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could produce a document or two identifying myself as the Corday whose
property the trunk was labeled as. Before these arguments of mine could have
any conclusive effect, however, the conductor had taken it upon himself to
fling open the leathern lid, with a dramatic gesture that seemed to hope for a
dismembered body, at least, to come to view within. All stared nonplussed at
my mere load of earth.
"And how is this explainable, monsieur?"
"If you are referring to your rudeness, my good man, you must know the answer
better than I."
"I refer, sir, to the conditions of this trunk and of its contents." He
peered in once more, eyes lighting up. Might there be, after all, a corpse or
two beneath the mold?
"It is my trunk, monsieur conductor, and its conditions my affair."
We adjourned shortly to the next car, where the conductor had his command
post, as it were, commanding a view of the car's corridor and the doors of the
passenger's compartments. Above his desk hung a small mirror that, had I not
been immune to fear, might well have given me a moment or two of apprehension.
A little stove at the conductor's feet as he sat there enthroned gave off a
grateful warmth against the autumnal dawn.
If he had sought to keep me standing there as a supplicant he was mistaken.
Monarch though he might be in his small, wheeled domain, my own rulership was
vaster and more practiced, and I more skilled even than he in the tones and
gestures that best serve to overawe. Without seeming to exert great physical
force I still moved resistlessly through his entourage of lesser train-men and
walked deliberately to my cabin. One or two of them followed at a little
distance the affair of the trunk was not yet really over, and what was I to do
for a resting place now? but tor the time being no further effort was made to
detain me or force questioning.
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I had barely got into my room and started to relax when a light tap came at
the door.
"Who is it?"
"Dr. Floyd," I thought the answer came, which sounded like an English name,
and seemed to be spoken in that tongue; but it was undoubtedly the voice of my
German-speaking acquaintance of the night before.
Much to my surprise on opening the door, I beheld Mina standing there at the
Viennese doctor's side. When we two men had exchanged greetings, the doctor,
speaking English in deference to Mina, introduced me to her.
"In the course of a certain professional matter I met Mrs. Harker rather
early this morning, and she has graciously consented to breakfast with us;
when I mentioned, Dr. Corday, that you too were from London, she was most
interested to meet you."
"I am flattered, Madam Harker." And I managed to slip her the slightest wink
as I bowed to kiss her hand.
The "professional matter," as Mina informed me later, had been a result of a
disagreement in one of the gentlemen's cabins during the night. Colt revolvers
and bowie knives were brandished but fortunately not much used. There was
evidence, in the form of certain articles of clothing, that at least one young
woman had been on the premises. Dr. Floyd as I then understood his name had
treated Quincey Morris for scalp lacerations and a certain young waiter for
moderately serious but not disabling head wounds and facial contusions.
All right, why should I now be coy and indirect? What with Arthur changing
his mind at the eleventh hour about his need for female company  he had begun
tearfully and drunkenly lamenting Lucy and Quincey too actively disputing the
bill for services rendered, an altercation had arisen, and bandages as well as
banknotes were required to smooth things over.
Harker had heard the commotion and burst out from his compartment adjoining,
glaring madly and waving a huge knife; luckily he calmed quickly on
discovering the true nature of the problem. Seward and Van Helsing had already
gone in search of Mina to hypnotize her for the morning communiqué, and
Jonathan told the conductor he had better cast about for some other physician
to tend the wounded. As luck would have it, my friend of the smoking car was
domiciled nearby, and came to volunteer his services. His accent, and perhaps
something in his physiognomy, caused dear Jonathan to drop some half-audible
remark about a "sheep-headed Jew" when Quincey groaned with the discomfort of
getting a stitch or two in his thick scalp. Mina, finished early with her
seance, had already come on the scene; authentically gracious as always, she
left the men to argue and nurse their wounds, and came to breakfast with the
good Samaritan as a token of reparations. She was delighted to have me as an
unexpected bonus; her husband seemed glad to get her away from the scene of
sordid combat for any reason.
We three sat down in the dining car together. I ordered only cafe au lait,
which I could swallow if there were compelling cause to do so.
"And are you too, Mrs. Harker," I asked, "traveling only to Vienna?"
"Ah, no. My husband's plans are grander. He has arranged a holiday for our
party, at some spa on the Black Sea or nearby. His plans are still somewhat
mysterious."
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"I loveamystery, madam. Would that it were possible for me to join you."
"That would indeed be pleasant doctors. Both of you."
The man I thought of as Floyd had been pulling at his beard and glancing
intently from Mina's lace to mine and back again. I realized belatedly that my
hair had fallen aside from the center of my forehead.
"Dr. Corday," he began hesitantly, "I hope you will not think me
impertinent I really have some professional interest would you think me rude
if I were to inquire how you happened to come by the small scar on your
forehead?"
"Not at all, Doctor. I incurred that peculiar mark some five months past, at
the hands of an at quaintance of mine." As I spoke I realized how much my
conversational English had improved since I first encountered Harker in Castle
Dracula. "Guest in my house at the time; given to nightmares, unfortunately.
Chap became quite violent on one occasion, and we were both of us in good luck
that no more serious injuries occurred."
"Thank you. I I was emboldened to ask because& " His eyes drifted again to the
mirror image of my scar, that stood in bold red upon the fairest brow in all
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