by John Burke
“It’s my fault,” he said a dozen times, as though by admitting the obvious he would somehow make it less heinous. “I know I’m to blame for this . . . but I thought it wiser to go myself. When Miss Conrad told me she had promised . . .”
“You should have come to me at once! These interfering women . . .” Then I put my head out of the window. “Can’t we go any faster?”
“We’re in the park now, sir,” said the coachman as though he considered this sufficient answer. But he did try to lash the horses on, and the coach swayed as we gathered speed.
There were still three miles to go across the rolling parkland. I gritted my teeth and willed the horses to go faster, to annihilate the distance, even though a few minutes here or there could probably make little difference now.
It appeared that after incinerating his old self, Karl Werner had left the laboratory and made straight for the address which Margaret Conrad had given him—her aunt’s stately mansion, almost a castle in its lavish pretensions to turrets and confected battlements. He must have spent most of the night getting there, trudging over the fields and at last concealing himself in the stables. There he lay until morning, when Margaret discovered him.
She had come out to feed a new foal with straw—a cloying love for animals was numbered among her many sentimentalities—and was taken aback when, after a rustling in the hay, Karl emerged.
“What are you doing here?”
“I had to get away. You said you would help me.”
“But does Doctor Stein know you have left the Hospital?”
“Don’t tell him,” Karl cried frantically. “Please don’t tell him.”
She argued with him. At least she had the wit to realize that he was in need of medical attention. But Karl was stubborn. He refused to return to the Hospital and he implored Margaret not to tell me where he was hiding. When I heard this from Hans Kleve, I must confess I was deeply hurt. After all I had done for the man, after the months and years I had worked in order to give him a frame of which he could be proud, this was the way he repaid me! One would have thought I had maltreated him. I could only attribute this bitter change in his feelings to the blows he must have received during the struggle in the laboratory.
The impression he created on Margaret was that of a man slightly unhinged. Deciding not to press the issue of his return into my care, she promised that she would be very tactful, but that in return he must promise to stay in the stables until she returned. She would not be long away.
Karl agreed. Margaret went out and told a trustworthy groom that there was a sick man in the stables who should be closely guarded until she had fetched a doctor.
Then, instead of reporting to me as she should have done, she went to Hans.
Hans Kleve’s first impulse was to come to me. We might still have salvaged something from the catastrophe if he had done so. Unfortunately, he was too ready to fall under the young woman’s spell. Scrupulously observing her promise, she told him that Karl would not return to me. He needed a doctor—but it must not be that Doctor Stein who had slaved so hard on his behalf!
Hans accompanied her back to the Countess’s home.
They went straight to the stables. There was no sign of Karl.
Margaret angrily sought out the groom who had been ordered to keep an eye on Karl. The groom denied all responsibility. He couldn’t be everywhere at once, could he? He had looked in at the man once or twice, but then he had been ordered to go and water the horses; and when he came back, the man had gone.
One thing which the fellow said, relayed to me by Hans, struck a chill to my heart. Seeing Karl in the stable, he had noticed there was something wrong with his leg. Those were, according to Hans, his very words: “Something wrong with his leg . . . his foot seemed to drag, sort of.” This could mean only one thing. Karl was regressing. His fine new body was in danger of being afflicted by the paralysis which had afflicted the old one. Unless I could get to him without delay it might be too late to stop the decline.
It was not until now that Hans realized there was only one person who could cope with the situation. In spite of Margaret’s doubts, he announced that he was going to call me in.
And so we drove through the darkening evening towards that pompous house, its windows ablaze as the Countess made preparations for yet another of her musical parties. If his leg was betraying him, Karl could not have gone far. He might well be hiding in another part of the grounds, or even in the house itself.
Suddenly the coachman called to his horses and reined them in sharply. The coach bumped to a halt.
I looked out. We were still some distance from the house, its lights now masked from us by a windbreak of trees.
“Why have you stopped?” I demanded.
A cluster of torches moved round the coach, and the light fell on the face and uniform of a police officer.
“It’s you, Doctor Stein.”
“It is,” I snapped, “and I’m in a great hurry.”
“Sorry, sir, but we have to check everyone passing this way. There’s been a murder in the vicinity.”
A murder . . . It didn’t have to be Karl; it need have no connection with the wretched, fleeing Karl; but I felt a bleak premonition.
The best way to learn all the details was to offer my services. I opened the door of the coach and got down. “Can I be of any assistance?” And as Hans descended behind me, I quickly introduced him. “This is Doctor Kleve.”
The police officer welcomed the assistance. “We’ll need a report on the condition of the body. If you wouldn’t mind examining it . . .”
“Certainly.”
“It’s over here.”
He led the way to another ring of torches, set like some funeral observance around a dark, crumpled shape on the grass. To one side a young man, little more than a boy, was huddled up, shivering.
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“About an hour ago, so the boy says.”
