This Dark Endeavour (with Bonus Material) (8 page)

“To the town hall, then,” I said after Father had disappeared from view.

We had discussed our strategy the night before, and agreed this seemed the most sensible place to begin our search. The land registry office would have records of all the city’s property owners.

But when we asked the fussy town hall clerk to check, he found no entry for a Polidori.

“All this tells us is that he doesn’t own property,” I said outside in the square.

“He may well take rented rooms,” said Elizabeth.

“As a great many do,” added Henry.

Our next step was to ask at the various apothecary shops. If this fellow was as famous as Maria had said, others would have heard of him. But several young apprentices just shook their heads and claimed no knowledge of him.

An older fellow looked at us gravely over the top of his spectacles and said, “I have not heard that foul name mentioned in many years. I know nothing of his whereabouts, nor care to know.”

Our search had started near the centre of the city, but slowly we were moving away from the elegant flowered fountains and airy public squares. The cobbled streets narrowed. There were fewer gentlemen about, and more sailors and labourers and women dressed in coarser fashion. I didn’t like the looks a couple of wharf hands gave us as we passed in the lanes.

I was beginning to despair, for we had asked now at some half dozen establishments, and no one had been able to tell us anything helpful about Julius Polidori.

“We are idiots,” said Henry suddenly.

I turned to see him looking into a greasy window where a row of typesetters sat hunched over tables, their blackened fingers plucking individual letters from trays.

“The
Geneva Gazette
,” said Henry. “This story of Maria’s—surely it would have been written up.”

“It must have been,” said Elizabeth eagerly. “The child of a general! Of course it would have been the talk of the town. Victor, did Maria give you an exact date?”

“She said it was the year of my birth, that it was winter.”

“Now we must hope that the newspaper keeps a proper archive,” said Henry.

I was not hopeful when we entered the offices, for the place was in a chaos of activity and noise and ink. At first it seemed no one would have a second to spare for us, but Elizabeth picked out the kindliest-looking young gentleman she could find. She walked to him and very prettily told him we had been set a historical assignment by our tutor, and would it be possible to look at some past issues of the newspaper.

It was quite remarkable, how helpful the fellow was. He gave us all candles and escorted us down to a cellar, but then my heart truly sank, for I saw tower after tower of newspaper, stacked to the very ceiling.

“It is like a city of paper,” I murmured to Elizabeth.

“Will it be difficult to find the period we seek?” she asked the young fellow.

“Not at all, miss, not at all.” He promptly led us to a particular tower, thrust his hand into it, and, like a magician, pulled out a wad of old newspapers.

“I believe these will suit you,” he said, beaming at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth beamed back. “Thank you so much, sir. You’ve been so kind.”

“If you need any further assistance, I shall be upstairs,” he said. He gave his name, bowed, and disappeared.

“He could not have been more helpful had he been on puppet strings,” Henry said in amazement.

Elizabeth blushed modestly.

We each took several papers and in the light of our candles searched through them.

It seemed hardly any time at all before Elizabeth exclaimed, “I have it here! Here is the story …” She read aloud hurriedly, jumping ahead until she came to what we sought. “‘Julius Polidori, of Wollstonekraft Alley … ‘”

“It is not five minutes’ walk from here,” I said with a grin.

The alley stank of urine—and worse. The few shops had a defeated look about them, tattered awnings and dirty windows with dusty displays that probably hadn’t been changed for years.

“This must be the place, here,” said Henry. The windows were shuttered, but over the door hung a wooden sign. Flaking paint showed an apothecary’s mortar and pestle.

“It does not look promising,” said Elizabeth drily.

In the door was a small, grimy window, but it was too dark
inside to make out much more than the shadows of shelves. The place looked all but abandoned, but when I turned the knob, the door swung open and a small bell clanged.

I entered with Henry and Elizabeth. “Good morning!” I called out.

Mingled with the fragrance of a hundred different herbs was dust and a powerful smell of cat. At one time the shop must have been more prosperous, for the shelves were of rich dark wood. On our left was an entire wall of drawers, each fancily labelled.

“Hello?” I called out again.

