Dracula by Bram Stoker(13)

When I had finished Van Helsing said, ‘This has been a
great day’s work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on the
track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that
house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some
missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we
make our final coup, and hunt the wretch to his real
death.’
We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. Morris
spoke, ‘Say! How are we going to get into that house?’
‘We got into the other,’ answered Lord Godalming
quickly.
‘But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax,
but we had night and a walled park to protect us. It will
be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in
Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I don’t see how
we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us
a key of some sort.’
Lord Godalming’s brows contracted, and he stood up
and walked about the room. By-and-by he stopped and
said, turning from one to another of us, ‘Quincey’s head is
level. This burglary business is getting serious. We got off
once all right, but we have now a rare job on hand. Unless
we can find the Count’s key basket.’
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As nothing could well be done before morning, and as
it would be at least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming
should hear from Mitchell’s, we decided not to take any
active step before breakfast time. For a good while we sat
and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and
bearings. I took the opportunity of bringing this diary
right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to

bed …
Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is
regular. Her forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as
though she thinks even in her sleep. She is still too pale,
but does not look so haggard as she did this morning.
Tomorrow will, I hope, mend all this. She will be herself
at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy!
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY
1 October.—I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His
moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep
touch of them, and as they always mean something more
than his own well-being, they form a more than
interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him
after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a
man commanding destiny. He was, in fact, commanding
destiny, subjectively. He did not really care for any of the
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things of mere earth, he was in the clouds and looked
down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals.
I thought I would improve the occasion and learn
something, so I asked him, ‘What about the flies these
times?’
He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of way, such a
smile as would have become the face of Malvolio, as he
answered me, ‘The fly, my dear sir, has one striking
feature. It’s wings are typical of the aerial powers of the
psychic faculties. The ancients did well when they typified
the soul as a butterfly!’
I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost
logically, so I said quickly, ‘Oh, it is a soul you are after
now, is it?’
His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look
spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision
which I had but seldom seen in him.
He said, ‘Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I
want.’ Here he brightened up. ‘I am pretty indifferent
about it at present. Life is all right. I have all I want. You
must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study
zoophagy!’
This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on. ‘Then you
command life. You are a god, I suppose?’
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He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority. ‘Oh no!
Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of
the Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially
spiritual doings. If I may state my intellectual position I
am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat
in the position which Enoch occupied spiritually!’
This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment
recall Enoch’s appositeness, so I had to ask a simple
question, though I felt that by so doing I was lowering
myself in the eyes of the lunatic. ‘And why with Enoch?’
‘Because he walked with God.’
I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it,
so I harked back to what he had denied. ‘So you don’t
care about life and you don’t want souls. Why not?’ I put
my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to
disconcert him.
The effort succeeded, for an instant he unconsciously
relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me,
and actually fawned upon me as he replied. ‘I don’t want
any souls, indeed, indeed! I don’t. I couldn’t use them if I
had them. They would be no manner of use to me. I
couldn’t eat them or …’
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He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread
over his face, like a wind sweep on the surface of the
water.
‘And doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When you’ve
got all you require, and you know that you will never
want, that is all. I have friends, good friends, like you, Dr.
Seward.’ This was said with a leer of inexpressible
cunning. ‘I know that I shall never lack the means of life!’
I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he
saw some antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on
the last refuge of such as he, a dogged silence. After a short
time I saw that for the present it was useless to speak to
him. He was sulky, and so I came away.
Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not
have come without special reason, but just at present I am
so interested in him that I would gladly make an effort.
Besides, I am glad to have anything to help pass the time.
Harker is out, following up clues, and so are Lord
Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study
poring over the record prepared by the Harkers. He seems
to think that by accurate knowledge of all details he will
light up on some clue. He does not wish to be disturbed
in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with
me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last
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repulse he might not care to go again. There was also
another reason. Renfield might not speak so freely before
a third person as when he and I were alone.
I found him sitting in the middle of the floor on his
stool, a pose which is generally indicative of some mental
energy on his part. When I came in, he said at once, as
though the question had been waiting on his lips. ‘What
about souls?’
It was evident then that my surmise had been correct.
Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with
the lunatic. I determined to have the matter out.
‘What about them yourself?’ I asked.
He did not reply for a moment but looked all around
him, and up and down, as though he expected to find
some inspiration for an answer.
‘I don’t want any souls!’ He said in a feeble, apologetic
way. The matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I
determined to use it, to ‘be cruel only to be kind.’ So I
said, ‘You like life, and you want life?’
‘Oh yes! But that is all right. You needn’t worry about
that!’
‘But,’ I asked, ‘how are we to get the life without
getting the soul also?’
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This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up, ‘A nice
time you’ll have some time when you’re flying out here,
with the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds
and cats buzzing and twittering and moaning all around
you. You’ve got their lives, you know, and you must put
up with their souls!’
