The Frankenstein Factory

by Edward D. Hoch

  “With what?” Earl wondered, following along.

  Armstrong turned him over and they both saw the glimmer of the knife in the moonlight. “Oh, God!” Armstrong sobbed. “Oh my God! He’s been stabbed!”

  The knife had gone into his chest, cleanly between the ribs. “Frank wasn’t in sight,” Earl insisted.

  “It must have been thrown!”

  He bent over, trying to catch the bubbling sound from Hobbes’s lips. “Quiet! He’s still alive. He’s trying to say something!”

  “Have to tell you …” Hobbes managed to mumble. “Tell you …”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Emily … Emily Watson didn’t die. …”

  FOURTEEN

  “THREE,” VERA SAID, SPEAKING the word so softly that her voice barely carried it. “Now we are three.”

  “Or four,” Earl reminded her, “if we count Frank.”

  Armstrong grunted. “Or five, if we count Emily Watson.”

  Hobbes’s body lay just inside the door, staining the carpeting with an ever-widening circle of blood. Nobody made any effort to protect the carpet. It was as if they silently agreed that Hobbes’s blood had every right to soak into Hobbes’s rug,

  “Were you upstairs all the time?” Earl asked Vera.

  “Of course! I only came down when I heard you shouting. Do you think I sneaked out the back door and around the house to kill him? I’d be t-terrified to go out there!”

  “Calm down—I’m not accusing you of anything.”

  “And what’s this about Emily Watson?” she asked, turning to Armstrong.

  Seeing the doctor’s lined and troubled face, his sleepless eyes, Earl wondered how he could ever have thought of that face as bland and without character. Even its tiny blemishes seemed now to take on a life of their own. “His dying words,” he explained to Vera. “What was it he said, Jazine?”

  “‘Emily Watson didn’t die.’”

  “That’s right. ‘Emily Watson didn’t die.’ We don’t know what it means.”

  “Is it possible?” Vera asked.

  “Sure, it’s possible. We never found her body—remember?”

  “Let’s go into the other room and talk this over,” Earl suggested. He was tired of staring at Hobbes’s body, and neither he nor Armstrong had suggested moving it down to the tubes. Enough was enough.

  “There are few enough of us left to talk,” Vera said, settling into the comfortable styro armchair that had been Lawrence Hobbes’s own until now. “If I’m the last one left I’ll be talking to myself!”

  “You won’t be the last one left,” Earl assured her. “If I have anything to say about it, there’ll be no more killings. Up until now we’ve done nothing to fight this thing. We’ve simply reacted to each new killing with aborted schemes to get off the island or bring help here. It’s time we did more than that.”

  “What do you suggest?” Armstrong asked.

  “That we use our brains, for a change. I thought of something earlier, even before Hobbes spoke his dying words. I remembered a seventy-year-old mystery novel by the British writer Agatha Christie. It was about a situation similar to ours—ten people on an island, being killed off one by one.”

  “In the book who did it?” Armstrong asked.

  “A person believed to be one of the victims turns out to be alive.”

  “Like Emily Watson!” Vera gasped.

  “Exactly! In truth we haven’t actually seen Frank kill anyone. We’ve assumed that he did it mainly because no one else could have. But if Emily really is alive …”

  Dr. Armstrong shook his head. “I won’t buy it. As I said, it’s certainly possible, because her body was never found—possible that she’s alive. But the rest of it? Can you picture that limping old woman going around committing these brutal, bloody crimes? I can’t!”

  “The limp could be a fake,” Vera pointed out. “I thought it pretty odd that Hobbes and Miss Emily both limped. Maybe she picked it up from him to try to look older. Maybe she wasn’t as old as we thought.”

  Armstrong remained unconvinced. “Her body could have been dumped into the water. It could be—and probably is—in one of those capsules in the vault. Remember, that’s where the killer tried to hide MacKenzie.”

