She mumbled to herself for a minute or two, taking out a magnifying glass—I was amused that she kept one in her bathrobe, but that was Audrey for you—and looking from the note to the envelope and back. One had supposedly been written by the fiancée, the other by the young man.
Audrey nodded. “Definitely the same hand.”
“It’s not a very big sample,” I said.
“It’s what?” the boy asked.
“It’s enough in this case,” Audrey said. “The envelope has your full name and address. Line slant, word spacing, letter formation . . . all give the same answer. He also has a very distinctive e. If we use the longer sample as the exemplar, the envelope sample can be determined as authentic—in my estimation—at over a ninety percent reliability.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I could use a new dog,” she said, strolling away.
“I’m not imagining you a puppy, Audrey. J.C. creates enough racket! I don’t want a dog running around here barking.”
“Oh, come on,” she said, turning at the doorway. “I’ll feed it fake food and give it fake water and take it on fake walks. Everything a fake puppy could want.”
“Out with you,” I said, though I was smiling. She was teasing. It was nice to have some aspects who didn’t mind being hallucinations. The young man regarded me with a baffled expression.
“You can drop the act,” I said to him.
“Act?”
“The act that you’re surprised by how ‘strange’ I am. This was a fairly amateur attempt. You’re a grad student, I assume?”
He got a panicked look in his eyes.
“Next time, have a roommate write the note for you,” I said, tossing it back to him. “Damn it, I don’t have time for this.” I stood up.
“You could give him an interview,” Tobias said.
“After he lied to me?” I snapped.
“Please,” the boy said, standing. “My girlfriend . . .”
“You called her a fiancée before,” I said, turning. “You’re here to try to get me to take on a ‘case,’ during which you will lead me around by the nose while you secretly take notes about my condition. Your real purpose is to write a dissertation or something.”
His face fell. Ivy stood behind him, shaking her head in disdain.
“You think you’re the first one to think of this?” I asked.
He grimaced. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“I can and I do,” I said. “Often. Wilson! We’re going to need security!”
“No need,” the boy said, grabbing his things. In his haste, a miniature recorder slipped out of his shirt pocket and rattled against the table.
I raised an eyebrow as he blushed, snatched the recorder, then dashed from the room.
Tobias rose and walked over to me, his hands clasped behind his back. “Poor lad. And he’ll probably have to walk home, too. In the rain.”
“It’s raining?”
“Stan says it will come soon,” Tobias said. “Have you considered that they would try things like this less often if you would agree to an interview now and then?”
“I’m tired of being referenced in case studies,” I said, waving a hand in annoyance. “I’m tired of being poked and prodded. I’m tired of being special.”
“What?” Ivy said, amused. “You’d rather work a day job at a desk? Give up the spacious mansion?”
“I’m not saying there aren’t perks,” I said as Wilson walked back in, turning his head to watch the youth flee out the front door. “Make sure he actually goes, would you please, Wilson?”
“Of course, master.” He handed me a tray with the day’s mail on it, then left.
I looked through the mail. He’d already removed the bills and the junk mail. That left a letter from my human psychologist, which I ignored, and a nondescript white envelope, large sized.
I frowned, taking it and ripping open the top. I took out the contents.
There was only one thing in the envelope. A single photograph, five by eight, in black and white. I raised an eyebrow. It was a picture of a rocky coast where a couple of small trees clung to a rock extending out into the ocean.
“Nothing on the back,” I said as Tobias and Ivy looked over my shoulder. “Nothing else in the envelope.”
“It’s from someone else trying to fish for an interview, I’ll bet,” Ivy said. “They’re doing a better job than the kid.”
“It doesn’t look like anything special,” J.C. said, shoving his way up beside Ivy, who punched him in the shoulder. “Rocks. Trees. Boring.”
“I don’t know . . .” I said. “There’s something about it. Tobias?”
Tobias took the photograph. At least, that’s what I saw. Most likely I still had the photo in my hand, but I couldn’t feel it there, now that I perceived Tobias holding it. It’s strange, the way the mind can change perception.
Tobias studied the picture for a long moment. J.C. began clicking his pistol’s safety off and on.
“Aren’t you always talking about gun safety?” Ivy hissed at him.
“I’m being safe,” he said. “Barrel’s not pointed at anyone. Besides, I have keen, iron control over every muscle in my body. I could—”
“Hush, both of you,” Tobias said. He held the picture closer. “My God . . .”
“Please don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” Ivy said.
J.C. snorted.
“Stephen,” Tobias said. “Computer.”
I joined him at the sitting room’s desktop, then sat down, Tobias leaning over my shoulder. “Do a search for the Lone Cypress.”
