By evening, I finally found Thomas Snelling at his home in Bethnal Green. Unfortunately, he was in no condition to remember much of anything. The promise of beer that my visit had brought him had been too tempting, and he had started drinking long before I arrived.
His wife, a poor but decent woman, told me that Thomas was only an assistant. The man I really needed was Smollet, who was the senior worker and the one who actually knew what had happened.
So I drove to Walworth and found Joseph Smollet at home. He was sitting in his shirt sleeves, eating a late meal from a saucer.
He seemed like a sensible, reliable working man. More importantly, he had a good memory.
He remembered the boxes clearly. After searching through a strange, battered notebook filled with half-erased pencil marks, he gave me the destinations of the boxes he had moved.
Six of them had been taken from Carfax and delivered to 197 Chicksand Street in Mile End New Town. Another six had been taken to Jamaica Lane in Bermondsey.
That meant Dracula was deliberately spreading his hiding places throughout London.
So far, he had placed them in the far east of the northern side of the city, the east of the southern side, and the south itself. There was no reason to believe he intended to ignore the north or west. The City and the richer parts of southwest and west London could also be part of his plan.
I went back to Smollet.
“Can you tell me whether any other boxes were taken from Carfax?”
“Well, guv’nor, you’ve treated me wery ’an’some,” he said, referring to the half-sovereign I had given him. “So I’ll tell ye all I know. I heard a man named Bloxam say four nights ago at the Hare and Hounds in Pincher’s Alley that he and another fellow had done a rare dusty job in an old house at Purfleet. There aren’t many jobs like that. Maybe Sam Bloxam can tell ye more.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“If you can get me his address, it’ll be worth another half-sovereign.”
Smollet quickly finished his tea and stood up.
“I’ll start looking for him right now.”
At the door, he stopped.
“There’s no point in you waiting here, guv’nor. I might find Sam soon, or I might not. And even if I do, he probably won’t be fit to talk tonight. Sam can really drink when he gets started. Give me an envelope with a stamp and your address on it. I’ll find out where he is and post the address to you tonight. But you’d better go after him early tomorrow morning. Sam leaves for work early, no matter how much he drank the night before.”
That sounded sensible.
One of the children went out with a penny to buy an envelope and some paper. When she returned, I addressed and stamped the envelope. Smollet promised again that he would send me Bloxam’s address as soon as he found it.
Then I went home.
At least we were finally on the right track.
I was exhausted and desperately needed sleep.
Mina was already asleep. She looked unusually pale, and her eyes seemed as though she had been crying.
Poor dear. I knew she must be unhappy about being kept out of our plans. She was probably even more worried about me and the others because we refused to tell her what was happening.
But I still believed we were doing the right thing.
It was better for her to feel disappointed and anxious now than to have her nerves completely destroyed by the horrors we were dealing with.
The doctors had been right to insist that she stay away from this terrible business.
I had to remain firm. This burden of silence was mine to carry.
I would not discuss Dracula with her again, no matter what happened.
Perhaps it would not be as difficult as I feared. Mina had already become strangely quiet whenever the Count was mentioned. Since we told her that she must stay out of our work, she had not asked about him or what we were doing.
The next evening, another long and exhausting day had come to an end.
Early that morning, I received the envelope Smollet had promised to send. Inside was a dirty scrap of paper with an address written in large, rough pencil strokes:
“Sam Bloxam, Corcoran’s, 4 Potter’s Court, Bartel Street, Walworth. Ask for the deputy.”
I got the message while I was still in bed.
I rose carefully so I would not wake Mina.
She looked deeply tired and pale. I decided to let her sleep. When I returned from my search, I would arrange for her to go back to Exeter.
I believed she would be happier there, surrounded by familiar things and occupied with her normal daily life, rather than staying here among us without knowing what was happening.
I saw Dr. Seward only briefly and told him where I was going. I promised to return and tell everyone what I discovered.
Then I drove to Walworth.
