Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

There was a dark stretch of the bank, beneath a foot-tunnel, to which I made my way. There was a slight movement among the trees and bushes that bordered the water here, and a barely perceptible sweeping sound suggested that something was walking there with slow and steady step. Something was keeping pace with me. Then I glimpsed him, in hat and cloak, his white furrowed face turned towards me for a moment before he bounded away. No other proof was required. He wished to see my tears, and perhaps to exult over them. Yet he also had some facility to anticipate my thoughts. Why else had he waited for me to come to the scene of his crime?

Once more the utter impossibility of revealing this to any living being left me feeling bewildered and abased. I would be locked away in Bedlam, where in the end I might even seek for madness as a relief from my sufferings. In my wretchedness, however, I began to sense within myself an unexpected purpose and a fresh courage. I would return to the workshop along the river, and wait for his appearance. I would question him. I might even implore him to leave for ever the scene of his desperate crime. I did not for one moment think him capable of argument, but he might be open to command. If I were his creator, he might learn obedience.

YET IT WAS MY DUTY first to visit Daniel Westbrook in his prison cell, and offer him what comfort I might provide. On the next morning I made my way to the New Prison at Clerkenwell, furnished with payment for his gaolers as well as books and wholesome food for Daniel himself. He had been placed in a cell below ground, and I was led down a gloomy passage way; it was lit by torches, and smelled of urine and fetid air. “More fierce than Newgate,” the gaoler whispered to me.

Daniel was in a small cell at the end of the row; he jumped up from his plank-bed when I entered, and embraced me. “It is so good of you, Victor, so good of you.”

“It is not good. I am not good.” I scarcely knew what I was saying, faced as I was with the unwitting and innocent victim of my own crime.

“You know what I am accused of?”

“Take your time. I fervently believe in your innocence, and will essay every means in my power to free you.”

“They say that I murdered Harriet, Victor!”

“Tell me what occurred.”

“I had gone to the Serpentine to meet her. We often walked there together in the evening. She was not at our usual meeting place. I was fatigued after my day’s work; I slept beneath a tree-lulled to rest by the sound of the water-but then I was roughly shaken awake. It was a party of the watch. To my horror I saw that my hands were smeared with blood. When they searched me at their office, they found a necklace in my pocket. It was her necklace, Victor. How could it have been in my pocket? At first they considered me no more than a thief or footpad. But then her body was found in the water. She had been strangled with the necklace, and had bled copiously from the nose. Who could think it, Victor? Who could accuse me of murdering her?”

“There has been some terrible miscarriage here, Daniel. Some wilful perversion of facts. Do you have a solicitor?”

“I have no funds-”

“Leave that to me. What are your circumstances here?”

“Look around. My only comfort is that the gaol is used for democrats and revolutionaries. But they have no fellow feeling for me. They look upon me with horror. As the murderer of my sister.”

As I stood in the wretched cell, with its floor of beaten earth, I resolved to use any and every means to save Daniel from the executioner. I believed that I understood the sequence of events. The creature, having committed the crime, had decided in his malevolence to throw the suspicion upon someone else. Or perhaps in some primitive sense he believed that he might avoid the guilt by placing it upon someone other. Who could fathom his reasons? Had he known that Daniel was Harriet’s brother, or had he come by chance upon his sleeping form?

When I took my leave of Daniel I glanced back at his dimly lit cell, where he seemed to be the most isolated and wretched being on the earth. And I had placed him there! It was my crime for which he was to be judged, and my doom to which he had been assigned. If I could have changed places with him, I would have done so without hesitation.

AS SOON AS I HAD LEFT Clerkenwell I made my way to Bartholomew Close, where my lawyer kept his chambers. Mr. Garnett had assisted me over the purchase of the workshop in Lambeth, but I knew from his own account that he also dealt in criminal matters. He was a man of sanguine complexion, full of pleasantries, and he listened attentively as I laid out the facts of the matter.

“Your friend,” he said, “is in a deal of trouble. I have read of the case, Mr. Frankenstein, in the Chronicle.”

“Is opinion against him?”

“Decidedly. But that is no bar to justice.”

He possessed a reassuring manner, which I caught at eagerly. “Can Daniel be saved then?”

“If it is within the bounds of possibility, then it will be done. Where are the husband and child of the unfortunate lady?”

“The child is with her sisters in Whitechapel. The husband-has retired to the country for some rest.”

“He is the son of a baronet, is he not? According to the Chronicle.”

“That is so.”

“Your friend’s position is all the more difficult. Will you join me in a glass of sherry? Cold weather, is it not?” He rose from his desk and, after pouring out two glasses, he went over to the window. “I get a very good view of the churchyard, Mr. Frankenstein. It is an interesting speculation how many lie buried there. Over the centuries, it amounts to a fair number. If they were all to rise again, I feel sure that the neighbourhood would be crowded.”

It was not a speculation that I cared to pursue. “Is there any chance that Daniel might be released before his trial?”

He laughed, in the politest manner. “Not the slightest possibility, I am afraid. Unthinkable. If he is innocent, of course, then the murderer is still walking on the streets of London. It is to be hoped that he kills again, in exactly the same circumstances.”

“So Daniel might then be cleared?”

“A case could be made. Do you have any doubts about your friend’s innocence?”

“No. None whatever.”

“What makes you so certain?”

I hesitated for a moment. “I know him very well. Violence is utterly foreign to his nature. Especially against his beloved sister.”

“But people are not always what they seem, Mr. Frankenstein. They harbour secrets. They work in the dark.”

“Not Daniel.”

“Very well. I will visit the police office this afternoon, and acquaint myself with the evidence in this case. Do not attempt to see the prisoner, if you please. You should not be implicated in this matter. I will be your messenger. The authorities know me well enough. In the meantime I suggest that you leave London for the cleaner air. The fogs are almost upon us.”

“But Daniel-”

“Nothing can be done before the trial. Leave me an address where I can find you.”

MY EXPERIENCES OF THAT DAY, and my encounter with Daniel in his prison cell, had left me exhausted. I returned to Jermyn Street where Fred had prepared me a dish of eggs and butter. “Have you seen the fiend in human form?” he asked me.

“What? What are you saying to me?”

I must have looked fiercely at him, because he recoiled from my glance. “The brother, sir.”