Frankenstein and the Vampire Countess Read online

  Spezia’s “upper town” was much more generously distributed than the dense cluster of streets near the shore; it was arranged on a series of natural terraces on the jagged slope. Walton’s house was set in a covert of its own, isolated from any other by at least 100 paces. The ledge on which it stood had once been a hive of industry, accommodating a small olive grove, which curled around the house on the eastern and northern sides, and a healthy herb garden as well as a rank of vines set against the wooded face of the hill, which reared up almost vertically 30 yards or so in rear of the building, but the war had put an end to its cultivation and the tiny estate had run wild while the house had stood empty for almost a decade. It was now very overgrown, the hedge along the road that ran past it having grown to more than seven feet in height. Ned’s natural approach to the house from the hotel was on the eastern side, so he usually stationed himself in a gap in the hedge, from which he could see through the olive-trees. The other spy, by contrast, set himself up to the west, often positioning himself high on the slope at a point where it was not so steep, hiding behind a rock. Thus far, they had only caught glimpses of one another in the distance, but Ned was sure that the other man had marked his presence just as interestedly as he had marked the other man’s.

  Ned did not waste time wondering who his rival might be. Under the pressure of his insomnia, he did, however, waste time regretting that he did not have a copy of Frankenstein with him, and wishing that he had read it more attentively when he had borrowed its three volumes, one by one, from the circulating library. He had read the volumes swiftly and returned them quickly, in order to make the most of his subscription. That had, alas, been two full years before Sawney Ross had wandered into Jenny Paddock’s gin-shop, so Ned had not had the slightest grounds for suspecting that the novel might be based on fact. Now, he cursed himself for the haziness of his memory of the text.

  In the story, he knew, Frankenstein had died on Walton’s ship in the Arctic, but that was obviously not true of the actual person on whom the character was based. The real man of science had vanished from sight, but his research notes must have been taken to Paris, where they had come into the custody of German Patou, then to Portugal, where Patou and Henri had conducted a considerable series of experiments but had failed to restore more than the most meager mental facilities to the vast majority of their resurrectees; nor had they enjoyed much greater success in that regard when they had transferred their operation to Purfleet. Had Frankenstein made any significant progress in the meantime? His single experiment had apparently been more successful than most of Patou’s, although it might also have gone seriously awry, if the accusations labeled at the Grey Man featured by the novel were actually true rather than the result of Frankenstein’s delirium or some ghost writer’s penchant for melodrama. Had the originator any grounds to expect, or at least to hope, that his new venture would produce far better results than Patou’s? If so...

  Suppose, Ned thought, as he continued to turn over and over in his bed, his thoughts becoming wilder all the while, that he were able to insinuate himself into the conspiracy of English exiles. Suppose that the conspiracy extended much further than its presently-visible members, to include such “Jacobin scientists” as Humphry Davy, Joseph Priestley and Erasmus Darwin. Suppose that he could get himself onto Lord Byron’s payroll, reporting to the conspiracy on the activities of the English secret service and Civitas Solis. What a player he might then become, instead of the pawn his employers presently considered him to be! And why should he not prefer the conspiracy mounted by Walton and Trelawny to those to which he was currently affiliated, if they already had a better version of the secret of resurrection and the apparatus to begin a new series of successful experiments? They might, after all, be the destined custodians of a glorious future in which death’s sting was comprehensively drawn...

  The man who now styled himself “Mortdieu” had evidently wrestled with the problem that had confounded his own maker, but his insider’s view of it had apparently given him no advantage. Now that he and Patou had joined forces, they might be able to succeed where each had separately failed, but that depended on the Outremort having found a haven safe from fearful and prying eyes, and the material means to continue their research. That could not have been easy, Ned judged–and in the meantime, the original discoverer of resurrection might well have laboring with all his might to make further improvements in his process. Even if the Swiss scientist really had been vengefully harassed, as the published narrative implied, by his first experimental subject, the fact remained that the subject in question had obviously recovered more intelligence than any of Patou’s subjects, save Mortdieu, and might well have offered Frankenstein a valuable clue to the means of generalizing that achievement...

