The_Resurrectionist_The_Lost_Work_of_Dr

The final clue to Dr. Spencer Black’s fate is a letter addressed to his brother, Bernard, sent seven
years after their last correspondence. It is the last known document written by Black. He had just
returned from a six-month excavation and research trip from the northernmost point of Greenland. The
letter indicates that he had been actively pursing some bizarre treatment for his wife, Elise. Prior to
receiving the letter, Bernard had no knowledge that Elise had been burned in a fire, or that Spencer
had performed any kind of surgery on her. Bernard shared the letter with the police before embarking
on a trip to find his brother.
February 1908
Bernard,
I have no choice but to conclude the fallacy of my previous studies, however
painful it is to accept. I am writing you tonight to give the deepest thanks and offer
the most sincere apology a man such as I can manage. Deluded by my own aims, I
could not heed your most eloquent and obvious warning. I could not listen well
enough to hear that the future of my work had been foretold by the mistakes of my
predecessors, men I hadn’t the courage to name as mentors … especially you.
I now languish in the solitude of this letter, lamenting. Your laughter at my
expense or your scorn would be a salve upon my mind. Nothing can help me, I
know; it was I who was the cause of my peril.
I cannot be certain if you will ever receive this letter, nor is there much I would
expect to arise from it if you could read it now. I can be certain, however, that if
any news of me arrives to you it will be this letter and this letter alone. I have
hidden my notes for you to retrieve. Please, brother, help me keep this from the
sleepless man, my son, Alphonse.
I fear you know of what I am to write, but I fervently hope that you do not. I pray
that my work, my labor of the past ten years has exceeded any science or
philosophy that the learned shall ever endeavor, or be called upon, to examine. If
that is so, then perhaps it will end here with me—this box that I have opened. I have
succeeded, I have done what none other before me has.
I write only to you. I know that by now I am wretched in your esteem and that you
haven’t even a decent man’s regard for me; I had once hoped that, perhaps, before
we were in the grave, we could once again be friends … I know that cannot be.
My beloved and eternally precious Elise … how beautiful she was. I did love
Elise dearly, but that is not why I ventured to perform this wicked work. I have
butchered many men; all are innocent when they are on my table, all are exquisite.
My purpose has exceeded my function, I am afraid. I have spent my life, the
vainglory of my youth, consumed and drunken with the most sadistic of all exploits
—study. How can one dare travel into the unknown? Something quite terrible is
waiting there, a destruction that would not be mine had I not sought after it.
There was a time in the world when nature wore a different mask; since I set out
to discover her secrets, my trials have only increased. What struggles, attempting to
see that original face, nature’s original design. Now destiny has fulfilled her
carefully plotted plan, my eventual and total ruin. Now she laughs and I will hear