Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

BEA: However old you are, wherever you live, you’ve almost certainly encountered some version of the Dracula story.

[Clip:]

DRACULA: Vell, vell, vell…. Velcome to my humble home. You must be chilly on such a cold, dark night.

WOMAN (breathily): I got caught in a rainstorm with nothing but this translucent nightgown.

DRACULA: Please, let me help you into something more comfortable. (sinister chuckle)

[New clip:]

DETECTIVE: We just pulled another body out of the river. The same as the last one. Bloodless, with two pricks on the neck.

CHIEF INSPECTOR: Why??? She was so young!

[New clip:]

WATSON: Have you figured it out?

HOLMES: It’s elementary, my dear Watson. The killer is none other than the count!

DRACULA: (hisses).

[End clips.]

BEA: Count Dracula is a stock character, a movie monster, while the original details of the case have faded out of the public memory. When he is revisited as a historical figure, the story still gets… inflated.

[Clip:]

VOICEOVER: Could Count Dracula have studied at the Scholomance, an arcane academy dedicated to devil worship and black magic? Join our team of experts as we prove that the Scholomance does exist… and your children might be on their mailing list.

EXPERT: If you study this ancient Mayan carving, I think you’ll be convinced, just like I was, that Dracula and Elvis Presley both attended the Scholomance and returned there after their time among us was over. In fact, if you do a deep dive into the lyrics of “Suspicious Minds”, I’ll argue that the “trap” Elvis refers to is none other than the school’s underground labyrinth. 

VOICEOVER: Coming up next on the History channel.

[Clip ends.]

BEA: But who was Count Dracula, really? Who were his victims? And how did one of the world’s most famous serial killers disappear so successfully that some people believe he’s still out there, over 100 years later? I’m Bea Casely, investigative reporter and host of hit podcast Arden. In this special miniseries, we’re going to peel back a century of hyperbole and romanticization to find the man behind the monster.

BRENDA: Unless, of course, the man was a monster.

BEA: (sighs) And that’s my cohost, Brenda Bentley, who has her own take on the case.

BRENDA: For as long as Count Dracula has been at large, there’ve been rumors that he’s more than he seems. Or, exactly what he seems. Victims suffering from blood loss, reports of unnatural abilities, a parasitic relationship with the lower class… is it any surprise many people suspect him of being… (bad accent) a vampire?

BEA: Yes! It is a surprise, since vampires don’t exist.

BRENDA: “If human testimony taken with every care and solemnity, judicially, before commissions innumerable, each consisting of many members, all chosen for integrity and intelligence, and constituting reports more voluminous perhaps than exist upon any one other class of cases, is worth anything, it is difficult to deny or even to doubt the existence of such a phenomenon as the vampire.” That’s from Le Fanu’s seminal vampire narrative Carmilla. 

BEA: Which is fiction.

BRENDA: It’s important to lay out all the possibilities. The fans loved the dual narrative thing we had going on last season.

BEA: (deep breath) That’s what you have to look forward to, listeners! We’ll look into the case, exhume the facts of what took place all those years ago, and settle this once and for all.

BRENDA: The Dracula debate never dies. Just like Dracula.

BEA: (intensely) We only have six episodes, so we’re going to pin this case down even if we have to stake it through the heart.

BRENDA: Aw, you are getting into the vampire spirit.

BEA: Don’t push it.

[The Wheyface Industries jingle begins to play.]

ANDY: Murder? Vampires? Ghost ships? How fantastically spooky! I’m trembling already.

PAMELA: Andy, we haven’t aired the section on the Demeter yet.

ANDY: That’s what we call a ‘teaser’. It’ll keep the audience excited.

PAMELA: Then I’d better start working on episode one. Stay tuned, everybody.

ANDY: Arden is brought to you by Wheyface Industries: the good people. So good, in fact, that we’re immune to vampiric wiles. Don’t believe me? We’re so confident in that promise that if you’re slain by a vampire after enjoying any Wheyface Industry goods or services, we’ll give you your money back, no questions asked. That’s a Wheyface guarantee.

(rapidly) This offer is null and void if you become a vampire, as you are then no longer one of the good people. Instead you will be slain by our patented Wheyface brand vampire slaying drones, all equipped with stakes and holy water blessed by our corporate priest. Terms and conditions apply.

Chapter Text

[Field audio. Street noise, the sounds of passerby.]

BEA: Hello, listeners! You may have caught in our trailer that this miniseries is going to be a much shorter season than our last twelve episode run. That’s because a lot of our budget went to allowing us to record on location.

BRENDA: That’s right. We’re recording from jolly old England. Please try to contain your enthusiasm.

BEA: I will not contain my enthusiasm. The culture, the art, the accents – sir, would you like to say something for our podcast?

PASSERBY: (in a thick Yorkshire accent) [Inaudible.]

BEA: (thrown) What?

BRENDA: (in the style of a nature documentary) Listeners, Bea is learning there is more than one English accent.

BEA: (horrified whisper) Uptown Abbey lied.

BRENDA: What did you expect from a show that promised to “blend early 1900s historical drama with disco-pop”?

BEA: Not this.

[Arden theme begins to play.]

In 1893, a series of unexplained killings shocked the English towns of Whitby and London. Blame eventually fell on a Mr. DeVille, a recent arrival from Romania better known as Count Dracula. Before he could be held responsible, he vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a legend that continues to this day. But was the count one more Victorian serial killer, or something even more monstrous? And what does this case tell us about gender, race, and power in Victorian England?

Join us, won’t you? As we unravel the mystery, on Arden.

[In studio.]

BRENDA: As you may have gathered, folks at home, we’re not in London. We’re in Whitby, a charming seaside town where Dracula’s most famous victim was first attacked. Astute fans may be asking, what about Dracula’s famous castle in Transylvania? No worries – we’ve got that covered too. Andy and Rosalind are in Romania right now getting some local color, and our hardworking producer Pamela will be working with both sides and cutting everything together in post.

BEA: She’s racking up so many miles.

BRENDA: Wheyface Airlines doesn’t do miles. The chief benefit is improving your combat skills while resisting the robots who want to take over the plane.

BEA: Maybe she should start taking the train.

BRENDA: Right. They have trains here, and they take you places. In a reasonable time frame. It’s been a culture shock.

BEA: The American automotive industry has a lot to answer for.

BRENDA: So much. I’m looking forward to the day Andy finally perfects shooting us to our destinations using giant cannons.

BEA: Let’s set the scene. As we said in our trailer, everyone’s heard some version of the Dracula story. But what many people don’t realize is there is an original story. The historical roots of the legend have gotten lost in, well,

[Cut to clip:]

[Spooky music begins to play.]

WOMAN (LUCY) ON RECORDING: You're new here, aren't you? I would remember seeing someone like you.

DRACULA: (terrible fake accent) I came from Transylvania to meet beauties like yourself.

LUCY: (giggles)

[The sound of a door clicking closed and locking. A rapid intake of breath.]

VOICEOVER: Based on the true story of one of Victorian England's most terrifying killers.

MAN: I have a delivery here for a Mr. DeVille.

DRACULA: Step inside.

[Music becomes more sinister.]

LUCY: I don't see why women can't have as many men as they want.

SEWARD: She's changing - but why?

LUCY: (breathily) Kiss me!

VAN HELSING: It's worse than we thought.

[Funerary music.]

SEWARD: At least it's over.

VAN HELSING: This is only the beginning.

VOICEOVER: This summer on Netflix. Evil like you’ve never seen it before.

DRACULA: Come freely, go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring.

[Clip ends.]

BEA: That was the trailer for Netflix’s newest documentary, Devil: The Dracula Story.  

BRENDA: Dracula’s been a horror film staple for a while, but true crime is hot right now, and I mean that in the financial way and the sexy way. Writers are running out of serial killers from the 80s, so they’ve moved on to the 1880s. A logical next step.

BEA: And for some reason, Dracula has… fans.

BRENDA: It’s not that uncommon. Some people are drawn to danger, and if they’re pen pals with a murderer behind bars, they get the thrill without the chance of actually getting murdered. Serial killers are the ultimate bad boys, and these people want to believe they can fix them. Everyone loves a redemption story.

BEA: That doesn’t justify mailing your underwear to someone with twenty murder convictions.

BRENDA: Not gonna argue with you there. Working the prison mailroom is not a job for the faint of heart.

BEA: Dracula’s fans call themselves “brides” and alternatively offer themselves up as his next victim or his next accomplice – the two get tangled together in his mythos. There have been media frenzies accusing brides of making blood sacrifices to attract his attention, but as far as I can tell those are urban legends. Some of the content I did dig up is incomprehensible, though. For example, tumblr user Dracula-drink-me-now-daddy wrote “I loved the part when Dracula said ‘It’s Dracula time’ and Dracula’d all over those guys.” (affronted) What does that mean? He never said that.

BRENDA: We don’t know. He’s a real historical figure with a rich inner life. He could’ve said it.

BEA: There’s also an edit of him wearing a flower crown.

BRENDA: Garlic flowers?

BEA: Pastel roses.

BRENDA: Damn it. That would’ve been such a great way to take him out. Remind me to stop at a farmer’s market.

BEA: I am not letting you bring garlic flowers into the studio.

BRENDA: A bulb of garlic a day keeps the vampires away.

BEA: (moving on) The documentary claims to investigate Dracula as a historical figure, not a video game villain, but it’s still sensationalized. You’ve probably heard a version of the story. The dashing foreign count who seduced British women into assisting with his dark deeds before killing them. A figure with deep, penetrating eyes, a commanding presence, a sexy accent. Of course, as my cohost has alluded to, some people go further. 

BRENDA: A popular interpretation of the Dracula legend is that he had supernatural powers. Specifically, vampiric ones.

BEA: The popularity of the vampire theory can be traced to the case’s close proximity to the publication of Carmilla, the trope codifier for the vampire mythos. I’m sure you’re familiar with the many spinoffs that the novella spawned – Carmilla in Space. Carmilla, Another Bloody Musical. Buffy vs Carmilla.

BRENDA: A formative experience.

BEA: (dreamy sigh) It was.

BRENDA: Unfortunately, Dracula is not a seductive lesbian. He’s a vampire for heterosexuals.

BEA: Now who’s being reductive?

BRENDA: You’re right. There are probably people out there who are gay for Dracula. Chase your bliss.

BEA: Please don’t tweet at us about it.

BRENDA: The point is, a certain class of people believe that Dracula is still out there and vants to suck your blood.

BEA: And none of these people have the real story. Which is why we’ve sent Andy and Rosalind to Romania to interview the descendants of the people who lived near Castle Dracula.

