Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

After our first glass I ventured upon the matters that most interested me. “Selwyn,” I said, “has mentioned that you worked with Mr. John Hunter.”

“Of blessed memory, sir. He was the finest surgeon in Europe. He could unblock a stricture in minutes. There was no one like him for a hernia.”

“Tell him about your fistula, Father.”

“He condescended to treat me, sir, when I had the complaint. He was in and out before I knew it.”

“But you must have suffered pain, Mr. Armitage.”

“Pain was nothing to me, Mr. Frankenstein. Not when I was in the hands of the master.”

“The whole world has been informed of his experiments,” I said.

“They were wonderful to behold, sir.”

“Did he not attempt to freeze creatures and then to revivify them?”

“He practised upon dormice, but without success. But I recall once that he froze the comb of a rooster. They fall off, you know, in hard frosts.”

“But he believed that he might pursue the same course with humans, did he not?”

“Now that, Mr. Frankenstein, is an interesting question.” The old Mr. Armitage went to the inner door and called to his wife, who brought down another bottle of port wine. “He held much the same opinion as you, sir, on some matters. That is why my son mentioned you in the first place. Mr. Hunter put his faith in what he called the vital principle. He was of the opinion that it might linger in the body for an hour or more after death.”

“And then could be revived.”

“That is so.”

“I read a curious account in the Gentleman’s Magazine,” I said, “about the attempt to restore Dr. Dodd.”

“That account was not accurate, sir, as far as I remember it. We did not put him in a warm bath. It would have had little effect.”

“But Mr. Hunter tried other means of restoring him to life, did he not?”

“After he was cut down from the gallows, he was brought to Mr. Hunter’s house in Leicester Square at the gallop. We chafed the body to revive its natural heat, while Mr. Hunter tried to inflate the lungs by means of a bellows. But he had been left swinging at Tyburn for too long. Then, sir, he tried your method. He gave the body a series of sharp shocks from a Leyden jar. But Dodd was quite inert.”

“I believe, Mr. Armitage, that your level of electrical power was too low. No jar could effect a restoration of life. You need great force to succeed.”

“Do you have that power, sir?”

I grew more wary. “One day,” I replied, “I hope to achieve it.”

“Ah. A dream. Mr. Hunter used to say that an experimenter without a dream is no experimenter at all.”

“And he never gave up his experimenting?”

“He did not. He would take a tooth from a healthy child, and plant it in the gum of one who needed it. He tied it with seaweed.”

“That must have been a very remarkable operation.”

“Oh, sir, that was nothing to him. He could put the testis of a cockerel into the belly of a hen, and see it grow.”

“I have heard,” I said, “that his dissecting room was always full of observers.”

“Crowded, sir. He was a great draw to the students. He could open up a subject in seconds.”

“That must have been very gratifying.”

“It was a pleasure to see. He was a lovely man with a knife.”

“You must enlighten me on one thing, Mr. Armitage. How many subjects did he-”

“There was a regular supply.” He took another glass of the port wine, and looked at his son.

“You can tell him, Father.”

“In London, sir, there are always more dying than being born. That is a fact. There is no room for all of them. The churchyards are bursting.”

“Yet he must have found a source.”

“I tell you this in the strictest confidence, sir. Mr. Hunter was the resident surgeon at St. George’s Hospital. Can you bring us another bottle, Selwyn? He had the keys of the dead house there. Have I said enough?”

“But he must have dissected some thousands. Surely not all came from one place?”

“You are entirely correct, sir. Not all of them could have done.” I waited impatiently as Selwyn Armitage came into the room with a fresh bottle, and began to pour the wine into his father’s glass. I declined the offer. “Have you heard of the Sack ’ Em Up Men?”

“I do not believe so. No.”

“Resurrectionists. Doomsday Men.” I knew precisely what he meant, of course, but I feigned ignorance for the sake of further enlightenment. “These are the men who rob the graves of their dead. Or they enter the charnel houses and filch their victims. It is not a delicate trade, Mr. Frankenstein.”

“Yet it is necessary, sir. I have no doubt of that.”

“How else are we to progress? Would Mr. Hunter have been able to complete his work on the spermatic cord?”

“I think not.”

“They were very expensive.” He drained his glass, and held it out to his son. “A guinea, or more, for a body. A child was priced by the inch. Will you oblige me, Selwyn? Yet the best of them were very expert. The subject had to be delivered after rigor mortis had passed, but before wholesale corruption. And they had to escape the attention of the mob.”

“The mob,” Selwyn said, “was worse then.”

“They would have been killed on the spot, Mr. Frankenstein. Torn limb from limb. The mob hated resurrectionists.”

“You speak of them in the past tense, sir. But surely they still pursue their trade? The market must be as thriving as ever.”

“I do not doubt it. The medical schools have grown to enormous size.”

“Do they haunt the same places?”

“The graveyards? Of course. There is a paupers’ graveyard in Whitechapel-”

“No. I mean their places of business. Where they meet their clients. Where they are paid.”

“They are paid at the back door, sir. Every hospital has one.”

“Yet they must meet.”

“They meet to drink. Drink is their life. Not one of them could do the work sober. I have seen some of them, sir, sitting in a tavern from dusk until dawn.”

“What tavern is that?”

“The most celebrated of them all, Mr. Frankenstein.” He slowly drank the full glass, and held it out for more. “It is in Smithfield. Just opposite St. Bartholomew’s. Now there is a meat market.”

THE SMITHFIELD TAVERN was not difficult to find. I left Jermyn Street at dusk, and the carriage set me down at Snow Hill soon afterwards; I walked up to St. Bartholomew’s just as its clock was striking seven, and on my left hand I could see a low public house with the sign of The Fortune of War. It showed the deck of a naval frigate, with an officer dying in the arms of his comrades. I could hear it, too, with the noise of song, laughter and raised voices echoing against the stone wall of the hospital. I steeled myself, making sure that my purse of guineas was well concealed beneath my shirt, and entered the premises.

The smell was very strong. I could not help but associate it with dead things, although I knew that it came from the living; the taint of dirty flesh was in the air, mixed with the odours of the privy and the smell of strong spirits. I was of course accustomed to foul odours, in my work, and I registered no discomfort at all. I made my way to the wooden counter, and ordered a glass of porter. I decided to settle, and make myself as conspicuous as possible; I had no desire to be taken as a government spy, and I did not retreat into a corner. I stayed by the counter and, by remarking loudly upon the weather, made sure that my accent was heard by those around me. But they evinced little interest, being in most cases reduced to the last stages of intoxication, and after a while I was able to look around without drawing any particular attention to my presence. There were solitary drinkers, bent over their bottles and tankards; I observed that one had urinated upon the floor, of plain deal planks, without provoking any comment. In Geneva we have chamber pots in the corners of our taverns. My notice was attracted by a company of men, sitting in one alcove; all of them were smoking from the long, thin pipes that I thought were out of use. They were silent, and contemplative, in the extreme. For a moment I conceived the notion that they were the resurrectionists I sought. I discovered later that they were the pure-finders whose trade was to collect the excrement of dogs, horses and humans from the thoroughfares of the city.