Henry drew open one drawer, and then another. “Empty,” he said. He looked all about him, wide eyed, perhaps recording every detail for some horrifying poem or play he would later concoct.

Directly before us was a long counter, behind which were shelves filled with elaborate mixing vessels. It did not look like anything had been mixed here in quite some time. In the middle of the shelves was a glass-paned door. I saw a flicker of light, and then a shadow growing larger.

Quite suddenly the door swung open and a man in a wheelchair propelled himself into the shop. His legs were wizened, the fabric of his breeches loose and flapping. He seemed no more than fifty, and though his upper body was powerfully built, his face had a gaunt and defeated look to it. His wig rested crookedly, and was many years out of fashion. But it was his eyes that most gave him the look of defeat. They contained not a spark of light or hope.

He seemed surprised when he saw us. No doubt he didn’t get many customers as well dressed as us in his shop—if he got any customers at all.

“How may I help you?”

“You are Mr. Julius Polidori?” Elizabeth asked politely.

“I am, miss.”

The three of us glanced quickly at one another, for this fellow seemed so far from the picture conjured by Maria’s story. A healer. A man of power who cured a little girl when all the wise men of Europe could not.

This man before us positively reeked of failure.

I felt an instinctive disdain rising in me. What kind of healer could this be? This broken person in a chair with a crooked wig? His shop was a ruin. No doubt his clothing had not been laundered recently. He was laughable. I was tempted to turn and leave that very moment.

“Might there be some medicine you’re needing?” he asked.

“I think perhaps—” I began with a sniff, but Elizabeth cut me off.

“Indeed there is,” she said, and gave me a warning look, for she knew how quickly my temper could flare. In that way, we were not so different. To Polidori she said, “But it is of an … unusual nature.”

He looked at us steadily, saying nothing.

I was still far from convinced any good could come of this, but we were here now. I drew closer to the counter. “You are the same apothecary who cured the general’s girl, some years ago?”

He drew in a breath and released it with a rueful nod. “I am.”

“We have heard that you are a man of wide-ranging knowledge,” Elizabeth said. “A healer with remarkable powers.”

He actually laughed then, bitterly. “Is this some joke? Have you nothing better to do with your days?”

“No, sir,” said Henry. “I mean, no, this is not a joke and we are here on a matter of the greatest urgency.”

“We’re searching for the Elixir of Life,” Elizabeth said quietly.

Polidori stared at us with his dull eyes. “Good day to you, young sirs, and young lady,” he said curtly, and with a deft movement, swivelled his chair back toward the doorway.

“Please, sir, wait,” I said, striding forward, taking from my satchel a volume from the Dark Library and putting it on the counter. “I have here a work by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa …”

Polidori paused. He chuckled sadly and then turned around, barely glancing at the book.

“Occulta Philosophia. Am I correct?”

I nodded, startled.

“Young sir, put it back into your satchel. Add two large stones, say goodbye, and throw it into the deepest part of the harbour.”

Henry looked over at me, confused. “Is that a spell of some sort?”

“That is advice, and the best I have to give,” said Polidori. “That book will only bring you grief.”

“Sir,” I said, “The physician Agrippa—”

“
Magician
!” Polidori scoffed.

I persisted. “He writes of something called the Elixir—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” he said impatiently. “The Elixir of Life. He was hardly the first to dream up such a thing. There are many, many recipes for fantastical potions meant to cure all ills, perhaps even guarantee immortality. Such things are delusions, sir. They do not exist.”

“I am confused,” said Elizabeth. “I thought you yourself—”

“Yes,” he said. “There was a time when I too was seduced by
such fancies and sought them with great passion. I even created an elixir of my own.”

“And you succeeded with that little girl,” I said.

Again he laughed. “She was cured,” he said. “But not by me. It was
chance,
or God’s divine power, a miracle! But it was not me.”

“Why do you say that, sir?” Henry asked.

Polidori frowned. “You know my name, yet you don’t know my full story? You have not come merely to torment me?”

I shook my head, wondering why Maria had withheld something. The honesty in our surprised faces must have convinced Polidori, and the suspicion faded from his eyes. He sighed.

