That took Ned’s breath away. “I did not see you, sir,” he admitted. “The public gallery was crowded that day, and I was thrown out for heckling the prosecutor too loudly. I missed Tom’s speech in his own defense.”
“It was historic,” Shelley said. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance again, if we might be said to be acquainted when I have no idea what your name is.”
“I’m Edward Knob, sir, at your service,” Ned said, automatically.
Shelley looked around, as if noticing for the first time where he was. “Have I been here long?” he asked. “I seem to remember that I was on the boat with Walton and Taaffe.”
“You fainted, sir,” Ned said. “I happened to be passing, saw you fall and carried you to the nearest house–which, it seems, is your own.”
“You carried me?” the poet whispered, and then apparently felt ashamed of his own incredulity. “Well, sir,” he added, “I’m grateful to you. I received a blow to the head some months ago. It seemed to get better, but it was never entirely right. It became vaguely troublesome again a few days ago, but the pain did not flare up until I was on the boat. It was a silly thing, to begin with–some fool of an officer in the Tuscan Light Horse picked a quarrel, and it blew up out of all proportion. I was sure that the headache would fade away again, and I dared not claim that I was suffering–poor Mary in a much worse state than I am.”
Ned did not trust that judgment, although he understood that Shelley might have had little or no idea how his wound was faring, positioned as it was. “Was your injury examined by a doctor, sir?” he asked.
“Todd glanced at it, but he was more concerned about one of my companions, who was slashed in the face and bled fearfully.”
“He should have done more than glance, sir,” Ned opined. “The fact that wound has become infected probably has nothing to do with his neglect, though. Have you suffered another blow more recently?”
“Yes,” Shelley admitted. “I lost my balance when Williams and I took the boat out to a nearby islet. I’m not much of as sailor yet, I fear. It was nothing–or seemed so.”
“It might have been, had it not been for the earlier wound. I can clean it myself, if you’ll permit, but I took the liberty of sending your manservant for a doctor, and told him that the matter was urgent. I hope he will not go all the way to Pisa if there is a doctor nearer at hand. Your Dr. Todd certainly would not be able to get here before nightfall, and would likely be delayed until tomorrow.”
Shelley felt the back of his had with the fingers of his right hand, and winced. “Damn,” he said, softly. “On the other hand, this might change...” He stopped, and looked at Ned again, studying him carefully.
“You’re right, sir, in your estimation of me,” Ned said, cheerfully. “I’m not a gentleman, alas–but I’m a man bent on self-education, and this is the 19th century. There’s no reason why a man like me can’t take the Grand Tour in his own fashion, just as his betters have been doing for a century and more. And there’s no reason, too, why a man who has knowingly been in the same lecture-hall as Percy Shelley on three different occasions wouldn’t take an interest in his welfare as well as his work. When I said that I happened to be passing, I wasn’t entirely honest. The fact is that I came to see Casa Magni because I heard that the author of Prometheus Unbound was here–but I swear to you, sir, that I would not have dreamed of disturbing you had I not seen that you needed succor. You are a great man, in my opinion, and I would have been well content to catch a glimpse of you in the distance.” He laid on the flattery with the utmost care, because he was perfectly sincere in his judgment of Shelley’s worth as a radical poet.
“If you know me by repute,” Shelley murmured, “and have read my work, you know that you have no need to apologize to me for not having been born a gentleman. We seem to have interests and sentiments in common, Mr. Knob, and I am glad to meet you in person, so far from home. Are you staying in Spezia, at the English hotel?”
Ned smiled at the assumption. “Yes sir,” he said. “That is the ritual, is it not? We all stay in the English hotel, in the space marked out for us. It makes it easier for the townspeople to pretend that we do not really exist–that we inhabit some parallel world whose dimensions overlap with theirs, but somehow fails to intersect with it.” He cursed himself silently for trying too hard to impress, even though his listener was sick and weak.
