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Do you perhaps know him?” Clair asked.
    “Who could not know the great Dr. Victor Frankenstein? I attended several of his lectures during my university days in Vienna. I was quite impressed with some of his suppositions. Although some of those theories do trip into the realm of the extremely bizarre.”
    “Such as?”
    “The cloning of people.”
    “Ah yes. One of his favorite theories. Uncle Victor believes that someday scientists will clone many things. Perhaps a goat or a sheep or even people. He also believes doctors will be able to harvest organs from dying patients and place them in people who have weak hearts or kidneys.”
    Ian arched a skeptical brow.
    “It is a beautiful hope for the future.”
    “Hope springs eternal.”
    “True. Hope and good old-fashioned hard work and research. Research my uncle is on the cutting edge of,” Clair added proudly. “Uncle Victor is quite brilliant. Perhaps the most brilliant of all scientists alive.”
    Ian nodded politely, amused. Victor Frankenstein was brilliant, but he was also a card-carrying lunatic. He was most famous for his forays into animating dead flesh—queer work which had created widespread controversy, not to mention chaos when his creation escaped and roamed the countryside, eating up blind men’s food and setting fire to the Ritz after a particularly bohemian display of dancing.
    Ian couldn’t help cringing when he remembered that fated night. He and some of his cronies had gone to see the dancing monster the night the Ritz had gone up in flames.
    Ian sighed, admitting to himself that Victor and the monster had danced a mean soft-shoe. But who else but a card-carrying lunatic would introduce a monster to the Countess of Deville and expect all to go well?
    The countess was well known for her love of big men and their larger-than-life attributes, and one couldn’t get much bigger than Victor’s monster. The countess was also known to be rather randy and grabby. She had grabbed the monster by his assets and squeezed.
    The monster, taken by surprise, had barked into the Earl of Kent, who in turn fell on the Marquis of Stoker, who in turn landed on Major Van Helsing, who knocked over both Mr. Bear and his wife, etcetera and etcetera, until the stage lights had been knocked over and the stage curtains had caught fire. It had been a typical Frankenstein fiasco. Still, Ian didn’t want to hurt Clair’s familial feelings.
    “Yes, your uncle is brilliant. By the way, how is the monster faring?”
    Clair frowned. How rude! “We don’t call him the monster. His name is Frederick Frankenstein. My uncle adopted him, you know. And he is doing quite fine, thank you.”
    She crossed her fingers behind her back. She had recently gotten a letter from her uncle Victor. Silently she sent a prayer upward: Frederick, please come home. Frederick had wandered away again, and the villagers were in an uproar. Sometimes, she thought, Frederick was worse than a mischievous pup— although in his favor, Frederick was house-trained.
    “You know, Frederick has really had quite a hard life, growing up as he did,” she told Baron Huntsley.
    “You mean, being pieced together from different human body parts?” Ian asked.
    Clair shot him a quick glance to see if Ian was mocking her, then motioned for Brooks to enter with the tea tray. “I mean he is lonely. After all, he is the only one of his kind. It sometimes makes him rather melancholy. I used to give him pets. Once I gave him several lizards for company, when he first came to live with us.” Clair stopped suddenly, a strange look on her face.
    Brooks set the tray on the table. Seeing the sad look on his mistress’s face, he tried consoling her in his stiff-necked, formal way. “Now, Miss Clair, you couldn’t have known that Frederick would eat those iguanas or the fish.”
    Ian coughed, trying to cover his laughter. “Fish?” he finally managed to inquire with a straight face.
    Clair nodded, pouring the tea.