[Cut to field audio, Romania]

ROSALIND: Hello, devoted fans, it is I, Rosalind Ursula, reporting from the land of the vampyre. That’s vampyre with a Y, in case you couldn’t tell. We stopped at a charming inn near the Carpathian Mountains, where we were served a delicious meal –

ANDY: Did you know there are multiple types of paprika? The mind boggles. Regular paprika is... red! That's all it is! You put it on deviled eggs. But Hungarian paprika - now that's a whole different animal. Or vegetable! Pamela, are chili peppers fruits or vegetables?

PAMELA: Chili peppers form from the flowers of their plants, which classifies them as a fruit. Unless you’re talking about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who belong to the animal kingdom.

ANDY: We’re in Romania, so we’re talking about Romanian chili peppers, not the Los Angeles variety. Paprika comes in eight different varieties. But everything can be improved, which is why Wheyface Industries is proud to present a ninth variety of paprika. Patent pending.  

PAMELA: Andy, you can’t keep patenting people’s cultural heritage.

ANDY: Why not? Everybody else does it.

ROSALIND: (butting back in) Pay a visit to the Hotel Royale in Cluj-Napoca, sometimes referred to as Klausenburg, unofficial capital of Transylvania. Ask for the paprika hendl; tell them Team Arden sent you. You’re in for a treat. But we’ve moved on to more desolate climes and are now in Bistrița. The train runs right here, and it's beautiful country, folks. Pine forests, flowering fruit trees, jagged snowcapped peaks... a mountaintop called the seat of God that glows in the sunset. You can almost feel the supernatural at work.

PAMELA: We’re not trying to bias the viewers toward Brenda’s perspective.

ROSALIND: I got carried away. With the help of all the chilling tales shared by our hostess. That's right, we're at the Golden Krone Hotel, five stars, excellent service, and lots of local legends. We were able to confirm that Count Dracula lived in the castle a short ride from here through the Borgo pass – if lived is the right word. He wasn’t very popular with the locals. Even over a hundred years later, they don’t like talking about him, and a few make signs of the cross or clutch their crucifixes if we mention his name.

ANDY: A fascinating superstition. Do you think we could monetize it?

PAMELA: Other people have already monetized the Catholic church.

ANDY: Those fast-moving devils.

ROSALIND: The count was the last noble landowner or boyar in this area before the castle was abandoned and the peasants took control. Power to the people! Oral histories suggest that during his tenure, he was a mysterious figure, but mortality rates were much higher than other communities during that same time. Not just for women either, even though we remember him as a ladykiller.

PAMELA: Sounds like he was a crappy landlord.

ROSALIND: Yes, he was, and I am going to dig up all the dirt. Special vampire dirt. But for now, back to you, boss! And Bea.

BRENDA: Dracula doesn’t have many fans back home, huh? It’s hard being the small-town guy who made it big. I am curious about this crucifix thing. Wonder what that’s all about.

BEA: I am always baffled by how you avoided learning anything about Christianity.

BRENDA: Oh, is that a Christianity thing? Weird.

BEA: Specifically Catholic, but yes.

BRENDA: Why do Christians come in so many flavors?

BEA: All the better to fight wars over. Pamela was able to connect us with an academic who studied at the Babeș-Bolyai University, or UBB, and is now a professor of Eastern European History at the University of York. She’s considered an expert on Romanian nobility from the time period, and although it took me a while to convince her I wasn’t another Dracula fangirl –

BRENDA: Must’ve been hard, since we’re doing a podcast about him.

BEA: - I was able to explain that I, like her, am in the business of uncovering the truth. Here’s a clip from our Zoom interview.

[Archival footage]

ALBESCU: Count Dracula. Or Conte, to use the Romanian term. He’s Romania’s most famous export. I never thought it was fair, considering you Americans lead the globe in serial killers.

BEA: It’s… (awkward laugh) It’s a problem. I’m sure you’re tired of being asked about him, but –

ALBESCU: No, not at all. I almost always refuse these interviews. What can I say? You caught me when I should be doing some grading.

BEA: Team Arden would like to get a high score on our history exam. So please, tell me. Tell us. Who was Conte Dracula?

ALBESCU: What I can tell you is that his ancestors likely earned their title through military victories. He claimed to have been descended from Vlad Dracula, a ruler of Wallachia, what is now part of modern Romania. Vlad Dracula defended our lands against the Ottoman Empire in the 1400s and is a somewhat controversial figure - some see him as a reformer or even a national hero, while others see his actions as inexcusably violent. That controversy may have fed into the... more bloodthirsty rumors about the later count. It’s a powerful pedigree to tie yourself to, though, and could explain his position and the lands he held.

Although the rumors of studying at a school of dark wizardry sponsored by the devil are obviously false, it is possible that he had some alchemical knowledge. This was after the rise of chemistry and denigration of alchemy as a trick of fraudsters and charlatans. But there was an interest in the occult in the 19th century, and we saw spiritual alchemists interpreting alchemical texts as allegorical. He could have been interested in that, or perhaps he did have a flair for old-fashioned chemistry. 

[In studio]

BRENDA: A real Renaissance man. Guess you have time to pick up new skills when you live forever. And I mean, alchemists weren’t wrong. You can turn lead into gold; you just need a particle accelerator. Hey, I have an idea for a new Dracula movie. Vampires… armed with physics.

BEA: Dr. Albescu showed me a map. A number of villages fell within his comitat, even if there was a high fatality rate. For a late 19^th century nobleman, he had it pretty good.

BRENDA: Then why would he leave? He had power, land, potentially an all you can eat buffet…

BEA: I’m glad you asked. Relations between the peasant and landowner populations in Romania had been tense for some time. There were some land reforms in 1864, but most people were still dependent on landlords. Everything was rising – populations, rents, and tempers. In 1907, things boiled over into a peasant revolt.

BRENDA: Landlords are the worst.

BEA: Having paid LA rent, I’m inclined to agree with you. Unfortunately, like so many historical events, the revolt involved a lot of antisemitism.

BRENDA: And we’re going to get into that in the next episode, don’t worry.  

BEA: Whatever the details of the revolt, many landowners had retreated to cities. Dracula wouldn’t have been the first to move somewhere he wasn’t as accessible by torch and pitchfork.

BRENDA: So, Dracula reads the writing on the wall. The peasants aren’t going to put up with him much longer, and potentially they’re wise to his ways as a blood sucking monster. Or, at least, as a guy who keeps getting his serfs killed. Either way, he’s in search of greener pastures.

BEA: That’s the long and short of it. So he pulls up stakes – don’t say it.

BRENDA: Wasn’t going to.

BEA: And moves to England.

BRENDA: Where he could terrorize a whole new set of people.

BEA: I imagine no one in Romania was sorry to see him go. Real estate transactions show a Mr. De Ville buying up a number of London properties. De Ville is the name Dracula would go by while in the UK, possibly to conceal his foreign origin.

BRENDA: And to be edgy. Or French. Why did he move to London if he was pretending to be French?

BEA: I don’t know. But he was keen on the British lifestyle. He purchased a lot of books on English culture and talked at length in correspondence about how eager he was to fit in with other Londoners.

BRENDA: He was a teaboo! You’d get along great. Man, where’s my modern Dracula remake where he’s got a TARDIS sweater and goes wot, wot, chap?

BEA: I would watch it.

BRENDA: Why are you so into the Brits anyway? I thought Boston was into sticking it to them, historically. We’re right by a harbor; do you want to throw tea into it? I bet we could get a sponsorship deal with PG Tips.

BEA: I would never! (sighs) When I was at boarding school, I was surrounded by all these high society types with money and connections. They’d talk about their trips abroad, all the fun they had, all the culture. I wanted to fit in. Making it to England… it feels like I made it to more than that, you know?  

BRENDA: Now you’ve been to England and Italy.

BEA: If only Heather and Stephanie could see me now.

BRENDA: Classic mean girl names. Do you want to talk about it?

BEA: Not on air.

BRENDA: Heather and Stephanie, if you’re listening, I’m coming for you.

BEA: (with emphasis) Whatever his reason, Dracula moves to England under the pseudonym of De Ville. While his properties were in London, he first arrived in the port town of Whitby, where by fate or design his path crossed with Lucy Westenra. Next week we’ll be diving into Dracula’s most famous victim. Who was she? How did she die?

BRENDA: And most importantly, where did the blood go?                                

BEA: All that and more, next time, on Arden.

Chapter Text

BEA: Lucy Westenra. Dracula’s most famous victim. His bloofer lady, his –

BRENDA: Wait, byoofer lady? I thought there was an L in there.

BEA: The L is pronounced like a Y. It’s an Irish transliteration.

BRENDA: Ohh. That makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking.

BEA: What were you – no, don’t tell me.

BRENDA: I thought she had big puffy pants. Because she’s a liberated woman, you know?

BEA: Those are bloomers.

BRENDA: Got it. The byoofer lady. Wait. What does that mean then?

BEA: (groans)

In 1893, a series of unexplained killings shocked the English towns of Whitby and London. Blame eventually fell on a Mr. DeVille, a recent arrival from Romania better known as Count Dracula. Before he could be held responsible, he vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a legend that continues to this day. But was the count one more Victorian serial killer, or something even more monstrous? And what does this case tell us about gender, race, and power in Victorian England?

Join us, won’t you? As we unravel the mystery, on Arden.

BEA: As I was saying, Lucy Westenra is the most famous of Dracula’s victims. Her tragic fate has played out on stage and screen: the young woman enticed into a life of debauchery and violence until Dracula gets tired of her and she’s slain by her former friends. But unlike the women in cautionary tales she so closely resembles, Lucy Westenra was a real person, and it’s time to hear her side of the story.

BRENDA: It wasn’t easy to get, either. The maniac who’s our chief source recorded all his medical notes on a phonograph. He could only review his notes by playing the whole thing back. Who does that?

BEA: Podcasters.

BRENDA: But I don’t have to listen to everything I say to find the good stuff. Pamela does that.

BEA: You’re lucky she’s still out of the country so she didn’t hear you say that. Thank you to the long ago archival assistant at the London Museum of Psychiatry who made a transcript for us to use.

BRENDA: It was fascinating reading. This Seward guy was a real character.

BEA: We’ll get to him in his own episode.

BRENDA: We’d better. And I’m getting a picture of those cylinders for our Instagram.

BEA: So. Lucy Westenra was a young woman, nineteen years old and engaged to be married to an Arthur Holmwood. She’d recently received three proposals –

BRENDA: Including one from an honest to God cowboy. Why are we not doing a six-episode miniseries on the cowboy? 

