of taking photographs of a boring cellar, the practical side of me shuddered at the thought.
After five minutes I took my readings again:
Time: 10:30
Temp Delta: -0.7
Baro: 29.89
Hygro: 28
Vibro: 0.1
Electro: Separated
“That's odd,” I whispered, because it was.
I try not to talk to myself during an investigation, but every so often, such as on this occasion, I find myself verbalising my thoughts. It is a habit formed, perhaps, to assure me that normalcy still exists, that I am not dreaming. It is also a habit I am yet to break.
The Professor has rebuked me over this time and time again, “Your words cannot interfere if you keep them inside your mouth!”
Anyway, I was still on edge from my mishap and feeling more than a little ashamed, so seeing the electroscope leaves in such a state jolted me.
We have had instances in the past where the electroscope leaves had separated from each other due to natural occurrences. On at least two occasions it was because I had walked over long-pile carpet, which charged my body which, in turn, charged the leaves and caused them to part.
Another time the Professor postulated that the electrical activity of a thunderstorm had caused the air around the electroscope to be charged.
In the basement, there was no carpet, and the weather outside was just fine. I peered closely through the glass, just to be sure my eyes were not playing tricks.
Indeed, there was a clear gap between the leaves.
I looked about for anything magnetic or electrical in nature, not that I expected to find something like that in a residential basement, for such oddities belong in universities and laboratories. Yet I remained dutiful, made no assumptions and examined the cellar for any reason why the electroscope should have formed a reading.
Nothing can be found to excite the electroscope. No machinery, steam, electric or magnetic, can be found. There is no carpet, the floor is compacted dirt with some flags. There are no curtains, no window to the outside. The weather outside was still, not at all stormy, when I entered.
I lowered my pencil and groaned. The rag, of course. If you have ever the chance to witness it, you can perform a simple experiment with a glass rod and a rag whereby you rub the two together vigorously and all manner of small feathers and dust will be attracted to the rod. This, the Professor had explained to me, is due to an imbalance of electrical charge.
The electroscope detects the exact same charge that causes the small objects to be attracted, so with a sigh I resumed my notes.
Possible contamination of evidence: there is an aged cloth, embroidered with what seems to be silk, that I had moved prior to sitting down. It may be that this, rubbing against another surface such as the bottles, or even the electroscope itself -
I paused. Something rustled close to a green tin, a little across from me. I strained my ears to listen, searching the gloom for any sign of another mouse, perhaps even the same one that had caused me such mischief. If that poor beast showed its face, I was ready. The broom was only at arm's length, ready for action.
Duty brought me back, and I hastily jotted down:
Rustle heard. Could not see the source.
Then added, without thinking:
Possibly a mouse.
The Professor does not like me to include presumptuous explanations within my observations. He says that they can skew an audience's opinion before all of the evidence has been presented.
This was different to the case of the electroscope, in that the rag was evident before me, a definite candidate for an explanation whereas, even though I had previously seen a mouse, and this certainly was the most likely explanation for the rustling, since I could not directly see the mouse, I should not have included it in my observations.
The Professor does not allow me to use an eraser, nor does he include one himself, “Only write what you see, hear and feel. If you made a mistake, correct it with another sentence.”
Even if I did have an eraser, or crossed out the words, the traces of my former recording would remain visible and perhaps compel the reader to consider that I removed a legitimate observation for my own agenda.
Such is the nature of the Professor's scientific research: Every note, every photograph, every measurement, every report must be meticulously performed, or there can be grounds for reasonable doubt as to the validity of the research, putting the investigation, present and prior, into jeopardy.
If you have read my previous documentations, you will understand exactly what I mean. The scientific community is necessarily a distrusting and unforgiving mob. It is in their nature, it is their duty, to question everything that is presented before them.
I finished up with my notes, pricked my ears and sat quietly in the dark cellar, waiting for the time to record the next observation, keeping the broom within reach.
Just in case.