The Hammer Horror Omnibus (26 page)

“How long before he shows any signs of animation?”

“An hour or so,” I said. “When he regains consciousness, his brain will take some time to adjust itself to his new body. He must have complete rest, and avoid any abrupt or violent movement. As a precaution I shall keep him strapped down for a few days.”

“It was a superb operation, Doctor,” said Hans with heartwarming respect in his voice.

I bowed my thanks. This was only the beginning of our work together, and I felt that I had chosen a worthy assistant—though it was rather a case, I thought ruefully, of his choosing me.

The chimpanzee began to chatter in his corner. We had forgotten all about him for many hours now. Feeding him had been one of Karl’s duties, but Karl would not be in a position to carry this out for some time. I took some raw meat on a dish from the store cupboard and fed it in to Otto, who pounced greedily on it.

Otto himself had played a not inconsiderable part in the developments which led up to my final creation of a man. For my first experiment with a live brain I had used reptiles. I removed the brain from a lizard and replaced it with that of a frog. The lizard attempted to jump but this, of course, was physically impossible. It would have been interesting to see whether in the fullness of time it was able to adapt to this; but such a line of research was not my immediate concern. My theory had been proved: the brain continued its normal function regardless of its environment. Eventually I used anthropoids, and gave Otto the brain of an orangutan. The success of the transplanting gave me the courage to go on. Not only was I able to avoid the mistakes that had almost resulted in my death after my first experiments in my home: my dexterity had improved over the years, and I did not see how anything could go wrong this time.

I turned back to Hans.

“We can’t leave our new friend here. I want to keep him under constant observation, and I really can’t make the journey out here several times a day. We must get him to the Hospital. There’s an attic room we can use.”

“Won’t that be dangerous?”

“I’ll ensure that nobody can get in.”

“I was thinking of
him,”
said Hans. “So soon after the operation . . .”

“We’ll take good care of him.”

Hans, on my instructions, rode swiftly to a nearby private hospital in which I frequently installed some of my wealthier patients. He harnessed a horse to the ambulance and brought it rattling through the streets to the City Gate. We transferred Karl on a stretcher from the laboratory to the ambulance, and drove off before the watchman on his rounds could grow too inquisitive.

On one corner a loose cobblestone threw the vehicle to one side and I had difficulty in steadying the stretcher. Hans drove as carefully as possible, but the streets of Carlsbruck had not been designed for the smooth transport of delicate mechanisms—which is what, in his present state, the new Karl Werner was.

I was thankful when we reached the Workhouse Hospital. Dawn was already a chalky smear in the eastern sky. The city would soon be awakening.

We carried Karl in through a side entrance and up a little-used flight of stone steps. Manipulating the stretcher round some of the corners was no simple task. We were breathing hard when we attained the top and laid the stretcher down in a cramped room with one narrow bed against the wall.

Gently we lifted Karl on to the bed. I went down to fetch straps with which to secure him. A bout of coughing came from the ward, and there were the usual moans of protest. As I hastened back to the top of the building I thought I detected a flicker of movement at the end of a corridor as though someone was watching; but when I paused and waited, there was no repetition. I was tired and my nerves were on edge.

We fastened Karl to the bed so that he could not tear himself free. He might be alarmed when he woke, but I intended to spend as much time with him as I could spare from my routine duties, and would soon set his mind at rest.

Karl had not stirred. We were about to leave him when, without warning, he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Then a stab of pain twisted his face. He let out a wild scream.

I went down beside the bed and gripped his shoulder.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Karl—it’s all right.”

He moaned and tried to turn, but the bonds held him fast.

“Gently, Karl,” I went on in a low, soothing tone. “Relax. You’re quite safe. Soon you’ll be comfortable. Sleep, Karl . . . sleep.”

His eyes flickered and then shut again. I waited until I was sure that he would not cry out again. He was bound to have some pain at this stage. I hoped I could keep it to a minimum. But whatever happened, in the end it would surely be worth it.

Hans and I left the Hospital as surreptitiously as we had come, and went out into the brightening dawn.

