“Let me write this all out now. We must
be ready for Dr. Van Helsing when he comes.
I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here
when he arrives in London from Whitby. In this
matter dates are everything, and I think that if we
get all of our material ready, and have every item
put in chronological order, we shall have done much.
“You tell me that Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris
are coming too. Let us be able to tell them
when they come.”
He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace,
and I began to typewrite from the beginning of the
seventeenth cylinder. I used manifold, and so
took three copies of the diary, just as I had done
with the rest. It was late when I got through,
but Dr. Seward went about his work of going his round
of the patients. When he had finished he came
back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel
too lonely whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful
he is. The world seems full of good men, even
if there are monsters in it.
Before I left him I remembered what Jonathan put in
his diary of the Professor’s perturbation at
reading something in an evening paper at the station
at Exeter, so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his newspapers,
I borrowed the files of ‘The Westminster Gazette’
and ’The Pall Mall Gazette’ and took them
to my room. I remember how much the ‘Dailygraph’
and ‘The Whitby Gazette’, of which I had
made cuttings, had helped us to understand the terrible
events at Whitby when Count Dracula landed, so I shall
look through the evening papers since then, and perhaps
I shall get some new light. I am not sleepy,
and the work will help to keep me quiet.
30 September.—Mr. Harker arrived at nine
o’clock. He got his wife’s wire
just before starting. He is uncommonly clever,
if one can judge from his face, and full of energy.
If this journal be true, and judging by one’s
own wonderful experiences, it must be, he is also a
man of great nerve. That going down to the vault
a second time was a remarkable piece of daring.
After reading his account of it I was prepared to
meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet,
businesslike gentleman who came here today.
Later.—After lunch Harker and his
wife went back to their own room, and as I passed
a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter.
They are hard at it. Mrs. Harker says that
they are knitting together in chronological order
every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has
got the letters between the consignee of the boxes
at Whitby and the carriers in London who took charge
of them. He is now reading his wife’s
transcript of my diary. I wonder what they make
out of it. Here it is . . .
