Chapter Text
There are five quick knocks at the door, right as Frank’s trying to use the microscope. At this rate, he’ll never be able to keep working with all the disturbances he’s having to deal with—if he could just be left alone, he could get this all done and he could be so many steps closer to Geoffrey being visible again.
Frank takes his glasses off entirely before he goes to answer the door and hopes that he doesn’t have to lie through his teeth again, even if it’s only by omission. He’s never been very good at it, something that the people he’s closest to have always (lovingly, yes, but still) teased him about. When he gets the door open, his nurse is there with a stranger.
“The gentleman wishes to see you, sir,” she says, signalling something to him with her eyes.
“Doctor Griffin?” The stranger, in all black and with a cigar in his right hand, a briefcase in his left, asks.
“...yes.” Frank confirms.
“I’m Sampson, Scotland Yard. May I come in?”
Frank gestures inside and steps out of the way so Sampson can enter. He does, taking a drag off of his cigar, and Frank follows him as he walks into the room. His nurse will get the door, he knows.
“What can I… do for you, inspector?” Frank asks, wishing he had something to fidget with in his hands. This can really only keep getting worse from here.
“What can you do for me, Doctor?” Sampson stops suddenly, turning to him and bringing the cigar out of his mouth to speak. He blows smoke into random directions, and Frank knows why: the invisible man can be made visible when there’s smoke, or fog, or rain.
Frank doesn’t shy away. “Very little, I’m afraid,” he says easily. Not a lie: there’s very little he can do for anyone, at the rate he’s at.
Sampson takes a few more drags from his cigar, strategically puffing smoke out as he walks around the room. “You and Radcliffe were great friends, weren’t you, Doctor?” he asks as he walks back towards Frank. Fuck.
“We still are, I’m happy to say.”
“Yes, Doctor, quite so.” Sampson steps away again. It’s making Frank nervous, and not just because of the cigar; there are no good ways for this conversation to go. Sampson puts his briefcase on one of the tables and starts to go through it as he talks, and he pulls a file out. Frank situates himself at a table of his own, leaning back against it nervously. If only he weren’t alone.
“The research on which you and he were collaborating was interrupted by the unfortunate, uh, ‘ accident’ to Sir Michael, shall we say? And to carry on such important work, a man like you wouldn’t hesitate to break the law, would you?”
“Suppose you come to the point, Inspector.”
“I’ve been looking up the file on your late brother.” Sampson holds the file so that the both of them can see it easily. Oh. Frank can work with this, at least somewhat. The inspector flips through to show him as he continues speaking. “That was nine years ago, wasn’t it? Charming fellow… and very ingenious. He concocted a formula which included a poisonous drug called duocane, an extraction of an East Indian herb that took the colour out of things. Combined with other ingredients, known only to himself, it made the body transparent when injected into the bloodstream. Very ingenious.” Sampson closes the file. “He succeeded, didn’t he, in making himself invisible?”
He banks more than he should on the idea that discussing his dead brother is awkward—at least, that’s the expectation when talking about a dead sibling. Frank at least has the benefit of knowing that his brother is rather alive and well with a wife and son, living on the continent. He also knows that his brother still has bouts of invisibility, but that doesn’t help his case; admittedly, correcting his brother's status to alive doesn’t help matters much either, but still. Admitting that he has been doing more investigating into the mono-duocane will only serve to damn him further.
So he bites his tongue and puts all his bets on his own discomfort. Frank knows that if he’s not careful, if he says too much, then it’ll all be given away—he’s always been a shit liar, everyone used to tease him about it before everything went wrong.
If they’re going to keep pulling this off, he just needs to keep his mouth shut. He also needs to be patient and avoid getting into any fights, but there’s only so much one can hope for. “Really, Inspector, you don’t have to go through all that. I can remember it very well.” Frank says, stepping away to go back to his microscope. It’s a crutch, and an excuse to not look at him, but he doesn’t care. Frank’s a doctor and a scientist working in a lab—it makes sense for him to do lab work.
“Yes… it isn’t a thing a mere nine years can make you forget, is it?” Sampson starts to walk again, continuing to smoke his cigar. “You recall, of course, how he went insane,” the inspector steps closer to Frank, “and never regained visibility ‘till after he was dead, and how he was finally killed by the police—shot down like a mad dog after hundreds had lost their lives.” He looks down at Frank’s hands, messing with the microscope. “A most hideous crime.” Frank continues trying to ignore him by looking through his microscope—he has a rebuttal for all of the above, mostly ending with a solid ‘actually, my brother isn’t dead, and in fact I talked to my nephew—who he named after me—last night before he went to bed’, but he can’t say any of that aloud. Frank kind of wants to explode. “But of course, Doctor,” Sampson leans closer to him, “you would never make a man invisible, with the danger of him going mad, unless you had a means of bringing him back in time. Surely, in all those nine years, you’ve found a method of avoiding insanity—or perhaps even restoring… visibility.” Actually, no. Somehow, despite everything, no.
“I was never interested in my brother’s activities.” Frank says flatly, still not looking up from his work.
Sampson shifts, standing and leaning back on the table now. “Oh, I’m sorry, Doctor. I had hoped that you might cooperate. You must realise that if the monster murders,” and, sue him, Frank can’t help but look up. Fuck. Sampson circles him like a predator with prey, which is a pretty apt analogy, Frank thinks. “...the scientist hangs.” Sampson reaches into his jacket and pulls a second cigar out, holding it out to Frank. “Have a cigar?”
Frank spares it a glance before looking back at Sampson. “No, thanks. I… don’t smoke.”
“Try it,” Sampson insists, slipping it into Frank’s hand anyways. “In smoke or rain… he becomes visible.” Inspector Sampson finally leaves, cigar in his mouth, and Frank slips the cigar in his chest pocket while he tries not to frown too heavily. The only reason that they haven’t all been caught out yet is sheer luck and technicality.
The inspector may know that Frank’s involved here, but he can’t prove it, and for the time being it counts for more than enough.