BEA: Her third suitor was Dr. John Seward, whose notes we’re using as our primary source for this episode.

BRENDA: Her doctor was also her ex. Awkward.

BEA: After his rejection, Dr. Seward was pulled back into Ms. Westenra’s life in a professional capacity. Lucy had taken ill, with symptoms that baffled her loved ones. Seward describes her as “bloodless”, and she complained of trouble sleeping and bad dreams. As the disease progressed, she became horribly pale, with trouble breathing, and the now famous pinprick marks on her neck.

BRENDA: In one of his first journal entries, Seward can’t figure out what’s wrong and assumes it’s a mental problem, which is typical. Can’t diagnose her, she must have hysterical woman disorder!

BEA: Don’t get me started. The last time I saw my doctor, he told me I was high strung. Can you believe it?

BRENDA: Legally I can’t comment on medical matters.

BEA: You’re avoiding the question.

BRENDA: Let’s get into Lucy’s personal medical details, ok?

BEA: Fine. Lucy received four blood transfusions, which was a cutting-edge treatment at the time, but that only bought her a few more days of life. Lucy Westenra died on September 20.

BRENDA: Supposedly.

BEA: That’s where our story gets… weird.

BRENDA: Suspicion turned toward the newly arrived Mr. De Ville only after Lucy’s death. At the time, Seward and her household didn’t know the man existed. Afterward, though, he was blamed – for preying on her, seducing her, and turning her toward evil.

BEA: Not long after Lucy’s death, children started going missing. The Westminister Gazette described multiple children who were recovered with small marks on their necks. Several insisted they’d been playing with a beautiful lady –

BRENDA: Ohhh. Byoofer lady.

BEA: Hysteria rose to a point where Lucy’s former friends broke into her tomb and staked her dead body, just in case. To their credit, the attacks did stop after that. What does that mean? You decide.

BRENDA: (under her breath) Vampire.

BEA: Now that you know the story, let’s dig into the details.

BRENDA: First of all, can we acknowledge the elephant in the room? How messed up this narrative of the scheming foreigner preying on the pure British lady is? Stop me if you’ve heard that one before.

BEA: (rhetorical) Brenda, are you suggesting this is a case of ethnic scapegoating?

BRENDA: Nah. That kind of thing does happen, and it would be typical to blame the new guy in town when diseases start spreading or one of your own decides to go on a murder spree, but the evidence is pretty solidly not in Dracula’s favor. I’m just saying, the way he gets talked about is kind of xenophobic, that’s all.

BEA: You’ve been making fun of the British since we got here.

BRENDA: They colonized my dad’s country. I’m allowed.

BEA: The Dracula legend certainly has xenophobic and antisemitic undertones. The idea that foreigners are moving into your Anglo-Saxon enclave, corrupting your women, and trying to blend in so they can destroy you has a long and ugly history. Depictions of Dracula with a hooked nose and exaggerated accent don’t help. When you add in drinking blood, especially the blood of children, it sounds an awful lot like blood libel. For listeners who aren't aware, blood libel is the long-standing myth accusing Jewish people of murdering children, especially Christian children, for religious rituals. The spread of these myths often led to the persecution and murder of Jewish people.

BRENDA: There’s no evidence Dracula was Jewish, and he’s not a guy I’m comfortable defending. But that’s not the point. I was in my early 20s when 9/11 happened. No one gave me a lot of crap about it. My name wasn’t ethnic. I didn’t wear a hijab. My mom wasn’t Egyptian, and people could assume I had a great tan, which I do. Just like everyone else in LA. But I heard them talking, you know? About those treacherous, violent Arabs. And maybe they didn’t mean me, but they did. They just didn’t know it.

BEA: That’s… thank you for sharing that.

BRENDA: Well, you opened up about being bullied as a child last episode.

BEA: I never said I was bullied.

BRENDA: It’s apparent.

BEA: (sputters)

BRENDA: But, moving on, I think it’s pretty wild that we blame Lucy after she died for attacking kids when we know a serial killer was already in the neighborhood. Maybe Dracula was picking off easy targets. No one connected the dots, but if you go digging through newspaper clippings from the time, there’s comments about how there weren’t as many sex workers on the streets. You know who puts a dent in that population? Serial killers. Dracula may have made a project out of Lucy Westenra, but we know from Romania that the guy didn’t discriminate. Chances are he’s behind at least some of those disappearances too, but none of those people had a devoted crew of suitors and medical professionals trying to keep them alive.

BEA: Not that it did her any good in the end.

BRENDA: No. It didn’t.

BEA: And how did Lucy die? The case has baffled medical professionals for over a century. Even now, we can’t be sure. The common belief is that Dracula drugged his victims with a cocktail of toxins and sedatives that left them pliable and induced amnesia. That would line up with Seward’s descriptions of Lucy’s downward slide – he describes her as getting sick overnight and recovering during the day, all while complaining of bad dreams and exhaustion.

BRENDA: But there’s a hole in that theory. If Dracula wasn’t a vampire, where was the blood going? To fill that hole, let’s turn it over Inexplicable Riddles, a leading Dracula expert and a regular on one of the forums I frequent.

BEA: He’s not a vampire truther, is he?

BRENDA: No, Inexplicable takes a rigorously academic approach to the case. I know when to drop the bit.

[Interview footage]

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: Thanks for having me on the show, Brenda. I should call you Brenda on the call, right?

BRENDA: My online handles are a closely guarded secret.

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: I had a blast listening to season one. So many twists and turns! It was a great puzzle.

BEA: Thank you for not calling it a comedy, Mr…. Riddles? People keep doing that.

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: Like a case involving a missing stomach could be anything but a mystery. You never answered that one, by the way.

BEA: Some questions don’t have answers.

BRENDA: And some bodies don’t have stomachs. Not anymore.

BEA: But what light can you shed on this mystery?

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: I’ve always been interested in Victorian medicine. Most people who take the case seriously agree that Dracula injected his victims with a drug that acted as a sedative and hallucinogen. His victims felt faint, they reported seeing things, and they might’ve been more suggestible. Lucy was attacked in her own home, but we think when he could he led victims away, never to be seen again. Not while they were alive, anyway. If you count the disappearances in England and Romania, not that many bodies were ever found. Based on the few that were, it looks like he used bodies of water and sometimes graveyards. Ever heard people joke that hiding a body in a graveyard is a perfect crime? Dracula tried it.  We know that because one of his victims – a Catherine Evans – wasn’t completely dead. When the sedative wore off, she woke up, and passerby heard her banging and screaming from the inside of the mausoleum. She couldn’t describe much of what had happened to her when they let her out, but that might be where the legends of Dracula’s brides coming back from the dead came from. And why Lucy’s friends opened her coffin.

BRENDA: What’s your take on the drugs?

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: Unfortunately they didn’t have toxicology reports back then. A big component might have been chloral hydrate, which was being used as an anesthetic and sleep medication. It can reduce anxiety, depress breathing, and even push users into a coma.

BEA: Chloral... Seward mentioned that in his notes.

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: With an asylum nearby, it wouldn’t have been hard to get. Another option is laudanum, which is an opium tincture. It was widely available, and side effects can include confusion and hallucination. I also think it’s safe to say there must’ve been arsenic in the mix.

BEA: Why are you so sure?

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: Arsenic toxicity can cause anemia. What’s the famous symptom of Dracula’s victims? Bloodlessness.

BRENDA: Dracula might have been into alchemy. It adds up.

BEA: How hard was it to get arsenic in the 19^th century?

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: Arsenic was everywhere in Victorian England. It was a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution. There was arsenic wallpaper, arsenic candles... People even used it in medications, but there were also dozens of cases of intentional poisoning. By the turn of the century its dangers were becoming more widely known, but for most of the 1800s? If anything, it was hard to avoid.

BEA: An alarming thought.

BRENDA: Thanks for sharing that with us. Until we meet again.

INEXPLICABLE RIDDLES: I’ll see you on the skunk ape forums.

[In studio]

BRENDA: So, Lucy attracts the attention of a murderous stalker who follows her back to London. He repeatedly injects her with arsenic, but she takes a long time to die because her friends keep watching her. After she’s buried, they find out what happened and open her coffin, just to make sure.

BEA: Maybe she’s dead. Or maybe she’s not, or she wasn’t when she went in.

BRENDA: And maybe she’s undead. They staked her for a reason. She could’ve been a vampire.

BEA: Or they were so upset and hysterical that they thought a woman buried alive was a vampire, and acted accordingly.

BRENDA: Or they didn’t want to admit they’d buried a woman alive, or they believed all that bullshit about Dracula’s victims going to him willingly, and either way, they took care of the problem.

BEA: Grim.

BRENDA: I know. You see why I like the vampire theory. It turns this mess into a simple struggle of good versus evil.

BEA: But what about conflicted vampires?

BRENDA: This isn’t Twilight, Bea. This is Dracula.

BEA: It should also be noted that arsenic is a preservative. If Lucy did die when they thought she did, she still might’ve looked fresher than expected when they opened the coffin. Again leading to the suspicion of vampire activity.

BRENDA: It’s a solid explanation. I do have one other non-vampire theory about where the blood went, though.

BEA: A really big mosquito?

BRENDA: Not the right climate. Lucy Westenra was a popular lady, right? She had three guys who were close enough to her to propose. I know it was the Victorian era, and I don’t want to jump on the slut shaming train, but… what if she had a miscarriage? You lose a lot of blood, and that’s something no one would want to admit, especially not to the guys who wanted to marry her. All you’d need was some dedicated maids to keep changing the sheets. Seward’s journal even talks about the maids wanting to sit up with the patient instead of him or Van Helsing.

BEA: … Huh. It could explain why she didn’t go to the doctor.

BRENDA: Speaking of the doctor. That’s another thing that could’ve killed her.

BEA: Brenda’s right. Seward called in a colleague, Abraham Van Helsing, who attempted to treat Lucy’s anemia with multiple blood transfusions.

BRENDA: Not a bad idea. The problem is, this was before we figured out blood types. Back then, blood transfusions were risky. You rolled the dice – sometimes the patient got better, sometimes they died. No one knew why. Lucy did a lot better after three of her transfusions, but the last one didn’t help her at all, and she died soon afterward. Maybe they gave her the wrong blood. Although that doesn’t explain where the first batch went.

BEA: With all these other explanations for Lucy’s death, you may be wondering why we’re so sure Dracula was involved. We’re not, but Seward was. Now, Seward was mostly working from Van Helsing’s testimony, but the timing lines up with Dracula’s arrival, and the symptoms are characteristic. It’s a good theory. But it’s not the only one.

[Text message alert.]

