Jekyll stood perfectly still behind the desk. Tiny sparks were starting to pop at the edges of the eyes. Without looking away from Carew, he lowered himself into his reclining chair. What I am trying to tell you, Carew said, is that this Maiden Tribute campaign, in spite of everything, is going to produce some substantial measure of action. Mr. Stead has wisely restrained himself from levelling specific accusations, but everyone knows the corruption is rampant, all the way to the top, to the lords themselves. And there are certain committees that will now make it their business to expose, indict—humiliate, at the very least—the perceived dirty parties. It will be a circus; mud will spatter. Of course, power and money protects its own. No lord is going to stand trial for this. But there will be trials. Sacrifices; scapegoats, perhaps. I’m in a position to say so—I am on one of the committees, you see. Two of them, in fact, the London Committee for the Suppression of Traffic in Young English Girls and the London Society for the Protection of Young Females. I like the full perspective . . .
Carew’s eyes drifted down to the desk, to the envelope. Maybe it’s best if I speak more plainly. I have no intention of hurting you, Doctor, of harming your reputation. Quite the opposite. I would like to help you. To provide what protection I am able to offer, if you are willing to accept it. It would be a terrible waste if you were to be mixed up in this circus. A waste to science. To our common aim.
Our common aim.
That’s right, Carew said. Understanding, Doctor. Understanding the nature of the human mind, and all its miraculous potential. Is this not your goal? Is this not why you do—what it is that you do? To explore the limits of what is possible? He paused, eyebrows lifted theatrically. Or is this not about science or understanding at all? Is it merely a matter of—pleasure? Jekyll said nothing. I stared out from behind his cool, contemptuous shell. You may decide not to speak to me, Carew said. It’s your choice. But if you won’t speak to me, then I am unable to protect you in what is to come. That is not a threat, it’s simply a fact. Investigations will be carried out, and names will be dragged through the mire. A man’s name, Dr. Jekyll, is his legacy, as I’m sure you must agree. And I fear that yours will not survive another scandal. All your progress, all your work, will be tarnished, dismissed by the scientific community and by history. You will be remembered, if at all, as a criminal freak. Is this what you want? Tell me, if it is, and I will sadly leave you to it.
God, he was good. He sat across the desk with an earnest plea in his eyes, his bluff all but impenetrable. Jekyll spoke calmly. You said something about speaking plainly. I would like to hear, plainly, what crime you believe I’ve committed.
Carew’s eyes settled again upon the envelope with the pale green cheque edging out the tattered slit. How about association with a known pedophile? he began. A patron of establishments that imprison children as concubines. A man who kept a fourteen-year-old mistress in his house, a man who could be charged with multiple crimes: assaults on innocent persons, petty larceny, evading the police . . .
He let the word fade off with a snakelike hiss.
Association. If I happen to know a man, that is a crime?
Carew pursed his lips in a one-sided smile. Oh, very well, if you insist. On the twelfth of December of last year, a certain man entered your property at three in the morning via the door off Castle Street that leads into the surgery block at the rear of this property. He emerged less than five minutes later with a cheque for ninety pounds, in your name, signed in your hand. Hush money, for the father of a girl he’d tried to abduct on the street. The very next day you opened an account in this man’s name and deposited five thousand pounds. Shortly thereafter, Edward Hyde took up residence at seven Ghyll Road in Soho and employed one Eudora Deaker to keep house. Do you know, incidentally, what is truly extraordinary? I met Eudora Deaker, many years ago. Her husband was the Great Lazaar. The magician. He was quite famous in the forties and fifties. Eudora was his assistant. His grand trick was to make her vanish from a standing wardrobe that was lifted off the floor. Stunning woman, back then. Carew shook his head. And now she reappears in the house of Edward Hyde. Extraordinary. A coincidence? There’s a design to our lives, I think, a great elaborate design we can just discern, if we know how to look.
And you’ve been looking.