  Chapter Two

  An Alliance of Spies

  Eventually, sheer exhaustion forced Ned to be still. He finally dozed off, but his sleep was very light–fortunately so, as it turned out. Some little while after he drifted off into a quiet state, he heard a slight noise from the direction of his window.

  Instead of sitting up and parting the curtains of his alcove in order that he might look towards the window, Ned remained exactly as he was, carefully feigning unconsciousness. He used his ears to measure what was happening.

  Although his room was on the second floor of the hotel, Ned knew that its balcony was not inaccessible to a skillful climber, and that the shutters securing the window would not be difficult to unlatch from without. He listened to the tripping of the catch and the faint creak of the hinges as one batten of the shutter was drawn back. He heard the unobtrusive scrape of cloth on painted wood as the intruder slipped through the unglazed window, and the almost-imperceptible tread of slippered feet on the wooden floor.

  Ned took firm hold of the dagger hidden beneath his pillow. Its blade was short, but that would not be to his disadvantage in the circumstances; the weapon would be easy to draw clear with a single fluid motion, ready for use. He had no idea whether the intruder was holding a weapon of his own, but he had to assume, for safety’s sake, that he was, and that it would be ready to thrust home at a moment’s notice.

  Ned was not afraid, not because he had no respect for deadly weapons, but because he knew how ready other men were to underestimate him. Because he was only five feet tall, people who did not know him invariably assumed that he was both awkward and puny, but he was neither.

  When the time came for him to move, he moved with great speed and great skill. He swept the other man’s legs out from under him and had him flat on the ground within a second. The intruder’s right arm was firmly pinned to the ground, and the point of Ned’s knife was pressed to his throat.

  It was only then that Ned ascertained that the intruder had, indeed, been carrying a weapon: there was still a stiletto clutched in his right hand.

  “Drop it!” Ned ordered, in crude Italian.

  The captive obeyed, and Ned picked the weapon up.

  In the wake of a single reflexive convulsion, the intruder had made no further attempt to resist, and now seemed disposed to be cooperative.

  “You have the advantage of me, Monsieur Knob,” the supine man observed, in French.

  The comment was ironic, and Ned was as displeased by its tone as its content. The remark told Ned that the other spy he had observed watching Robert Walton’s house had succeeded where he had so far failed, in identifying his rival. Not only did his adversary know Ned’s name; he also knew that Ned could speak French. To judge by his accent, French was not the intruder’s first language, but Ned–much to his chagrin–could not identify the man’s nationality from the inflection.

  “Did you come to kill or to steal?” Ned asked, gruffly, also speaking in French.

  “I merely came to talk, my friend,” the other assured him, implausibly. “The time has come to form an alliance. Since you showed no sign of approaching me, however discreetly, I decided...” He broke off as Ned’s left hand began rummaging inside his jacket,
and sighed when the little man pulled out a sheet of paper.

  There was too little light filtering through the unshuttered window to illuminate the paper, but Ned only had to touch it to divine that it was one of his letters. His fingers sought the broken seal, and contrived to identify the broken half. It was the letter to Henri de Belcamp, which he had given to the courier on the approach to the quay. The other letter did not seem to be in the spy’s possession.

  “I did not hurt the man from whom I took it,” the spy was quick to say, “although he was certainly annoyed to be relieved of it, and swore vengeance, as these Italians are ever-ready to do. I hoped that I might be able to read it, but I could not decipher it–the code must be a subtle one.”

  “So you came to ask me to translate it for you,” Ned guessed, “bringing your stiletto to provide an incentive.”

  “No, no, my friend,” his rival assured him. “I came to discuss a mutually advantageous division of labor. We are in the same business, after all. We cannot be everywhere at once, and while both of us are stuck watching Walton take delivery of everything he needs to furnish his bomb factory, who knows what Milord Byron and his Carbonarist friends are plotting? We need to find out where the bombs will be placed, and by whom. I am no more English than French, as you can surely tell, and I cannot speak to milord’s associates as you can–but I have information that you do not, and there is much that might be gained by our working together.”

