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mate, who were Russian, and the remaining jack tar, a Romanian, were strained. The Romanian talked of creatures that inhabit the night and drink the blood of men, but the captain dismissed him as a mere uneducated yokel.
    As they passed the south coast of England, a sea mist drove the Romanian mad, and he leaped over the side. The first mate did not last until dawn before he, too, was taken by whatever plagued the Dmitri . Driven half mad, the captain vowed in his final log entry he would never abandon ship. He charted a course for Whitby and lashed himself to the wheel.
    It was this sight that greeted the harbormaster and the police when they boarded the beached schooner. The Dmitri had completed its journey with its captain utterly drained of blood!
    The ship’s log noted that delivery of the boxes was to be taken by an F. Billington, Attorney, of Royal Crescent, Whitby—mere doors from my own lodgings. A swift inquiry turned up the fact that Billington had been subcontracted by a firm of London attorneys, who were in turn acting for a practice in Roumania. Several telephone calls were made at my behest until the name of the procurer was at last obtained.
    The Dmitri had been commissioned from the Transylvania region of Roumania by a party of the name Dracula.
    While the log and manifest made no mention of any dog, the beast was witnessed leaping from the ship by half the town. It has not been seen since.
    Mrs. Veasey rapped smartly at Stoker’s door, and she was so flustered she forgot her hitherto impeccable manners and blustered in, waving the Whitby Gazette at him.
    “Oh, Mr. Stoker! Russians! Dogs! Whatever will become of us? And the papers say you are helping in the inquiries!” She halted in her rapid-fire speech. “Forgive me, sir, I’m all of a flutter this morning. Your young man, Mr. Smith. He is here to see you.”
    While Stoker had earlier pored over the ship’s log, Gideon had grown more anxious in the enclosed quarters, stalking up and down and staring out the window toward the sea, where something had done for both the Dmitri and his father’s vessel, the Cold Drake . To save the boy’s fraying nerves—and Mrs. Veasey’s threadbare carpet—he dispatched Gideon to the library to see what he could turn up on the name Dracula.
    “Mr. Smith!” said Stoker. “How did your investigations at the library go?”
    “Fruitfully,” said Gideon, waving a sheaf of notes at him. “Though I admit I’m not sure where this is leading.”
    “Let us take a walk on the promenade,” said Stoker. “Mrs. Veasey keeps an impeccable house, but it gets damnable hot in here.”
    He led Gideon out of the guest house and toward one of the wrought-iron benches on the stone jetty. The sun was low, and a refreshing breeze was blowing off the sea. Stoker nodded at the papers in Gideon’s hands. “So. What did you learn?”
    Gideon began to leaf through the pages. “Vlad Dracula the Third was a Prince of Wallachia,” he said, as though reciting for a schoolmaster. “He was a voivode, which I think is a type of nobleman. He was an enemy of the Turks and was known as Tepes, which means The Impaler. Wallachia is in Roumania, or was.” Gideon shrugged. “He died in 1476, or thereabouts. I’ve got sheets and sheets of this. How much do you want, and how relevant is it to anything?”
    Stoker smoothed his beard. “You seem a little frustrated, Mr. Smith.”
    Gideon handed the pages to Stoker. “I am seeking answers to my father’s death, Mr. Stoker. You seem to have had me on an errand for the past afternoon which seems nothing more than . . . well.”
    “Perhaps you are too polite to say a waste of time, Mr. Smith?”
    Gideon met his eyes and held his gaze. “Is it? Some wild goose chase? What can a long-dead nobleman from . . .” Gideon glanced at the papers in Stoker’s hands. “Wallachia. Transylvania. Wherever. What can he have to do with my father? Your Dracula has been dead for four centuries.”
    Stoker