y
envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks
or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the
door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs
and sterilize 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 hours, 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
cou