5

A
ll that week I succeeded in maintaining a balance between my medical practice, my work in the Hospital, and the constant care which Karl required. Now I was more than ever thankful for Hans Kleve. He took some of the weight from me, particularly in the Hospital. I will not say that he did this entirely for scientific or humanitarian reasons: he was by no means indifferent to the presence of Margaret Conrad, and brought her name into the conversation whenever it was possible to do so—as he thought—plausibly. Whatever his motives, however, I welcomed his assistance. If he chose to dally in the grim corridors now and then with Margaret, I had no objections to raise.

By the end of the first week I was able to remove the last bandage from Karl’s head. He had suffered great pain and his face had sunk slightly, but once he was on his feet and eating properly it would fill out again quickly enough. The only thing that worried me was his slowness in mastering the use of his vocal chords. I had anticipated some small delay and perhaps a certain amount of incoherence at first, but with nothing to do all day but lie on his back I would have expected a more satisfactory attempt than he seemed capable of making.

Also, each time that I came to give him treatment and encourage him, his eyes showed abject fear rather than gratitude. This could only be attributed to the constant pain. When this slackened, he would be a more rational being.

I was patient with him, trying to coax him on.

“Can you hear me, Karl?”

Ten times a day I started thus. And each time he gurgled in his throat and then, wretchedly, gave up and nodded.

“You’re making wonderful progress,” I assured him.

When he strained against the straps I explained how essential they were. In his sleep, or in a moment of itching discomfort, he might move unwisely, and our good work would be undone. At the end of all such explanations he nodded again, but in resignation rather than cheerful acceptance.

I kept his diet severely restricted. It was even necessary to teach him to swallow, and often he dribbled like an infant.

Nevertheless I reiterated that he was making great progress. “We’ll soon have you leading a normal life,” I promised him; and when I persisted, he tried to summon up a pathetic smile.

When there was a lull downstairs, Hans hastened to join me. He was anxious to be present at every crucial stage. I had to assure him that I would fetch him when there was any significant development.

After the first few days, when I realized that Karl’s progress was likely to be slower than we had first envisaged, I laid down a programme. While he remained strapped to the bed we would concentrate on speech and on study of his eyes. Hans gave him a regular massage, but I forbade any ambitious movement of the limbs until the time was ripe. When the moment came for the tests on movement, I told Hans to adjust his work in the Hospital accordingly.

Karl stared up at the two of us as I unfastened the straps on his left arm.

“Give it a few moments at rest,” I said. “And while we’re waiting, Hans, let’s have another look at the eyes.”

Hans had a small mirror with him. He reflected a ray of sunlight into Karl’s left eye.

“Now the right,” I said. When Hans obeyed, the reaction of the pupils was good.

Then I gently massaged the left arm. “Now, Karl—try to move your arm.” I raised my own arm slowly to demonstrate. “Your left arm.”

Karl raised his arm in the air with very little effort.

“Good!” said Hans. “Good!”

“Now the right,” I said.

He obeyed when I had loosened the straps, but not quite so well. I had not allowed sufficient time, perhaps, and not given him the requisite massage. But there was very little wrong with him. As I bent over and fastened the straps again, I said: “Congratulations. At this rate you’ll soon be up.”

A glumness settled on him as he was once more bound to the bed. I had work to do in the Hospital—I could not entirely neglect my duties there—but I thought it unwise to leave him too abruptly. I suggested that Hans should stay and talk to him for a while, and Hans was only too pleased to do this.

“Except for the movement of the right hand,” I said quietly as we stood together at the door, “his reactions are excellent. Even better than I had expected—though it has taken longer than I planned. Don’t overtax him, but keep his mind active. We must take it in turns from now on: I want to keep him cheerful and occupied. Talk to him. Keep a record of his progress. When he shows signs of fatigue, you know what to do. Send for me at once if you need me—and when I’m here with him, I’ll do the same. We must compare notes every time without fail.”

