He jumped up. “You forget yourself, Congo,” he growled. “I’m not used to the word ‘mustn’t’—especially from a thing that owes me so much. And especially when I will lighten the labor of mankind.”
“By laying mankind’s labor on poor beasts.”
“What are you going to do about it?” he flung out.
“I will prevent you,” I promised.
He laughed. “You can’t. All these gifts of yours mean nothing. You have a flexible tongue, a rational brain—but you’re a beast by law and by nature. I,” and he thumped his chest, “am a great scientist. You can’t make a stand of any kind.”
“I will prevent you,” I said again, and I got up slowly.
He understood then, and yelled loudly. I heard an answering cry in the hall outside. He ran for the door, but I caught him. I remember how easily his neck broke in my hands. Just like a carrot.
The police came and got me, with guns and gas bombs and chains. I was taken to a jail and locked in the strongest cell, with iron bars all around. Outside some police officials and an attorney or two talked.
“He can’t be tried for murder,” said someone. “He’s only an animal, and not subject to human laws.”
“He was aware of what he did,” argued a policeman. “He’s as guilty as the devil.”
“But we can hardly bring him into court,” replied one of the attorneys. “Why, the newspapers would kid us clear out of the country—out of the legal profession.”
They puzzled for a moment, all together. Then one of the police officers slapped his knee. “I’ve got it,” he said, and they all looked at him hopefully.
“Why talk about trials?” demanded the inspired one. “If he can’t be tried for killing that medic, neither can we be tried for killing him.”
“Not if we do it painlessly,” seconded someone.
They saw I was listening, and moved away and talked softly for a full quarter of an hour. Then they all nodded their heads as if agreeing on something. One police captain, fat and white-haired, came to the bars of my cell and looked through.
“Any last thing you’d like to have?” he asked me, not at all unkindly.
I asked for pen and ink and paper and time enough to write this.
JOHN BRUNNER
Tantamount to Murder
John Brunner (1934–1995) was one of Britain’s most prolific and influential science fiction writers. He won numerous literary awards, including the Hugo Award, the British Science Fiction Award (twice), the British Fantasy Award, the French Prix Apollo and the Italian Cometa d’Argento (twice).
The author of such acclaimed science fiction novels as Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, The Jagged Orbit and The Shockwave Rider, he also wrote mystery, fantasy and thriller fiction.
The story that follows, which was written especially for this book, blends a number of genres …
An hour remained before sunset on this wet and windy autumn day, but in the sanctum of the Marquis de Vergonde it was always dark, and had been for more than seven years. The sole permitted luminance was shed on the portrait of Sibylle née Serrouiller, who had so briefly been his wife—the portrait, all there had been time for, though he had intended to commission one a year—before which, as on an altar, burned candles and sweet-smelling incense cones.
Few had laid eyes on it, but those who had might testify how beauty such as hers could snatch the breath.
Having re-dedicated himself to what had become his all absorbing purpose, the marquis withdrew and made ready to secure the room—its key being one of two that never left his belt, while the other had never been used save once and was destined to be used only once more, on his day of final triumph—before crossing the tiled floor of the château’s spacious albeit shabby entrance hall to the laboratory where he daily wrestled with the ultimate mystery of nature: the secret of life itself. His servant and confidant Jules (if the fellow had another name it had long been forgotten by all except himself) roused from the settle where he had been drowsing and started to draw back clumsy iron bolts.
At precisely which moment resounded from outside the noise of smashing glass. An instant later it was followed by a thunderous banging on the vast black oak front door.
But there were never any callers at this house.
Only intruders.
