Chapter 8
THE LAST NIGHT
Mr. Utterson was sitting by his fireside one
evening after dinner, when he was surprised
to receive a visit from Poole.
“Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?”
he cried; and then taking a second look at
him, “What ails you?” he asked; “is
the doctor ill?”
“Mr. Utterson,” said the man, “there
is something wrong.”
“Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine
for you,” said the lawyer. “Now, take
your time, and tell me plainly what you want.”
“You know the doctor’s ways, sir,” replied
Poole, “and how he shuts himself up. Well,
he’s shut up again in the cabinet; and I
don’t like it, sir—I wish I may die if
I like it. Mr. Utterson, sir, I’m afraid.”
“Now, my good man,” said the lawyer, “be
explicit. What are you afraid of?”
“I’ve been afraid for about a week,”
returned Poole, doggedly disregarding the
question, “and I can bear it no more.”
The man’s appearance amply bore out his
words; his manner was altered for the worse;
and except for the moment when he had first
announced his terror, he had not once looked
the lawyer in the face. Even now, he sat with
the glass of wine untasted on his knee, and
his eyes directed to a corner of the floor.
“I can bear it no more,” he repeated.
“Come,” said the lawyer, “I see you
have some good reason, Poole; I see there
is something seriously amiss. Try to tell
me what it is.”
“I think there’s been foul play,” said
Poole, hoarsely.
“Foul play!” cried the lawyer, a good
deal frightened and rather inclined to be
irritated in consequence. “What foul play!
What does the man mean?”
“I daren’t say, sir,” was the answer;
“but will you come along with me and see
for yourself?”
Mr. Utterson’s only answer was to rise and
get his hat and greatcoat; but he observed
with wonder the greatness of the relief that
appeared upon the butler’s face, and perhaps
with no less, that the wine was still untasted
when he set it down to follow.
It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March,
with a pale moon, lying on her back as though
the wind had tilted her, and flying wrack
of the most diaphanous and lawny texture.
The wind made talking difficult, and flecked
the blood into the face. It seemed to have
swept the streets unusually bare of passengers,
besides; for Mr. Utterson thought he had never
seen that part of London so deserted. He could
have wished it otherwise; never in his life
had he been conscious of so sharp a wish to
see and touch his fellow-creatures; for struggle
as he might, there was borne in upon his mind
a crushing anticipation of calamity. The square,
when they got there, was full of wind and
dust, and the thin trees in the garden were
lashing themselves along the railing. Poole,
who had kept all the way a pace or two ahead,
now pulled up in the middle of the pavement,
and in spite of the biting weather, took off
his hat and mopped his brow with a red pocket-handkerchief.
But for all the hurry of his coming, these
were not the dews of exertion that he wiped
away, but the moisture of some strangling
anguish; for his face was white and his voice,
when he spoke, harsh and broken.
“Well, sir,” he said, “here we are,
and God grant there be nothing wrong.”
“Amen, Poole,” said the lawyer.
Thereupon the servant knocked in a very guarded
manner; the door was opened on the chain;
and a voice asked from within, “Is that
you, Poole?”
“It’s all right,” said Poole. “Open
the door.”
The hall, when they entered it, was brightly
lighted up; the fire was built high; and about
the hearth the whole of the servants, men
and women, stood huddled together like a flock
of sheep. At the sight of Mr. Utterson, the
housemaid broke into hysterical whimpering;
and the cook, crying out “Bless God! it’s
Mr. Utterson,” ran forward as if to take
him in her arms.
“What, what? Are you all here?” said the
lawyer peevishly. “Very irregular, very
unseemly; your master would be far from pleased.”
“They’re all afraid,” said Poole.
Blank silence followed, no one protesting;
only the maid lifted her voice and now wept
loudly.
“Hold your tongue!” Poole said to her,
with a ferocity of accent that testified to
his own jangled nerves; and indeed, when the
girl had so suddenly raised the note of her
lamentation, they had all started and turned
towards the inner door with faces of dreadful
expectation. “And now,” continued the
butler, addressing the knife-boy, “reach
me a candle, and we’ll get this through
hands at once.” And then he begged Mr. Utterson
to follow him, and led the way to the back
garden.
