ahead of his time, was Mr. Larkshead. He had designed and built a mechanical manservant. A sort of butler named Zadoc. What it was powered by I do not know, he would not reveal it—but it was not steam. The device had an almost blank, bland face, but I suspected he had other faces baking. How the thing could see or navigate I have no idea. This was the first of many things I wish I had not discovered, but my fascination got the better of me. His estate was like nothing you can imagine. He called it the Villa of the Enigmas.”
“Go on …” Lloyd said, feeling the hairs on his neck rise. This was like what had happened before—but not the same. Not the same.
“Well … I know this will sound like utter flapdoodle, but he had a colony of live ants from the jungles of South America in a great glass nest. I could not guess why or how he came by them, but I know that he spent a good deal of money keeping them alive in the northern climate … and that, as outrageous as it sounds, he had some notion of communicating with them. I could see that he was at work on a grand scheme. There was a whole wing of the estate I was never allowed to enter—and, frankly, I had no wish to, given what was in evidence around me.”
“How did you really come to work for someone such as that?” Lloyd asked. “Such a person would need no hired head for figures.” He had not thought to say that before. But it struck him now. “Indeed,” the gambler smirked. “I wanted to think then that it was because of my abilities. Now I know I was a fool. I believe I was one of his test subjects, without knowing it.”
“Test subjects?” the boy queried.
“Aye. I believe I was lured to the estate with the offer of employment, but I think I was given drugs—some kind of powerful narcotic that did not disrupt all perception but yet was responsible for visions. I cannot explain the things I saw elsewise. I witnessed a meeting. Whatever they were, or are, I suspect it is the real force behind his company and his wealth—behind a great deal of other things, too. Things we would do well not to know about.”
“That sounds like something far better to know about than not,” Lloyd replied.
“Just the kind of young-headed notion that got me into the mess,” St. Ives lamented. “What I saw was a group … of people, if you like. Who all looked like him. I can’t explain it. There were twelve of them in total! Yet they did not seem like individuals. They seemed as one. They had a kind of diagram they conjured out of the air—a mosaic-like puzzle—and they were engaged in some type of ceremony or strategy-planning session. I swear I have never told anyone else this!”
“Where were you hiding while you were watching?” Lloyd wanted to know.
“Well, this may be the most miraculous part!” the gambler whispered. “I saw the whole thing through a bewitched glass cube I found in the library. I had seen the cube before, but it had always been clear and empty. I had assumed it was just some type of mirror made into an art object. There were so many peculiar artifacts about the place, I gave it no special thought, until that day when it came alive. As the scene unfolded, I could not but conclude that Larkshead and the others were assembled in the forbidden wing of the mansion and that I was somehow eavesdropping on them. The images could not have been inside the cube. It was some kind of window.”
“An interesting deduction,” Lloyd said, his mind churning like the river, which was flowing now. “What did you witness?”
“Oh, my young friend … I hesitate to tell you. They took off their hats and veils. They were not men—or women, either. They were … I know not what. Creatures. Ghosts. Their apparent bodies were but masks, camouflage. Their true forms were hideous and impalpable. As absurd as they appeared, there was a malevolence about them … as if their forms were punishment. I felt that malignance radiated through the cube. Their resentment, their envy. Their relentless hunger for other shapes. But I felt that they were still somehow human. Not demons, not inhabitants from some distant star. They were—”