prompt:
Chapter: _1 October, evening._--I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal
Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything. The
very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had
proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauch. I
learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he
was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates was the
responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr. Joseph
Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a
saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable
type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered all
about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog's-eared
notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the
seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick,
half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes. There
were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at
197, Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he
deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to
scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were
chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more
fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that
he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now
fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern
shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to
be left out of his diabolical scheme--let alone the City itself and the
very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and west. I went back
to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had
been taken from Carfax.

He replied:--

"Well, guv'nor, you've treated me wery 'an'some"--I had given him half a
sovereign--"an' I'll tell yer all I know. I heard a man by the name of
Bloxam say four nights ago in the 'Are an' 'Ounds, in Pincher's Alley,
as 'ow he an' his mate 'ad 'ad a rare dusty job in a old 'ouse at
Purfect. There ain't a-many such jobs as this 'ere, an' I'm thinkin'
that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut." I asked if he could tell me
where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it
would be worth another half-sovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest
of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search
then and there. At the door he stopped, and said:--

"Look 'ere, guv'nor, there ain't no sense in me a-keepin' you 'ere. I
may find Sam soon, or I mayn't; but anyhow he ain't like to be in a way
to tell ye much to-night. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze.
If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on
it, I'll find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye to-night. But
ye'd better be up arter 'im soon in the mornin', or maybe ye won't ketch
'im; for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore."

This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to
buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When she
came back, I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet had
again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my way
to home. We're on the track anyhow. I am tired to-night, and want sleep.
Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as
though she had been crying. Poor dear, I've no doubt it frets her to be
kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the
others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and
worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors
were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful
business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence
must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any
circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she
herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the
Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision.

       *       *       *       *       *

_2 October, evening._--A long and trying and exciting day. By the first
post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on
which was written with a carpenter's pencil in a sprawling hand:--

"Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for
the depite."

I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy
and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her,
but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for
her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home,
with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and
in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I
was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should
have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some
difficulty, Potter's Court. Mr. Smollet's spelling misled me, as I asked
for Poter's Court instead of Potter's Court. However, when I had found
the court, I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran's lodging-house.
When I asked the man who came to the door for the "depite," he shook his
head, and said: "I dunno 'im. There ain't no such a person 'ere; I never
'eard of 'im in all my bloomin' days. Don't believe there ain't nobody
of that kind livin' ere or anywheres." I took out Smollet's letter, and
as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name
of the court might guide me. "What are you?" I asked.

"I'm the depity," he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right
track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A half-crown tip put the
deputy's knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who
had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at
Corcoran's, had left for his work at Poplar at five o'clock that
morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but
he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a "new-fangled ware'us";
and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve
o'clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this
I got at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One
of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a
new "cold storage" building; and as this suited the condition of a
"new-fangled ware'us," I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly
gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the
coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my
suggesting that I was willing to pay his day's wages to his foreman for
the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was
a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had
promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me
that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly,
and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes--"main
heavy ones"--with a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I
asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to
which he replied:--

"Well, guv'nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a
big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a
dusty old 'ouse, too, though nothin' to the dustiness of the 'ouse we
tooked the bloomin' boxes from."

"How did you get into the houses if they were both empty?"

"There was the old party what engaged me a-waitin' in the 'ouse at
Purfleet. He 'elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse
me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an' him a old feller,
with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn't throw
a shadder."

How this phrase thrilled through me!

"Why, 'e took up 'is end o' the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and
me a-puffin' an' a-blowin' afore I could up-end mine anyhow--an' I'm no
chicken, neither."

"How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?" I asked.

"He was there too. He must 'a' started off and got there afore me, for
when I rung of the bell he kem an' opened the door 'isself an' 'elped me
to carry the boxes into the 'all."

"The whole nine?" I asked.

"Yus; there was five in the first load an' four in the second. It was
main dry work, an' I don't so well remember 'ow I got 'ome." I
interrupted him:--

"Were the boxes left in the hall?"

