As for Walton, he was, as I have said, an adventurer; and what we were engaged in was for him a superb adventure, whatever it might turn out to mean to others. From the moment we came aboard his ship, and he heard from her owner some of Frankenstein's story and mine, Walton began taking notes in preparation for its telling. Saville, after giving the matter some thought and cautioning the captain on certain matters, allowed him to proceed with his plan for eventual publication, in some form. I wonder now if anything will ever come of that.
What of Victor himself? If he failed to regard me as a person, he had at all times a proprietary interest, and sometimes protested jealously that the others were, in attempting to decide my fate, robbing him of what was rightfully his. But Saville could always placate him with offers of a superb laboratory in which to work, almost unlimited funds, assistants, most of all a powerful friend to stand between him and the obtrusive world—and Victor would be soothed.
As soon as the Argo was moored to a London wharf, all of the crew who could be spared were set free, and wasted no time in descending upon the taverns and brothels ashore. I was allowed to stretch my limbs by being freed from my tiny closet of a cabin, granted the rare privilege of emergence into the barely larger chamber wherein Clerval and my creator had been quartered, and which formed the only means of egress from my own closet to the world.
"What is happening now?" I whispered. There were times during those days of confinement and enforced silence when I felt that I was losing, through disuse, the power of speech. Oh, I might have rebelled, physically, and with temporary success. Knocked out of my way the men who thought themselves my masters, risen to the deck, terrifying some sailors who had not dreamt that anything like me was aboard… but what would I have done after that? Remember that the world out of sight of my gentleman-captors was utterly unknown to me, and what little evidence I had of it looked strange and frightening indeed.
The plan, or that part of it of which I was condescendingly informed, called for Clerval to remain on board to keep an eye on me, whilst Frankenstein and Saville were escorted ashore by Captain Walton, who claimed to be able to conduct them promptly to certain men with whom they would be able to do business. He had already sent a message ashore, and those men would be waiting. Exactly what sort of business was to be conducted in London first was not explained to' me, but I thought that I could guess. To duplicate his feat of creation, Frankenstein would need laboratory equipment—he had brought very little with him from Bavaria. Also the raw materials would be required—human bodies, or the component parts of them, that had once been living but now were not. The dead of night, I somehow understood, would not be the proper time to set out to purchase laboratory equipment.
I did not argue with my orders to stay aboard, but neither had I any intention of obeying them. I knew that the mission that took the men ashore was vitally connected with my own future, and I meant to discover what decisions were being made on that subject, and what was actually accomplished.
Less than a minute after the departure of Walton, Saville, and Frankenstein, I had managed to get over the ship's side by unorthodox means, acting decisively as soon as my remaining guardian's back was turned. Swinging on lines, leaping with an agility more than human, I needed only a moment to gain the dock.
It was a substantial relief to have my feet planted again on solid land. Listening carefully to the sounds of the city, the docks, the river, as I stood there swathed in night and fog, I was barely able to pick up the murmuring of the three familiar voices in time to hurry after them.
The streets at this hour were dark as coal mines. The occasional hurrying passerby with his lantern was unaware of me except as a pair of soft footsteps, a dim and sizeless presence in the night.
The three men I was following carried no lantern, and I had some difficulty—more than once I almost lost them in the fog. At length they turned into a mews, traversed it for a hundred yards, and then emerged upon another street. Presently I at last heard one of them tapping at a door. I was only a few yards behind them when the door opened, and I could confirm the presence of their three shadows, outlined in a faint wash of light against the fog.
Even before the door had closed behind them I was moving close to the small building they had entered, which was not much more than a large shed. The one small window that faced the street side had been blocked off, and I had heard the street door being locked after the gentlemen went in. Trying my ear first against the door and then at the window, I was unable to hear more than a faint unintelligible murmur of voices from within.
Stealthily—I can move softly and lightly when I choose—I made my way around to the rear of the building. There, to my satisfaction, I found it possible, my great height being an advantage, to position myself outside a high dirty window in such a way that I could obtain a very satisfactory view of the interior of a rear room, and also hear most of what was being said within.
By the light of a cheap tallow candle, I could see two landsmen, both rather scruffy-looking, seated at a table with Frankenstein and Saville, while Walton stood by with folded arms. There was a bottle of rum on the table, along with some chipped and dirty crockery, and the two Londoners were helping themselves to drink, though the gentlemen had evidently disdained to do so under these conditions.
On another table nearby, a trestle construction even rougher than that at which the men sat talking, there lay a shape as of a human body. It was very small, motionless and covered by a dirty canvass. I saw at once that my surmise as to the nature of the business to be conducted at this meeting had been correct.
If any further confirmation had been needed, it was provided by the first words I heard. They came from one of the strangers and were to the effect that though in London there existed a thriving trade in the bodies of the newly dead, as in any other trade, reliability and devotion to quality work were by no means universal among Resurrections.
Frankenstein, whose English was accented and somewhat limited, asked in puzzlement about the meaning of a word. "Resurrectionist? I take it that is—?"
The more heavily-built one of the resurrectionists answered with an expansive gesture. "Why, it's no more and no less than it sounds like, sir. It's quite a good solid trade here in London, as I 'ad the honor to inform you, and my partner here and me are as well-established in it as anyone you could hope to find." He gave a self-satisfied nod, including Saville and Walton in his glance. "Should any of you gentlemen 'ave your doubts, you could look in at Doctor Hunter's anatomy school in Windmill Street, and ask 'em there."
Frankenstein turned aside to Saville, and explained that such conditions must represent a new factor in his calculations. Where he had been working before, on the Continent, medical schools and other researchers who were considered legitimate had a fairly easy time obtaining bodies.
"But here—I had not realized, but now I see—if even the anatomy schools here must steal their materials, no doubt for us things will be even more difficult. Here I suppose it will be a serious criminal matter to possess a stolen body?"
The other landsman, whose general air was that of a man who has come down in the world, now spoke up, in a voice considerably more cultured than that of his business associate. "Now there, gentlemen, just there, if I may say so, is where the gentleman is wrong. Possession of a dead body, any dead body, in England is not criminal. Oh, there are certain times and places when, for those engaged in our trade, caution is certainly needed. Some of the cemeteries have augmented their fences with dogs and guards. But by the laws of England, no one can have property rights in a corpse. It is not possible, therefore, for mortal remains to be considered stolen property. The medical schools, you see, have no other dependable source of supply besides our trade, and really none at all within the law, which says that the veriest pauper must be buried. God rest their souls in peace. By the way, will you be needing the teeth?"