| The sun shone in a sky not blue but white. No birds could be seen except those gliding to-and-fro on motionless wings. Far in the distance, several black humanoid shapes pressed themselves against a tall wrought iron fence. Inarticulate cries wafted through the still air. A tall, slender woman leaned against the front door jamb of the huge mansion, glaring out at the bleak scene. ''How perfectly appropriate.'' Her words were sharp and cold, as if chipped from a block of ice. Behind her, the telephone rang shrilly. Only for about the twenty millionth time that morning. The woman pivoted on her heel, strode over to the coffee table and plucked up the receiver. ''Yes?'' ''Professor Victoria Mason, please.'' ''Speaking.'' ''Professor, my name is Ruy-Lopez. I'm a reporter for the Northeaster. I'd like to talk to you about the very exciting discovery that you and Mr. Roger Staunton made yesterday.'' Victoria - Torey to her friends - squeezed her eyes tightly closed. She'd fielded calls this morning from Time and Newsweek, from the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, from dozens of other nation-wide magazines and newspapers. Even now their reporters were trying to storm the gates....and now even the local neighborhood rag wanted in on the fiasco. ''I've got nothing to say on this subject at present, Mr. Ruy-Lopez, but I'll tell you this. If you ever make the exciting discovery of Mr. Roger Staunton's body impaled on a spit over a roaring flame, you'll know who did it!'' She replaced the receiver on its cradle with emphasis, then raised her hands, spread her fingers, and raised and lowered them a couple of times in a calming motion. She took a deep breath and expelled it slowly.
Torey's heart had skipped a beat. A collection of hundreds of films from the teens and the twenties. ''This is rather exciting news, Mr. Staunton. As you probably know, more than half of the films made during that time have been lost or destroyed. When a cache like this is found, who knows what treasures might be discovered.'' ''Exactly, Professor. I know that much about film. Will you come?'' ''Certainly. What is the address?'' She wrote down the address, which was in one of the wealthier parts of the city, and hung up with a promise to be on her way immediately. She then called her old friend Dr. Shannon, at her University's film department, and he confirmed that Roger Staunton of the House of Staunton was a reputable art expert, the second generation director of a most reputable firm of art galleries and auctioneers.
In less time than one would have thought possible, she had arrived at the gated entrance to the grounds of the Faustus estate. She pulled up close to a post with a box attached to it, similar to the drive-in movie speakers of her youth. She'd punched the button, identified herself to the voice on the other end, and the huge gates had opened silently before her. There was no denying that the late Mr. Faustus had lived in a mansion. A mansion that looked like a mad architect's version of a Frankenstein's monster - as if the original structure had not proved large enough for the man so he had added wings, porches and cupolas, with each add-on of a different architectural style. A man in a crisp white business suit stood by the mansion's front doors as she pulled up before them. He was tall and angular, in fact Torey could have sworn that his head even came up to a point. He moved with angular grace as well, springing down the porch steps to meet her. ''Professor Mason? Delighted to see you. Abso-lute-ly delighted.'' ''Thank you..... Mr. Staunton?'' ''That's right, that's right, I'm Staunton. Come in to the house. Right this way. Can I offer you anything first? Coffee? Tea?'' ''Milk?'' She had smiled faintly. ''Not just now, Mr. Staunton. Thank you.'' ''Right. Well, as you can see,'' he waved a hand around indicating the crowded hallways through which they were passing, '' Mr. Faustus was a very wealthy man. Very eclectic tastes, too. Look at all the jade, the ivory, the bronze, the....all of it. Cataloguing this collection is going to be a joy.'' ''I hope the same holds true for his film collection.'' Staunton had smiled at her roguishly - as one collector who feels the thrill of the chase, to another. ''I'll be quite surprised if Mr. Faustus doesn't have quite a few treasures there as well.'' ''Here we are.'' After walking for what had felt like miles, they came to a halt before the last door in what continued to be a long corridor. Staunton pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, sorted through them, and unlocked the door. He stood back and gestured for her to enter. She entered what was, quite literally, a miniature theater. The floor was raked so that eight rows of plush, wide seats would have unimpeded view of the large movie screen on the far wall. To one side of the screen there was an organ. The theater seemed to have been designed solely for the showing of silent films, Torey had thought with a frisson of expectation. To her left were the glass windows of the projection booth, and to her right, another door. ''This is where the films are,'' Staunton said, his voice low. He used the same key to unlock that door. Light flooded into the room, glinting off the silver containers and sparkling as if off of living eyes. Staunton pressed a switch within the room and more light caused the eyes to fade away. Torey's heels clicked on the tile flooring. She found that she was holding her breath and let it out slowly. Wooden racks lined each of the room's walls and there were two racks running down the center. In every slot in the racks was a large film canister, with black printing on the sides giving the title of the film it contained. But the neatness and efficiency of Faustus' film collection didn't stop there. Each of the racks was also labeled by genre - mystery, science fiction, romance, western, horror. Torey's area of expertise were the dramatic films, the soap operas, the few films directed by women... but the lables started with horror and she, too, was methodical, so she began browsing on that end. Halfway through her scan of the first row of films, Torey stopped, blinked, and backed up half a step. Her eyes had ran over the title The Hypnotist, and a date, 1927. The Hypnotist. The Hypnotist. There was something familiar about that title, some reason why she should pay attention to it. Horror had never been her cup of tea, but she did know a little bit