The Frankenstein Murders (25 page)

The monster has been described as having capacity for compassion, and the talent to conduct logical and well-thought-out discussions with both Victor and Captain Walton. Victor's conversations with his monster are almost poetic, and the creature is described as being eloquent and persuasive, as is its creator, but it also speaks the truth. Victor was eloquent and persuasive, yet not truthful; his words were elusive and evasive. The monster desired to be loved and included, and demonstrated intense anger when rejected. These are traits I would deem particularly human. Increasingly, I believe the monster a myth, and so the solution to the mystery of Henry Clerval's murder is very much human. This coincides with my earlier hypothesis, which has altered only slightly. I have always suspected that the monster was a creation of Victor Frankenstein's mind. Victor's claim to have created life from death is but a boastful fiction designed to redirect
attention away from the true happenings, and thus relieve Victor of his own culpability in the murders.

To identify and find the true human murderer, I needed first to find someone with connections to Victor Frankenstein and also Henry, William, and Elizabeth. The murderer needed to be able to move from country to country. The madman Dippel, and not some stitched together monstrosity, figures most prominently as the likely suspect. Dippel's madness, made worse by the grisly tasks set upon him by his master, caused him to attack Frankenstein's family in revenge for having been forced to defile graves by Victor, or having to kill to get fresh bodies with which Victor would carry out his experimentation. Dippel is now safely locked up in Dr. Bosch's asylum, and so the murders have ended. I can only wonder at Mr. Clerval's response to such a solution — that his son was not murdered by a monster made by Victor Frankenstein, but rather by a man made mad by the same.

Dippel is not the only one to carry the stain of these murders; Victor Frankenstein shared in his guilt. By allowing his own instabilities, fears, and volatile nature to prey upon the unstable mind of Dippel, Victor Frankenstein helped shape Dippel into the murderer he became. In this way, and in this way only, do I see Victor's hand at creation, and it is creation at its most destructive. I am almost entirely convinced that in Dippel I may have found the murderer. I must not set any solution as fixed until I have completed my investigation, yet this is the likely case.

Robert Walton was dedicated to Victor Frankenstein and upheld Frankenstein's story. The Captain must be brought to reveal that which until now he has kept secret. The Captain must be made to see that his silence is a greater betrayal to the living. He is the one who can best verify my theory, and although he has supported Victor Frankenstein until now, I expect that once Captain Walton is faced with the truth, he will confirm what I have determined. I shall have soon all I need to be able to confront and convict the murderer of Henry Clerval, and to bring justice to his father.

Freame,

With this letter I include a letter from Captain Robert Walton. George Clerval has written me and told me of your time in Geneva and that although you were together only briefly, he came to know you as an admirable and efficient man, driven to complete the task. George Clerval also mentioned some regret that William Moutton did not remain in Geneva longer. Perhaps he had hoped to speak with your assistant. George Clerval assures me of his belief that you will find the murderer of his son, and yet, I suspect he is not as optimistic as he would have me believe.

George Clerval is not a well man; unlike his frail wife, he does not show his illness. Our mutual friends inform me that since Henry's death, George Clerval has driven himself. This behaviour is likely in distraction from the unhappy truth. This investigation must go on no longer than necessary. I implore you to hasten it to an end. The investigations undertaken in Scotland, Ireland, Geneva, and Ingolstadt, while faultless, are disappointing.

The distinct lack of progress has made it incumbent upon me at this time to make known to you my own considerations. I thought of those bodies you witnessed revived after having been pulled from the waters of the Thames. They had been lifeless but for
minutes before they were returned to life. The bodies stolen from graveyards would have been lifeless much longer; revitalization would take a great deal more than bellows and electric shocks.

Victor Frankenstein was influenced by a German occultist, a Swiss mystic, and a German monk. Inspired by these men, Victor Frankenstein was interested in “the raising of ghosts or devils.”

Victor Frankenstein was a man of impulse with no thought to the consequences he would have to meet in the future. So caught up in the moment and his own interests and desires was he that he entirely disregarded the dangers of what he envisioned. His appalling lack of judgment has caused no small amount of misery and suffering to those around him.

The only person to have come near the monster and escaped with his life is Captain Walton.

I have met before others of Captain Walton's ilk. At times, his demeanour belies a complete absence of guile, and no hint of dishonesty, no stain of deception. In Captain Walton I see a man who too easily gives his trust, and gives it absolutely and unquestioningly, thus demonstrating a sort of desperation for companionship and understanding. This need in the wrong hands would be the source of a certain sinister sort of power over him. He believes too easily, and gives the gift of trust too freely, and yet he himself might be the one to pay dearly should the one in whom he has instilled his trust prove to be untrustworthy. He would also prove to be the last to believe that his trust was unfounded.

What is there to stop such a person, given such trust, from misusing the control and power conferred in such a situation. Control over another would be heady stuff that not one man in a hundred might resist successfully. One can only hope that the receiver of such trust has had a sufficiently sound upbringing and thus retains the moral and ethical fibre to stay any urge to misuse the power forfeited.

Lonely Captain Walton found a friend, and Victor Frankenstein found a follower and a believer to replace Henry Clerval. Frankenstein could use his considerable mental abilities to influence Walton. It was thus that Walton came to believe Frankenstein's story of inanimate objects made animate. You seek a man, a human man made by God and not by Victor Frankenstein, and that man is Dippel. Victor Frankenstein pushed him to murder once, a small child. After the first murder, the rest come more easily. Indeed, since Dippel has been safely locked up, no more murders have occurred. Go north, for Robert Walton is the man who will give you the information you need. I am certain of it.

Sir Arthur Gray

Many days have passed since I quitted Geneva, and yet I have had no correspondence from Mr. Clerval. No word from him may be even more telling, and can only make me wonder if he shares Sir Arthur Gray's disappointment in the progress of the investigation.

My task has been to investigate Frankenstein's story. I must identify Henry Clerval's killer and discover if that man lives still. In search of this information, I journeyed to Scotland, Geneva, Evian, and Ingolstadt. It is why I now sit writing in a small, dimly lit room with an inadequate fire.

I cannot help but recall the great fires we would have at home. On the coldest winter days, we would sit beside the fire in the library, my parents discussing domestic matters while my sister and I occupied ourselves with our books. No doubt Susannah and her husband and children, comfortably ensconced in their country home, are now involved in similar familial activities. And what of the little orphan who resides with them? Does he enjoy the warm pleasures of home, or is he made to feel the outcast? Memories and images come to my mind uninvited, yet I cannot make them stop. My desire to return to England increases every moment. Too long have I left the care and upbringing of my little son to others. I must set all to right. It is no one else's task but my own. To become a proper father to my orphaned child shall remain my greatest occupation. I brought the
child into the world and it is my responsibility to see to his care and upbringing.

Victor Frankenstein, too, brought to life something horrible, and the nature of the beast is far more complex than he would admit to Robert Walton, or even to himself. By bringing it to life, Frankenstein was indeed responsible for what followed.

Throughout my investigation, I have had the invaluable help of my assistant Mutt, without whom I seriously doubt that the case would be as far advanced as it is today. Professor Krempe and Dr. Bosch provided necessary information on the human body and mind. Yet I still am missing something. I can only hope that Captain Robert Walton and Captain Ernest Frankenstein will provide me with the insight to connect all the pieces of my investigation, allowing me to understand what really happened. With this knowledge, I shall undertake to apprehend the guilty party.

Mutt and I have begun our journey to Archangel. Upon leaving Ingolstadt we had some difficulty in obtaining horses, which detained us until the evening closed in, when we proceeded north by the light of a waning moon.

Victor Frankenstein began his pursuit of his creature north along the Rhine and eventually into Russia, by way of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Of the exact route taken by the monster, nothing can be known with any certainty, and we simply have not the time to undertake such a journey. Reaching Archangel expediently has become the greatest importance.

Mr. Edward Freame,

Through my sister, Mrs. Margaret Saville, I have come to know of your interest in the life of Victor Frankenstein. He was a great and brilliant man and the world has lost much in his passing. When I directed my sister to send Ernest Frankenstein my journal that he might know the true story of his brother's life and valiant last days, I believed that the sad and final chapter of my friend's life was over. The distress that Mr. Clerval feels over the death of his eldest son is understandable, but I wonder what the benefit an investigation such as yours could possibly be. It has been my experience that the sorrows life presents are unavoidable, but the pain eases and life goes on.

My time now is necessarily taken up with preparations for my voyage. Should you care to meet, I will do my utmost to make time to see you, and yet I doubt there is more I can tell you. You have read it all in my journal, nevertheless, I will make time for your visit if you feel it necessary. Much time has passed, and my memory does not always serve me well when recalling those days I shared a cabin with Victor, while my ship lay trapped in the ice. You would do best by returning to the story recounted in my journals. This, too, would save you the time and the inconvenience of travelling such a great distance for nothing.

Within a few short weeks I expect to be upon another voyage in the north seas; the results of this endeavour shall be more spectacular and its conclusion will burn in the minds of men long after. Like those great men who have gone before us in science and exploration, we shall bring to mankind a new kind of knowing and understanding of the world in which we live.

I remain,

Captain Robert Walton

About two o 'clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescope until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice.

The journey from Ingolstadt to Archangel was undeniably the most miserable I had yet experienced, and until then I had no idea of my previous luck as a traveller. Due to the wet spring weather, the post road from St. Petersburg to Archangel was pitted with cavernous holes that nearly swallowed up the carriage wheels, jostling those of us inside. Although the weather was not cold enough for the use of sledges drawn across the snow, it was yet inclement enough for me to wish for furs to wrap about myself and to keep out the damp. My living bones were chilled by the bitter cold of a day bleak with skies heralding rain.

We had barely travelled half the distance to Archangel when one large pothole jolted the vehicle, nearly breaking an axle in half and causing a great deal of damage to one wheel. It was all the driver could do to keep the entire coach from overturning. I could not, however, rejoice when it was remarked that neither the passengers, nor the driver, nor the horses were hurt. For there we were, surrounded by treacherous woods. We had no choice but to travel by foot to the nearest village for help. Soon after our arrival, a group of men from the village were dispatched to the coach, which they managed to bring back to the village. While they were thusly engaged, I determined that indeed no other means of transportation were available; I would certainly get no further until the coach was fixed.