3 October.- As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It
is now six o'clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour
and take something to eat, for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are
agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will
be, God knows, required today. I must keep writing at every chance,
for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down;
perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most. The
teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere
worse than we are to-day. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina
told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it
is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested- that we must keep on
trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh my
God! what end?... To work! To work!
  When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor
Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr.
Seward told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the
room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a
heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the
neck were broken.
  Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if
he had heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down- he
confessed to half dozing- when he heard loud voices in the room, and
then Renfield had called out loudly several times, "God! God! God!"
After that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the
room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors
had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard "voices" or "a voice,"
and he said he could not say; that at first it had seemed to him as if
there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have been
only one. He could swear to it, if required, that the word "God" was
spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that
he did not wish to go into the matter; the question of an inquest
had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the
truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the
attendant's evidence he could give a certificate of death by
misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand
it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result.
  When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our
next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be
in full confidence; that nothing of any sort- no matter how painful-
should be kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it
was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a
depth of despair. "There must be no concealment," she said, "Alas!
we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all
the world that can give me more pain than I have already endured- than
I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new
courage to me!" Van Helsing was, looking at her fixedly as she
spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly:-
  "But dear Madam Mina are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for
others from yourself, after what has happened?" Her face grew set in
its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she
answered:-
  "Ah no! for my mind is made up!"
  "To what?" he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for
each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her
answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply
stating a fact:-
  "Because if I find in myself- and I shall watch keenly for it- a
sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!"
  "You would not kill yourself?" he asked, hoarsely.
  "I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me
such a pain, and so desperate an effort!" She looked at him
meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and
came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly:
  "My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself
I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia
for you, even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But
my child-" for a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in
his throat; he gulped it down and went on:-
  "There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must
not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own.
Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must
not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would
make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and
strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must
fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the
day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge
you that you do not die- nay nor think of death- till this great
evil be past." The poor dear grew white as death, and shook and
shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the
incoming of the tide. We were all silent; we could do nothing. At
length she grew more calm and turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so
sorrowfully, as she held out her hand.-
  "I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I
shall strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this
horror may have passed away from me." She was so good and brave that
we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for
her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she
was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or
diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the
record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of
anything to do- if "pleased" could be used in connection with so
grim an interest.
  As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was
prepared with an exact ordering of our work.
  "It is perhaps well" he said "that at our meeting after our visit to
Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earthboxes that lay
there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and
would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an
effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our
intentions. Nay more, in all probability, he does not know that such a
power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use
them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge
as to their disposition, that, when we have examined the house in
Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. To-day, then, is ours;
and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning
guards us in its course. Until it sets tonight, that monster must
retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations
of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear
through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a door-way,
he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt
out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not
yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where
the catching and the destroying shall be, in time, sure." Here I
started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that the
minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina's life and happiness
were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was impossible. But
Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. "Nay, friend Jonathan," he
said, "In this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your
proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the
time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation
is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which
he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and
other things. He will have paper that he write on; he will have his
book of cheques. There are many belongings that he must have
somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet, where he come
and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the very vast
of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and search
that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our
friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt 'stop the earths' and so we
run down our old fox- so? is it not?"
  "Then let us come at once," I cried, "we are wasting the precious,
precious time!" The Professor did not move, but simply said:-
  "And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?"
  "Any way!" I cried. "We shall break in if need be."
  "And your police; where will they be, and what will they say?"
  I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good
reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could:-
  "Don't wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I
am in."
  "Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add
to your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world
be at movement. Then will come our time. I have thought and thought,
and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we
wish to get into the house, but we have no key; is it not so?" I
nodded.
  "Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and
could not still get it, and think there was to you no conscience of
the housebreaker, what would you do?"
  "I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick
the lock for me."
  "And your police, they would interfere, would they not?"
  "Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed."
  "Then," he looked at me keenly as he spoke, "all that is in doubt is
the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to
whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your
police must indeed be zealous men and clever- oh so clever!- in
reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No,
no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty house
in this your London, or of any city in the world; and if you do it
as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are
rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who
owned a so fine house in your London, and when he went for months of
summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and
broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the
shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the
very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that house, and
advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sell off
by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them.
Then he go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an
agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain
time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And
when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland he find only
an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done en regle,
and in our work we shall be en regle too. We shall not go so early
that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it
strange; but we shall go after ten o'clock, when there are many about,
and when such things would be done were we indeed owners of the
house."
  I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of
Mina's face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good
counsel. Van Helsing went on:-
  "When once within that house we may find more clues; at any rate
some of us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places
where there be more earth-boxes- at Bermondsey and Mile End."
  Lord Godalming stood up. "I can be of some use here," he said. "I
shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will
be most convenient."
  "Look here, old fellow," said Morris, "it is a capital idea to
have all ready in case we want to go horse-backing; but don't you
think that one of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments
in a byway of Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention
for our purposes? it seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go
south or east; and even leave them somewhere near the neighborhood
we are going to."
  "Friend Quincey is right!" said the Professor. "His head is what you
call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go
to do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may."
  Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see
that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time
the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale-
almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her
teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest
it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in
my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count
had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing
sharper, but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear.
  When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of
the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was
finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy
the Count's lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too
soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction;
and his presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest,
might give us some new clue.
  As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor
that, after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in
Piccadilly; that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst
Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End
and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor
urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and
that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any
rate, we might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I
strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said
that I intended to stay and protect Mina. I thought that my mind was
made up on the subject; but Mina would not listen to my objection. She
said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful;
that amongst the Count's papers might be some clue which I could
understand out of my experience in Transylvania; and that, as it
was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the
Count's extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina's resolution
was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for her that we should
all work together. "As for me," she said, "I have no fear. Things have
been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must have in it
some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if He wishes
it, guard me as well alone as with any one present." So I started up
crying out: "Then in God's name let us come at once, for we are losing
time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think."
  "Not so!" said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.
  "But why?" I asked.
  "Do you forget," he said, with actually a smile, "that last night he
banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?"
  Did I forget! shall I ever- can I ever! Can any of us ever forget
that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave
countenance; but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands
before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had
not intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost
sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort.
When it struck him what he said, he was horrified at his
thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. "Oh, Madam Mina," he said,
"dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so reverence you
should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of
mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will forget
it, will you not?" He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took his
hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:-
  "No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it
I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all
together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and
we must all eat that we may be strong."
  Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful
and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful
of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:-
  "Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are
we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our
enemy's lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?" We
all assured him. "Then it is well. Now Madam Mina, you are in any case
quite safe here until the sunset; and before then we shall return- if-
We shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against
personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared your
chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so that He may
not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this
piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and-"
  There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As
he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it- had
burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot
metal. My poor darling's brain had told her the significance of the
fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it; and the two
so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that
dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly; the echo
of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the
reaction, and she sand on her knees on the floor in an agony of
abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of
old his mantle, she wailed out:-
  "Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must
bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement Day."
They all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of
helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few
minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends
around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van
Helsing turned and said gravely; so gravely that I could not help
feeling that he was in some way inspired, and was stating things
outside himself:-
  "It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself
see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress
all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed
thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you
be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of
what has been, shall pass away and leave your forehead as pure as
the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away
when God sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then
we bear our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may
be that we are chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we
ascend to His bidding as that other through stripes and shame; through
tears and blood; through doubts and fears, and all that makes the
difference between God and man."
  There was hope in his words, and comfort, and they made for
resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each
took one of the old man's hands and bent over and kissed it. Then
without a word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands,
swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise
the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way,
we loved; and we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task
which lay before us.
  It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting
which neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out.
  To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must
be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and
terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one
vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in
sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for
their ghastly ranks.
  We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as
on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so
prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any
ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made
up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could
hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign
of use in the house; and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just
as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we
stood before them:-
  "And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise
this earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far
distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it
has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make
it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we
sanctify it to God." As he spoke he took from his bag a screw-driver
and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown
open. The earth smelled musty and close; but we did not somehow seem
to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking
from his box a piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on
the earth, and then shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we
aiding him as he worked.
  One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and
left them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was a
portion of the Host.
  When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly:-
  "So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we
can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on
Madam Mina's forehead all white as ivory and with no stain!"
  As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch
our train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly,
and in the window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and
nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished.
She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she
was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we
sought the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as
we reached the platform.
  I have written this in the train.

  Piccadilly, 12:30 o'clock.- Just before we reached Fenchurch
Street Lord Godalming said to me:-
  "Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with
us in case there should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances
it wouldn't seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you
are a solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that
you should have known better." I demurred as to my not sharing any
danger even of odium, but he went on: "Besides, it will attract less
attention if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all
right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come
along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the
Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door
opened and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall
be on the look out for you, and shall let you in."
  "The advice is good!" said Van Helsing, so we said no more.
Godalming and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At
the corner of Arlington Street our contingent got our and strolled
into the Green Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much
of our hope was centered, looming up grim and silent in its deserted
condition amongst its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours. We
sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so
as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to
pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others.
  At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely
fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the box
descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools.
Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together
the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he
wanted done. The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on
one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who
just then sauntered along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and
the man kneeling down placed his bag beside him. After searching
through it, he took out a selection of tools which he produced to
lay beside him in orderly fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the
keyhole, blew into it, and, turning to his employers, made some
remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a good sized bunch
of keys; selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as if
feeling his way with it. After fumbling about for a bit he tried a
second, and then a third. All at once the door opened under a slight
push from him, and he and the two others entered the hall. We sat
still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsing's went cold
altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and
bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly open, steadying it with
his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock. This he finally
handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him
something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat
and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole
transaction.
  When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and
knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris,
beside whom stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar.
  "The place smells so vilely," said the latter as we came in. It
did indeed smell vilely- like the old chapel at Carfax- and with our
previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using
the place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping
together in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy
to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not
be in the house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back of the
hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the
nine which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be
until we should have found the missing box. First we opened the
shutters of the window which looked out across a narrow
stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look like
the front of a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we
were not afraid of being overlooked. We did not lose any time in
examining the chests. With the tools which we had brought with us we
opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had treated those
others in the old chapel. It was evident to us that the Count was
not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for any of his
effects.
  After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to
attic, we came to the conclusion that the dining room contained any
effects which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to
minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the
great dining-room table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly
house in a great bundle; deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile
End and Bermondsey; notepaper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were
covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There
were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin-
the latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood.
Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably
those belonging to the other houses. When we had examined this last
find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the
various addresses of the houses in the East and the South, took with
them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in
these places. The rest of us are, with what patience we can, waiting
their return- or the coming of the Count.
 

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