I was thinking the same thing. On a number of occasions, driving past, I had waved to Stefan, if he happened to be out, but I had never stopped.
Sometimes Stefan waved back, most of the time he didn’t.
The garage door was open and the Cadillac parked inside. It seemed to me, as I looked at it, that there was a strangeness to the garage. Then, quite suddenly, I realized what the strangeness was. Except for the Cadillac, the garage was empty; it had not been used as a storage catch-all, the fate of most garages.
A flight of flagstone steps ran up from the driveway to a terrace and the narrow strip of level ground that lay in front of the house. The lawn was intended to be gay, with garden umbrellas, but the gaiety fell a little short, the canvas torn by the wind and faded by the sun.
No one was about. More than that, the place—the house, the lawn, all of it—had an empty feel to it. It felt like a place that never had been lived in, as if it had been built those forty years ago and then been allowed to stand, to age and weather, with no one ever standing underneath its roof. It was a strange sensation and I wondered what was the matter with me that I should be thinking it. I knew that I was wrong. Stefan had done a lot of living here, and occasionally there had been others.
«Well,» the sheriff said, «I suppose we should go up and see if anyone is home.» I sensed the sheriff felt uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable myself, as if, somehow, I were an unwelcome guest, as if I’d come to a party, the kind of party that you simply do not crash, without an invitation. All these years the people of this house (whoever they might be) had made it a point of honor that they wished to be left alone, and here we were, invading their fiercely protected privacy, using a tragedy as a pretext.
The sheriff went heavy-footed up the flagstone stairs, with Neville and me following close behind. We came out on a stone patio that led up to the front door. The sheriff rapped on the door. When there was no answer, he pounded on it. I think that all he was doing was going through the motions; he had sensed as well as I had that there was no one there.
He put his hand on the latch and pressed it with his thumb. The door came open and he stuck his head inside. «Anyone home?» he asked, and then, scarcely waiting for an answer, went on in.
The door opened on a large room; I suppose you would call it the living room, although it was larger than any living room I had ever seen. A lounge would have described it better. The windows facing the road were heavily draped and the place was dark. There were chairs scattered all about, and a monstrous stone fireplace was opposite the windows. But I only glimpsed these things, for standing in the middle of the room, in almost the exact center of it, stood an object that caught my gaze and held it.
The sheriff shuffled slowly forward. «What the hell is that?» he rumbled.
It was some sort of transparent box standing on a platform elevated a foot or so above the floor. A framework of what appeared to be metal held the box in place. Inside the box were unsupported green stripes, like the yardage stripes that mark off a football field. But the stripes didn’t run the way they would on a football field. They were canted at all angles and were of no uniform length. Some of them were short, others long, some of them had zigzags in them. Scattered amid the markings, with no particular pattern, were a number of glowing red and blue dots.
The sheriff stopped when he got to the box and stood looking down on it.
He asked, gently, «Mr. Piper, have you ever seen anything like this?»
«Never,» Neville said.
I squatted down, squinting at the box, looking for any sign of wires on which the colored dots might be strung. There was no sign of wires. I poked a finger at the box and struck something hard. Not glass; I would have known the feel of glass. This was something else. I tried several other places and each time the hardness stopped my probing finger.
«What do you make of it, Mr. Thornton?» asked the sheriff.
I made a stupid answer. «It isn’t glass,» I said.
Suddenly one of the blue dots changed position. It didn’t move from one position to another; it jumped so fast I couldn’t see it move. It was at one place and suddenly it was at another place, some three or four inches from where it had been.
«Hey,» I said, «the damn thing works!»
«A game of some sort,» the sheriff said, uncertainly.
«I wouldn’t know,» said Neville. «There is no evidence upon which to speculate.»
«I suppose not,» said the sheriff. «Funny setup, though.»
He moved across the room to the windows, started fumbling at the drapes.
«Got to get some light in here,» he said.
I stayed squatting, watching the box. None of the other dots moved.
«Four feet, I’d say,» said Neville.
«Four feet?»
«The box. Four feet square. A cube. Four feet on each side.»
I agreed with him. «Close to it,» I said.
The sheriff got the drapes open and daylight poured into the room. I got up from my crouch and looked around. The place had a barren look. There was carpeting on the floor. Chairs. Sofas. End tables. Candelabra with wilted candles in them. The fireplace. But no paintings on the walls. No figurines on the fireplace mantel. No small pieces at all. Just the furniture.
«It looks,» said Neville, «as if no one ever quite finished moving in.»
«Well,» said the sheriff, «let’s get to work. Let’s see if we can find anything that will give us a clue to who should be notified of Stefan’s death.»
We went through the place. It didn’t take us long. All the other rooms were as barren as the lounge. Necessary furniture. That was all. Not a single scrap of paper. Nothing.
Out on the driveway, the sheriff shrugged in resignation. «It seems unbelievable,» he said.
«What do you do now?» I asked.
«The county registrar of deeds can tell me who owns the place.»
It was almost noon by the time Neville and I got back to the cabin. I started to fry some eggs and bacon. I had the bacon in the pan when Neville stopped me. «Don’t bother with it now,» he said. «We can eat a little later. There’s something I have to show you.»
His voice was more tense than I had ever heard it.
«What’s the trouble, Neville?»
«This,» he said. He reached into his jacket pocket, took something out of it, placed it on the kitchen table. It was a cube, perhaps four inches to the side. It appeared to be translucent.
«Take a look at it,» he said. «Tell me what you make of it.»
I picked it up. It was heavier than I expected. I weighed it in my hand, puzzled by it.
«Look at it,» he said. «Look into it. Bring it up close to your face and look inside it. That’s the only way to see it.»
At first I saw nothing. Then I brought it closer to my eyes and there, captured inside of it, I could see what appeared to be an ancient battle scene. The figures were small, but lifelike and in full color. There was artistry in the cube; whoever had fabricated it had been a master of his craft.
I saw that not only were there warlike figures, but a background as well—a level plain, and in the distance a body of water and off to the right some hills.
«Beautiful,» I said. «Where did you get it?»
«Beautiful? Is that all you can say?»
«Impressive,» I said, «if you like that better. But you didn’t answer me. Where did you get it?»
«It was lying beside Stefan’s body. He’d been carrying it in the pocket of his jacket, more than likely. The bear had ripped the pocket.»
I handed the cube back to him. «Strange thing,» I said, «for a man to be carrying about.»
«Exactly,» Neville said. «My thought exactly. It had a strange look to it. Not like plastic, not like glass. You’ve noticed?»
«Yes,» I said. «Come to think of it, a strange feel, too. A hardness, but no texture to the hardness. Like that box in the center of the room back at the Lodge.»