I suspected that the boy was in a state of shock. But he would have to wait. I knelt down and turned over the body of the girl. My worst fears were realized. It was no good telling myself that it was a coincidence, that there was no evidence of Karl having been involved. This was Karl’s handiwork. The savagely torn face, the arm almost wrenched from its socket, the signs of a bestial, ravening attack . . . these fitted too well with the certainty of Karl’s derangement.
Keeping my head down so that my disturbance would not show too clearly, I said:
“Did he—the boy—see who attacked her?”
The boy got to his feet, still trembling. A man supported him with an arm round his waist.
“All I can get out of him, sir,” said the police officer, “is that he and the girl had quarrelled. He was walking away when she—”
“She screamed,” the boy panted hoarsely. “I’d gone a good way—I was well away from her, honestly I was—and then I heard her scream.” He put his hands over his ears as though to shut out an appalling echo. “There was a man there . . . and I shouted, and he ran off, and when I went to look . . .”
He swung away from the man beside him, and vomited on the grass.
“If it was a man,” said the policeman.
I got to my feet. “What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, the boy said he looked like some sort of animal.” He recited what the boy had gabbled out to him some minutes ago: “ ‘A funny shape,’ he said. Of course, he only got a glimpse of him. ‘Like some sort of animal—all bent over’: that’s the way he put it.” The officer lowered his voice so that the boy couldn’t hear. “It looks to me as if it was done by a maniac.” He grimaced at the mangled corpse. “It’s no ordinary murder, sir.”
“Have you searched the park?”
“As thoroughly as we could, sir. Not enough men to do it properly in the dark—but I don’t think we missed many of the likely places.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do here.” I was anxious to get on to the house and see if we c
ould pick up a clue there. “I’ll let you have the report by the morning.”
“Thank you, sir.” The officer saluted. “Sorry to have detained you.”
We went back to the coach. As we climbed in, the group closed around the girl’s body and lifted it, ready to be taken away.
The coachman drove on. Hans and I sat in a grim silence.
Where was Karl Werner?
Among all the rumors and melodramatic stories which bred in the lurid imaginations of the local people, there were many which were later sifted by the authorities. An assault some twenty miles away was blamed on “the mad beast”, which was how they came to refer to Karl. At the same time of the night a violent robbery in the city was attributed to this same creature, who must have been able to travel like the wind. The only incident which rang true was quiet rather than dramatic. In a gipsy encampment on the fringe of the Countess’s estate, a child saw what she described as a crumpled-up man crouching in the bushes. She was used to meeting strange characters and wayfarers of one kind and another, and was not at all afraid of this huddled shape. She asked the man if he was ill, and he gruffly told her to go away. His leg, she said, was twisted, but when she offered to fetch her grandmother to help him with herbs and spells, he growled at her. He got up, and in the uncertain light she swore that she saw tears glinting in his eyes. When she was asked if he had shown any sign of wanting to attack her, she denied it. He had just looked very sad and very twisted, and he had turned and gone off into the undergrowth.
It could only have been desperation that drove him back towards the house.
Lights from the windows were visible across the parkland. I had seen them from the coach at intervals ever since we entered the estate. Every now and then they were obscured by a clump of trees or a fold in the ground, but each time reappeared with an added brightness.
When we stepped down from the coach and hurried up the steps, the sound of music was audible. The footman asked us our names in a whisper, and indicated that we should wait outside the door of the salon until the conclusion of the work that was being played. This was too much for me. I believe I would have flung the door open and stormed in had it not been for Hans, who put his hand on my arm.
“It’s a Mozart quartet,” he said. “The last movement—only a few bars to go.”
The strings produced a final flurry of sound and a chord which could be nothing but the last chord of the work. A spattering of applause rustled through the closed door. The footman, with a deferential bow, opened the door and ushered us through.
A bewhiskered string quartet sat in the centre of the room. The first violinist was just rising to his feet and acknowledging the applause. Even before it had died away the familiar voice of Countess Barscynska rose unmusically in a characteristic declamation.
“I have nothing against the English composers, Doctor Molke. Nothing, I assure you. But they just won’t let themselves go.”
Her neighbor was that senior physician who had led the delegation to question me at the Workhouse Hospital. I sensed Hans flinching as he, too, recognized the man. I had an idea that Hans was not in good favor with his one-time colleagues.
But I was not interested in personal problems of this kind. As the footman announced us, I strode towards the Countess.
“Not even Handel?” Molke was saying.
“Ah, but they stole him . . . from Germany.”
The Countess rose majestically and turned to greet us. The first violinist had once more raised his bow, but she waved him down. She put out her hand to me, and at the same time contrived to signal her daughter, Vera, to move into full view.
“My dear Doctor Stein—so you finally decided to attend one of my musical evenings?”
“Countess—”
“Vera, do come and greet the Doctor.”
Vera, becomingly dressed but harassed by the attention that was now turned on her, dropped me a curtsey and went very pink.
“I wish to speak to your niece,” I said brusquely to the Countess.
