However comical or despicable he might appear to the world, by virtue of his dwarfish stature and his criminal tendencies, Ned Knob saw himself as a giant of sorts, and a Romantic above all else. He thought that working as an agent for Gregory Temple’s branch of the secret police was Romantic in itself, and that his casual betrayal of the secrets he collected on Temple’s behalf to Henri de Belcamp was more Romantic still, but the fact that his labors in that regard now promised to bring him into contact with Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author of the recent Prometheus Unbound and Other Poems, was definitely the icing on his own Romantic cake. Ordinarily, given that Ned’s short legs were naturally ill-equipped for such work, the trek back up the hill to the establishment that was known throughout Spezia as “the English hotel” would have been a tedious one, but there as a spring in his step tonight.
When he arrived back at the hotel, Ned ate a little late supper in the hotel’s meager dining-room. A party of young Englishmen from Sussex, sent away by their parents to improve themselves by taking the Grand Tour, was drinking wine a little too abundantly, as was their habit. They invited him to join them, partly because of the democratic spirit that comes upon young men in a foreign land, when even the humblest of their countrymen seems nearer in station than a disapproving native, and partly because they found Ned almost as innately amusing as an authentic dwarf, but Ned declined. He had already sucked all the information from them that they had; it was their propensity for eager rumor that had given him the names of Shelley’s local acquaintances, although none knew the name of Robert Walton’s mysterious companion.
They did not take his refusal gracefully. One of the young aristocrats grabbed his arm as he attempted to leave. “Don’t go, Master Knob,” he said. “We’re going whoring later–I’m sure that we can find you a midget, or a little girl, to suit your stature.”
“That’s very kind of you, milord,” Ned said, speaking with conspicuous mildness, although he met the young man’s bleary gaze with a basilisk stare. “But I’ve been down to the lower town already this evening, and I’m tired.”
The fool was too drunk to take the hint provided by Ned’s expression. “Hear that, fellows!” he said. “The little chap’s already been a-whoring, and he’s tired.” The young man tightened his grip on Ned’s right wrist.
Ned used his left hand to pluck the drunkard’s hand away, squeezing the fingers so hard that the man’s drink-flushed face turned ghastly white–but Ned smiled at the other members of the party as he said, with exaggerated softness: “I hope you have a good time, gentlemen.”
He went directly to his bed, intending to be up early to make the trek to San Terenzo, to see what he could discover for himself about the group of like-minded men that seemed to be forming around the two English poets. Despite the remarks about consorting with Carbonari and fomenting revolution that the young gentlemen from Sussex had bandied about while laughing sardonically, Ned thought it perfectly possible that at least some of the men he had named in his report had come to Italy with none but literary interests in mind, and quite probable that all of them had far more interest in a potential scientific revolution than any petty political upheaval, but he knew that Gregory Temple would expect more details in any case. Indeed, he felt sure that Temple and his superiors would be very grateful for any information he could provide on the potentially seditious activities of “Jacobin exiles,” because it would soothe the suspicions of his Parliamentary masters that his and Ned’s present endeavors might be entirely futile. He frowned as he wondered exactly how he could fabricate some such details without causing any difficulties for Byron and Shelley additional to those that already haunted them.
Once he was in his bed, Ned found that he could not sleep, and not because his encounter with the young men from Sussex had been slightly discomfiting. His sense of anticipation was too teasing. This was not merely because he expected that his spying mission–which he so far proved rather dull–might suddenly become more thrilling, or even because the prospect of “renewing his acquaintance” with one of the great minds of his generation was so delicious, but because certain implications were beginning to sink in of what it might signify if Byron and Shelley really were intimately involved in the project that seemed to be taking shape in Robert Walton’s rented house.
Like every other man in England who considered himself a connoisseur of Gothic fiction, Ned had read Frankenstein, which purported to be based on letters sent by one Robert Walton to his sister and a manuscript transmitted with one of those letters. Because “Robert Walton” was such a common name, Ned had at first regarded the fact that he had been sent to watch a man of that name as insignificant, but the sight of the equipment that was being imported into the house, and his awareness of what it might be used for, had quickly convinced him otherwise. He had already guessed that Walton’s mysterious companion must have been Victor Frankenstein–or the individual called by that name in the novel–before he had any inkling of Shelley’s potential involvement, but he had also heard it rumored in London, long before Gregory Temple had sent him to Italy, that Shelley was the author of Frankenstein. He had dismissed the rumor at the time, because he was well used to the tactics employed by unscrupulous publishers to boost the marketability of works they published anonymously, but now he was forced to consider the matter anew.
Suppose, he thought, that there really as a connection between Shelley and Walton–that they had, in fact, known one another for some time, and that it was Shelley and Byron who had persuaded the inventor of the resurrection process to resume his experiments. His first success had obviously proved traumatic for the Swiss scientist, who, if even part of the manuscript reproduced in the novel was authentic, might well have suffered some kind of delusional breakdown. In the meantime, the exploitation of his discovery had been continued by other hands–but now, it seemed, he was ready to begin again. How secure, though, was his return to sanity and resolution? And what had become of his first experimental subject: the very first “Grey Man?” These were the thoughts that buzzed in Ned’s head as he twisted and turned on his pillow.
