I surveyed the bedroom in a frenzy of disbelief. Had Carew really done this? Had his goons planted these things here? I had to get rid of it, as much of it as I could. At the fireplace, I groped inside the filthy hole and tipped open the flue, then I wadded up all the sheets of newspaper that had been crammed into that drawer and struck the ball aflame. As it burned, I crawled under the bed, then ripped off the sheets, and finally found under the mattress a pasteboard-bound ledger, its pages filled with crabbed scribble, crowded with spiders of a familiar spiky scrawl—a demented manifesto. I slapped through it, catching glimpses of its manic snarling sense: fishhooked the blokes cheeks and break it off in the cunt and glug glug glug goes it down the hole and then a whole page filled with nothing but hide hide hide hide hide hide hide hide hide, like that letter I had burned. I clapped the ledger shut, wild-eyed, heart hammering. I dashed to the fire and threw the book on the smouldering grate. I tore the satin casing from a pillow, then snatched up the bundle of hair, stuffed it inside, and followed it with the paper sack of rings and trinkets and the parcel of clothing. I thrust the hammer into the pillowcase and then scooped up as much of the pile of pirate’s treasure as I could, though many of the coins were oily and impossible to pry up from the floorboards. That fecal stink from Carew was still in my nostrils as I squatted, shovelling coins into my sack, and I could sense that stifled mirth in the air, like I was blundering through some comic burlesque for an unseen, malicious audience. Smoke was seething through the room. I toed the ledger into the back of the grate and threw in my tormentor’s letters in their envelopes and slapped at my clothes, my pockets. From the inner lining of my greatcoat, I produced a green leather booklet. My cheque book. I had not used it once, of course. I tossed it on the flame, watched the leather blister and cheques curl.
I gave my ransacked room a final, hopeless survey, then twisted up the pillowcase and hastened down the stairs. Halfway across the entrance hall, however, I stopped, pulsing in the dark. I was not alone. I could feel it along the nape of my neck. I turned, peered into the teeming shadows of the passageway alongside the stairs. I licked my lips. Mrs. Deaker? I took a step, and the floorboard creaked an intricate response that made me stiffen. Was she there? Mrs. Deaker? I repeated, almost urgently. You shouldn’t stay here, they’re going to come, they’re going to—the words dried in my throat. It was not Mrs. Deaker watching from the shadows. It was not anyone.
Mr. Seek? I whispered.
The floor groaned beneath me, as if I were standing on a trapdoor. I shuffled back, putting up my hand. It’s yours. It’s all yours.
I raced south with my satin sack through the deserted streets as light grained the sky. Soon I could smell the river. I crossed a park to Waterloo Bridge, bounded up the steps, and at what felt like the centre I stopped. Eastward the river curved, picking up the paling colour in the sky, bridges strung in fine-spun silhouette across the mountainous pile of translucent clouds on the farthest horizon, the City etched in dove grey against it, spires and domes and threads of spindly smoke. The view shivered, prismatic. I dragged my hand across my eyes and gulped down a sob. Then I swung to the railing and looked at the river below, its shifting obsidian slabs flecked with foam. I hung the weighted satin bag over, let it go. Heart in my throat, I listened a second, two, for the ploosh! I hauled the revolver from my pocket, curled my fingers round the grip and trigger, yearning to squeeze, to feel it kick and clap thunder. My fingers tightened, the hammer drew slightly back, and then I opened my hand. Made hardly a splash. From another pocket in the overcoat, I withdrew the syringe, holding it by its steel loops, the ridiculous thing. I pushed my thumb to the plunger and watched the silvery chain of serum arc from its tip. I let it swing from my finger and fall.
Halfway back across the bridge I took off my hat, the pale grey bowler, and flung it in a spinning ellipse over the water. Moments later, I watched it bobbing along the current and under the bridge.