Something seemed to affect his imagination, for he put
his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes, screwing them up
tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being
soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched
me. It also gave me a lesson, for it seemed that before me
was a child, only a child, though the features were worn,
and the stubble on the jaws was white. It was evident that
he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance,
and knowing how his past moods had interpreted things
seemingly foreign to himself, I thought I would enter into
his mind as well as I could and go with him
The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him,
speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his
closed ears, ‘Would you like some sugar to get your flies
around again?’
He seemed to wake up all at once, and shook his head.
With a laugh he replied, ‘Not much! Flies are poor things,
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after all!’ After a pause he added, ‘But I don’t want their
souls buzzing round me, all the same.’
‘Or spiders?’ I went on.
‘Blow spiders! What’s the use of spiders? There isn’t
anything in them to eat or …’ He stopped suddenly as
though reminded of a forbidden topic.
‘So, so!’ I thought to myself, ‘this is the second time he
has suddenly stopped at the word ‘drink’. What does it
mean?’
Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse,
for he hurried on, as though to distract my attention from
it, ‘I don’t take any stock at all in such matters. ‘Rats and
mice and such small deer,’ as Shakespeare has it, ‘chicken
feed of the larder’ they might be called. I’m past all that
sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat
molecules with a pair of chopsticks, as to try to interest me
about the less carnivora, when I know of what is before
me.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘You want big things that you can make
your teeth meet in? How would you like to breakfast on
an elephant?’
‘What ridiculous nonsense you are talking?’ He was
getting too wide awake, so I thought I would press him
hard.
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‘I wonder,’ I said reflectively, ‘what an elephant’s soul
is like!’
The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell
from his high-horse and became a child again.
‘I don’t want an elephant’s soul, or any soul at all!’ he
said. For a few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he
jumped to his feet, with his eyes blazing and all the signs
of intense cerebral excitement. ‘To hell with you and your
souls!’ he shouted. ‘Why do you plague me about souls?
Haven’t I got enough to worry, and pain, to distract me
already, without thinking of souls?’
He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for
another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle.
The instant, however, that I did so he became calm,
and said apologetically, ‘Forgive me, Doctor. I forgot
myself. You do not need any help. I am so worried in my
mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the
problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you
would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put
me in a strait waistcoat. I want to think and I cannot think
freely when my body is confined. I am sure you will
understand!’
He had evidently self-control, so when the attendants
came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew.
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Renfield watched them go. When the door was closed he
said with considerable dignity and sweetness, ‘Dr. Seward,
you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me
that I am very, very grateful to you!’
I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I
came away. There is certainly something to ponder over
in this man’s state. Several points seem to make what the
American interviewer calls ‘a story,’ if one could only get
them in proper order. Here they are:
Will not mention ‘drinking.’
Fears the thought of being burdened
with the ‘soul’ of anything.
Has no dread of wanting ‘life’ in the
future.
Despises the meaner forms of life
altogether, though he dreads being haunted
by their souls.
Logically all these things point one way!
He has assurance of some kind that he will
acquire some higher life.
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He dreads the consequence, the burden
of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks
to!
And the assurance …?
Merciful God! The Count has been to him, and there is
some new scheme of terror afoot!
Later.—I went after my round to Van Helsing and told
him my suspicion. He grew very grave, and after thinking
the matter over for a while asked me to take him to
Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door we heard the
lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time
which now seems so long ago.
When we entered we saw with amazement that he had
spread out his sugar as of old. The flies, lethargic with the
autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried
to make him talk of the subject of our previous
conversation, but he would not attend. He went on with
his singing, just as though we had not been present. He
had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a
notebook. We had to come away as ignorant as we went
in.
His is a curious case indeed. We must watch him
tonight.
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LETTER, MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY TO
LORD GODALMING.
‘1 October.
‘My Lord,
‘We are at all times only too happy to meet your
wishes. We beg, with regard to the desire of your
Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your behalf, to
supply the following information concerning the sale and
purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are
the executors of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield.
The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who
effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money
in notes ‘over the counter,’ if your Lordship will pardon
us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know
nothing whatever of him.
‘We are, my Lord,
‘Your Lordship’s humble servants,
‘MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY.’
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY
2 October.—I placed a man in the corridor last night,
and told him to make an accurate note of any sound he
might hear from Renfield’s room, and gave him
instructions that if there should be anything strange he was
to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round
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the fire in the study, Mrs. Harker having gone to bed, we
discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker
was the only one who had any result, and we are in great
hopes that his clue may be an important one.
Before going to bed I went round to the patient’s room
and looked in through the observation trap. He was
sleeping soundly, his heart rose and fell with regular
respiration.
