The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

8

I HAD ALREADY RETURNED TO MY EXPERIMENTS with renewed enthusiasm after the long absence from my studies. My anger at Bysshe prompted me to work ever more arduously, and to shun all human company so that I could lose myself in my pursuits. I felt myself to be truly alone, having been so signally betrayed by one whom I looked upon as friend and companion. I purchased electrical apparatus from a manufacturer in Mill Street, but I soon realised that the scale of his work was not sufficient. I had made some advances. I had acquainted myself with the coroner of Oxford, a former student of my college. I explained to him that my studies required the use of human specimens, and after some reflection on the matter he agreed to help me in the cause of the advancement of science. He was himself an explorer of natural phenomena, having become interested in geological speculation and the structure of the earth, and so he sympathised with my desire to seek out the sources of life in the human frame. I promised to bring him some Alpine rocks after my next visit to Geneva.

I still used the barn in Headington for my experiments and, in the quiet of the evening, the coroner’s two servants would bring me the corpses-or, on occasions, the parts of the corpses-which the coroner had viewed that day. They waited while I worked on them through the night, and then returned them to the coroner’s office in Clarendon Street. I paid them liberally-a guinea each-for every visit. I do believe that the English will do anything for money.

I made some startling discoveries in the course of this work. I found a method of passing electricity through the entire human frame so that it seemed to tremble and to quiver. I was also able to transmit an electrical current through the spine of one child that prompted the eyes to open and the mouth to part. I had hoped for some sounds to be manifested by the vocal cords, but in that I was disappointed. Mr. Franklin had already suggested that electricity might be used to revive the heart, in patients just expired, and I had no reason to doubt him. Green shoots can spring from a blasted tree. I remembered the case in Geneva, some years before, when a young girl was pronounced dead after falling from a first-storey window; yet she had been restored to life by the use of the electrical vessel known as the Leyden jar.

The subjects sent to me by the coroner were generally too long gone for any hope of revival, although I nurtured a strange and wild hope when I was presented with an infant lately drowned in the Thames. I had read of drowned men being chafed or pummelled into life, and I believed that the body of an infant still contained the primal fire or the living principle. I drained the excess fluid from a small hole in the abdomen, and then placed the child on tin-foil as a good conductor. I then surrounded her with hermetically sealed jars, making up the Leyden device; there was a crack, as of summer thunder, and to my dismay the infant was dreadfully burned. But there was no life. I believe that I told the coroner that the burns were the discoloration attendant on drowning.

I could not remain in Oxford without arousing suspicion, even though I worked in the remotest corner of Headington. I had bribed the porters to ignore my nocturnal journeys, before the gates of the college were closed, and my return to my rooms after the gates had opened. They believed a woman to be in the case, and I chose not to disabuse them. But they would talk. When the Master called me into his study, for what he called a conversation, I suspected the worst. But I had already come to the conclusion that it was time for my departure. I would not obtain my degree; but with my father dead and an independent fortune bequeathed to me, I really had no need of the initials after my name.

The Master greeted me warmly enough, and we engaged in what the English call “chat.”

“Your tutor tells me that you are following the principles of natural science, Mr. Frankenstein.”

“That is my aim, sir.”

“Do they by chance lead you towards the mystic and the transcendental?”

“I do not understand you.”

“Is there a spiritual aspect?”

“I am a student of the brain and body, not of the soul.”

“This is a Christian university, Mr. Frankenstein. We must always consider the soul.”

He was a tall man, with bald head and pronounced side-whiskers; he offered me a glass of amontillado, which I accepted.

“Have you ever considered, sir, the growth of limbs?” I asked him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“There is some power that forms them in embryo. There is a seed which they contain within their own frame.”

“What has this to do with the soul?”

“It is a question I might put to you, sir. What has it to do with the soul? If we possess such an entity, then surely it must play its part in the formation of the body. It is often said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Professor Stokes has proved that the eyes are formed in the womb.”

“Our knowledge is finite, Mr. Frankenstein.”

“Oh, but I wish to stretch it. I wish to travel further in every sense.”

“I do not follow you.”

“There is no other way of telling you this, sir. I have determined to leave Oxford. I must thank you for your kindness, and I can say with some certainty that this has been the most formative epoch of my life.”

