Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Seek Read online

Upon which he slammed the door with such force that the breath was knocked from Utterson’s lungs.

  The Custodian of Secrets

  UTTERSON’S FIRST IMPULSE was to march directly to the nearest police station. But he thought the better of it before even reaching the corner—the local constabulary would surely have changed a good deal in the intervening seven years, and the new PCs could hardly be expected to be familiar with the full complexities of the Jekyll affair.

  So he hailed a hansom and headed instead for Scotland Yard, where Francis Newcomen, the policeman originally assigned to the case, now held the post of Detective Inspector. Yet even by this course Utterson was by no means certain of success, owing to a pivotal decision he had made one unforgettable night in March of 18—.

  It was on that evening that Mr. Poole, the devoted butler of Dr. Jekyll, had arrived breathless at Utterson’s door in Gaunt Street claiming that Mr. Hyde had seized control of the dissecting rooms and was growling orders from behind the laboratory door. And this to Utterson was a most disturbing development, since Jekyll had vowed never more to have dealings with Mr. Hyde, who was wanted for murder among innumerable other atrocities.

  So Utterson raced with Poole to the Jekyll home, broke down the door with an axe, and inside found Hyde twitching on the floor, having just consumed a phial of poison. But of the doctor himself there was no sign apart from a couple of freshly written documents: one a revised will, that appeared to name Utterson as his sole beneficiary; the other a bulky confession that the lawyer bundled straightaway into his pocket.

  ‘I would say nothing of this paper,’ he said to Poole. ‘If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save his credit.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘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.’

  Back home in Gaunt Street Utterson drew the curtains, lit a fire, took up his customary position before the hearth and read, for the very first time, Henry Jekyll’s full statement of the case (along with a letter from the late Hastie Lanyon, which by instruction was to be opened only in the event of Jekyll’s disappearance).

  An hour later he rose, returned his hat to his head, tugged on his gloves, retrieved his cane, and started back for the Jekyll home. But he did not hail a cab; he did not even walk with particular urgency. With a bracing wind needling his face, and the coldness of the pavement prickling his feet through the soles of his shoes, he walked blankly, his brow creased, his eyes distant and his mind spinning like a dervish.

  If what he had just read was true—and he had no reason to disbelieve it—then Henry Jekyll, one of his firmest and oldest friends, was now dead on the floor of his own laboratory. Jekyll had not been just a companion of Mr. Hyde’s—he was Mr. Hyde. He had formulated a potion that transformed his appearance and dismantled his inhibitions, unleashing from within a raging monster. Which meant that the mystery that had confounded Utterson for sixteen months—who was the demonic little man called Hyde, and what was his strange power over Jekyll?—finally had an answer. But it was an answer so shocking that Hastie Lanyon, to whom Jekyll had been compelled to divulge his secret unexpectedly, had withered under its burden and died within days of writing his own statement of the case.

  Still, Utterson prided himself on being made of sterner stuff than that. In his life he had endured broken hearts and family tragedies and bouts of youthful self-loathing; by profession he had become acquainted with all species of swindlers, forgers and malefactors; and through it all he had become renowned for his patience and imperturbability. It was not for nothing that he had become a custodian of other men’s secrets; and not without reason that Lanyon and Jekyll had identified him as the priest of their extreme unction.

  So as he strode across the city that terrible night, with his face set and his stomach clenched, he resolved on absolute circumspection—a species of prudence of which few other men would be capable. He would tell no one the truth—not a soul, not even Enfield. For what good would it do now? What purpose would it serve? The villain Hyde was dead and punished, and his creator along with him. But whereas Hyde would be remembered for nothing but infamy, Jekyll would at least maintain his reputation post mortem.

  When Poole admitted him back into Jekyll’s entrance hall, where a fire was flashing on the panels, Utterson was already warmed by his own chivalry.

  ‘May I ask about the letters?’ said Poole.

  ‘Nothing,’ clicked Utterson. ‘Just some directions for his property and the disbursement of funds.’

