The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (15 page)

“I will be happy to try it, sir.”

“Selwyn drinks it morning and night. I have tested his eyes, sir. He could see the Monument from Temple Bar, if there were
no houses between. From Millbank, sir, he has read a shopfront in Lambeth.”

“Astonishing.”

Mrs. Armitage entered the shop, carrying a tray with teapot and cups. She looked considerably younger than her husband; she was wearing a green satin gown that scarcely concealed her ample bosom, and had arranged her hair in the fashionable style of ringlets. “Will you partake?” she asked me.

“Gladly.”

“It will be hot, sir. The water must be boiling to bring out the beauty of the leaves.”

So we drank the tea, and Selwyn Armitage recalled to his father the details of our meeting at the coaching inn in Paris. Then I explained to the company the course of my studies in Oxford, taking care to avoid any reference to human experiment; instead I entertained them with descriptions of the efficacy of the electrical fluid. When I mentioned a dead cat whose fur had bristled, and whose mouth had opened, after a small discharge of the fluid, Mrs. Armitage excused herself and returned to the parlour upstairs. The light had begun to fade, and the evening to approach, when the two men asked me to share a bottle of port wine with them. They seemed reluctant to dispense with my company.

After our first glass I ventured upon the matters that most interested me. “Selwyn,” I said, “has mentioned that you worked with Mr. John Hunter.”

“Of blessed memory, sir. He was the finest surgeon in Europe. He could unblock a stricture in minutes. There was no one like him for a hernia.”

“Tell him about your fistula, Father.”

“He condescended to treat me, sir, when I had the complaint. He was in and out before I knew it.”

“But you must have suffered pain, Mr. Armitage.”

“Pain was nothing to me, Mr. Frankenstein. Not when I was in the hands of the master.”

“The whole world has been informed of his experiments,” I said.

“They were wonderful to behold, sir.”

“Did he not attempt to freeze creatures and then to revivify them?”

“He practised upon dormice, but without success. But I recall once that he froze the comb of a rooster. They fall off, you know, in hard frosts.”

“But he believed that he might pursue the same course with humans, did he not?”

“Now that, Mr. Frankenstein, is an interesting question.” The old Mr. Armitage went to the inner door and called to his wife, who brought down another bottle of port wine. “He held much the same opinion as you, sir, on some matters. That is why my son mentioned you in the first place. Mr. Hunter put his faith in what he called the vital principle. He was of the opinion that it might linger in the body for an hour or more after death.”

“And then could be revived.”

“That is so.”

“I read a curious account in the
Gentleman’s Magazine,”
I said, “about the attempt to restore Dr. Dodd.”

“That account was not accurate, sir, as far as I remember it. We did not put him in a warm bath. It would have had little effect.”

“But Mr. Hunter tried other means of restoring him to life, did he not?”

“After he was cut down from the gallows, he was brought to Mr. Hunter’s house in Leicester Square at the gallop. We chafed the body to revive its natural heat, while Mr. Hunter tried to inflate the lungs by means of a bellows. But he had been left swinging at Tyburn for too long. Then, sir, he tried your method. He gave the body a series of sharp shocks from a Leyden jar. But Dodd was quite inert.”

“I believe, Mr. Armitage, that your level of electrical power was too low. No jar could effect a restoration of life. You need great force to succeed.”

“Do you have that power, sir?”

I grew more wary. “One day,” I replied, “I hope to achieve it.”

“Ah. A dream. Mr. Hunter used to say that an experimenter without a dream is no experimenter at all.”

“And he never gave up his experimenting?”

“He did not. He would take a tooth from a healthy child, and plant it in the gum of one who needed it. He tied it with seaweed.”

“That must have been a very remarkable operation.”

“Oh, sir, that was nothing to him. He could put the testis of a cockerel into the belly of a hen, and see it grow.”

“I have heard,” I said, “that his dissecting room was always full of observers.”

“Crowded, sir. He was a great draw to the students. He could open up a subject in seconds.”