I make no secret of it, Carew said. Edward Hyde has fascinated me from the moment I first heard of him. From Cornelius Luce. That’s right. Mr. Luce mentioned it to me as a peculiarity, but something about the story—especially after I’d confirmed that Mrs. Horace Waller was not, in fact, deceased, much less in the manner described—well, it intrigued me. It is instinct, by now, a nose for the unusual. So, yes, I began to poke around. And what should I find?
You tell me.
Carew held Jekyll’s eyes. I find you, Doctor. I find the inescapable conclusion that Edward Hyde is you.
Jekyll almost broke into laughter. He tightened the edges of his mouth and swiveled around in his chair to the windows. The sky was indecently lovely, gauzy as a lilac scarf above the rooflines.
You are wrong. Edward Hyde is not me. That is the whole point.
What is the whole point?
To shed yourself. To become someone else. Exactly, Carew said. And how does one do that? Shed oneself? Jekyll gazed musingly out the window. What is it you want from me? You protect me in exchange for what, precisely?
There was soft amazement in Carew’s voice: Don’t you know by now? I have wanted only one thing from the start. I want to understand. To understand how it works. How the mind can create a personality—how it can give birth to a person, a wholly distinct individual. This is what you have done, is it not? You have created this other self inside yourself. I have observed Hyde. Certain physical characteristics cannot change. Your colouring is the same. Your hairline. Your facial-bone structure. The shape of your ears. But otherwise your body, in his possession, is unrecognisable. His spine. He seems half a foot shorter than you, at least. He moves quicker too, but like someone crippled, like his pelvis is deformed in some way. And his face is—all twisted. I very much agree, he is not you. But, then, who is he?
Jekyll did not turn from the window. There was power in this pose; I could feel the shifting in advantage. He raised his hands and enmeshed the fingers together. I don’t believe I’m going to say anything further this evening.
A long pause. Carew sighed. Well, as I said, that is your choice. If you wish me to leave, I will leave. But I suggest you consider this situation carefully. If you are capable of doing so.
Now Jekyll turned in his chair. I strike you as being incapable? You strike me as being in considerably over your head. This Hyde—can you control him? Are you fully aware of what he does—what you do when you are him? Do you have any notion what has been going on in that house you leased for him? Because what the people of Soho are willing to say about this man is quite far from flattering. Now the police are aware of his existence. You cannot create a man, give him a name and a bank account and a lease on a house, and still pretend that he is imaginary. That he does not leave evidence, legal evidence, everywhere he goes. If his young mistress could be made to testify, for example, do you have any idea what she might say? Or if a warrant were procured to search that house on Ghyll Road—? Carew exhaled through his nose. I’m sorry, but I must say this. You have made yourself into a Dr. Frankenstein, and Edward Hyde is your monster. And he will destroy you, along with everything you value, if you do not accept my help.
You mean, if I do not accept the terms of your blackmail.
Blackmail? Carew repeated, as if genuinely astonished. Blackmail? Doctor, these terms are entirely of your own making. You think I want to see you exposed—to see this miraculous science reduced to a piece of infamy? How many times can I say that I want to help you, help you see this properly through? You are on the brink of a revolutionary discovery, I have no doubt, but you cannot continue solely on your own—the whole experiment will implode. It is imploding. You need counsel, and you
need protection under which we can work together to harness your science, to make it palatable to the public and thus of practical use to humankind. Is that not what science is for?
Oh, I marvelled at the man: his bright imploring eyes, his impeccable performance. Jekyll swiveled back to the window. The sky had lost its tender colour above the blackening line of the square. He touched his steepled fingers to his lips. I must consider all this. You must give me time. Take all the time you like. But the courts and committees do not wait on you. I hope for your sake that you consider it quickly, and wisely.
Jekyll nodded once. Thank you for dropping by, Sir Danvers. Always a pleasure.
Jekyll continued to sit as Carew’s footsteps clicked away on the pavement below. He lifted the edge of the newspaper Carew had brought; its headline: Of Good Cheer Indeed.