  “Who are you?” Ned growled.

  “My name is Guido,” his captive said. “It does not matter who sent me, any more than it matters who puts money in your purse. We are two of a kind–I know that because I know that you sent a second report by a different route, presumably to a different master, although I was not in a position to interrupt the galloping horse to make sure. If we are to sell what we know to the highest bidder, we would do better to combine forces and act together.”

  Ned made sure that Guido had no other weapons about his person before allowing him to get up. He gathered both knives and the stolen letter in his left hand in the meantime, then used his right to strike a match and light the candle by the bed. When he stood up, Guido towered over Ned by an entire foot. He was no weakling, despite his leanness, but he made no attempt to renew their brief struggle.

  Given his black hair, olive complexion and pointed beard, Guido could easily have been taken for an Italian or a Spaniard, but Ned suspected that he might be from somewhere further east, perhaps as far as the bounds of the Ottoman Empire.

  “What do you know that I do not?” Ned demanded, expecting that he might get a few nuggets of information by way of inducement to enter into a compact.

  “I know all about the boat,” Guido replied, shortly.

  Ned knew better than to confess ignorance by saying: “What boat?” Instead, he said: “I know all about the Bolivar’s movements.” In fact, all he knew was that Bolivar was the name of Byron’s yacht, and that it sometime docked in Spezia.

  “Not the Bolivar,” Guido countered. “The Don Juan. She set out from Genoa on May 10, but was not delivered to Lerici until May 12, having been driven back by bad weather. Shelley and Williams sailed out to the Isola del Tino on May 18. Byron brought the Bolivar to Lerici to meet the Don Juan on the June 13, and fired six cannon-shots by way of salute. Both vessels then set sail for Leghorn, where the Don Juan was put in for modifications, including a false stem and stern. She was brought to San Terenzo today, very discreetly; she is moored within 100 yards of Casa Magni at this moment.”

  “All that may be true,” Ned conceded, “but I cannot see its relevance.”

  “Can you not?” Guido asked, raising a dark eyebrow. “I don’t know exactly how the boat has been modified, or for what purpose, but I do not think that Monsieur Shelley is any common smuggler. I would dearly like to know what cargo it is intended to carry, and to what destination–you might be better able to find that out than I am. In order to ascertain all this, I had to leave you to watch Walton’s house by yourself for a considerable period. Only you can tell me if anything significant occurred during that time.”

  “Indeed,” said Ned, in a neutral tone. “What, exactly, are you proposing?”

  “I speak Italian better than you do, and I am far better equipped to obtain information from Walton’s neighbors and anyone making deliveries to his house. You, on the other hand, speak English better than I do, and are thus better equipped to obtain information from the wives and servants Shelley and Williams brought with them. Shelley’s wife is confined to her bed, having fallen victim to a fever in the wake of a miscarriage; Madame Williams and the servants are in state of anguish. If Shelley and Williams are planning another expedition, I suspect that they will not be able to depart without an argument. What I propose is that I prowl around the Walton house for the next day or two, while you make inquiries at Casa Magni, and that we pool the information we glean.”

  This fitted in very well with the plan Ned had already made, but he was careful to give the appearance of being dubious. “I have been ordered to keep close watch on Walton’s house,” he said. “I need to find out more about his guest.”

  “I know that,” Guido retorted. “I know, too, that you have been given Trelawny’s name. You know that the conspiracy in which Walton, Shelley and Trelawny are involved extends much further than Spezia. One or other of your masters might send help, once they know that–but one, at least, will not receive your report in good time. I am already here–also alone, for the time being. Why should we not help one another?”

  “That depends who your master is,” Ned said, bluntly.

  “Have I asked you to name yours?” the other retorted. “What does it matter? Neither of us is a common soldier, and if either of us is bound by oath to a nation, he is not the kind of man to offer oaths with any great sincerity.”