  “I remember,” Earl agreed. “And I think that’s the first thing we’ve got to do. We have to inspect every one of those capsules.”

  “You mean open them?”

  “No, we can tell from the screw closure if they’ve been tampered with recently. But we can’t all go. Somebody has to stay up here, with the pistol, in case Frank tries to break in.”

  Their eyes went to the gun, almost forgotten on the bloody carpet near Hobbes’s body. It hadn’t saved him. It might not save any of them.

  “We can’t leave Miss Morgan up here alone,” Armstrong pointed out.

  “Of course not,” Earl agreed. “Vera, you come with me. If anyone tries to break in, Armstrong, fire the gun. We’ll hear it and come running.”

  He led Vera down the stairs to the basement, then along the corridor to the spiral metal staircase. “I feel like the heroine in one of those gothic holograms,” Vera said, starting down behind Earl.

  “Wait till you see this place. It’s really something. The old guy didn’t tell us the half of it.”

  Vera was properly impressed by the rows of shining capsules. She stood near the door and touched one, running her fingers over the smooth metal. “It’s hard to believe there’s a person—a human being—inside every one of these.”

  “And one ex-president!”

  “You believe that?” she asked, turning toward him.

  “Fiction and reality have blended so much since Sunday that I don’t know what to believe,” he admitted. “For instance, what about the story Whalen told before he died, about being forced into spying for the Russians by running up big gambling debts. Are we to believe that? Are we to believe any of the countless stories Lawrence Hobbes told, about his son Larry, or his love affair with Emily Watson?”

  “If Emily’s alive and out there with—”

  “I know. It presents quite a picture, doesn’t it? The old lady limping along with her son, pointing out each of the victims in turn.”

  “Stop it, Earl!”

  “I thought you were the girl who could take anything—the girl with the belts and the fancy tricks.”

  “My God—this whole thing is inhuman!”

  Earl patted one of the capsules. “What’s in here is inhuman, too,” he said quietly.

  “But at least we can understand it!”

  “Can we?”

  She peered down the aisle. “How can we tell if any of them has been opened?”

  “This screw top is sealed in place with multiwax. It’s clear when first applied, but ages into a bright red—see, like this! None of these have been opened in months. I noticed it when we were first down here—Hobbes and I—but its significance didn’t sink through till later.”

  “You say months.”

  “Or years.”

  “Couldn’t red wax be used to make the seals appear older than they are?”

  “It wouldn’t match that exactly. See how they’re sort of rust-colored, with a mottled effect? That couldn’t be faked.”

  They checked every capsule, but none showed broken or fresh seals. “Then no one was hiding here?”

  “No one.”

  Emily Watson just can’t be on the island!” she insisted.

  But we searched it for Frank too, remember, and didn’t find him. If Emily was really Hobbes’s lover she’d know all the secret places.”

  Vera made a face. There’s something obscene about imagining the two of them in bed together!”

  “Because they’re old? Hobbes wasn’t old when he fathered Larry, though. If he fathered Larry.”

  She leaned against a capsule. “These aren’t really cold at all!”

  “They’re built with outer and inner walls, like thermos bottles. The cold stays inside.”r />
  “So what now?”

  He led her back to the stairs. “We go up and see if Armstrong got himself killed during our absence.”

  But the bland-faced doctor was still alive, still standing guard by the front window. “Nothing stirring out there,” he reported. “If I didn’t see Hobbes get it with my own eyes I’d think Frank was long gone.”

  “Want to go out and try for the fire?”

  “No, thanks!”

  “Well, there’s nothing in the vaults. We’re at a dead end.”

  “Now what?”

  Earl glanced at the glowing digits on his wrist. “It’s early yet. Vera, how about rustling us up some food? Meanwhile I’m going into Hobbes’s office and tear it apart. It’s about time I got down to doing the job I was sent here to do.”

  “You mean …?”

  “Proving Lawrence Hobbes was a con man and a swindler.”