Lent arrogance by the brandy which was already empurpling his nose and cheeks despite his youth, Paul Serrouiller stared mockingly at his brother-in-law. How despicable he seemed! Unshaven, clad in garments fit only for a scarecrow, haggard as though he had not slept properly in years, and redolent of the chemicals wafting from the direction of the laboratory Jules had opened up and not had time to shut again—
Where had the lout vanished to, anyway, after admitting the newcomers? Why was he not bowing and scraping and offering to take this soaking Burberry and rain-dulled beaver hat, and the like outerwear from his companions? For an instant Paul’s sense of triumph was diminished. What, though, did a servant matter? The purpose of this visit was to be achieved at all costs, and those who had agreed to escort him hither stood to gain as surely as did he himself, so they would abet him in whatever he said or did. It was obvious that their first sight of the château had gone a long way toward convincing them that his wildest accusations against the marquis were likely to be borne out. Who but a madman would tolerate such conditions? The cobwebs that hung from the arched ceiling were as dense as tapestry!
Oh, Jules had probably fled in the sensible certainty that his employer was done for.
“You know me, brother-in-law!” he rasped. “Long though it be since we met! But you don’t know my friends, who have come to put a term to your squandering of what rightly should be my inheritance! I present Maître Poltenaire, doctor of civil law; Monsieur Schaefer, his huissier; and last but very far from least, Dr. Michel Largot, the celebrated alienist from the Salpêtrière, who is accompanied by his trusted male nurse, Serge.”
Eyes bleared from years of study by inadequate light and constant exposure to noxious fumes, the marquis sought and finally donned thick spectacles just in time to find his attention directed toward Serge, who towered over his employer massive as a treetrunk, his shaven head round and smooth as a cannonball.
“What—what do you want?” he husked.
“Justice!” rasped Paul. “And even sooner, a drink! There used to be a fine cellar here. I recall it from my sister’s nuptials. Schaefer, try that room on the left—”
“No! No!” The marquis was almost babbling.
“You want to keep us out of there, do you?” sneered Paul. “I wonder why!” And with one swift stride planted his hand on the iron latch of the sanctum and flung wide the door the marquis had not had the chance to re-lock.
“Faugh!” he exclaimed as the draught of its opening disturbed more than a lustrum’s worth of dust and made the candles gutter. “Serge, pull back these curtains!”
“No, no!” The marquis was battering at him with futile fists. “You have no right! This is my home, not yours!”
The lawyer gave a discreet cough.
“Begging your excellency’s pardon, there is room for doubt on that score. If, as we have been advised, you have pretended for seven years that your wife, who is in fact dead, is still alive, in order to enjoy the estate she brought to your marriage for you to share, and I quote, ‘during her lifetime, and afterward—’”
Until the majority of your eldest child, if any! The marquis knew all the conditions of his late father-in-law’s will by heart, and all the threatening documents sent on his brother-in-law’s behalf by corrupt and venial lawyers like this new one.
Oddly, though, the stern legal voice had faded between words. Drawn aside amid a downpour of dead moths and flies, the curtains of the nearest window had parted to let the fading daylight fall squarely on the image of Sibylle, glorious in her nineteen-year-old nudity from her curly blonde crown to her tiny soles.
“You see?” the marquis cried triumphantly. “She isn�
��t dead! How can she be? Beauty such as hers can never die! It mustn’t be allowed to!”
Panting, he caught at the arm of M. Poltenaire, gesturing to attract the attention of the alienist as well.
“I can show you all the references to my work on the longevity of the Bufonidae—the toad family, that is. I have hundreds of reports concerning the way they can survive being enclosed in dry mud or even rock, including many from Australia where they are especially abundant. We found an example right here on our estate, sealed up in a tree!”
Dr. Largot raised a pale-palmed hand.
“One moment, please. Are we to believe what your brother-in-law has told us? When his sister, your wife, died—”
“She isn’t dead!”
“With respect—”
“Oh, forget the respect stuff!” Paul snarled. “The plain fact is, the man’s crazy! And never mind the ‘famous scientist’ rubbish! He simply can’t accept—”
“But I’ve proved my claim!” Behind his glasses the marquis was unashamedly weeping. “Having obtained her full permission, using the data I had garnered from my study of toads, at the very moment that the vital spark expired I perfused her system with the extracts my studies had convinced me would preserve her in a state of suspended animation.” He was regaining his composure. Wiping his eyes with a large silk kerchief, he continued.