“Now, sir,” said he, “you come as gently
as you can. I want you to hear, and I don’t
want you to be heard. And see here, sir, if
by any chance he was to ask you in, don’t
go.”
Mr. Utterson’s nerves, at this unlooked-for
termination, gave a jerk that nearly threw
him from his balance; but he recollected his
courage and followed the butler into the laboratory
building through the surgical theatre, with
its lumber of crates and bottles, to the foot
of the stair. Here Poole motioned him to stand
on one side and listen; while he himself,
setting down the candle and making a great
and obvious call on his resolution, mounted
the steps and knocked with a somewhat uncertain
hand on the red baize of the cabinet door.
“Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you,”
he called; and even as he did so, once more
violently signed to the lawyer to give ear.
A voice answered from within: “Tell him
I cannot see anyone,” it said complainingly.
“Thank you, sir,” said Poole, with a note
of something like triumph in his voice; and
taking up his candle, he led Mr. Utterson
back across the yard and into the great kitchen,
where the fire was out and the beetles were
leaping on the floor.
“Sir,” he said, looking Mr. Utterson in
the eyes, “Was that my master’s voice?”
“It seems much changed,” replied the lawyer,
very pale, but giving look for look.
“Changed? Well, yes, I think so,” said
the butler. “Have I been twenty years in
this man’s house, to be deceived about his
voice? No, sir; master’s made away with;
he was made away with eight days ago, when
we heard him cry out upon the name of God;
and who’s in there instead of him, and why
it stays there, is a thing that cries to Heaven,
Mr. Utterson!”
“This is a very strange tale, Poole; this
is rather a wild tale my man,” said Mr.
Utterson, biting his finger. “Suppose it
were as you suppose, supposing Dr. Jekyll
to have been—well, murdered what could induce
the murderer to stay? That won’t hold water;
it doesn’t commend itself to reason.”
“Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man
to satisfy, but I’ll do it yet,” said
Poole. “All this last week (you must know)
him, or it, whatever it is that lives in that
cabinet, has been crying night and day for
some sort of medicine and cannot get it to
his mind. It was sometimes his way—the master’s,
that is—to write his orders on a sheet of
paper and throw it on the stair. We’ve had
nothing else this week back; nothing but papers,
and a closed door, and the very meals left
there to be smuggled in when nobody was looking.
Well, sir, every day, ay, and twice and thrice
in the same day, there have been orders and
complaints, and I have been sent flying to
all the wholesale chemists in town. Every
time I brought the stuff back, there would
be another paper telling me to return it,
because it was not pure, and another order
to a different firm. This drug is wanted bitter
bad, sir, whatever for.”
“Have you any of these papers?” asked
Mr. Utterson.
Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a
crumpled note, which the lawyer, bending nearer
to the candle, carefully examined. Its contents
ran thus: “Dr. Jekyll presents his compliments
to Messrs. Maw. He assures them that their
last sample is impure and quite useless for
his present purpose. In the year 18—, Dr.
J. purchased a somewhat large quantity from
Messrs. M. He now begs them to search with
most sedulous care, and should any of the
same quality be left, forward it to him at
once. Expense is no consideration. The importance
of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated.”
So far the letter had run composedly enough,
but here with a sudden splutter of the pen,
the writer’s emotion had broken loose. “For
God’s sake,” he added, “find me some
of the old.”
“This is a strange note,” said Mr. Utterson;
and then sharply, “How do you come to have
it open?”
“The man at Maw’s was main angry, sir,
and he threw it back to me like so much dirt,”
returned Poole.
“This is unquestionably the doctor’s hand,
do you know?” resumed the lawyer.
“I thought it looked like it,” said the
servant rather sulkily; and then, with another
voice, “But what matters hand of write?”
he said. “I’ve seen him!”
“Seen him?” repeated Mr. Utterson. “Well?”
“That’s it!” said Poole. “It was this
way. I came suddenly into the theatre from
the garden. It seems he had slipped out to
look for this drug or whatever it is; for
the cabinet door was open, and there he was
at the far end of the room digging among the
crates. He looked up when I came in, gave
a kind of cry, and whipped upstairs into the
cabinet. It was but for one minute that I
saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like
quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had
he a mask upon his face? If it was my master,
why did he cry out like a rat, and run from
me? I have served him long enough. And then...”