"Yus; it was a big 'all, an' there was nothin' else in it." I made one
more attempt to further matters:--

"You didn't have any key?"

"Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door 'isself
an' shut it again when I druv off. I don't remember the last time--but
that was the beer."

"And you can't remember the number of the house?"

"No, sir. But ye needn't have no difficulty about that. It's a 'igh 'un
with a stone front with a bow on it, an' 'igh steps up to the door. I
know them steps, 'avin' 'ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers
what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin's, an'
they seein' they got so much, they wanted more; but 'e took one of them
by the shoulder and was like to throw 'im down the steps, till the lot
of them went away cussin'." I thought that with this description I could
find the house, so, having paid my friend for his information, I started
off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience; the Count
could, it was evident, handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was
precious; for, now that he had achieved a certain amount of
distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task
unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked
westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house
described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs
arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long
untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were
up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint
had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been
a large notice-board in front of the balcony; it had, however, been
roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining.
Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards,
whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have
been able to see the notice-board intact, as it would, perhaps, have
given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my
experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not
but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means
discovered of gaining access to the house.

There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and
nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if anything
could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the
Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the
grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything
about the empty house. One of them said that he heard it had lately been
taken, but he couldn't say from whom. He told me, however, that up to
very lately there had been a notice-board of "For Sale" up, and that
perhaps Mitchell, Sons, & Candy, the house agents, could tell me
something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on
the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know
or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled
away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I
did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons, &
Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in
Sackville Street.

The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but
uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the
Piccadilly house--which throughout our interview he called a
"mansion"--was sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I
asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and
paused a few seconds before replying:--

"It is sold, sir."

"Pardon me," I said, with equal politeness, "but I have a special reason
for wishing to know who purchased it."

Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. "It is sold,
sir," was again his laconic reply.

"Surely," I said, "you do not mind letting me know so much."

"But I do mind," he answered. "The affairs of their clients are
absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy." This was
manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with
him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said:--

"Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their
confidence. I am myself a professional man." Here I handed him my card.
"In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of
Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was,
he understood, lately for sale." These words put a different complexion
on affairs. He said:--

"I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would
I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of
renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur
Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship's address I will consult
the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his
lordship by to-night's post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far
deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his
lordship."

I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him,
gave the address at Dr. Seward's and came away. It was now dark, and I
was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aerated Bread Company
and came down to Purfleet by the next train.

I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she
made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful, it wrung my heart to
think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her
inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at
our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our
confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of
keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or
else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when
any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we
made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing
knowledge would be torture to her.

I could not tell the others of the day's discovery till we were alone;
so after dinner--followed by a little music to save appearances even
amongst ourselves--I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed.
The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me
as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I
came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no
difference between us.

When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in
the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read
it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own
information; 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; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the
morning." 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."

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. To-morrow 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 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; its 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 zooephagy!"

This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:--

"Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?" 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----" 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 to 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 upon 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 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 out 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 round
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?" This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:--

"A nice time you'll have some time when you're flying out there, with
the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing
and twittering and miauing all round 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 round again?" He seemed to
wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied:--

"Not much! flies are poor things, 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 chop-sticks, as to try to
interest me about the lesser 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 elephant?"

"What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!" He was getting too wide
awake, so I thought I would press him hard. "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, and 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. 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. 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 note-book. We had to come
away as ignorant as we went in.

His is a curious case indeed; we must watch him to-night.

_Letter, Mitchell, Sons and 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 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, and 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.

To-day 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 sterilise 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 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 to-morrow 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 in 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 to-day 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....