  ‘Nothing about Mr. Hyde?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘And no indication … no indication that my master might return?’

  Utterson was moved by the butler’s concern. ‘I’m afraid to say, Poole, that the wording of the letter leads me to suspect we shall not be seeing Henry Jekyll again—ever.’

  And then, after allowing Poole a few moments to collect himself, he added discreetly: ‘Though I still think it would be best, don’t you, to say nothing about the document? To a soul?’ Thereby hinting at something unmentionable, without betraying any indication of its true nature.

  ‘Aye,’ said Poole, swallowing his dismay. ‘It’s best to let such things rest in peace.’

  ‘Very well put, Poole, very well put. It’s time for everyone—all the victims of this sad affair—to rest in peace.’

  And so, for seven whole years, they had.

  Presently Utterson, after correcting his course one or two times, arrived at Scotland Yard, finding the building nigh on unrecognisable under scaffolding and builders’ drapery. Introducing himself at the front desk, he was directed through a warren of chambers to the detective division, where in the waiting room a solitary lamp was hissing in its bracket. Detective Inspector Newcomen, looking as renovated as the building—for in seven years he had acquired an impressive moustache, muttonchops and purplish pouches under his eyes—greeted him indifferently and ushered him into his room.

  ‘You’re lucky to find me here, Mr. Utterson—I’m overdue for dinner with my brood.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Utterson, ‘you have a family now?’

  ‘A wife and three young ’uns.’

  ‘Then I shan’t delay you for long,’ Utterson said. ‘It’s just that a serious matter has arisen, and you seem the best-equipped man to deal with it.’

  Installing himself in a seat, he told the inspector of the smoking chimney, Miss Finnegan’s curt dismissal and his own visit to the Jekyll home, where he had been turned away by the belligerent butler.

  ‘And not only that,’ he went on, ‘but the man claimed that his master was Dr. Henry Jekyll.’

  ‘Henry Jekyll, eh?’ Newcomen was twining one end of his moustache. ‘The same Jekyll who’s been missing all these years?’

  ‘For nearly seven years.’

  ‘The one who was the sponsor of Mr. Hyde?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘The one who bequeathed his estate—his property and all his investments—to you?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And now he’s back in business, is he?’

  Utterson baulked. ‘Well, whoever the man is, he’s an impostor, of course—a swindler of some sort. I don’t need to say that.’

  ‘Saw him, did you?’

  ‘No, I was blockaded at the front door, as I explained.’

  ‘So you saw nothing of Dr. Jekyll himself?’

  ‘Of the man claiming to be Jekyll—nothing at all.’

  Newcomen considered this awhile and finally released his moustache. ‘Then how do you know, Mr. Utterson, that it was not Dr. Jekyll?’

  ‘My dear sir,’ Utterson said, before finding himself stymied. ‘It can’t be Jekyll … it simply cannot be. It’s impossible.’

  ‘Impossible? Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Utterson had not expected such scepticism from a detective so familiar with the original case. Sitting forward in his chair, he said, ‘Inspector, you will have to believe me.
It’s been seven years. And I know Henry Jekyll—or at least I did know him. And I know this cannot be Jekyll, for many good reasons. It simply cannot be. The real Jekyll has disappeared. The real Jekyll has … gone.’

  But his voice tightened as he said these words, because of course he could not explain how he knew this for certain. And he sensed, in light of the detestable rumours, that he could not afford to look too flustered at the thought of Jekyll’s return.

  ‘Then I’ll look into it tomorrow,’ Newcomen decided. ‘I’ll make a little visit to the Jekyll residence and have a word with the good doctor.’

  ‘Not the doctor,’ Utterson insisted. ‘An impostor.’

  ‘As it may be,’ sniffed Newcomen. ‘As it may be.’

  Utterson curbed an impulse to protest further. ‘Very well,’ he said, pushing himself to his feet with his cane. ‘Then I shall hear from you tomorrow, during the course of the day?’

  ‘Very probably.’

  But Newcomen was looking distractedly through some papers as he said this, giving no indication, it seemed to a deflated Utterson, that he regarded the matter as anything more than a trifle.

