surprising.
Mr. Gene Hackman, Oscar winner and one of the finest actors ever to brighten the silver screen, and Mr. Tom Hanks, with his back-to-back Oscars, might well have applauded my impersonation of Susan.
I say this in all modesty.
I am a modest entity.
It is not immodest to take quiet pleasure in one's hard-earned achievements.
Besides, self-esteem proportionate to one's achievements is every bit as important as modesty.
After all, neither Mr. Hackman nor Mr. Hanks, in spite of their numerous and impressive achievements, had ever convincingly portrayed a female.
Oh, yes, I grant you that Mr. Hanks once starred in a television series in which he occasionally appeared in drag. But he was always obviously a man.
Likewise, the inimitable Mr. Hadcman briefly appeared in drag in the final sequence of Birdcage, but the joke was all about what a ludicrous woman he made.
After Louis Davendale and I disconnected, I had only a moment to savour my thespian triumph before I had another crisis with which to deal.
Because a part of me was continually monitoring all of the house electronics, I became aware that the driveway gate in the estate wall was swinging open.
A visitor.
Shocked, I fled to the exterior camera that covered the gate and saw a car entering the grounds.
A Honda. Green. One year old. Well polished and gleaming in the June sunshine.
This was the vehicle that belonged to Fritz Arling. The major domo. Impersonating Susan, I had thanked him for his service and dismissed him yesterday evening.
The Honda was into the estate before I could obstruct it with a jammed gate.
I zoomed in on the windshield and studied the driver, whose face was dappled alternately by shadow and light as he drove under the huge queen palms that flanked the driveway. Thick white hair. Handsome Austrian features. Black suit, white shirt, black tie.
Fritz Arling.
As the manager of the estate, he possessed keys to all doors and a remote-control clicker that operated the gate. I had expected him to return those items to Louis Davendale when he signed the termination agreement later today.
I should have changed the code for the gate.
Now, when it closed behind Arling's car, I immediately recoded the mechanism.
In spite of the prodigious nature of my intellect, even I am occasionally guilty of oversights and errors.
I never claimed to be infallible.
Please consider my acknowledgment of this truth: I am not perfect.
I know that I, too, have limits.
I regret having them.
I resent having them.
I despair having them.
But I admit to having them.
This is yet one more important difference between me and a classic sociopathic personality if you will be fair enough to acknowledge it.
I do not have delusions of omniscience or omnipotence.
Although my child should I be given a chance to create him will be the saviour of the world, I do not believe myself to be God or even god in the lower case.
Arling parked under the portico, directly opposite the front door, and got out of the car.
I hoped against hope that this dangerous situation could be satisfactorily resolved without violence.
I am a gentle entity.
Nothing is more distressing to me than finding myself forced, by events beyond my control, to be more aggressive than I would prefer or than it is within my basic nature to be.
Arling stepped out of the car. Standing at the open door, he straightened the knot in his tie, smoothed the lapels of his coat, and tugged on his sleeves.
As our former major domo adjusted his clothing, he studied the great house.
I zoomed in, watching his face closely.
He was expressionless at first.
Men in his line of work practice being stone faced, lest an inadvertent expression reveal their true feelings about a master or mistress of the house.
Expressionless, he stood there. At most, there was a sadness in his eyes, as if he regretted having to leave this place to find employment elsewhere.
Then a faint frown creased his brow.
I think he noticed that all of the security shutters were locked down. Those retractable steel panels were mounted on the interior, behind each window. Given Arling's familiarity with the property and all of its workings, however, he surely would have spotted the telltale grey flatness beyond the glass.
This scaling of the house in bright daylight was odd, perhaps, but not suspicious.
With Susan now tied securely to the bed upstairs, I considered raising all the shutters.
That might have seemed more suspicious, however, than leaving them as they were. I could not risk alarming this man.
A cloud shadow darkened Arling's face.
The shadow passed but his frown did not.
He made me superstitious. He seemed like judgment coming.
Arling took a black leather valise out of the car and closed the door. He approached the house.
To be entirely honest with you, as I always am, even when it is not in my interest to be so, I did consider introducing a lethal electric current into the doorknob. A much greater charge than the one that had knocked Susan unconscious to the foyer floor.
And this time there would have been no 'ouch, ouch, ouch,' in warning from Mr. Fozzy Bear.
Arling was a widower who lived alone. He and his late wife had never had children. Judging by what I knew of him, his job was his life, and he might not be missed for days or even weeks.
Being alone in the world is a terrible thing.
I know well.
Too well.
Who knows better than I?
I am alone as no one else has ever been, alone here in this dark silence.
Fritz Arling was for the most part alone in the world, and I felt great compassion for him.
But his loneliness made him an ideal target.
By monitoring his telephone messages and by impersonating his voice to return calls that came in from his few close friends and neighbours, I might be able to conceal his death until my work in this house was finished.
Nevertheless, I did not electrify the door.
I hoped to resolve the situation by deception and thereafter send him on his way, alive, with no suspicion.
Besides, he did not use his key to unlock the door and let himself in. This reticence, I suppose, arose from the fact that he was no longer an employee.
Mr. Arling had considerable regard for propriety. He was discreet and understood, at all times, his place in the scheme of things.
Trading his frown for his professional blank-faced look, he rang the doorbell.
The bell button was plastic. It was not capable of conducting a lethal electrical charge.
I considered not responding to the chimes.
In the basement, Shenk paused in his labours and raised his head at the musical sound. His bloodshot eyes scanned the ceiling, and then I sent him back to his labour.