Back in the cabinet I surveyed the mess we had left: E drawer unpacked on the table and the Erlenmeyer flask on the floor, a single Milward box open with its empty indentation. I felt on the verge of euphoric collapse. I had done it. It had gone horribly, horribly wrong, but I had done it. He was dead. We were free. Numbly, I picked at my buttons, dragged off my sticking clothes. I pulled down my trousers and drawers and stared at the filthy streaks down my legs, a blast of stench making me cover my mouth and cough. I had soiled myself. The notion was peculiarly liberating, arousing even. My thing was starting to thicken and stand from its thatch of hair, and I shut my eyes as my knowing fingers closed around it. Soon it seemed that the cabinet was in raging flames all around me. They had set the whole surgery block on fire and were standing in the courtyard with torches, waiting for me to stagger out, gasping for mercy. The heat beat against me, wavering the air, as undulant flames licked the walls. You fools, I thought in rapture, you fools! Let it burn! All of it burn!
Jekyll stepped into the courtyard. Low mist lay over the gravel; it parted as he crunched toward the alleyway leading out to Castle Street. He carried my dirty clothes bundled and tied up in my coat, which he held by the sleeve. The alley ran along the limestone wall and emerged onto Castle Street. Jekyll looked up and down and walked south a little ways. Then, with his whole arm, he spun the bundle around and around as if for a hammer throw and let it go. It flew in a high arc and bounced to the stones, rolled into shadow. Children would find it and untie it, of course. Jekyll brushed his palms together and turned back to the alley.
Day Three, Night
What am I meant to feel? Remorse? What does that even mean, remorse? That I’m sorry I killed him? I’m not sorry. Killing Carew ruined everything, certainly. But he hadn’t left us any choice. Even if I did have it all wrong—how could I have known that? Jekyll saw to it that I knew and understood nothing! He was the one who’d cooked up the poison in the first place and then thrust me forth to do the dirty work, knowing I could not possibly use the needle as we’d planned. I was meant to use that stick after all. I had taken it from Big House for the very purpose; a murder weapon can never elude its predestined—
Hush. What was that?
A creak.
Now another creak, from the stairs outside the cabinet door. Footsteps, climbing the wooden staircase. Poole? Where did he come from? Is it dinnertime already? I did not hear him—how can he just appear soundlessly? I stand at the head of the cabinet not three paces from the door. Slow and deliberate as ever, Poole clumps up to the middle step. A silvery cling as he sets the dinner tray down. I hold my breath. Silence wells up like water. Now another creaking step, and another—but not downward. He is coming up. He is coming to the door.
I don’t move a hair, lest the groaning floorboards give me away. Poole halts on the other side of the door. Now comes the gentle rap of his knuckle on the wooden frame. Sir? His voice is muffled by the baize-insulated door. I tense my diaphragm against the slightest exhalation. Sir? Dr. Jekyll? Won’t you answer me? I shut my eyes. I feel dizzy. I am not prepared for this. I need more time. I can imagine him out there: his crooked fingers raised to knock again, his head cocked as he listens to the skin-crawling void. He knows. Jekyll would answer; Jekyll would say something. Should I try to mimic his voice?
But Poole backs down a step, a crepitating scrape. He retreats another. Now the swivel of his sole as he turns, descends to the bottom. Still, I do not move a muscle, not until his crunching over the gravel courtyard takes him to the conservatory door, which squeaks as he opens and closes it.
How did I not hear all that? The squeaky hinge, the stony crunch, the wrench of the surgery door, his footsteps over the theatre boards. How can he just noiselessly appear at the foot of the stairs? Does he know some secret, soundless way into the surgery block?
He must know by now. He knows someone is up here—someone who will not respond. He will go to Utterson. Tonight? Christ, the two of them could be pounding again at that door within the hour!
At the press, I pull open E
drawer. The glass phial of cyanide lies on its side. I lift it out and hold it, loosely, in my palm. I am not ready for this. I haven’t finished yet.
Over an hour has passed, and still nothing.
Perhaps Poole will sleep on it. Cautious Poole. In the morning he will do something, go to Utterson. But tonight is still mine. I cannot waste it. I must keep on.
