“No.” I turned from the painting. “But I should like to have another look in that library.”
“Sorry, sir.” The servant stepped into the hall, not blocking my way, but letting me see that he was prepared to do so if necessary. Even if my body were not battered and sore, I would be no match for those orangutan arms.
“Some questions, then,” I said. “Will you answer some questions?”
“Sorry, sir. I believe my master wants you to find those on your own.” And with that he stepped back through the arch and swung the door closed from the inside. The hall rang with the click of an engaging latch, leaving me alone with a clear sense of what I needed to do.
I turned and shuffled toward the stairs.
My bad leg was throbbing by the time I reached my room. I opened the pharmaceutical case, finding that it held a hypodermic syringe and six glass vials of morphine. I opened one of the vials, filled the syringe, and placed it back inside the holder. I did not secure the clasps, but instead simply folded the case closed before slipping it into the pocket of my coat. Next I checked the pistol, opening the gate to make sure it was satisfactorily armed. Then I closed it again, aligning the hammer with the empty chamber. Finally, I opened my smoking kit, removed my pipe tools, and left the room.
The lights in the upstairs hall were much dimmer than before. M Adam no longer needed me to see the paintings. I realized, as I hurried past them, that he had been playing many moves ahead of me the entire night. Now, descending the stairs, I resisted the urge to think that I had gained on him. Chances were he was still playing me, manoeuvring from a position of strength.
The door to the library was still closed. I looked through the keyhole. All the lights were still on.
Left on for me. He expects me to break in.
Using my pipe tools (the spoon to apply torque while the poker worked the pins) I picked the lock and opened the door. Then I entered. The chair and velvet rope stood as before, their careful arrangement pointing to the room’s sole purpose — not as a library, but as something far more specialized.
I closed the door behind me and stepped forward, past the ropes and toward the centre of the room. With each step, the room changed. Shelves that had appeared parallel when viewed from the chair now appeared out of plumb. Likewise, framed paintings lost their squared corners, becoming trapezoids. And the floor, which had appeared level from the edge of the room, now sloped downward beneath a rising ceiling. These realities, which had previously been masked by both the precise positioning of the chair in which I had been sitting and the carefully controlled lighting of the room, were now plainly obvious.
M Adam’s chair grew as I approached it, towering over me. I reached up to grasp its armrest, resting my leg as I looked at the door through which M Adam had entered the room. I now saw that the opening had indeed been designed to accommodate a man of gigantic stature, easily eight-foot tall, possibly more.
I was still contemplating the significance of it all when someone called from the short end of the room. The voice rang out, musical but nonetheless threatening. Looking around, I saw the servant standing near the hallway door. The same slanted lines that had reduced M Adam to normal proportions now expanded the servant to gigantic size. More than ever, he resembled one of those jungle orangutans, with a massive body dwarfed only by the size of its gigantic head and arms.
“You were told not to return here!” the servant said.
“Yes.” I stepped away from the chair, steadying myself on both legs, trying not to look as wounded and vulnerable as I felt. “I was told that, but I was goaded to the contrary.” I reached into my pocket and removed the pharmaceutical case, hiding it behind the chair while the servant started toward me, steadying itself on giant arms as the floor sloped downward. The monster seemed to shrink as it moved, but the loss of stature did nothing to allay the threat. By the time the beast man had reached the centre of the room, it was charging.
I gripped the syringe, waiting until the thing was almost on me. Then I swung the needle around, jabbed it deep, and squeezed the plunger. By then the huge hands had grabbed me, throwing me down, pinning me to the floor beside the doorway. For a moment I flashed to my last memory of Reichenbach Falls, being pinned against a high ledge with a madman straddling my chest. My training in the eastern arts had served me then. I had been able to use my opponents force against him. But here the opposing weight was too great. I was at the mercy of the beast man, helpless to resist as it grabbed me tight and lifted me from the floor. Then, as it prepared to throw me across its back and carry me from the room, its face went slack. In a blink, we were both falling: beast man crashing against the base of the chair, me landing atop him.
My hip spasmed. I rolled away, forced myself into a crouch, and tried standing. The pain intensified. I slumped back against the chair, bracing myself while the servant breathed noisily, lying on its back, eyes open but seeing nothing.
The syringe and case had fallen near the chair. I crawled toward them. Nothing was broken, but still I resisted taking an injection, using my will to ignore the pain as I stood, crossed to the gigantic doorway, and entered the space within.
The way veered left, opening into a lighted corridor. The walls were stone, older than the wood-panelled rooms and halls behind me. But here, as before, the lights were electrical, bolted to the walls and trailing wires that snaked toward a chamber about twenty feet back from the forced-perspective room.
I paused, slipped the pharmaceutical case back into my pocket, and drew the pistol. Then I pushed on, watching the chamber’s interior come into view: tables strewn with strange instruments, walls affixed with snaking wires and twitching dials, air reverberating with the hum of unseen engines. And over all of it, becoming clearer as I passed through the doorway, a long shadow that could only belong to my host and saviour, the giant who called himself Adam.
“Impressive,” he said, speaking to me even before I had completely entered the room. “You do justice to your reputation. I can only hope that you do not think the same of me.”
I found him sitting with his back to the door. This time, I saw him as he was: a creature of astounding proportions, so large that I might have taken him for a statue. He kept his back to me, dabbing a bit of paint on an easel-mounted canvas. He was working on a reproduction of Pieter Brueghel’s Fall of Icarus, which he seemed to be painting from memory. The canvas, like the artist himself, was enormous.
“You may put the pistol back in your pocket.” He spoke without looking around. “I did not provide it to be used against me.” He lowered his brush, turned slowly, and gave me the benefit of his magnificent face, a countenance more like that of a god than a monster, with a complexion so uniform that it might have been fashioned from silk. No blemishes or scars, and yet the face filled with wrinkles as he smiled, seeming almost to shrivel as he flashed rows of marble teeth. He seemed pleased to see me. “So you have your answers, Mr. Holmes? Have you deduced who I am? What I am?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Say it then. What am I? What is it they call me in the world I am hiding from? What is my name out there?”
“Frankenstein’s monster,” I said.
His smile broadened, wrinkles deepened. “Really? His monster? Not simply Frankenstein?”
“I’ve heard that, too,” I said.
“And what about other things? How my father stitched me together from cadavers, gave me a criminal’s brain?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard that, though I don’t recall your father’s book mentioning such things.”