STRANGE CASE OF
                               DR. JEKYLL AND
                                  MR. HYDE

                                     BY
                            ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON




1)



                             STORY OF THE DOOR

MR. UTTERSON the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was
never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in
discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and
yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to
his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye;
something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which
spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but
more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with
himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for
vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the
doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for
others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure
of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined
to help rather than to reprove.

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"I incline to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my
brother go to the devil in his own way." In this character, it was
frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the
last good influence in the lives of down-going men. And to such as
these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a
shade of change in his demeanour.

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was
undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be
founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a
modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands
of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were
those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest; his
affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no
aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to
Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about
town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in
each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was
reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that
they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with
obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For all that, the two men
put the greatest store by these excursions, counted them the chief
jewel of each week, and not only set aside occasions of pleasure,
but even resisted the calls

3)

of business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.

It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them down a
by-street in a busy quarter of London. The street was small and
what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on the
week-days. The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed, and all
emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the surplus of
their gains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood along that
thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of smiling
saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms
and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in
contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and
with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, and
general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught and pleased
the eye of the passenger.

Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east, the line
was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point, a
certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the
street. It was two stories high; showed no window, nothing but a
door on the lower story and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on
the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and
sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither bell
nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched into the
recess and struck matches on

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the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had
tried his knife on the mouldings; and for close on a generation, no
one had appeared to drive away these random visitors or to repair
their ravages.

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the by-street;
but when they came abreast of the entry, the former lifted up his
cane and pointed.

"Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when his companion
had replied in the affirmative, "It is connected in my mind," added
he, "with a very odd story."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice, "and
what was that?"

"Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield: "I was coming home
from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock of a
black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where
there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after
street, and all the folks asleep--street after street, all lighted
up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church--till at
last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens
and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. All at once, I saw
two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a
good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was
running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the
two ran into one another naturally enough at the

5)

corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man
trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on
the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.
It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a
view-halloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought
him back to where there was already quite a group about the
screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but
gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like
running. The people who had turned out were the girl's own family;
and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his
appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened,
according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would
be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken
a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So had the child's
family, which was only natural. But the doctor's case was what
struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no particular
age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as
emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every
time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and
white with the desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just
as he knew what was in mine; and killing being out of the question,
we did the next best. We told the man we could

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and would make such a scandal out of this, as should make his name
stink from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends or
any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time,
as we were pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the women off him
as best we could, for they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a
circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle,
with a kind of black, sneering coolness--frightened too, I could
see that--but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan. 'If you
choose to make capital out of this accident,' said he, 'I am
naturally helpless. No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says
he. 'Name your figure.' Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds
for the child's family; he would have clearly liked to stick out;
but there was something about the lot of us that meant mischief, and
at last he struck. The next thing was to get the money; and where
do you think he carried us but to that place with the door?--
whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with the matter
of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on Coutts's,
drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I can't mention,
though it's one of the points of my story, but it was a name at
least very well known and often printed. The figure was stiff; but
the signature was good for more than that, if it was only genuine. I
took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole

7)

business looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life,
walk into a cellar door at four in the morning and come out of it
with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred pounds. But he
was quite easy and sneering. 'Set your mind at rest,' says he, 'I
will stay with you till the banks open and cash the cheque myself.'
So we all set off, the doctor, and the child's father, and our
friend and myself, and passed the rest of the night in my chambers;
and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in a body to the bank. I
gave in the check myself, and said I had every reason to believe it
was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine."

"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.

"I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it's a bad story.
For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really
damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink
of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of
your fellows who do what they call good. Black-mail, I suppose; an
honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his
youth. Black-Mail House is what I call that place with the door, in
consequence. Though even that, you know, is far from explaining
all," he added, and with the words fell into a vein of musing.

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather suddenly:
"And you don't know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?"

8)

"A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield. "But I happen to
have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other."

"And you never asked about the--place with the door?" said Mr.
Utterson.

"No, sir: I had a delicacy," was the reply. "I feel very strongly
about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the
day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a
stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone
goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last
you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own
back-garden and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I
make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the
less I ask."