“That must have been very gratifying.”

“It was a pleasure to see. He was a lovely man with a knife.”

“You must enlighten me on one thing, Mr. Armitage. How many subjects did he—”

“There was a regular supply.” He took another glass of the port wine, and looked at his son.

“You can tell him, Father.”

“In London, sir, there are always more dying than being born. That is a fact. There is no room for all of them. The churchyards are bursting.”

“Yet he must have found a source.”

“I tell you this in the strictest confidence, sir. Mr. Hunter was the resident surgeon at St. George’s Hospital. Can you bring us another bottle, Selwyn? He had the keys of the dead house there. Have I said enough?”

“But he must have dissected some thousands. Surely not all came from one place?”

“You are entirely correct, sir. Not all of them could have done.” I waited impatiently as Selwyn Armitage came into the room with a fresh bottle, and began to pour the wine into his father’s glass. I declined the offer. “Have you heard of the Sack ’Em Up Men?”

“I do not believe so. No.”

“Resurrectionists. Doomsday Men.” I knew precisely what he meant, of course, but I feigned ignorance for the sake of further enlightenment. “These are the men who rob the graves of their dead. Or they enter the charnel houses and filch their victims. It is not a delicate trade, Mr. Frankenstein.”

“Yet it is necessary, sir. I have no doubt of that.”

“How else are we to progress? Would Mr. Hunter have been able to complete his work on the spermatic cord?”

“I think not.”

“They were very expensive.” He drained his glass, and held it out to his son. “A guinea, or more, for a body. A child was priced by the inch. Will you oblige me, Selwyn? Yet the best of them were very expert. The subject had to be delivered after rigor mortis had passed, but before wholesale corruption. And they had to escape the attention of the mob.”

“The mob,” Selwyn said, “was worse then.”

“They would have been killed on the spot, Mr. Frankenstein. Torn limb from limb. The mob hated resurrectionists.”

“You speak of them in the past tense, sir. But surely they still pursue their trade? The market must be as thriving as ever.”

“I do not doubt it. The medical schools have grown to enormous size.”

“Do they haunt the same places?”

“The graveyards? Of course. There is a paupers’ graveyard in Whitechapel—”

“No. I mean their places of business. Where they meet their clients. Where they are paid.”

“They are paid at the back door, sir. Every hospital has one.”

“Yet they must meet.”

“They meet to drink. Drink is their life. Not one of them could do the work sober. I have seen some of them, sir, sitting in a tavern from dusk until dawn.”

“What tavern is that?”

“The most celebrated of them all, Mr. Frankenstein.” He slowly drank the full glass, and held it out for more. “It is in Smithfield. Just opposite St. Bartholomew’s. Now there
is
a meat market.”

THE SMITHFIELD TAVERN
was not difficult to find. I left Jermyn Street at dusk, and the carriage set me down at Snow Hill soon afterwards; I walked up to St. Bartholomew’s just as its clock was striking seven, and on my left hand I could see a low public house with the sign of
The Fortune of War
. It showed the deck of a naval frigate, with an officer dying in the arms of his comrades. I could hear it, too, with the noise of song, laughter and raised voices echoing against the stone wall of the hospital. I steeled myself, making sure that my purse of guineas was well concealed beneath my shirt, and entered the premises.

The smell was very strong. I could not help but associate it with dead things, although I knew that it came from the living; the taint of dirty flesh was in the air, mixed with the odours of the privy and the smell of strong spirits. I was of course accustomed to foul odours, in my work, and I registered no discomfort at all. I made my way to the wooden counter, and ordered a glass of porter. I decided to settle, and make myself as conspicuous as possible; I had no desire to be taken as a government spy, and I did not retreat into a corner. I stayed by the counter and, by remarking loudly upon the weather, made sure that my accent was heard by those around me. But they evinced little interest, being in most cases reduced to the last stages of intoxication, and after a while I was able to look
around without drawing any particular attention to my presence. There were solitary drinkers, bent over their bottles and tankards; I observed that one had urinated upon the floor, of plain deal planks, without provoking any comment. In Geneva we have chamber pots in the corners of our taverns. My notice was attracted by a company of men, sitting in one alcove; all of them were smoking from the long, thin pipes that I thought were out of use. They were silent, and contemplative, in the extreme. For a moment I conceived the notion that they were the resurrectionists I sought. I discovered later that they were the pure-finders whose trade was to collect the excrement of dogs, horses and humans from the thoroughfares of the city.

