I nodded my assent and cursed myself. If I had kept my mouth shut, I would have been able to walk past the crew members with Frankenstein at my side, and maybe he would have then died from fright and I would be free from his damned spell.
Frankenstein left the cabin before me, then I skulked unobserved to the midpoint of the ship, and from there I climbed down a ladder and easily jumped so that I landed like a cat on the pier. There I waited until I spotted Frankenstein and I signaled for him as he had commanded me. His mood had brightened considerably.
“We did it, my friend,” he exclaimed heartily. He reached up and clapped me collegially on my back as if we were best of friends. I gritted my teeth at this, but held my tongue.
“We arrived here without arousing undue suspicion. From this point on there will be nothing to worry about.”
Sadly, I believed he was right. He arranged for a hackney carriage, and under the cover of night, I slipped inside of it without the driver being able to see much of my features. The seat groaned under my weight and the floorboards sagged. Frankenstein muttered that he was going to have to arrange for coaches from now on, but as the lone horse strained under the driver’s whip, the carriage got under way.
CHAPTER
23
Frankenstein had rented the first floor of a rooming house near the Charing Cross section of London. We arrived in the pitch-black of night, with the carriage driver having to hold a lantern in order to see ten feet in front of his face. The street that the rooming house sat on seemed aptly named given its new tenant: Craven Street. After the carriage brought us to the address, Frankenstein pointed out the private entrance that the flat had, and told me that was why he had rented it. I stood in the darkness while the carriage driver struggled to carry in Frankenstein’s trunk, and waited until he drove away before I entered the apartment. These ceilings were also less than eight feet high, and I had to stoop. Frankenstein didn’t notice or care, and appeared to be in high spirits.
“This will be an exciting few days,” he told me. “I suspect you have never seen anything like London before. While I will need you to stay indoors during the day, feel free to roam at night and see what you can of the city.”
I had had more than enough of Frankenstein’s company during the voyage, and I took him up on his offer. Before he could say another word I was out of the flat and moving fast to get away. A crescent moon showed in the night sky and provided little light, and the air was hazier than I was used to, but with my nocturnal vision I could still see well enough in what was close to blackness. Frankenstein was right. This was unlike any city I had yet seen. The buildings appeared haphazardly slapped together as if no planning was done, and the area more cramped than even in Ingolstadt. It gave me the impression of walking through a honeycomb. But it was the dirt and filth of the place that I noticed most. Garbage and rotted food had been tossed into the streets and it filled them with an inescapable stench. As I walked I noticed more rats scurrying about than I had ever seen in my life.
I had been heading toward Charing Cross, and I stopped at what I saw. In the open was a public pillory with a man bent over, his head and arms locked within the wooden structure. I heard him moaning miserably, and I walked over to him. It was too dark for him to see me, but I could see the anguish on his face, as well as the stains from the rotted fruits and vegetables that had been thrown at him.
“Why are you locked up like this?” I asked.
My voice surprised him, but he answered me. “They accuse me of stealing a loaf of bread and two pounds of mutton,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“Are these accusations true?”
He squeezed his eyes closed and nodded as much as the pillory would allow. “Yes, the food was for my brother’s widow. She has children and they are hungry. And, yes, I did steal what they claim.”
I considered this for only a moment, and then I broke the pillory open to free him. Before he had a chance to thank me I was walking away.
I kept walking north, using the few stars I could make out in the sky to guide me. Mostly I made my way through narrow alleyways and streets, although at times I would come across small parks and gardens and buildings of remarkable grandeur. I was no more than a few miles from where I had freed that man from the pillory when I spotted five men standing together in the darkness. Somehow they sensed me and they moved quickly so that they surrounded me. They were big men, although nowhere my size. But each of them was over six feet tall and thick shouldered, and they held long knives. They reminded me of the wolves that had first attacked me when I traveled to Leipzig.
One of them addressed me. “Aye, mate. If you are going to pass, you got to pay our toll.”
“What is your toll?”
He laughed at that. “Listen to his accent. A foreigner.” This was said to his companions. Then to me, he said, “Your pig snout. That is what we collect, and that’s why we are members of the Pig Snout Club. So remember that for when you tell stories of how you lost your pig snout!”
While I had studied English, I hadn’t spoken or heard it much in my life, and I wasn’t sure if I had heard right. “I do not have a pig with me,” I said. “So I am afraid you will have to collect your snout from someone else.”
“That’s not how it works, friend. We’ll collect the snout from you. From your own face, mind you. So stand still and be prepared to pay your toll. Or put up a fight if you wish.”
They moved toward me, and it was only when they were a few feet from me and realized my size that they stopped. Once more they reminded me of those wolves, except with the men I felt no remorse over what I was going to do. They only hesitated briefly. I suppose they decided that even with my greater size, they were armed and there were five of them. And in the darkness they couldn’t see me clearly enough to realize what they were going up against.
When the first of them stepped forward to stick me with his knife, I grabbed him by the arm and broke it as if it were a dried stick. Before he could utter a sound I lifted him over my head the way you would lift a sack of flour. He started shrieking then, but it did not last long as I threw him at two of his advancing companions. These two also cried out as they fell to the ground with their friend sprawled out on top of them, either dead or unconscious. The two remaining proved less courageous than the wolves had, and they both took several steps backward.
“Aye, Charlie,” one of them cried out. “Was that you who screamed? What happened? Henry?”
“I think he’s murdered Charlie,” one of them on the ground cried. “And he’s hurt us terribly.”
The two standing snout collectors turned and ran. I could have given chase and caught them, but instead I approached their three helpless companions who were left on the ground and kneeled beside them. I took a knife from one of them.
“Maybe I should start my own collection,” I said, and I placed the blade under his nose. All I needed to do was push my thumb against the back of the blade, and his nose would come clean off.
“Please, Cap’n, don’t do that,” he pleaded. “I got a mum and two sisters. Don’t do that to me. We were just having our fun, that’s all.”
“How many noses have you collected so far? And do not lie. I know when I’m being lied to!”
He hesitated before telling me that so far he had only collected a mere four noses, and that two of them were only little beaks that together barely amounted to a full nose. He started blubbering then, and in his tears added, “But it was done for sport, Cap’n. We weren’t out to cause any real mischief.”
“Just a group of high-spirited gentlemen,” I said.