It took me some time to find Potter’s Court because Smollet’s spelling had misled me. I had been looking for “Poter’s Court” instead of “Potter’s Court.”
Eventually I found the place and located Corcoran’s lodging-house.
When I asked the man at the door for the “deputy,” he shook his head.
“I don’t know no such man. Ain’t nobody here by that name. Never heard of him in my life.”
I showed him the note.
Then I understood the problem.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I’m the deputy,” he replied.
Once again, the rough spelling had nearly sent me in the wrong direction.
A small payment quickly persuaded him to tell me what he knew.
Bloxam had slept off his drinking at Corcoran’s the previous night, then left for work at five that morning. The deputy did not know exactly where he worked, but he vaguely remembered that it was some kind of new warehouse.
That was all I had to go on.
So I headed for Poplar.
It was almost noon before I found anyone who could give me a useful clue. At a coffee shop, I spoke with several workers who were eating lunch.
One of them mentioned that a new cold-storage building was being constructed on Cross Angel Street.
That sounded like the kind of “new warehouse” the deputy had described.
I immediately went there.
After paying off a hostile gatekeeper and an even more unpleasant foreman, I finally located Bloxam.
I explained that I would pay his day’s wages to the foreman if he would answer a few private questions.
Bloxam was a rough-looking fellow with an equally rough way of speaking, but he was intelligent enough.
After I promised to pay him for his information and gave him some money in advance, he began to talk.
“I made two trips between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly. I took nine big boxes there altogether. Heavy things, they were. Used a horse and cart I hired myself.”
“Do you remember the number of the house?”
“Nah, guv’nor. Can’t remember the number. But it was only a few doors from a big white church or something like that. It wasn’t built long ago. The house was old and dusty, too, though nothing compared with the place we took the boxes from.”
“How did you get into the house?”
“The old gentleman who hired me was waiting at the Purfleet house. He helped me load the boxes into the cart.”
Bloxam suddenly looked impressed by the memory.
“I tell you, he was the strongest old man I ever saw. And he was thin as a stick. You’d think a man like that wouldn’t even cast a shadow.”
The description sent a chill through me.
“What do you mean?”
“He lifted his end of those boxes like they were bags of tea. I was puffing and struggling just to move mine. And I’m no weakling.”
My suspicion was growing stronger.
“How did you get into the Piccadilly house?”
“He was there too. Must’ve gone ahead of me, because when I rang the bell, he opened the door himself. Then he helped me carry the boxes into the hall.”
“All nine?”
“Yeah. Five in the first load and four in the second. It was hard work. I barely remember getting home afterward.”
“Were the boxes left in the hall?”
“Yeah. Big hall. Nothing else in it.”
“You didn’t need a key?”
“Never used one. The old gentleman opened the door himself and locked it after I left.”
“And you really can’t remember the house number?”
“No, sir. But you shouldn’t have much trouble finding it. It’s a tall house with a stone front and a rounded section. There are high steps leading up to the door. I remember those steps because I had to carry the boxes up them with three other men who came by hoping to earn a little money.”
“The old gentleman paid them?”
“Yeah. Gave them a shilling each. They saw how much he was paying and wanted more. But he grabbed one of them by the shoulder and nearly threw him down the steps. That shut them up.”
That description was enough for me.
I paid Bloxam and immediately headed for Piccadilly.
I had learned something deeply disturbing.
Dracula could apparently carry the earth-filled boxes himself.
If that was true, we had very little time.
Now that he had already moved some of his boxes around London, he could finish the rest whenever he pleased, and he could do it without being noticed.
I left my cab near Piccadilly Circus and walked west.
Not far beyond the Junior Constitutional, I found the house Bloxam had described.
I was almost certain it was another of Dracula’s hiding places.
The house looked as though no one had lived there for years. Dust covered the windows, and the shutters were closed. The wooden frames were dark with age, and much of the paint had fallen away from the ironwork.
