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!”

“That 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 his 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.