The Dracula Tape

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.

Anxious to be out of the rush of wind and greasy smoke, I gave this platform only the most cursory look before swinging myself down onto it, and missed seeing the dark form of a man who stood motionless in a corner and gazed out at the scattered lights of farms and hamlets that flew by us in the night. In the surrounding roar of air and iron I could not hear his lungs or heart, and the glowing signal of his cigar became visible only when he turned to face me. I realized that I had been an instant too late in taking my own stance at the rail, as an interested observer of the countryside; yet I looked back at him as insouciantly as possible, daring him, as it were, to believe the evidence of his own eyes concerning my arrival.

He was a man about thirty-five years of age, of middle height, with a small, well-trimmed beard and brown, liquid, intelligent, and somehow powerful eyes. He removed the large, black cigar from his mouth and stared at me with the frank astonishment of one who could indeed believe his eyes' report that I had come down from the roof.

Casually I snapped my collapsible hat back into shape and replaced it on my head. Then I nodded affably to my companion and prepared to engage him in conversation; it was necessary to learn whether my own survival was going to require throwing this unfortunate person from the train, or whether he could be brought around to the belief that he had not really seen what he had seen at all.

'Bon soir, monsieur,' I offered, and switched to German when his rather hesitant reply came in an accent that betrayed his greater familiarity with that tongue.

'Good evening,' he answered, and had to stare a moment longer before blinking and offering an apology. 'Pray forgive my staring. But-but I was lost in thought here, and it seemed to me that-that you arrived here on the platform… as if from nowhere.' Hesitant though his words were at first, they soon acquired a tone of firm dominance that was evidently more natural for him.

'Quite understandable,' I murmured. 'Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Emile Corday, of the Akademie der Wissenschaften, in Vienna.'

He was nonplussed again; once more I had blundered. From behind my glasses I scanned the passing scenery, looking out for a haystack into which I could toss him, thus getting an inconvenient observer out of the way for an essential day or two, if not forever. It was beginning to look as it his departure from the train would be required, but I was loath to take his life.

'The Akademie…?' he muttered. 'But I myself… that is, I thought I was fairly well acquainted with all…'

'Ach, of course I have not been active there for some years. I am at present in the employ of a London firm… no, thank you, no cigar, Herr-?'

He reached to grasp my hand by way of self-introduction, and opened his mouth to announce his name, but at that moment we plunged into a short tunnel and his words were lost on me.

After such intensive dousing in engine smoke as the tunnel had afforded us we moved by common consent to re-enter the interior of the train. It was of course the smoking car we entered; I froze momentarily, anticipating immediate and desperate action, when I recognized two of the-exclusively male, of course-inhabitants as Arthur and Quincey, who seemed to have just seated themselves and lit cigars.

I contrived to sit with my back to them as my new companion and I took seats not far away; he had his own cigar new-lighted and was likely to wish to remain in this car for some minutes. Nor did I wish to leave him until I was sure how much he had seen, or thought he had seen, of my inhuman acrobatics.

The voices of Quincey and Arthur were pitched too low for ordinary ears in my position to have picked them up, but I had little difficulty.

'In Texas we call a who-er a who-er,' Quincey was whispering with some vehemence. 'You sure that li'l red-