Jekyll’s room, the morning after Carew. Golden seam of light searing through the curtains and dappling the polished bedpost. Jekyll drew his hands from under the covers, inspected the backs of them, touched his face. I almost suspected that it was Friday morning all over again, that we had dreamt the whole demented thing. Jekyll slid from his bed and drew back the curtains, shielding his eyes from the late-morning sun. He pushed open a window, and a crisp breeze bent into the room. A high thin voice was singing somewhere below, rising and falling. Jekyll went into his dressing room and ran cold water into the white basin, examining himself in the shaving glass. He frowned slightly, turned toward his profile. Then he cupped his hands under the stream and bent to splash his face, rubbing the cold water into his gritty cheeks. A flash of pain—he straightened, staring at his palm.
A flap of skin had peeled loose on the pad below the pointer finger. He pried the flap gently back with his other thumb, and Carew rolled up his crazed imploring eye before the stick broke across his face, the weightless, delightful follow-through. Jekyll shuddered, shutting his eyes, and then the singing voice out on the square became suddenly clear: a newsboy calling out the headlines. Murder! he was crying in his pure voice. Murder of an MP! Shocking Murder! MP Murdered!
Downstairs in the dining room, the newspaper was waiting at Jekyll’s place, flat and warm as always from Poole’s iron. Jekyll made himself sit down and cross his legs before reaching for the paper. The letters were half an inch high and black as his blood had been:
BELOVED MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
BRUTALLY SLAIN
Last evening, popular Member of Parliament Danvers Xavier Carew, DCL, FRS, GCMG, and Knight of the Realm, was beaten to death outside the house of renowned hypnotist and spiritual adviser Cornelius Luce. The contemptible attack occurred slightly before midnight and was carried out with a stout oaken walking stick, a broken portion of which was recovered by the police from a nearby gutter this morning. The perpetrator of this foul crime has been identified by a witness, who had been positioned at a window in the Luce residence at the time, as one Edward Hyde, who had called upon Mr. Luce in his home several months before. Mr. Hyde’s connection to Sir Danvers Carew is as yet undetermined.
Jekyll ripped his eyes upward as Poole came in with breakfast. Have you read this, Poole? Have you seen what they’re saying? Poole set the plate down, gaze averted. I have, sir. Jekyll shook his head, speechless. I—I swear to you, I hadn’t the slightest idea Mr. Hyde was capable—Poole removed the silver cover and looked at his master with black, measuring eyes. Sir, I know nothing of this matter. And neither does anyone in this house. I give you my assurance of that.
He turned to go and Jekyll reached out and took the man’s wrist in his grip. Poole went still. We could nearly feel his pulse through the twill sleeve. Jekyll squeezed, and released him. Poole cleared his throat, sketched a bow, and left the dining room.
Up in the cabinet, Jekyll and I pored over the newspaper with damp, inky hands. I was not surprised to see my name. I had been expecting to see it in newsprint for months and now here it was, indisputable at last. Yet so quickly! Who was this witness? Had Luce himself been watching from a window? Jekyll threw the paper down and plunged about the room, then snatched the pages up again, as if the words might have changed, metamorphosed into his own name. At last he collapsed into a chair by the windows. He was not in the clear yet. This was only the beginning. Utterson would come today; Jekyll would have to deflect him as well. After a few minutes he jumped up again, went around to the writing desk, removed some paper from a drawer, and sat down, flexing his left hand open and shut. He removed Father’s fountain pen from his pocket. Exhaling, he hunched over the desk and began to write with the left hand, an awkward script scratching out from the nib. To my Loyal Benefactor, Dr. Henry Jekyll:
For your thousand generosities, I have repaid you most poorly. Myself I’ve proven unworthy of your tutelage and support, of the civilised company you wished me to keep. There is no civility in me, as I showed the world last night. That my deed might besmirch you causes me such pain and disgust I cannot bear to see your reproach and disavowal, and so I will do the job for you. You needn’t worry, I have sure means of escape. You shan’t ever see me again. Please forgive your unworthy pupil,
Edward Hyde
It was strange. As with Jekyll’s journals, I could gather its sense but just barely read the scribble, as if he were blurring it or veiling it from me somehow. The moment he was finished, Jekyll waved the confession dry and folded it crudely in thirds. He took an empty envelope from the drawer and carried it to the stove, struck a match to its edge, and used the flame to light the coals. He watched the envelope curl and blacken, then stuffed the letter into his breast pocket and scanned the cabinet. He turned back the bolt of the cabinet door and sat again by the windows to wait for Utterson.
