The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | Page 9

plunged in darkness except for the fanlight, 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 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 tonight
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, 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 does 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 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 awhile on his own
past, groping in all the corners of memory, least 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
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 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 shoulders 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 transparency, the strange clauses of the will.

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 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 stylish cast perhaps,