BRENDA: Hang on, the archivist who sent us Seward’s transcripts is texting me. She found something else? (pause) Oh. Oh wow.

BEA: What is it?

BRENDA: You have to read this.

BEA: Ok, um, can we cut to the Romania team?

[Cut to:]

[On ground audio]

ANDY: Rosalind! Quickly! I have a lead.

ROSALIND: Andy! What have you got for me?

ANDY: Tomorrow is St. George’s Day. If we go on a midnight carriage ride, we’ll see blue spectral fires illuminating where we can find buried treasure. You have to help me hire a carriage at once!

ROSALIND: You’re a billionaire. Why do you need more treasure?

ANDY: I didn’t become a billionaire by passing up opportunities to scoop up some non-legally traceable gold with no clear owner.

ROSALIND: How did you become a billionaire?

ANDY: It’s too epic a saga for a miniseries. We’ll save it for my upcoming biopic.

ROSALIND: Investigating the biggest crime of all… capitalism.

ANDY: Where’s Pamela? I need to ask her how she’ll produce the spectacle of ghostly fires in a podcast.

ROSALIND: She’s in the Swiss alps with her husband. You told her she could combine production with a couple’s European vacation, remember?

ANDY: She’s a savvy negotiator. We’ll have to record the crackle of the flames and let our listeners’ imaginations handle the rest. Pack up the portable equipment; we’re going for a ride.

[Cut to sounds of a wagon bouncing over rocks.]

ANDY: Ooh, there’s one! Stop the cart.

DRIVER: Even if you mark the spot, you’ll never find it again in the daylight.

ANDY: That’s why I brought Wheyface brand geocaching markers!

ROSALIND: Did you drag us all the way out here for a commercial?

ANDY: That’s one of the ways I became a billionaire.

ROSALIND: I respect the hustle. But let’s get back inside the carriage before those wolves get any closer.

[Faint howls in the distance. The sound of running footsteps.]

[Cut.]

ROSALIND: It’s the next morning, listeners, and Andy’s drones have led us right to the spot we visited last night.

ANDY: As expected! Now we have to unearth the treasure. … Oh dear.

ROSALIND: Don’t worry, I brought a shovel.

ANDY: Capital! (thoughtful) The next version of drones should come equipped with spades.

ROSALIND: (grunting with effort) Did the ghostly fires tell us how deep the treasure was? Oh, I think I felt something. It’s… it’s a Bowie knife?

ANDY: (gasps) A clue!

ROSALIND: I don’t know… hold on, there’s something engraved under all this dirt. It’s an M.

ANDY: Fascinating.

ROSALIND: That’s the latest from our Romanian travelogue. Back to you, Bea and Brenda, while I track down the origins of this mysterious Bowie knife.

[Cut to:]

BEA: (frantic) How did we miss this? Did everyone miss this?

BRENDA: Nah. The archivist said a few professors have requested scans for their dissertations.

BEA: I told you we should’ve reviewed the academic literature.

BRENDA: And I told you no one read that. And here’s proof, because this is news to us.

BEA: Listeners, Seward’s archival documents include a handwritten memorandum by Lucy Westenra. It was restricted until the death of her fiancé Arthur Holmwood, and the cylinders were described prior to its release.

BRENDA: Meaning it got left out of the public narrative. Most people –

BEA: Lazy researchers.

BRENDA: Most people just requested the transcripts. You have to go through the whole finding aid to see that there’s some material that’s not included.

BEA: Score one for due diligence.

BRENDA: Excuse you, we only found out about this because I asked for a picture of the original wax cylinders so I could make Victorian podcasting memes out of them.

BEA: Either way. This isn’t an entirely new scoop, but it may be news to many of you – it’s definitely news to us. But let’s backtrack a little to what the public narrative is. Here’s a clip from the Netflix trailer again.

[Archival footage]

LUCY: I don't see why women can't have as many men as they want.

LUCY: (breathily) Kiss me!

BRENDA: And the CW adaptation.

[Archival footage. Lucy now sounds like a bratty teen]

LUCY: Arthur’s just a stuffy old prude who wants to control me. I found someone who lets me be me. Why can’t you be happy for me?

BEA: And the vampire flicks.

[Archival footage. A sinister soundtrack plays.]

LUCY: (voluptuous cackle) Hello, Arthur.

ARTHUR: She’s so beautiful.

VAN HELSING: Don’t listen to it!

[Studio audio]

BEA: (clears throat, then begins in a dramatic voice) I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by chance get into any trouble through me. This is an exact record of what took place tonight. I feel I am dying of weakness and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing.

BRENDA: Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?

BEA: Reading the memorandum. This is our big scoop.

BRENDA: It’s a dying woman’s last words. Have some respect. Don’t use your radio voice.

BEA: What do you want me to do? Tell everyone who wants the truth to come to London and request a picture of wax cylinders for the memes?

BRENDA: Look, I’ll ask the assistant to digitize it and we can link to the record on our website. Let’s just hit the highlights. Reading the whole thing, I don’t know. It’s just kind of creepy and sad.

BEA: (sighs) Ok. Although Doctors Seward and Van Helsing had been doing their best to keep Lucy under observation, they both failed to be present that night. Lucy’s mother came to check on her, and then someone shattered the window, scaring the woman – who had some sort of heart problem – and causing her to die in her daughter’s bed. Someone had drugged the servants – Lucy identified laudanum – and Lucy ends her note by saying she’s alone in the house with the sleeping and the dead, with the sense that something outside was trying to come in. The next morning, her doctors found her nearly dead, and they weren’t able to revive her.

BRENDA: “I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness”. “What am I to do? I am back in the room with my mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for the sleeping servants, whom someone has drugged. Alone with the dead. God shield me from harm this night!” That’s how Lucy Westenra felt about what happened to her. That’s your sex-crazed party girl who got what was coming to her. How do you feel about those after school specials now?

BEA: I mean, we are kind of making… (clears throat) Lucy Westenra has come to represent all of Dracula’s victims. She’s drawn from the same stock archetype as most women in urban legends – the girl who wanted too much, pushed too far, and was punished for transgressing. But Lucy didn’t want this, any more than any of those girls wanted to be murdered. If this season accomplishes nothing else, I hope it does this. Lucy Westenra did not want to be Dracula’s bride. She had a fiancé. She was looking forward to her wedding. She wanted to live. 

BRENDA: And she didn’t get to. At the end of it, no one listened to what she had to say, and she got added to the pile of dead women who never got justice.

BEA: (dawning horror) Is all of my profession dead women?

BRENDA: Welcome to true crime.

[Voiceover]

ANDY: Next time, on Arden: something other than dead women!

Chapter Text

BEA: In the last episode, we mentioned Dr. John Seward. His patient notes are our primary source of information regarding the case of Lucy Westenra. But how reliable is he?

BRENDA: Seward was kind of a weird dude. But that’s nothing in comparison to his mentor, a Dr. Abraham Van Helsing. Now that’s a guy I would call too open minded. Although, it would be cool if toads lived forever.

BEA: Lobsters live forever.

BRENDA: They do not.

BEA: I’ve been forced to hear a lot about lobsters, remember? And lobsters, under the right conditions, won’t die.

BRENDA: I won’t die under the right conditions too. They’re not special.

BEA: That’s not what I – never mind. Let’s get on with the episode.

In 1893, a series of unexplained killings shocked the English towns of Whitby and London. Blame eventually fell on a Mr. DeVille, a recent arrival from Romania better known as Count Dracula. Before he could be held responsible, he vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a legend that continues to this day. But was the count one more Victorian serial killer, or something even more monstrous? And what does this case tell us about gender, race, and power in Victorian England?

Join us, won’t you? As we unravel the mystery, on Arden.

BEA: John Seward, despite his young age, oversaw a small asylum that happened to be placed right next to one of the properties Dracula purchased.

BRENDA: Red flag number one. Who buys a house next to an asylum?

BEA: If it meant I could afford a down payment in LA, I would.

BRENDA: That’s fair. So, why was a guy in charge of patients with mental illnesses taking care of someone with a physical problem?

BEA: He knew her personally, and she didn’t want to go to another doctor. Plus, many asylum superintendents had a background in general medicine. Dr. Henry Landor, first superintendent of the London Asylum, was a surgeon and physician before his appointment.

BRENDA: I love it when you know useless trivia.

BEA: You should see me at trivia night.

BRENDA: 9 pm at the Tally Ho Bar after we’re done shooting this season.

BEA: You’re on. (clears throat) Seward did spend most of his time with psychiatric patients. At the same time as Lucy’s decline, he was working with a patient referred to as R. M. Renfield. Renfield was what Seward called zoophagous – he believed that eating living creatures would grant him their life energy, extending his own.

BRENDA: You know, like a vampire.

BEA: Renfield attempted to build up more life energy by feeding flies to spiders and spiders to birds before eating the birds. He asked for a cat –

BRENDA: Oh god.

BEA: Seward said no.

BRENDA: That’s a relief.

BEA: He did consider it out of scientific curiosity. If you look here –

BRENDA: “Men sneered at vivisection”. For good reason, John.

BEA: We’ve made some progress since then.

BRENDA: Yeah, is this normal for that time period?

BEA: The answer to that is complicated. I asked our archival contact for some history.

ARCHIVIST: There were attempts in the 19^th century to reform British asylums. You saw the rise of the moral treatment, with the goal of treating patients more like human beings, with personalized treatment plans and a more relaxed atmosphere. Patients could move around and were encouraged to practice their trades – some asylums operated like small villages. Near the end of the 19^th century, however, practitioners were running into problems. Asylums had become too popular and getting overcrowded. Plus, the rise of the eugenics movement meant society wanted to keep undesirable people locked up and were less interested in helping them get better.

BEA: Where does Seward fit into this?

ARCHIVIST: From Seward’s records, he seems to borrow elements of the moral treatment. He’s willing to indulge Renfield’s desires up to a point, but he doesn’t let the man move freely, and he mentions restraining him after he kept escaping and trying to enter the building next door. Restraints had fallen out of favor at many institutions after the 1829 death of William Scrivinger, who was left strapped to his bed in a straitjacket overnight and died of strangulation. That makes Seward’s casual description of the tool unusual, even if his notes acknowledge other moments where he realizes he’s gone too far.

BEA: “If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, a good, unselfish cause to make me work, that would be indeed happiness”. No wonder he got so caught up in Lucy’s case.

BRENDA: Yeah, you wouldn’t know anything about getting so obsessed with a mystery you refuse to let it go.

BEA: Like you’re one to talk.

BRENDA: I’m right here with you, aren’t I?

