The Cabaret des Oiseaux Noirs appears in three press reviews. It has one year of catering records. It does not appear on any map produced after 1977.

Mara goes looking for it. She searches the Paris municipal licensing records, the Bibliothèque nationale theatre archive, street directories from 1970 to 1982. She finds the street. She finds the address. She does not find the venue. A reviewer writing for Rock & Folk in October 1974 described the room as claustral — a monastery word, an architecture of enclosure. The venue holds one catering registration and then stops appearing in any public record.

On Tape 3, Viktor describes the room: low ceiling, wooden chairs, a stage that is a raised section thirty centimetres high, a single overhead lamp that puts a circle of light on the performing area and leaves everything else in dark. At the back of the stage, a large oval mirror, gilt-framed, the gilding worn away in patches. When he stands in the lamp circle, he can see his own reflection clearly. The audience behind him is not in the mirror. The room, as far as the mirror is concerned, contains one person.

He also mentions a man at the best table. Stage left. He watches without moving for the full forty minutes. Viktor names him.

Then he mentions a woman at the bar. He tries to describe her. He stops mid-sentence. Three seconds of tape hiss. He moves on.

Mara plays Nosferatu — Track 3 from Lichtspiel Vol. I: Weimar Shadows. In the bridge, Viktor rewrites the ending: if he were the count, he would never have lingered. He would have taken what he wanted and walked away before the dawn could catch him. The story, in Viktor's version, ends on a fog-covered shore. The monster gets away.

After the song, Mara is not sure the monster sympathy is purely aesthetic.

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.