Shelley did not seem to mind at all. “Even here,” the poet said, mildly, “one cannot fall down without being picked up to be a philosopher. You mistake the people though. They do not pretend that we do not exist, nor do the resent our presence. They are reserved by nature, and the legacy of the war has made them very careful. You might appreciate their discretion, if...” He broke off then, but not because he was too weak to continue. After a momentary pause, he resumed: “Thank you for bringing me home, Mr. Knob. I am in your debt.”
“Never, sir,” Ned was quick to say. “I remain in yours, as will every thinking man for centuries to come.”
“You’re too kind,” Shelley said, giving the phrase a more earnest emphasis than was usually applied to it.
“If I might ask...” Ned began–but he did not get a chance to formulate his question. The bedroom door burst open at that moment, and Robert Walton strode in.
Chapter Four
The Man of Science
Walton was alone. Ned deduced that the manservant had encountered him and his companion on their way up the hill, and that Walton had sent Taaffe on up the hill to his own house, while he returned to see to Shelley.
As soon as he caught sight of Ned, Walton stopped dead. Ned judged that his earlier anxieties had been well-founded; Walton had indeed caught glimpses of him in the vicinity of his house. He could not know for sure that Ned had been spying on him, but he certainly suspected it.
“I’m sorry, Robert,” Shelley murmured, while Walton was still dumbstruck. “I didn’t realize...”
“Don’t try to talk,” Walton cut in, speaking more harshly than the ostensible sentiment of his words demanded. “Who is this man?”
“Edward Knob, sir, at your service,” Ned was quick to say. “I know Mr. Shelley slightly, from brief acquaintance in London as well as admiration for his work. I’m staying at the English hotel in Spezia...”
“I’ve seen you there,” Walton said, interrupting brusquely.
“Yes,” Ned said, calmly. “You’re the gentleman who lives in the house behind the olive grove. It’s a shame, isn’t it, that the terrace has been neglected of late. Perhaps you intend to restore its fortunes?”
“That’s none of your business,” Walton said, “and I’d be obliged if you’d keep away in future. I took that house in order to avoid all contact with tourists and locals alike.”
“Don’t be so harsh, Robert,” Shelley said. “The man helped me. I know him–I saw him at Tom Wooler’s trial, and he attends Davy’s lectures.”
The latter item of information did not diminish Walton’s suspicions in the least. “You do not know him well enough to be sure of what he is doing here,” Walton said, bluntly. “I do not accuse him of being a spy, but...”
Knowing that he was about to be more-or-less politely dismissed, and that Walton would try to make quite sure that he was never readmitted to Casa Magni, Ned decided to take a gamble.
“In fact, sir,” he said, addressing himself to Shelley, “I suppose I am a spy, of sorts, although I am not here to spy on you. Everything I have told you is true, but I omitted to mention that I am in the employ of the government, directly answerable to Gregory Temple, of whom you might have heard.”
“Temple!” Shelley exclaimed. “Isn’t that...”
“The man who traveled with us on the night-coach to Dover some little while ago,” Walton finished for him. “If he was watching us then, he put on a very good performance of utter disinterest.” He frowned deeply. Ned was startled by the news that Gregory Temple had traveled on a coach with Shelley and Walton, but he had more urgent co
ncerns on his mind than wondering whether the detective had really been as uninterested in his fellow passengers as he had seemed. The seafarer’s mind was obviously working hard on the calculation of that probability, though.
Ned had to follow up on his decision. There seemed to be only one course of action open to him that might lead to considerable profit, and the knowledge that there was another spy interested in Walton and Shelley’s project increased his sense of urgency. “There are some things you need to know, sir,” he said, still speaking to the poet rather than the adventurer. “I mentioned to you just now that I met Germain Patou in London. I did not mention that I met him in the company of a Grey Man. I subsequently observed him in the process of resurrecting a man from the dead, and had the privilege thereafter of a brief interview with General Mortdieu. Mr. Walton has observed me taking an interest in his house, but he may not have observed the other man doing likewise. I cannot be sure, but it is possible that the other man is in the employ of the Sultan of Turkey; at any rate, he seems to believe that the research in which Mr. Walton’s colleague is engaged is directed to the manufacture of some new explosive. I, of course, think differently.”