"A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.

"But I have studied the place for myself," continued Mr. Enfield.
"It seems scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes
in or out of that one but, once in a great while, the gentleman of
my adventure. There are three windows looking on the court on the
first floor; none below; the windows are always shut but they're
clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally smoking; so
somebody must live there. And yet it's not so sure; for the
buildings are so packed together about that court, that it's hard to
say where one ends and another begins."

9)

The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then,
"Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule of yours."

"Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield.

"But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one point I want
to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the
child."

"Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it would do. It
was a man of the name of Hyde."

"H'm," said Mr. Utterson. "What sort of a man is he to see?"

"He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his
appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I
never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be
deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although
I couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary-looking man, and
yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no
hand of it; I can't describe him. And it's not want of memory; for I
declare I can see him this moment."

Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and obviously under a
weight of consideration.

"You are sure he used a key?" he inquired at last.

"My dear sir..." began Enfield, surprised out of himself.

10)

"Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem strange. The
fact is, if I do not ask you the name of the other party, it is
because I know it already. You see, Richard, your tale has gone
home. If you have been inexact in any point, you had better correct
it."

"I think you might have warned me," returned the other, with a
touch of sullenness. "But I have been pedantically exact, as you
call it. The fellow had a key; and what's more, he has it still. I
saw him use it, not a week ago."

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; and the young man
presently resumed. "Here is another lesson to say nothing," said he.
"I am ashamed of my long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to
refer to this again."

"With all my heart," said the lawyer. "I shake hands on that,
Richard."

11)


                        SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE

THAT evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre
spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of
a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a
volume of some dry divinity on his reading-desk, until the clock of
the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would
go soberly and gratefully to bed. On this night, however, as soon as
the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went into his
business-room. There he opened his safe, took from the most private
part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will,
and sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents. The will was
holograph, for Mr. Utterson, though he took charge of it now that it
was made, had refused to lend the least assistance in the making of
it; it provided not only that, in case of the decease of Henry
Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., etc., all his possessions were
to pass into the hands of his "friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,"
but that in case of

12)

Dr. Jekyll's "disappearance or unexplained absence for any period
exceeding three calendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step
into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free
from any burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small
sums to the members of the doctor's household. This document had
long been the lawyer's eyesore. It offended him both as a lawyer and
as a lover of the sane and customary sides of life, to whom the
fanciful was the immodest. And hitherto it was his ignorance of Mr.
Hyde that had swelled his indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was
his knowledge. It was already bad enough when the name was but a
name of which he could learn no more. It was worse when it began to
be clothed upon with detestable attributes; and out of the shifting,
insubstantial mists that had so long baffled his eye, there leaped
up the sudden, definite presentment of a fiend.

"I thought it was madness," he said, as he replaced the obnoxious
paper in the safe, "and now I begin to fear it is disgrace."

With that he blew out his candle, put on a great-coat, and set
forth in the direction of Cavendish Square, that citadel of
medicine, where his friend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his house and
received his crowding patients. "If any one knows, it will be
Lanyon," he had thought.

The solemn butler knew and welcomed him;

13)

he was subjected to no stage of delay, but ushered direct from the
door to the dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone over his wine.
This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a
shock of hair prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided
manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and
welcomed him with both hands. The geniality, as was the way of the
man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine
feeling. For these two were old friends, old mates both at school
and college, both thorough respecters of themselves and of each
other, and, what does not always follow, men who thoroughly enjoyed
each other's company.

After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject
which so disagreeably pre-occupied his mind.

"I suppose, Lanyon," said he "you and I must be the two oldest
friends that Henry Jekyll has?"

"I wish the friends were younger," chuckled Dr. Lanyon. "But I
suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now."


"Indeed?" said Utterson. "I thought you had a bond of common
interest."

"We had," was the reply. "But it is more than ten years since Henry
Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in
mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for
old sake's sake, as they say,

14)

I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific
balderdash," added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, "would have
estranged Damon and Pythias."