This morning the man on duty reported to me that a
little after midnight he was restless and kept saying his
prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him if that was all. He
replied that it was all he heard. There was something
about his manner, so suspicious that I asked him point
blank if he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted
to having ‘dozed’ for a while. It is too bad that men
cannot be trusted unless they are watched.
Today Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and
Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it
will be well to have horses always in readiness, for when
we get the information which we seek there will be no
time to lose. We must sterilize all the imported earth
between sunrise and sunset. We shall thus catch the Count
at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing
is off to the British Museum looking up some authorities
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on ancient medicine. The old physicians took account of
things which their followers do not accept, and the
Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which
may be useful to us later.
I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall
wake to sanity in strait waistcoats.
Later.—We have met again. We seem at last to be on
the track, and our work of tomorrow may be the
beginning of the end. I wonder if Renfield’s quiet has
anything to do with this. His moods have so followed the
doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the
monster may be carried to him some subtle way. If we
could only get some hint as to what passed in his mind,
between the time of my argument with him today and his
resumption of fly-catching, it might afford us a valuable
clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell … Is he? That
wild yell seemed to come from his room …
The attendant came bursting into my room and told
me that Renfield had somehow met with some accident.
He had heard him yell, and when he went to him found
him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood.
I must go at once …
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Chapter 21
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY
3 October.—Let me put down with exactness all that
happened, as well as I can remember, since last I made an
entry. Not a detail that I can recall must be forgotten. In
all calmness I must proceed.
When I came to Renfield’s room I found him lying on
the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood.
When I went to move him, it became at once apparent
that he had received some terrible injuries. There seemed
none of the unity of purpose between the parts of the
body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was
exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though
it had been beaten against the floor. Indeed it was from
the face wounds that the pool of blood originated.
The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said
to me as we turned him over, ‘I think, sir, his back is
broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side
of his face are paralysed.’ How such a thing could have
happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He
seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in
as he said, ‘I can’t understand the two things. He could
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mark his face like that by beating his own head on the
floor. I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield
Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I
suppose he might have broken his neck by falling out of
bed, if he got in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I
can’t imagine how the two things occurred. If his back
was broke, he couldn’t beat his head, and if his face was
like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks
of it.’
I said to him, ‘Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to
kindly come here at once. I want him without an instant’s
delay.’
The man ran off, and within a few minutes the
Professor, in his dressing gown and slippers, appeared.
When he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly
at him a moment, and then turned to me. I think he
recognized my thought in my eyes, for he said very
quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant, ‘Ah, a sad
accident! He will need very careful watching, and much
attention. I shall stay with you myself, but I shall first dress
myself. If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join
you.’
The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was
easy to see that he had suffered some terrible injury.
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Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity,
bearing with him a surgical case. He had evidently been
thinking and had his mind made up, for almost before he
looked at the patient, he whispered to me, ‘Send the
attendant away. We must be alone with him when he
becomes conscious, after the operation.’
I said, ‘I think that will do now, Simmons. We have
done all that we can at present. You had better go your
round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know
instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere.’
The man withdrew, and we went into a strict
examination of the patient. The wounds of the face were
superficial. The real injury was a depressed fracture of the
skull, extending right up through the motor area.
The Professor thought a moment and said, ‘We must
reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as
far as can be. The rapidity of the suffusion shows the
terrible nature of his injury. The whole motor area seems
affected. The suffusion of the brain will increase quickly,
so we must trephine at once or it may be too late.’
As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door.
I went over and opened it and found in the corridor
without, Arthur and Quincey in pajamas and slippers, the
former spoke, ‘I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing
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and tell him of an accident. So I woke Quincey or rather
called for him as he was not asleep. Things are moving too
quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us
these times. I’ve been thinking that tomorrow night will
not see things as they have been. We’ll have to look back,
and forward a little more than we have done. May we
come in?’
I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered,
then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the attitude and
state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the
floor, he said softly, ‘My God! What has happened to him?
Poor, poor devil!’
I told him briefly, and added that we expected he
would recover consciousness after the operation, for a
short time, at all events. He went at once and sat down on
the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him. We all
watched in patience.
‘We shall wait,’ said Van Helsing, ‘just long enough to
fix the best spot for trephining, so that we may most
quickly and perfectly remove the blood clot, for it is
evident that the haemorrhage is increasing.’
The minutes during which we waited passed with
fearful slowness. I had a horrible sinking in my heart, and
from Van Helsing’s face I gathered that he felt some fear
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or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded the
words Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to
think. But the conviction of what was coming was on me,
as I have read of men who have heard the death watch.
