Chapters: 17, 18, 19 and 20

These chapters involve the start of the search and hunt made for Dracula by Van Helsing, Dr Seward, Lord Godalming, Quincey Morris and Jonathan Harker. After her initial help, they relieve Mina of any further duties as she may not be able to deal with the scary reality of some of the things she may discover. The fact that they don't let her help anymore could be seen as sexist or it could just be that they want to protect her. She helps them prior to this by typing up Dr Seward's phonographic diary and then by chronologically ordering all diary entries and newspaper cuttings they have. Once this collection is read by everyone, a meeting is held in which they discuss how to deal with Dracula. Van Helsing informs the others of typical strengths (e.g - can transform into bats and wolves and human blood regenerates them) and typical weaknesses (e.g - garlic, crucifixes and daylight) of vampires. Once it is discovered that the house next door to the asylum is owned by Dracula the five men decide to investigate it straight away. This fact also again raises suspicions that the Count has in some way possessed the lunatic Renfield, who twice escaped and ran to the house where he was heard talking to his 'master'. In the house they discover that twenty one boxes of earth are missing. Jonathan manages to trace them to a house in Piccadilly which they plan to investigate further. He also begins to notice that Mina is looking paler than usual and has been sleeping for longer. Mina has a dream in which she wakes in the middle of the night and is surrounded by a thick smoke. It is said earlier in the chapter that vampires can take this form. This worries the reader, as she is also showing similar symptoms to ones which Lucy had and Mina might not have been dreaming after all... Dr Seward starts to keep a much closer eye on Renfield, as he believes that his mood swings can be linked to the actions of the Count. He also believes that Renfield is after a 'human soul' which could also signify his cooperation with the Count in some way. Chapter 20 ends with a cliffhanger as Dr Seward learns that Renfield has "met with some accident" and is "covered with blood". Could this be linked to an impending attack of some kind that the Count is preparing to make?