BEA: I guess you are. Full disclosure, because otherwise I know someone will tweet at us: There’s evidence that Seward was self-medicating with chloral hydrate, which can be habit-forming.

BRENDA: When I was on the force, a lot of cops said you couldn’t trust anything addicts said. That’s not true. They usually said it to cover for bigotry or just plain laziness. But we did our due diligence. Going off the medication can cause withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, confusion, and hallucinations. It is possible that Seward’s use or lack of use of this drug could’ve contributed to him being in an altered state of mind. However, in his notes, he seems pretty put together.

BEA: I agree. But it is worth wondering whether his desire for a distraction, or an explanation, could have led to him embracing some more… out there theories.

BRENDA: Which brings us to my man, Van Helsing, the vampire slayer.

BEA: Yes, he seems to be the primary instigator of the vampire theory. But I wonder, did he really believe it?

BRENDA: What do you mean?

BEA: Think about it. Van Helsing is the one who gave Lucy blood transfusions. As we mentioned in the last episode, that was a risky procedure at the time, because blood types weren’t discovered until 1900. Transfusions sometimes failed, and no one knew why. Lucy died soon after her fourth transfusion – maybe they ran out of luck, and that donor wasn’t a match.

BRENDA: They’d do anything in old timey medicine, huh. First arsenic and now this.

BEA: There was also a lot of cocaine.

BRENDA: I was born in a boring century.

BEA: But what if Van Helsing’s risk didn’t pay off? Lucy was the fiancée of a wealthy man – not someone you want to be on the bad side of. Convince everyone that it wasn’t your fault, that it was a vampire –

BRENDA: I get what you’re saying. And it’s not the first time a doctor fucks up because he didn’t take a woman’s health seriously. But I don’t know – Van Helsing was really into the vampire thing. Too bad we can’t talk to him face to face. You know, I’m just realizing that’s a major weakness of this season.

BEA: That’s why we have to rely on written records. We weren’t able to find any of Van Helsing’s publications on JSTOR.

BRENDA: (gasps) JSTOR failed you?

BEA: I know. I can’t believe it.

BRENDA: How do you still have JSTOR access anyway?

BEA: My university never purged my credentials. Now let’s stop talking about it before they realize.

BRENDA: (mock horror) Casely, are you evading scholarly paywalls?

BEA: Are you going to arrest me?

BRENDA: I’ll defend you if the Elsevier cops show up. Those bastards have had it too good for too long.

[Bea’s phone rings.]

BEA: Here’s Pamela with what she was able to find at Van Helsing’s former institution.

Pamela (over the phone): You’re lucky we were in the Netherlands when you called. I was not about to make a special trip for the show.

BEA: Are you with –

PAMELA: My husband who will remain nameless? No, he’s at a coffee shop enjoying our vacation.

BRENDA: Weren’t you in the Alps?

PAMELA: These European trains can take you anywhere.

BEA: I know. Europe is so tiny.

PAMELA: I found a few publications by this Van Helsing guy. He seems like quite the character. Practical applications of Charcot’s theory of hypnotism. An autoethnography of alleged holy men. One whole monograph on corn? He’d fit right in on Calls from the Void.

BRENDA: I’ll tell Dr. Lhereux he should do a special feature.

PAMELA: Much like the host of our beloved sister show, it looks like he genuinely believed this stuff. He published a lot, even if no one read it. A real kooky professor type.

BEA: Thank you. We’ll let you get back to your vacation now.

BRENDA: Eat a fancy pastry for me.

PAMELA: I’m eating all the fancy pastries for myself.

BRENDA: (sighs) I wish we were somewhere with fancy pastries.

BEA: There’s nothing wrong with British food.

BRENDA: The British think boiled cake is a delicacy. And they call it spotted dick.

BEA: You call yourself a private dick!

BRENDA: And I’m not on the menu, am I?

BEA: Do you want me to answer that?

BRENDA: Not on air.

BEA: Let’s get back on track. Van Helsing really believed in vampires, and Seward, his student, is eventually convinced as well.

BRENDA: It probably helped that he had a life-eating patient of his own. What happened to that guy?

BEA: (shuffling papers) It sounds like he fell out of bed and died not… not long after Lucy’s death.

BRENDA: Suspicious.

BEA: Very.

BRENDA: Was there any investigation?

BEA: Not that I can tell.

BRENDA: Not a lot of oversight over the treatment of the mentally ill in Victorian England, huh?

BEA: Let’s do some oversight ourselves. After a check in with our Romania team, we’ll be back for an on-site tour of Dr. Seward’s asylum.

[Cut to:]

ANDY: Something has been bothering me. Why always aristocratic vampires? Why not a salt of the earth hillbilly vampire who communicates by grunting?

ROSALIND: A True Blood/Grunty McMurtry crossover would do numbers and you should call the CW as soon as we finish this conversation. There’s a reason for the income gap, though. In the oldest vampire folklore, anyone can join up, but after John William Polidori's "The Vampyre", you saw a lot of vampire aristocrats because, well. Bloodsucking fiends living off the bodies of the common folk?

ANDY: I don’t follow.

ROSALIND: Hoarders of wealth and power who cling to both forever instead of dying and passing it on?

ANDY: Still don’t see what you’re driving at.

ROSALIND: It’s a metaphor for rich people.

ANDY: You are a font of wisdom regarding the undead.

ROSALIND: Comes with being friends with Brenda. Because she's into that kind of thing, not because she's a vampire. I should really find out more about local lore. I wonder if they’re plagued by vampire pumpkins in these parts.

ANDY: And I should investigate the local real estate options. If people around here are so traumatized by the local gentry that they cast them as bloodsucking monsters, perhaps they need an example of a friendly benevolent hoarder of wealth and power. What an excellent opening for a new branch of Wheyface Industries. I need to call my broker.

ROSALIND: Ooh, next week on Arden, a new horror - realtors. 

[Cut to:]

[Field audio]

BEA: We’re on site at what used to be the asylum run by John Seward. It looks surprisingly normal, more like a large house than a hospital.

BRENDA: These days, the place is a retirement community. I played a round of cards and had a passable afternoon tea with some of the dames on the second floor.

BEA: I can’t believe you won Mrs. Swales’ false teeth.

BRENDA: I gave them back. You’re just mad grandmas love me.

BEA: I am not. (under her breath) It doesn’t make sense.

BRENDA: You want it too badly.

BEA: (huffs) The building shows no sign of its darker history. Curtains frame the windows, and outside we can see Carfax, one of the London properties Dracula purchased under the guise of Mr. DeVille. It’s kept in an artificially moldering state and run by an enthusiast as an amateur museum for the case. It gets a lot more attention than the former asylum next door, but it’s aimed at tourists who aren’t interested in the truth of the case.

BRENDA: Man, imagine. You spend all this time trying to save someone’s life, and the person killing her lives right next door. They’re under your nose, and you don’t have a clue. Reminds me of a case I had where my client got scammed by two of his adult kids. The geezer was living with them and had no idea he was getting played until it was too late. Kind of a dick, though, to be honest. He disowned his only kid who didn’t suck.

BEA: Is that relevant?

BRENDA: I don’t know, places like this make me wonder what I’ll do when I get old. If I’m going to be stuck sitting around staring out the window… Hang on. Didn’t Seward mention his patient running over there?

BEA: He did. More than once. You don’t think…

BRENDA: I think we should look over those notes again.

[Cut to studio audio. Papers rustle.]

BEA: Listeners, we’re back in the studio, and Brenda’s hunch paid off. Every instance of Renfield running over to Carfax took place during the time period Dracula was in London. Seward even writes that he seemed to be talking to someone.

BRENDA: Renfield meets up with Dracula, and a few days later he mysteriously dies? Something smells funny.

BEA: So… did Dracula kill him too? That would mean Dracula was in the asylum, though. If he was there, why attack a patient and not one of the men looking into his victim?

BRENDA: Opportunity. Serial killers prey on the vulnerable. Mentally ill people are easy targets. It’s not his regular MO, though. I feel like we’re missing something.

BEA: Next episode we’re trying to trace his steps from Romania to England. Maybe we’ll uncover a missing piece.

BRENDA: Maybe. You know, when we started work on this season, Lucy was the only victim’s name I knew. It goes to show, huh? Sometimes it’s the most famous cases you know the least about.

BEA: That’s what high quality longform journalism is for.

BRENDA: Let’s get to it.

Chapter Text

BEA: It’s going to be a short episode this week, listeners, as Brenda and I pack up to record our last few episodes in Romania for that local flair. But as we make our travel preparations, I thought it would be fun to talk about Dracula’s travel patterns. We know he came to London, but how did he get there?

BRENDA: You couldn’t exactly call an Uber. Back then, your options over land were coach and Europe’s enviable network of trains.

BEA: (dreamy sigh)

BRENDA: - But at some point he’d have to get on a ship. Britain’s an island, after all. And if you lurk my favorite forums, there’s a theory about which ship he might’ve taken. The Demeter.

BEA: I haven’t heard of that one.

BRENDA: That’s because we don’t frequent the same forums. What was the one you had pulled up last week?

BEA: Etymology Enthusiasts?

BRENDA: Exactly. The Demeter is a fascinating case. Look it up – it was all published in the Whitby paper The Dailygraph on August 8th. A derelict Russian vessel runs aground missing all hands except for the captain, who’d lashed himself to the wheel with a crucifix before dying of exposure. His logs suggest something was picking off crewmembers one by one, and to do what he did – he was clearly terrified. No other living person was found onboard, although witnesses reported a dog jumping off the vessel. But the ship was carrying some of the belongings Dracula had shipped to England.

BEA: That’s quite a story.

BRENDA: Right? And some theorists believe while there may not have been a living person onboard, Dracula might’ve hitched a ride and eaten his way through the crew. Or killed them, if the vampire theory isn’t your style.

BEA: And then… crashed the ship?

BRENDA: Ate everyone who could steer. You ever heard the saying, once you pop, you can’t stop?

BEA: Does that apply to murder?

BRENDA: Scary thought, isn’t it? This is a controversial theory, because it doesn’t make Dracula sound like a great thinker, and you know the popular imagination casts him as a scheming mastermind. I disagree. Most of the time when people act like uncaught serial killers were geniuses, it’s just that the cops weren’t doing their job.

BEA: You hated it when I pointed out how the police fucked up the Julie Capsom case.

BRENDA: I’m an ex-cop, I’m allowed. I have personal experience with fucking up cases.

BEA: You said it, not me. Do you think you would’ve caught Dracula? If you’d been around back then?

BRENDA: If I’d been around back then I would've been trying to stay out of the Mahdist War.

BEA: You know what I mean.

