I held her at arm's length, and spoke with utmost seriousness. "And you had best take care, my sweet, that they never turn on you with the same thought in mind. I have seen things in Van Helsing's eyes, and heard things from his lips… his own wife's not in a madhouse for nothing, in my opinion. Give him any evidence that he can interpret as just cause and he'll be delighted to hammer a stake through your soft heart and watch you jump with every blow. Or, more likely, he'll talk dear Jonathan into doing it for your own good whilst he and the others watch. As he convinced Arthur to send his beloved Lucy on to her reward."
"I have thought about it." But now Mina did not seem especially frightened. She nodded, narrow-eyed, at me and smiled. "There is one almost infallible way by which a poor simple girl like me may turn away strong men from almost any course of action."
I loved her. "And that is?"
Her smile widened. Were her teeth, in truth, a very little sharper now? "Suggest it to them as my own idea, and keep on reminding them that it is mine."
And true to her word, a few days later she got all the men to swear that they would kill her should they ever decide she was so changed toward vampirism that such a move would be best for all concerned. She told me later that whilst she made her moving plea. Van Helsing for once rather sulked in the background. Needless to say, is it not, that the act never came near accomplishment?
She was able to pass on to me also some matters which were meant to be kept secret from her but which she was able to learn without difficulty from a servant who had been sent to arrange for railroad passage.
"They are going overland, Vlad, departing from Charing Cross station for Paris on the morning of October twelfth; in Paris they plan to board the Orient Express. Exactly how far they mean to go by rail, or what are their plans for intercepting you at their destination, I have not yet been able to learn. Oh, what will they do, what will I do to explain my faulty visions when it is discovered that the box is empty?"
"Mina, I have been giving the matter long thought, as you may well imagine. We must face facts. From what you tell me, Jonathan seems more mad than sane with the wish to do me harm, and if that were not enough to keep the others going, there is the professor, who will not let them turn back from the hunt. Nothing but evidence of my death is going to satisfy this crew. That box, when they open it, may not be empty after all."
TRACK SEVEN
The lynching party departed London on schedule one foggy morning, and reached Paris via boat-train on the night of the same day, October twelfth. Mina had talked the men into bringing her along, in her capacity as a hypnotic medium, by which they might hope to keep track of my whereabouts. With a somewhat altered appearance, and of course traveling under an assumed name, I was on the same train as their expedition left Charing Cross station. As I and my enemies crossed the Channel more or less together, the Czarina Catherine, going the long way round, was traversing the Mediterranean toward the same distant goal. I was sending her whatever favorable winds and weather came easily to hand, and turning aside a squall or two that threatened some delay.
I of course brought no coffin half tilled with earth along in my compartment. But in the car rode a steamer trunk, capacious and fashioned of cattle hide nearly half an inch thick, which three strong porters had groaned to load aboard the train. It was labeled as the property of Dr. Emile Corday, going on to Bucharest.
On the first leg of our journey, before reaching Paris, I made no effort to see Mina, being content to exchange wordless mental reassurances with her a time or two. I had some concern that the men would recognize me, despite all I had done to alter my man-form appearance. My hair I had combed down over my forehead scar, I had shaved off both beard and mustache, and was cultivating rich brown sideburns that gave my lace a fuller look.
The shape of my nose, and the usual hue of my skin, which my foemen kept describing variously as "pallid," "greenish," or "waxen," were somewhat harder to disguise. To alter the former materially proved impracticable, and to change the latter to a ruddy, healthy, trustworthy glow required massive daily doses of mammalian blood; beef and pork were generally the most readily available.
By the evening of October twelfth, as I have said, my foemen and I were both in Paris. We stood not far apart inside the Care I'Est, I squinting behind dark glasses in the glare of the station's new electric lights. Around us, with measured dignity, preparations went forward for the departure of the most famed vehicle of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Europeens, or indeed of any other railway establishment before or since. The Orient Express had then been in operation for some eight years, and was at the peak of its considerable elegance, if not yet of its fame. The baggage allowance per passenger was ample for Dr. Corday's massive trunk. I was assigned a cabin deluxe in a car next to that wherein my five hunters shared two. Ladies in that era were usually sequestered in their own voitures-lits, and at least during the customary hours of slumber; and I rejoiced to discover that Mina would be in a compartment alone when I could come to her.
Departure was timed to allow full serious Gallic consideration to be accorded to the evening meal aboard. Oozing from the window of my cabin as the Orient Express chugged east across the darkened countryside toward Strasbourg, I retained man-form-a bat would have been blown away at once in the gale of sixty miles an hour created by our motion-endured coal smoke and flying cinders, climbed to the top of the swaying, speeding car, and made my way from one car roof to another toward the rear of the train.
Hanging over the side of the train to peer into windows as I passed, I soon located the dining car, and studied its interior to see whether my enemies might be at table, and whether I could catch a glimpse of my beloved. I might have been looking into the dining room of a fine hotel. Waiters wearing breeches of blue silk, white stockings, and buckled shoes were pouring chilled champagne. The light of fine lamps, swaying only gently with the motion of the train, fell upon mahogany paneling and heavy furniture of solid oak.
And there indeed was Mina, lovelier than ever in a new open gown. Beside her at table sat her husband, gray and changed even as she had said, staring fixedly into space. With the now oddly matched couple dined Drs. Van Helsing and Seward; across the aisle, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris, both in tweeds that might do well as shooting costumes, made hand gestures that suggested they were discussing the flight paths of game birds, or mayhap of bats, over their veal cordon bleu.
All seemed to be going according to plan. But judging from the fresh, full condition of the plates, Mina was not likely to be back in her sleeping compartment for some time. Meanwhile I could try to ascertain just which cabin was hers, and this I proceeded to attempt, making my way to the ladies' sleeping car and peering down as well as I could into its series of windows. Unfortunately these apertures were all so heavily curtained that I could learn nothing; the noise of the train was such that I could hear no sounds from inside the car. At last I came to one window with curtains open enough for me to see that the compartment inside was untenanted at the moment. I moved to slip inside, but found my way suddenly barred-it was the old familiar block against entering a domicile unasked.
Mumbling imprecations to myself, and wondering if Mina would realize that I needed another invitation to be able to come to her, I crawled on to the end of the train. The last car, as I soon learned, contained a smoking lounge and library, and its end was graced by a small observation platform.