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Harker's investigations reveal that twelve of the remaining boxes of earth were deposited in two houses in London. He traces the remaining nine boxes to a house in Piccadilly, a London suburb. Harker's companions worry over how they will manage to break into a house in such a highly populated area. Seward chronicles rapid changes in Renfield's behavior. The patient seems to have given up his interest in zoophagy, but -reiterates his earlier desire, saying, "Life is all I want. Seward questions Renfield, asking him how he accounts for the souls of the lives he plans to collect. Renfield becomes agitated at the inquiry, claiming that he has enough to worry about without thinking of souls. Seward concludes that his patient dreads the consequences of his life-gathering hobbies, which burden his soul. The following evening, the asylum attendants hear a scream and find Renfield lying in his cell, covered in blood


prompt:
Chapter: _3 October._--Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well
as I can remember it, 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 that 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 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 broke 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 recognised 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. 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." So 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 was 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 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 to-morrow 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 or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded
the words that 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
agonising. 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
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 softened into a glad
surprise, and from the 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 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 agonised 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 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 realised 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." Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:--

"The _Acherontia Aitetropos 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 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 blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him.
When he slid 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."

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 had 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 had 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 to-night 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 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 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?"

"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 to-night. 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 the instant we saw we all recognised
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 breast 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,
champed 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, 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 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 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
to-night, 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 bed side, and clung to him fiercely.

Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his
little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:--

"Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you no
foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; 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
night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where
the thin open wound in her 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 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 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!" 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 to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the
dawn is close. We must work to-morrow!"

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 very 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. 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 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 that I was
paralysed. 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 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 designs! 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, 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 of 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 to-day on no more miserable house in
all the great round of its daily course.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Dying, Renfield admits to the other men that Dracula often visited him, promising him flies, spiders, and other living creatures from which to gain strength in return for Renfield's obedience. Later, when Mina visited him, Renfield noted her paleness and realized that Dracula had been "taking the life out of her. He grew angry, and when the count slipped into his room that night, Renfield attempted to seize him. The vampire's eyes "burned" him, and he was flung violently across the room as Dracula slipped away into the asylum. The four men rush upstairs to the Harkers' room. Finding it locked, they break down the door on a terrible scene: Jonathan lies unconscious, Mina kneels on the edge of the bed, and the count stands over her as she drinks from a wound on his breast. Dracula turns on the intruders, his eyes flaming with "devilish passion," but Van Helsing holds up a sacred Communion wafer and the count retreats. The moonlight fades, and the men light a gas lamp. All that is left of the count is a faint vapor escaping under the door. Morris chases it and sees a bat flying away from Carfax. Meanwhile, the men discover that the count has torn apart their study in an attempt to destroy their papers and diaries. Fortunately, they have kept duplicate copies in a safe. Mina and Jonathan regain consciousness. Mina says that she awoke that night to find Jonathan unconscious beside her and Dracula stepping out of a mist. The count threatened to kill her husband if Mina made a sound. He drank blood from her throat, telling her that it was not the first time he had done so. Then, slicing his own chest open, he pressed her lips to the cut and forced her to drink his blood. Dracula mocked his pursuers and assured Mina that he would make her "flesh of my flesh. Mina cries out, "God pity me. Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril


prompt:
Chapter: _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 to-day. 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 to-day. 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
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.

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 were simply stating a fact:--

"Because if I find in myself--and I 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 by 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 Un-Dead, 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 shock 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 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 sterilise 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. To-day, 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 to-night, 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 sterilise 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 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 hour, 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 it; 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 no 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 house 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 came 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 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 a 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 horsebacking; 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 purposes?
It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south 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 destruction; and his
presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us
some new clue.

As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that,
after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly;
that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming
and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them.
It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count
might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be
able to cope with him then and there. At any rate, we might be able to
follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, and so far as
my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect
Mina, I thought that my mind was made up on the subject; but Mina would
not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter
in which I could be useful; that amongst the Count's papers might be
some clue which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania;
and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to
cope with the Count's extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina's
resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for _her_ that
we should all work together. "As for me," she said, "I have no fear.
Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must
have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if
He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present." So I
started up crying out: "Then in God's name let us come at once, for we
are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we
think."

"Not so!" said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.

"But why?" I asked.

"Do you forget," he said, with actually a smile, "that last night he
banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?"

