The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Blackwell Has a Visitor

Previously: "Relics of Saratoga Falls" 

(based on a chapter originally by WordSmitty)

You give some vague thought to asking Joe to go with you to the professor's on Wednesday night. You are still frightened enough that you don't want to be alone with him (though nothing happened on Saturday) and figure that a bold and strapping "boyfriend" would discourage the professor from trying anything nasty.

On the other hand—and this is very much the determining factor—Joe's presence would probably also discourage you from trying to use the mask on the professor. So you decide to brave the house alone.

* * * * *

It's a little before eight when you arrive at Blackwell's villa. It looks more sinister than ever, brooding in the deepening twilight. The two dimly lit second-story windows, positioned just above and on either side of the front portico, give it a "face": one that is opening its mouth to swallow visitors.

There's a strange vehicle parked out front the gate tonight: a luxury car of gleaming black with tinted windows. It bespeaks power and sophistication and prestige, which are not qualities you associate with Professor Blackwell; but also a kind of malice, which you would.

Blackwell is slow to answer your knock, and he looks surprised and discomfited by your appearance.

"Ah, Miss Weiss," he stammers, and for a moment you think he's not going to let you in. "I had quite forgotten our appointment. Er—" He hesitates, then jerks the door wide open. "Do come in."

"Is this a bad time?" you ask as you enter. "You look like you've got a visitor."

"Indeed, er, yes. I mean, quite." He swings the door shut. "But that is no reason we may not proceed. That you may not proceed, I mean. You will find quite a bit laid out for you. I was most pleased with your work last time, and have set some difficult puzzles for you tonight. But do take your time. Er." He pauses in the hallway, just in front of the library door. "I do beg your pardon if I seem to lock you in. It is a private matter that my guest I have to discuss, and there is no door on the living room behind which we can hide."

"Do yo mind if I use the, uh, little girls' room first?" you ask.

"What? Oh yes, yes, that will be fine." He remains locked in place as you brush past him down the hall to the restroom.

He is still waiting there, fidgeting, when you emerge a few minutes later. He closes the sliding doors to the library behind you, and locks them with a click. You study them for a moment, then try the handles. They are bolted firmly shut.

But you simply drop your bag onto a desk, ignore the pile of work set for you there, and go out the French doors onto the side patio. From there you go around to the porch again. The front door is unlocked, and it slides open silently as you reenter the house.

The living room is at the end of the long hallway that extends down the length of the house, but you can hear indistinct voices as you slide cautiously over its polished floor. You come to a halt some feet away still, close enough to the restroom door that you can duck inside and hide if someone comes out, but close enough to make out what they are saying.

"—are wondering why you are so careless about opening your house to someone like her, when you won't open it to us," says Blackwell's visitor.

"I think that would be obvious," Blackwell retorts.

"It is still careless. What if she knocks something over?" His voice is deep and rich and smooth and strong, but with a trace of strong acid. If a cup of black coffee could speak, it would sound like this voice.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean," says the other, "that you are going to tell me that she is simply a lab assistant. Or the equivalent. But even a good lab assistant can ... knock something over."

"I let her near nothing that could be 'knocked over'," Blackwell says. "You and your colleagues, on the other hand—"

"But it hurts our feelings, so," the other replies in a mocking tone. "It makes you seem unfriendly."

"I am not unfriendly—"

"But you are! You never act the gracious host with us!"

Blackwell replies, in a sulky voice, "Because I don't feel like counting the spoons after you leave."

There's a brief, deep silence. Then the other looses a deep, rolling, unforced laugh.

"That is quite good," he says. "What it lacks in diplomacy it compensates in wit. But you had to count the spoons after your last assistant left!"

"What is that?" Blackwell asks, sharply.

"I said—"

"I heard what you said. But the allusion escapes me."

"But something else escaped you as well! And it wasn't your assistant, whose vanishing act would have impressed Houdini. And might yet impress the FBI, should they take an interest."

"Why would they?"

"Oh, because some people know other people, and a word from one to the other—"

"I have nothing to fear from the FBI!"

"But it all rather depends, doesn't it?" the other drawls. "And one wouldn't like to gamble, even if the consequences are only ... embarrassing. But as I was saying, you've lost something else. And I don't mean the assistant that came after him," he adds in a very acidic tone.

There's a long silence. Blackwell's tone is clipped when next he speaks.

"I was perhaps too hasty with my ... assistant. And yes, he mislaid something. It put me into a temper."

The voice turns very deep. "What was it, Aubrey, that he mislaid?"

"An antiquity," he says, and it sounds as if the words are being squeezed and twisted out of him. "A rare book."

"It must have been valuable, if you—"

"I said, he put me into a temper! And I was too hasty! I do regret it, and would not have—"

"What was the book? I ask," he adds when Blackwell doesn't immediately answer, "because we might like to do you a good turn. Something to demonstrate our good will."

"What kind of a good turn?" Blackwell asks. His voice is pinched.

"We might replace it, this book that you lost. Present you with another copy. Come, would that not be a neighborly gesture? A friendly gesture, a gesture of good will?"

"It would indeed."

Something in Blackwell's tone seems to knock the other off guard. After a long pause, it says, "Was it that rare?"

"I did not say—"

"Could we replace it, Aubrey? There are few books we could not. But if it was—"

"It was a copy of The Book of the Toad," Blackwell snaps. "A manuscript, actually," he adds. "Sixteenth century."

There's a long pause. Then the other says, "Book of the Toad, manuscript. Well well. That is a rarity."

"So you could hardly—"

"How did you procure a manuscript copy of the The Book of the Toad, Aubrey? That takes skill! All known copies are accounted for."

"A private collector—"

"All known private collections are accounted for as well." The voice has turned dangerous now, like the rippling breeze that goes before a thunderstorm.

"I paid a great price," Blackwell says. "For it."

There is a much lengthier pause.

Then the voice says, "Arnholm's Used Books does not traffic in manuscripts."

There is a much lengthier pause now, one so long that you nervously eye the restroom door, wondering if maybe you should jump behind it lest someone come stalking out of the living room without warning.

But then the visitor says, "Yes, I suppose we have had enough of the topic. Well well, I say again. Something rare and valuable and not to be spoken of is rattling on the loose in Saratoga Falls. We shall certainly keep an eye out for it for you. Even if you won't tell us what it is, we shall certainly know it when we see it. Shan't we?"

"I believe we have exhausted all topics of friendly conversation, yes," Blackwell says stiffly, and even if the other hadn't replied with a deep sigh and a murmur that sounds like, "Yes I should be going," you would have taken the signal. You hurry as silently as you can back down the hall and out the front door. You sprint back around the house to the side patio, and your heart is pounding hard as you duck back into the library.

For a moment you stand there, sweating and trembling all over. You are almost paralyzed with fright and indecision.

For now you have two possible targets to use the mask on. Blackwell you might get tonight, and you might get him later, at almost any time.

But his visitor, who haven't so much as glimpsed, sounds like someone you need to beware of as well. And right now, this very moment, is the only chance you will have to capture his mind and memories inside a mask.

* To use the mask on the visitor: "An Arresting Development" 
* To do nothing (it's just too dangerous!): "Stolen Lore" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"