The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by  Robert Louis Stevenson. Read by Arthur Lane.

STORY OF THE DOOR Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of  

a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a  smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse;  

backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary  and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings,  

and when the wine was to his taste, something  eminently human beaconed from his eye;  

something indeed which never found its way into  his talk, but which spoke not only in these  

silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but  more often and loudly in the acts of his life.  

He was austere with himself; drank gin when  he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages;  

and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not  crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But  

he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes  wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure  

of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any  extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove.  

“I incline to Cain's heresy,” he used to  say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the  

devil in his own way.” In this character, it was  frequently his fortune to be the last reputable  

acquaintance and the last good influence in the  lives of downgoing men. And to such as these,  

so long as they came about his chambers, he  never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson;  for he was undemonstrative at the best,  

and even his friendship seemed to be founded  in a similar catholicity of good-nature.  

It is the mark of a modest man to accept his  friendly circle ready-made from the hands of  

opportunity; and that was the lawyer's  way. His friends were those of his own  

blood or those whom he had known the longest; his  affections, like ivy, were the growth of time,  

they implied no aptness in the object. Hence,  no doubt the bond that united him to Mr. Richard  

Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known  man about town. It was a nut to crack for many,  

what these two could see in each other,  or what subject they could find in common.  

It was reported by those who encountered them  in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing,  

looked singularly dull and would hail with  obvious relief the appearance of a friend.  

For all that, the two men put the  greatest store by these excursions,  

counted them the chief jewel of each week,  and not only set aside occasions of pleasure,  

but even resisted the calls of business,  that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.

It chanced on one of these rambles that their  way led them down a by-street in a busy quarter  

of London. The street was small and what is  called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade  

on the weekdays. The inhabitants were all doing  well, it seemed and all emulously hoping to do  

better still, and laying out the surplus of  their grains in coquetry; so that the shop  

fronts stood along that thoroughfare with an air  of invitation, like rows of smiling saleswomen.  

Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid  charms and lay comparatively empty of passage,  

the street shone out in contrast to its  dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest;  

and with its freshly painted shutters,  well-polished brasses, and general  

cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly  caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.

Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going  east the line was broken by the entry of a court;  

and just at that point a certain sinister block  of building thrust forward its gable on the  

street. It was two storeys high; showed no window,  nothing but a door on the lower storey and a blind  

forehead of discoloured wall on the upper; and  bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and  

sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped  with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and  

distained. Tramps slouched into the recess and  struck matches on the panels; children kept shop  

upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife  on the mouldings; and for close on a generation,  

no one had appeared to drive away these  random visitors or to repair their ravages.

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on  the other side of the by-street;  

but when they came abreast of the entry,  the former lifted up his cane and pointed.

“Did you ever remark that door?” he asked; and  when his companion had replied in the affirmative,  

“It is connected in my mind,”  added he, “with a very odd story.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Utterson, with a slight  change of voice, “and what was that?”

“Well, it was this way,” returned Mr. Enfield:  “I was coming home from some place at the end  

of the world, about three o'clock of a black  winter morning, and my way lay through a part of  

town where there was literally nothing to be seen  but lamps. Street after street and all the folks  

asleep—street after street, all lighted up as if  for a procession and all as empty as a church—till  

at last I got into that state of mind when a  man listens and listens and begins to long for  

the sight of a policeman. All at once, I saw two  figures: one a little man who was stumping along  

eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl  of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard  

as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir,  the two ran into one another naturally enough at  

the corner; and then came the horrible part of  the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the  

child's body and left her screaming on the ground.  It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to  

see. It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned  Juggernaut. I gave a few halloa, took to my heels,  

collared my gentleman, and brought him back to  where there was already quite a group about the  

screaming child. He was perfectly cool and  made no resistance, but gave me one look,  

so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like  running. The people who had turned out were the  

girl's own family; and pretty soon, the doctor,  for whom she had been sent put in his appearance.  

Well, the child was not much the worse, more  frightened, according to the sawbones; and  

there you might have supposed would be an end to  it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had  

taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight.  So had the child's family, which was only natural.  

But the doctor's case was what struck me. He was  the usual cut and dry apothecary, of no particular  

age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent  and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir,  

he was like the rest of us; every time he looked  at my prisoner, I saw that sawbones turn sick  

and white with the desire to kill him. I knew what  was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine;  

and killing being out of the question, we did the  next best. We told the man we could and would make  

such a scandal out of this as should make his name  stink from one end of London to the other. If he  

had any friends or any credit, we undertook that  he should lose them. And all the time, as we were  

pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the women  off him as best we could for they were as wild as  

harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful  faces; and there was the man in the middle,  

with a kind of black sneering coolness—frightened  too, I could see that—but carrying it off, sir,  

really like Satan. 'If you choose to make  capital out of this accident,' said he,  

'I am naturally helpless. No gentleman but wishes  to avoid a scene,' says he. 'Name your figure.'  

Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for  the child's family; he would have clearly liked to  

stick out; but there was something about the lot  of us that meant mischief, and at last he struck.  