“All that remained was to exclude air. The compounds I had injected would preserve her indefinitely against dehydration and putrefaction, but until a cure could be found for her malady she must remain immobile, unthinking, unfeeling. So I put her mausoleum under a hermetic seal. Now if you will accompany me into my laboratory I can show you how much progress is being made towards a cure. I correspond with the most renowned physicians in this country, in Germany, England, America, even Russia where marvelous work is being carried on concerning the resuscitation of debilitated cell-lines … Is something wrong?”
“Mausoleum?” Paul scoffed. “That shack beside the driveway with her name scrawled over the door? Not even decently carved!”
“Why, you—!” But the marquis, mindful of his weakened state, let his fists fall at his sides. “I must admit,” he muttered, “I deemed it preferable to spend my funds on research rather than—”
“Whose funds?” Paul rasped. And added to the lawyer, “Make a note of that! Not that it matters, apparently.” He uttered a cynical chuckle.
“What—what do you mean?”
“Shouldn’t have fitted a glass window to your outsize coffin, should you? Serge! Why haven’t you found us anything to drink yet, you lazy bastard?”
The marquis’s face turned literally grey, as though he had divined the import of Paul’s words. In a strained voice Poltenaire said, “I must advise my client to refrain from any further statement on this subject—”
From outside came a clatter of horses’ hooves. Bewildered, all save the marquis, they turned as the front door swung open to reveal Jules, followed by a scowling man in a wet cloak, and he in turn by another bearing a large leather portfolio.
“This is our distinguished neighbor Monsieur Vautrian,” announced Jules. “He is a juge d’instruction, an examining magistrate. As Monsieur le Marquis took the precaution of advising me I should in such a case, when you marched in without a by-your-leave I betook myself to his house and swore out a complaint for trespass and false accusation.”
“But—!” Paul stammered.
“No buts,” Vautrian ordered. “Let’s get this nonsense out of the way. Anton”—to his companion, clearly his own huissier, approximately bailiff or legal clerk—“there’s the dining-room. We can sit round the table.”
“Just a moment.”
The marquis’s voice was as dry as the rustle of a beetle’s wingcases.
“Is it true that …?” He had to break off and swallow. “Is it true, Paul, that you—you broke the window of Sibylle’s resting-place?”
“Hah!”—defiantly. “I didn’t mean to. I just ran out of brandy on the way up your front steps, and what use is an empty bottle? I chucked it away, that’s all.”
The marquis’s tone became dull, resigned. He said, “Jules?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did his bottle—? Don’t bother to reply. I can tell from your face.”
Vautrian said impatiently, “What’s this about?”
“As well he knew it would, his action”—the marquis’s words took on a tone like a great bell tolling for a funeral—“broke the seal ensuring my wife’s chance to live again.”
“Did you ever hear such nonsense?” roared Paul. “Still, at least he’s finally admitting that she’s dead. He has no more claim on my rightful inheritance!”
“Is that the way of it?” Vautrian demanded.
“Why, it must be!” Poltenaire supplied hastily. “It’s all turned out exactly as Monsieur Serrouiller claimed. For seven years the marquis has been deranged by the loss of his wife. He has refused to admit she is dead. Even on his own terms, though … Doctor, do you wish to say something?”
The alienist was looking grave and sympathetic.
“Yes, the situation is indeed as we were warned. But one need not despair. There has been progress. Even in what appears an intractable case one may still hope for a remission.”
“Be quiet!” snapped the marquis. “I have long feared that Paul, as full of greed and evil as his sister of goodness and beauty, would find a way to destroy my years of work. I was so close … Yet what does it matter? Would Sibylle have wanted to return to a world where on his own admission her nearest blood relative had spent years trying to deprive her of her second lease of life?”
