I had to wait a moment before he could control himself enough to speak the invitation that I required: 'C-come in. Lord and Master!' And as I oozed between the window bars he bowed himself away as he might have done in the presence of an emperor. Later on, in a dying statement made to the doctors, Renfield was to claim that to obtain entry I had promised him the lives of rats and flies, which he had long found agreeable to his palate. But it was not so. Certainly I would have done as much, and more, to be able to get in, but no promises or gifts were necessary to win Renfield to my cause. He was my worshiper already, though on a false premise, which I did not fully understand until a later meeting.
It was not rats and bugs he wanted from me; that sort of life he could get on his own or with some cooperation from his keepers. In fact it was women that he craved, whose lives and bodies alike he wanted to consume. This truth was never quite made plain in the prim journals of my enemies, but truth it was. And, since Renfield had first seen her on the day of her arrival at the asylum, it was Mina in particular he wanted. She was the boon he desired from me, the goal of all his prayers.
These entreaties, in a low, reasonable, and terribly earnest voice, began the moment I first stood inside his room. Even in the brief space of time before I could cross his worn rug to reach the door he managed to inform me, in several disgusting variations, of his plans for that fresh young girl when she should fall into his power.
He was a madman, certainly, and I paid these mouthings little heed just then, but gave him a smile and nod in passing. No more did I think the doctors would heed him if he spoke of my visit.
I laid my ear to the crack of his room's massive, locked, and bolted door, then passed on through when I was satisfied that the hallway outside was untenanted. Now I found myself in a passage that ran nearly the whole length of the house. In other rooms nearby, servants and inmates were making their several kinds of moderate noises but at the moment no one was in sight.
Renfield was quiet behind me, whether in disappointment or satisfaction I did not care. I ghosted in mist-form to find a set of stairs, ascended them, and passed almost invisibly along another hall. Now, if my estimates were accurate regarding the configuration of the house and the distances I had traversed, I must be outside the door of the rooms occupied by the Harkers. The upper hallway was, at the moment, as deserted as the lower had been, and quieter. I resumed man-form, took off my hat, and tapped prosaically on Mina's door.
'Yes?' The answer in her familiar voice came through the door at once. She evidently had not been asleep.
'Mrs. Harker?' I called softly. 'I am a neighbor of Dr. Seward's, and I bear a message concerning your husband.'
There were quick footsteps inside the room, the shuffle of a robe being put on, and a moment later the door opened, to reveal a kind of small sitting room, comfortably furnished, with another door beyond that must lead to a bed chamber. Mina's face, rather broad but attractive, firm and intelligent, looked out at me framed by her brown curls. 'Has something happened to Jonathan?' She seemed capable of bearing bad news if it had come.
'No, no.' I hastened to be reassuring now that my foot, so to speak, was in the door. 'At least he was in good health and reasonably good spirits but a short time ago.' As I answered I marked that her concern for her husband, though genuine, did not seem at all exaggerated, or even quite as deep as might have been expected, given the circumstances. I saw also in her eyes that she recognized me, or was at least on the point of doing so. How this could be I did not know, being then ignorant of her observation of me in Piccadilly, but I saw that the situation required the finest handling.
'You will understand,' I pressed on, in as matter-of-fact a voice as some four centuries of practice could give me, 'that circumstances of some urgency compel me to perform my own introduction. I am Count Dracula.'
She completed a movement already begun, a half step backward from the door. She had been on the point of trying to slam it in my face. But there I stood in the attitude of a distinguished male visitor in upper-class dress. Not trying to force my way in, not menacing at all but very formidable; I doubt that any Victorian girl could have mustered up the nerve to slam that door. And I was smiling, as I know how to smile at women, with four centuries of practice in that art also. My eyes were fixed on hers…
I cast no hypnotic spell upon her then; I can never do so against the firm will of the person being hypnotized. But it seemed almost that such was her state, as she half unwillingly remained before me, one hand, still somewhat sun-browned from her summer holiday, holding the door open, the other raised to clutch her dressing gown tight at the throat. She had started to open her sweet mouth as if to scream for help, but then was still.
She shook her head then, whilst her most beautiful eyes clung to me and drank me in, till I began to feel almost like a hypnotic subject myself.
'May I come in, madam? There are some vitally important matters I must discuss with some representative of this household, and I suspect you are its most intelligent member. Pray let me reassure you that you have not the slightest cause for concern over your own safety.' When Mina still made no move I added-very calmly, though now I could hear a servant moving on the stairs: 'My visit really does concern the future safety of your husband.'
Being thus provided with an acceptable reason for letting me in, Mina backed away and I entered the sitting room and closed the door behind me.
Almost as if in a daze, she gestured to a chair. 'Will you sit down?' As I accepted she seated herself most decorously and then said in halting words: 'Count… you… if I understood your words correctly through the door, you described yourself as a neighbor?'
'I have that honor, madam!' I held my tall hat straight upon my knee. 'My estate, Carfax, is just behind the high stone wall you may have noticed that abuts upon these premises to the east.' She was nodding, still dazedly. 'Your husband, I regret to say, is over there in my house now, together with Lord Godalming, Drs. Seward and Van Helsing, and an American gentleman, if that is the proper word, who fired a shot at me last night.'
'Quincey Morris,' Mina breathed.
I acknowledged the information with a small seated bow. 'Tonight they are trying to find me. If they should be successful they would do their best to run me through with a wooden stake and then cut off my head.' I smiled slightly, inviting her to acknowledge just how ridiculous the whole business sounded.
'As they did with Lucy,' Mina murmured softly, and in the midst of her words I could hear her fear beginning, just beginning, to rise up again.
'A very shocking business, that, involving Miss Westenra.' I nodded, letting my own face show distress. 'Dear Mrs. Harker, you see before you a man who is-
'Why should I wish you harm, dear lady?' I pressed on. 'It is not you who trespasses on my land, breaks into my house, destroys my property, bears lethal weapons against me through the night.' I looked up again. 'Your husband, it gives me great pain to say, does all these things, persists in doing them, and because of unfortunate misunderstandings he seems likely to persevere in this mad course until he comes to grief. Yes, grief! And what am I to do? How can I possibly prevent it, without help? The men have come one and all under the influence of that fanatic Van Helsing, and their eyes and ears are closed to any entreaty of mine. It is my humble hope that with your help and guidance I may find a way to enlighten them, to turn their feet back to the paths of sanity and safety, before it is too late!'
Mina had not yet recovered enough from my introduction to be her true, quick-witted self. 'Too late for what, Count Dracula?'
I leaned toward her and spoke slowly. 'Too late for their own good, dear Mrs. Harker. I am not going to let myself be killed. What they did to Lucy they shall not do to me.'
'I don't understand this,' the lady murmured, and started to her feet and then sat down again, continuing to gaze at me. 'I fear I do not understand this, at all. I think perhaps I'm dreaming.'
I shook my head and remained sitting in a dignified position, top hat held resting on my knee.
'Count-did none of the servants offer to take your hat?'
'The servants are not aware that I am here, madam. I judged it wiser to speak to you in secrecy.'
'Count Dracula-for so you seem to be in truth-how can you explain the fearful things that happened to my husband whilst he was visiting your castle?'
'Madam, I myself left the castle before he did. As to precisely how long he remained after my departure, or what may have happened to him in the interval, I cannot say, although of course some ultimate responsibility may be mine. As for what may have happened to him at Castle Dracula before I left, I am willing to offer an explanation