The next thing was to get the money; and  where do you think he carried us but to that  

place with the door?—whipped out a key, went  in, and presently came back with the matter  

of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the  balance on Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer  

and signed with a name that I can't mention,  though it's one of the points of my story,  

but it was a name at least very well known  and often printed. The figure was stiff; but  

the signature was good for more than that if it  was only genuine. I took the liberty of pointing  

out to my gentleman that the whole business looked  apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life,  

walk into a cellar door at four in the morning  and come out with another man's cheque for close  

upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite easy  and sneering. 'Set your mind at rest,' says he,  

'I will stay with you till the banks open and cash  the cheque myself.' So we all set off, the doctor,  

and the child's father, and our friend and myself,  and passed the rest of the night in my chambers;  

and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in  a body to the bank. I gave in the cheque myself,  

and said I had every reason to believe it was a  forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine.”

“Tut-tut!” said Mr. Utterson.

“I see you feel as I do,” said Mr.  Enfield. “Yes, it's a bad story. For  

my man was a fellow that nobody could  have to do with, a really damnable man;  

and the person that drew the cheque  is the very pink of the proprieties,  

celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one  of your fellows who do what they call good.  

Blackmail, I suppose; an honest man paying through  the nose for some of the capers of his youth.  

Black Mail House is what I call the place with  the door, in consequence. Though even that,  

you know, is far from explaining all,” he added,  and with the words fell into a vein of musing.

From this he was recalled by Mr.  Utterson asking rather suddenly:  

“And you don't know if the drawer  of the cheque lives there?”

“A likely place, isn't it?”  returned Mr. Enfield. “But I  

happen to have noticed his address;  he lives in some square or other.”

“And you never asked about the—place  with the door?” said Mr. Utterson.

“No, sir; I had a delicacy,” was the reply.  “I feel very strongly about putting questions;  

it partakes too much of the style of the  day of judgment. You start a question,  

and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly  on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes,  

starting others; and presently some bland old  bird (the last you would have thought of) is  

knocked on the head in his own back garden and  the family have to change their name. No sir,  

I make it a rule of mine: the more it  looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.”

“A very good rule, too,” said the lawyer.

“But I have studied the place for myself,”  continued Mr. Enfield. “It seems scarcely a house.  

There is no other door, and nobody goes in or  out of that one but, once in a great while,  

the gentleman of my adventure. There are three  windows looking on the court on the first floor;  

none below; the windows are always shut but  they're clean. And then there is a chimney  

which is generally smoking; so somebody must live  there. And yet it's not so sure; for the buildings  

are so packed together about the court, that it's  hard to say where one ends and another begins.”

The pair walked on again for  a while in silence; and then  

“Enfield,” said Mr. Utterson,  “that's a good rule of yours.”

“Yes, I think it is,” returned Enfield.

“But for all that,” continued the lawyer,  

“there's one point I want to ask. I want to ask  the name of that man who walked over the child.”

“Well,” said Mr. Enfield, “I can't see what harm  it would do. It was a man of the name of Hyde.”

“Hm,” said Mr. Utterson. “What  sort of a man is he to see?”

“He is not easy to describe. There is something  wrong with his appearance; something displeasing,  

something down-right detestable. I never saw a  man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why.  

He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong  feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify  

the point. He's an extraordinary looking man,  and yet I really can name nothing out of the way.  

No, sir; I can make no hand  of it; I can't describe him.  

And it's not want of memory; for I  declare I can see him this moment.”

Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence  and obviously under a weight of consideration.  

“You are sure he used a key?” he inquired at last.

“My dear sir...” began Enfield,  surprised out of himself.

“Yes, I know,” said Utterson; “I know  it must seem strange. The fact is,  

if I do not ask you the name of the other  party, it is because I know it already. You see,  

Richard, your tale has gone home. If you have been  inexact in any point you had better correct it.”

“I think you might have warned me,” returned  the other with a touch of sullenness.  

“But I have been pedantically  exact, as you call it.  

The fellow had a key; and what's more, he has  it still. I saw him use it not a week ago.”

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a  word; and the young man presently resumed.  

“Here is another lesson to say nothing,” said he.  

“I am ashamed of my long tongue. Let us make  a bargain never to refer to this again.”

“With all my heart,” said the lawyer.  “I shake hands on that, Richard.”

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE That evening Mr. Utterson came home  

to his bachelor house in sombre spirits and sat  down to dinner without relish. It was his custom  

of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close  by the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his  

reading desk, until the clock of the neighbouring  church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would  

go soberly and gratefully to bed. On this night  however, as soon as the cloth was taken away,  

he took up a candle and went into his business  room. There he opened his safe, took from the  

most private part of it a document endorsed on the  envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will and sat down with  

a clouded brow to study its contents. The will  was holograph, for Mr. Utterson though he took  

charge of it now that it was made, had refused  to lend the least assistance in the making of it;  

it provided not only that, in case of the decease  of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S.,  

etc., all his possessions were to pass into the  hands of his “friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,”  

but that in case of Dr. Jekyll's “disappearance  or unexplained absence for any period exceeding  

three calendar months,” the said Edward Hyde  should step into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes