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 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.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 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 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 manythat 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."
"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."
"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