The Frankenstein Murders (23 page)

Our brief re-enactment at an end, Mutt moved on to inspect the room, to consider how the monster might have entered and exited the room without being seen. The windows presented themselves as the most likely route. With the sheer drop to the ground three stories below, and a sharply slanted roof above, it would have taken superhuman strength to use any of the windows as an entrance or exit. Mutt left to go outside and examine entry into the rooms from that perspective. Alone in the room, still seated on the bed, I stared at the lone splinter of mirror still caught in the cheval glass frame. One of my own eyes stared back at me — an eye filled with questioning. Victor Frankenstein described how the monster had come at him, but not that there had been an actual physical confrontation. If there had been such an occurrence, it may have been omitted in order to obscure the fact of the monster's aggression towards Frankenstein, particularly when he did little to stop the monster. Victor's first crime, after the creation of the monster, would be having allowed its escape.

The small table set on one side of the bed had another text upon it, but again nothing of interest or use to me. I pulled open the single narrow drawer, but it appeared that its contents had all been removed. Just as a matter of verification, I ran one hand inside the drawer to see if it had a false bottom or secret compartment. Instead, I found an envelope that had become wedged at the top where it had been overlooked. The envelope held a letter from Elizabeth to Victor. I checked the drawer again, as well as any piece of furniture, but no more such prizes were to be found. With a silent apology once again to Ernest Frankenstein for taking what did not belong to me without direct approval, I slipped the envelope and the letter it contained into my pocket.

Victor Frankenstein's laboratory in Ingolstadt was a scene of desolation, destruction, and decay. Our visit to Victor
Frankenstein's university residence did not convince me that he had accomplished the unimaginable feat of creating life from death. Even in Ingolstadt — surrounded by the most modern scientific thoughts and ideas, as well as equipment, and not some remote island in Scotland — what Victor Frankenstein claimed to have achieved still seemed to me to be unattainable.

My Dearest Cousin Victor,

How relieved are we all at the news of your recovery. Henry has most kindly continued to send us letters to reassure us of your condition. You have been forbidden to write, but now that you are so much recovered, we hope to receive word from you, and look to the post every day in hopes that it carries a letter from you. Both Uncle Alphonse and I regret not being able to be at your side, but his health has not permitted travel, and so I must look to him and little William. I am not at liberty to travel to your side and nurse you as I would like. Our consolation remains that with Henry in Ingolstadt we are certain of your having only the finest care he can arrange.

William continues as everyone's little darling. He grows more and more clever each day, and he has charmed all the little girls, although Louisa Biron has remained his favourite. In truth, I grow jealous of her myself, as she has caught the attention of my handsome little gentleman. Your father has bought him a blue coat and he walks around in it, ordering the servants in his most grown-up voice, as severe as he can be. The darling dimples in his cheeks give away his good humour, and all love him almost as dearly as I.

My Uncle Alphonse refers now to his youngest son as Good William, and truly the little boy grows every day more like his esteemed papa. With you at school and Ernest occupied with sport, it is no wonder the two have come together. Ernest is entirely preoccupied with plans for a career in the Foreign Service, and once you are returned, we will find holding him difficult.

It has been a month of weddings. Last week, Miss Mansfield married John Melbourne, Esq. They will honeymoon in France before returning to his home in England. Henry will be sorry to have missed them, but I believe he has some future plans of visiting England himself. Your school friend, Louis Manoir, has married the pretty French widow, Madame Tavernier, as was expected by all. Many friends were in attendance and they asked most particularly after you and your studies in Ingolstadt.

Our anxiety at your condition and continued absence from us has not been entirely relieved. I beg of you, cousin, to write us and to provide us proof of your improved health. Your father will be greatly relieved, I am certain, as will I. Your little brother William sends his love. Again, many thanks to Henry for being such a good friend to us all, and for his kindness in taking care of you.

Take care of yourself, cousin, and one last time I entreat you to write.

Elizabeth Lavenza

The cloud cover had brought a quicker end to the day, and the dimness and fog created a haunted, hazy environment as I made my way to Dr. Bosch's asylum, appropriately, if inconveniently, located in one of the more dismal parts of the city. As I walked, I passed alleyways, dark, dank, and narrow, only one other figure accompanying me, his footsteps slightly muffled by the accumulated filth that littered the ground. Slatternly women peered from doorways, some recognizing the man and knowing him disinterested in their wares, they drew back again into the shadows.

Dr. Bosch himself greeted me at the entrance to the asylum and took me immediately to his office. He apologized for having to delay our morning meeting and explained that he had been called away unexpectedly to arrange for the transportation of a new inmate. He also informed me of his background, how he had originally come to observe the practices of the man who had founded the asylum, and that when that doctor retired, Dr. Bosch stayed on. As completely and succinctly as I could, I divulged my interest in Dr. Bosch's asylum without entirely revealing my suspicions regarding his inmate Dippel. I believed the murderer that I sought was mad, for certainly it would require madness to strangle the life out of innocent victims as he did. I also explained
that I had reason to believe that one of his own patients, a man by the name of Dippel, was somehow linked to these murders.

The doctor sat in silence for a few moments to consider what I had told him before responding. At one point, he appeared to wish to consult a large, leather-bound journal atop his desk, which I guessed contained his own observations about his patients. After only the shortest hesitation, the doctor forewent any need to consult the journal, and spoke openly to me of his patient.

“Dippel is a patient who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is unique in his character and manners; often of a sanguine temperament, he has great physical strength, and suffers from remarkable fits followed by lengthy periods of melancholy. Since his arrival here at the asylum, I have determined to understand him as well as I can. This has proved to be no easy task, for just as I seem to be getting nearer to him, he withdraws and will not speak to me.”

“I have tried reducing his contact with others for a few days in order to observe if there were any changes in his behaviour. On such occasions, I have found him sitting, his eyes fixed upon an empty corner of the room, and his body rigid with fear. When we tried to approach him, he broke into one of his fierce rages and I was obliged to give him a strong sedative.”

I asked if I might see and speak with Dippel.

“Certainly, you are welcome to question him more fully than I have ever done with a view of making yourself master of the facts of his employ with Victor Frankenstein. I will caution you, however, that I wish to avoid keeping him to the point of madness. Even when he is calm, there is something ominous and disruptive in his manner. His periods of calm are nearly always followed by his rages. He had one of his rages not long ago, but now has grown quiet. Communication with him should be assured and safe. I must warn you that in the few times I have managed to converse to any extent with Dippel, I have met with limited success. He is often
beyond my professional reach, and I do not always understand his meaning or follow his thoughts.

“Come, we shall now go down amongst my patients,” the doctor said as he secured a large ring of keys at his belt.

As we made our way along the narrow hallways, shrieks pierced through the stout wall, mixing in the voice of a sweet female in song, which turned suddenly to nervous laughter, only to be broken by groaning and sobs. Terror, mourning, and mirth all within moments of each other announced the frenzied company within the stone walls and barred windows. Over these sounds could occasionally be heard loud and stern voices uttering threats as a means by which to restore some semblance of order.

Dr. Bosch moved briskly along the passageways. As I followed close behind, I glanced through the small windows of the heavily barricaded doors. In one room, an inmate talked incessantly to an empty chair, a long and drawn-out conversation, the words completely unintelligible, but with distinct pauses and gestures that demonstrated that the inmate was listening while the imagined presence in the chair took his turn in the conversation. A few doors later, the cell contained a woman slowly combing her own hair, her mouth open with a thin stream of drool running down her chin; time had not worn well on her face, and she had never been a beauty, and also those few teeth she had were badly discoloured. For all appearances, she was quite mild, subdued, and calm, and so I asked Dr. Bosch what might be the reason or purpose to her incarceration.

“This is Greta, and her condition is one that can be said to resemble Dippel's case, for as you will see, his behaviour has parallels with hers.

“At present, she is as calm as any person might be, but you would not have said that four days ago. As the moon shifts, so does Greta's mood. With the moon comes the shifting of the tides, and
if the moon can alter the seas, what effect might it have upon a man or a woman? We have come to recognize this phenomenon and thus are prepared and restrain her so she can do herself and others the least amount of harm. Not so long ago, she broke my assistant's arm, and you have seen what a great fellow he is. She smashed a bed frame into splinters. After a display such as that, she is insensible for days, near death. Happily, she is most often as you see her now.

“Once, we had a patient with similar mood changes, a man named Joseph who killed everyone in his family except his daughter, who had hid in the pig sty. With Joseph, however, we could not determine the timing of his fits. He did not move with the faces of the moon as Greta does. When not in the throes of some manic frenzy, he would sit as one devoid of animation, his eyes void of any life. My study of him had only just begun when, in a violent fit, he choked to death on his own tongue.”

Dr. Bosch had come to a thick wooden door, heavily barred in iron. He selected a key from the ring he carried and opened the door. Dippel sat on the floor of the cell, his legs pulled up against his chest, his body rounded and his arms wrapped tightly around his legs as if endeavouring to make himself as small as possible. His stature surprised me, as I had expected him to be a much larger man, but then much of his size he had allowed to waste away. As we entered his cell, Dippel looked past me. I looked round instinctively, but there was only one of Dr. Bosch's assistants standing at the door, ready to aid us if necessary. Then Dippel's eyes fell upon me and he gave a shrill, unearthly scream. He, too, had seen my resemblance to Victor Frankenstein; the memory brought him to near hysteria.

“Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!” the crazed man cried. Leaping to his feet, he stumbled to and fro continuously, until he tripped and fell flat upon his face, whereupon he took to crawling about on the floor. “Forgive me! Forgive me! Fresh, fresh, they must be fresh!”

Surprised by an unusual hoarseness to my own voice, I asked him what must be fresh.

“Oh, that's not for me to say ... not for me to say,” his voice was still more shriek than speech, and tears streamed down his face, down the fissures of his scarred and weathered visage. He then once again curled his body into a fetal position upon the floor and began a kind of desperate wailing as he pounded the back of his head against the nearest wall. The interview was lost; my presence had obviously driven Dippel into a fit from which he would not soon recover. Dr. Bosch was forced to sedate the stricken man.

“As a rule, he is one of our best-behaved inmates. At times, except for his extreme withdrawal from everything and everyone, he seems quite normal. When he suffers one of his fits, we can barely control him,” the doctor explained. “He has as yet never been violent towards anyone, only himself. His nightmares are so vivid they cause him to wake in the night, screaming in terror. We try to discourage them, as his cries in turn upset the others in the asylum, and we are invariably up the whole night trying to restore the peace.”

I asked Dr. Bosch of what Dippel dreamed.

“His nightmares never vary; they are the same every time. The dead have come back to him, rotten and in pieces, looking for the return of their stolen parts. In the rare moments when Dippel is talkative, he tells tales of badly decomposed bodies, or more precisely, pieces of bodies, and how he did his best to put them back together, but they had been badly hacked or torn to pieces and would not join properly. He has also been known to cry out ‘Rotten! Rotten!' Perhaps something someone said to him or his reaction to some disturbing experience he once had.”

Believing I may be able to identify the source of Dippel's nightmares, I commenced to tell Dr. Bosch more of Victor Frankenstein's laboratory and interest in cadavers.

“Collecting cadavers for Victor Frankenstein's dissection and use would likely have had an adverse effect upon even the strongest mind,” Dr. Bosch conceded. “Long before he was brought here, Dippel had become painfully thin and had developed an unwillingness to eat. He also has a horror of flesh, even it would seem his own. It is quite conceivable that he had been coerced into performing tasks that were abhorrent to him and that pushed him into madness.”