This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to Mr.
Utterson. "They have only differed on some point of science," he
thought; and being a man of no scientific passions (except in the
matter of conveyancing), he even added: "It is nothing worse than
that!" He gave his friend a few seconds to recover his composure,
and then approached the question he had come to put. "Did you ever
come across a protege of his--one Hyde?" he asked.

"Hyde?" repeated Lanyon. "No. Never heard of him. Since my time."

That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried back
with him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and fro,
until the small hours of the morning began to grow large. It was a
night of little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness
and besieged by questions.

Six o'clock struck on the bells of the church that was so
conveniently near to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was
digging at the problem. Hitherto it had touched him on the
intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged,
or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness
of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by

15)

before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be aware
of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the figure
of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the doctor's;
and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the child down
and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else he would see a room
in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling
at his dreams; and then the door of that room would be opened, the
curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled, and lo!
there would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given, and
even at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The figure
in these two phases haunted the lawyer all night; and if at any time
he dozed over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily through
sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the more
swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamplighted
city, and at every street-corner crush a child and leave her
screaming. And still the figure had no face by which he might know
it; even in his dreams, it had no face, or one that baffled him and
melted before his eyes; and thus it was that there sprang up and
grew apace in the lawyer's mind a singularly strong, almost an
inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde.
If he could but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would
lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was the habit of
mysterious

16)

things when well examined. He might see a reason for his friend's
strange preference or bondage (call it which you please) and even
for the startling clause of the will. At least it would be a face
worth seeing: the face of a man who was without bowels of mercy: a
face which had but to show itself to raise up, in the mind of the
unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.

From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in the
by-street of shops. In the morning before office hours, at noon when
business was plenty, and time scarce, at night under the face of the
fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude or
concourse, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post.

"If he be Mr. Hyde," he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek."

And at last his patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night;
frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; the
lamps, unshaken, by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light
and shadow. By ten o'clock, when the shops were closed, the
by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of
London from all round, very silent. Small sounds carried far;
domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either
side of the roadway; and the rumour of the approach of any
passenger preceded him by a long time. Mr. Utterson had been some
minutes at his post, when he was

17)

aware of an odd, light footstep drawing near. In the course of his
nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect
with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a
great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and
clatter of the city. Yet his attention had never before been so
sharply and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong,
superstitious prevision of success that he withdrew into the entry
of the court.

The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as
they turned the end of the street. The lawyer, looking forth from
the entry, could soon see what manner of man he had to deal with.
He was small and very plainly dressed, and the look of him, even at
that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher's
inclination. But he made straight for the door, crossing the
roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a key from his pocket
like one approaching home.

Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he
passed. "Mr. Hyde, I think?"

Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath. But his
fear was only momentary; and though he did not look the lawyer in
the face, he answered coolly enough: "That is my name. What do you
want?"

"I see you are going in," returned the lawyer. "I am an old friend
of Dr. Jekyll's--Mr. Utter-

18)

son of Gaunt Street--you must have heard my name; and meeting you
so conveniently, I thought you might admit me."

"You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home," replied Mr. Hyde,
blowing in the key. And then suddenly, but still without looking up,
"How did you know me?" he asked.

"On your side," said Mr. Utterson, "will you do me a favour?"

"With pleasure," replied the other. "What shall it be?"

"Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer.

Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as if upon some sudden
reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair
stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. "Now I shall
know you again," said Mr. Utterson. "It may be useful."

"Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, "it is as well we have, met; and a
propos, you should have my address." And he gave a number of a
street in Soho.

"Good God!" thought Mr. Utterson, "can he, too, have been thinking
of the will?" But he kept his feelings to himself and only grunted
in acknowledgment of the address.

"And now," said the other, "how did you know me?"

"By description," was the reply.

"Whose description?"

19)

"We have common friends," said Mr. Utterson.

"Common friends?" echoed Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely. "Who are
they?"

"Jekyll, for instance," said the lawyer.

"He never told you," cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of anger. "I did
not think you would have lied."

"Come," said Mr. Utterson, "that is not fitting language."


The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment,
with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and
disappeared into the house.

