Chapter Twenty-five #2
I eye the fireplace, trying to ignore Ephraim staring down at me. The pedestals on either side are each as tall as me. I give them both a gentle shove, but nothing happens. “So much for the Indie Jones school of opening a fireplace.”
Ben chuckles behind me. “Nice thinking, though. Remember his balance obsession,” he hints.
On top of the mantel is an old weighing scale. “Subtle,” I grouse only to hear Ben laugh again.
“Sometimes the answers are right in front of our faces.” It’s a throwaway comment, and yet it feels like another clue.
The scale is brass and something you’d expect to see on a pirate ship. It’s riveted into a plinth that bears a shiny plaque which reads: Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
It reminds me of something my grandmother used to say about being rich. Having money doesn’t make you good or bad. Things are never that black and white. It’s whether you use it or let it use you that defines who you are. It seems the same goes for friends.
The right side of the scale is elevated.
The left rests crookedly on the stand. Why would an empty scale be unbalanced?
The pillar is directly centre and straight.
The pans are equally sized, and the chains holding them to the fulcrum are equidistant.
So why is one down and one up? Is it a social commentary about justice? Fairness? No just scale…
“I love watching your mind work,” Ben whispers. “Your eyes are wandering everywhere, like you’re taking pictures of it all to analyse later.”
He isn’t exactly wrong. It might not be my intention, but it is how my head works.
What was it he said? Sometimes the answer is right in front of your face. His face? My face? Or Ephraim’s face?
I take in the portrait with new eyes. This close, the details are astonishing for a painting created almost two hundred years ago.
Of special note are the reflections in Ephraim’s eyes.
Different for each eye. He appears to be looking down at his hands, but in the reflection, there is a white stone in the left hand and a black stone in the right.
I hunt through the room. My mind throws me all the things I’ve looked at in my time here.
On the desk. Two plant pots. One with white stones and one with black.
I dart across the room and take a small handful of each, noting that the white stones are slightly heavier.
I place a handful of black stones on the right side.
The scale shifts so that the balance is now opposed, with the left side elevated more than the right.
How many stones do I need to add? I could be here all day if I don’t figure out the clues.
Hang on. The plaque says adversity is the only balance to weigh friends. One concept against many individuals. Plus, the reflection in Ephraim’s eyes would be inverted. I swap the stones. A single white now on the right side and first one then two…then three…
The scales tip, lifting toward the middle. This is completely illogical. I’m adding weight and it’s lifting up! This is the opposite of how a scale should work, and yet I don’t stop.
Four…
Five…
The scale snaps into alignment. Perfectly balanced. A click and whirring sounds from inside the mantel and then I stumble backwards as the portrait of Ephraim pops out of its frame and spins around in a one-eighty.
“What the fuck?!”
“Holy shit!” Ben cheers. “How did you figure that out so damn fast? That took me weeks!”
“Did you see that? How does that even work?” I duck down to see that the underside of the left balance pan is linked to a hidden rod.
“I haven’t taken it apart yet, but I think there is an inverted scale in the mantel that runs via those rods: one attached to the slack pan and one that runs through the pillar.
As you add the weights, it pushes the pillar and kick starts a turntable or something?
Pretty cool. It’s just a shame that the new portrait is the same as the old one. ”
I stare at the new picture. He’s right. It all appears the same as the other.
Except the stones are now reversed. There’s something else that I can’t put my finger on.
I slide a black stone off the pan, and the original portrait spins back into place.
I stare at it until my eyes blur. Same furniture. Same clothing. Different lighting.
“Is it just me or is the light coming in from a different direction?”
“I figure it was just painted at a different time of day.”
“Good point. I didn’t think of that.” Ephraim Trevainne seems too precise for that to be an accident, though. Still, I can’t think of another reason, and I sense Ben is ready to move on with the tour.
We explore most of the house, paths, passages, more boxes, push-panels, sliding woodwork, words and numbers written into the walls that you can only see of you walk down a hallway at a particular time of day—so many weird and intricate discoveries that it would take, even someone like me, weeks to wrap my head around.
By the time I crawl into bed for the night, warm ramen noodles in my stomach, I realise that Ben successfully distracted me from my loss and the loneliness I would have felt staring into space in the apartment all day.
I’ll have to find a way to thank him—and with the spot-the-difference portraits still in my mind’s eye, I have an idea of how to do it.