The Hammer Horror Omnibus

by John Burke

  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.

  I can visualize her smoothing his pillow and asking him questions to which she would get only fragmentary answers. She probably chatted to him just as she did to the other patients, but in spite of his present impediment she could hardly have failed to realize that he was more intelligent than most of the inmates.

  What I know for certain is that she wrote down her home address for him so that he could get in touch with her when he was well, and that when he complained about the straps holding him down she loosened them for him.

  At this time both Hans and I were finishing off our routine chores and preparing to leave for my laboratory. There was Otto to be fed, and I had other experiments on which we might now spend a little time. So far as Karl was concerned, all that was required now was patience. By the time we were ready to show him to the world I hoped to be well advanced on other researches.

  Hans watched me feeding Otto and, after a brief silence, asked:

  “Did Otto eat flesh before you operated?”

  “No. I discovered it soon after the operation. He ate his wife.”

  “Ate another monkey?”

  “What else would he be married to?”

  “Do you me
an he turned into a cannibal?” The thought seemed to distress Hans.

  “Yes. I didn’t attempt to correct it. He had been through enough already, and he’s perfectly happy and in good health.”

  “But suppose . . . I mean . . . could the same thing happen to Karl?”

  “There’s no fear of that,” I assured him. “So long as his brain is given time to heal and develop its functions gradually. Otto became agitated after his operation. He fractured one of the cells in the brain.”

  “Does Karl know about what happened to Otto?”

  “He does. It’s just as well. He will take no unnecessary risks. Besides, with a less primitive brain than Otto’s he can evaluate problems more skilfully. No, I have no fears about Karl.”

  In retrospect that might appear as a vainglorious boast, the pride that goes before a fall. Yet I maintain that I was right. The troubles that were brewing were neither Karl’s fault nor mine: they were the responsibility of fools and dabblers.

  From this distance in time it is as difficult to reconstruct the exact sequence of events as it was to reconstruct the body of a human being, to assemble the torso and limbs and head so that it all made sense. Difficult . . . but not impossible.

  Hans and I stayed on in the laboratory until after nightfall. In this time, Karl had freed himself from the loosened straps and crawled out of bed. I thus missed a crucial stage of his reorientation. It was essential that I should be present to study the working of his limbs, to see how he stood up, how competently he could dress himself in the clothes which we had provided against this day, and how well he carried himself. But I was not present. I do not know to this day what discoveries he made about himself or what strain he put on his nerves and reflexes.

  He must have been in good control of his new body, whatever the tensions. He was able to escape through the attic window and make his way over the rooftops. His coordination was adequate, if no more. His sense of direction left nothing to be desired: he must have made his way straight to the laboratory, and indeed probably arrived just as Hans and I were leaving.

  Once Karl had been removed to the Hospital I had decided to appoint a trustworthy janitor. There was now nothing to conceal from him or, for that matter, from anybody else. All traces of our work on Karl had been destroyed in the furnace apart from the dwarf’s original body, which was embalmed and locked away in the farthest cellar. The laboratory was situated in an odd place, but if that was to my taste there was no one likely to raise suspicions. The janitor, a surly brute who would do exactly what he was told and no more, took his wage and kept his mouth shut. He maintained the furnace fire, which we might need at any time, and renewed the oil in the lamps. Otherwise he stayed out of the cellars and drowsed in a cubby-hole at the head of the stairs.

  He must have been asleep when Karl let himself into the laboratory. Karl knew every inch of the way, and still had his duplicate set of keys.

  In view of the struggle that followed, it was difficult to establish his actions when he was alone in the cellars that night. I don’t know whether he made direct for the discarded body locked in the cupboard or whether he came across it after a long, inquisitive prowl from one vault to another. In any event, he duly opened the door and took the body out. Proud of his new frame and disgusted by his wretched past, he carried the corpse to the furnace, kicked open the furnace door, and hurled it into the flames.

  In that furious heat perished what had once been Karl Werner.

  The rattle of the furnace door must have attracted the attention of the janitor. Grumpily jerked into wakefulness, he came down the steps to investigate. He found Karl gathering his few possessions into a small bag. The janitor was a large, well-built man, but the new Karl was his equal in weight. At this time, though, he had not fully learned to control his strength, and if the janitor had only known it he could probably have outmanoeuvred and outfought him. As it was, the sight of this stranger in the place, apparently helping himself to anything he chose to carry off, prompted the man to grab a nearby stool and raise it over his head.

