Drake managed to mentally cling to his own personal curiosity about what could have happened to Madame’s device… and that helped him in avoiding wandering too much with his mind. For some reason, he did not feel at ease in letting his mind wander in her presence… he was actually not sure where it could lead him to, although he suspected somewhere not much proper. And not being proper, was not good for business. So Drake held fast…. Or at least as fast as he could.<br/><br/>He nodded gravely at her words and took the black item from Madame’s hands and regarded it critically, then extracted a brass magnifying glass (http://www.raincollection.com/filebin/images/barreveld/304/brassmagnifyingglass.jpg) from one of his pockets and started examining the object. A deep crease appeared on his forehead as he carefully passed the magnifying glass over the item… from time to time, his gaze seemed to harden and the glass of the magnifier appeared to slightly shine. Drake remained silently intent in his exam for several minutes, then he put away the glass and mumbled something to himself.<br/><br/>A whiff of Madame’s perfume caught his nostrils and a shiver ran down his spine. He raised his gaze and noticed that she was leaning towards him.<br/><br/>“The good news” he automatically said, his rational brain gearing in and taking control before he could blush and stammer something stupid “are that the item functions properly. There is nothing wrong with it that I can see. The bad news are: this does mean that some external force is interfering with the item’s use. Maybe some kind of curse… I cannot say, for now.”<br/><br/>She was a bit too near and he had to make an effort of will to avoid staring at her beautiful bosom. Drake tried to harness himself a bit… Madame was a client, and also a potentially very dangerous being. Drake knew that he needed to calm himself a bit down… unfortunately that darn woman seemed to be a collection of all the things – physical and otherwise – that he found arousing in the fair sex…<br/><br/>“I think I’ll need to investigate a bit. I can offer you this… for a standard fee, I will try to assess what happened. Then, we may discuss the possible cost of solving the matter…”<br/><br/>Drake coughed and forced himself to look her in the eye.<br/><br/>“I see that you have a beautiful place here… hard work may it be but I guess you are proud of your creation. You have not lost your touch… people cannot help but… like you very much.”<br/>