The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, the picture of
disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing
every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in
mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked,
was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and
dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable
malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to
the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and
boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken
voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these
together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing, and
fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. "There must be some-

20)

thing else," said the perplexed gentleman. "There is something
more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems
hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it be the
old story of Dr. Fell? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul
that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent?
The last, I think; for, O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read
Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend."

Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of ancient,
handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high
estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of
men: map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers, and the agents of
obscure enterprises. One house, however, second from the corner, was
still occupied entire; and at the door of this, which wore a great
air of wealth and comfort, though it was now plunged in darkness
except for the fan-light, Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A
well-dressed, elderly servant opened the door.

"Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole?" asked the lawyer.

"I will see, Mr. Utterson," said Poole, admitting the visitor, as
he spoke, into a large, low-roofed, comfortable hall, paved with
flags, warmed (after the fashion of a country house) by a bright,
open fire, and furnished with costly cabinets of oak. "Will you
wait here by the

21)

fire, sir? or shall I give you a light in the dining room?"

"Here, thank you," said the lawyer, and he drew near and leaned on
the tall fender. This hall, in which he was now left alone, was a
pet fancy of his friend the doctor's; and Utterson himself was wont
to speak of it as the pleasantest room in London. But to-night there
was a shudder in his blood; the face of Hyde sat heavy on his
memory; he felt (what was rare with him) a nausea and distaste of
life; and in the gloom of his spirits, he seemed to read a menace in
the flickering of the firelight on the polished cabinets and the
uneasy starting of the shadow on the roof. He was ashamed of his
relief, when Poole presently returned to announce that Dr. Jekyll
was gone out.

"I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting-room door, Poole," he
said. "Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"

"Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant. "Mr. Hyde
has a key."

"Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that young
man, Poole," resumed the other musingly.

"Yes, sir, he do indeed," said Poole. "We have all orders to obey
him."

"I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?" asked Utterson.


"O, dear no, sir. He never dines here," replied the butler. "Indeed
we see very little of

22)

him on this side of the house; he mostly comes and goes by the
laboratory."

"Well, good-night, Poole."

"Good-night, Mr. Utterson." And the lawyer set out homeward with a
very heavy heart. "Poor Harry Jekyll," he thought, "my mind
misgives me he is in deep waters! He was wild when he was young; a
long while ago to be sure; but in the law of God, there is no
statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old
sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace: punishment coming, PEDE
CLAUDO, years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the
fault." And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded a while on
his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance
some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there.
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their
life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the
many ill things he had done, and raised up again into a sober and
fearful gratitude by the many that he had come so near to doing, yet
avoided. And then by a return on his former subject, he conceived a
spark of hope. "This Master Hyde, if he were studied," thought he,
"must have secrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him;
secrets compared to which poor Jekyll's worst would be like
sunshine. Things cannot continue as they are. It turns me cold to
think of this creature stealing like a

23)

thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry, what a wakening! And the
danger of it; for if this Hyde suspects the existence of the will,
he may grow impatient to inherit. Ay, I must put my shoulder to the
wheel if Jekyll will but let me," he added, "if Jekyll will only let
me." For once more he saw before his mind's eye, as clear as a
transparency, the strange clauses of the will.

24)



                      DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE

A FORTNIGHT later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave one
of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all
intelligent, reputable men and all judges of good wine; and Mr.
Utterson so contrived that he remained behind after the others had
departed. This was no new arrangement, but a thing that had
befallen many scores of times. Where Utterson was liked, he was
liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the
light-hearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the
threshold; they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company,
practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich
silence after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule, Dr.
Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of
the fire--a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with
something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and
kindness--you could see by his looks that he cherished for Mr.
Utterson a sincere and warm affection.

25)


"I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll," began the latter.
"You know that will of yours?"

A close observer might have gathered that the topic was
distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily. "My poor
Utterson," said he, "you are unfortunate in such a client. I never
saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that
hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies.
Oh, I know he's a good fellow--you needn't frown--an excellent
fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but a hide-bound
pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more
disappointed in any man than Lanyon."

"You know I never approved of it," pursued Utterson, ruthlessly
disregarding the fresh topic.

