Chapter 17 starts out from Dr. Steward’s diary with a telegram from Mina Harker to Van Helsing stating that she would be coming to London by train, and that Jonathan was at Whitby. Van Helsing gives Dr. Steward a copy of Jonathan’s diary from Castle Dracula and Mina’s Diary from Whitby for him to study. Dr. Steward picks Mina up from the train station and takes her to his house to stay at.

Then it switches to Mina’s diary. She is very interested in Dr. Steward’s phonograph and offers to type the story of Lucy’s death on her typewriter so that they have documentation and Jonathan, Lord Godalming, and Mr. Morris can all read it.

The story switches back to Dr. Steward’s diary and Jonathan arrives from Whitby. Jonathan and Mina begin knitting together all the evidence they have of vampires, and typing it out. We learn that the Count’s house in London is right next to Dr. Steward’s house. He goes to visit Renfield, and they talk for a while. Renfield talks about getting discharged and going home. I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of his outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for him after a brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those outbreaks were in some way linked to the proximity of the count. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that his instinct is satisfied as to the vampire’s ultimate triumph?

It switches to Jonathan Harker’s journal and goes back a few days to when he was in Whitby. He was there getting information about the Count’s mysterious cargo from Mr. Billington. Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision. He seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle, which might be placed by accident in the way of his intentions being carried out. Mr. Billington gave him an invoice of “Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes”, and a letter to Carter Paterson and the reply. He went to talk to the man who had received the boxes and he said that the boxes were “main and moral heavy” and that shifting them was dry work. He then talked to a few more people, and one carrier said Blyme! But it ain’t been touched sence a hundred years. There was dust that thick in the place that you might have slep’ on it without `urtin’ of yer bones. An’ the place was that neglected that yer might `ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it.

 Jonathan learned that there should be 50 of the boxes in the old chapel at Carafax.

Switching to Mina’s journal, Lord Godaling and Mr. Morris arrive and Mina tells them all that she knows about Count Dracula. Then Lord Godaling and Mina are left alone and he tells her about how he loved Lucy and about all the grief he’s experiencing.