There had once been a large sign in front of the balcony, but it had been violently removed. Only the supports remained.
Behind the balcony railings, I noticed several loose boards with freshly exposed white edges.
I desperately wished I could have seen the old sign before it was removed. It might have told me who owned the house.
My experience investigating Carfax came back to me. If I could find the previous owner, perhaps I could discover some way to enter the house.
There was nothing more I could learn from the front, so I walked around to the back.
The stables and service area were busy, and most of the nearby Piccadilly houses were occupied.
I asked several grooms and workers whether they knew anything about the empty house.
One man said he had heard that it had recently been rented, although he didn’t know by whom.
“But until recently there was a ‘For Sale’ sign outside,” he added. “You might ask Mitchell, Sons & Candy. I think that was the name on the sign.”
I thanked him casually and walked away.
It was getting dark, and the autumn evening was closing in quickly.
I went to the Berkeley, found the address of Mitchell, Sons & Candy in a directory, and hurried to their office in Sackville Street.
The man who received me was extremely polite but equally determined not to tell me anything.
He confirmed that the Piccadilly property—he insisted on calling it a “mansion”—had been sold.
When I asked who had bought it, he looked at me carefully and paused.
“It is sold, sir.”
“Yes, I understand,” I replied politely. “But I have a particular reason for needing to know who bought it.”
He paused again.
“It is sold, sir.”
“Surely you can at least tell me that much.”
“I am afraid I cannot. Our clients’ affairs are completely confidential.”
He was clearly a man who took great pride in his rules.
Arguing with him would accomplish nothing.
So I changed my approach.
“Your clients are fortunate to have such a determined guardian of their privacy. I am a professional man myself.”
I handed him my card.
“I am not asking out of curiosity. I am acting on behalf of Lord Godalming, who wishes to learn something about a property he understood to have been for sale recently.”
That changed his attitude immediately.
“I would be very pleased to help you, Mr. Harker, especially if I can assist his lordship. We once helped arrange some rooms for him when he was still the Honourable Arthur Holmwood.”
He leaned back slightly.
“If you give me his current address, I can consult the firm. I will communicate with his lordship by tonight’s post. Perhaps we can make an exception to our usual rules and provide him with the information he requires.”
I wanted to make him an ally rather than an enemy.
So I thanked him and gave him Dr. Seward’s address.
Then I left.
By now it was completely dark.
I was tired and hungry, so I stopped at a small shop for a cup of tea before taking the next train back to Purfleet.
When I arrived, everyone else was already home.
Mina looked tired and pale, but she made a brave effort to smile and act cheerful.
It hurt me to think that my silence was making her unhappy.
Thank God, I hoped this would be the final night she would have to sit outside our discussions and feel that we no longer trusted her.
It took all my strength to keep following our decision to protect her.
She seemed a little more accepting of it now.
Or perhaps the subject had simply become so unpleasant that she could no longer bear to hear it. Whenever Dracula was mentioned by accident, she actually shuddered.
I was relieved that we had decided to keep her away from our work when we did. With everything we were learning, knowing the truth would only have become a form of torture for her.
I could not tell the others about my discoveries until Mina had gone to bed.
After dinner, we played a little music, pretending to be normal even though none of us felt normal anymore.
Then I took Mina upstairs and told her it was time to sleep.
She was more affectionate than usual.
She held onto me for a moment as though she did not want me to leave.
But there was too much to discuss downstairs, so I gently left her.
Thank God, even though I had stopped telling her everything, nothing had changed between us.
When I returned to the study, the others were gathered around the fire.
During the train ride, I had written down everything I had discovered that day. I read my notes aloud so everyone could understand exactly what I had learned.
When I finished, Van Helsing spoke.
“This has been a very important day, my friend Jonathan. I believe we are finally following the trail of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, our work may be almost finished.”
He paused.
“But if some are still missing, we must continue until we find every one of them. Then we can make our final move and destroy the monster for good.”
For a while, nobody said anything.
Then Quincey Morris spoke.
