and made provisions here for them as well. Rather nice of him, don't you think?'
'Yes,' I said slowly, 'I suppose it is. But just what is this project of his?'
The gnome paused in his work and regarded me with a blank, childish stare. 'I really wouldn't know, Sir,' he said. 'But I'm sure he has a good reason for it.'
I nodded, and soon was lost in the stack of diagrams. There were curious things going on here, surely, but before long I found the questions crowded from my mind by the refinements on the work before me which commanded my attention, and also by the thought that with the completion of this lucrative, if bizarre, commission I would have enough money to marry my darling Natisha. The count had made some basic architectural mistakes in drafting his plans, but I quickly saw, as the night wore on, that there was really little work in correcting them and honing his measurements to a fine precision.
I awoke with the cold light of late dawn on the table before me. I had worked nearly the whole night, falling asleep in the middle of a calculation. I stood up, stretching languidly. I was pleased to note that the sinister aspects of the castle had been dispelled by the advent of morning; that indeed my surroundings presented a warm and amiable glow—a glow not in any way dispelled by the appearance of little Franz (for that was the cherubic servant's name) at my elbow, insisting that I have breakfast and a bath before continuing my work. 'You will want to be fresh as a daisy when you review your troops!' he cried amiably, and I found his long lusty laugh infectious as he quickly laid plates before me.
An hour later found me as refreshed as if I had slept a whole day and a night. It is remarkable what a new shirt and a bath can do for a man, and as I emerged from my room, fully expecting to find little Franz waiting for me to slip his hand into mine, I found instead that the Count himself had come to fetch me.
'I hope you are feeling refreshed,' he said in his curiously somber voice, and when I told him I was he bowed quickly and said, 'Good, for we have much work to do.' I followed him down the marbled staircase.
We passed the front entrance, the Count leading me to a door to the right of it that opened onto an ascending staircase. This would bring us, I imagined, to our final destination; but to my surprise this led to a sort of mezzanine consisting of a long hallway with small compartments to either side. As we passed these cubicles I was able to see through to the chambers within; they were out-fitted with severe iron beds, each with a single sheet. There seemed to be nothing else in any of them. I made motion to remark this to the Count but he held up his hand for silence and merely led me to the end of the hallway where another door, which he opened using an enormous iron key, led to a thin metal ladder. This wound like a corkscrew up into the dimness. The Count proceeded ahead of me, at a slow careful pace, and I must admit that after awhile I began to get dizzy at the height we were ascending. I tried to look up to see our ultimate destination but was unable to see past the count's frame. When I looked downward I nearly fainted with the height we had attained and with the seeming fragility of our stairway.
After what seemed a very long time the Count suddenly changed the interminable curling direction of our steps. I soon discovered that we had alighted on a small metal abutment off the winding staircase. To my astonishment I saw that the steps led still farther upward past this landing, and when I inquired of the Count where they led to he merely looked at me and said in a flat voice, 'To the roof of the dome; that is where the top sections are pulled back to reveal the sky.' He turned back to his keyring and soon found another huge key which he fitted with a clang into an equally huge keyhole. There was a metallic click and we pushed ahead through the door.
We stepped out not onto a solid floor as I had expected, but rather onto a narrow wooden ledge, some eight to ten feet wide with a solid waist-high railing all around. This shelf wrapped around an enormous circular room with a high wooden dome overhead. So this was the room I would work in, which I had studied the night before on the Count's thorough if imprecise drawings. There was a feeling of great empty space around me, and I was thankful not to suffer from the disease I had read about in one of the popular journals, called 'vertigo'.
We walked nearly a quarter of the way around the inside circumference of the dome before coming to a wide solid platform jutting toward its center. We turned onto this and I soon found myself on a wide circular platform, supported underneath by the crossed beams I had noted in the blueprints.
'It is here,' Count Mayhew said, unrolling the plans which he held under his arm, 'that you will begin.'
I nodded, and we spent the rest of the morning going over fine points and making preliminary preparations for the alterations in the room.
The time passed so swiftly, once my architect's pencil began to sketch, that it was only my stomach that told me that it must be well into the late afternoon and that I was starving. As the Count seemed unwilling to break off our session of his own accord I made a suggestion that we have something to eat. This greatly surprised him, and after a moment's hesitation he suggested to me that food be sent up to us and that we continue with our work. 'As I said last night, time is very short. Work must begin before tonight, and we must be finished one month from this day, Herr Begener.'
'You mean actual construction?' I said, astonished. 'Usually it would take me a week or two just to go over the structure of this room and to make any necessary refinements in the blueprints.'
'Any refinements,' he responded, 'can be made while construction is underway.'
I sought to argue with him on this point, stating that I had never done any job before without first becoming entirely familiar with every detail. 'I like to live with my patients before I operate on them,' I said with a smile, attempting to make him understand that though I understood his wishes, I possessed a set of rules that I must work by. But he merely shook his head, dismissing my levity, and stated, 'One month from today, Herr Begener, we must be finished. It is essential, for both you and me.'
This odd remark would have furthered my questioning of the Count, but at that moment Franz arrived with a bountiful repast and hunger replaced curiosity. I again noted that the Count partook of no food, but rather paced nervously. Hardly before little Franz had cleared away my soiled plates there came a strange, hollow, echoing sound from below us, a dull beating clang that at first puzzled me but then resolved itself, with the appearance of the top of a head followed by an entire body on the platform leading down to the floors below, into the tramp-tramp of many feet making their way up the circular staircase. The first figure was followed by another and then another, and when the metallic tattoo finally abated I counted thirty men in a line on the ledge. They seemed of a singular appearance, dull and uninspired, and none of them young; I thought I noted among their number the barman who had accompanied me to the castle the previous evening.
The Count seemed to have read my thoughts concerning their demeanor because he said, before I could make a remark, 'They will do all that you say, and do it well. Our townspeople have a long tradition of craftsmanship.'
As if this endorsement were some sort of sign, the solemn line of workers began to move, with shuffling feet and eyes straight ahead, to the point where the ledge met the circular platform. Count Mayhew went to meet them, giving a few short precise orders which immediately set them into action fulfilling the few things we had already decided could be accomplished that day. Soon they were at work, moving like slow, efficient shadows among us, and it was not long before I heard another echoing tramp-tramp on the circular stairs and another work force rose into view.
Thus passed the first day, and the quick days following it. When I am at work I always involve myself so deeply that all else is pushed from my mind, and I abruptly lost all track of time.
In fact nearly five days had passed before I realized that I had not heard from Natisha. This was strange, for I had not even received acknowledgment of the letter I had written her after arriving at the castle.
'Franz,' I called to the jolly little porter as he passed my room on the morning of that fifth day. 'Has there been mail for me?'
'No, Sir,' he said, bringing a look of stem concentration across his features; but suddenly sly understanding replaced it. 'The master seeks word from a young lady perhaps?'
'How did you know that?' I asked, in awe of his perception until he told me his answer.
'The master may find,' he said, a grin nearly splitting his face, 'that the correspondence you seek has been delivered by she who wrote it.'
'What!'
'You may want to examine the newly-bloomed roses in the back garden' he said, and then he was gone before I could ask him how to reach that spot.
I hurried through my shaving and dressing; finally I could stand the anticipation no longer and rushed through my toilet, struggling with my frock coat and leaving my tie undone. Thus attired, I hurried to the back garden, passing the gnomish Franz on the way humming to himself while he went about polishing a huge oak case in the