We shook hands. I must say that I had never been more delighted to leave anyone’s presence: the Master represented all the weight of the dead learning that I wished to shake off.

Within a week I had packed all my belongings, tipped a tearful Florence, and hired a coach to London. I set off in the highest spirits, convinced that I was about to fashion a new world. In the solitude of the carriage I recited some lines from Lord Byron as we passed through the village of Acton:

“’Tis to create, and in creating live

A being more intense, that we endow

With form and fancy, gaining as we give

The life we image…”

In my search for life, I believed that I was about to re-create myself.

ON ARRIVING IN JERMYN STREET I hired a young day porter, whose stand was in the little path beside the church, to take my parcels and my other belongings to my set of rooms on the third floor. It was the top storey of the building, but he performed the task without the usual complaint and bluster of the English working man. I discovered his name to be Frederick, or Fred, and I was so taken by his eager and enthusiastic manner that I wished to learn more of him. He could have been no more than thirteen or fourteen. “Well, Fred, how is your trade?”

“So-so, sir. It could be worse. It could be better. There is no telling.” He had a mournful manner of speaking, but then he smiled as if all were a great comedy.

“How did you come by it?”

“Inheritance, sir. My father was porter here all of his life. He dropped down dead while lifting a donkey out of its traces. Terrible event.” Then he smiled again.

“When was this?”

“Three months ago. I stood at his post the very same afternoon. My mother told me it was my station in life. She says it runs in the family.”

“Do you have a brother who could take over from you?”

“Several of them, sir. All willing.”

“Then I would like to offer you another post.”

“In another street, sir?”

“No. I mean to say, I would like to offer you another position. Would you care to be my servant here?” He looked at me, and took off his cap. “Your duties will be light. I am alone in the world.”

“Where would I sleep, sir?”

“There is a small room at the end of this passage. It looks over the alley.”

“The well-beloved alley.” He seemed relieved by my answer. “I would be what they call a general boy, sir?”

“You would prepare my meals. Lay out my clothes. And so forth.”

“I would run errands, would I?”

“Naturally.” He smiled broadly. “You would be my factotum, Fred.”

“I do not know if I could do that.”

“You would do everything. A guinea a week.”

He smiled, and seemed about to break into laughter. “That would be every week, would it?”

“Every week.”

“Under the circumstances, sir, I am happy to accept. I must just run and tell Mother.”

The mother returned with him an hour later. She was a weak-legged and somewhat woebegone woman; her shawl had the remains of snuff upon it, and there was a distinct smell of spirits upon her breath. She had difficulty in recovering herself, after climbing the flights of stairs, and I offered her my flask of strong water. She accepted it readily, and gulped down most of its contents before putting her hand upon her son’s head. “He is a good boy,” she said. “He is worth the guinea.”

“Mother-”

“I hear you are a foreign gentleman, sir.”

“Yes. From the land of the Swiss.”

“Is that so? You are handsome enough to be an Englishman, if I may say so.”

“It is very kind of you.”

All the while she was scrutinising my apartments. “Fred,” she said, “you must take care of that hearth. It is rotten in the corner. And those windows need a clean.”

“You are quite right, Mrs.-”

“Shoeberry.” When she smiled at me I could distinctly see that some of her teeth were missing. “You have heard of Mr. Shoeberry and the donkey?”

“Indeed.”

“It was a blow to the neighbourhood, sir. Yet I still do the laundry. That is my profession.”

She seemed to be waiting for me to speak. “It would be very good of you, Mrs. Shoeberry, if you were to take in my laundry.”

“A shilling for the linen. Sixpence for the sheets.”

“That is very reasonable.”

“I hope I am, sir. Do you have laundresses in Swisserland, sir?”

“I do not know. I believe so.”

“They will not come cheaper than me, I can assure you of that. Now then, Fred, look sharp and brush the gentleman’s coat. He has been travelling.”

