Jonathan Harker - Exciseman


 I always thought that in Bram Stoker’s novel DRACULA, Jonathan Harker would have made a good excise officer. The way he follows the audit trail of Dracula's coffins from Whitby to Carfax and then out to Bermondsey and Piccadilly. Contents misdescribed as "common earth" when actually "undead-nurturing." What penalty would that attract?

Just to lay out the facts; In the novel Dracula arrives on a Russian schooner, the Demeter, which is wrecked on the Whitby shore. The vessel has a small cargo of “wooden boxes filled with mould” which Dracula has consigned to a local solicitor called Billington. 

Pre-Brexit, this would have been a simple EU excise move from Bulgaria to the UK, although it would now be a customs arrival from the EU. Either way, there’s a fair degree of misdescription in the papers. When Harker visits Billington’s office in Whitby he sees an invoice for, “fifty cases of common Earth to be used for experimental purposes.” 

As we later learn, the earth is actually Dracula’s native soil, which is put to the use of sustaining and regenerating a vampire. Could that be a fuel and power use? Possibly the contents should have been submitted to scientific checks. 

After interviewing those involved in the transport of the boxes Harker returns to Kings Cross where he verifies details of the boxes arrival with the stationmaster. “From thence I went on to Carter Patterson’s central office where I met with the utmost courtesy. They looked up the transaction in their day-book and letter-book, and at once telephoned their Kings cross office for more details.” They send the contract labourers over with the waybill and all papers connected with the delivery to Carfax (conveniently next door to Dr Seward’s asylum).

Satisfied that all fifty boxes which arrived at Whitby were delivered to Carfax, Jonathan returns to Surrey. At Carfax they discover only 29 boxes. Harker tracks down the workmen who dropped the boxes at Mile End, Bermondsey and Piccadilly. He discovers from an estate agent that the last address has been bought by Count De Ville, Dracula’s less than subtle pseudonym.

At this point Harker has all the evidence he needs to summon the assistance of a constable and disrupt Dracula’s enterprise.


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