I did so, and brought up image view. A couple dozen shots of the same rock appeared on the screen, but all of them had a larger tree growing on it. The tree in these photos was fully grown; in fact, it looked ancient.
“Okay, great,” J.C. said. “Still trees. Still rocks. Still boring.”
“That’s the Lone Cypress, J.C.,” Tobias said. “It’s famous, and is believed to be at least two hundred and fifty years old.”
“So . . . ?” Ivy asked.
I held up the photograph that had been mailed. “In this, it’s no more than . . . what? Ten?”
“Likely younger,” Tobias said.
“So for this to be real,” I said, “it would have to have been taken in the mid to late 1700s. Decades before the camera was invented.”
“Look, it’s obviously a fake,” Ivy said. “I don’t see why you two are so bothered by this.”
Tobias and I strolled the hallway of the mansion. It had been two days. I still couldn’t get the image out of my head. I carried the photo in my jacket pocket.
“A hoax would be the most rational explanation, Stephen,” Tobias said.
“Armando thinks it’s real,” I said.
“Armando is a complete loon,” Ivy replied. Today she wore a grey business suit.
“True,” I said, then raised a hand to my pocket again. Altering the photo wouldn’t have taken much. What was doctoring a photo, these days? Practically any kid with Photoshop could create realistic fakes.
Armando had run it through some advanced programs, checking levels and doing a bunch of other things that were too technical for me to understand, but he admitted that didn’t mean anything. A talented artist could fool the tests.
So why did this photo haunt me so?
“This smacks of someone trying to prove something,” I said. “There are many trees older than the Lone Cypress, but few are in as distinctive a location. This photograph is intended to be instantly recognizable as impossible, at least to those with a good knowledge of history.”
“All the more likely a hoax then, wouldn’t you say?” Ivy asked.
“Perhaps.”
I paced back the other direction, my aspects growing silent. Finally, I heard the door shut below. I hurried to the landing down.
“Master?” Wilson said, climbing the steps.
“Wilson! Mail has arrived?”
He stopped at the landing, holding a silver tray. Megan, of the cleaning staff—real, of course—scurried up behind him and passed us, face down, steps quick.
“She’ll quit soon,” Ivy noted. “You really should try to be less strange.”
“Tall order, Ivy,” I mumbled, looking through the mail. “With you people around.” There! Another envelope, identical to the first. I tore into it eagerly and pulled out another picture.
This one was more blurry. It was of a man standing at a washbasin, towel at his neck. His surroundings were old-fashioned. It was also in black and white.
I turned the picture to Tobias. He took it, holding it up, inspecting it with eyes lined at the corners.
“Well?” Ivy asked.
“He looks familiar,” I said. “I feel I should know him.”
“George Washington,” Tobias said. “Having a morning shave, it appears. I’m surprised he didn’t have someone to do it for him.”
“He was a soldier,” I said, taking the photo back. “He was probably accustomed to doing things for himself.” I ran my fingers over the glossy picture. The first daguerreotype—early photographs—had been taken in the mid-1830s. Before that, nobody had been able to create permanent images of this nature. Washington had died in 1799.
“Look, this one is obviously a fake,” Ivy said. “A picture of George Washington? We’re to assume that someone went back in time, and the only thing they could think to do was grab a candid of George in the bathroom? We’re being played, Steve.”
“Maybe,” I admitted.
“It does look remarkably like him,” Tobias said.
“Except we don’t have any photos of him,” Ivy said. “So there’s no way to prove it. Look, all someone would have to do is hire a look-alike actor, pose the photo, and bam. They wouldn’t even have to do any photo editing.”
“Let’s see what Armando thinks,” I said, turning over the photo. On the back of this one was a phone number. “Someone fetch Audrey first.”
“You may approach His Majesty,” Armando said. He stood at his window, which was triangular—he occupied one of the peaks of the mansion. He’d demanded the position.
“Can I shoot him?” J.C. asked me softly. “You know, in a place that’s not important? A foot, maybe?”
“His Majesty heard that,” Armando said in his soft Spanish accent, turning unamused eyes our direction. “Stephen Leeds. Have you fulfilled your promise to me? I must be restored to my throne.”
“Working on it, Armando,” I said, handing him the picture. “We’ve got another one.”
Armando sighed, taking the photo from my fingers. He was a thin man with black hair he kept slicked back. “Armando benevolently agrees to consider your supplication.” He held it up.
“You know, Steve,” Ivy said, poking through the room, “if you’re going to create hallucinations, you really should consider making them less annoying.”