The Frankenstein Murders (16 page)

We three made our way along a labyrinth of halls to Victor Frankenstein's rooms. Mr. Witte, having first taken a large key from his pocket, unlocked and opened the heavy wooden door, which was reinforced with iron bands. The air was thick with dust stirred up by the opening of the door, and this was only slightly improved after Mr. Witte forced open the solitary window. The room was sparsely furnished with a bed, a table, a set of bookshelves that reached to the ceiling, and a chair. Everything was well-coated in dust.

“Before leaving for the north, Victor Frankenstein ordered that the door be reinforced and locked so that no one should enter. This room has lain untouched for years,” Mr. Witte explained as we looked about.

Mr. Witte then took his leave after saying he would have Magda, the housekeeper who had given us entry, show us out. Mr. Clerval chose to leave, stating he had business that needed to be seen to before the end of the day; he would meet me back at his home. I was not unhappy to be left entirely alone to examine the room.

My interview with the agent had ultimately provided far less information on the Frankenstein family than I would have wished. The agent's manner was polite, yet reserved — to the degree that he appeared reluctant to speak with me on matters related to his
employer's family. Whether his manner was one of respect or fear, I have yet to conclude. The fact of Mr. Clerval's presence during the interview left me with the belief that he had been a hindrance. Although he had left the questioning to me, I could not help but notice that Mr. Clerval's presence affected Mr. Witte's responses. Mr. Witte looked to Mr. Clerval before answering my questions; at times seemingly rehearsed, so carefully chosen were his words. Perhaps Witte would have been more forthcoming had Mr. Clerval not accompanied me, yet as the interview was entirely as a result of Mr. Clerval's connection and influence, the answer to the question is not worth determining.

Setting aside my consternations, I placed my full attention upon inspection of the room. Victor Frankenstein may have professed he was never visited with thoughts of ghosts or monsters, yet his rooms held all that was needed to harbour beliefs of supernatural menace. Placed well away from the inhabited rooms of the Frankenstein home, in one of the older sections of the house, no noise could penetrate the thick walls of Victor's room, making it silent as a sepulchre. The furnishings were fashioned out of a heavy wood that had darkened over time, and the walls, although painted white, lent the space a mortuary paleness.

This was the place young Victor Frankenstein had been occupied with exploded systems, mingling, a thousand contradictory theories. In this room, he had floundered desperately in a slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning. This was also the exact place where he began his search for the philosopher's stone to turn lead to gold, and for the elixir of life. Alchemy, the ancient art believed by some to be the result of a pact with the devil to gain knowledge. Did Victor make such a pact?

Upon the shelves there were objects that would have held the interest of a young scientific mind: the skeletal remains of various small animals such as mice and birds. I noticed a volume of works
by Agrippa, left on a place of importance on his shelves. This was one of the texts to have first set Victor Frankenstein on what was ultimately a treacherous and catastrophic course. I removed the text from its shelf and took it upon myself to browse through the pages, although I had become somewhat familiar with its contents through the copy provided to me by Sir Arthur Gray. Most interesting were the notes in the margins made by Victor Frankenstein's hand.

The writing often had more the look of scratch marks and so most of what was written was all but indecipherable, but I felt that with greater examination some words and phrases could be identified. If indeed the Frankenstein castle were sold, as it would seem was Ernest Frankenstein's intention, then the book and all the items in the room would soon be packed away and sent on to an unknown fate; certainly the book would be forgotten. With only the slightest twinge of my conscience, I took the copy of Agrippa's work.

