In fact, now that he considered it at length, was it not conceivable that the claimant was transforming himself into a different being? Though Utterson had long ago secreted all Jekyll’s recorded formulae, was it not possible that something—a single page, perhaps—had been left behind in the Jekyll house, or unearthed somewhere during the impostor’s research? And if that were the case, was it not possible that the claimant had taken advantage of the potion to pursue his sinister agenda—a man in disguise hiding beneath yet another disguise?
‘Dr. Guise indeed,’ Utterson mused under his breath.
But no sooner had these words escaped his lips than he lost sight of his quarries entirely. A fire cart came careering up the street, the horses whipped to a frenzy, the fireman rattling a bell, and Utterson squeezed against some church railings to allow it a clear passage. But when the vehicle had gone, leaving in its wake a trail of disturbed air, he found to his horror that the two men had vanished.
He sped around the corner and looked in every direction; he selected a path on impulse and followed it for three blocks, peering into every ill-lighted alley; he turned back; he headed in frantic circles; but he could see them nowhere.
Presently he found himself in Cavendish Square, the neighbourhood of Chauncey Wiseman and Edmond Keyes among others—and suddenly a chilling possibility occurred to him.
For he had followed the two men expecting them to arrive at some dark door—a smuggler’s warehouse, perhaps, or a bandit’s bolthole—but if their destination were the environs of Cavendish Square, then what did that say about their intentions? What business could they have in a respectable neighbourhood such as this?
Utterson vacillated awhile, fragrant cinders raining around him, before deciding his only recourse was to call for assistance. But when he entered the nearest police station, which was two blocks away, he found the portly PC from Yorkshire, the same one he had encountered outside the Jekyll home, standing in the entrance hall brushing ash off his uniform.
‘Oh, hullo again, sir—did you find your companion?’
Utterson tightened. ‘I … I’m terribly sorry, sir. I mistook this place for …’ But inspiration deserted him and he backed awkwardly out of the door, stumbling over his heels and toppling into the street.
He resumed his patrol of the neighbourhood, hoping to apprehend the two culprits as they emerged, blood-stained perhaps, from some well-to-do residence. But clearly he could not continue going around in circles without a convincing explanation to offer to the police. So he headed back to Jekyll’s square and concealed himself again like a cricket in a crack, intending to confront the two suspects upon their return. But hours elapsed, milk drays and market gardeners’ carts started to appear, and he became increasingly despondent and fatigued.
He was not even sure how he returned home, if indeed he returned home at all, for when he awoke he was sprawled over his office desk in Bedford Row, glued to the blotter by his own slobber. Someone was tapping him on the shoulder.
‘Utterson, dear fellow’—it was Mr. Slaughter—‘we really must have a word about this. In private, if you please.’
Gideon Slaughter, a glowing cherub of a man with carrot-coloured hair, was plainly both daunted and excited by the prospect of upbraiding the firm’s senior partner. In his magisterial office, filled with Olympian furniture, he installed himself behind his desk and nervously set to polishing his pocket watch.
‘I know we all have times when we are not functioning at our best,’ he began, ‘but if you really are as ill as you seem, dear Utterson, do you not think it might be best if you had some rest?’
‘I am not ill,’ Utterson assured him. ‘There’s some urgent business I’ve been attending to, that’s all.’
‘Relating to the Jekyll estate.’
‘That is correct.’
Slaughter’s watch-polishing became even more furious. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘though it’s none of my business, naturally, I wonder if you should let these events take their proper course. I mean to say, if this claimant fellow really is who he says he is, then do you not think it might be better to let him establish his bona fides and offer him any assistance he needs?’
Utterson felt betrayed. ‘To whom have you been talking about this?’
Slaughter began winding the watch. ‘Now, now, I have ears, Utterson, I have—’
‘It was Mr. Guest, was it?’
‘No, it was not Guest.’
‘Then who?’
Slaughter was still winding. ‘Well, there’s no danger in telling you, I suppose. It was that inspector fellow, the one who—’
‘Newcomen?’ Utterson said. ‘Inspector Newcomen was here?’
‘He was. He—’
‘What on earth did he want?’
‘He was just making a few enquiries. Clearing up a few things.’
‘Clearing up a few things …!’ Utterson stared into middle-space.
‘The point is, dear fellow,’ Slaughter said, snapping the watch shut, ‘that the man calling himself Jekyll seems unusually well-credentialed for a so-called impostor. It seems he’s already convinced many of his old friends, been pledged numerous endorsements, and even secured some substantial loans to tide him over. So don’t you think, old boy, that it might be better to see how it all plays out?’
‘Old boy?’ said Utterson.