"My will? Yes, certainly, I know that," said the doctor, a trifle
sharply. "You have told me so."

"Well, I tell you so again," continued the lawyer. "I have been
learning something of young Hyde."

The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips,
and there came a blackness about his eyes. "I do not care to hear
more," said he. "This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop."

"What I heard was abominable," said Utterson.

"It can make no change. You do not under-

26)

stand my position," returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency
of manner. "I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very
strange--a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that
cannot be mended by talking."

"Jekyll," said Utterson, "you know me: I am a man to be trusted.
Make a clean breast of this in confidence; and I make no doubt I
can get you out of it."

"My good Utterson," said the doctor, "this is very good of you,
this is downright good of you, and I cannot find words to thank you
in. I believe you fully; I would trust you before any man alive, ay,
before myself, if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn't what
you fancy; it is not so bad as that; and just to put your good heart
at rest, I will tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be
rid of Mr. Hyde. I give you my hand upon that; and I thank you again
and again; and I will just add one little word, Utterson, that I'm
sure you'll take in good part: this is a private matter, and I beg
of you to let it sleep."


Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire.

"I have no doubt you are perfectly right," he said at last, getting
to his feet.

"Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for the
last time I hope," continued the doctor, "there is one point I
should like you to understand. I have really a very great interest
in poor Hyde. I know you have seen

27)

him; he told me so; and I fear he was rude. But, I do sincerely
take a great, a very great interest in that young man; and if I am
taken away, Utterson, I wish you to promise me that you will bear
with him and get his rights for him. I think you would, if you knew
all; and it would be a weight off my mind if you would promise."

"I can't pretend that I shall ever like him," said the lawyer.

"I don't ask that," pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand upon the
other's arm; "I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him
for my sake, when I am no longer here."

Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh. "Well," said he, "I
promise."

28)



                      THE CAREW MURDER CASE

NEARLY a year later, in the month of October, 18---, London was
startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more
notable by the high position of the victim. The details were few and
startling. A maid servant living alone in a house not far from the
river, had gone up-stairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled
over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was
cloudless, and the lane, which the maid's window overlooked, was
brilliantly lit by the full moon. It seems she was romantically
given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood immediately under
the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say,
with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience), never had
she felt more at peace with all men or thought more kindly of the
world. And as she so sat she became aware of an aged and beautiful
gentleman with white hair, drawing near along the lane; and
advancing to meet him, another and very small gentleman, to whom at
first she

29)

paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was
just under the maid's eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the
other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as
if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed,
from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only
inquiring his way; but the moon shone on his face as he spoke, and
the girl was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an
innocent and old-world kindness of disposition, yet with something
high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye
wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognise in him a
certain Mr. Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she
had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which
he was trifling; but he answered never a word, and seemed to listen
with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke
out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing
the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman.
The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much
surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all
bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like
fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a
storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the
body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and
sounds, the maid fainted.

30)

It was two o'clock when she came to herself and called for the
police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim in
the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the
deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and
heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this
insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the
neighbouring gutter--the other, without doubt, had been carried
away by the murderer. A purse and a gold watch were found upon the
victim: but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped
envelope, which he had been probably carrying to the post, and which
bore the name and address of Mr. Utterson.

This was brought to the lawyer the next morning, before he was out
of bed; and he had no sooner seen it, and been told the
circumstances, than he shot out a solemn lip. "I shall say nothing
till I have seen the body," said he; "this may be very serious. Have
the kindness to wait while I dress." And with the same grave
countenance he hurried through his breakfast and drove to the police
station, whither the body had been carried. As soon as he came into
the cell, he nodded.

"Yes," said he, "I recognise him. I am sorry to say that this is
Sir Danvers Carew."

"Good God, sir," exclaimed the officer, "is it possible?" And the
next moment his eye

31)

lighted up with professional ambition. "This will make a deal of
noise," he said. "And perhaps you can help us to the man." And he
briefly narrated what the maid had seen, and showed the broken
stick.

Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of Hyde; but when the
stick was laid before him, he could doubt no longer; broken and
battered as it was, he recognised it for one that he had himself
presented many years before to Henry Jekyll.

"Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?" he inquired.

"Particularly small and particularly wicked-looking, is what the
maid calls him," said the officer.

Mr. Utterson reflected; and then, raising his head, "If you will
come with me in my cab," he said, "I think I can take you to his
house."

It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of
the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but
the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled
vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr.
Utterson beheld a marvellous number of degrees and hues of twilight;
for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there
would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some
strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be
quite broken up, and a haggard shaft

32)

of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. The
dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its
muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had
never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this
mournful re-invasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's eyes, like
a district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of his mind,
besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the
companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that
terror of the law and the law's officers, which may at times assail
the most honest.

As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a
little and showed him a dingy street, a gin palace, a low French
eating-house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and twopenny
salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many
women of different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a
morning glass; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon
that part, as brown as umber, and cut him off from his blackguardly
surroundings. This was the home of Henry Jekyll's favourite; of a
man who was heir to a quarter of a million sterling.

An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She
had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were
excellent. Yes, she said, this was Mr. Hyde's, but he was not at
home; he had been in that night very late,

33)

but had gone away again in less than an hour; there was nothing
strange in that; his habits were very irregular, and he was often
absent; for instance, it was nearly two months since she had seen
him till yesterday.

"Very well, then, we wish to see his rooms," said the lawyer; and
when the woman began to declare it was impossible, "I had better
tell you who this person is," he added. "This is Inspector Newcomen
of Scotland Yard."

A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman's face. "Ah!" said
she, "he is in trouble! What has he done?"

Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged glances. "He don't seem a
very popular character," observed the latter. "And now, my good
woman, just let me and this gentleman have a look about us."

In the whole extent of the house, which but for the old woman
remained otherwise empty, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of rooms;
but these were furnished with luxury and good taste. A closet was
filled with wine; the plate was of silver, the napery elegant; a
good picture hung upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson supposed) from
Henry Jekyll, who was much of a connoisseur; and the carpets were of
many plies and agreeable in colour. At this moment, however, the
rooms bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly
ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside
out;

34)

lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of
grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these
embers the inspector disinterred the butt-end of a green
cheque-book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the other
half of the stick was found behind the door; and as this clinched
his suspicions, the officer declared himself delighted. A visit to
the bank, where several thousand pounds were found to be lying to
the murderer's credit, completed his gratification.

"You may depend upon it, sir," he told Mr. Utterson: "I have him in
my hand. He must have lost his head, or he never would have left the
stick or, above all, burned the cheque-book. Why, money's life to
the man. We have nothing to do but wait for him at the bank, and get
out the handbills."

This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for Mr. Hyde
had numbered few familiars--even the master of the servant-maid
had only seen him twice; his family could nowhere be traced; he had
never been photographed; and the few who could describe him differed
widely, as common observers will. Only on one point, were they
agreed; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity
with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.

35)



                     INCIDENT OF THE LETTER

IT was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found his way to
Dr. Jekyll's door, where he was at once admitted by Poole, and
carried down by the kitchen offices and across a yard which had
once been a garden, to the building which was indifferently known
as the laboratory or the dissecting-rooms. The doctor had bought
the house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon; and his own
tastes being rather chemical than anatomical, had changed the
destination of the block at the bottom of the garden. It was the
first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his
friend's quarters; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with
curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness
as he crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager students and now
lying gaunt and silent, the tables laden with chemical apparatus,
the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing straw, and
the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola. At the further
end, a flight of stairs mounted to a door covered with red baize;

36)

and through this, Mr. Utterson was at last received into the
doctor's cabinet. It was a large room, fitted round with glass
presses, furnished, among other things, with a cheval-glass and a
business table, and looking out upon the court by three dusty
windows barred with iron. A fire burned in the grate; a lamp was
set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog
began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr.
Jekyll, looking deadly sick. He did not rise to meet his visitor,
but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome in a changed voice.

"And now," said Mr. Utterson, as soon as Poole had left them, "you
have heard the news?"

The doctor shuddered. "They were crying it in the square," he said.
"I heard them in my dining-room."