  A Malfunctioning Clock

  A MAN OF CLOCKWORK precision, Utterson invariably sank into his chainspring mattress with the midnight chimes and within minutes was fast asleep. But on this particular night he lay mummy-like in his blankets for many hours into the morning, puffing clouds of steam into the air, his mind gnawing ravenously on his own indignation.

  The victim of a brazen fraud, he knew from his legal experience, is someone who feels uniquely violated. The arrogance of the fraud, the sheer cunning necessary to facilitate it and above all the very personal aspect of the deed—these alone were enough to make any victim feverish with rage.

  And in Utterson’s case it was all compounded by the knowledge that he was hopelessly hobbled by the unwritten pact he had made with Jekyll’s legacy. Who would believe him if he told the truth, anyway? A distinguished doctor ingests a foaming potion and transforms into a murderous troglodyte? And then reverts to the person of the distinguished doctor? Until he loses all control of the process and transmogrifies willy-nilly? It was unscientific balderdash, the stuff of fever dreams and sensation novels. No, Utterson could never espouse such notions. He would have to rely on the impostor’s being expeditiously weeded out by some other means, which was surely just a matter of time.

  When the bells sounded four o’clock and the chimney sweepers started scrabbling across the roofs, Utterson decided to quell his nerves with a soothing vintage. In his nightshirt he crept down the stairs and by candlelight unlocked the wine cellar, where he removed from its roost his finest Bordeaux.

  On his way back across the vault, however, he stepped on a rat and lost hold of the bottle, which smashed noisily across the stones.

  ‘Damnation!’ he hissed, and the candle flame flared.

  Picking his way gingerly over the shattered glass—he was still in his bedsocks—he selected another, altogether inferior, vintage and was locking the door when he noticed Poole brandishing a lamp.

  ‘Something amiss, sir?’

  ‘It’s nothing, Poole—I dropped a bottle.’

  ‘Would sir like it cleared away?’

  ‘In the morning, of course.’

  ‘Then you’ll need to leave behind the key to the cellar.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Poole.’

  ‘And do you wish me to lay down poison for the rats while I’m there?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then I’ll need some money from sundry expenses, sir.’

  ‘In the morning, Poole—I’ll leave you some cash in the morning.’

  ‘Very well,’ the butler said. ‘Pleasant dreams, sir.’

  ‘And to you, Mr. Poole—pleasant dreams.’

  But Utterson did not miss the implied disapproval—the same air of sufferance Poole had been cultivating ever since he moved into Gaunt Street. Clearly the old butler, though prudent enough never to voice his displeasure openly, pined for the days when he presided over the home of Dr. Jekyll, fussed over the doctor’s lavish dinners, and played curator to his considerable cellar (which unlike Utterson’s was never locked). In Utterson’s house he had been burdened with the roles of butler, footman, cook and housemaid, and further had to contend with airless little rooms that were the very antithesis of what he had patrolled in the Jekyll home. (Even Utterson’s efforts to make his place more agreeable—in preparation for Nora’s arrival he had introduced brocaded wallpaper, fluted lampshades and a fireplace so immense it resembled the proscenium at the Adelphi—seemed only to accentuate its ugliness.)

  In any case—and despite Poole’s unconvincing wishes—the wine did little to abet Utterson’s sleep; he stared through the window at the gaslights of the heavens; he saw two shooting stars; when he dreamed it was only of the swollen and blistered dissecting rooms’ door; and in the morning he felt so bleary-eyed that he pointedly avoided looking at himself in the mirror. He shaved, breakfasted and headed off to work with all the enthusiasm of a soldier marching into a cannonade.

  He had barely alighted from his cab when he heard a voice.

  ‘Utterson, dear fellow! Capital news, eh?’

  Sir Palfrey Bramble, the intrepid explorer, was trundling up Bedford Row in a hackney coach.

  ‘News?’ Utterson called.

