“No, sir!” Giant hands grabbed my shoulder, turned me toward the door. “Not that way.” The servant led me from the chair, directing me back the way I had come.
The ground floor hall was lighted now, with electric sconces illuminating the line of paintings that I had hurried past on my way to meet my mysterious saviour. Most of the art depicted scenes similar to those in the upstairs hall, but one was different, the portrait of a man with delicate features, rendered in the romantic style of the Regency Era. It depicted a young scholar seated amid old-world ruins: a crumbling arch, fallen walls, distant mountains. A journal lay open on his lap. He held a finger to his head, thinking as he peered from the painted canvas: wide brown eyes, straight nose, pensive lips, pale skin. I knew those features, having seen them before in the faces of God in the upstairs paintings. But there was something else….
I stepped closer, reading the inscription:
The servant watched from the library arch, peering at me from around the doorframe. The lights were still on behind its massive head, but, as the opening stood at a right angle to the hall, I could not see the room, only the light spilling from the arch.
“Do you need anything?” the servant asked.
I pointed to the painting of the young scholar. “Who is this?” I asked.
“The master’s father, sir.”
So that was it. M Adam’s paintings of God the creator had been modelled on the likeness of his own father. Yet I sensed there was more meaning here, a more poignant connection.
“What was the father’s name?” I asked
“It was Victor, sir.”
“Victor Adam?”
“No, sir,” the servant said. “Adam is what the master calls himself. It is not a family name. The father was Victor Frankenstein.”
Yes, that was it!
I looked at the face in the painting, recognizing the wan complexion of the audacious Genovese student whose autobiography had caused a sensation in the early part of the century.
I knew the story.
Victor Frankenstein had died on board an arctic vessel. He had been 27, widowed, childless, and obsessed with tracking down and destroying an artificial man of his own design.
I considered these things, wondering if it were possible that my host, the man who had restored my life, might be the artificial man described in the young scholar’s book. But that artificial man — or creature, for surely such a thing could not be considered a man — had supposedly died in the arctic along with his creator. And even if the creature had survived, the events recounted in the scholar’s book had taken place over a century ago. The creature, if it still lived, would hardly resemble the hearty, dark-skinned man I had just met in the library. And there was something else, the matter of size. One of the most striking details from the scholar’s book had been the creature’s stature — eight feet tall, according to the text.
The man I had just met was of average height. Or so he had seemed.
“Excuse me, sir.” The servant sounded impatient. “May I help you to your room?”
“No.” I turned from the painting. “But I should like to have another look in that library.”
“Sorry, sir.” The servant stepped into the hall, not blocking my way, but letting me see that he was prepared to do so if necessary. Even if my body were not battered and sore, I would be no match for those orangutan arms.
“Some questions, then,” I said. “Will you answer some questions?”
“Sorry, sir. I believe my master wants you to find those on your own.” And with that he stepped back through the arch and swung the door closed from the inside. The hall rang with the click of an engaging latch, leaving me alone with a clear sense of what I needed to do.
I turned and shuffled toward the stairs.
My bad leg was throbbing by the time I reached my room. I opened the pharmaceutical case, finding that it held a hypodermic syringe and six glass vials of morphine. I opened one of the vials, filled the syringe, and placed it back inside the holder. I did not secure the clasps, but instead simply folded the case closed before slipping it into the pocket of my coat. Next I checked the pistol, opening the gate to make sure it was satisfactorily armed. Then I closed it again, aligning the hammer with the empty chamber. Finally, I opened my smoking kit, removed my pipe tools, and left the room.
The lights in the upstairs hall were much dimmer than before. M Adam no longer needed me to see the paintings. I realized, as I hurried past them, that he had been playing many moves ahead of me the entire night. Now, descending the stairs, I resisted the urge to think that I had gained on him. Chances were he was still playing me, manoeuvring from a position of strength.
The door to the library was still closed. I looked through the keyhole. All the lights were still on.
Using my pipe tools (the spoon to apply torque while the poker worked the pins) I picked the lock and opened the door. Then I entered. The chair and velvet rope stood as before, their careful arrangement pointing to the room’s sole purpose — not as a library, but as something far more specialized.
I closed the door behind me and stepped forward, past the ropes and toward the centre of the room. With each step, the room changed. Shelves that had appeared parallel when viewed from the chair now appeared out of plumb. Likewise, framed paintings lost their squared corners, becoming trapezoids. And the floor, which had appeared level from the edge of the room, now sloped downward beneath a rising ceiling. These realities, which had previously been masked by both the precise positioning of the chair in which I had been sitting and the carefully controlled lighting of the room, were now plainly obvious.
M Adam’s chair grew as I approached it, towering over me. I reached up to grasp its armrest, resting my leg as I looked at the door through which M Adam had entered the room. I now saw that the opening had indeed been designed to accommodate a man of gigantic stature, easily eight-foot tall, possibly more.
I was still contemplating the significance of it all when someone called from the short end of the room. The voice rang out, musical but nonetheless threatening. Looking around, I saw the servant standing near the hallway door. The same slanted lines that had reduced M Adam to normal proportions now expanded the servant to gigantic size. More than ever, he resembled one of those jungle orangutans, with a massive body dwarfed only by the size of its gigantic head and arms.
“You were told not to return here!” the servant said.
“Yes.” I stepped away from the chair, steadying myself on both legs, trying not to look as wounded and vulnerable as I felt. “I was told that, but I was goaded to the contrary.” I reached into my pocket and removed the pharmaceutical case, hiding it behind the chair while the servant started toward me, steadying itself on giant arms as the floor sloped downward. The monster seemed to shrink as it moved, but the loss of stature did nothing to allay the threat. By the time the beast man had reached the centre of the room, it was charging.
I gripped the syringe, waiting until the thing was almost on me. Then I swung the needle around, jabbed it deep, and squeezed the plunger. By then the huge hands had grabbed me, throwing me down, pinning me to the floor beside the doorway. For a moment I flashed to my last memory of Reichenbach Falls, being pinned against a high ledge with a madman straddling my chest. My training in the eastern arts had served me then. I had been able to use my opponents force against him. But here the opposing weight was too great. I was at the mercy of the beast man, helpless to resist as it grabbed me tight and lifted me from the floor. Then, as it prepared to throw me across its back and carry me from the room, its face went slack. In a blink, we were both falling: beast man crashing against the base of the chair, me landing atop him.
My hip spasmed. I rolled away, forced myself into a crouch, and tried standing. The pain intensified. I slumped back against the chair, bracing myself while the servant breathed noisily, lying on its back, eyes open but seeing nothing.
The syringe and case had fallen near the chair. I crawled toward them. Nothing was broken, but still I resisted taking an injection, using my will to ignore the pain as I stood, crossed to the gigantic doorway, and entered the space within.