According to the gossip relayed with such relish by the young gentlemen, the rumors circulating in Pisa regarding the “Byronic conspiracy” were ridiculously wild. Some of the leaning tower’s more credulous neighbors alleged that the recent brawl had been caused by their leading an armed insurrection, presumably on behalf of the Carbonari, against the city gate. That was certainly untrue, in Ned’s judgment, but even the better-informed natives of Pisa seemed unprepared to accept that the gathering of the English company was what its members contended: a mere matter of assembling a company of literary men to found a new literary journal to provide a worthy showcase for their philosophically-inclined works. Given that Trelawny seemed to be an adventurer who had sought his fortune unsuccessfully in India, while Hay was an experienced military man, the explanation that Byron had put about did seem to be a trifle disingenuous.
Ned’s Italian was still patchy, and he found it far easier to communicate with other English and French visitors than with the local population, so he was by no means ideally equipped to be a spy in these parts. His unsteady command of the tongue had, however, enabled him to understand that the gossips in Spezia devoted the greater part of their consideration to the imagined conspiracies of the Roman Church and the Carbonari, often mingling rumors of either sort with perennial whispers about notorious banditti. Despite San Terenzo’s proximity to Spezia, and Lord Byron’s frequent comings-and-goings in the Bolivar, no one in the immediate vicinity seemed to care a fig about Percy Shelley having taken up residence within comfortable walking distance of Spezia’s harbor, and everyone seemed quite oblivious to the existence of Robert Walton–except for the other spy, who seemed to have been keeping watch on Walton’s house as interestedly as Ned, albeit from the opposite side.
Spezia’s “upper town” was much more generously distributed than the dense cluster of streets near the shore; it was arranged on a series
of natural terraces on the jagged slope. Walton’s house was set in a covert of its own, isolated from any other by at least 100 paces. The ledge on which it stood had once been a hive of industry, accommodating a small olive grove, which curled around the house on the eastern and northern sides, and a healthy herb garden as well as a rank of vines set against the wooded face of the hill, which reared up almost vertically 30 yards or so in rear of the building, but the war had put an end to its cultivation and the tiny estate had run wild while the house had stood empty for almost a decade. It was now very overgrown, the hedge along the road that ran past it having grown to more than seven feet in height. Ned’s natural approach to the house from the hotel was on the eastern side, so he usually stationed himself in a gap in the hedge, from which he could see through the olive-trees. The other spy, by contrast, set himself up to the west, often positioning himself high on the slope at a point where it was not so steep, hiding behind a rock. Thus far, they had only caught glimpses of one another in the distance, but Ned was sure that the other man had marked his presence just as interestedly as he had marked the other man’s.
Ned did not waste time wondering who his rival might be. Under the pressure of his insomnia, he did, however, waste time regretting that he did not have a copy of Frankenstein with him, and wishing that he had read it more attentively when he had borrowed its three volumes, one by one, from the circulating library. He had read the volumes swiftly and returned them quickly, in order to make the most of his subscription. That had, alas, been two full years before Sawney Ross had wandered into Jenny Paddock’s gin-shop, so Ned had not had the slightest grounds for suspecting that the novel might be based on fact. Now, he cursed himself for the haziness of his memory of the text.
In the story, he knew, Frankenstein had died on Walton’s ship in the Arctic, but that was obviously not true of the actual person on whom the character was based. The real man of science had vanished from sight, but his research notes must have been taken to Paris, where they had come into the custody of German Patou, then to Portugal, where Patou and Henri had conducted a considerable series of experiments but had failed to restore more than the most meager mental facilities to the vast majority of their resurrectees; nor had they enjoyed much greater success in that regard when they had transferred their operation to Purfleet. Had Frankenstein made any significant progress in the meantime? His single experiment had apparently been more successful than most of Patou’s, although it might also have gone seriously awry, if the accusations labeled at the Grey Man featured by the novel were actually true rather than the result of Frankenstein’s delirium or some ghost writer’s penchant for melodrama. Had the originator any grounds to expect, or at least to hope, that his new venture would produce far better results than Patou’s? If so....
Suppose, Ned thought, as he continued to turn over and over in his bed, his thoughts becoming wilder all the while, that he were able to insinuate himself into the conspiracy of English exiles. Suppose that the conspiracy extended much further than its presently-visible members, to include such “Jacobin scientists” as Humphry Davy, Joseph Priestley and Erasmus Darwin. Suppose that he could get himself onto Lord Byron’s payroll, reporting to the conspiracy on the activities of the English secret service and Civitas Solis. What a player he might then become, instead of the pawn his employers presently considered him to be! And why should he not prefer the conspiracy mounted by Walton and Trelawny to those to which he was currently affiliated, if they already had a better version of the secret of resurrection and the apparatus to begin a new series of successful experiments? They might, after all, be the destined custodians of a glorious future in which death’s sting was comprehensively drawn...