Then a rough-looking fellow came in from the street and, advancing upon the counter, asked in a loud voice for a jug of brandy and seltzer. I noticed that the innkeeper served him with a word of recognition; but the fellow paid no attention to that and, slapping a few coins onto the counter, went over to a corner. There was a window there, overlooking the paved space in front of the hospital, and he seemed to be scrutinising the gates lit by a single oil-lamp. He was watching for someone, or something, very keenly; but, from my position by the counter, I could see nothing. A few minutes later two other fellows, smelling strongly of spirits and other less delectable items, joined him by the window. Another man was standing close to me at the counter. He was staring straight ahead, with a glass of gin in his hand, when he said to me, “You do not want to fall into the hands of them dogs, living or dead.”

“I have no notion,” I replied, “of who or what they are.”

“No need to know.” He was still staring straight ahead. “Stay
clear of them. Otherwise you might end up in there.” He jerked his head in the general direction of the hospital.

The innkeeper looked at him angrily. “Are you talking out of turn, Josh?”

“Only saying what we all know. This young man is a new one. He may heed a warning.”

I steadied myself by drinking down the porter and ordering another. Then I went over to the table where the three men were sitting, and placed three silver guineas in front of them. They looked at the coins, and then looked up at me.

“You are free with the bunce,” one of them said.

“One for each of you.”

“Oh?” He picked up a guinea and tried it with his teeth. “What’s your game?”

“I need something.”

“Speak to them.” He pointed towards the group of men with the old fashion of pipes. “They pick up the filth.”

“You are a foreign chicken,” another said. “Are you a Frenchy?”

“No, sir. I am from Geneva.”

“’Tis all one.”

He seemed impressed by my calling him “sir,” however, and I took advantage of the moment. “I am a student of medicine, gentlemen.” They laughed loudly—too loudly, I suspected, but no one else in the tavern so much as glanced in their direction. “May I offer you another jug?” They nodded and, when I returned from the counter, the coins had gone. The bait had been accepted.

Their names, as I discovered later, were Miller, Boothroyd and Lane. Such a trio of villains I had never before encountered.
They were dissolute and depraved to the highest degree, but I trusted that they were expert in their trade. I explained to them that, as a student of anatomy, I wished for a continuous supply of new bodies. As a foreigner, I said, I was obliged to work outside the hospital schools.

“How did you find us?” Lane asked me.

“He smelled you out,” Boothroyd replied.

“I will pay you twice as much as any hospital.”

“What about smalls?”

“Forgive me?”

“Babes and young ’uns.”

“No. No children. I can use only adults. Only males. That is the nature of my work. And they must be good specimens. I want no growths. No deformities. Payment on delivery.”

“He wants them handsome so he can fuck them,” Miller said.

Boothroyd silenced him with a glance. “You are asking a lot.”

“I am paying a lot.”

“No questions asked?”

“No answers required. Bring the subjects to me, and you will have your money.” I told them how they could find me; as it happened they were used to working by boat, since they had a steady trade with the convict hulks on the estuary where they could pick up three or four items at a time. They told me that they had to drag the bodies through the river in order to cleanse them of the filth that had accrued to them in the holds of the ships. So I described in detail the location of my workshop, and of the small wharf in front of it; they knew the neighbourhood well. I promised I would be ready for them on
the Friday night, giving them two nights for their work. They each spat in their hand before shaking mine, a custom that I did not wholly appreciate.