Quickly, Diana looked around the room: Mary and Holmes were standing in one corner, revolvers raised, guarding Watson. He was lying on the floor, a red stain spreading across his shoulder. A Wolf Man lay dead at his side. Another lay only a few feet away, in front of Mary, still alive but clearly dying. He held a hand up, as though pleading for mercy. But he could no longer stand, no longer even move himself along the floor. Both his wolf and man brains knew that death was coming. He raised his head and howled. In another corner stood Catherine, guarding Justine, who leaned against the wall as though about to faint. How had she gotten out of the restraints and off the operating table? The Bear Man and a Boar Man were both crouched before her, about to attack. Prendick and Hyde were still standing at the table, but the Orangutan Man had hidden under it. Prendick was clutching the table for support. Hyde was holding a scalpel in front of him, like a weapon. At the far end of the room, next to a desk where the manager of Alderney Shipping had once, no doubt, sat to do his accounts, stood the giant, Adam, holding a hand to his chest. On the desk was a lamp, and by its light she could see that his shirt was stained red. But more frightening than the red on his shirt was his face, twisted with fury, pale as a corpse except for the blood running down one temple.
“Do you think you can defeat me? Me, Adam Frankenstein?” he shouted. And as the Wolf Man howled, he threw back his head and roared. The rest of the Beast Men shrieked in response—an unnatural cacophony in the silence of the London night.
CHAPTER XVI
Into the Warehouse
While Diana and Charlie were running up the stairs, Holmes, Mary, and the others were preparing to rescue Justine from her captors. Holmes opened the office door, stepped in, and said, “The game is up, gentlemen. Raise your hands over your heads and step away from Miss Frankenstein. We are armed, and prepared to shoot.” Lamplight glinted off the barrel of his revolver.
Prendick and Hyde both looked up, startled. Prendick raised his hands, still holding the ether sponge. Then Hyde raised his. In one hand he held the scalpel, with which he had been about to make the first incision. A shriek rent the air. In a corner of the room, by the cage in which the Beast Men were confined, crouched the madman Renfield. So this was where he had gone! At the sound, the Beast Men in the cage paced back and forth uneasily, all but one who lay in the shadows, by the far wall. How many of them were there? Mary was just behind Holmes, but she could barely see over his shoulder. The Bear Man standing by the operating table growled, as though perplexed by this turn of affairs, and the Orangutan Man jumped up and down with his knuckles still on the floor. Only Adam Frankenstein remained completely motionless. He grinned, a horrific sight on that corpse-like face. Mary shuddered.
“Well, well,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holmes. I anticipated that we would meet at some point, although I didn’t think it would be so soon. How did you come to find us?” He spoke with an English accent, although with a foreign inflection.
Holmes stepped forward. Mary, Watson, and Catherine stepped into the room behind him, fanning out to both sides. Mary raised her revolver. It was the first time she had aimed it at anything other than a target. Would she be able to use it when the time came? Of course, she told herself. I don’t have a choice. The room had a close, musty smell, no doubt from the Beast Men. She wished she could hold a handkerchief over her nose.
“Catherine!” Prendick looked at her with astonishment. “How is it possible . . .”
“How is it possible that I escaped from the island on which you left me to die?” said Catherine. “Untie Justine.”
“And if we don’t?” asked Hyde in his rasping voice. “What will you do then, Miss Moreau? That is who you aren’t, isn’t it? The Puma Woman?”
“Then we will shoot you all, and untie her ourselves,” said Watson. “It would probably be easier for you to untie her without the preliminary shooting.”
“I suggest you follow Miss Moreau’s instructions,” said Holmes. “We will not hesitate to shoot criminals.”
On the table, Justine moaned. She turned her head to one side, then the other, as though trying to dispel the influence of the ether. The Beast Men gathered at the front of the cage—all but the one who lay by the far wall. They looked on, curiously and with suspicion. Now Mary could see that there were three of them. Another Boar Man, who resembled the one Justine had killed. And two that looked like—dogs? No, wolves. The Wolf Men who had hunted Catherine and Diana.
“Cat, I never meant . . . ,” began Prendick.
“Are you mad to come here, Mr. Holmes?” said Adam, disregarding his confederates. “You and Dr. Watson, armed only with those toys? And with two—ladies, if they are, which I rather doubt, since ladies don’t go around carrying guns or making threats. We are more than a match for you. It is you who should be surrendering to us. That’s logical, Mr. Holmes, and you believe in logic, do you not? For years, I followed your exploits, as recounted by Dr. Watson. In the Alps of my native Switzerland, in the ruined castle I had called home for most of a century, I received them regularly by post. I know your methods. They are impressive, although they are the methods of a calculating machine—you measure and observe, then make your deductions. You are a kind of glorified automaton. I doubt you can understand the methods of a creative mind. The true criminal will always escape you, because he will be able to do what you cannot understand—the unexpected!”
“I would not trust too much to Watson’s accounts of me,” said Holmes. “He’s liable to exaggerate.” He fired one shot. It hit the wall on the opposite end of the office. Startled, Mary jumped at the sound. The Orangutan Man screamed and scampered under the operating table. The Beast Men began howling and shaking their bars. Nervously, Prendick untied one of Justine’s wrists.
“Fool! What do you think you’re doing!” shouted Adam. “The man shoots one bullet into a wall and you’re ready to surrender? You’re an even greater coward than I suspected, Prendick. Stay where you are, all of you. And Prendick, if you loose her bonds, I will rip your head off with my bare hands. She is mine. She was made for me, and I will not lose her again.”
“Mr. Prendick, do as I instructed, or I will have the significant pleasure of shooting you,” said Holmes. “Any man who would take God’s creations and turn them into these monstrosities is not worthy to live.”
CATHERINE: He did not need to say that. Monstrosities?
MARY: I don’t think he meant you, Cat.
CATHERINE: Nevertheless, it was unnecessary. And rude.
DIANA: Will you get on with the story already? I want to hear the part where I come in. That’s the best part . . .
“Adam, can’t we just let her go?” said Prendick. “Why do you need her? Why her specifically? We can go back to the original plan. Wouldn’t it be better to make another woman?”
“There is no other woman! Why do you think I killed those women myself, rather than sending another out to do it? I had to make sure they looked like her! Her eyes, her hands . . . There is no other woman for me. She escaped me once. Now I’ve found her; she will not escape me again.”
“Oh, but she will!” said Catherine. “She’s escaping you now!”