BRENDA: Do I? [beat] I would’ve tried. I wish we saw that with this case, you know? I wish we knew that someone tried.

In 1893, a series of unexplained killings shocked the English towns of Whitby and London. Blame eventually fell on a Mr. DeVille, a recent arrival from Romania better known as Count Dracula. Before he could be held responsible, he vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a legend that continues to this day. But was the count one more Victorian serial killer, or something even more monstrous? And what does this case tell us about gender, race, and power in Victorian England?

Join us, won’t you? As we unravel the mystery, on Arden.

ROSALIND: It turns out a lot of people around here don’t want to talk about vampires.

[A series of recordings]

ROSALIND: Ma’am, can you tell me anything about Romanian folklore?

WOMAN: Not more of you people. I thought you were done making the documentary.

ROSALIND: I’m actually with a podcast –

WOMAN: Absolutely not.

[New clip]

MAN: Listen, just because there was that story in 2004 doesn’t mean we’re all superstitious.

ROSALIND: Story in 2004?

MAN: A dead man's relative got sick, so they took out his heart, burnt it, and had her drink the ashes. The police got involved, and all the foreign journalists think we're a bunch of bumpkins. They call us barbaric peasants. I don’t believe in strigoi myself, but I can’t stand you outsiders digging into our cultural traditions just to make fun of us.

ROSALIND: I don’t want to –

MAN: Look it up yourself if you want to know any more; I’m done talking to you.

[Voiceover]

ROSALIND: The only people interested in talking were part of the tourism industry.

[New clip]

MAN: Sure, Count Dracula. I’ve got a real piece of his coffin you can see for 50 leu. And we do a historical tour on Saturday nights with a bar crawl at the end.

ROSALIND: No thanks.

[Voiceover]

ROSALIND: It’s a shame Andy isn’t here, he might be able to bribe someone. He left me a voicemail saying he was meeting with some women who could give him a tour of the castle. He said they were… voluptuous? I don’t think he knows what that word means.

[Cut to interview:]

ROSALIND: It took a few hours, but I finally found someone willing to talk to me about real vampires. Do you mind introducing yourself?

MIHAELA:  Bună ziua. My name’s Mihaela.

ROSALIND: And how did you come by this esoteric knowledge?

MIHAELA: I was a folklore major. Now I teach primary school, so it’s nice to use it again. Although young children generate a lot of new folklore.

ROSALIND: Slenderman, Minecraft YouTube, that cool S…. did your degree explain the cool S?

MIHAELA: Not exactly, although it dates back a lot further than you’d think. But you were here for vampires?

ROSALIND: That’s right. What parts of the picture are we missing when we associate Romania with the pop culture bloodsucking monsters?

MIHAELA: A lot. First of all, we don’t really have vampires. You’re a lot more likely to hear about moroi, strigoi, or varcolak. And it’s not transmitted by biting. Certain birth defects, a cat passing by the pregnant mother, unnatural deaths… those are the kinds of things that could predict a restless corpse. There were things you could do to try to avert this, like burying bodies upside down.

ROSALIND: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

MIHAELA: Exactly. Carmilla is more accurate than the Dracula theories when it comes to the biting – Romanian strigoi tended to bite on the chest, not the neck. And they often preyed on family members… you won’t usually hear about a strigoi leaving the continent to go hunting in London. They’re more hungry corpses than something intelligent.

ROSALIND: How do you protect yourself?

MIHAELA: Garlic works; the stories get that much right. And the best approach is to dig up the body and prevent it from doing more damage in some way: staking it, beheading it, burning it. All classics. Of course, a decomposing body might look distended, or have a bloody mouth, or expel gases when being moved around, which only increased people’s suspicions that it was undead.

ROSALIND: You don’t believe in vampires?

MIHAELA: I like to keep an open mind. But probably the majority of these cases were false alarms. My favorite variation, though, is inhuman vampires. Watermelons and pumpkins can turn vampiric in the right circumstances, not that they can do much damage. I could show you some very funny drawings my students have done of vampire vegetables.

ROSALIND: I think that’s a plot point in Bunnicula, actually. Anything in your research about vampire rabbits?

MIHAELA: No. But farming tools left out overnight can transform too. You can see the logic, if a tool you’ve used for years suddenly slips and draws blood.

ROSALIND: I have a knife in my apartment I keep cutting myself on. Maybe it’s a vampire. I should try chopping garlic with it.

MIHAELA: Let me know how it goes.

ROSALIND: Vampire Slayer… Chopped edition. It could sell. I’ll have to tell Andy.

MIHAELA: Listen. It’s not folklore, exactly, more like… an old local legend, but there’s one more person you might talk to.

[Cut to:]

BEA: One of the most reliable paper trails left behind by Dracula, or Mr. Deville, during his time in England was the shipment of 50 large boxes. These boxes were delivered to England on the Demeter, the doomed ship we discussed earlier in the episode, and then carried to various locations around London. They were variably described as full of earth or dirt, smelling moldy or musty, and always incredibly heavy. Was Dracula planning on taking up gardening? Did he skip a few laundry days? We don’t know.

BRENDA: I have a theory about this.

BEA: Is it vampire related?

BRENDA: No, actually.

BEA: Then please, share.

BRENDA: People have searched Dracula’s castle. They found a few graves – real graves, not hasty burials to stash a corpse. But if this guy was a serial murderer, shouldn’t there be more? Some killers keep trophies. What if Dracula did too, and he kept everything?

BEA: You think he packed fifty boxes full of corpses and had them shipped overseas?

BRENDA: In dirt.

BEA: (disgusted) Wouldn’t that – wouldn’t they smell?

BRENDA: According to the reports, they did. But also, we already talked about arsenic being a preservative. He could’ve done some kind of embalming to keep his trophies around longer. That’s not unheard of.

BEA: Gross.

BRENDA: Extremely.

BEA: Did they ever find any boxes full of skeletons?

BRENDA: No. No one ever opened any of the boxes, at least not on record. A few people claim they’ve found some, and one guy did an unboxing video on a livestream, but it was full of dirt, and it could’ve been counterfeit.

BEA: There’s so much about this story we don’t know. The problem with picking up a 100-year-old cold case, I guess, but it’s frustrating.

BRENDA: Maybe we’ll find the answer in Romania.

BEA: Maybe. Are you ready to go?

BRENDA: Still need to pack. Hang on. Rosalind’s calling. Hey Rosalind. Did you have some more dirt from Romania? We’re talking about that right now, literally.

ROSALIND: Hey, boss. Have you left yet?

BRENDA: No, not yet.

BEA (scathingly): Brenda’s not packed yet.

BRENDA: Is something wrong?

ROSALIND: I might have a lead for you in England. Have you ever heard of Jonathan Harker?

[Boom of doom.]

Chapter Text

[Field audio]

BEA: Margaret Harker’s great-grandparents were Jonathan and Mina Harker. Those aren’t names most scholars of the modern Dracula mythos would be familiar with. We hadn’t heard about them either until Brenda’s assistant Rosalind turned them up for us. Thanks to her tip and some helpful public librarians, we were able to track down their descendant, Margaret. Margaret, why didn’t you come forward before? I’m sure you’ve heard how many people are invested in the case.

MARGARET: It was private. Just because the rest of the world got interested in the story doesn’t mean it belonged to them. And I saw what they did to Lucy Westenra. Would you want that for your ancestors? Dozens of tv shows and Youtube videos making them into fools or monsters?

BEA: Then why us? Why now?

MARGARET: When you contacted me, I looked you up. I saw what you did for that poor girl, letting her run after you found her.

BRENDA: She’s being hunted by paparazzi on two continents. It’s only a matter of time.

BEA: (uncomfortable) We did what we could.

MARGARET: I hope you’ll be as considerate with me.

BEA: Of course. When did you learn about your ancestors’ involvement with this case?

MARGARET: I had no idea while they were still alive. After I grew up, when the American serial killer era really started, that’s when the rest of the world took an interest. I didn’t follow along when the media fixated on the latest batch of dead girls, I found it all distasteful, but it bothered my grandfather even more. My parents told me his parents lost a family friend, so I didn’t ask any questions. Then, after he died, I found this journal in his things.

BEA: May I see it?

MARGARET: Go ahead.

BEA: I… I can’t read this.

MARGARET: (chuckles) It’s shorthand. My little joke. I can give you translated excerpts. But it’s all in there.

BRENDA: … What’s in there?

MARGARET: That monster hurt both of them. But they hunted him the same way he hunted them. My great-grandparents killed Dracula.

In 1893, a series of unexplained killings shocked the English towns of Whitby and London. Blame eventually fell on a Mr. DeVille, a recent arrival from Romania better known as Count Dracula. Before he could be held responsible, he vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a legend that continues to this day. But was the count one more Victorian serial killer, or something even more monstrous? And what does this case tell us about gender, race, and power in Victorian England?

Join us, won’t you? As we unravel the mystery, on Arden.

BEA: The modern Dracula mythos doesn’t include Jonathan and Mina Harker. But according to Margaret’s testimony, Jonathan Harker may have been the first British victim.

BRENDA: It figures, right? Serial killer corrupting and preying on women, that’s good clean heterosexual murder. Serial killer playing a psychological game of cat and mouse with a man, and that’s just unseemly.

BEA: It does complicate the narrative the cultural zeitgeist ran with. Luckily, we don’t have to rely on that. Like many other members of this tale, the ones whose historical existence we can confirm, anyway, the Harkers took copious notes about their experiences. They even compiled them chronologically, in what we could think of as an early example of a true crime narrative. (sighs) Mina Harker, a woman after my own heart.

BRENDA: I’m a fan of Jonathan myself. You gotta respect a guy who fights a vampire with a knife.

BEA: We don’t know he was a vampire.

BRENDA: But Jonathan thought so, and that’s what counts.

BEA: Here is what we can confirm about Jonathan and Mina Harker. They were both orphaned young. From what we can piece together, Jonathan was an orphan of British Indian heritage, however incongruous that might seem given his name.

BRENDA: It’s not that surprising. My dad’s name was Bin Sayid before he got to the US.

BEA: Brenda Bin Sayid…

BRENDA: It has a ring to it, doesn’t it?

BRENDA: Because he was an orphan, we don’t know much about his parents. One may have been a lascar, a sailor employed by the East India Company. Or a member of the British Indian army.

BRENDA: My money’s on the second one. That’s how he got his knife.

BEA: Yes, Jonathan is described as having a kukri, a curved blade originating in Nepal and the characteristic weapon of their army. This will be important later. 

BRENDA: Cool knives are always important.

BEA: We don’t know much about Mina’s background either, but her maiden name – Murray – suggests she may have been Irish.