  The little office off the living room was crammed with records of every sort. It was here that Hobbes had produced the records of the patients to be operated upon, here that he’d kept books on the bodies he so carefully preserved. Earl pulled down a number of ledgers at random and went to work. Privately he had to admit that the old man’s death had simplified his assignment.

  “You were after him all the time!” Vera said from the doorway. “And yet you wouldn’t back me up when I speculated that he was the killer!”

  “Being a swindler and a killer are two different things. And right now I’m not even sure that he’s either one.”

  She stalked off, leaving him alone, and he turned his attention back to the books. They showed a healthy, if not fantastic, profit from the ICI operations for each of the past thirty years. There was nothing in income to account for the island and its house until the recent years, when the generous donations of Emily Watson began to appear as part of the records.

  Earl slipped out his calculator and did a little fast figuring. Miss Watson hadn’t come on the scene until fairly recently, and yet the island had been purchased … when? Before 2000, certainly. That must be here somewhere too. Yes, he was right! The island had been purchased long before the appearance of Emily Watson. But with what?

  He could see that the tracking down of Hobbes’s financial trail, through the corporate records of ICI, was not to be a simple job. Money had been shifted between accounts, books had been juggled.

  But there was, he had to admit, a vast amount of income.

  In an enterprise such as Lawrence Hobbes’s, where the clients, of necessity, could never talk about the service, where no written testimonials were possible …

  Vera came back in with a drink. “It’s scotch and water,” she said. “I thought you could use it.”

  “Just a sip. I don’t want to fog my mind.”

  “Finding anything?”

  “A lot of confusing figures. Damn it, I wonder if he had another set of books!”

  There, was a small safe tucked into one wall of the little office, and Earl bent to it with a vengeance. He tried a few random combinations, without luck, and then sat back on his haunches with a sigh. “I’d sure like to see the inside of that safe.”

  “Doesn’t he have the combination somewhere?”

  “It probably died with him.”

  She bent to examine it, running her fingers over the steel as she had run them over the capsules in the vault. “Would you like me to have a try at blasting it open?”

  “With what? Face powder?”

  “Leave that to me. What do you say?”

  He stood up and stared at her. “Are you serious?”

  “Certainly! I’m a research chemist—remember? Making a bit of nitroglycerin in a well-equipped laboratory isn’t all that difficult. It’s prepared from glycerol, using nitric and sulfuric acids.”

  “You’ll blow us all up!”

  She gave him an impish grin. “That’s the chance you’ll have to take.”

  He gazed longingly at the safe. “Once you’ve got it, will you know how to use it?”

  “I had a boyfriend once who showed me.”

  “A safe cracker?”

  “He was doing secret government work, if you must know.”

  “That figures.” Earl knew that the Washington scene hadn’t changed a great deal since the Nixon scandals.

  “Well? How about it?”

  “Sure—why not? We’ve got nothing to lose but our lives, and they’re not worth much anyway.”

  They left Armstrong on guard again and headed for the downstairs lab. “He probably thinks you’re screwing me down here,” Vera said.

  “Why not? Every hour on the hour.”

  Again he was impressed by her skill in the laboratory. She assembled the correct amounts of glycerol and acid, set the autoclave for the necessary reaction, and stepped back. “With a laboratory this good, it’s almost automatic. I just watch and press a few buttons from time to time.”

  “Did I tell you before you’d make a great cook?”

  After a time she produced a vial of clear, oily liquid. “All right, now. The only tricky part is getting it upstairs to that safe without blowing us both up. Think you can do that?”

  “I sure as hell hope so!”

  Back in the office, with the vial of nitro, Earl had a new cause for concern. “Don’t we have to drill holes or something?”

  “Not with this method. Watch!”

  She went down on her knees before the safe and started working on the hinges, wadding bits of cotton around them. Then she carefully—ever so carefully—moistened the cotton with the nitro. They worked in silence for several minutes, prompting Dr. Armstrong to stick his head in.