The poor man’s breathing came in uncertain gasps. Each
instant he seemed as though he would open his eyes and
speak, but then would follow a prolonged stertorous
breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed
insensibility. Inured as I was to sick beds and death, this
suspense grew and grew upon me. I could almost hear the
beating of my own heart, and the blood surging through
my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The
silence finally became agonizing. I looked at my
companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed
faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal
torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as
though overhead some dread bell would peal out
powerfully when we should least expect it.
At last there came a time when it was evident that the
patient was sinking fast. He might die at any moment. I
looked up at the Professor and caught his eyes fixed on
mine. His face was sternly set as he spoke, ‘There is no
time to lose. His words may be worth many lives. I have
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been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul
at stake! We shall operate just above the ear.’
Without another word he made the operation. For a
few moments the breathing continued to be stertorous.
Then there came a breath so prolonged that it seemed as
though it would tear open his chest. Suddenly his eyes
opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This
was continued for a few moments, then it was softened
into a glad surprise, and from his lips came a sigh of relief.
He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said, ‘I’ll be
quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait waistcoat. I
have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I
cannot move. What’s wrong with my face? It feels all
swollen, and it smarts dreadfully.’
He tried to turn his head, but even with the effort his
eyes seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back.
Then Van Helsing said in a quiet grave tone, ‘Tell us your
dream, Mr. Renfield.’
As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its
mutilation, and he said, ‘That is Dr. Van Helsing. How
good it is of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips
are dry, and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed …’
He stopped and seemed fainting. I called quietly to
Quincey, ‘The brandy, it is in my study, quick!’ He flew
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and returned with a glass, the decanter of brandy and a
carafe of water. We moistened the parched lips, and the
patient quickly revived.
It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had
been working in the interval, for when he was quite
conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonized
confusion which I shall never forget, and said, ‘I must not
deceive myself. It was no dream, but all a grim reality.’
Then his eyes roved round the room. As they caught sight
of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed
he went on, ‘If I were not sure already, I would know
from them.’
For an instant his eyes closed, not with pain or sleep
but voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties
to bear. When he opened them he said, hurriedly, and
with more energy than he had yet displayed, ‘Quick,
Doctor, quick, I am dying! I feel that I have but a few
minutes, and then I must go back to death, or worse! Wet
my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must
say before I die. Or before my poor crushed brain dies
anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you left me,
when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn’t speak
then, for I felt my tongue was tied. But I was as sane then,
except in that way, as I am now. I was in an agony of
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despair for a long time after you left me, it seemed hours.
Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed
to become cool again, and I realized where I was. I heard
the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was!’
As he spoke, Van Helsing’s eyes never blinked, but his
hand came out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did
not, however, betray himself. He nodded slightly and said,
‘Go on,’ in a low voice.
Renfield proceeded. ‘He came up to the window in
the mist, as I had seen him often before, but he was solid
then, not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a man’s
when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth, the
sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when he
turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the
dogs were barking. I wouldn’t ask him to come in at first,
though I knew he wanted to, just as he had wanted all
along. Then he began promising me things, not in words
but by doing them.’
He was interrupted by a word from the Professor,
‘How?’
‘By making them happen. Just as he used to send in the
flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with
steel and sapphire on their wings. And big moths, in the
night, with skull and cross-bones on their backs.’
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Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me
unconsciously, ‘The Acherontia Atropos of the Sphinges,
what you call the ‘Death’s-head Moth’?’
The patient went on without stopping, ‘Then he began
to whisper.‘Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions
of them, and every one a life. And dogs to eat them, and
cats too. All lives! All red blood, with years of life in it,
and not merely buzzing flies!’ I laughed at him, for I
wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled,
away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned
me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He
raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any
words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like
the shape of a flame of fire. And then He moved the mist
to the right and left, and I could see that there were
thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red, like His only
smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped, and I
thought he seemed to be saying, ‘All these lives will I give
you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless
ages, if you will fall down and worship me!’ And then a
red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over
my eyes, and before I knew what I was doing, I found
myself opening the sash and saying to Him, ‘Come in,
Lord and Master!’ The rats were all gone, but He slid into
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the room through the sash, though it was only open an
inch wide, just as the Moon herself has often come in
through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her
size and splendour.’
His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the
brandy again, and he continued, but it seemed as though
his memory had gone on working in the interval for his
story was further advanced. I was about to call him back to
the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me, ‘Let him go
on. Do not interrupt him. He cannot go back, and maybe
could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his
thought.’
He proceeded, ‘All day I waited to hear from him, but
he did not send me anything, not even a blowfly, and
when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him.
When he did slide in through the window, though it was
shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He
sneered at me, and his white face looked out of the mist
with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he
owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn’t even
smell the same as he went by me. I couldn’t hold him. I
thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the
room.’
