Steeped in such memories and in the fog, his first thought was that this man was his father. Why couldn’t it be his father? They would be ghosts together, sailing through the night.
His first words to the insect catcher were tentative, respectful of his own past.
“Excuse me? Excuse me, sir?”
The man turned with a slow grace to peer down at this latest catch. The folds of the insect catcher’s robes covered his face, but for a jutting nose like a scythe.
“Yes?” The man had a deep, sonorous voice.
“Do you know which way to Archmont Lane? My map is no help at all.”
The insect catcher raised one bony finger and pointed upward.
Lake looked up. There, above the insect catcher’s light, was a sign for Archmont Lane. Lake stood on Archmont Lane.
“Oh,” he said. “Thank you.”
But the insect catcher had already shambled on into the fog, little more than a shadow under a lantern that had already begun to fade …
* * *
From there, it was relatively easy to find 45 Archmont Lane—unlike the other entrances to left and right, it suffered few signs of disrepair and a lamp blazed above the doorway. The numerals “4” and “5” were rendered in glossy gold, the door painted maroon, the steps swept clean, the door knocker a twin to the seal on the envelope—all permeated by a sudsy smell.
Reassured by such cleanliness, Raffe’s advice still whispering in his ear, Lake raised the doorknocker and lowered it—once, twice, thrice.
The door opened a crack, light flooded out, and Lake caught sight of a wild, staring eye, rimmed with crusted red. It was an animal’s eye, the reflection in its black pupil his own distorted face. Lake took a quick step back.
The voice, when it came, sounded unreal, falsified: “What do you want?”
Lake held up the invitation. “I have this.”
A blink of the horrible eye. “What does it say?”
“An invitation to a—”
“Quick! Put on your mask!” hissed the voice.
“My mask?”
“Your mask for the masquerade!”
“Oh! Yes. Sorry. Just a moment.”
Lake pulled the rubber frog mask out of his pocket and put it over his head. It felt like slick jelly. He did not want it next to his skin. As he adjusted the mask so he could see out of the eyeholes that jutted from the frog’s nostrils, the door opened, revealing a splendid foyer and the outstretched arm of the man with the false voice. The man himself stood to one side and Lake, his vision restricted to what he could see directly in front of him, had to make do with the beckoning white-gloved hand and a whispered, “Enter now!” He walked forward. The man slammed the door behind him and locked it.
Ahead, through glass paneled doors, Lake saw a staircase of burnished rosewood and, at the foot of the stairs, a globe of the world upon a polished mahogany table with lion paws for feet. Candles guttered in their slots, the wavery light somehow religious. On the left he glimpsed tightly stacked bookcases hemmed in by generous tables, while to the right the house opened up onto a sitting room, flanked by portraits. Black drop clothes covered the name plate and face of each portrait: a line of necks and shoulders greeted him from down the hall. The smell of soap had faded, replaced by a faint trace of rot, of mildew.
Lake turned toward the front door and the person who had opened it—a butler, he presumed—only to find himself confronted by a man with a stork head. The red-ringed eyes, the cruel beak, the dull white of the feathered face, merged with a startlingly pale neck atop a gaunt body clothed in a black-and-white suit.
“I see that you are dressed already,” Lake managed, although badly shaken. “And, unfortunately, as the natural predator of the frog. Ha ha. Perhaps, though, you can now tell me why I’ve been summoned here, Mister…?”
The joke failed miserably. The attempt to discover the man’s name failed with it. The Stork stared at him as if he came from a foreign, barbaric land. The Stork said, “Your jacket and your cane.”
Lake disliked relinquishing his cane, which had driven off more than one potential assailant in its day, but handed both it and his jacket to the Stork. After placing them in a closet, the Stork said, “Follow me,” and led Lake past the stairs, past the library, and into a study with a decorative fireplace, several upholstered chairs, a handful of glossy black wooden tables and, adorning the walls, eight paintings by masters of the last century: hunting scenes, cityscapes, still lifes—all genuine and all completely banal.
The Stork beckoned Lake to a couch farthest from the door. The couch was bounded by a magnificent, if unwieldy, rectangular box of a table that extended some six feet down the width of the room. It had decorative handles, but no drawers.
As Lake sat, making certain not to bang his leg against the table, he said, “Who owns this house?” to the Stork’s retreating back.
The Stork spun around, put a finger to its beak, and said, “Don’t speak! Don’t speak!”
Lake nodded in a gesture of apology. The master of the house obviously valued his privacy.
The Stork stared at Lake a moment longer, as if afraid he might say something more, then turned on his heel.
Leaving Lake alone in his frog mask, which had become uncomfortably hot and scratchy. It smelled of a familiar cologne—Merri must have worn it since the Festival and not cleaned it out.
Claustrophobia battled with a pleasing sense of anonymity. Behind the mask he felt as if he would be capable of actions forbidden to the arrogant but staid Martin Lake. Very well, then, the new Martin Lake would undertake an examination of the room for more clues as to his host’s taste—or lack thereof.
A bust of Trillian stared back at him from a far table, its white marble infiltrated by veins of some cerise stone. Also on this table lay a book entitled The Architect of Ruins, above which stood the stuffed and bejeweled carcass of a tortoise. Across from it, upon a dais, stood a telescope which, in quite a clever whimsy, faced a map of the world upon the wall. Atlases and other maps were strewn across the tables, but Lake had the sense that these had been placed haphazardly as the result of cold calculation. Indeed, the room conveyed an aura of artificiality, from the burgundy walls to the globe-shaped fixtures that spread a pleasant, if pinkish, light. Such a light was not conducive to reading or conversation. Despite this, the study had a rich warmth to it, both relaxing and comfortable.
Lake sat back, content. Who would have thought to find such refinement in the midst of such desolation? It appeared Raffe had been right: some wealthy patron wished to commission him, perhaps even to collect his art. He began to work out in his head an asking price that would be high enough, even if eventually knocked down by hard bargaining, to satisfy him. He could buy new canvases, replace his old, weary brushes, perhaps even convince an important gallery to carry his work.
Gradually, however, as if the opening notes of a music so subtle that the listener could not at first hear it, a tap-tap-tapping intruded upon his pleasant daydream. It traveled around the room and into his ears with an apologetic urgency.
He sat up and tried to identify the source. It came neither from the walls nor the door. But it definitely originated from inside the room … and, although muffled, as if underground, from somewhere close to him. Such a gentle sound—not loud enough to startle him, just this cautious, moderate tap, this minor key rap.