The element of mystery is prominent and a very big factor in helping the story of Dracula become a fan favorite. The basis behind this claim is that at the time, Dracula was a very new story, so unlike nowadays, people were not as familiar with the story and what was going on. With this story being new and unprecedented, there needed to be a way to draw in the readers and mystery was used as that way to draw them in. In chapter 14 there is mention of “‘What kind of shock was it?’ ‘He thought he saw someone who recalled something terrible, which led to his brain fever,’” this conveys how mystery is a factor in helping fans enjoy Dracula because at this time we are unsure of what is going on and what exactly this guy saw. With this mystery it becomes a good stoping place for readers while also being a way to induce discussion about said mystery. With people coming up with different ideas and discussing them it allows for Dracula to build an audience of people who hear the argument and decide to read it but it also encourages fan engagement as the people who read it get more into the arguments and start to read closer so that they believe they have the right answers.
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I agree with your interpretation that there is an extra sense of mystery in Dracula for people who were reading this when it was published. In today’s culture we are so familiar with the idea of vampires that the progression of the novel can seem a bit predictable, but this was not the case for people during the Victorian Era. There were vampire novels, but not nearly as many, making this story feel completely new and “sensational.”