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The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came
over, standing behind him so that he could not see them,
but where they could hear better. They were both silent,
but the Professor started and quivered. His face, however,
grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without
noticing, ‘When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this
afternoon she wasn’t the same. It was like tea after the
teapot has been watered.’ Here we all moved, but no one
said a word.
He went on, ‘I didn’t know that she was here till she
spoke, and she didn’t look the same. I don’t care for the
pale people. I like them with lots of blood in them, and
hers all seemed to have run out. I didn’t think of it at the
time, but when she went away I began to think, and it
made me mad to know that He had been taking the life
out of her.’ I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did. But
we remained otherwise still. ‘So when He came tonight I
was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I
grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural
strength. And as I knew I was a madman, at times
anyhow, I resolved to use my power. Ay, and He felt it
too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle with
me. I held tight, and I thought I was going to win, for I
didn’t mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw
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His eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became
like water. He slipped through it, and when I tried to
cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There
was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and
the mist seemed to steal away under the door.’
His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more
stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively.
‘We know the worst now,’ he said. ‘He is here, and we
know his purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armed,
the same as we were the other night, but lose no time,
there is not an instant to spare.’
There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction,
into words, we shared them in common. We all hurried
and took from our rooms the same things that we had
when we entered the Count’s house. The Professor had
his ready, and as we met in the corridor he pointed to
them significantly as he said, ‘They never leave me, and
they shall not till this unhappy business is over. Be wise
also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal
with Alas! Alas! That dear Madam Mina should suffer!’ He
stopped, his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage
or terror predominated in my own heart.
Outside the Harkers’ door we paused. Art and Quincey
held back, and the latter said, ‘Should we disturb her?’
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‘We must,’ said Van Helsing grimly. ‘If the door be
locked, I shall break it in.’
‘May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break
into a lady’s room!’
Van Helsing said solemnly, ‘You are always right. But
this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor.
And even were they not they are all as one to me tonight.
Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not
open, do you put your shoulder down and shove. And
you too, my friends. Now!’
He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not
yield. We threw ourselves against it. With a crash it burst
open, and we almost fell headlong into the room. The
Professor did actually fall, and I saw across him as he
gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw
appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of
my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still.
The moonlight was so bright that through the thick
yellow blind the room was light enough to see. On the
bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face
flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor.
Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was
the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall,
thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but
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the instant we saw we all recognized the Count, in every
way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand
he held both Mrs. Harker’s hands, keeping them away
with her arms at full tension. His right hand gripped her
by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his
bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and
a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare chest which
was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two
had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose
into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst
into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish
look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His
eyes flamed red with devilish passion. The great nostrils of
the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the
edge, and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the
blood dripping mouth, clamped together like those of a
wild beast. With a wrench, which threw his victim back
upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned
and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained
his feet, and was holding towards him the envelope which
contained the Sacred Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped,
just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and cowered
back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting
our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed,
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as a great black cloud sailed across the sky. And when the
gaslight sprang up under Quincey’s match, we saw
nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we looked, trailed
under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting
open, had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing,
Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this
time had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream
so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it seems to me
now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a
few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray.
Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated
by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin.
From her throat trickled a thin stream of blood. Her eyes
were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her
poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the
red mark of the Count’s terrible grip, and from behind
them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible
scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief.
Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently
over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an
instant despairingly, ran out of the room.
Van Helsing whispered to me, ‘Jonathan is in a stupor
such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do
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nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till
she recovers herself. I must wake him!’
He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it
began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while
holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way
that was heart breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and
looked out of the window. There was much moonshine,
and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the
lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew tree. It
puzzled me to think why he was doing this. But at the
instant I heard Harker’s quick exclamation as he woke to
partial consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face,
as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement. He
seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full
consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and
he started up.
His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and
turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to
embrace him. Instantly, however, she drew them in again,
and putting her elbows together, held her hands before her
face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook.
‘In God’s name what does this mean?’ Harker cried
out. ‘Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has
happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear what is it? What
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does that blood mean? My God, my God! Has it come to
this!’ And, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands
wildly together. ‘Good God help us! Help her! Oh, help
her!’
With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and
began to pull on his clothes, all the man in him awake at
the need for instant exertion. ‘What has happened? Tell
me all about it!’ he cried without pausing. ‘Dr. Van
Helsing you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save
her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I
look for him!’
His wife, through her terror and horror and distress,
saw some sure danger to him. Instantly forgetting her own
grief, she seized hold of him and cried out.
‘No! No! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have
suffered enough tonight, God knows, without the dread of
his harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these
friends who will watch over you!’ Her expression became
frantic as she spoke. And, he yielding to her, she pulled
him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him
fiercely.
Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The
Professor held up his golden crucifix, and said with
wonderful calmness, ‘Do not fear, my dear. We are here,
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and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can approach.