The man paused and passed his hand over his
face.
“These are all very strange circumstances,”
said Mr. Utterson, “but I think I begin
to see daylight. Your master, Poole, is plainly
seized with one of those maladies that both
torture and deform the sufferer; hence, for
aught I know, the alteration of his voice;
hence the mask and the avoidance of his friends;
hence his eagerness to find this drug, by
means of which the poor soul retains some
hope of ultimate recovery—God grant that
he be not deceived! There is my explanation;
it is sad enough, Poole, ay, and appalling
to consider; but it is plain and natural,
hangs well together, and delivers us from
all exorbitant alarms.”
“Sir,” said the butler, turning to a sort
of mottled pallor, “that thing was not my
master, and there’s the truth. My master”—here
he looked round him and began to whisper—“is
a tall, fine build of a man, and this was
more of a dwarf.” Utterson attempted to
protest. “O, sir,” cried Poole, “do
you think I do not know my master after twenty
years? Do you think I do not know where his
head comes to in the cabinet door, where I
saw him every morning of my life? No, sir,
that thing in the mask was never Dr. Jekyll—God
knows what it was, but it was never Dr. Jekyll;
and it is the belief of my heart that there
was murder done.”
“Poole,” replied the lawyer, “if you
say that, it will become my duty to make certain.
Much as I desire to spare your master’s
feelings, much as I am puzzled by this note
which seems to prove him to be still alive,
I shall consider it my duty to break in that
door.”
“Ah, Mr. Utterson, that’s talking!”
cried the butler.
“And now comes the second question,” resumed
Utterson: “Who is going to do it?”
“Why, you and me, sir,” was the undaunted
reply.
“That’s very well said,” returned the
lawyer; “and whatever comes of it, I shall
make it my business to see you are no loser.”
“There is an axe in the theatre,” continued
Poole; “and you might take the kitchen poker
for yourself.”
The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument
into his hand, and balanced it. “Do you
know, Poole,” he said, looking up, “that
you and I are about to place ourselves in
a position of some peril?”
“You may say so, sir, indeed,” returned
the butler.
“It is well, then that we should be frank,”
said the other. “We both think more than
we have said; let us make a clean breast.
This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise
it?”
“Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature
was so doubled up, that I could hardly swear
to that,” was the answer. “But if you
mean, was it Mr. Hyde?—why, yes, I think
it was! You see, it was much of the same bigness;
and it had the same quick, light way with
it; and then who else could have got in by
the laboratory door? You have not forgot,
sir, that at the time of the murder he had
still the key with him? But that’s not all.
I don’t know, Mr. Utterson, if you ever
met this Mr. Hyde?”
“Yes,” said the lawyer, “I once spoke
with him.”
“Then you must know as well as the rest
of us that there was something queer about
that gentleman—something that gave a man
a turn—I don’t know rightly how to say
it, sir, beyond this: that you felt in your
marrow kind of cold and thin.”
“I own I felt something of what you describe,”
said Mr. Utterson.
“Quite so, sir,” returned Poole. “Well,
when that masked thing like a monkey jumped
from among the chemicals and whipped into
the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice.
O, I know it’s not evidence, Mr. Utterson;
I’m book-learned enough for that; but a
man has his feelings, and I give you my bible-word
it was Mr. Hyde!”
“Ay, ay,” said the lawyer. “My fears
incline to the same point. Evil, I fear, founded—evil
was sure to come—of that connection. Ay
truly, I believe you; I believe poor Harry
is killed; and I believe his murderer (for
what purpose, God alone can tell) is still
lurking in his victim’s room. Well, let
our name be vengeance. Call Bradshaw.”
The footman came at the summons, very white
and nervous.
“Pull yourself together, Bradshaw,” said
the lawyer. “This suspense, I know, is telling
upon all of you; but it is now our intention
to make an end of it. Poole, here, and I are
going to force our way into the cabinet. If
all is well, my shoulders are broad enough
to bear the blame. Meanwhile, lest anything
should really be amiss, or any malefactor
seek to escape by the back, you and the boy
must go round the corner with a pair of good
sticks and take your post at the laboratory
door. We give you ten minutes to get to your
stations.”