BRENDA: Or Scottish.

BEA: Or Scottish. But I don’t think so. There was a lot of Irish emigration in the 50s fleeing the effects of the famine. Some wealthier families headed for America, while others crossed over to Britain. Mina’s parents might have come over as children. By the time she was engaged, they were already dead. Mina was a schoolteacher, but a lot of Irish immigrants took low paying jobs doing physical labor – prompting the same hysteria about stealing jobs that we hear now.

BRENDA: Familiar, right? They were also stereotyped as lazy, criminally inclined, and disease-ridden. Hell, maybe she and Jonathan hit it off because they both had to deal with similar stereotypes. And then were both jerks to Eastern Europeans because I guess you have to gang up on someone.

BEA: And then they ran afoul of a foreigner who actually did mean people harm.

BRENDA: The irony. Like hey, Dracula, you’re making us look bad!

BEA: Mina was Lucy Westenra’s best friend. She only wasn’t present during Lucy’s illness because she’d been called away to take care of Jonathan. That’s where things get interesting.

BRENDA: Jonathan was a solicitor. A British lawyer, basically. He had his own run in with Dracula because of, you’ll never believe this, real estate. Mr. De Ville had to buy all those properties somehow. So he calls Jonathan all the way to Transylvania to sort out the paperwork. It didn’t go great.

BEA: Here’s their descendant Margaret again.

MARGARET: My great-grandfather had white hair when I knew him. That’s not surprising, considering his age, but according to my grandfather, it went white young. He went through terrible things.

BEA: Margaret showed us her great-grandfather’s diary, although she didn’t let us take it with us. Not long after he arrived at Castle Dracula, Jonathan realized things weren’t as they seemed. The man had no intention of letting him leave.

BRENDA: Dracula had been reading up on British culture, so he might’ve assumed Jonathan – mixed race kid, no family – wouldn’t be missed. He toyed with him. We saw from Lucy’s case how much this guy liked to drag things out.

BEA: Taunted him, forced him to write letters misleading his supervisor and fiancée… it’s chilling.  And then there was the baby.

BRENDA: Yeah. Remember what Rosalind said about high mortality rates? Jonathan saw Dracula bringing a baby to the castle, and it never left. A while later the kid’s mom came looking, and he locked her in a courtyard with… well, the diary said wolves. Wolves don’t usually attack humans unless they’re starving, but Jonathan wasn’t exactly a country boy. They could’ve been trained dogs, and he misidentified them.

BEA: Either way, it was gruesome. All we know about the baby is that it was handed over to three women Jonathan saw a few times. We don’t know much about them. Were they collaborators? Other victims making the best of a bad situation? Relatives?

BRENDA: They freaked Jonathan out, but anything would’ve by then.

[Interview audio]

MARGARET: There were things people didn’t talk about back then, especially men. All those stories about Dracula and women... I have to wonder. Whatever happened to him, he couldn’t take it. He knew Dracula was going to kill him. So he snuck up on him in a chapel deep in the heart of the castle and attacked him with the first thing he could grab, a shovel. Why there was a shovel there… I hate to think.

BRENDA: The boxes of dirt.

MARGARET: Whatever was in them. Or whoever. Unfortunately, Jonathan didn’t succeed in killing the man, but it scared the count enough that he left for London without finishing my great-grandfather off. I think he expected him to starve, but Jonathan didn’t give up. He walked all the way through the wilderness to a train station. He had a nervous collapse and was half dead by the time he reached civilization, but he made it.

BEA: At what point did he start to suspect the count might have been inhuman?

MARGARET: This is the other reason I didn’t share the diaries.

BEA: He writes here, “I fear I am myself the only living soul within this place”.

MARGARET: He’d gone through so much. He’d seen terrible things. Wouldn’t you have thought you were in the hands of something godless after you watched a woman be ripped apart? He wasn’t sure what he’d seen once he left, how much he’d imagined or misunderstood. And then that Van Helsing told him what to believe.

[Studio audio]

BEA: See, Margaret doesn’t think it was vampires.

BRENDA: If she did, she’d never tell a journalist. Look at me. I tell you one theory about aliens, and you never let it go.

BEA: You really shouldn’t have told me that.

BRENDA: You heard it here, kids. Lying to journalists is ok.

BEA: Anyway, Jonathan escapes and recuperates in a Budapest hospital. The Hospital of St. Joseph and St. Mary was unwilling to release patient records, but we have a letter signed by a Sister Agatha who seems to have worked there. Mina visits him, and they marry. They return to England and try to put the whole thing behind them.

BRENDA: Until Jonathan sees Dracula in the streets, and Mina finds out her best friend was horribly murdered. It doesn’t take long for them to make the connection. When Lucy’s posse of boys decide they want to get their vengeance on, Jonathan and Mina are only too happy to help.

[Interview audio]

MARGARET: My great-grandfather was an honorable man. He couldn’t bear to think that he’d helped a monster come to England and hurt more people.

BRENDA: Bet he thought some people might say he did it on purpose. Immigrants sticking together and all that.

MARGARET: Maybe. He didn’t discuss that part of his life.

[Studio audio]

BEA: That’s when the Harkers have their fears confirmed by Van Helsing that they’re dealing with a killer with supernatural abilities. Even so, they and Lucy’s friends were determined to make him pay.

BRENDA: Dracula didn’t take this lying down. He was used to being the hunter. When he became the hunted, well…

BEA: Well.

BRENDA: We’re not reading this part on air. We wouldn’t even if Margaret hadn’t asked us not to. But before Dracula ran back to Romania like the little bitch he was, he broke into Seward’s asylum where they were all staying, killed R. M. Renfield, and… hurt Mina. Possibly Jonathan too. The diary doesn’t get into the details, and we’re not going to speculate.

BEA: He didn’t even do it to kill them. He told them it was because they were trying to stop him; he wanted them to know. To feel powerless. I really don’t like this guy.

BRENDA: He’s the worst. They got the last laugh, though. Before Dracula fled London, his pursuers hunted him down at one of his properties and scared him so badly he jumped through the window. Jonathan even got a swing in at him with the aforementioned cool knife. The Harkers’ diary claims they followed him all the way back to Romania and killed him there, with the help of, again, the cowboy I cannot believe got left out of all these adaptations.

BEA: We don’t have physical evidence, or a location for the body, or any other testimonies. But Dracula did disappear, and no one ever heard of him again.

BRENDA: It’s satisfying, right? To think that after all that horrible stuff, some of the people he hurt hurt him back.

BEA: And to see if we can prove it, we’re headed to Romania at last to look for ourselves.

[Cut to Andy. His footsteps echo; he’s walking on stone somewhere with high ceilings.]

ANDY: How did you three ladies get access to one of Romania’s national treasures?

VOICE 1: You could say we’re close to the owner.

VOICE 2: (laughs) We go way back.

VOICE 3: Friends of the family.

ANDY: You’ll have to help me angle for an invitation when it comes to negotiating a purchase price. Do you think we could arrange a luncheon featuring paprika? I’ve taken a real shine to it.

VOICE 3: Oh, I promise we’ll be eating.

VOICE 1: This is the master suite, with a staircase leading down to the chapel.

ANDY: Hm, piles of gold coins and jewelry all over the floor. You know, I’ve found that it’s much easier to keep track of your obscene wealth if you keep it well organized.

VOICE 2: This has a more rustic feel.

ANDY: I can’t argue with you there. And I wouldn’t want to ruin the place’s charm; that might hurt sales at the Wheyface Industries Food Court and Gift Shop I’ll be installing on the ground floor. Hm… would serving blood sausage be too much? Note to self, look into that later.

VOICE 1: Are you recording this?

ANDY: Of course! Running Wheyface Radio has taught me every second of our existence should be mined for content. How else will we know we’re alive?

VOICE 3: (under her breath) How else will people know that you’re dead?

ANDY: What?

VOICE 3: What?

VOICE 1: Don’t you think you could turn it off for just a little while? (seductively) We’d love to get to know you better.

ANDY: (cheerfully oblivious) So would our listeners! You never did give me your names.

VOICE 2: We could discuss that in the suite of rooms up these stairs. There’s a bed big enough for all of us. Very soft. Very comfortable.

ANDY: Are you tired? I can reschedule; I won’t let any of my competitors say I took advantage of anyone by making a transaction while they weren’t perfectly alert.

VOICE 1: (snarls) I don’t need to rest, you stupid old man! I need you to –

ROSALIND: (shouts) Andy! Watch out!

ANDY: Rosalind, what are you doing here?

[The sound of running feet.]

ROSALIND: Being a fantastic assistant. These women aren’t the rightful owners of Castle Dracula. It was actually seized by the Socialist Republic of Romania in 1948 and then returned to Archduke Dominic von Habsburg. Who lives in New York but also claims to be the rightful king of Spain? European politics and property rights are confusing.

ANDY: (gasps) Then who are these three voluptuous phantasms?

VOICE 1: We’re the count’s most loyal brides. And you’re history.

ROSALIND: Not so fast.

[crackling noise]

VOICE 1: (hisses)

ROSALIND: This is a Wheyface brand combination non-denominational religious symbol and Taser for all vampiric and non-vampiric threats. I came prepared.

VOICE 1: This isn’t over.

VOICE 3: We can wait.

ANDY: If you have another prospective buyer, I’m sure we can come to a – oh my. How high up is that window?

ROSALIND: They’re climbing down.

ANDY: Rather like a lizard, wouldn’t you say?

ROSALIND: I’ve seen better technique on my spelunking trips.

ANDY: I think you’ve earned yourself a pay raise, Miss Ursula.

ROSALIND: I’m not actually on your payroll. You’ll have to talk to Brenda about that.

BRENDA: Talk to me about what?

ROSALIND: Brenda? What are you doing here?

BRENDA: We said we were finishing the show up in Romania. I texted you when we got into the station, but you weren’t there to pick us up. They told us at the hotel that Andy was visiting the castle, so we figured we’d at least get some good on-site audio. What’s going on?

ANDY: I wasted a few hours trying to make a real estate deal when evidently I should have been dining with the king of Spain.

ROSALIND: Andy got suckered by some brides of Dracula. Possibly fanatics. Possibly actual vampires.

BRENDA: (knowingly) You never can tell.

ROSALIND: I’m pretty sure they were trying to seduce him, but they were no match for my potent asexual energy. And whatever Andy has going on.

ANDY: They were trying to seduce me?

ROSALIND: Oh, Andy. Let’s have a talk sometime about why your Wheydate matches never work out.

BEA: It sounds like we missed a lot. Should we wrap this episode up and regroup for the end of the season?

ROSALIND: Works for me. Brenda?

BEA: … Brenda? She’s staring into space. Is she ok?

BRENDA: (plaintively) I wanted to be seduced by sexy vampire ladies.

BEA: She’s going to be stuck on that for a while, isn’t she?

ROSALIND: Yup. Come on, boss.

BEA: Next time on Arden –

BRENDA: (aggrieved) I still don’t get any vampire babes!

Chapter Text

[Interview audio]

ROSALIND: This is Elena. She works for C&I Group International, a transport group that moves passengers around the continent with buses, vans, and coaches.

[Field audio - Elena on the phone at work speaking in Romanian.]

[Interview audio]

ROSALIND: Her ancestors have lived in the same town for centuries. She took me to the local graveyard, which predates the founding of the United States.

ELENA: This is where my great, great... great grandmother is buried. Her name was Maria.

ROSALIND: Elena's family was here before the Dracula family, and they outlasted it. But it wasn't easy. She's willing to share a little of what they went through.

ELENA: I've had to put a lot of the pieces together. I think it was hard for people to talk about. There was a lot of shame - that it happened, that they let it happen. Maria, my ancestor, she knew she had a sister. Or, she would have.

ROSALIND: Is she buried here too?

ELENA: No. She isn't.

ROSALIND: What happened?

ELENA: The last conte never married, but he thought of all the women in the village as his. He would call them up to the castle, or sometimes he might come down to the town. If they had children he thought might be his... he would take them. I don't think he wanted bastards, or anyone in the town believing they might have a claim to anything of his. They would never see the children again. Some families were happier that way, but mine... they thought the girl was theirs. Maria grew up knowing what she was missing.

ROSALIND: Did they try to get her back?

ELENA: No. Sometimes mothers did, or their father or husband tried to get revenge... it didn't end well for them. Some people said the conte would feed them to the wolves. He was cruel enough.

ROSALIND: You said people were ashamed they let it happen. Why did they?

ELENA: He was the conte. He bought men, mercenaries. He could turn you out of your home, take away your lands. It was a different time. Or maybe not so different. But we had enough eventually. He left, and we stayed.

ROSALIND: Thank you for sharing that with us.

ELENA: We hear your version of the Dracula story, but he wasn't like that. My ancestors weren't his brides. We just survived him.

ROSALIND: Do you know how many people he hurt?

[Voiceover]

ROSALIND: Elena looks over the graveyard.

[Field audio]

ELENA: There are a lot of missing graves.

In 1893, a series of unexplained killings shocked the English towns of Whitby and London. Blame eventually fell on a Mr. DeVille, a recent arrival from Romania better known as Count Dracula. Before he could be held responsible, he vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a legend that continues to this day. But was the count one more Victorian serial killer, or something even more monstrous? And what does this case tell us about gender, race, and power in Victorian England?

Join us, won’t you? As we unravel the mystery, on Arden.

BEA: Welcome to the final episode of our six-part Dracula miniseries. We’re back in Castle Dracula, where there’s been no sign of Andy’s attackers from yesterday. His encounter adds credence to the rumors of Dracula fans attempting sacrifices in his name, although I’d always dismissed those before. Something for a spinoff series.

BRENDA: And, in case we run into any real vampires, I came prepared.

BEA: You did?

BRENDA: Of course. Check out my carabiner. I’ve got a toothpick that doubles as a mini stake, a mini-flashlight, and a thingy of hand sanitizer I got blessed by that guy on the street corner outside the studio with the sign saying the world’s gonna end. That counts as holy water, I think.

BEA: You’re not even Christian!

BRENDA: The vampires don’t know that.

BEA: Dare I ask why you have a pumpkin carver on there?

BRENDA: For the vampire pumpkins, obviously. Did you do any research?

BEA: Well, we haven’t encountered any vegetables, vampiric or otherwise –

BRENDA: Pumpkins are a fruit, actually.

BEA: Today we’re looking for evidence to see if we can corroborate the Harkers’ story.

BRENDA: Such as… the unmistakable yeehaw traces of a cowboy.

ROSALIND: Wait, did you say a cowboy?

BRENDA: Surely I mentioned the cowboy.

ROSALIND: There was a lot going on yesterday. I kept trying to explain aromanticism to Andy, but it turns out he thinks all happy couples are doing it for the bit.

BEA: Oh dear.

BRENDA: Oh, Andy. Love is the greatest bit there is.

ROSALIND: If you’re into that kind of thing. What were we talking about?

BRENDA: A cowboy helped kill Dracula.

BEA: Allegedly.

ROSALIND: Did he trample him with a herd of wild horses?

BRENDA: Bowie knife. There were a lot of cool knives involved.

ROSALIND: A Bowie knife? Hang on. Like this?

BEA: Where did you find that?

ROSALIND: Andy and I dug it up when we went hunting for buried treasure.

BRENDA: Let me see that. … M…

BEA: Morris?

BRENDA: Rosalind, you’ve done it again.

ROSALIND: About that. Andy was saying I should get a pay raise.

BRENDA: We’ll talk about that later.

BEA: This is the best evidence we’ve found so far that the Harkers were telling the truth. Why else would a Bowie knife be buried in the wilderness of Romania?

BRENDA: Lost American tourists?

BEA: Don’t ruin this for me.

BRENDA: No, I agree, I one thousand percent want this to be the vampire-slaying Bowie knife of a cowboy. That’s canon in my heart.

BEA: You didn’t find any remains there, did you?

ROSALIND: No, I would’ve mentioned that.

BRENDA: No remains if he turned to dust.

BEA: (sighs) Then let’s head to where the bodies are, or aren’t, buried.

[Footsteps on stone. Everyone’s voices echo.]

BEA: We’re descending to the chapel. This lonely spot served as the castle’s crypt and, possibly, where Dracula buried his victims. There are four tombs here, one with the name of someone from Dracula’s line, three with women’s names whose historical connections to the family have been lost. They’ve become thought of as Dracula’s original brides, but we don’t really know anything about them. They could’ve been his sisters, female ancestors…

BRENDA: Women with their own lives not connected to him. Past these tombs is an area of pitted earth. The ground has clearly been disturbed.

BEA: This has to be the origin of Dracula’s infamous boxes of dirt.

BRENDA: Some people suspect his victims are still buried here, but no one’s been able to get permission to use ground penetrating radar, or bring down dogs, or poke around below the surface. Trust us, we tried.

BEA: Even now, Castle Dracula keeps its secrets. It’s so frustrating that we could be inches from some of this town’s missing people, and we’ll never know.

BRENDA: It is frustrating. But also… maybe it’s better this way?

BEA: Why would you say that? You’re the one who wanted to make sure Kail was held responsible last season.

BRENDA: We know who this killer was. He’s already dead. Digging these people up… there’s no immediate family left who’ll get closure. All it’ll do is force their descendants to be part of a sordid media frenzy.

BEA: Hey, this is our sordid media frenzy.

BRENDA: If we dug up someone’s bones here, how long would it take to make them into a Lucy Westenra? For people to decide they must’ve come here willingly? There’s a reason Margaret didn’t tell her story sooner.

BEA: That’s why we have to do this right. (beat) Should we… take a moment?

BRENDA: Sure.

(Silence except for gentle breathing.)

[Studio audio]

BEA: We’re back at the Team Arden home base at the Golden Krone Hotel. Whatever, whoever, we left behind at Castle Dracula, we hope they rest in peace.

BRENDA: So what have we learned?

BEA: We learned that Dracula was a killer who preyed on the vulnerable. He abused and assaulted people, covered up evidence of his crimes, and enjoyed every minute of it. Whether or not Count Dracula was a fiend in possession of unnatural powers -

BRENDA: And let's be real, he totally was.

BEA: Brenda -

BRENDA: And not because I'm saying he was a vampire. I acknowledge he probably wasn't, although that remains my favorite theory. Dracula was a rich guy with lands and titles up against a bunch of disenfranchised peasants, women nobody listened to, and other people that British society didn't care much about. Compared to what they had to work with, of course he seemed unstoppable. Doesn't Andy seem superhuman to you?

BEA: That story he tells about trapping his business rivals on an island using dark magic he found on witchblr did seem over the top.

BRENDA: Pointy teeth and a garlic allergy didn't make Count Dracula a monster. What made him a monster was treating people like disposable playthings, and knowing society would back him up, or at least not make too much of a fuss about it. And that's why I'm not a Dracula fan.

BEA: And his vampire babes?

BRENDA: Are victims in this scenario and I would treat them with dignity and respect, and if they want to cry into my shoulder and one thing leads to another in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, that’s between two or more consenting adults.

BEA: You’ve thought about this.

BRENDA: Extensively.

BEA: I have to agree with you. About the monster part, not the vampire babes.

BRENDA: Coward.

BEA: History has treated Dracula too kindly. He’s been portrayed as suave, and brilliant, and powerful, when really he was just another predator. And maybe part of that’s our fault. We’re the ones who decided he deserved a six-part miniseries. Maybe it speaks to the problems with true crime journalism as a whole, how killers get focused on, how victims get discarded, and how both of those roles are so easily mythologized into a story we’ve all heard before.

BRENDA: You’re not gonna stop, are you?

BEA: No. But I’m going to do better. We’re going to do better. If you’re still on board.

BRENDA: You’re not getting rid of me that easily.

[Wheyface jingle.]

ANDY: Today, as Bea and Brenda conclude another season of our hit podcast Arden, Wheyface Industries is bringing you…. Aromanticism. Husbands? Wives? Lovers? Sinister counts ahistorically represented as sexy? Not required! Why did no one tell me this before?

ROSALIND: It’s the world’s best kept secret.

ANDY: Save time! Save money! Seek out more worthwhile pursuits rather than creating a dating app in an effort to find your soulmate when really you should be getting to know your greatest love of all, yourself.

ROSALIND: It helps to be independently wealthy so you don’t have to worry about a single income or health insurance, but, you know.

ANDY: Aromanticism! Just say no and get out of there!

[Jingle ends]

PAMELA: And that’s a wrap! Thank you to everyone for another successful season of Arden. We appreciate our sponsors, including major season backer Peregrín One Garlic who apparently have a sense of humor. Our five newest Patreon backers are Fool_Of_A_Book, TheAllKnowingOwl, fedoranonymous, Chemicallywrit, and Anonymous. Finally I would like to thank Brenda for her restraint, because I wasn’t sure we were going to get through this season without her staking someone through the heart. [pause] What’s that? [pause] Ok, I’m hearing that she did stake a cantaloupe, just to be sure. And we’ve got fruit salad in the break room once I wrap this up.

As always, Arden was brought to you by Wheyface Industries. The good people.