The Hammer Horror Omnibus

by John Burke

  I plied the old man with wine until his tongue wagged more and more animatedly. Elizabeth still enjoyed every word, but I saw that she was a trifle perturbed by the amount I had given our guest.

  He began to make rather arch references to the joys which awaited a young couple like us. To my surprise Elizabeth neatly turned these remarks against me. The stimulus of having another man, even an elderly one, being so attentive to her had evidently given her courage.

  “I fear,” she said, “that the only time we spend together will be times like this, when we have a guest.”

  “My dear young lady—”

  “Your presence at dinner tonight,” said Elizabeth, “ensures Victor’s presence. If you were not here he would be in his laboratory. He stays there for hours on end. Often he doesn’t eat, and I’m sure he doesn’t sleep. I for one think the world would be a better place without research—at least, my world would.” She took the edge off her words by a gentle smile in my direction, but there was no doubt that she meant them.

  Professor Bernstein sat back and looked at me with owlish gravity. “She may be right, Baron. One can spend too much of one’s life locked in stuffy rooms seeking out obscure truths—searching, researching, until one is too old to enjoy life.”

  Elizabeth was delighted. “You see, Victor! The Professor is on my side.”

  I had to take it in good part. “You’ve let me down badly, Professor. Now I shall have Elizabeth quoting you every time she wants me to leave my work and idle away the time with her.”

  “Indeed you shall,” vowed Elizabeth. “I shall say, ‘Victor, you’re only a little scientist and I’m not going to listen to you. On the authority of the greatest brain in Europe you must leave your stuffy laboratory and come out into the sunshine with me.’ ”

  She, too, was growing somewhat light-headed. I didn’t want this to go too far, but at the same time I had no wish to appear churlish.

  “You see, Professor,” I said, “how women twist our words to suit their own ends. She will be happy only if I give up my work entirely.”

  “Is the world ready for the revelations her scientists make?” Seriousness struggled through Bernstein’s genial manner. All at once he was very sober and very intense. “There is a great difference between knowing that a thing is so and knowing how to use that knowledge. To use it for the good of mankind. The trouble with us scientists is that we quickly tire of our discoveries. We hand them over to people who are not ready for them because we are in a hurry to get on to the next thing—which will be mishandled in just the same way, when the time comes.”

  This struck me as being an irrationally pessimistic view. Taken to its logical conclusion it would lead to the abandonment of research altogether. I hoped Professor Bernstein wasn’t getting senile. I wanted a great mind, not a decaying one . . .

  Gradually the conversation slowed and took on a drowsy note. Elizabeth, playing the part of hostess to perfection, knew exactly when to say: “I feel we have exhausted the professor.”

  “No, no.” It was a sleepy protest. “I have enjoyed every minute of this delightful evening. But”—he suppressed a yawn—“I must confess that old age does bring with it an attendant weariness.”

  I got up. “I’ll show you to your room.”

  The Professor said goodnight to Elizabeth. I escorted him out of the room and up the stairs. He went very slowly, holding the banister rail.

  “Most enjoyable evening,” he murmured as we mounted the stairs.

  “I really am most honored to have you here, sir.”

  “Most grateful to you, my boy.” He stopped for a moment, breathing hard. “You know I’m alone in the world. To be a guest in someone’s home—especially such a charming home as this . . . such a wonderful atmosphere . . . very precious to me.”

  “You’re too kind, sir.” I took his arm and helped him up the last few steps. Then I halted him, facing the painting at the top of the staircase. It had been bought half a century ago by my father, and illustrated the grisly anguish of a very early operation. I had thought it would interest the old man, and indeed he stooped and blinked to get a better view of it. “If you step back,” I said, “you’ll see it better.”

  He stepped back.

  I got him firmly by the arm and flung him against the rail. It was old, and I had ensured that it was none too secure at this point.

  Professor Bernstein tried to shout, but I was already yelling. “Look out, Professor”—my voice rose so that even at the back of the house they must have heard it—“look out!”

  The rail gave way. Bernstein seemed to hang over the drop for an interminable second, and then he plunged to the marble floor below. There was a crack as his head struck, and his arms and legs splayed out like those of a broken doll. He lay quite still as Elizabeth rushed out and moaned with horror.

  I hoped the impact had not damaged his brain.

  Of course we were desolated by such a ghastly occurrence. I wrote to Bernstein’s more distinguished colleagues, who were most sympathetic and fully understood our grief. The least I could do was to arrange a suitably noble funeral for the great man, and as he was the last of his family, with no living relatives, I suggested that his body should find its last resting place in the Frankenstein family vault. It was a gesture which met with great approbation from the visiting mourners.

  I ensured that all these famous scholars and lecturers from Dresden should be sent on their homeward way immediately after the ceremony. I spared no expense: they travelled in the greatest comfort in the finest coach my stables could provide. They were overwhelmed, poor penurious pedants. The luxury of it blinded them to the fact that they were being rushed with unbecoming haste off the premises.