One at a time, I examined the remaining books in hope of other such finds, but my efforts did not reward me with any more writings by Victor Frankenstein. What I discovered instead was a portfolio, tucked away behind a set of large volumes. Gently, I removed the portfolio from its cache and set it down on the table where I could undo its ties and inspect its hidden contents. As I suspected, the portfolio held a number of sketches, each with the initials VF and the date in the lower left-hand corner; each sketch had been drafted after Victor's return to Ingolstadt. The influence of his studies could be seen by the subject of his drawings. The sketches at the top of the pile were of human hands from various perspectives, with and without flesh. Some showed careful representation of nerve or muscle, while others represented the complex bone structure. Each successive sketch revealed a different perspective, or some new part of the body: the foot, the leg, the arm, the torso, the head. Every bone, sinew, vein, artery, muscle,
and organ had been included. To my eye and understanding, not only had Victor Frankenstein been skilled at drawing, but he had rendered in the finest detail, and with truly amazing accuracy, the intricacies of each body part.

Midway through the stack of pictures, the nature of the sketches changed dramatically. At first I could only gaze at them in breathless astonishment, my hand as if with a will of its own turned the pages over one at a time. Only after I had turned over the last one and stared at the back cover of the portfolio did the full nature of what I had seen truly impress upon me. With his artist's tools and skills, Victor had faithfully copied the pictures I had so recently gazed upon in another part of the castle. In the black and white of an artist's pencil, Victor had duplicated many of the family portraits, only Victor's renditions had one dramatic and startling difference. In each, the human figure was depicted in the same manner as his drawings of dissected body parts; Victor's family was the subject of his anatomical study. Alphonse Frankenstein's skull, the high cheekbones distinctive even without flesh, rested upon neck bones that emerged out of the rich clothing he wore, while his skeletal hands rested on the arms of the chair. In Victor's version of the portrait, Caroline Frankenstein's eyes held their mournful look as she maintained her lonely vigil beside her father's deathbed, but it was her fleshless body that seemed to be the one most fit to be interred. Elizabeth's loving embrace was wrapped protectively around William's smaller and never to be fully developed skeleton. The frail bones of his arms were wrapped tightly about her neck; his eyeless pits staring out at me. Victor included his own portrait in the collection, except he had made the horse and not himself subject of the anatomical study. Victor had altered the style of his dress by replacing the fine riding clothes with the heavy dark cloth of funereal dress.

On the last page of his portfolio, Victor had sketched his family's coat of arms. Like the sketches that came before it, the coat of arms was also subject to Victor's grotesquely imaginative alterations. The mountains and clear sky in the background had not changed, but the stately lion had been transformed into a demonic chimera, with the neck supporting a leering goat's head alongside the lion's, and the tail a writhing fanged snake. For countless moments, I stood as one in a trance, never once removing my eyes from the collection, even though the disturbing images had been turned away from me. Only the distinctive rap of the footsteps of the servant as she came to escort me out of the building served to break me from the portfolio's spell. Hastily, I collected together the sheets of drawing paper, closed the portfolio, quickly retied the fasteners, and thrust it all back where I had found it. My discomposure, however, must have been evident, for upon opening the door, the servant eyed me speculatively but said nothing. Instead, she locked the door behind us and wordlessly led me down the dimly lit hall.

Many moments passed before I had collected my thoughts again, and so we had almost reached the main door when I purposefully halted my steps, thus forcing the housekeeper to do likewise. She turned to me expectantly, the rustle of her petticoats the only sound in the deserted hallways.

Although fairly certain of her response, I asked the housekeeper why she had scrutinized my face quite closely upon my arrival.

“It was as if the dead had come to live again amongst us,” she stated, her frank gaze meeting mine.

I suggested to her that at the door she believed I was Victor Frankenstein. I hoped my words would prompt a response from she who had otherwise been entirely silent. Magda Zeigler pursed her lips together and her brow lowered; she scrutinized me even more thoroughly than she had when I first arrived. I was almost convinced that this time she would not answer me. Her head moved in the curtest of nods, giving me the only response I would receive to that question. It was clear that the idea of the return of her former master appeared to bring her no happiness.