The effect of this speech was, as Ned had anticipated, quite electrifying. Both men looked at him in frank amazement, mingled with desperate anxiety.
“Gregory Temple knows all this?” Walton whispered, his face having become very pallid. “And the English Parliament is sending spies to watch on us!”
Shelley’s face was still flushed, and his eyes, already bright with fever, took on a new fire. “The Turks are watching us?” he said, incredulously. “They think we are manufacturing infernal machines?”
“I cannot be sure that the Turks sent him,” Ned said, scrupulously, “but if not...”
“More likely the Italians,” Walton growled. “I knew that Tuscan cavalryman was acting under orders...”
Shelley had already moved on. “Where is Patou now?” he demanded, excitedly, reaching out as if to grab Ned’s sleeve, although he checked the impulse as soon as he realized what he was doing.
“I don’t know,” Ned told him. Looking up at Walton, he added: “Gregory Temple knows what Patou has accomplished and has seen the other Grey Men who were revived in London, but he knows little more than that. He sent me here to investigate a rumor, but I doubt that Parliament knows anything about it.” He turned back to Shelley, thinking it more urgently necessary to elaborate his earlier reply. “I don’t know where Patou and Mortdieu went when the Outremort sailed away from England, but their intention was to seek a quiet haven where they might establish a small colony. They probably headed for the Caribbean, but they might have decided to make their way to the Pacific.”
“If the English police and the Turks are both on our track...” Shelley began.
Walton cut him off again. “Say no more, Percy,” the seafarer instructed him, gruffly. “We must keep what secrets we still have.”
“It is too late for that,” Ned told him, gently. “Whoever sent the other spy may not know the truth, although it is entirely possible that his talk of bombs is deliberately deceptive, but Gregory Temple is not the only one who knows what your collaborator has accomplished. If the publication of a garish version of his apologia in the form of a Gothic novel was intended to deflect suspicion, the ploy failed. Any hope you might have cherished of resuming experiments in resurrection secretly was probably doomed from the start.”
“We have to get away from here,” Shelley said, in a low voice. “No matter how direly unsatisfactory the Don Juan and my sailing skills may be, or how much more time and equipment our volatile friend thinks he needs, we must act without delay. Byron must be told to bring the Bolivar.”
“Say no more!” Walton repeated. “I will show this man out.” He took a step forward, apparently more intent on throwing Ned out than showing him out. Ned instinctively braced himself, although he had no intention of putting up a fight.
“You shall not lay a finger on him, Robert,” Shelley said, with a slight hiss of anger in his voice. “This is my house, and the man came to my aid. I know him. I am prepared to swear that he was not at Tom Wooler’s trial as a government agent. He may be in Temple’s employ now, but he is not our enemy, else he would not have told us all this.”
“I am certainly not your enemy, sir,” Ned said, eager to confirm the fact, “and I think that you might find more friends than you know, if you care to stay here.”
“Alas,” Shelley said, in a low voice, “we already have more enemies than you know. Suspicious Turks fearful of Lord Byron’s intentions are the least of our worries. Can you be certain that the Outremort did not head for the Mediterranean?”
“No, I can’t,” Ned admitted. “That was not Patou’s intention, but if General Mortdieu is the man I took him to be...”
“No Grey Man is the man his dearest friends once took him to be, it seems,” Shelley said mournfully. “Did you, by any chance, encounter one in London named John?”
“This is foolish,” Walton complained. The expression on his face implied that it was not Shelley’s question that had upset him, but some other thought or expectation. Ned had guessed what his particular anxiety must be before the door opened again, to admit Shelley’s manservant and a second man. The manservant was carrying the bowl of hot water that Ned had requested, but he made no move to give it to Ned; indeed, he seemed determined to hold on to it.
Ned had only caught fleeting glimpses of Walton’s mysterious house-guest, but he had no doubt at all as to the identity of the man who came in behind the servant. This, he knew, was the greatest inventor of the 19th century: the modern Prometheus who had begun the conquest of death. The modern Prometheus was not, however, an imposing sight at present. It was obvious that he had once been handsome, and Ned knew that he could not be more than 30 years old, but his features had been rough-hewn by strain and he was showing signs of premature aging. He was the very image of a man not yet recovered from some long and taxing illness or some profound and enduring anguish. There was a touch of Bedlam about him; his eyes were haunted and his hands tremulous.
The man of science seemed more anxious about Shelley’s condition than Shelley was–but not, Ned judged, because he feared the imminent loss to the world of a great poet. The modern Prometheus seemed to be anxious for himself, afraid of the pressure that Shelley’s illness, if it were serious, might bring to bear on him. He seemed, to Ned’s curious eyes, to be extremely anxious about the possibility of being forced to action by Shelley’s misfortune.
If Robert Walton, Lord Byron and their co-conspirators believed that Victor Frankenstein was yet ready to resume his experiments with due mental objectivity and clinical efficiency, Ned concluded, they were reckless optimists. This seemed to Ned to be a man unready for anything at all: a man still firmly in the grip of an ongoing nervous complaint that had just taken the latest of many turns for the worse.
The newcomer barely glanced at Ned as he went to the bed and attempted to put on a show of examining his patient. The tremulous hands made a tentative gesture towards Shelley’s head, and the poet obligingly turned round to display the renewed wound–but the man who knew more than any mere physician barely glanced at it before stepping away, biting his lip. “If that infection should spread to your brain,” he muttered, in faintly-accented English, “the consequences would be serious. If the skull is actually fractured....”
“I do not think the skull is fractured, sir,” Ned said, quietly. “The infection needs to be contained, though, if possible. The wound must be properly cleaned and dressed, and the patient must rest thereafter.”
“It’s not serious, Victor,” Shelley put in, addressing the nervous man of science. “I wish you would go to see Mary, though. I fear that her condition may be considerably worse than worse than mine. That’s why...”
“I told Walton and Taaffe that I cannot do anything more for your wife,” Frankenstein said, petulantly, “and certainly cannot do anything for her
if... but yes, when I’ve cleaned and dressed your injury, I’ll look in on Mary, although I’m certain that she won’t be glad to see me, and I’ll do whatever I can to make her more comfortable. That’s all I can do, for the time being, no matter what happens. I can make no promises to you, either, on your own behalf. Patou went at the business with all the reckless force of a steam engine, it seems, and it did far more harm than good. I need to be careful.”
“There comes a point,” Shelley stated, quietly, “when there is no more harm to be done, saved by pusillanimous inaction.”
Ned had deduced by now what the argument on the boat had been about. “If you will pardon me for continuing to play the spy, gentlemen,” he said, “there is a question I still need to ask you. It’s evident that you are all perfectly familiar with Monsieur Patou, but do you know the man who brought him to London, and directed his operation there?”
All three pairs of eyes were turned to him, although Ned was convinced that the thoughts behind them were still elsewhere. “Are you referring to the Comte?” Shelley said.
“Yes,” Ned replied. “He is usually a Comte in Paris, although he is not always the same one. In London, he plays a different part, and he has other guises for use in Germany and Australia. I know that he is not involved in your own project, but I firmly believe that he would be more than ready to take an interest in it. If you need a useful friend, he...” He left the sentence dangling.
“The reckless force of a steam engine,” Frankenstein repeated, grimly. “Patou, I think, was merely caught up in the toils of the mechanism. Lord Byron...”
“Say no more, God damn it!” This time, Walton barked the phrase as an order, with all the force of a ship’s master. “Whether this wretched dwarf is the King’s spy or some mischief-making imp strayed from Satan’s kingdom, he has sown abundant seeds of worry and potential discord in our midst. Whatever we are to do, we must first get rid of him.”
Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror Page 34