You are safe for tonight, and we must be calm and take
counsel together.’
She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head
on her husband’s breast. When she raised it, his white
nightrobe was stained with blood where her lips had
touched, and where the thin open wound in the neck had
sent forth drops. The instant she saw it she drew back,
with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs.
‘Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no
more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his
worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.’
To this he spoke out resolutely, ‘Nonsense, Mina. It is
a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of
you. And I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me
by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering
than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything
ever come between us!’
He put out his arms and folded her to his breast. And
for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her
bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his
quivering nostrils. His mouth was set as steel.
After a while her sobs became less frequent and more
faint, and then he said to me, speaking with a studied
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calmness which I felt tried his nervous power to the
utmost.
‘And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I
know the broad fact. Tell me all that has been.’
I told him exactly what had happened and he listened
with seeming impassiveness, but his nostrils twitched and
his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the
Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid
position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast.
It interested me, even at that moment, to see that whilst
the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the
bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the
ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming
knocked at the door. They entered in obedience to our
summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I
understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of
their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the
unhappy husband and wife from each other and from
themselves. So on nodding acquiescence to him he asked
them what they had seen or done. To which Lord
Godalming answered.
‘I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any
of our rooms. I looked in the study but, though he had
been there, he had gone. He had, however …’ He
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stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on
the bed.
Van Helsing said gravely, ‘Go on, friend Arthur. We
want here no more concealments. Our hope now is in
knowing all. Tell freely!’
So Art went on, ‘He had been there, and though it
could only have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay
of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the
blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes. The
cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the
fire, and the wax had helped the flames.’
Here I interrupted. ‘Thank God there is the other copy
in the safe!’
His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on.
‘I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I
looked into Renfield’s room, but there was no trace there
except …’ Again he paused.
‘Go on,’ said Harker hoarsely. So he bowed his head
and moistening his lips with his tongue, added, ‘except
that the poor fellow is dead.’
Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the
other of us she said solemnly, ‘God’s will be done!’
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I could not but feel that Art was keeping back
something. But, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I
said nothing.
Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked, ‘And you,
friend Quincey, have you any to tell?’
‘A little,’ he answered. ‘It may be much eventually, but
at present I can’t say. I thought it well to know if possible
where the Count would go when he left the house. I did
not see him, but I saw a bat rise from Renfield’s window,
and flap westward. I expected to see him in some shape go
back to Carfax, but he evidently sought some other lair.
He will not be back tonight, for the sky is reddening in
the east, and the dawn is close. We must work tomorrow!’
He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a
space of perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and
I could fancy that I could hear the sound of our hearts
beating.
Then Van Helsing said, placing his hand tenderly on
Mrs. Harker’s head, ‘And now, Madam Mina, poor dear,
dear, Madam Mina, tell us exactly what happened. God
knows that I do not want that you be pained, but it is
need that we know all. For now more than ever has all
work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest.
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The day is close to us that must end all, if it may be so,
and now is the chance that we may live and learn.’
The poor dear lady shivered, and I could see the
tension of her nerves as she clasped her husband closer to
her and bent her head lower and lower still on his breast.
Then she raised her head proudly, and held out one hand
to Van Helsing who took it in his, and after stooping and
kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was
locked in that of her husband, who held his other arm
thrown round her protectingly. After a pause in which she
was evidently ordering her thoughts, she began.
‘I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly
given me, but for a long time it did not act. I seemed to
become more wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies
began to crowd in upon my mind. All of them connected
with death, and vampires, with blood, and pain, and
trouble.’ Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned
to him and said lovingly, ‘Do not fret, dear. You must be
brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If
you only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this
fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I
need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the
medicine to its work with my will, if it was to do me any
good, so I resolutely set myself to sleep. Sure enough sleep
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must soon have come to me, for I remember no more.
Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my
side when next I remember. There was in the room the
same thin white mist that I had before noticed. But I
forget now if you know of this. You will find it in my
diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague
terror which had come to me before and the same sense of
some presence. I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that
he slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had
taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I tried, but I could
not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked
around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me.
Beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist, or
rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had
entirely disappeared, stood a tall, thin man, all in black. I
knew him at once from the description of the others. The
waxen face, the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell
in a thin white line, the parted red lips, with the sharp
white teeth showing between, and the red eyes that I had
seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary’s
Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his
forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant
my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only
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that I was paralyzed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of
keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he spoke to Jonathan.
‘‘Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash
his brains out before your very eyes.’ I was appalled and
was too bewildered to do or say anything. With a
mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder
and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other,
saying as he did so, ‘First, a little refreshment to reward my
exertions. You may as well be quiet. It is not the first
time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my
thirst!’ I was bewildered, and strangely enough, I did not
want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible
curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim. And
oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his reeking lips
upon my throat!’ Her husband groaned again. She clasped
his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if he were
the injured one, and went on.