“After that girl recovered, my business flourished. People beat my door off its hinges, wanting the same medicine.” He waved a hand around his shop. “For a short while I was a wealthy man, welcomed into the finest homes in the city. But that elixir I gave the girl, the
very same thing,
was not reliable. Sometimes it made a patient well. Sometimes it had no effect at all. Sometimes it seemed to make a patient worse. Still, people craved it, even though I grew more and more reluctant to prepare it. Some months later there was a ship owner, Hans Marek, a man of some wealth and power in the city, whose wife was very ill. He came to me and demanded the elixir. I told him I was no longer making it. He offered me a great sum in gold, and foolishly I accepted. Marek took my elixir home, and his wife died shortly after taking it. He was so enraged, he wanted me hanged for witchcraft.” Polidori chuckled. “You see, when a medicine works, it is blessed science, and when it fails, it is witchcraft. I was brought before a magistrate, a fine and enlightened gentleman who dismissed the charges as barbaric
and primitive. But he forbade me from making the elixir ever again, or practising alchemy.”

“This magistrate,” Henry asked. “What was his name?”

The same question had been on my lips as well, and I waited anxiously for the answer.

“His name was Alphonse Frankenstein,” said the apothecary.

I felt a great pride in my father’s fairness, but when I saw that Elizabeth was about to reveal our connection, I quickly touched her hand. I did not think it wise for Polidori to know our identities, not yet anyway.

“I owe Frankenstein my life,” Polidori was saying, “what is left of it. But his ruling offered no satisfaction to Hans Marek. Several nights later I was dragged from my bed by a drunken mob, taken up to the city ramparts, and pushed.”

Elizabeth gasped.

“Clearly I survived the fall,” he said. “A small miracle in itself. But I was paralyzed from the waist down.” He patted at his legs. “I have virtually no business now, but I have been frugal with my savings and so am able to carry on, as you see. Now, you have listened to a long and weighty tale, and if it has any moral, it is this: Rid yourself of that book before it brings you ill luck. Good day to you.”

Once more he began to turn his wheelchair away.

“It is my brother—” I began, but my voice broke.

Polidori sighed. “I am very sorry to hear it,” he said sadly. “It is always the way. I have seen it many, many times. When a loved one falls desperately ill, and all else fails, any risk is worth the taking.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth.

Polidori shook his gaunt head. “The last time I took pity on
such a patient, it cost the patient her life, and me nearly mine.”

“We have money,” I said.

But Polidori raised his hand wearily. “I cannot. I will not. And if I may give you a further piece of advice, give up your search altogether. Agrippa’s recipe has never been replicated. Why? Because it is written in a strange and complex—”

“The Alphabet of the Magi,” I said. “We know.”

“Very good,” he said. “But did you also know that it has no translation? It is unreadable.”

“What about Paracelsus?” Elizabeth demanded.
“The Archidoxes of Magic.
“

Polidori looked startled, impressed even. “Every edition is gone, burned,” he said with a trace of wistfulness. “Extinct! And even if it weren’t—”

From my satchel I took the volume of Paracelsus and placed it carefully before him on the counter.

In silence he stared at it with a curious expression I couldn’t quite fathom. Then it came to me. It was the way a cat beholds its prey just before the pounce. His grey eyes lifted slowly to mine.

“Where did you find this?” he asked softly.

“That is my secret.” I was afraid if he knew too much about us, he might guess my parentage and refuse to help us further. “Will you assist us?”

“Your parents, young sir, do they know of this visit?” he asked.

“No.”

Polidori glanced out to the street, as if afraid someone might be watching. He looked at all three of us, as if reluctant once more, but then his gaze fell back on the Paracelsus.

“Come,” he said. “Bring these books of yours into my parlour. Let us have a look at them.”

He led us into the dim room behind the counter. It too was lined with shelves, but these held books instead of vials and tins. The faded Oriental carpet was rutted with wheelchair tracks. Two armchairs and a threadbare sofa were arranged around a small hearth. There was a table that had not been entirely cleared of its last meal. He lived humbly indeed.