"One word," said the lawyer. "Carew was my client, but so are you,
and I want to know what I am doing. You have not been mad enough to
hide this fellow?"

"Utterson, I swear to God," cried the doctor, "I swear to God I
will never set eyes on him again. I bind my honour to you that I am
done with him in this world. It is all at an end. And indeed he does
not want my help; you do not know him as I do; he is safe, he is
quite safe; mark my words, he will never more be heard of."


The lawyer listened gloomily; he did not like his friend's feverish
manner. "You seem pretty

37)

sure of him," said he; "and for your sake, I hope you may be right.
If it came to a trial, your name might appear."

"I am quite sure of him," replied Jekyll; "I have grounds for
certainty that I cannot share with any one. But there is one thing
on which you may advise me. I have--I have received a letter; and
I am at a loss whether I should show it to the police. I should like
to leave it in your hands, Utterson; you would judge wisely, I am
sure; I have so great a trust in you."

"You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detection?" asked
the lawyer.

"No," said the other. "I cannot say that I care what becomes of
Hyde; I am quite done with him. I was thinking of my own character,
which this hateful business has rather exposed."

Utterson ruminated a while; he was surprised at his friend's
selfishness, and yet relieved by it. "Well," said he, at last, "let
me see the letter."

The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and signed "Edward
Hyde": and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer's
benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for a
thousand generosities, need labour under no alarm for his safety, as
he had means of escape on which he placed a sure dependence. The
lawyer liked this letter well enough; it put a better colour on the
intimacy than he had looked for; and he blamed himself for some of
his past suspicions.

38)


"Have you the envelope?" he asked.

"I burned it," replied Jekyll, "before I thought what I was about.
But it bore no postmark. The note was handed in."

"Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?" asked Utterson.

"I wish you to judge for me entirely," was the reply. "I have lost
confidence in myself."

"Well, I shall consider," returned the lawyer. "And now one word
more: it was Hyde who dictated the terms in your will about that
disappearance?"

The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness: he shut his
mouth tight and nodded.

"I knew it," said Utterson. "He meant to murder you. You have had a
fine escape."

"I have had what is far more to the purpose," returned the doctor
solemnly: "I have had a lesson--O God, Utterson, what a lesson I
have had!" And he covered his face for a moment with his hands.

On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with
Poole. "By the by," said he, "there was a letter handed in to-day:
what was the messenger like?" But Poole was positive nothing had
come except by post; "and only circulars by that," he added.

This news sent off the visitor with his fears renewed. Plainly the
letter had come by the laboratory door; possibly, indeed, it had
been

39)

written in the cabinet; and if that were so, it must be differently
judged, and handled with the more caution. The newsboys, as he went,
were crying themselves hoarse along the footways: "Special edition.
Shocking murder of an M. P." That was the funeral oration of one
friend and client; and he could not help a certain apprehension lest
the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the
scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish decision that he had to make;
and self-reliant as he was by habit, he began to cherish a longing
for advice. It was not to be had directly; but perhaps, he thought,
it might be fished for.

Presently after, he sat on one side of his own hearth, with Mr.
Guest, his head clerk, upon the other, and midway between, at a
nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a particular
old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his
house. The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where
the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and through the muffle and
smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town's life
was still rolling in through the great arteries with a sound as of a
mighty wind. But the room was gay with firelight. In the bottle the
acids were long ago resolved; the imperial dye had softened with
time, As the colour grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of
hot autumn afternoons on hillside vineyards was ready to be set free

40)

and to disperse the fogs of London. Insensibly the lawyer melted.
There was no man from whom he kept fewer secrets than Mr. Guest;
and he was not always sure that he kept as many as he meant. Guest
had often been on business to the doctor's; he knew Poole; he could
scarce have failed to hear of Mr. Hyde's familiarity about the
house; he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that he
should see a letter which put that mystery to rights? and above all
since Guest, being a great student and critic of handwriting, would
consider the step natural and obliging? The clerk, besides, was a
man of counsel; he would scarce read so strange a document without
dropping a remark; and by that remark Mr. Utterson might shape his
future course.