In one sense I wasn’t surprised. I had known Carew was dangerous, known there was something wrong in his triumphant cry that night outside the Black Shop. And yet, I still could not wrap my mind around it. Carew was my tormentor? The letters, the newspapers, the police inspectors; it was Carew? How could one man have orchestrated such a grand-scale persecution? Then again, Carew was not the only man involved, was he? Those letters—he could have hired underlings to deliver them. And those two inspectors—obviously, Carew had influence with the police. He had mentioned something about a warrant to search my house. My Ghyll. Abandoned to those two goons, offered up to them on a platter. Carew wouldn’t want to search my house unless he knew he would find something incriminating. Evidence—legal evidence—he could be planting things to find when he arrived with his warrant. And he had said something about Jeannie too. My mistress. But how could he make her testify unless he knew where she was? Had he helped her escape? Was he keeping her somewhere?
Jekyll had sealed me off again; the membrane hardening like cement. He did not want to hear my thoughts and did not want me to hear his. What was he hiding from me? Some crucial element was eluding me, and Jekyll was harbouring it like some crafty, snickering stowaway in the outer reaches of his mind. I pressed myself to the barrier and squirmed, searching for an opening, but I could not escape my rigid cell.
At least Jekyll could not escape his either. All that night, he lay awake on the study sofa, his mind racing and sleepless behind the deceptive closed eyelids. He ate breakfast at his desk in the morning—pushed it around the plate, rather—and then spent the afternoon slumped in his chair gazing blankly out the window. He had rolled up his left shirtsleeve, and now and then he examined the arm, smoothing his thumb down the pockmarked cephalic vein, inspecting the abscess budding like a blood blister in the crook of his elbow. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly, as if at a rambunctious child’s scrape, and then rolled down his sleeve, pushed up from his chair, and absently stamped his dead foot on the floor. Then he went to Gaunt Street.
It did not seem at first that he had any destination in mind. He merely rambled through the humid sunset until he came, as if by chance, to Utterson’s grey wooden house, looming sombrely above a patch of balding grass. The scuffling, stooped old manservant opened the door and led Jekyll upstairs to the study, the hunting-lodge-like room, with the carven ceiling and the portrait glowering down from the mantel, where Jekyll had first mentioned his will. Utterson sat wilted in a wingback chair, tie loosened, hair frowzy in the heat. He considered Jekyll with a rueful, sour frown. You look awful, Harry. Jekyll sniffed a laugh. Same to you, old man. He remained on his feet, jingling his keys in his pocket. His pulse ticked, distinct and steady as a second hand. I’ve come to tell you something. I’ve made a decision. It’s finished between Hyde and me. It’s done. I won’t be seeing him again.
Jekyll met Utterson’s eyes—those basset-hound eyes, rolling upward with pitiful hope. Utterson pressed his fist to his lips and sucked in through his flaring nostrils. I want to believe you, Harry. God, how I want to believe you. Then believe me. And what about him? Utterson asked. What happens to Hyde? He’ll simply disappear?
Hyde will return to Edinburgh, Jekyll said. Into good care. He knows he can’t stay here. He is—fracturing. Becoming a threat to himself. And, yes, to me.
I did not react, did not give him the satisfaction. Utterson was nodding like a proud, mawkish uncle. I am glad to hear you say it, Harry. This is good news. Utterson rose, went to the sideboard, and returned with two dainty glasses of amber liqueur. He gave one to Jekyll and held up his own, a meaningful gleam in his sagging eyes. Let’s drink to it, he commanded. To its end, Harry.
Jekyll raised his glass; they clinked crystal rims. To its end, John.
To its end? Nonsense. He couldn’t just order me to go away, and he knew it. What was this about fracturing, becoming a threat? Did he really believe I had grabbed control of the body that night? That I was to blame for the disintegrating barrier between us? If this was another of his symbolic gestures, it wasn’t very convincing. If he’d wanted to make a convincing gesture, he’d have gone up to the cabinet and dumped all the remaining powder out the window.