So it was that Fred Shoeberry and his mother took charge of my life in Jermyn Street. I was happy for them to do so, since I was intent upon nothing except my work. I wished to begin immediately, but of course there was no possibility of undertaking it in such a fashionable district of London; I needed as much secrecy and isolation as I could find, and so I roamed through the less respectable areas of the city in search of suitable premises. The eastern sections, abutting on the river, seemed most promising. I inspected Wapping and Rotherhithe, in the hours of daylight, when in plain dress I walked unnoticed among the throng of nationalities and trades; it was remarkable to see the variety of garbs and faces, from Turk to Chinaman, passing along the narrow thorough fares beside the Thames. I had never seen such human life congregated together, and it put me in mind of the adage that London is a drink containing the lees of all nations.

Then I found a structure perfectly suited to my purposes. It was an old pottery manufactory in Limehouse, with its own yard or wharf upon the river. The buildings around it were warehouses of various descriptions and, as I imagined, quite deserted at night. I made enquiries in the neighbouring taverns, and I discovered that the employees had left several months before-after the owner had been declared bankrupt. Further enquiries led me to a commercial agent in Baltic Street who had an “interest” in the property. I soon discovered that he was the owner who had broken, and so it was a relatively easy matter to purchase his abandoned manufactory for what I regarded as a relatively modest sum. So I became a Limehouse freeholder.

I HAD WRITTEN to Daniel Westbrook a few days after my arrival, announcing my intention to remain in London and asking for news of his sister. I had heard nothing from him for several days but, on my return to Jermyn Street one evening, after an inspection of my new premises, I found him in earnest conversation with Fred at the door of the house. “My dear Daniel,” I said, “come in at once.”

“This lad has been barking at me like a Cerberus.”

“He says he knows you, sir.”

“Of course he knows me, Fred.”

“But he has no card, sir.”

“He does not need a card. Mr. Westbrook is an old friend. Now that you know his face, you must welcome him.”

“Do you hear that, old fellow?” Daniel asked him.

“My bark is worse than my bite, Mr. Westbrook.” Fred had an incurably silly look upon his face, which made us both laugh out loud.

“Well, they are safely married,” Daniel said to me as soon as we were settled in the apartment. “Harriet has written to me from Edinburgh. She is now Mrs. Shelley.”

“Are you not pleased?”

“I would have preferred better circumstances. But, yes, I am pleased for her. Her prospects in life are now immeasurably greater. Even my father sees the advantage of it.”

“Has she discussed her plans with you?”

“They are moving to Cumberland for a few months. Mr. Shelley has an interest in the Lake poets, I believe. Do you know of them?”

“I have read them.”

“He has already been in correspondence with one of them, according to Harriet, and has been offered the rental of a cottage by a lake. She did not remember which one.”

“It sounds delightful.”

“I hope it may be. They have invited me to stay with them.”

“Excellent. Did Harriet say anything of Bysshe?”

“He spends his time reading books from a circulating library and composing letters to his father.”

I suspected that very little profit would emerge from either activity, but I said nothing. I did not wish to injure Daniel’s happy expectations for the marriage, although I could see small cause for optimism. If it was a misalliance, as I believed, then little good would come of it. We spoke of other matters. He told me news of the Popular Reform League, and of a recent meeting on Clerkenwell Green when the army had been called; they had been told to quell any disturbances but the meeting passed off peacefully enough. By Daniel’s account the army had in any case been singularly reluctant to intervene. “They are working men, too,” he said. “They will not spill our blood.” Naturally I was pleased, and relieved for his sake, but my own enthusiasm for the cause had diminished. I was so intent upon my own studies that I had little inclination for other pursuits. What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man? I was as fixed as fate.

NOW THAT I HAD OBTAINED the pottery manufactory in Limehouse, I had to furnish it with all the equipment and apparatus I would need to create and to store the electrical fluid. I enquired in many different workshops until one afternoon I found myself in the laboratory of Mr. Francis Hayman, a civil engineer who was employed by the Convex Lights Company to investigate new methods of illumination. He was situated in Bermondsey, next to a hat company, not far across the water from Limehouse itself. Once he had learned the nature of my mission he was happy to show me around his workshop, as he called it, where there were a variety of engines and coils and jars which immediately excited my interest. “What have you so far accomplished?” he asked me.

I told him that I was eager to revive life in animal tissue by means of electricity. “I have begun to experiment,” I said, “by small shocks.”

“There is no doubt that the fluid can be a healing compound. So why should it not be employed to excite dormant organs? Did you happen to read, in Wesley’s journals, that his lameness was mended when he was electrified morning and evening?”

“I did not know of it,” I replied. “But it does not surprise me in the least.”

“But you have noted the difference between the two electricities?” He was a tall man who had acquired a stoop, no doubt through the agency of the low English door.

“I know what Franklin has called the vitreous and the resinous-”

“Well, Mr. Frankenstein, I prefer my own terminology. There is frictional electricity and magnetical electricity and thermal electricity. Their derivation is obvious.”

“Of course.”

“Here is the interesting thing. I believe that electrical fluid is also discharged by means of chemical action. I have called it galvanic electricity. It is a great power of nature, sir.”

“You have created it here?”

“I have. Now my task is to make all of these various fluids cohere. Observe the means.” He took me over to a small wooden bench upon which were placed four elongated glass tubes, with wires passing between them.

“This resembles the electrical balance of Coulomb, Mr. Hayman.”

“You know of that? You are better instructed than I thought.” He had a crisp, almost harsh, manner of speaking. “I have also done experiments with the electrical gymnotus.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The eel. And also with some electric rays. It is remarkable how the flat fish emits the fluid.”

“Not so remarkable,” I said. “I have examined a specimen of that fish in the course of my work. Beneath its wings are columns of discs, tightly bound together, which must act as a form of natural battery. They possess electric organs.”

“Precisely my conclusion, sir.”

“It is my belief,” I said, “that the electric fluid is deposited in a latent state in unlimited quantity in the earth, the water and the atmosphere. It is in the sheet of summer lightning. It is in the raindrop.”

“In you. And in me.” He shook my hand. “I am pleased to greet an electrical friend. Let me show you something else.”

He took me across his laboratory to a small alcove, partitioned off from the main room. Within it was a cylindrical instrument, some six feet in height, with levels of vitreous glass and metal. “This is my invention,” he said. “It is constructed of zinc, Dutch leaf and quicksilver. It contains almost a thousand small discs, together with cakes of wax and resin.” He stroked the side of the device. “I call it the electrical column.”

“What is its power?”

“Immense.” He opened his eyes very wide. “When it is used in connection with the electrical battery in the outer room. Do you see all those jars connected together? Well-”

“It is a giant nerve, Mr. Hayman.”

“That is a good way of putting it. My employers have fixed ideas in such matters. They wish me to examine new modes of lighting the streets. But with engines such as this, we could see the entire nation in an electric state!”

I knew then that my quest had been successful. I had found the very equipment I would need to transmit the electrical fluid to the human frame. It was not hard for me to persuade Mr. Hayman to build for me an identical machine, with all its various appurtenances; the sum I offered him would more than compensate for his labour, and give him funds for further investigations. It was agreed that various parts of the electrical column would be wrapped in canvas and then transported across the Thames in wherries, from Bermondsey to Limehouse, where he would help to assemble them in my own workshop. I was in a state of intense excitement. To have the means of transmitting life within my power-to be able to create the vital spark-thrilled me beyond measure.

With the assistance of two local workmen I assembled a series of benches and shelves in the workshop, sufficient for the materials I was collecting. I wanted some means of refrigeration, too, and so they constructed for me the type of ice-chamber that is found in the cellars of Billingsgate Market. The wives of the workmen cleaned everything to perfection. I told them that I was studying the slow disappearance of the fish that had once been so plentiful in the Thames, and they applauded me for a labour so useful to the area. I told them that I wished to be left in peace, since my work required long and patient study, and that I was obliged to work at night when the business of the river had diminished. I knew well enough that my words would be widely distributed in the neighbourhood.

Within six or seven weeks Hayman began to deliver the equipment he had manufactured for me. Over several nights two wherrymen brought it over the Thames. They made use of my landing stage on the riverside, just in front of the work shop, and on the final night under cover of darkness they carried the precious electrical column into the building. Once the boatmen had departed, Hayman began the arduous task of assembling his invention.

“I have been thinking,” I said to him. “I would like another.”

“Another column? It is unnecessary, Frankenstein. The power of this machine is unequalled.”

“But what if I-I mean, what if it-were to cease operation for any reason?”

“It will not happen. I give you my word.”

“I trust you entirely, Hayman, but what if through some error of my own the column ceased to function? My work would be at an utter stand.”

“That is a consideration.” He stayed silent for a moment, and I could hear the lapping of the tide against a boat; there was a cry somewhere downriver, and a chain splashed into the water. “You must promise me this. You must never employ the columns at the same time. The effect would be incalculable. We know so little of the nature of the electrical fluid that no one can predict its course. It could be deathly.”

“I promise you, Hayman.” With that, the deed was done. He agreed to construct another column, on the same principles as the first, and to deliver it within a few weeks. I believe that he was also swayed by the pledge of an equivalent sum. As I have written before, the English will do anything for profit. I was exultant. I would have within my control the energies of a vast power-perhaps more power than any one man had harboured-and through that power I would create a new form of science. By restoring human life I was about to begin an enterprise that might change human consciousness itself! I was determined to prove that nature can be a moral force, an agent for good and for benevolent change. To bring life out of death-to restore the lost spirits and functions of the human frame-what could be more beneficent?

IT REMAINED FOR ME now to procure the subjects. I still recalled very well the conversation I had held in Paris with Armitage, the oculist, whose father had been acquainted with the resurrection men; the father had worked as an assistant for John Hunter, a surgeon of great gifts who had needed the supply of fresh specimens for the rehearsal of his skills. Armitage had given me his card but, foolishly, I had mislaid it. So I called in Fred.

“Have you heard, Fred, of an oculist?”

“I have not, sir. If I lived to be a hundred, I would never have heard of him.”

“An opticist? Optician?”

“Is it the same gentleman?”

“Similar.”

“Then he might as well be the man in the moon. I do not know him.”

“Tell me this then, Fred. In your extensive travels through the metropolis-”

“Beg your pardon, sir. I am always on foot.”

“-have you encountered a shop with a large pair of spectacles hanging outside it?”

“Oh, yes. Many times. I took them to be telescopes, sir. Like the one in the Strand. I know of one in Holborn, next to the cheese shop.” Then he slapped his hand on his forehead, and did a small mime of disbelief. “Let me pinch myself, sir. There is one here in Piccadilly. Run by a cove with the name of Wilkinson.”

“Can you go to this Wilkinson, Fred, and ask if he knows of a maker of spectacles by the name of Armitage?”

“I will try, sir. I don’t know if the old codger will speak to me.”

“Why ever not?”

“He is a tartar with us boys.”

“If he will not help you, then go to Holborn. Wherever you see the sign of the spectacles, ask for Armitage.”

So Fred set off. He returned no more than an hour later, bearing in triumph a small piece of paper. “Weeny, waxy, weedy,” he said. I must have looked surprised. “That is Julius Caesar, sir. When he won.” He handed to me the paper, upon which was written a name and address: W.W. Armitage and Son, 14 Friday Street, Cheapside.

Such was my impatience, and urgency, that I journeyed there on the same afternoon. It was a narrow-fronted property, with a small street-door and a thin window rising up the whole length of the ground floor. When I entered a cracked bell rang above me, and within a few moments I heard the sound of shuffling steps. The tall window seemed designed to catch as much light as possible from Friday Street, and on the shelves around me I could see all possible varieties of spectacles-green spectacles, blue spectacles, convex spectacles, concave spectacles, spectacles with front glasses, spectacles with side glasses, and the like. An old man came into the shop, leaning upon a cane. The crown of his head was quite bald, and his puckered mouth suggested that he had lost his teeth, but I noticed at once the brightness of his eyes. “May I be of service to you, sir?”

“I am looking for Mr. Armitage.”

“You see him.”

“I believe, sir, that you have a son.”

“I have.”

“I had the good fortune of meeting him in Paris, and I promised to pay him a visit on my return to London.”

“What is your name, sir?”

“Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein.”

“Something-” He put his hand up to his forehead. “I am reminded.” He went into the interior passage of the shop, and called out, “Selwyn!”

There came a hurried step down some uncarpeted stairs, and my acquaintance came into the room. “Good Lord,” he said. “I was hoping that I would see you again. This is Mr. Frankenstein, Father, who is studying the workings of human life. I told you of him.”

The father looked at me, with his bright eyes, and seemed to be satisfied. “Tell Mother to bring us some green tea,” he said. “Do you take green tea, Mr. Frankenstein? It is very good for the ocular nerves.”

“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.”