‘I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half
swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not,
but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he
took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip
with the fresh blood!’ The remembrance seemed for a
while to overpower her, and she drooped and would have
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sunk down but for her husband’s sustaining arm. With a
great effort she recovered herself and went on.
‘Then he spoke to me mockingly, ‘And so you, like the
others, would play your brains against mine. You would
help these men to hunt me and frustrate me in my design!
You know now, and they know in part already, and will
know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They
should have kept their energies for use closer to home.
Whilst they played wits against me, against me who
commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought
for them, hundreds of years before they were born, I was
countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are
now to me, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of
my kin, my bountiful wine-press for a while, and shall be
later on my companion and my helper. You shall be
avenged in turn, for not one of them but shall minister to
your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what
you have done. You have aided in thwarting me. Now
you shall come to my call. When my brain says ‘Come!’ to
you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding. And to
that end this!’
‘With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long
sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood
began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his,
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holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck
and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either
suffocate or swallow some to the … Oh, my God! My
God! What have I done? What have I done to deserve
such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and
righteousness all my days. God pity me! Look down on a
poor soul in worse than mortal peril. And in mercy pity
those to whom she is dear!’ Then she began to rub her lips
as though to cleanse them from pollution.
As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky
began to quicken, and everything became more and more
clear. Harker was still and quiet. But over his face, as the
awful narrative went on, came a grey look which
deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when
the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh
stood darkly out against the whitening hair.
We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of
the unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange
about taking action.
Of this I am sure. The sun rises today on no more
miserable house in all the great round of its daily course.
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Chapter 22
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
3 October.—As I must do something or go mad, I
write this diary. It is now six o’clock, and we are to meet
in the study in half an hour and take something to eat, for
Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed that if we do
not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God
knows, required today. I must keep writing at every
chance, for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little,
must go down. Perhaps at the end the little things may
teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could not have
landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are today.
However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me
just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks,
that it is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested. That
we must keep on trusting, and that God will aid us up to
the end. The end! Oh my God! What end?… To work!
To work!
When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back
from seeing poor Renfield, we went gravely into what
was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when he
and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below
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they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap.
His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of
the neck were broken.
Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the
passage if he had heard anything. He said that he had been
sitting down, he confessed to half dozing, when he heard
loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out
loudly several times, ‘God! God! God!’ After that there
was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he
found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the
doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard
‘voices’ or ‘a voice,’ and he said he could not say. That at
first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as there
was no one in the room it could have been only one. He
could swear to it, if required, that the word ‘God’ was
spoken by the patient.
Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did
not wish to go into the matter. The question of an inquest
had to be considered, and it would never do to put
forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was,
he thought that on the attendant’s evidence he could give
a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed.
In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a
formal inquest, necessarily to the same result.
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When the question began to be discussed as to what
should be our next step, the very first thing we decided
was that Mina should be in full confidence. That nothing
of any sort, no matter how painful, should be kept from
her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful
to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a
depth of despair.
‘There must be no concealment,’ she said. ‘Alas! We
have had too much already. And besides there is nothing
in all the world that can give me more pain than I have
already endured, than I suffer now! Whatever may
happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!’
Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke,
and said, suddenly but quietly, ‘But dear Madam Mina, are
you not afraid. Not for yourself, but for others from
yourself, after what has happened?’
Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with
the devotion of a martyr as she answered, ‘Ah no! For my
mind is made up!’
‘To what?’ he asked gently, whilst we were all very
still, for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea
of what she meant.
Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she
was simply stating a fact, ‘Because if I find in myself, and I
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shall watch keenly for it, a sign of harm to any that I love,
I shall die!’
‘You would not kill yourself?’ he asked, hoarsely.
‘I would. If there were no friend who loved me, who
would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!’
She looked at him meaningly as she spoke.
He was sitting down, but now he rose and came close
to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly.
‘My child, there is such an one if it were for your good.
For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find
such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were
best. Nay, were it safe! But my child …’
For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose
in his throat. He gulped it down and went on, ‘There are
here some who would stand between you and death. You
must not die. You must not die by any hand, but least of
all your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet
life, is true dead you must not die. For if he is still with the
quick Undead, your death would make you even as he is.
No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live,
though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must
fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in
joy. By the day, or the night, in safety or in peril! On your
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living soul I charge you that you do not die. Nay, nor
think of death, till this great evil be past.’
The poor dear grew white as death, and shook and
shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the
incoming of the tide. We were all silent. We could do
nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to
him said sweetly, but oh so sorrowfully, as she held out
her hand, ‘I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will
let me live, I shall strive to do so. Till, if it may be in His
good time, this horror may have passed away from me.’