  “What in hell are you two up to now?”

  “Shhh! Blowing a safe!”

  He grunted, not quite believing it.

  “Okay,” Vera said, hopping to her feet. “Everybody out!”

  “What detonates it?”

  “A well-aimed bullet should do the trick. Just leave the door open a crack. Dr. Armstrong, will you do the honors?”

  “I don’t know if I can. …”

  “Let me try,” Earl said. He took the pistol and aimed it carefully through the doorway. “Here goes!”

  His aim was perfect. The blast slammed the door shut before them, shielding them from the worst of it. When the vibrations stopped and the smoke cleared they pushed the door open and surveyed the results. The explosion had been confined to a relatively small area, and it had done its job. The door of the safe was off its hinges, lying half on the floor.

  “Satisfied?” Vera asked.

  “You’re a wizard! First woman I ever knew who could blow a safe!”

  Earl pushed the door aside and searched through the contents for what he sought. There was another thick ledger book inside, together with a thick wad of documents secured by a rubber band. He pulled them out and flipped through the pages of the ledger.

  “Any luck?” Armstrong asked.

  “This is more like it! I think we’ve found something!”

  The ledger dated back to the first year of operation for the International Cryogenics Institute. It showed the names of the first clients and the amount of money they’d paid to ICI. There were other cash payments over the years, apparently from a continuing trust fund set up for the purpose. The figures swam before his eyes as he tried to calculate the total cost of these early clients over the years. It was staggering. In most cases the relatives and heirs must have simply ignored the whole thing. The dying person’s last wish had been adhered to, and the money had been paid. And paid again, over the years.

  He noticed a transfer account—items of increasing size which were being taken out of the general corporate fund for some other use. Something about the figures looked familiar. He returned to the first set of ledgers and looked up the list of Emily Watson’s gifts. The amounts and dates coincided.

  “What is it?” Vera asked, seeing his expression.

  “I’ve got to check further to be sure, but it looks as i
f the generous Miss Watson wasn’t that generous after all. The money she donated was ICI money in the first place. It was transferred out of the corporation and then back in again through Miss Watson’s gifts.”

  “What was the purpose of that?”

  “Hobbes was making big profits but he didn’t want to admit it. He must have felt it would look better if his abundance of cash seemed the result of Miss Watson’s generosity.”

  “But why? This is still a capitalist system. There’s nothing wrong with big profits.”

  Earl had to admit that she was right. There was still some piece of the puzzle that wasn’t in place. ICI wasn’t like a food monopoly that the government might go after if their profits were too big. Who cared if ICI’s profits were huge? They (meaning Hobbes) could charge whatever the traffic would bear.

  “Suppose …” he began.

  “What?”

  “Just suppose … those capsules in the vault are empty.”

  “Empty?”

  “Suppose Hobbes had a surplus of funds because he had no expenses, because he wasn’t keeping those people on ice after all. Then he’d need a cover story—something to explain the source of the extra money. And he might have invented Emily Watson.”

  “But that’s fantastic!”

  “No more so than his whole setup, with this island and everything. We’re going to check it, Vera. We’re going to break the seal and open one of those capsules.”

  Armstrong was still listening from the doorway. “Wouldn’t it be more to the point if you spent less time at those books and more time figuring a way to get us off this island?”

  “Oh, I know how to get us off. I know how to bring help here.”

  “Without having to go outside and light the fire?”

  “Yep,” Earl confirmed. “It all came to me when Vera blasted the door off that safe. She’s going to get us off.”

  “By blowing up the island?”

  “No.” Earl got to his feet and brushed some of the plaster dust from his pants. “By making us some fireworks.”

  Vera looked blank. “Fireworks?”

  “Sure. There must be enough chemicals down there for you to make up some really colorful skyrockets. Something that’s sure to be seen from the mainland. If I remember correctly, a small quantity of nitroglycerin, mixed with other chemicals, makes a quite effective rocket propellant.”