  Karl, starting up on the defensive, fell against the switch panel, and started the machinery working. They must have fought their desperate battle in the lurid blaze of the wheel, shattering glass as they fought round the laboratory, overturning the animals’ cages and driving the chimpanzee into a frenzy. Karl was at a disadvantage. His first impulse was to protect his head, which was still unbearably sensitive where the covering over the brain was healing. The janitor saw his fear and played on it, making wild swings with the stool.

  During the course of that struggle Karl must have slipped and fallen, bringing a bench of flasks and retorts down on top of himself. The janitor moved in for the kill—that, at any rate, is how I see the picture. And I see, as the janitor must have done with terror, the growth of a sudden bestial hate in Karl’s face. Karl had come here to collect his belongings and run away. I don’t know where he would have gone or what he intended; but certainly he was in flight. Now all that was changed. He was a beast of prey.

  The rest of the incident was over in less than a minute. Karl flung himself upon the janitor and strangled him.

  I wonder if, watching Otto gnawing raw meat in his cage, Karl felt a hideous temptation creeping over him? The janitor lay motionless on the floor. Perhaps this was a moment of decision—and I ought to have been there to help him, to steer him back towards rationality. But even on his own he was strong enough. Whatever had happened to his head during that fall, whatever corrosive madness might now eat into his brain, he still retained the memory of what was right, of what he must and must not do. If only I could have been with him then, all might still have been well: I could have given him moral support and, if necessary, carried out an emergency operation on the brain. But he was alone. Alone and frightened by what he had done.

  He fled from the laboratory.

  Hans and I had returned to the Hospital intending to make our last inspection of the day. As soon as we entered the attic room we saw the empty bed, the loose straps, and the open window.

  “But how could he have undone the straps?” I asked Hans icily. “He was settled down when I left him. What happened before that?”

  Hans moistened his lips. “Nothing.”

  “Pull yourself together, man.” The thought of my creation at large in the streets, perhaps incapable of behaving rationally, and drawing first the curiosity and then the dangerous derision of passers-by upon him, drove me into a fury. “There must have been some reason. What did you do when I had left?”

  “I . . . I talked to him, as you advised. I told him of your plans for the future—”

  “What plans?”

  “About the people who would come to see him. Doctors and scientists from all over the world. I told him what an important figure he would be.”

  The folly of it was breathtaking. I said, as levelly as I could: “And his old body . . . you told him about that?”

  “I . . .”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes,” he confessed dismally. “I said you would hold student lectures, showing him in his normal body alongside the embalmed old body. I tried to make him feel how wonderful it would be to play such a part in the advancement of medical science.”

  “You fool!” I struck Hans across the face and he reeled backwards. “You blundering fool! Do you know nothing of human reactions? He has been a curiosity all his life, and now you tell him . . .” The words choked in my throat. I had to find Karl. Where would he have gone? The answer came to both of us at once. Hans, dropping his hand from his reddened, stinging cheek, said:

  “The laboratory!”

  We hurried back there, but we were too late. The doors were open, the roar of the machinery was audible from the head of the steps, there was chaos in the main cellar . . . and the dead body of the janitor lay sprawled where Karl had left it.

  And the dwarf’s body had gone. He had destroyed this last vestige of his old self. He did not intend it to be displayed to the p
ublic.

  “Suppose his brain was damaged in the fight?” said Hans timorously.

  The same thought was in my mind. I had not wanted to utter it aloud.

  It was up to us to find Karl Werner before he laid himself open to danger. If he was still in the city he would reveal himself sooner or later. If he behaved at all oddly or fell sick there was a reasonable chance that he would in any case be brought in to the Workhouse Hospital, when I could immediately take him under my wing, and undo the damage that might have been done. My one fear was that he might have left the city forever and set out across the countryside. There was no telling what impulses activated that brain of his.

  I was unable to sleep, and next day I was unable to concentrate on my work. It was futile to institute a search, I realized in the clear light of day, without having some lead. I was on tenterhooks all morning and afternoon, waiting for some word to come in that would tell me where Karl was and what condition he was in. But there was no whisper, no rumor, no strange stories that would alert Hans and I at once.

  My creature was loose. I waited for him to strike—or to be struck down. Whatever happened now, there was a terrible chance that all my work might prove to have been tragically wasted.

  6

  Not content with the havoc he had already provoked, Hans Kleve had still further ineptitudes in store. One would have expected him to have learnt his lesson and to have come straight to me at the first intimation of Karl’s whereabouts. But that confounded young woman had more influence over him than I did. The misguided young fool listened to her, obeyed her . . . and did not turn to me until the thing got out of hand.

  Thus it was not until two evenings later that we sat in a coach and headed for the Countess Barscynska’s home, set in wooded country some miles outside the city. As we rattled along the country lanes, Hans sheepishly told his story.