Instead, he took a cool bath, shaved, dressed in lightweight twill, and went to the Grampian for dinner. What was I meant to do—crawl off and die? Go to sleep? Return to that dreamless void wherein I had lived for almost all of his life? No, I wasn’t going back there, however he pushed and stamped me down. How would that even solve our problem? How would my disappearance satisfy Carew?
In amazement, I watched him attempt to slip back into the part of blasé Dr. Jekyll. He went to his barber on Bond Street. He dropped by his tailor and ordered an ecru summer-linen suit. He returned to his fencing club and then retired to the Grampian lounge for a soda water in the circle of gossipy old boys. He wasn’t fooling me, and he was not fooling himself either; he could surely feel me writhing with outrage at this idiotic pretence. There he would sit in his club chair, smiling mildly at the blather, meanwhile gripping and releasing his toes inside his tight, tailored shoes. He did look awful. He had not slept for days; his vigilant guard against me kept him awake. In the shaving glass, his face was drawn, peaky. One morning he nicked his chin with the razor, and a line of red trickled vivid through the cream. Later, at Lobb’s, he was being fitted for a pair of oxford brogues to match his new linen suit when the clerk discreetly cleared his throat and tapped a finger to his chin. Jekyll touched his own chin, and then stared at the bright daub of blood on his fingertips. He wiped his chin and caught sight of himself in the standing mirror, his eyes stark with alarm and blood smeared beneath his open lips. Are you all right, Doctor? the clerk asked uneasily.
He was not. At the fencing club that afternoon, he panted inside the cage of mesh helmet. His legs were sluggard, and his feet stumbled over each other as his opponent backed him up across the floor, flicking his blade and smacking Jekyll’s wrist precisely on the bone. White-hot pain slithered up the arm, and Jekyll ripped off his mask and hurled it behind him, then drew back his sword and advanced as if to deliver a backhand slash. Then he stopped. The helmet had bowled into some clattering equipment. Men in their whites watched, startled, from the sidelines. Jekyll’s opponent had removed his own helmet and gaped in appalled indignation. Jekyll’s glove creaked, as he gripped his sabre tighter.
He turned and stalked from the silent hall, and by the time he reached Big House, he was drenched and seeing whizzing spots of colour. He took a few unsteady steps past Poole into the entrance hall before his vision greyed and the room pitched like a ship and Poole cried, Sir! We were on the floor, staring dazedly at the andirons in the dead fireplace. It’s happened again, I thought, with disconnected horror. I’ve fallen into the body again. Poole turned us onto our back to loosen the collar and tie, smoothed the damp hair from our forehead and asked in a ringing voice, Can you hear me, sir? Can you hear my voice?
Thrashing in bed, throwing off the muggy sheets while Poole and Bradshaw held us down by the shoulders. It wasn’t the bedclothes but the body we were trying to thrash off, this fevered thing smothering us; if only we could get it
off, we would feel immediately better. But Poole kept forcing us back into it, and eventually we were too weak to fight him. Soon we were freezing, locked with shudders under heaps of quilts, and then roasting again, rolling a haunted eye at the gigantic scorching sun making steam rise from our sizzling skin. The body was dying. I could smell its meaty rankness. It was dying and we would die trapped inside it. There has to be a way out! I’d think in claustrophobic panic, dreaming myself lost inside the torchlit labyrinth of the body with its nightmarishly intricate system of capillaries and alleyways, millions and millions of coiling miles. As I plunged through, I would find myself in familiar rooms. My garret bedroom at Ghyll appeared often, and I would think, quite lucidly, that while here, I ought to check around and see if Carew and his goons had planted anything incriminating. Odd, nasty things turned up. Handfuls of hair. A drawstring bag filled with teeth. Alien-looking coins that slipped greasily between my fingers. From the walls, I would tear away the bloated silk paper and find burlap sacking nailed up in a thick layer, as if to soundproof the place. I seemed to conduct these monstrous searches over and over, for I kept coming upon my bedroom in the replicating labyrinth.
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