Did I forget! shall I ever--can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that
terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but
the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and
shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall her
frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part in
the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he said,
he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. "Oh,
Madam Mina," he said, "dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so
reverence you should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old
lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will
forget it, will you not?" He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took
his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:--

"No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it I
have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all
together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we
must all eat that we may be strong."

Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and
encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of
us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:--

"Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we
all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy's
lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?" We all assured
him. "Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case _quite_ safe
here until the sunset; and before then we shall return--if---- We shall
return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I
have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing
of things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard
yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the
name of the Father, the Son, and----"

There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he
had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it--had burned
into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor
darling's brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as
her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that
her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the
words to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased
to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her
knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair
over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:--

"Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must
bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day." They
all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless
grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our
sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away
their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said
gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some
way inspired, and was stating things outside himself:--

"It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see fit,
as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress all wrongs of
the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam
Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that
red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of what has been, shall pass away,
and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as
we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees right to lift the
burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did
in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of
His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other
through stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and
fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man."

There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation.
Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old
man's hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all
knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each
other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of sorrow from the
head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved; and we prayed for help
and guidance in the terrible task which lay before us.

It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which
neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out.

To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a
vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible
land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant
many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so
the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.

We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on
the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic
surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such
fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there
not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded
with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of use in the house; and
in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last.
Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them:--

"And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this
earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far
distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it has
been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more
holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it to
God." As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and
very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth smelled
musty and close; but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our attention
was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the
Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting down
the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked.

One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left
them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was a portion
of the Host.

When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly:--

"So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can
be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam
Mina's forehead all white as ivory and with no stain!"

As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our
train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the
window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to
tell that our work there was successfully accomplished. She nodded in
reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her
hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we sought the station
and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the
platform.

I have written this in the train.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Piccadilly, 12:30 o'clock._--Just before we reached Fenchurch Street
Lord Godalming said to me:--

"Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in
case there should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances it
wouldn't seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a
solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you
should have known better." I demurred as to my not sharing any danger
even of odium, but he went on: "Besides, it will attract less attention
if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with
the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had
better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park,
somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door opened and
the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the
lookout for you, and shall let you in."

"The advice is good!" said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming
and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner
of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green
Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was
centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition amongst
its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours. We sat down on a bench
within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little
attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we
waited for the coming of the others.

At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely
fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the box descended
a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid
the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two
ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done.
The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes
of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered
along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down
placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a
selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly
fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and
turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and
the man lifted a good-sized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he
began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling
about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the
door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others
entered the hall. We sat still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van
Helsing's went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the
workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly
open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock.
This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and
gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his
coat and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole
transaction.

When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at
the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood
Lord Godalming lighting a cigar.

"The place smells so vilely," said the latter as we came in. It did
indeed smell vilely--like the old chapel at Carfax--and with our
previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using the
place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together
in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal
with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the
house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back of the hall, we found
eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine, which we sought!
Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found the
missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out
across a narrow stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable,
pointed to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no
windows in it, so we were not afraid of being over-looked. We did not
lose any time in examining the chests. With the tools which we had
brought with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had
treated those others in the old chapel. It was evident to us that the
Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for
any of his effects.

After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic,
we came to the conclusion that the dining-room contained any effects
which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to minutely examine
them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the great dining-room
table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle;
deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey;
note-paper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin
wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes
brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin--the latter containing
dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a
little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to
the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming
and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the
houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great
bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us
are, with what patience we can, waiting their return--or the coming of
the Count.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In his journal, Harker recounts the end of Renfield's story: before escaping the asylum, the count pays one last visit to the lunatic, breaking his neck and killing him. Harker and his compatriots go to Carfax the next day and place a Communion wafer in each of Dracula's boxes of earth, rendering them unfit for the vampire's habitation. Before the men proceed to the count's estate in Piccadilly, Van Helsing seals Mina Murray's room with wafers. When he touches her forehead with a wafer, it burns her skin and leaves a bright red scar on her forehead. Mina breaks down in tears, calling herself "unclean