I left Hans in the room. Perhaps that was a mistake. The first mistake, from which other troubles inevitably flowed. I was trying to do too much; if I had paused to reflect, I would have known better than to take such risks.

Looking back, I see now what went wrong. From various sources I can piece together those events which took place in my absence. And that is where I blundered: I ought not to have been absent. Instead of keeping up a façade of continuing my work in the Hospital I would have done better to abandon it at once. There would have been talk, of course—speculation about my motives, criticism of my callousness, and all the titillating gossip which buzzes about the heads of the unorthodox. But what would that have mattered? My work had been purely voluntary, and I could abandon it as arbitrarily as I had taken it up. My real work was the creation of life. I should have clung to that instead of trying to keep up the pattern that I had established over the last three years. I should have been with the new Karl Werner every hour of the day and night, watching over him and not allowing him to be subjected to other influences.

First there was Hans Kleve. Then, in her own way, Margaret Conrad did her share of damage. I was not to know this at the time. Only later did the fragments fall into place.

It might please the susceptible young Hans to see Margaret bustling about the place on her self-appointed tasks. To me the sight gave less pleasure. The girl seemed to be perpetually under my feet. Her manner was respectful and she was quick to obey any order I snapped at her, but her very presence disturbed me. She was too intelligent, too observant: I did not suppose her father, the Minister, had placed her here as a spy, but I felt that if she did chance upon any irregularities she would not hesitate to fall back upon his influence.

Some of the patients resented her presence. Others made up to her and wheedled favors out of her. And the walking patient who acted as messenger and general busybody made a special point of ingratiating himself. He had a craving for tobacco and was continually devising new ruses for getting more than the reasonable allowance which Margaret doled out.

One day in the ward I was trying to concentrate on a man with a badly torn ear when Margaret and this little wretch began one of their affectedly bantering conversations only a few feet away.

“Soap and tobacco?” she was saying.

“Can I take it all in tobacco, miss?”

“No soap?”

“Never touch it!”

They sniggered together as though they were old friends. I felt that her aunt, the Countess, would hardly approve of this familiarity.

I said: “Miss Conrad.”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I must ask you to keep out of the ward when I’m on duty. Treatment is more important than charity.”

She seemed to be framing a retort, then thought better of it and went out into the corridor.

The walking patient turned slyly away and leaned on a broom which had been propped against the wall. It was the most practical use to which I had ever seen the lazy wretch put it.

“Haven’t you anything to do?” I demanded.

He started and glanced round. “Yes, sir.”

“Do it, then.”

He went out by the same door. He must have found Margaret waiting outside, for when I moved across the aisle to another bed I heard him say: “Cuts ’em up alive, he does!
Alive!”

Margaret laughed sceptically, and then their voices drifted away. I should have left the ward and followed them. I am sure that this must have been the time when the resentful little man told Margaret what he knew. He was a born spy, a creature of dark corners and grubby curiosity—and he knew what I had wanted to hide from everyone . . . that there was a most unusual patient in the attic room. This I discovered later: too late.

As far as I can gather, what happened was that the patient fed Margaret with sinister hints until her scepticism turned to doubt and then to the desire to settle the matter to her own satisfaction. It was not her concern, but she could not refrain from meddling. Women are meddlers by instinct. The legend of the inquisitive wife in Bluebeard’s castle had its roots in firm reality.

Her informant was able to provide Margaret with the master key. He was also able to wheedle some extra tobacco from her, which was all he really cared about. And so the result of my magnificent experiment hung on the cravings of a degenerate.

He gleefully led her up to the attic and showed her the door. Then he gave her the keys and left her to let herself in, as though by going away at this juncture he could somehow absolve himself from all responsibility.

There are things I shall never know. The exact words of the conversation which Margaret had with Karl Werner are lost, but it is not difficult to reconstruct the general outline of the scene. Margaret’s sympathetic manner would have been given full scope. I believe Karl recognized her from the day of her first appearance in the Hospital and, in his slow, painful, guttural voice addressed her as Miss Conrad—a recognition which must have baffled her, since she had never seen this man before.