Free The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd Page A

been no sensations. They were more active in London, where they dug up the fresh bodies of the lately dead and sold them for large sums to the medical schools. “Dr. Hunter was obliged to use their services?”
    Armitage nodded. “Reluctantly. He told my father that if these purloined bodies helped to restore life to others, then he could not wholly regret their use.”
    “Life for death is a good bargain.”
    “You would be welcome on Cheapside, Mr. Frankenstein. My father agreed with you, and helped to negotiate with the men of the resurrectionist profession. He came to know them very well. He said that not one of them was ever sober.”
    “You say that they work still?”
    “Of course. It is a family trade. They frequent certain inns, where they can be persuaded to—” He raised his hand to his lips, in a gesture of drinking. “Unfortunately there was a trial of one of them, for the theft of a silver crucifix from one of the bodies. He blabbed out the name of Dr. Hunter.”
    “And then?”
    “It passed over quickly enough. But there was a pamphlet with his name linked to the vampire. You have heard of this entity, Mr. Frankenstein?”
    “It is a Magyar superstition. Of no interest.”
    “I am glad to hear it. It concerned Dr. Hunter at the time, but his work carried him forward.”
    “His work was his life.”
    “Yes, indeed. You are very perceptive, if I may say so.” He took some more wine. “You said that you were studying the workings of human life. May I ask what particular aspect interests you?”
    I believe that I hesitated for a moment. “I am concerned with the structure of all animals endued with life.”
    “To what purpose?”
    “I mean to discover the source of that life.”
    “But this would include the human frame?”
    “I am determined to proceed by degrees, Mr. Armitage.”
    “In such a vast undertaking, that is proper. I believe that only a young man could conceive such a scheme. It is tremendous. I would very much like to introduce you to my father.”
    “Certainly. I would like to see his eyes.”
    He laughed aloud at this, and clapped me upon the back again as if I were the best fellow in the world. “And so you shall. But beware. His look is very keen.”

BY THE TIME I ARRIVED IN GENEVA I was sore and weary; the journey across France had been a difficult one, made infinitely more uncomfortable by the heavy rain that started as soon as the coach had left Paris. Only my eagerness to see my sister kept up my spirits. My father’s house was in the Rue de Purgatoire, just below the cathedral; he had purchased it many years previously, for his business dealings in the city, and I knew the neighbourhood very well. A local boy acted as my porter, and I hurried ahead through the familiar steep streets above the lake.
    I was met by a house of silence. Eventually, after my repeated knocking, a young maidservant came to the door. I did not recognise her, and the slow-witted girl did not seem to know that there was such a thing as the son of the household. By dint of my long explanations, in her native dialect, reluctantly she allowed me to enter the house. Perhaps she discerned some resemblance between myself and Elizabeth. I learned from her that my sister was staying in a sanatorium in Versoix, a small town by the shore of the lake, and that my father had taken a villa there to be near her. It was too late to think of travelling and, in my exhaustion, I chose a bedchamber almost at random before sinking into a profound sleep.
    The next morning I set out on foot to Versoix. It was no more than two or three miles along the shore, and I took advantageof the fine weather to savour my return to my native land. It was pleasant to recall the quietness and good nature of my countrymen, especially after the surliness of the English, and of course the landscape of the mountains was infinitely superior to that of Oxford where the vaporous Thames and Cherwell are the only distinctive features. I