about the genre, and.....and ... ''Professor Mason!'' Staunton's voice was sharp. ''Are you all right?'' ''It's not possible,'' Torey whispered. She lifted the canister out of its slot with hands that trembled. Her long fingernails sought the edge of the cover, and she lifted the lid. Within it....film. Unshrunken...unshrunken....as mint as if the nitrate-based film had been exposed only the day before. ''It can't be.'' She whirled on Staunton. ''The projector works, right? We can show this film now, right?'' ''I...I suppose so.' Torey took off in a gust of wind and left Staunton gaping after her. By the time he reached her side in the projection booth she had the projector warmed up and ready to go, and was threading the film through the sprockets. ''Professor Mason! What is it you've found?'' Torey stared at him. Then she forced herself to take her hands from the film. She spoke slowly. ''This film might.....might be, well, not the most famous lost film of all time, but pretty close to it. Actor Lon Chaney senior made a film called London After Midnight Made in 1927. Been lost for ever and ever....and this might be it.'' Staunton looked at her blankly. ''I have heard of London After Midnight. But that's not what's on the label here.'' She took a deep breath and pressed the 'play' switch. ''When it was released in England, it was called The Hypnotist......Let's watch.'' Fifty feet away, a bright square of light appeared on the screen. Within seconds it darkened into blackness, and the baroque title, The Hypnotistappeared. The name Lon Chaney appeared in large letters above the title, and below it, in slightly smaller print, Marceline Day and Conrad Nagel. At the very bottom of the screen: A Tod Browning Production. Torey was not a demonstrative woman, but she put her fists up into the air and an exultant ''Yes!'' echoed over and over again in the small room, until finally dying away with the faintest of whispers....''yesssssssss.'' Now it was Roger Staunton's turn for his face to turn white as milk. For several seconds he looked like a marble statue. ''One of the most famous finds of all time...'' he whispered. Torey tore her eyes from the screen, and seized Staunton's elbow. ''Mr. Staunton! Let us not get carried away here. This is a great find, yes. It's....indescribable...'' She sketched with her fingers how indescribable it was. ''But we mustn't let anybody know about this yet. There are so many ramifications to this - I mean, look at it! It's in mint condition. No restoring needed at all. That in itself is.....well, magical! We mustn't broadcast this news until...well, until we have all of our ducks in a row, so to speak.''
Torey tried to curb her expectations as the movie unreeled, she'd remembered reading somewhere that Forry Ackerman, one of the few people alive to have seen it during its first, extremely successful showings in 1927, had said it wasn't really a very good film. By the end of the movie she was thinking - what does Forry Ackerman know? Chaney had great fun with his dual roles as Inspector Burke of Scotland Yard and his alter ego, a vampirish-looking character called The Man in the Beaver Hat. Marceline Day as the woman who lived next to the spooky mansion where this vampire lived was delightfully over the top....it was all great fun. She had mispoken, Torey knew, when she'd said the film had been lost 'for ever and ever.' It had only been lost since the late 1960's, when the only known copy had been incinerated in a fire at an MGM vault. But now, here it was again, resurrected like a pheonix from the ashes. Torey had been in an excellent mood when she'd found Staunton ninety minutes later, and she hadn't noticed his guilty start. ''Mr. Staunton, is there any security here? This house isn't left empty at night, is it?'' ''Well, Faustus had no relatives to move in. But this house is wired with so many alarms and security cameras that I don't think even a fly could get in without the police or a security company knowing about it.'' 'Good. Good. Well, I've a favor to ask. There's so much more film here to take in - would it be possible for me to stay here tonight? There are so many films here that...'' Staunton waved his hand. ''I understand, Professor, I understand completely. I don't see why you can't stay here. In fact, I was thinking of setting up camp here tonight also. We mustn't test the bounds of propriety, of course. My associate and my secretary will be here as well. The executors have given us permission to use some of the rooms in the west wing. The house is so big that we probably won't even run in to each other if we were here for weeks!'' ''Good, then. I'll go home to get some things, and be back.'' ''That'll be fine.'' Torey's car had been a streak of light again, coming and going. She'd gotten little sleep that night - she'd spent hours going through the titles. She didn't find Greed, she hadn't really expected to find it. And she didn't find anything more of the stature - or legend - of London after Midnight. After satisfying herself on that score, she'd watched movie after movie - there were many treasures here in Faustus' film library - and while she watched them she was thinking not of the fame and fortune that would belong to the person who'd give these films to the public - she was thinking ...what great camera setups, what great acting, what beautiful directing.... Finally she'd given up for the night and sacked out in one of the bedrooms in the east wing, and felt like her head had barely hit the pillow before the phone had rang. And rang and rang. Torey waited for one of the members of the House of Staunton to answer it, and none of them did. She looked bleary-eyed at an alarm clock - ten in the morning. The phone kept ringing. So, she'd reached out for the receiver. To find herself speaking to a representative of Time magazine about the miraculous discovery of London After Midnight. After hanging up on that conversation she had dressed quickly and then gone in search of Roger Staunton...indeed, on a search and destroy mission...for he had told someone - hemust have told someone the night before.... she couldn't find him or his associates anywhere. She had even resorted to calling his name and then screaming it, to no avail. At last she had come to the conclusion that she was all alone in the house. Safe and secure within it, to be sure, but all alone, with the monsters at the gates.
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