  That night, when all was still, I made my way to our family vault in the graveyard, complete with the tools I should need. I stood a lantern on a coffin which contained all that was left of my great-grandfather, and began to prise open the newest coffin in the vault. It came away after a couple of minutes with a shriek of nails, and I looked down on the placid face of Professor Bernstein. Whatever contortion of fear might have twisted his face as he fell, it was smoothed away now.

  He could not have lived much longer in any case. Better that he should be dead and useful than alive and doddering towards senility.

  I would have been able to work more efficiently in my laboratory, but I did not fancy carrying the corpse all that distance. I had come prepared for operations here, on the spot. In the steady light of the lantern I set to work with a scalpel and carefully laid bare the Professor’s brain.

  It was fascinating to speculate how much of the actual personality would carry over with the brain itself. So much of our character is conditioned by outside stimuli and by the limitations, great or small, of our bodies and their functions, that one finds it hard to think of the brain as a detached, separate entity. Yet here it was. I lifted it reverently from the skull—a storehouse of knowledge, a hoard of wisdom from which the body of my creature would draw all that it needed for further development, for developments so far undreamed-of.

  In my bag I had brought a jar. I lowered the brain into it. It looked flabby and inanimate; but I knew what brilliant potentialities lay locked in it, and I was confident that I had the key.

  As I was putting the jar and my tools back in the bag, there was the faint scrape of a footstep on the stone treads down into the vault. I reached for the lantern, but it was too late. There was nowhere I could run.

  Paul Krempe came down the steps.

  “I thought I’d find you here.”

  “Very intelligent of you,” I said. “Now you’ve found me, what do you want?”

  He stared at the open coffin. I turned towards the lid and began to settle it back in place. Paul said: “You killed the old boy, didn’t you? You killed him, and now you’re mutilating his body.”

  “Mutilating?” I scoffed. “I’ve removed the brain. There’s no question of mutilation.”

  “I can’t prove y
ou murdered him”—Paul took a menacing step towards me—“but I can stop you using his brain.”

  “Why? He has no further use for it. He’ll be proud when—”

  Paul made a grab for the bag. “Give it to me.”

  I swung away from him, protecting my precious haul. He tried to hold me with one hand while tugging at the bag with the other. Without dropping the bag I was not free to fight back adequately—and I did not dare to drop such a fragile load.

  “Be careful, you fool!” I cried. “You’ll damage it.”

  He was a senseless, raving vandal. He forced me back towards the wall of the vault. As I tried to beat him off with my free hand he seized me and shook me to and fro. The bag swung out, and then smacked back against the edge of a stone shelf. There was the sound of breaking glass.

  I struck Paul so furiously across the face that he tottered backwards. Then I looked down at the bag. Liquid oozed through it.

  “Get away from me,” I shouted. “Get out! Leave me alone. Get off my land! And if you’ve damaged this . . . if you’ve damaged it . . .”

  The thought was too appalling to contemplate. I let out a sob of rage. Paul Krempe backed away. He was really frightened. He stared at me fearfully as though I and not he were the irresponsible maniac.

  When he had gone I finished nailing down the coffin hurriedly, and then made my way as quickly as possible back to the house. Feverishly I unpacked the bag and lifted the brain from the debris within. It was so soft and malleable that one could hope it had escaped damage. Then I found two slivers of glass embedded in it. The gashes were not deep. All I could do was trust that they had not affected essential tissue.

  I worked almost until dawn on the preparatory stages, and then slept for a few hours. I was awakened by voices under my window. One of them was Elizabeth’s. I could visualize her strolling as she usually did in the garden, breathing in the morning air and adding a new decorative beauty to the garden. She had ambitious plans for that garden. Perhaps even now she was giving instructions for a major reorganization here, a fresh splash of color there.

  Then I identified the other voice. It belonged to Paul Krempe.

  “I’ve come to appeal to you to leave here.”

  The insolence of the man—coming up here from the village to poison the mind of my betrothed! I got out of bed and stood by the window, debating whether to ring for a lackey to throw him off the land.

  “Why should I leave here?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Now—this very minute, before it’s too late.”

  “Paul,” she said in a troubled tone, “we’ve been through this before.”

  I was pleased by the way she so firmly kept him in his place; but a little less pleased by a note of what I could only describe as intimacy in her voice, as though she were fond of the man and had enjoyed many easy, pleasant hours in his company. Perhaps I had neglected her. There had been too many opportunities in the past for them to be together.

  “Won’t you understand you’re in real danger?” the traitor was urging her. “What Victor is doing is dangerous to everyone in this house—perhaps to the whole neighborhood.”

  “Then why do you stay in this district?” said Elizabeth. “You’re not helping him any longer.”

  “I’ll tell you why I stay here. I can’t bear to think of you in this house with him, unprotected. When something goes wrong—”

  “Paul, believe me, you’re wrong about Victor.”

  “Am I?” he said bleakly.

  “You must be. I know him so well—”

  “What do you know about his work? Have you ever been in his laboratory? No, you can’t possibly conceive the dreadful thing he’s proposing to do.”

