Dracula - Chapter 20 (Bite 2)

Jonathan Harker has spent the day trying to trace the boxes of earth that Dracula has moved from Carfax. His inquiries lead him to a house in Piccadilly, but the real estate agent, Mitchell Sons and Candy, refuses to name the buyer. Only when Harker invokes Lord Godalming’s name does the agent soften, promising to write to his lordship with the information. The episode’s central tension is whether the group can locate all the boxes before Dracula completes his plan, and whether they can break into a Piccadilly house without getting caught.

The Piccadilly dead end

Harker goes to the back of the empty Piccadilly house and asks grooms and helpers if they know anything. One mentions that a “for sale” sign had been up, and that the agents Mitchell Sons and Candy might have details. Harker goes to their office in Sackville Street. The gentleman he meets is “particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion.” He will only say the house is sold. When Harker presses for the buyer’s name, the agent replies, “It is sold, sir,” and explains that “the affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell Sons and Candy.” Harker calls him “a prig of the first water.” He then hands over his card and explains that Lord Godalming wants to know about the property. The agent immediately changes his tone, recalling that he once handled a small rental for A