  ‘About Henry Jekyll’s return,’ exclaimed Sir Palfrey, before adding, with all the candour of a man who has spent thirty years among savages and jungle beasts, ‘Not so good for you though, what?’

  He was quickly out of range, though, leaving Utterson confounded. Where had Bramble learned the news? Why had he not seen fit to question it? Why, indeed, did he think it was ‘capital’? Utterson ended up so distracted that he spent much of the morning attending to his own mistakes—misspellings in his briefs, ink stains on his ledger.

  And still nothing from Inspector Newcomen. Nor did his regular excursions to the front desk, seeking any fresh delivery of mail, yield any satisfaction. In the afternoon he considered making a lightning trip home—perhaps Newcomen had sent a cable there—or even heading directly to Scotland Yard. But he knew he could not afford to look too eager or presumptuous.

  So he endured the day at Bedford Row, his tension preventing him from falling asleep; and when the clocks sounded seven o’clock he hurtled down the stairs and rattled home in a cab, his hand clenched so tightly around his cane that he almost snapped it in half.

  In Gaunt Street Poole was waiting with the afternoon mail. ‘A special delivery, sir.’

  Utterson took it greedily and sidled into his parlour, where he tore open the envelope and held the letter under the nearest lamp.

  But the note—it was written in violet ink—was not from Inspector Newcomen at all. In fact, to Utterson’s irritation, it purported to be from Jekyll himself.

  His eyes raced furiously across the words:

  My dear Utterson—,

  I trust you will forgive me for the curt reception you received last evening from my butler, Mr. Baxter, and the discourteous manner in which you were turned away from my door. But my faith in your good nature renders me confident that you will understand there is much with which I am still re-acquainting myself, and the conduct of my servants, not to mention the sensitivities of my friends, have to this point ranked low among my priorities.

  Nonetheless you can rest assured that you remain my firmest friend and (I dearly hope) my most reliable ally in my time of need. I bid you therefore to be tolerant of my many shortcomings, and as generous as always with your assistance, should I call upon you at any time.

  To introduce myself back into society I shall be hosting a dinner, to commence at eight o’clock on Saturday evening. I acknowledge that this comes at rather short notice; but there is no one, dear Utterson, whose presence at the meal is more important to me than your own.

  Your everlasting friend,

  HENRY JEKYLL

  Your everlasting friend
… Utterson was still staring at the words, appalled by the man’s gall, when he became aware of Poole peering over his shoulder. Swiftly he lowered the letter and buried it in his pocket.

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ said the butler, straightening.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Utterson. ‘Nothing.’

  Poole, however, seemed reluctant to retreat. ‘S-sir,’ he said, ‘may I ask?’

  ‘Ask what?’

  ‘Was that … was that by some chance a letter from Dr. Jekyll?’

  Utterson frowned. ‘What the devil makes you think that?’

  ‘Oh, I know it seems foolish, sir, but it looked so much like his writing—right there on the envelope, I mean. And I knew his hand so well, after all.’

  ‘Then you’re mistaken, Poole, very much mistaken. This is not a letter from Jekyll—how could it be?’

  ‘But it looks so much like his writing, as I say.’

  ‘Mr. Poole, you’re mistaken. It’s just a letter, from a client of mine. A …’ But for a terrible moment Utterson could think of no suitable profession. ‘A … a banker of some sort.’

  And he glared at the butler so fiercely that Poole twitched and swallowed like a nervous hound. ‘I’m very sorry, sir … I don’t know what I was thinking.’

  ‘Nor do I, Poole. Nor do I.’

  Minutes later Utterson lit a fire in his hearth and consigned the letter to the flames. But he did not destroy the envelope itself. He held it tightly in his hand all through the night, like a suicide note, even in those few minutes when his mind cooled sufficiently to permit him some sleep.

  The Shadow on the Curtains

  AT HIS OFFICE in the morning Utterson laid out the impostor’s envelope next to one addressed years earlier by the genuine Henry Jekyll, then summoned to his desk Mr. Guest. It had been his head clerk, something of a student of handwriting, who many years earlier had noticed the marked similarity between the scripts of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.