She was so good and brave that we all felt that our
hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and
we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that
she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers
or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use, and
was to keep the record as she had done before. She was
pleased with the prospect of anything to do, if ‘pleased’
could be used in connection with so grim an interest.
As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone
else, and was prepared with an exact ordering of our
work.
‘It is perhaps well,’ he said, ‘that at our meeting after
our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the
earth boxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count
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must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have
taken measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with
regard to the others. But now he does not know our
intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not
know that such a power exists to us as can sterilize his
lairs, so that he cannot use them as of old.
‘We are now so much further advanced in our
knowledge as to their disposition that, when we have
examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very
last of them. Today then, is ours, and in it rests our hope.
The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in
its course. Until it sets tonight, that monster must retain
whatever form he now has. He is confined within the
limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into
thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies.
If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a
mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs
and sterilize them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch
him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place
where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time,
sure.’
Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the
thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden
with Mina’s life and happiness were flying from us, since
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whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing
held up his hand warningly.
‘Nay, friend Jonathan,’ he said, ‘in this, the quickest
way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We
shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the time
has come. But think, in all probable the key of the
situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may
have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will
have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will
have paper that he write on. He will have his book of
cheques. There are many belongings that he must have
somewhere. Why not in this place so central, so quiet,
where he come and go by the front or the back at all
hours, when in the very vast of the traffic there is none to
notice. We shall go there and search that house. And
when we learn what it holds, then we do what our friend
Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt ‘stop the earths’ and so
we run down our old fox, so? Is it not?’
‘Then let us come at once,’ I cried, ‘we are wasting the
precious, precious time!’
The Professor did not move, but simply said, ‘And how
are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?’
‘Any way!’ I cried. ‘We shall break in if need be.’
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‘And your police? Where will they be, and what will
they say?’
I was staggered, but I knew that if he wished to delay
he had a good reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could,
‘Don’t wait more than need be. You know, I am sure,
what torture I am in.’
‘Ah, my child, that I do. And indeed there is no wish
of me to add to your anguish. But just think, what can we
do, until all the world be at movement. Then will come
our time. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me
that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to
get into the house, but we have no key. Is it not so?’ I
nodded.
‘Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of
that house, and could not still get in. And think there was
to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would
you do?’
‘I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to
work to pick the lock for me.’
‘And your police, they would interfere, would they
not?’
‘Oh no! Not if they knew the man was properly
employed.’
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‘Then,’ he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, ‘all that
is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the
belief of your policemen as to whether or not that
employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your police
must indeed be zealous men and clever, oh so clever, in
reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such
matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock
off a hundred empty houses in this your London, or of any
city in the world, and if you do it as such things are rightly
done, and at the time such things are rightly done, no one
will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so
fine house in London, and when he went for months of
summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some
burglar come and broke window at back and got in. Then
he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out
and in through the door, before the very eyes of the
police. Then he have an auction in that house, and
advertise it, and put up big notice. And when the day
come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that
other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and
he sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull it
down and take all away within a certain time. And your
police and other authority help him all they can. And
when that owner come back from his holiday in
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Switzerland he find only an empty hole where his house
had been. This was all done en regle, and in our work we
shall be en regle too. We shall not go so early that the
policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it
strange. But we shall go after ten o’clock, when there are
many about, and such things would be done were we
indeed owners of the house.’
I could not but see how right he was and the terrible
despair of Mina’s face became relaxed in thought. There
was hope in such good counsel.
Van Helsing went on, ‘When once within that house
we may find more clues. At any rate some of us can
remain there whilst the rest find the other places where
there be more earth boxes, at Bermondsey and Mile End.’
Lord Godalming stood up. ‘I can be of some use here,’
he said. ‘I shall wire to my people to have horses and
carriages where they will be most convenient.’
‘Look here, old fellow,’ said Morris, ‘it is a capital idea
to have all ready in case we want to go horse backing, but
don’t you think that one of your snappy carriages with its
heraldic adornments in a byway of Walworth or Mile End
would attract too much attention for our purpose? It
seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south
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or east. And even leave them somewhere near the
neighbourhood we are going to.’
‘Friend Quincey is right!’ said the Professor. ‘His head
is what you call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult
thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to
watch us if so it may.’
Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was
rejoiced to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her
to forget for a time the terrible experience of the night.
She was very, very pale, almost ghastly, and so thin that
her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat
of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should
give her needless pain, but it made my blood run cold in
my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy
when the Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was
no sign of the teeth growing sharper, but the time as yet
was short, and there was time for fear.
When we came to the discussion of the sequence of
our efforts and of the disposition of our forces, there were
new sources of doubt. It was finally agreed that before
starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the Count’s lair
close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we
should thus be still ahead of him in our work of
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