Incident Of Dr. Lanyon

Time ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in reward, for the death

of Sir Danvers was resented as a public injury; but Mr. Hyde had

disappeared out of the ken of the police as though he had never

existed. Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable:

tales came out of the man’s cruelty, at once so callous and violent; of

his vile life, of his strange associates, of the hatred that seemed to

have surrounded his career; but of his present whereabouts, not a

whisper. From the time he had left the house in Soho on the morning of

the murder, he was simply blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on,

Mr. Utterson began to recover from the hotness of his alarm, and to

grow more at quiet with himself. The death of Sir Danvers was, to his

way of thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde.

Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for

Dr. Jekyll. He came out of his seclusion, renewed relations with his

friends, became once more their familiar guest and entertainer; and

whilst he had always been known for charities, he was now no less

distinguished for religion. He was busy, he was much in the open air,

he did good; his face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward

consciousness of service; and for more than two months, the doctor was

at peace.

On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doctor’s with a small

party; Lanyon had been there; and the face of the host had looked from

one to the other as in the old days when the trio were inseparable

friends. On the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door was shut against

the lawyer. “The doctor was confined to the house,” Poole said, “and

saw no one.” On the 15th, he tried again, and was again refused; and

having now been used for the last two months to see his friend almost

daily, he found this return of solitude to weigh upon his spirits. The

fifth night he had in Guest to dine with him; and the sixth he betook

himself to Dr. Lanyon’s.

There at least he was not denied admittance; but when he came in, he

was shocked at the change which had taken place in the doctor’s

appearance. He had his death-warrant written legibly upon his face. The

rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly

balder and older; and yet it was not so much these tokens of a swift

physical decay that arrested the lawyer’s notice, as a look in the eye

and quality of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror

of the mind. It was unlikely that the doctor should fear death; and yet

that was what Utterson was tempted to suspect. “Yes,” he thought; “he

is a doctor, he must know his own state and that his days are counted;

and the knowledge is more than he can bear.” And yet when Utterson

remarked on his ill looks, it was with an air of great firmness that

Lanyon declared himself a doomed man.

“I have had a shock,” he said, “and I shall never recover. It is a

question of weeks. Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes, sir,

I used to like it. I sometimes think if we knew all, we should be more

glad to get away.”

“Jekyll is ill, too,” observed Utterson. “Have you seen him?”

But Lanyon’s face changed, and he held up a trembling hand. “I wish to

see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll,” he said in a loud, unsteady voice.

“I am quite done with that person; and I beg that you will spare me any

allusion to one whom I regard as dead.”

“Tut, tut!” said Mr. Utterson; and then after a considerable pause,

“Can’t I do anything?” he inquired. “We are three very old friends,

Lanyon; we shall not live to make others.”

“Nothing can be done,” returned Lanyon; “ask himself.”

“He will not see me,” said the lawyer.

“I am not surprised at that,” was the reply. “Some day, Utterson, after

I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this. I

cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me

of other things, for God’s sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep

clear of this accursed topic, then in God’s name, go, for I cannot bear

it.”

As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll,

complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of

this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a long

answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious

in drift. The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. “I do not blame our

old friend,” Jekyll wrote, “but I share his view that we must never

meet. I mean from henceforth to lead a life of extreme seclusion; you

must not be surprised, nor must you doubt my friendship, if my door is

often shut even to you. You must suffer me to go my own dark way. I

have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If

I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also. I could

not think that this earth contained a place for sufferings and terrors

so unmanning; and you can do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this

destiny, and that is to respect my silence.” Utterson was amazed; the

dark influence of Hyde had been withdrawn, the doctor had returned to

his old tasks and amities; a week ago, the prospect had smiled with

every promise of a cheerful and an honoured age; and now in a moment,

friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole tenor of his life were

wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed to madness; but in

view of Lanyon’s manner and words, there must lie for it some deeper

ground.

A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed, and in something less

than a fortnight he was dead. The night after the funeral, at which he

had been sadly affected, Utterson locked the door of his business room,

and sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew out and set

before him an envelope addressed by the hand and sealed with the seal

of his dead friend. “PRIVATE: for the hands of G. J. Utterson ALONE,

and in case of his predecease _to be destroyed unread_,” so it was

emphatically superscribed; and the lawyer dreaded to behold the

contents. “I have buried one friend to-day,” he thought: “what if this

should cost me another?” And then he condemned the fear as a

disloyalty, and broke the seal. Within there was another enclosure,

likewise sealed, and marked upon the cover as “not to be opened till

the death or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll.” Utterson could not

trust his eyes. Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the mad

will which he had long ago restored to its author, here again were the

idea of a disappearance and the name of Henry Jekyll bracketed. But in

the will, that idea had sprung from the sinister suggestion of the man

Hyde; it was set there with a purpose all too plain and horrible.

Written by the hand of Lanyon, what should it mean? A great curiosity

came on the trustee, to disregard the prohibition and dive at once to

the bottom of these mysteries; but professional honour and faith to his

dead friend were stringent obligations; and the packet slept in the

inmost corner of his private safe.

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it; and it may

be doubted if, from that day forth, Utterson desired the society of his

surviving friend with the same eagerness. He thought of him kindly; but

his thoughts were disquieted and fearful. He went to call indeed; but

he was perhaps relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart,

he preferred to speak with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by

the air and sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into

that house of voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its

inscrutable recluse. Poole had, indeed, no very pleasant news to

communicate. The doctor, it appeared, now more than ever confined

himself to the cabinet over the laboratory, where he would sometimes

even sleep; he was out of spirits, he had grown very silent, he did not

read; it seemed as if he had something on his mind. Utterson became so

used to the unvarying character of these reports, that he fell off

little by little in the frequency of his visits.