“Say, how are we going to get into that house?”
“We got into Carfax,” Lord Godalming replied immediately.
“That was different, Art. At Carfax we had darkness and a walled estate around us. Breaking into a house in Piccadilly is another matter entirely. We can’t simply smash our way in during the day or night.”
He leaned back.
“Unless that property agency can get us a key, I don’t see how we’re going to enter. Maybe we’ll know more when you get their letter tomorrow morning.”
Lord Godalming frowned and began pacing around the room.
After a while he stopped.
“Quincey is right. This burglary business is becoming serious. We were lucky at Carfax. But this time we have a much harder job ahead of us.”
He looked around the room.
“Unless we can somehow find Dracula’s keys.”
There was nothing more we could do that night.
We agreed to wait until morning, at least until Lord Godalming heard from Mitchell, Sons & Candy.
For a long time we sat around the fire, smoking and discussing every possibility.
I used the opportunity to bring my journal completely up to date.
Now I can hardly keep my eyes open.
I am going to bed.
Just one more thing.
Mina is sleeping soundly. Her breathing is calm and regular.
There are little lines across her forehead, as though she is still thinking even in her sleep.
She is still too pale, but she looks better than she did this morning.
Tomorrow, I hope, everything will improve.
She will be back home in Exeter, where she belongs.
God, I am so sleepy.
I am puzzled by Renfield again.
His moods change so quickly that it is difficult to understand him. And yet, each change seems to mean something more than simply a change in his mental health.
This morning, after Van Helsing had been rejected by him, I went to see him.
He was behaving like a man who believed he had control over fate itself.
In his own mind, he probably did.
He seemed completely detached from ordinary human concerns, as though he were floating high above the world and looking down on the weaknesses and needs of ordinary people.
I decided to use the opportunity to learn something.
“What about the flies these days?” I asked.
He gave me a superior smile, almost like an actor playing Malvolio.
“The fly has one remarkable quality, Doctor. Its wings represent the higher, aerial powers of the mind. The ancients were wise to compare the soul to a butterfly.”
I decided to follow his strange logic.
“So you’re after souls now?”
His expression immediately became confused.
“Oh no. No! I don’t want souls. All I want is life.”
He brightened.
“And I am not worried about that anymore. Life is fine. I have everything I need. If you want to study people who eat animals, Doctor, you will have to find yourself another patient.”
That interested me.
“So you control life now? Are you a god?”
He smiled with calm superiority.
“Certainly not. I would never claim the powers of God. I am not concerned with spiritual matters. If I had to describe my intellectual position, I would say that, in purely earthly matters, I am rather like Enoch was spiritually.”
I was caught off guard.
“Why Enoch?”
“Because he walked with God.”
I couldn’t see the connection, but I didn’t want him to know that.
“So you don’t care about life, and you don’t want souls. Why not?”
I deliberately asked the question sharply.
It worked.
For a moment, he became submissive again. He bent toward me and almost begged.
“I don’t want souls. I truly don’t. I couldn’t use them even if I had them. They would be completely useless to me. I couldn’t eat them or—”
He stopped.
A strange, calculating expression crossed his face.
“And as for life, what is it really? Once you have everything you need and know that you will never lack anything, that is enough.”
He smiled.
“I have friends. Good friends. People like you, Doctor Seward.”
There was something sly in his smile.
“I know I will never lack the means to live.”
I suspected that, beneath all his madness, he sensed that I was working against him.
So he suddenly became silent.
After a while, I realized there was nothing more I could get from him, and I left.
Later, he sent for me.
Normally I would not have gone without a special reason, but I was deeply interested in him. Besides, I needed something to occupy my mind.
Jonathan was out following his clues. Lord Godalming and Quincey were also away.
Van Helsing was in my study, carefully examining the records Jonathan and Mina had assembled. He seemed convinced that if he studied every detail closely enough, some important clue would eventually appear.
I did not want to disturb him.
I might have taken him with me to see Renfield, but after Renfield had rejected him so harshly that morning, I thought he might not want to go back.
There was another reason too.
Renfield might speak more freely when we were alone.
When I entered the room, he was sitting in the middle of the floor on his little stool.
That position usually meant that his mind was unusually active.
The moment he saw me, he asked:
“What about souls?”
So my earlier suspicion had been correct.
Some part of his mind had continued working on our conversation even after I had left.
“What about them?” I asked.
He said nothing for a moment.
He looked around the room, then up and down, as though hoping the answer might appear somewhere.
“I don’t want any souls,” he finally said weakly.
The subject clearly troubled him.
I decided to push him.
“You like life, don’t you? You want life?”
“Oh yes! But that’s all right. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“But how can you have life without having a soul too?”
He looked confused.
I continued.
“Imagine what it would be like if you were surrounded by the souls of all those flies, spiders, birds, and cats you’ve consumed. Thousands of them buzzing, chirping, and meowing around you. You have taken their lives, so surely their souls must come with them.”
The idea seemed to frighten him.
He pressed his fingers against his ears and squeezed his eyes shut like a child trying to avoid hearing something unpleasant.
For a moment, I felt sorry for him.
He looked less like a dangerous lunatic and more like a frightened child trapped inside an old man’s body.
Clearly, something was happening inside his mind.
I tried to enter his strange world rather than fight against it.
First, I needed to calm him.
I raised my voice so he could hear me through his closed ears.
“Would you like some sugar to attract your flies again?”
He suddenly looked up.
Then he shook his head.
“No! Flies are pretty worthless things anyway.”
After a moment he added:
“But I still don’t want their souls buzzing around me.”
“Or spiders?”
“Forget spiders! What’s the point of spiders? There’s nothing useful in them to eat or—”
He stopped suddenly.
Again.
I noticed it immediately.
That was the second time he had stopped when he seemed about to mention drinking.
What did that word mean to him?
Renfield seemed to realize that he had said too much.
He hurried on.
“I don’t care about those little creatures anymore. Rats and mice and such things. They’re just scraps of food. I’m finished with that nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat tiny molecules with chopsticks. Why should I care about the smallest creatures when I know what is waiting for me?”
“I understand,” I said. “You want something bigger. Something you can really sink your teeth into.”
“How would you like to have an elephant for breakfast?”
He stared at me.
“What ridiculous nonsense you’re talking!”
He was becoming too alert, so I pushed harder.
“I wonder what an elephant’s soul is like.”
That did exactly what I wanted.
His confidence disappeared instantly.
He became frightened again, like a child.
“I don’t want an elephant’s soul! I don’t want any soul at all!”
He sat there miserably for a few moments.
Then, without warning, he jumped to his feet.
His eyes blazed with anger.
“To hell with you and your souls!” he shouted. “Why do you keep bothering me about souls? Don’t I already have enough problems and pain without worrying about souls too?”
He looked so threatening that I thought another violent attack might be coming.
I blew my whistle.
The moment he heard it, he calmed down.
“Forgive me, Doctor. I lost control of myself. You don’t need to call anyone.”
He took a breath.
“My mind is under terrible strain, and sometimes I become irritable. If you knew the problem I am trying to solve, you would pity me. You would understand me.”
He looked at me earnestly.
“Please don’t put me in a straitjacket. I need to think. I can’t think properly when my body is restrained. I’m sure you understand.”
He had regained control of himself.
When the attendants arrived, I told them not to interfere.
They left.
Renfield watched them disappear through the door.
Once we were alone, he spoke with surprising dignity.
“Dr. Seward, you’ve been very kind to me. Please believe me when I say that I am deeply grateful.”
I thought it best to leave him in that calmer state.
But there was certainly something strange about him.
Several facts were beginning to fit together.
He no longer wanted to talk about drinking.
He was terrified by the idea of being burdened with the soul of anything he consumed.
Yet he seemed completely confident that he would continue to possess life.
