In only a short time the ship was rolling. Usually, I have my sea legs, but even I was struggling as we bounced down a corridor. Luckily, the poor conditions seemed to be keeping the crew busy, so there was little chance of our discovery. Only once did we almost come face to face with a couple of sailors, but I pulled Holmes back into an open doorway where we hid until the men staggered past.
“This is hopeless,” I whispered. “We can’t blunder around below deck, hoping to find her.”
A voice sounded from up ahead, shouting to be heard over the groans of the ship’s superstructure.
“Take these to the Fräulein. The storm is coming in faster than expected.”
Again we sank into the shadows, waiting for the deckhand to pass. I saw that he was carrying a small crate, piled high with cables.
We waited a few moments and then slipped out into the corridor, following his footsteps. Pausing at a bulkhead, we heard him knock on a door, a faint female voice sounding in response. There was a creak and he entered.
“Place it over there,” the female voice said in faultless German, while we scurried past the door and reached the next section. There we waited for the sailor to exit, hoping that he would return the way he had come. For a moment, it looked as though he was about to walk straight towards us, when shouts from above caused him to double back and head towards the foredeck.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I followed Holmes to the door and exchanged a look, before he turned the handle and stepped over the raised partition into the room beyond.
“What now?” said Elsbeth Honegger, her back towards us. “I’ve told you that I cannot do this unless—”
She turned and stopped, not expecting to see two grey-haired Englishmen staring back at her. I, for one, shared her amazement. The room was built into one of the holds of the ship, but thankfully it was enclosed against the elements. Instead, the rain hammered down on a glass ceiling that stretched the length of the compartment, save for multiple heavy industrial cables that snaked down through a hatch from the central mast. Those cables, not ropes, were what we had seen on the sail-less mast.
I followed the cables down from the hatch’s rubber seal to the most bizarre of contraptions. There, on a raised dais, sat something that resembled a bronze beer kettle, the kind used to ferment ale in breweries the world over – but never had one such as this been constructed. Its lid was suspended on chains above the base, weighted down so it would not swing with the roll of the ship. However, every time the deck bucked beneath our feet, a strange yellow liquid slopped over the edge of the base to splatter on the floor. It was thick, and gave off such a chemical reek that it was all I could do not to gag.
“Who are you?” she said in German. “What are you doing here?”
Holmes took a step forward, replying in our native tongue. “My name is Sherlock Holmes.”
Her eyes widened.
“This has to be some kind of joke.”
“I’m afraid not. I am here on behalf of your sister.”
“Cammy?”
“She is most concerned for your safety, and, after seeing the way you were treated on the harbourside, so were we.”
The lady came towards us, unconsciously wiping her hands on her white medical coat, leaving behind stains from the viscous yellow liquid. “You cannot be here. How did you get on board?”
“That is unimportant,” Holmes said, his eyes flickering over the equipment behind her. “Although I have some questions of my own.”
She broke to the left, racing towards a communication tube. Holmes sprang after her, grabbing her arm before she could reach the voicepipe.
“Release me at once!”
“What are you doing here?”
“Holmes,” I cautioned, worried that my friend would hurt her.
“Look in the kettle,” he commanded, even as she squirmed in his grip.
“Let me go, I say!”
“Do it, Watson!”
I seesawed across the lurching room, grabbing hold of the handrail around the platform. Pulling myself up, I peered down into the glutinous pool within the kettle. There, submerged on a metal frame, lay a naked body, strapped by thick lengths of leather around its chest, waist and legs. Its head was held in place with a brace, its eyes closed. Even through the liquid I could make out the marbled effect on its skin and the tight stitching that had now become so familiar.
“Good Lord,” I murmured. “It’s all true. Every word of it.”
“Don’t touch him,” Elsbeth Honegger shrieked, breaking free of Holmes’s grip and racing towards me. The ship hit a wave and was tossed to port, sending her diving across the deck. I fell back against the copper, my hand splashing into the creature’s – what, amniotic fluid?
Behind me, I heard Miss Honegger approach. Pulling out my revolver, I spun around, bringing the weapon up to bear.
She froze, staring down the barrel of my gun.
“My friend asked you a question,” I said, the revulsion in my voice plain for all to hear. “What are you doing here?”
Now it was Holmes’s turn to give counsel.