  “What are you trying to say to me?” she challenged him. “That Victor is wicked . . . insane?”

  I looked down as they emerged from the shadow of the house and stood on the lawn. The slanting sunlight struck flecks of gold from Elizabeth’s hair. She was standing very stiffly and proudly.

  Paul said: “He is just so dedicated to his work that he can’t see the terrible consequences that must result.” He reached out and tried to touch her, but she drew herself away. “I can’t bear the thought of any harm coming to you. I’d do anything not to hurt you both—Victor means more to me than perhaps he understands—but he is so wrapped up in his experiments that—”

  “Stop it, Paul.” There were tears in her voice. “Please leave me. I think . . . I think it would be better for you not to come here again.”

  Paul, stricken, looked at her. From where I stood I could not make out his expression, but I had few doubts about what it would show. The presumptuous fool was in love with Elizabeth. His petty slurs on me were all designed to win her away from me. He understood neither Elizabeth nor myself.

  Elizabeth stood quite still and watched him as he walked towards the drive and on to the main gates. When he had disappeared, her shoulders sagged and there was a dejection in her whole manner which made me uneasy. She must not let herself feel too ready a sympathy for the absurd man.

  Later that morning she asked me in a roundabout way what stage my experiments had reached. I could have been annoyed, knowing what had provoked this curiosity, but she spoke in such a way that there was nothing to which one could take exception. I assured her that all was going well and that I was nearly finished. At the end of the week perhaps she would be able to see what I had been doing. I was, in fact, so exhilarated by the prospect of forthcoming success that my happiness infected her, and she laughed without quite knowing why she was laughing. The morning sunshine and my obvious cheerfulness banished the dark forebodings which Paul had so unscrupulously tried to plant in her mind.

  5

  In the afternoon the skies grew darker. Beyond the peaks there was a slow barrage of thunder. The threat of rain was sufficient to keep Elizabeth indoors. She occupied herself with her embroidery while I, too, did a great deal of stitching—though on somewhat different material.

  I worked through most of that night and through the next day, when a sullen greyness lay on the mountains and the valley was sunk in gloom. Lightning flickered pale in the daylight, but took on a new harshness as night began to fall.

  Elizabeth and I dined together by candlelight. She was glad that I was in a gay mood: really, it was touching that she should depend so much on my smiles and approval. Her only disappointment came when I said that I proposed to do several hours’ work in the laboratory after coffee.

  I was tempted to invite her to accompany me. She should have the privilege of watching the final stages. Then I decided against it. Without deferring to any of Paul Krempe’s melodramatic accusations, I realized that an ordinary person might be shocked at first by the magnitude of what I was attempting. Better to win the victory before boasting too loudly!

  There was a vast difference between those two faces—the gentle face of Elizabeth and the seamed, unresponsive face in the tank. Indeed, the contrast between the rooms themselves was a striking one. Downstairs was the graciousness of a long tradition, the panelled beauty of high craftsmanship from a bygone world; here in my laboratory was a tangle of apparatus under a sloping roof, an accumulation of litter, all the scientific brashness of the new world—but one in which craftsmanship must still count.

  There was a set of controls on the side of the tank itself, and a set which governed the magnetic impulses from a sparking wheel against the outer wall of the laboratory. Originally the entire layout had been planned with a view to dual operation, but now that Paul was no longer playing a part I would have to manage on my own. Some of the finer settings would be tricky. However, I had enough confidence in my own alertness to feel that I could cope.

  The creature lay there, passive, waiting. The body was strong, the hands and feet admirable, the head splendid in spite of the still unhealed scars. And in that head one of the greatest brains in Europe was about to function again.

  I slowly switched on the feed pipes to the tank, and a gentle bubbli
ng began.

  There was a flash of lightning. It made me start back, fearing for a moment that there was a fault in the apparatus. A clap of thunder, so far from alarming me, reassured me. I left the tank and set the generator wheel in motion so that the electro-chemical reaction could begin.

  I seemed myself to be vibrant with electric forces. Whatever new avenues are opened up in the future, whatever progress is made in the physical sciences, and whatever may come from work which I know is going on in England, for example, at this very moment, history must acclaim me as the true pioneer in the application of magneto-electricity. Without Davy’s theories and demonstrations of galvanism I admit I could not have got so far in such a short time; but without my own discoveries of the relationship between the life force and magnetic force, further developments would not be possible.

  Now began the delicate business of balancing the various adjustments. I darted to and fro between the tank and the controls of the sparking generator wheel. It was infuriating. A slight increase at one could mean the most minute alteration to the other. The dual controls ought to have been operated by Paul and myself, snapping instructions to and fro. Unless I could maintain a perfect balance, the experiment would not succeed.

  The chemical input was surging and bubbling remorselessly now. There was no turning back. At least two hours of intense concentration lay ahead of me. The power pulses had to be injected with unfaltering regularity. I had to turn myself into an automaton—but an automaton capable of checking and rechecking, thinking fast and acting without hesitation, going from one control to the other, studying the body in the tank, pacing to and fro across the laboratory.