As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his
watch. “And now, Poole, let us get to ours,”
he said; and taking the poker under his arm,
led the way into the yard. The scud had banked
over the moon, and it was now quite dark.
The wind, which only broke in puffs and draughts
into that deep well of building, tossed the
light of the candle to and fro about their
steps, until they came into the shelter of
the theatre, where they sat down silently
to wait. London hummed solemnly all around;
but nearer at hand, the stillness was only
broken by the sounds of a footfall moving
to and fro along the cabinet floor.
“So it will walk all day, sir,” whispered
Poole; “ay, and the better part of the night.
Only when a new sample comes from the chemist,
there’s a bit of a break. Ah, it’s an
ill conscience that’s such an enemy to rest!
Ah, sir, there’s blood foully shed in every
step of it! But hark again, a little closer—put
your heart in your ears, Mr. Utterson, and
tell me, is that the doctor’s foot?”
The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain
swing, for all they went so slowly; it was
different indeed from the heavy creaking tread
of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. “Is there
never anything else?” he asked.
Poole nodded. “Once,” he said. “Once
I heard it weeping!”
“Weeping? how that?” said the lawyer,
conscious of a sudden chill of horror.
“Weeping like a woman or a lost soul,”
said the butler. “I came away with that
upon my heart, that I could have wept too.”
But now the ten minutes drew to an end. Poole
disinterred the axe from under a stack of
packing straw; the candle was set upon the
nearest table to light them to the attack;
and they drew near with bated breath to where
that patient foot was still going up and down,
up and down, in the quiet of the night.
“Jekyll,” cried Utterson, with a loud
voice, “I demand to see you.” He paused
a moment, but there came no reply. “I give
you fair warning, our suspicions are aroused,
and I must and shall see you,” he resumed;
“if not by fair means, then by foul—if
not of your consent, then by brute force!”
“Utterson,” said the voice, “for God’s
sake, have mercy!”
“Ah, that’s not Jekyll’s voice—it’s
Hyde’s!” cried Utterson. “Down with
the door, Poole!”
Poole swung the axe over his shoulder; the
blow shook the building, and the red baize
door leaped against the lock and hinges. A
dismal screech, as of mere animal terror,
rang from the cabinet. Up went the axe again,
and again the panels crashed and the frame
bounded; four times the blow fell; but the
wood was tough and the fittings were of excellent
workmanship; and it was not until the fifth,
that the lock burst and the wreck of the door
fell inwards on the carpet.
The besiegers, appalled by their own riot
and the stillness that had succeeded, stood
back a little and peered in. There lay the
cabinet before their eyes in the quiet lamplight,
a good fire glowing and chattering on the
hearth, the kettle singing its thin strain,
a drawer or two open, papers neatly set forth
on the business table, and nearer the fire,
the things laid out for tea; the quietest
room, you would have said, and, but for the
glazed presses full of chemicals, the most
commonplace that night in London.
Right in the middle there lay the body of
a man sorely contorted and still twitching.
They drew near on tiptoe, turned it on its
back and beheld the face of Edward Hyde. He
was dressed in clothes far too large for him,
clothes of the doctor’s bigness; the cords
of his face still moved with a semblance of
life, but life was quite gone; and by the
crushed phial in the hand and the strong smell
of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson
knew that he was looking on the body of a
self-destroyer.
“We have come too late,” he said sternly,
“whether to save or punish. Hyde is gone
to his account; and it only remains for us
to find the body of your master.”
The far greater proportion of the building
was occupied by the theatre, which filled
almost the whole ground storey and was lighted
from above, and by the cabinet, which formed
an upper storey at one end and looked upon
the court. A corridor joined the theatre to
the door on the by-street; and with this the
cabinet communicated separately by a second
flight of stairs. There were besides a few
dark closets and a spacious cellar. All these
they now thoroughly examined. Each closet
needed but a glance, for all were empty, and
all, by the dust that fell from their doors,
had stood long unopened. The cellar, indeed,
was filled with crazy lumber, mostly dating
from the times of the surgeon who was Jekyll’s
predecessor; but even as they opened the door
they were advertised of the uselessness of
further search, by the fall of a perfect mat
of cobweb which had for years sealed up the
entrance. Nowhere was there any trace of Henry
Jekyll, dead or alive.
Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor.
“He must be buried here,” he said, hearkening
to the sound.