“Watson, steady.”
“I dared not believe it was possible,” said I, glowering at the woman. “But here it is.”
“Please,” she begged me. “Lower the weapon. It is almost time.”
“Almost time for what?” Holmes asked.
“Her infernal experiment,” I snapped, answering for her. “This abhorrence. Why a ship?”
“What?”
“Why not do this on land?”
“I would think it is the storm,” Holmes said calmly. “Power for the… resurrection.”
She glanced at him. “You seem to know a great deal of my business.”
“Your business?” I spat. “Grave-robbing? Blasphemy?”
She pointed at me now, ignoring the gun. “He volunteered his body for the benefit of medical science, and that, not blasphemy, is exactly what is being carried out here.”
“Body or bodies?” Holmes enquired. “We have seen your handiwork, Miss Honegger. Or at least what we have been told is your handiwork. On the Western Front, experimenting on the dead. On Daniel Blake?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“You don’t even know their names?” I asked, incredulous.
“I never ask,” she said. “I do not concern myself about what they are, only what they will be.”
“Your creatures,” Holmes said.
“They don’t belong to me.”
“Really? What about the man you slaughtered? In Abberton Hospital? Did Adam deserve to die?”
She at least had the decency to look surprised. “You have indeed been following me. I took no pleasure in that, I can assure you.”
“I should think not!” I exclaimed.
“I was offered a way out, but Adam declined to take it.”
“A way out from what?”
She turned to face Holmes. “How much do you know?”
“That you sought to carry on Victor Frankenstein’s work—”
“To play God,” I interrupted.
Holmes ignored me. “But you were arrested, yes? For desecration. And yet, when the authorities discovered what you were attempting, what science you had at your fingertips…”
“Who told you all this?”
“I think you know.”
“He lies, without hesitation.”
“And yet the lies are compelling. Offered a chance to continue your experimentation, a supply of fresh meat, no questions asked – until the war ended, until they realised that if anyone found out what they had allowed you to do, what they had sanctioned – the British Empire, experimenting on its own dead… No wonder you ran.”
“I had nowhere else to go.”
“Nowhere except home. The lure was too great. A loving family, a favourite nephew; but official secrets rarely stay secret for long. Germany may have lost the war, but she still has spies. They discovered what you had achieved, and offered you a way out. Oh, this is a private vessel, but the markings on the cargo, they are military, as are most of the sailors on board, I would think. The money that all this would cost, you were unable to find it yourself, otherwise you would hardly have been operating out of a derelict hospital on the banks of the Thames. Although I must congratulate you on the generator. I always appreciate the ability to extemporise in the face of adversity.”
“Do you expect me to thank you?”
“As you thanked Adam?”
“He refused to come. The thought of turning to the enemy he had been created to fight was a step too far.”
“So you took what you had given, killing him in the hospital, dismembering him piece by piece so that his body would never be found. Well, not all of it, unfortunately.”
When he paused, she asked but one simple question, her face without expression.
“So, it is I whom you consider the monster, not they.”
“You’re a scientist, a brilliant one if the stories are true, but you are also a murderer. We were brought in by Scotland Yard to find a killer, and we have found one.”
“I thought you said you were sent by my sister?”
“The two cases have dovetailed.”
Above us lightning flashed in the broiling clouds, thunder crashing through the heavens a second later. We were nearing the eye of the storm.
The ship pitched, buffeted by a wave, and I fell forward, stumbling from the dais. My gun skittered across the deck, but the lady had already made good her escape. Before Holmes could stop her, she had raced to the door, flinging it open and calling for help.
At least, that was what she tried to do. Her cry was cut off halfway through and she stopped short, before backing into the room again. Looking up from where I had fallen, I saw two men follow her in, guns raised. Two men I recognised all too well.
“Dr Watson,” the first of them said. “I didn’t think we’d be running into you again.” The tweed suit and bow tie had gone, but it was the same sneer he had worn when he and his companion walked into my surgery. Burns and Hartley. “At least, I hoped we wouldn’t.”
Hartley, that damned moustache twitching, turned sharply to cover Holmes in his sights. “Everyone stay still.”
“Who are these men?” Elsbeth Honegger snapped, not taking her eyes from the unwavering gun barrels.
“Old friends,” said Burns.
“Hardly,” I replied. “Believe it or not, these two louts work for the British government. How did you get on board?”
Holmes answered for them. “The shouts from above.”
“I didn’t think it would work, to be honest,” said Hartley. “Jerry isn’t known for compassion, and yet, would you believe it, they saw our little boat bobbing around out there, heard our cries for help—”
“And rescued you,” said Holmes.
Burns grinned, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Worst mistake they ever made. Still, they’re not worrying about it any more.”
“You followed us here,” Holmes realised. “Straight to Miss Honegger.”
“I was wrong about that too,” said Hartley. “I thought we’d scare you off when we paid our little visit.”
“Isn’t that what you were supposed to do?” I asked, glancing around for my gun. It had slid beneath a bank of equipment. There was no way I could reach it before the thugs squeezed their triggers.
Hartley shrugged. “They said it would just make you dig your heels in, and try to find Madam here.”
“They?”
“Our lords and masters. And the curious thing is, they were right. Stubborn pair of codgers, aren’t you?”
“We try our best,” drawled Holmes.
Elsbeth Honegger stood her ground. “So what now? You kill me too?”
“Nah, we’re taking you back. There’s still folk at home who have use for you.” His eyes flicked to the copper device behind us. “And what you can do.”
“But they shut my experiments down.”
“That was before the Germans showed an interest,” Holmes cut in, glancing over to the table where Honegger had been writing notes. “Headed notepaper, from at least two of the major German pharmaceutical companies. Germany is in crisis. A new crop of medical advances would be timely, especially if they could be patented and sold overseas. After all, that’s why you are doing this, is it not? To find a cure for your nephew?”
“Enough chat,” interrupted Burns, and fired at Holmes. I cried out as the bullet slammed into my friend’s shoulder, sending him pirouetting to the floor. I scrambled over to him, not caring a jot if I was about to receive a bullet of my own. Burns fired again, but the pitch of the ship sent his aim wide, the bullet ricocheting off the copper with a loud clang.
“No!” shouted Miss Honegger, running back up to the dais.
“Stay back,” Burns warned her, but she whirled around.
“Listen, I shall return with you. I don’t care who foots the bill as long as I can continue my work, but would your masters not prefer that we take my crowning achievement back with us?”
“They just want you.”
“Because they have not seen him yet. But when they do…”
Lightning flashed high above us, and the ship rolled again. Holmes cried out as he tumbled onto his injured arm. I rolled him onto his back and examined the wound. It was pumping out blood. Sitting him up, I glanced around. I searched for bandages or gauze, anything I could use to stem the flow.
Behind me, Honegger continued her plea. “Trust me, he is perfect. Better than any of them. I have no wish to flounder around in the mud any more. Say what you want about the Germans, but they’ve given me what I need.”
Thunder crashed, and Elsbeth Honegger looked up into the dark sky. “It may happen at any moment. When lightning strikes that mast…”
Hartley glanced at Burns. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Are you seriously thinking of escaping from this ship in the middle of a storm?” she asked. “Let me complete my task, and then we shall go together. They will thank you for it.”
I didn’t have time to watch for the thugs’ reaction. I had found a store of gauze and folded it into a pad. Now pressed over the wound in Holmes’s shoulder, it was already drenched in blood.
“Hold it in place, old boy,” I told him. His face was as white as a ghost. “I’ll find bandages.”
The last thing I expected was to hear Elsbeth Honegger calling for me.
“You. I need your help.”
I looked round at her in puzzlement. “What?”
She was working a pulley, lowering the lid of the kettle into position. The louts had relented, but I had no intention of abandoning Holmes.
“You’re a doctor, are you not?” she said, struggling with the apparatus. “Trust me, this will be the operation of your career.”
“I’m busy,” I snapped back. “Ask those two.”
Burns’s gun swivelled towards me. “I’m going nowhere near that thing. Do as she says.”
“Go to hell.”
“You will be there before us if you refuse. And then where will your friend be, bleeding to death all alone?”
“Do it, Watson,” Holmes said weakly, his hand holding the now scarlet dressing. “I find myself unable to move.”
I looked from my friend to the gun pointing in my direction, before struggling to my feet. “Very well,” I said, as I tottered over to the platform. “What do you need me to do?”