“Excuse me,” I said, “but the answer is here.”  I laid my hand on the typewritten matter.  “When our sane and learned lunatic made that very statement of how he used to consume life, his mouth was actually nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before Mrs. Harker entered the room.”

Van Helsing smiled in turn.  “Good!” he said.  “Your memory is true, friend John.  I should have remembered.  And yet it is this very obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease such a fascinating study.  Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise.  Who knows?”

I went on with my work, and before long was through that in hand.  It seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was Van Helsing back in the study.

“Do I interrupt?” he asked politely as he stood at the door.

“Not at all,” I answered.  “Come in.  My work is finished, and I am free.  I can go with you now, if you like.”

“It is needless, I have seen him!”

“Well?”

“I fear that he does not appraise me at much.  Our interview was short.  When I entered his room he was sitting on a stool in the centre, with his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of sullen discontent.  I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with such a measure of respect as I could assume.  He made no reply whatever.  ‘Don’t you know me?’ I asked.  His answer was not reassuring:  ’I know you well enough; you are the old fool Van Helsing.  I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else.  Damn all thick-headed Dutchmen!’ Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at all.  Thus departed for this time my chance of much learning from this so clever lunatic, so I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina.  Friend John, it does rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be worried with our terrible things.  Though we shall much miss her help, it is better so.”

“I agree with you with all my heart,” I answered earnestly, for I did not want him to weaken in this matter.  “Mrs. Harker is better out of it.  Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have been in many tight places in our time, but it is no place for a woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time infallibly have wrecked her.”

So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker, Quincey and Art are all out following up the clues as to the earth boxes.  I shall finish my round of work and we shall meet tonight.

MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL