The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Page 2

  SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE

  That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombrespirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of aSunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volumeof some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the clock of theneighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would gosoberly and gratefully to bed. On this night however, as soon as thecloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went into his businessroom. There he opened his safe, took from the most private part of it adocument endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will and sat down witha 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 refusedto lend the least assistance in the making of it; it provided not onlythat, 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 Dr. Jekyll's"disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding threecalendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step into the said HenryJekyll's shoes without further delay and free from any burthen orobligation beyond the payment of a few small sums to the members of thedoctor's household. This document had long been the lawyer's eyesore. Itoffended him both as a lawyer and as a lover of the sane and customarysides of life, to whom the fanciful was the immodest. And hitherto itwas his ignorance of Mr. Hyde that had swelled his indignation; now, bya sudden turn, it was his knowledge. It was already bad enough when thename was but a name of which he could learn no more. It was worse whenit began to be clothed upon with detestable attributes; and out of theshifting, insubstantial mists that had so long baffled his eye, thereleaped up the sudden, definite presentment of a fiend.

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

  With that he blew out his candle, put on a greatcoat, and set forth inthe direction of Cavendish Square, that citadel of medicine, where hisfriend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his house and received his crowdingpatients. "If anyone knows, it will be Lanyon," he had thought.

  The solemn butler knew and welcomed him; he was subjected to no stageof delay, but ushered direct from the door to the dining-room whereDr. Lanyon sat alone over his wine. This was a hearty, healthy, dapper,red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white, and aboisterous and decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang upfrom his chair and welcomed him with both hands. The geniality, as wasthe way of the man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposedon genuine feeling. For these two were old friends, old mates both atschool and college, both thorough respectors of themselves and of eachother, and what does not always follow, men who thoroughly enjoyed eachother's company.

  After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject which sodisagreeably preoccupied his mind.

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

  "I wish the friends were younger," chuckled Dr. Lanyon. "But I supposewe 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 HenryJekyll 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 oldsake's sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of theman. Such unscientific balderdash," added the doctor, flushing suddenlypurple, "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 ofconveyancing), he even added: "It is nothing worse than that!" He gavehis friend a few seconds to recover his composure, and then approachedthe question he had come to put. "Did you ever come across a protege ofhis--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 himto the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and fro, until the smallhours of the morning began to grow large. It was a night of little easeto his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and beseiged by questions.

  Six o'clock struck on the bells of the church that was so convenientlynear to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was digging at theproblem. Hitherto it had touched him on the intellectual side alone; butnow his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved; and as he layand tossed in the gross darkness of the night and the curtained room,Mr. Enfield's tale went by before his mind in a scroll of lightedpictures. He would be aware of the great field of lamps of a nocturnalcity; then of the figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a childrunning from the doctor's; and then these met, and that human Juggernauttrod the child down and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else hewould see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreamingand smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room would beopened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled, andlo! there would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given, andeven at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The figure inthese two phases haunted the lawyer all night; and if at any time hedozed over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily through sleepinghouses, or move the more swiftly and still the more swiftly, even todizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamplighted city, and at everystreet corner crush a child and leave her screaming. And still thefigure had no face by which he might know it; even in his dreams, it hadno face, or one that baffled him and melted before his eyes; and thusit was that there sprang up and grew apace in the lawyer's mind asingularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity to behold thefeatures of the real Mr. Hyde. If he could but once set eyes on him, hethought the mystery would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, aswas the habit of mysterious things when well examined. He might see areason for his friend's strange preference or bondage (call it which youplease) and even for the startling clause of the will. At least it wouldbe a face worth seeing: the face of a man who was without bowels ofmercy: a face which had but to show itself to raise up, in the mind ofthe unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.

  From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in theby-street of shops. In the morning before office hours, at noon whenbusiness was plenty, and time scarce, at night under the face ofthe fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude orconcourse, 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 inthe air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; the lamps, unshakenby any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow. By teno'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. Smallsounds carried far; domestic sounds out of the houses were clearlyaudible on either side of the roadway; and the rumour of the approachof any passenger preceded him by a long time. Mr. Utterson had been someminutes at his post, when he was aware of an odd light footstep drawingnear. In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomedto the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, whilehe is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vasthum and clatter of the city. Yet his attention had never before been sosharply and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitiousprevision of success that he withdrew into the entry of the court.

  The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as theyturned 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 andvery plainly dressed and the look of him, even at that distance, wentsomehow strongly against the watcher's inclination. But he made straightfor the door, crossing the roadway to save tim
e; and as he came, he drewa 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 fearwas 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 ofDr. Jekyll's--Mr. Utterson of Gaunt Street--you must have heard of myname; 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 suddenreflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair staredat each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. "Now I shall know youagain," said Mr. Utterson. "It may be useful."

  "Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, "It is as well we have met; and apropos, youshould have my address." And he gave a number of a street in Soho.

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

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

  "By description," was the reply.

  "Whose description?"

  "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 notthink 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, withextraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and disappeared intothe house.

  The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, the picture ofdisquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing everystep or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in mentalperplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was one of aclass that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gavean impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he hada displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort ofmurderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky,whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points againsthim, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknowndisgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him."There must be something else," said the perplexed gentleman. "Thereis something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the manseems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it bethe old story of Dr. Fell? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soulthat thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent? Thelast, I think; for, O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan'ssignature 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 estateand let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of men;map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers and the agents of obscureenterprises. One house, however, second from the corner, was stilloccupied entire; and at the door of this, which wore a great air ofwealth and comfort, though it was now plunged in darkness except forthe fanlight, Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A well-dressed, elderlyservant opened the door.

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

  "I will see, Mr. Utterson," said Poole, admitting the visitor, as hespoke, 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 thefire, 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 thetall fender. This hall, in which he was now left alone, was a pet fancyof his friend the doctor's; and Utterson himself was wont to speak ofit as the pleasantest room in London. But tonight there was a shudder inhis blood; the face of Hyde sat heavy on his memory; he felt (what wasrare with him) a nausea and distaste of life; and in the gloom of hisspirits, he seemed to read a menace in the flickering of the firelighton the polished cabinets and the uneasy starting of the shadow on theroof. He was ashamed of his relief, when Poole presently returned toannounce that Dr. Jekyll was gone out.

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

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

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

  "Yes, sir, he does indeed," said Poole. "We have all orders to obeyhim."

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

  "O, dear no, sir. He never dines here," replied the butler. "Indeed wesee very little of him on this side of the house; he mostly comes andgoes by the laboratory."

  "Well, good-night, Poole."

  "Good-night, Mr. Utterson."

  And the lawyer set out homeward with a very heavy heart. "Poor HarryJekyll," he thought, "my mind misgives me he is in deep waters! He waswild when he was young; a long while ago to be sure; but in the law ofGod, there is no statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghostof some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace: punishmentcoming, PEDE CLAUDO, years after memory has forgotten and self-lovecondoned the fault." And the lawyer, scared by the thought, broodedawhile on his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, leastby chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to lightthere. His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls oftheir life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust bythe many ill things he had done, and raised up again into a sober andfearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing yet avoided.And then by a return on his former subject, he conceived a spark ofhope. "This Master Hyde, if he were studied," thought he, "must havesecrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him; secrets comparedto which poor Jekyll's worst would be like sunshine. Things cannotcontinue as they are. It turns me cold to think of this creaturestealing like a thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry, what a wakening!And the danger of it; for if this Hyde suspects the existence of thewill, he may grow impatient to inherit. Ay, I must put my shoulders tothe wheel--if Jekyll will but let me," he added, "if Jekyll willonly let me." For once more he saw before his mind's eye, as clear astransparency, the strange clauses of the will.