“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, 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 _protégé_
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 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 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 clauses
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 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. Utterson of Gaunt Street—you must have heard of 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 _à 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?”

“We have common friends,” said Mr. Utterson.

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

“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 something 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 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 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 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.”

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. Ah, 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, 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 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. Ah, 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
transparency, the strange clauses of the will.

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 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.

“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. O, 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 understand 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 as 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 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.”