THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson Part Eight, The Last Night

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

by Robert Louis Stevenson

PART EIGHT

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 added; "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

theater 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?"