summoning him to an emergency meeting with the prime minister at Horse Guards.
“Thank you, Sally,” said Holmwood, when the coffee was served. The girl curtsied quickly, then backed out of the drawing room, closing the doors behind her.
The men poured cream into their cups, took biscuits from the plate, sipped their coffees, and sat back in their chairs. For a contented moment, no one spoke, then Jonathan Harker asked Van Helsing about the previous night’s business.
The old professor set his cup back on the table and looked around at his three friends. They had been through so much together, these four men: had stared into the face of pure evil and refused to yield, chasing Count Dracula across the wilds of Eastern Europe to the mountains of Transylvania, where they had made their stand at the foot of the ancient castle that bore their quarry’s name.
One of their number had not made it home, murdered on the Borgo Pass by the gypsies who had served the count.
Ah, Quincey, thought Van Helsing. You were the bravest of us all.
“Professor?” It was Harker who spoke, and Van Helsing realized that he had been asked a question.
“Yes, Jonathan,” he replied. “I’m sorry, last night’s exertions have left me tired. Forgive me.”
Harker gave him a gentle look that told him clearly that requesting forgiveness was unnecessary, and Van Helsing continued.
He told them of his adventure beneath the Lyceum, the orator in him taking satisfaction as their eyes widened at his telling of the tale. When he was finished, silence descended on the drawing room as the men digested the professor’s story. Eventually, Harker spoke.
“So it’s as we feared,” he said, his face displaying a calm that his voice was not quite capable of matching. “The evil did not die with the count.”
“It would appear not,” replied Van Helsing. “As to how, I confess the answer escapes me. I can only presume that poor Lucy was not the first to have been transformed by the count’s vile fluids.”
Seward and Holmwood flinched. The mere mention of Lucy Westenra’s name was still a source of great pain to both men.
“Why now, though?” asked Harker. “Why is the evil spreading only now, after the creature itself is dead?”
“I don’t know, Jonathan,” replied Van Helsing, truthfully. “Perhaps the count guarded his dark power, hoarded it, if you will. Perhaps such restrictions have been lifted with his death. But I merely speculate.” He looked at his friends. “And I must ask the same of you all,” he continued. “I ask each of you to tell me whether you think the poor business of Harold Norris was an aberration, or a harbinger of things to come. I shall depart for Whitehall shortly, a summons I am compelled to obey, and I will be expected to provide the prime minister with answers.”
Silence settled uncomfortably over the drawing room.
Tell me it was an isolated incident, thought Van Helsing. One of you tell me that. The alternative is too horrible.
“I fear this is only the beginning.” It was Arthur Holmwood who spoke, his voice even and firm. “I believe that the situation is only likely to worsen. I wish I could honestly say otherwise, but I cannot. Can any of you?”
His face did not betray the fear that the old professor knew he must be feeling, nor the great sorrow with which the death of his father had filled him. Van Helsing felt an immense warmth for his friend, who had been dragged unwillingly into the terrible events of the previous year for no greater a crime than proposing marriage to the girl he loved, but had conducted himself with enormous courage and dignity as the matter had taken its course.
“I cannot,” said Dr. Seward.
“Neither can I,” said Jonathan Harker.
The professor nodded, curtly, trying not to show the dread that had settled in the pit of his stomach. “So we are in agreement,” he said, gripping the arms of his chair and pushing himself to his feet. “It is my sincere hope that we are wrong, but I feel it in my heart that we are not. I will convey our conclusion to the prime minister. Let us hope that he surprises us with wisdom enough to heed our warning.”
The valet brought the carriage to a halt outside the grand Horse Guards building, dismounted and helped Van Helsing down onto the pavement. Two soldiers of the Household Cavalry, resplendent in their blue tunics and gold ropes, immediately approached and asked them their business. The valet produced the letter from inside his top coat and passed it to the soldiers, who examined it carefully before standing aside.
Inside the arched entrance to the building an elderly butler, clad in immaculate morning dress, informed them that the prime minister would receive them in the study of the commander in chief of the British Army on the first floor. He hovered respectfully as Van Helsing removed his coat and handed it to his valet.
“Wait here, boy,” the old man said. “I doubt I shall be long.”
The valet nodded and took a seat in a high-backed wooden chair by the entrance, folding his master’s coat across his knees.
Van Helsing followed the butler up a wide staircase, his footsteps muffled by a deep red carpet, the oil- painted eyes of the greatest heroes of the British Empire staring silently down at him from the walls.
He was led along a wide corridor on the first floor, turning left and right and left again, until they reached a large oak door, which the butler pushed open. He stepped inside and the professor followed.
“Professor Abraham Van Helsing,” the butler announced, then backed silently out of the study. The old man watched the servant close the door, then turned and looked at the six men gathered at the far end of the room.
Seated at an enormous mahogany desk was William Gladstone, the prime minister, looking expectantly at Van Helsing. Flanking him to the left and right were five of the most powerful men in the Empire; Earl Spencer, first lord of the Admiralty; Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, secretary of state for war; George Robinson, secretary of state for the Colonies and first marquess of Ripon; Herbert Asquith, home secretary; and Archibald Primrose, foreign secretary and fifth earl of Rosebery.
What a rogues’ gallery this is, thought Van Helsing.
He walked across the study. The wall to his left was dominated by a tall row of windows, through which could be seen the green expanse of St. James’s Park. To his right, an open fire roared in an ornamental marble fireplace. Lying on the floor between him and the desk was an immaculate tiger skin, the head, paws, and tail still attached and forming a six-pointed star on the dark floorboards. Beyond the rug was a wooden chair, positioned directly in front of the one in which the prime minister was sitting.
Van Helsing stepped around the tiger skin with a look of distaste on his face and stood next to the chair.
“Won’t you sit, Professor?” asked Gladstone, his voice higher and more feminine than Van Helsing had expected.
“No thank you, Prime Minister,” he replied curtly. “I prefer to stand.” Even though the pain in my hip feels like there is a branding iron being pressed against it. Let it hold up for as long as this takes, grant me that much.
Gladstone continued. “I saw you admiring the tiger. Isn’t he beautiful?”
“ She,” said Van Helsing pointedly, “would be more beautiful were she still alive in the forests of Siberia, in my opinion. Sir.”
Secretary Robinson uttered a short laugh. “Professor, you are mistaken,” he said, his voice booming from a mouth partially concealed behind a vast beard that reached below his bow tie. “Not about the sex of the beast, as female she surely is, but about her provenance. She’s a Bengal, sir. I shot her myself outside of Yangon, two summers ago.”
Van Helsing turned and looked down at the animal skin, taking in the size of the head and the length of the tail, both still intact. “I think not, sir,” he replied. “ Panthera tigris altaica. The Siberian, or Amur, tiger.”
Robinson’s face darkened red. “Are you calling me a liar, sir?” he asked, his voice low.
He bought it, realized Van Helsing, with cruel enjoyment. Probably in Singapore or Rangoon. Bought it and brought it home as a hunting trophy. How wonderful.
“I am not suggesting that,” he replied, relish creeping into his voice. “I am, however, suggesting that it is you who is mistaken. The thickness of the coat, the pale orange of the fur, the lighter concentration of the stripes,
