The Dracula Tape

haired piece is one, whyn't we up and put the question to her? Ask her if she's got a girl friend aboard, too. Things'd be more comfortable that way.'

'It isn't always done that directly and bluntly, old fellow, as you never seem to learn. This is not Africa, after all, nor the South Seas.'

'That's what you said in London, too. And matters there worked out pretty well, the way I handled it. Right?'

'The woman there was absolutely terrified, dear chap, after you claimed to see a bat, and fired your Colt out the window for target practice…'

'My practice is at present rather limited,' my new friend was saying, closer to my ears. He seemed in a way attracted to me, as one unusual person is sometimes drawn to another even when neither knows the exact quality of the other's strangeness. 'I have devoted so much energy lately to these researches on the effects of cocaine, and on the energies of the mental process as they may affect the physical health.'

This last caught my attention with a jolt. 'Most interesting, Doctor,' I said with feeling. I had surmised his title by now if I was still ignorant of his name.

My companion had fallen silent, pondering something, letting his cigar go gray.

'Shouldn'ta had that las' brandy if this's to be my night to howl, but t' hell with it. Now I'm gonna mount that red-haired catamount or know th' reason why… Art, you are sure she's a who-er?'

'Quite, quite. One can learn from listening to the servants, you know, even as they learn from us. One must conduct negotiations through them, I'll wager, for the favors of this auburn-haired charmer and any companion she may have aboard…'

'And did you say you had a practice now in London, Dr. Corday?'

'Ah, not precisely, Doctor, no. Rather I am a consultant there on various physiological and medical matters… for several firms…'

My processes of invention, never very strong, were flagging rapidly. I did, however, by speaking slowly and with thoughtful pauses, manage to stall my interlocutor until Quincey and Arthur had got up again and left the car, evidently to begin negotiations. I thought Arthur trailed rather reluctantly behind his friend; Lucy had been in her grave for only three weeks, and dead for only two. Perhaps I was naive, but it came as something of a surprise to me to learn that ladies of the evening regularly rode the wagons-lits in luxury across the Continent. But why not? Money and boredom both abounded on the Orient Express, and I believe there is something intrinsically exciting in the quick motion of a train.

When my new friend and I did leave the smoking car I arranged matters so that he preceded me through the train, opening doors as we came to them; thus I was given an invitation into each sleeping car that I had not yet visited. At this early hour of the night the ladies' car was of course still passable by gentlemen. Inside it, only glass panels and a frame of wood separated the compartments from the more or less public aisle; but damask curtains covered most of the glass, and I still did not know in which compartment Mina was going to lodge.

'Ah, it is an extravagance, this train,' my unwitting benefactor murmured after we had passed on into a gentleman's car and were pausing before the door of a cabin that was evidently his own. 'For myself, that is. But I wanted to be alone, and in peace for a time, to think… there is so little time for thought.'

'I have noticed that in my own affairs,' I rejoined sympathetically. 'Well, I trust I have not unduly distracted you from your thoughts, Doctor. Your research sounds immensely interesting and I look forward to hearing more of it in the near future.'

'You are going to Vienna?' he asked.

'A much greater distance. Business will eventually take me as far as the Black Sea.'

'Well, we shall certainly have time to talk tomorrow… at breakfast, perhaps?'

'Why not?' I would always be able to plead some minor indisposition while at table; and if it became necessary I could even swallow some bland food, to be regurgitated later.

'As for interrupting my research, distracting me, Dr. Corday, do not give it another thought. No, you have given me…' He broke off with a little laugh. 'Food for thought,' seemed to be the unstated conclusion of his sentence. 'Do you know, when first I saw you on the platform there tonight, I fancied you had…' But at that point he had to break off again, with a little smile followed at once by a very serious look of introspection. What he thought he had seen out there was too ridiculous for casual, social discussion.

I answered his smile. 'I look forward to hearing of it in the morning.' And I bade him goodnight and went on to my own room.

Once in, I locked my door and of course went out again through the closed windows. Hat folded into my pocket against the blast, I worked my way aft again toward the women's quarters. Intelligent, practical Mina had contrived to open her window curtains enough for a cinder-scorched wayfarer hanging from the train roof to see inside, where she and Jonathan now sat primly tete-a-tete.

Primly is perhaps not the right word, for as he sat there he was whetting his huge, murderous new knife, the weapon with which he hoped to send me to eternal punishment. It was a type of knife called Kukri, as I recall, favored in those days and earlier by the Gurkhas of Nepal, and acquired by Quincey or Arthur in their travels. As I stared at this evidence of how stubbornly my enemies still relied on metal to accomplish my demise, my plan for their deception began to take its final form.

Shortly Jonathan rose and, with a few words to his wife, which I could not hear, thrust the keen blade into a scabbard underneath his coat, bade her a chaste goodnight, and left. As soon as he was gone and the door of the compartment locked Mina came over to the window. Her face was wan but the sight of my own visage, inverted just outside the glass, brought some animation to her countenance, and she remembered to beckon an invitation to insure my ability to enter. A moment later and we were in each other's arms.

Mina reported that, as far as she could tell, the men were still all firmly convinced that I lay as inert cargo aboard Czarina Catherine. She had been doing what she could to reinforce this opinion, with her changeless reports of watery noises and darkness, at her regular morning hypnotic sessions with Van Helsing when she pretended to be entranced after he had made a few mesmeric gestures.

'It will take us at least three full days to reach Varna, where they plan to intercept the box,' she told me. 'Vlad, are you sure that your presence aboard the train can be kept secret from them until then? When and where will you rest?'

'I am getting off at Bucharest,' I explained. 'And I have made provision, too, for resting whilst on board.' And with scarcely a qualm I told her of the great leather trunk that rode in the baggage car, half filled with good Transylvania earth. I felt scarcely a qualm, as I say, in telling her. Not for centuries had I trusted any breathing soul with knowledge so vital to my survival. To lose my trunk or be deprived of using it would place me in a desperate strait-though admittedly not quite so desperate as if I had been wrecked in the North Sea on my way to England. The Express was hurtling eastward, hour after hour; and from near the Franco-German border it might have been possible for bat, wolf, and man, traveling sequentially, to regain the homeland before being destroyed by exhaustion and the sun.

When Mina and I had pleased each other as best we could that first night in the swaying train we lay companionably together side by side upon the narrow bed; I with my acute hearing found some amusement in parts of a conversation that penetrated train noises and thin partitions to reach my ears from a neighboring compartment. The persons talking were a young lady, who I suspect had auburn hair, and a young man who by daylight probably wore blue silk and white stockings in the dining car, and by night evidently served in a more enterprising and lucrative capacity as the lady's business agent.

'What is it makes you smile so, Vlad dear? I confess that my own heart is heavy, whilst your life and Jonathan's remain both in grave danger.'

'I am pleased that Arthur and Quincey have plans for less destructive work tonight.'

'Really? What do you mean?'

Mina was quite interested as I explained. Perhaps because of the nature of our special relationship, she discussed openly with me matters she would have been reluctant to mention to her husband.

'At least it must distract them from their cruel thoughts of harming you,' she murmured. Then shortly I said it was past time for me to go, if I was to manage to dine on beef blood and to get some rest before the dawn.

'Now do be careful,' she warned, 'especially going atop the moving train.'

I kissed her hand. 'I shall take care. But really, I am no more likely to fall from the train top than you would be to topple over when crossing a level and unmoving floor. And for your sake too it is time I left; for you must rest.