There is one page of the contract in the estate box.

Torn cleanly along the top edge — not in anger. Someone removed the pages before it and after it deliberately. What remains is a single clause, typed on paper heavier than standard, on a well-maintained mechanical typewriter, by someone who was being careful.

Mara reads it aloud.

All works of significant emotional origin, present and future, known and unknown to the artist, are held in perpetuity by Pandaemonium Records and its assignees.

In Episode 2, Mara returns to the investigation with something unresolved. She goes back through the press materials she moved past too quickly — the two reviews that give an address for the Cabaret des Oiseaux Noirs that has not appeared on any map since 1977, the 1974 Record Mirror studio address that cannot be verified, the Melody Maker interview in which Viktor described the writing process as inevitable and quoted Cornelius Ash saying the work comes easily to those who've made the right arrangements.

She also called a contact. He has been in the music industry since the late sixties. He knows the cult labels, the vanity pressings, the ones that existed for three years and left nothing behind. She described Pandaemonium Records. He went quiet.

He said: every act that signed with Cornelius Ash peaked and was simply gone. Not one came back.

She asked if he'd ever met Ash. He said he'd been in the same room once. He said Ash was impeccably dressed and very courteous and he had found himself not wanting to stay in the room longer than necessary. He said it was like standing next to a window that faces the wrong direction.

He said: I'd leave it alone if I were you.

Mara plays Tape 2. Viktor describes the recording sessions for what will become Victorian Murder Ballads — the songs arriving faster than they should, every session the session where everything comes complete. He notes Ash's correction during the rough mix playback: this is exactly what I needed, revised in the same breath to this is exactly what you have made it. Viktor says he has been thinking about the space between those two sentences since Thursday.

Then Mara plays Caligari — Track 2 from Lichtspiel Vol. I: Weimar Shadows — in full.

She closes on the contract clause. She is going to find Cornelius Ash.

The clause bothers her.

The Strange Case of Victor Sable is an investigative audio documentary following audio engineer Mara Voss as she reconstructs the life, disappearance, and possible continued existence of cult dark cabaret artist Victor Sable.