She shrugged and turned to signal to the quartet that they should continue. They set to with a will on a graceful dance movement that accorded well with the lavish setting but not with the menace that might even now be creeping up out of the night. The very formality of the music was incongruous.
The Countess drew Vera towards her and tried to bring us together, as though implying that we should sit side by side and listen to the quartet.
I said impatiently: “Your niece . . .”
“The night is young,” said the Countess, indicating two vacant chairs and then turning to deal with Hans.
I had no time for sterile courtesies. I looked round the room, and saw Margaret Conrad in a far corner with a group of young friends. Ignoring the hapless Vera, I crossed the salon. Margaret saw me coming and prepared to make some remark—some triviality, no doubt, as though the ritual formalities of so-called good manners were all that counted in this world.
Before she could speak, I seized her by the arm and almost dragged her away from the group. There were hisses of reproach from the devout audience near to the quartet. I saw the Countess’s outraged face turned in my direction. Hans hurried over to me and put a restraining hand on my arm. I shook it off. But I made an effort to control myself. It would do no good to provoke too much antagonism here; no good to bluster. I wanted clear answers to clear questions.
I said: “When you found Karl in the stable—was he the same as when you saw him in the Hospital?”
“Yes. But he was very distressed.” She stood back and stared at me accusingly. “He was terrified of you.”
“Is that the last you saw of him?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain he hasn’t returned here?”
“We have been dressing for this evening’s music. He could have crept back into the stables without my knowing—but I see no reason why he should have done so. One of the grooms would have brought word, anyway.”
“He didn’t talk to you about his plans, if he had any?”
“I think,” she said compassionately, “that he was in no state to make plans. If he had waited until I brought Hans—”
“But he didn’t,” I said.
I turned away. She had been no help to me in the past and she was no help now. I had no idea what to do. I felt no responsibility for Karl’s killings—the blame for those rested squarely on the interfering fools who had released him from my influence—but I wanted to put a stop to his depredations. There had to be a lead, a beginning, a clue somewhere.
Behind me I heard Hans murmuring to Margaret: “Don’t blame yourself. You did what you thought was right.”
“Shall I see you again?”
“I hope so.”
Hans came after me. I was tempted to tell him that the young woman had every reason to blame herself, and that what she had done was criminally wrong. But the infatuated ninny was beyond understanding such things.
The Countess was waiting for me. I might need her influence in the future. She was not a good person to quarrel with. I assumed my best medical manner, and treated her to the smile which she so often and so unashamedly sought.
“You must forgive this intrusion.”
For a second it seemed that she might not succumb. Then she favored me with a weak smile in response.
“You could never intrude, Doctor Stein.”
She was about to wave me once more towards a suitable chair, while the quartet battled assiduously with a fugal passage, but I was determined to go out into the night and force it to yield up its secrets. I felt that Karl would be drawn to me; that somehow he must come back, that our destinies were linked, that only I could save him from the torment which was now closing upon him.
I was on my way towards the door when there was a crash of breaking glass. A woman in the audience screamed, another took her up, and the second violin in the quartet went excruciatingly flat. There was a jangle of notes, and then the music petered out.
I tu
rned. Framed in the tall french windows which opened on to the terrace was Karl.
But this was a travesty of the man I had created. The regression was incredible. His right shoulder had sagged and his arm was twisted against his side. He stood awkwardly, resting part of his weight against the window-frame, his leg dragging. What had seemed pathetic in the dwarf now appeared far worse in this taller, better-made man.
He was staring fixedly into the salon. Nobody dared to move. I followed the direction of his gaze. He was looking at Margaret. She stood there petrified as he lumbered away from the window and came on into the room, groping as though to clutch her to him. Women in his way scrambled from their chairs. He brushed the chairs aside and went on towards Margaret, who still could not move.
I said sharply: “Karl!”
It halted him. For an instant he looked puzzled, then turned threateningly towards me. But the threat died. A grimace of anguish racked his face. He began to drag his twisted body towards me. His hands scrabbled imploringly at the air. He mouthed vain, incoherent sounds.
Just as I thought he was about to crash into me, he put his head back and bellowed:
“Frankenstein . . . help me, Frankenstein! Help me!”
Then he pitched forward on the floor at my feet and lay still.
Hans hurried to my side. I bent over Karl and examined him, while a faint, fearful muttering started up in the salon.
I looked at Hans. Neither of us spoke.
Karl was dead.
7
In the confusion which followed it was easy for me to assert my authority. With a minimum of explanations I was able to remove the corpse, implying that the episode had been distressing but not in any way dangerous. Hans made a few hasty remarks to the Countess about an escaped patient in need of special treatment, and there were a few murmurs of “Poor wretch” mingled with the babble of “What a dreadful evening” and “I must go home and lie down—it’s too terrible”. The only man I really feared was Molke. He bore me no love, and as Hans and I carried the body out to our carriage he tried to pursue.