  Ned did not bother to complain about that unflattering estimation. “You mentioned bomb-making,” he said. “Is that what you imagine Walton and his companion to be doing in their laboratory?”

  “If they are working for the Carbonari,” Guido said, “that is what they are highly likely to be doing. Infernal machines have become an important, if direly unreliable, instrument of modern politics. There is a new chemistry in the making, thanks to Messieurs Lavoisier and Priestley, and a new science of electricity too, thanks to Messieurs Galvani and Volta. Masters of artillery and ordnance all over Europe are taking a very keen interest in these new sciences. There are revolutions in progress in Spain and Portugal, while wars of unification are bubbling up in Germany and Italy. The Ottoman Empire will likely unravel completely if the Greeks win their independence, and the Americas are already in turmoil. Any man who can manufacture a more powerful explosive, or one subject to safer and more reliable detonation, is in a position to make a vast fortune.”

  “And that is what Walton’s companion is doing with his apparatus, in your opinion?”

  “I do not pretend to know the composition of all the compounds he has been importing by the barrel,” Guido said, “but I know that your Monsieur Davy has used electricity to isolate new elements, and that some of them are so volatile that they explode in sudden contact with water. As you must know, Monsieur Walton’s friend has a great many Voltaic piles at his disposal.”

  “Do you know his name?” Ned asked.

  “Perhaps,” was the guarded reply. “Do you?”

  “Not for certain,” Ned parried.

  “Well?” the other demanded, abruptly. “What do you have to say to my proposition?”

  Ned shrugged his shoulders. “I say yes,” he said, “while reserving my judgment as to what you might have done had I not disarmed you as you drew nigh to my bed.”

  “You did not stab me,” was Guido’s response to that, “for which I am duly grateful. You have my word that I shall not attempt any violence against you, and will defend you vigorously if anyone should attack us while we go about our work. I will swear a blood oath to that effect if you require it
.”

  Ned handed back the stiletto, but kept the stolen letter. “I’ll go to Casa Magni tomorrow,” he said, “while you keep watch on Walton. I’ll find you when I have information to exchange–but you had best have something solid to offer me, for everything you’ve told me thus far is mere vapor.”

  “Agreed,” said the rival spy, promptly, apparently having no suspicion of the fact that he had received no concession at all. “Bonsoir, mon ami.” He moved swiftly back to the window, and made his exit the same way he had come in.

  Ned closed the shutter and went back to bed, even though he knew that he would not find sleep again before it was time to rise.

  Henri will not be pleased when he finds out that his courier has been robbed, he thought, as he began turning this way and that on his pillow for a second time. That will serve to arouse his interest more fully than the actual message I had sent. I shall wait until the next scheduled rendezvous to repeat the information–by which time I might have a great deal more to say... or a great deal less.

  Chapter Three

  At Casa Magni

  The first thing Ned Knob did on reaching San Terenzo was to make his way down to the shoreline so that he might approach Casa Magni along the strand, on the lookout for the Don Juan. There were dozens of small boats pulled up on to the shore, some with masts and some without, and a great many small huts built to contain fishing-tackle and apparatus for repairing timbers and canvas. These afforded him abundant cover as he approached the house that Shelley and Williams had rented.

  Casa Magni was somewhat dilapidated, like many of the larger houses on the once-prosperous shore that had lost their former occupants to the effects of Napoleon’s war. There had been no major battles fought in the vicinity, so Spezia and San Terenzo were unmarked by the scars of cannon-fire, which now pockmarked so many European towns and villages, but the lingering effects of the war were not entirely hidden beneath the surface. The absence of violent defacement only meant that the subtler ravages of long neglect became more evident, putting a face to the dispirited quality of post-war existence. Seven years after Bonaparte’s fall, this region was still stunned, its convalescence hardly begun. The mere sight of Casa Magni would have made that obvious to the discerning eye, even had the mind behind the eye not known that the house had been rented to the English, whose tourist swarms had returned to their old haunts in greater numbers than before, exerting their strange cultural pressure with renewed force.