He had lost interest in small creatures, even though he feared being haunted by their souls.
Taken together, those facts seemed to point toward one terrible conclusion.
He believed he was going to receive some greater form of life.
But he feared the burden of a soul.
What kind of life could he be expecting?
Human life.
And who had given him that promise?
My God.
The Count had been here.
And something new and terrible was being planned.
Later, after finishing my rounds, I went to Van Helsing and told him what I suspected.
He became very serious.
After thinking for a while, he asked me to take him to Renfield.
We went together.
As we approached the room, we heard Renfield singing happily inside, just as he had done long ago.
When we entered, we were surprised to see that he had spread sugar around the room again.
The autumn flies were beginning to gather around it.
We tried to return to our earlier conversation, but he refused to pay attention.
He simply continued singing as though we were not there.
He had also found a scrap of paper and was folding it into a little notebook.
There was nothing more we could learn.
We left just as confused as when we had entered.
Renfield is a remarkable case.
We must watch him carefully tonight.
Letter from Mitchell, Sons & Candy to Lord Godalming
1 October
My Lord,
We are always pleased to assist your lordship whenever possible.
Regarding your request, made through Mr. Harker, we can provide the following information concerning the sale and purchase of No. 347 Piccadilly.
The property was originally owned by the executors of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield.
The purchaser was a foreign nobleman named Count de Ville.
He completed the purchase personally and paid the entire amount in cash.
Beyond this information, we know nothing about him.
We remain,
Your lordship’s obedient servants,
Mitchell, Sons & Candy
I placed a man in the corridor last night and instructed him to listen carefully for any sounds coming from Renfield’s room.
I told him that if anything unusual happened, he was to call me immediately.
After dinner, we gathered around the fire in the study while Mrs. Harker went to bed.
We discussed everything we had discovered during the day.
Jonathan was the only one who had found anything useful, and we were beginning to hope that his clue might lead us directly to the missing boxes.
Before going to bed, I checked on Renfield through the observation window.
He was sleeping peacefully.
His breathing was steady.
This morning, the attendant reported that shortly after midnight, Renfield had become restless and had prayed aloud for some time.
“Was that all?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. That’s all I heard.”
Something about his manner made me suspicious.
“Were you asleep?”
“No, sir.”
He hesitated.
“Well… I may have dozed for a little while.”
It is unfortunate that men cannot always be trusted unless someone is watching them.
Today, Jonathan is out following his clue.
Art and Quincey are taking care of the horses.
Godalming believes we should keep horses ready at all times. Once we learn exactly where the remaining boxes are, we may have no time to waste.
We must destroy or neutralize every box of imported earth between sunrise and sunset.
That is when the Count will be at his weakest, and if we can remove every place where he can hide, he will have nowhere to escape.
Van Helsing has gone to the British Museum.
He is researching old medical authorities and ancient treatments.
The physicians of earlier centuries believed in things that modern doctors dismiss, and the Professor is searching through old accounts of witches, demons, and supernatural cures that might prove useful later.
Sometimes I wonder if all of us have gone completely mad.
Perhaps one morning we will wake up wearing straitjackets and discover that this entire nightmare was nothing but a shared delusion.
Later that day, we met again.
At last, it seemed that we were truly following the right trail.
Tomorrow’s work might finally begin the end.
I cannot help wondering whether Renfield’s strange calm has something to do with it.
His moods have repeatedly changed along with the Count’s movements.
Perhaps, somehow, he senses what is happening.
If only I could understand what happened inside his mind between our argument earlier today and his sudden return to catching flies, we might have an extremely valuable clue.
For now, he seems quiet.
Is he?
That sudden, terrible scream sounded as though it came from his room.
The attendant burst into my study.
“Doctor! Renfield has had some kind of accident!”
“What happened?”
“I heard him scream. When I went inside, I found him lying face down on the floor.”
He looked terrified.
“He was covered in blood.”
I must go to him at once.