He came in the afternoon. Fog lay thick over the courtyard. We could hear Utterson crunching over the gravel, alone. He clumped across the theatre and up the stairs and knocked once on the wooden frame. Jekyll composed his face a final second, then called out, It’s unlocked, John. He did not turn as Utterson entered and approached in his clunking boots, did not turn until the solicitor stood above him, breathing audibly through his nostrils. Jekyll twisted to show his tortured expression to Utterson—the solicitor stern, weary, unshaven, lips pressed shut. Jekyll smiled brokenly. Will you tell me now, John, I told you so?
No point, Utterson said, is there. I don’t need to tell you anything, do I, Harry? No, you don’t. John, listen to me. I have not seen Edward Hyde since you and I last spoke. I had no knowledge of his actions until this morning. Utterson nodded, as if he’d expected Jekyll to say that. And you have no notion of where he might be, I presume? Jekyll held his sceptical scrutiny, then glanced away at the windows. I think he is dead. Or will be soon, if he’s not already.
Dead? Utterson repeated. What makes you think so? This. Jekyll drew the letter from his breast pocket and offered it between two fingers. Utterson plucked it free. His sinuses whistled as he read. How was this delivered? he asked. Slipped under the door, down there. The Castle Street door. And the envelope? It was blank. I burned it. Jekyll looked up again, eyes wide and fraught. It’s a suicide note, John. Or so he wants us to think. Wouldn’t that be convenient, if everyone believed he was dead? Well, Jekyll said, faltering, perhaps. I don’t know. You may keep it. I leave it to you to decide if it’s necessary to share it with the police.
The police! Utterson said with a derisory laugh. The police do not seem to need much help in this matter, Harry. They have a witness, and they have a murder weapon, or rather two halves of a murder weapon, one half recovered at the scene of the crime and the other half from Mr. Hyde’s bedroom. He made the job very easy for them. His bedroom? How do you know this? Because I was there, Utterson said. I was there with the police when they found it. And before that, I was at the police station identifying Sir Danvers’s corpse. I have seen some things, but that man on the slab was, it was—he was unidentifiable but for the hair. After I had a good look at that, I was shown the murder weapon, the half they’d recovered from the street. And that I recognised at once. Are you aware which walking stick he used? Jekyll shook his head, blanching under Utterson’s glare. Damn it, Harry, I gave you that walking stick. Ten years ago, it was a present, when you were made a fellow. Why did he have it? Did you give it to him? I—I didn’t know; he had free rein of the house, he might’ve taken it from the stand at any time. John, forgive me, but why did the police come to you? Why were you asked to identify the body?
Utterson clucked his tongue in vexation and
glanced away, breathing hard. Because, he said, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a folded white envelope. The police found this in Carew’s pocket.
He flapped the envelope open in Jekyll’s face.
Gabriel John Utterson
13 Gaunt Street
The seam was torn neatly along the top.
Jekyll’s mouth had gone dry. Carew had written Utterson a letter. It had been in his pocket. Jekyll slid his eyes up to Utterson’s, who was watching his friend’s reaction very carefully. Why Carew? Utterson asked. Why did Hyde go after him? I’m not certain. Jealousy, maybe. He’d always been threatened by my acquaintance with Carew. Hyde had bones to pick with nearly everyone. And he was coming apart, as I told you. What you told me was that he was being remanded into good care, Utterson said. A hospital in Edinburgh, you led me to believe. Yes, I know. He was meant to voluntarily commit himself. I put him on a train. I made a mistake. John—what did Carew write to you? Did he mention Hyde by name?
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