The Frankenstein Testament

Dublin

Captain Joseph Sheridan rocked his chair back onto its hind legs and planted both feet on the table before him.

His arms were spread wide, holding a newspaper open. As he re-read the article in the top right column of the centre pages, he made a disgruntled gravelling cough. Much to his chagrin, he had to admit that Mrs Stoker was on to something. There was definitely something odd going on in the north.

He was sitting in the reading room of Archbishop Marsh's Library. Dublin had several public libraries now but Marsh’s was the oldest and, to Sheridan, still the best. Cold, winter morning sunshine streamed through the large glass windows, designed to give maximum illumination for patrons who poured over the library's collection of tomes, periodicals and-as Sheridan was doing-newspapers.

He yawned. Coffee would be needed soon. Despite being worn out by the adventures of the previous evening at Castle De Lacy he had barely had a couple of hours sleep. Normally when he finished a case after a good sleep it was straight to the nearest open pub for a binge of heavy drinking that could go on for days-sometimes weeks-until such time as another mystery came along to keep his attention and stave off boredom. This time, however, was different. Instead of going straight to bed he had decided to wind down. He had poured himself a glass of port and opened the newspaper Mrs Stoker had left out for him and that was it. He was off again.

The damnable woman knew him too well. He would not have been surprised if she had not spent all of the previous day in this very same room, scouring newspapers in an effort to find some story that would stop him falling into his habitual end-of-case dissolution.

He felt a brief surge of annoyance. After all, he paid her to look after his house, not save his soul. He had to admit, though, that he was now intrigued. Mrs Stoker had ringed in red pen a curious report in the Dublin Evening Mail about recent sightings of ghosts in Belfast. The article alluded to a previous incident that seemed to have occurred just over a month before, in October, when the wife of a man who had died in a drowning accident at the docks claimed to have seen him wandering “lost and bewildered” down the town's May Street about a week after his death. This had led to a rash of other witnesses who all swore to have seen the dead man walking at several places around Belfast. Reports had then ceased as suddenly as they began.

‘It seems, however,’ the report continued in its sceptical tone, ‘that this was not simply hysteria related to the season of Halloween’ and went on to relate that there were new reports of sightings of the recent dead, this time an executed felon, coming from the northern town. The paper noted dryly that this was not the sort of behaviour usually associated with the sober Presbyterian citizens of Belfast. The article concluded with a final dig:

‘Coming as it does on the heels of the reports of vampires from the north coast in the Summer, it appears our Calvinist cousins in Ulster have a superstitious side to them they would probably prefer to keep buttoned up.’

‘Reports of vampires’ had been enough to set Sheridan on the scent like a terrier after a rabbit. Instead of the pub he was off to the library as soon as it opened.

Despite the Government's recent relaxation on the cover tax, newspapers were still a relatively expensive perk of the middle and upper classes. Most families perhaps bought maybe one or two a week. There were two places to go to read the news for free however. Pubs would invest in the daily paper and pin the pages up on the wall for customers to peruse, providing they bought a drink. The other place was Archbishop Marsh's Library behind St. Patrick's cathedral. You certainly could not get a drink there, but if you wanted a range of papers from all over Ireland, as well as a collection of back issues going back years, it was the only place to go.

Sheridan was soon pouring over copies of the Belfast News Letter and the Northern Whig, going back over the past few months, looking for anything that could shed more light on the story he had read in the Evening Mail.

The Belfast papers were just as sceptical as the Dublin one, but it was clear that there was something strange going on. After an hour and a half of searching he found more on it in an edition of the News Letter from the end of August.

‘Despite being two months until Halloween, it seems that some residents on the north coast are entering into the spirit of that most superstitious of Scottish festivals already,’ the article began. ‘Perhaps their proximity to Scotland is an influence on our north Antrim cousins. A story has reached this newspaper which we can scarcely believe, and we have only decided to print in the interests of informing our readership of it, least they hear it from another source and believe it too be true.’

Sheridan grunted at the reporter's pretend sophistication. Unverifiable or not, a juicy story of the supernatural would help sell copies. There was some more mocking of country bumpkins and culchies with their credulous ways before the article continued to outline how it had heard that one Mary Butters ‘wife of a simple farmhand near the village of Castlerock’ had been made a widow by a farming accident when her labourer husband had fallen off a hay cart during harvest time and died of internal injuries.

The unfortunate woman had complained that several weeks after his funeral she had been awoken by scratching on the wooden door and shutters of their house. Peeking out she had seen it was none other than the dead man. It seems all was not well with the Butters’ marriage as she had refused to let him in, saying that she had been happy to have seen the last (as she thought) of the drunken tyrant. All very hilarious until several days later a neighbour had found Mary Butters dead, though in what circumstances it did not say.

‘No doubt influenced by Penny Dreadful literature such as 'The Vampyre Mistress'- the recent runaway success of which this paper cannot fathom-a gathering of locals concluded there to be a vampire on the loose and took it upon themselves to exhume Mr Butters' corpse.’

Sheridan read on to find that the avenging villagers were thwarted in their intentions by members of the local constabulary, who quite rightly stopped them from committing this sacrilegious act.

‘While Mrs Butters death is to be regretted, it must be said that her husband was a well known drunkard and imbiber of poitin, the illegal whiskey which is the notorious curse of the lower classes of north Antrim. Unfortunately it seems Mrs Butters, perhaps driven by grief of her loss, followed her husband in his dissolute ways. It is a matter to be condemned that her fantastical assertions should have gained enough credibility to incite a mob to attempt an exhumation.’

A disapproving cough came from behind Sheridan and he turned his head to see the librarian looking at him over the top of his spectacles.

"Sir, this is not a saloon bar," the librarian said. "Kindly remove your boots from the table top."

"Of course," Sheridan said, folding the newspaper and standing up. "I was just leaving anyway. Tell me, do you happen to have a copy of the timetable for the steamship to Belfast?"