Largot said, “One is aware your reputation as a scientist—”
“Oh, I believe I’ve earned it. There are natural philosophers in ten countries who will say as much. But what boots it now? My life has lost all purpose … Speaking of purposes, I take it that it’s yours to strip me of my estates and indeed my freedom, on the grounds that I am and have long been deranged. Very well. As I say, my life has lost all reason and all meaning. Do not, though, be so hardhearted as to deny me one last glimpse of my beloved.”
The others exchanged glances. Paul broke the silence with a snort.
“Go if you wish! Take your neighbor with you! It will be fine to have a juge d’instruction certify how far your sickness has progressed! Take his huissier as well, if you like. The more witnesses the merrier! Meantime my friends and I can celebrate our victory. Serge—Schaefer—why the hell have you not found the brandy yet? Jules, show them where to look!”
The second, the third, glassful sufficed to put them all in a good humor again: the heir presumptive who had been fuming at the way his brother-in-law was spending what he felt to be his portion on a doomed and lunatic attempt to bring his wife back; the impoverished lawyer who stood to gain fees enough to live on for a year from the conclusion of this case, and his huissier who would be correspondingly better off; the alienist whose practice had formerly been lucrative but whose private asylum sorely lacked just such patients as a titled member of the Old Nobility would attract, for there were many old rich families looking for places to conceal the products of generations of inbreeding and over-indulgence, and his authorized bully Serge who was so skilled at cowing even nobles into doing as they were told … They were in the dining-room relaxing into laughter at the speed and completeness of their victory when there came a scream from the hallway. Before they could more than react, the room’s door was flung wide by Jules. Headlong through the opening fell the marquis—it had been he who screamed, they realized—in a dead faint.
Scrambling to their feet in astonishment, they found themselves confronting Vautrian, his face like thunder.
“Your name Schaefer?” he barked.
“Ah—yes!”
“You’re a certified huissier?”
“Yes!”
“I am a duly appointed juge d’instruction. I invoke your assistance in the name of the law.”
Slowly, confusedly, lowering his third glass of brandy—except that it wasn’t his third, not of the day, but more like his tenth or twelfth—Paul Serrouiller cancelled the joke he had planned to make concerning disposal of that nude painting of his sister to the Moulin Rouge where it would look perfect in the entrance foyer.
Vautrian did not have the air of a man inclined for jokes.
He continued, “You are Paul Serrouiller, brother of the late Marquise de Vergonde?”
“What the hell are you going on about?”
His face eloquent of something between disgust and terror, the magistrate drew a deep breath.
“I arrest you for the culpable homicide of your sister.”
“What?” Paul overturned his glass in the act of trying to set it down. “Are you crazy? My sister has been dead for seven years!”
His brother-in-law the marquis roused, scrabbling at the dirty floor with equally dirty fingernails, apparently in search of his spectacles. Jules hastened to his side.
“I was so close to success,” he whispered. “I was so much closer than I knew …”
Vautrian ignored the distraction, continuing to address Paul.
“Did you throw a brandy bottle at the tomb in which she was sealed up, thereby breaking its window and admitting air?”
“What?” Paul licked his lips, casting around for support. But his cronies had sensed something amiss and were withholding it.
“You had been told, had you not, that your sister stood a chance of being resuscitated if the seal could be maintained until a cure was found for her disease?”
“Who pays attention to that sort of rubbish?” Paul exclaimed hysterically. “My sister had been dead for seven years! How can you claim I killed her?”
The marquis moaned, still writhing on the floor.
“But she cannot have been dead for seven years,” said the magistrate. Again he filled his lungs to maximum, as though afraid he might otherwise run out of oxygen.
“On entering the mausoleum, we found your sister not on her catafalque but on the floor, and in the dust around such marks as make it clear that she had risen, taken three clear steps, and collapsed.”
In the Shadow of Frankenstein: Tales of the Modern Prometheus Page 33