“Or he may have fled,” said Utterson,
and he turned to examine the door in the by-street.
It was locked; and lying near by on the flags,
they found the key, already stained with rust.
“This does not look like use,” observed
the lawyer.
“Use!” echoed Poole. “Do you not see,
sir, it is broken? much as if a man had stamped
on it.”
“Ay,” continued Utterson, “and the fractures,
too, are rusty.” The two men looked at each
other with a scare. “This is beyond me,
Poole,” said the lawyer. “Let us go back
to the cabinet.”
They mounted the stair in silence, and still
with an occasional awestruck glance at the
dead body, proceeded more thoroughly to examine
the contents of the cabinet. At one table,
there were traces of chemical work, various
measured heaps of some white salt being laid
on glass saucers, as though for an experiment
in which the unhappy man had been prevented.
“That is the same drug that I was always
bringing him,” said Poole; and even as he
spoke, the kettle with a startling noise boiled
over.
This brought them to the fireside, where the
easy-chair was drawn cosily up, and the tea
things stood ready to the sitter’s elbow,
the very sugar in the cup. There were several
books on a shelf; one lay beside the tea things
open, and Utterson was amazed to find it a
copy of a pious work, for which Jekyll had
several times expressed a great esteem, annotated,
in his own hand with startling blasphemies.
Next, in the course of their review of the
chamber, the searchers came to the cheval-glass,
into whose depths they looked with an involuntary
horror. But it was so turned as to show them
nothing but the rosy glow playing on the roof,
the fire sparkling in a hundred repetitions
along the glazed front of the presses, and
their own pale and fearful countenances stooping
to look in.
“This glass has seen some strange things,
sir,” whispered Poole.
“And surely none stranger than itself,”
echoed the lawyer in the same tones. “For
what did Jekyll”—he caught himself up
at the word with a start, and then conquering
the weakness—“what could Jekyll want with
it?” he said.
“You may say that!” said Poole.
Next they turned to the business table. On
the desk, among the neat array of papers,
a large envelope was uppermost, and bore,
in the doctor’s hand, the name of Mr. Utterson.
The lawyer unsealed it, and several enclosures
fell to the floor. The first was a will, drawn
in the same eccentric terms as the one which
he had returned six months before, to serve
as a testament in case of death and as a deed
of gift in case of disappearance; but in place
of the name of Edward Hyde, the lawyer, with
indescribable amazement read the name of Gabriel
John Utterson. He looked at Poole, and then
back at the paper, and last of all at the
dead malefactor stretched upon the carpet.
“My head goes round,” he said. “He has
been all these days in possession; he had
no cause to like me; he must have raged to
see himself displaced; and he has not destroyed
this document.”
He caught up the next paper; it was a brief
note in the doctor’s hand and dated at the
top. “O Poole!” the lawyer cried, “he
was alive and here this day. He cannot have
been disposed of in so short a space; he must
be still alive, he must have fled! And then,
why fled? and how? and in that case, can we
venture to declare this suicide? O, we must
be careful. I foresee that we may yet involve
your master in some dire catastrophe.”
“Why don’t you read it, sir?” asked
Poole.
“Because I fear,” replied the lawyer solemnly.
“God grant I have no cause for it!” And
with that he brought the paper to his eyes
and read as follows:
“My dear Utterson,—When this shall fall
into your hands, I shall have disappeared,
under what circumstances I have not the penetration
to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances
of my nameless situation tell me that the
end is sure and must be early. Go then, and
first read the narrative which Lanyon warned
me he was to place in your hands; and if you
care to hear more, turn to the confession
of
“Your unworthy and unhappy friend,
“HENRY JEKYLL.”
“There was a third enclosure?” asked Utterson.
“Here, sir,” said Poole, and gave into
his hands a considerable packet sealed in
several places.
The lawyer put it in his pocket. “I would
say nothing of this paper. If your master
has fled or is dead, we may at least save
his credit. It is now ten; I must go home
and read these documents in quiet; but I shall
be back before midnight, when we shall send
for the police.”
They went out, locking the door of the theatre
behind them; and Utterson, once more leaving
the servants gathered about the fire in the
hall, trudged back to his office to read the
two narratives in which this mystery was now
to be explained.
End of chapter 8