Once again, the housekeeper was silent and I feared that I had gone too far with this highly circumspect servant and would gain no more from her. After a few moments engaged in whatever private debate she held within her own head, Magda Zeigler spoke again.

“Master Victor was a troubled boy in his youth, and remained so all his life. When he was in the house, there was a never-ending series of fits and we were all subject to his inconsistencies and demands. The other boys were nothing like him. Master Ernest was always out of doors and involved in sports, and young Master William was but a child. Poor, poor little Master William.

“I even overheard those who thought Mr. Victor was a changeling, for how else could it be that parents as good and as noble as theirs could have produced a child with such capabilities and who harboured such menace? Mr. Alphonse Frankenstein even knew and understood everything Victor did. Mrs. Frankenstein doted on Victor and could not bear for him to be punished in any way, but Mr. Victor's nature was set from the start. I could only pray that the father would continue to have enough influence to curb the son, and that Master Victor's schooling would change him for the better. His father ensured that any of Victor's indiscretions were kept in the same strict secrecy in which he maintained the rest of his life.”

I asked her if she had always been the housekeeper.

“At first, I was hired as nursemaid for Mr. Ernest. You will find no finer man in Geneva or anywhere than Mr. Ernest. And then I nursed his father to the end. Master Victor did little to comfort his father and a great deal to disquiet him,” Magda told me.

I asked her what Victor did to be so discomforting to his father.

“He married Miss Elizabeth, Mr. Alphonse Frankenstein's last consolation. But she would do as Mr. Victor asked. It had always been thus. She was in a thrall. Mr. Ernest was away when this happened and was not able to attend the wedding, so quickly was it undertaken. The couple left Geneva immediately after the ceremony. Then Mr. Victor returned to tell us that Miss Elizabeth had been murdered. I was in the hall outside when Mr. Victor told his father. I heard Mr. Alphonse cry ‘No! No! Victor, tell me it is not so!' There was more to it than bad luck, for death had a way of
following Mr. Victor. Great misery followed him wherever he went and woe to those most near and dear to him.”

I asked if she had overheard more of the conversation between Victor and Alphonse Frankenstein.

“No, for the rest of their conversation was much quieter. Not two days later the father was dead. Died of a broken heart, and who can be surprised.

“Once his father was dead, Master Victor was, if anything, even more ungovernable. He let go most of the servants, including Mr. Witte. He would stay up all hours pacing the halls and talking to himself, although not a word was distinguishable. Or he would sit for hours staring at the family portraits. One night, he built a big fire and burned almost every paper in his father's desk. The next night he packed a bag and left. I never saw Mr. Victor again.

“When the news of the death of his brother arrived, Captain Ernest returned the house back to some order. It was then that Captain Ernest discovered that his brother had sold off many of the family heirlooms and jewels, as well as furniture and paintings and silver. Master Victor had squandered it all and Captain Ernest was left with trying to salvage what he could, which is why the house at Belrive is to be sold, and this one too, if I'm not mistaken.

“This house is full of ghosts; who can blame Captain Ernest for not wishing to remain within its walls.”

I asked Magda to tell me the age differences among the three young Frankensteins.

“When Mr. Victor returned from Ingolstadt, he would have been about three and twenty; Mr. Ernest would then have been a young man of sixteen or seventeen; Master William, had he lived, would have been only a child of five or six years.”

I asked the housekeeper how she would describe Victor Frankenstein's relationship with his youngest brother.

“Mr. Victor left Geneva in the year after Master William's birth. He knew little of his youngest brother. Any understanding of the
child would have come through letters from Miss Elizabeth and the rest of the family.”

I asked her to tell me what she could of Justine Moritz.

“Justine was a good girl, but naive and not always the best judge of character,” she said tersely.

I had noticed that with each of my last few questions, Magda Zeigler's responses had become increasingly brief. It seemed that she felt she had said her piece. I had one more question that I wished to ask her before I left. I asked her who she thought killed William and Elizabeth Frankenstein.