The man who now styled himself “Mortdieu” had evidently wrestled with the problem that had confounded his own maker, but his insider’s view of it had apparently given him no advantage. Now that he and Patou had joined forces, they might be able to succeed where each had separately failed, but that depended on the Outremort having found a haven safe from fearful and prying eyes, and the material means to continue their research. That could not have been easy, Ned judged–and in the meantime, the original discoverer of resurrection might well have laboring with all his might to make further improvements in his process. Even if the Swiss scientist really had been vengefully harassed, as the published narrative implied, by his first experimental subject, the fact remained that the subject in question had obviously recovered more intelligence than any of Patou’s subjects, save Mortdieu, and might well have offered Frankenstein a valuable clue to the means of generalizing that achievement...
Chapter Two
An Alliance of Spies
Eventually, sheer exhaustion forced Ned to be still. He finally dozed off, but his sleep was very light–fortunately so, as it turned out. Some little while after he drifted off into a quiet state, he heard a slight noise from the direction of his window.
Instead of sitting up and parting the curtains of his alcove in order that he might look towards the window, Ned remained exactly as he was, carefully feigning unconsciousness. He used his ears to measure what was happening.
Although his room was on the second floor of the hotel, Ned knew that its balcony was not inaccessible to a skillful climber, and that the shutters securing the window would not be difficult to unlatch from without. He listened to the tripping of the catch and the faint creak of the hinges as one batten of the shutter was drawn back. He heard the unobtrusive scrape of cloth on painted wood as the intruder slipped through the unglazed window, and the almost-imperceptible tread of slippered feet on the wooden floor.
Ned took firm hold of the dagger hidden beneath his pillow. Its blade was short, but that would not be to his disadvantage in the circumstances; the weapon would be easy to draw clear with a single fluid motion, ready for use. He had no idea whether the intruder was holding a weapon of his own, but he had to assume, for safety’s sake, that he was, and that it would be ready to thrust home at a moment’s notice.
Ned was not afraid, not because he had no respect for deadly weapons, but because he knew how ready other men were to underestimate him. Because he was only five feet tall, people who did not know him invariably assumed that he was both awkward and puny, but he was neither.
When the time came for him to move, he moved with great speed and great skill. He swept the other man’s legs out from under him and had him flat on the ground within a second. The intruder’s right arm was firmly pinned to the ground, and the point of Ned’s knife was pressed to his throat.
It was only then that Ned ascertained that the intruder had, indeed, been carrying a weapon: there was still a stiletto clutched in his right hand.
“Drop it!” Ned ordered, in crude Italian.
The captive obeyed, and Ned picked the weapon up.
In the wake of a single reflexive convulsion, the intruder had made no further attempt to resist, and now seemed disposed to be cooperative.
“You have the advantage of me, Monsieur Knob,” the supine man observed, in French.
The comment was ironic, and Ned was as displeased by its tone as its content. The remark told Ned that the other spy he had observed watching Robert Walton’s house had succeeded where he had so far failed, in identifying his rival. Not only did his adversary know Ned’s name; he also knew that Ned could speak French. To judge by his accent, French was not the intruder’s first language, but Ned–much to his chagrin–could not identify the man’s nationality from the inflection.
“Did you come to kill or to steal?” Ned asked, gruffly, also speaking in French.
“I merely came to talk, my friend,” the other assured him, implausibly. “The time has come to form an alliance. Since you showed no sign of approaching me, however discreetly, I decided...” He broke off as Ned’s left hand began rummaging inside his jacket, and sighed when the little man pulled out a sheet of paper.
There was too little light filtering through the unshuttered window to illuminate
the paper, but Ned only had to touch it to divine that it was one of his letters. His fingers sought the broken seal, and contrived to identify the broken half. It was the letter to Henri de Belcamp, which he had given to the courier on the approach to the quay. The other letter did not seem to be in the spy’s possession.
“I did not hurt the man from whom I took it,” the spy was quick to say, “although he was certainly annoyed to be relieved of it, and swore vengeance, as these Italians are ever-ready to do. I hoped that I might be able to read it, but I could not decipher it–the code must be a subtle one.”
“So you came to ask me to translate it for you,” Ned guessed, “bringing your stiletto to provide an incentive.”
“No, no, my friend,” his rival assured him. “I came to discuss a mutually advantageous division of labor. We are in the same business, after all. We cannot be everywhere at once, and while both of us are stuck watching Walton take delivery of everything he needs to furnish his bomb factory, who knows what Milord Byron and his Carbonarist friends are plotting? We need to find out where the bombs will be placed, and by whom. I am no more English than French, as you can surely tell, and I cannot speak to milord’s associates as you can–but I have information that you do not, and there is much that might be gained by our working together.”
“Who are you?” Ned growled.
“My name is Guido,” his captive said. “It does not matter who sent me, any more than it matters who puts money in your purse. We are two of a kind–I know that because I know that you sent a second report by a different route, presumably to a different master, although I was not in a position to interrupt the galloping horse to make sure. If we are to sell what we know to the highest bidder, we would do better to combine forces and act together.”
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