Slaughter reddened. ‘What I mean to say is … well, don’t you think it might be better for your health, not to mention your peace of mind, if you were to surrender some of your ambitions? None of us lives for ever, do we? I mean to say, look at what happened to Palfrey Bramble and Edmond Keyes, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Edmond Keyes?’
‘The professor of ancient history.’
‘Yes, damn it, I know what he is—what about him?’
Slaughter slid his watch into a pocket. ‘Dear Utterson—do you mean to say you’ve not heard?’
‘Heard what? What?’
‘Well,’ Slaughter went on uncomfortably, ‘Professor Keyes fell down his stairs in the middle of the night and cracked his head open on a banister. Died instantaneously, poor chap. I say—!’
But he did not get a chance to finish, because Utterson was already flashing through the door.
The Fortress of Identity
LET ME SEE if I can follow what you are now telling me,’ Newcomen said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Two men in the employ of Dr. Jekyll are thieves and murderers, sent out by night to do his bidding. You say they dispose of gentlemen who might know too much about their master’s real identity, and therefore have become too much of a threat; and meanwhile they ransack the homes of the same gentlemen, in order to claim a bounty of stolen treasures.’
Utterson nodded. ‘Consider the evidence,’ he said. ‘Jekyll’s half-brother—a man who conceivably furnished crucial information to the claimant—is now dead. Jekyll’s doctor at the time of his disappearance—a man who might have identified him physically—is missing. His dentist—a man who might have recognised him by his teeth alone—is also dead, and his records put to flame. And most recently, in the last few days, Sir Palfrey Bramble and Edmond Keyes, two of Jekyll’s closest friends, have died as well.’
Newcomen grunted. ‘And yet all these deaths have been thoroughly investigated and all suspicious circumstances discounted. Nor were any valuables missing from their premises.’
‘But can you really attest to that?’ Utterson argued. ‘Really attest?’
‘I would have heard had there been any improprieties.’
‘But surely the investigations into Bramble and Keyes are not already closed?’
‘Sir Palfrey died in his sleep. Edmond Keyes, as far as I know, died as the result of a common accident.’
‘Then would you be interested to hear that the two brutes of whom I speak, the ones in the impostor’s employ, were seen in the vicinity of Keyes’s residence last night?’
‘Seen by whom?’ Newcomen asked. ‘By you?’
Utterso
n coughed. ‘By someone I know in Cavendish Square.’
‘Hmph,’ Newcomen said. ‘I can’t see it makes any difference, in any event—Keyes died on Sunday morning, many hours before whatever you or anyone else may have seen last night.’
Utterson managed to recover quickly from his surprise. ‘And then there is the simple application of logic,’ he went on. ‘Consider the mathematical probability of such a coincidence—that such a large number of men in Jekyll’s circle would all die within a matter of months.’
‘I’m a policeman, Utterson—I have been for eighteen years. And I fancy I know a fair bit about mathematical probabilities.’
‘Not to mention the small matter of the claimant’s bounty,’ Utterson tried. ‘All those treasures in the dissecting rooms, I mean—they must have come from somewhere.’
‘Well, the doctor has been away for some years, and would very likely have accumulated a few souvenirs in that time. Besides, how do you know what’s in his dissecting rooms?’
‘I … I heard someone talking at the dinner,’ Utterson said.
‘Who?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Newcomen looked doubtful. ‘You’ve not been doing anything foolish, I hope?’
‘But surely you see what the impostor is doing?’ Utterson went on. ‘Under the pretence of visiting old friends he cases out their homes and then sends his hounds in to plunder their valuables. And silence the occupants, too, should they stumble upon the crime.’
‘Minutes ago you were saying that the victims were murdered for knowing too much about Jekyll,’ the inspector said. ‘Now you say they were killed because they stumbled upon a theft in progress?’
‘One or the other, it makes no difference,’ Utterson insisted. ‘And there’s one other thing, Inspector. One other thing. You are free to disbelieve me when I say this, but I have good reason to suspect that the smaller thief, the little man with the odious face, is in fact the claimant in disguise. This could be the way he goes about his murderous enterprises undetected.’
‘The little man is the claimant too?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Dr. Jekyll?’
‘The man claiming to be Jekyll—he could be.’
Newcomen snorted. ‘This is getting rather fantastic, Utt—’
‘I know what it sounds like,’ Utterson interrupted. ‘I know. But surely it cannot hurt to investigate with an open mind? As a favour to a man who, I think I can say without conceit, has a reputation for being the least excitable lawyer in London.’
‘Least excitable, are you?’
‘Have you reason to contest the point?’
Newcomen seemed on the verge of saying something but settled on shaking his head. ‘Very well, Mr. Utterson,’ he said. ‘Then perhaps you can tell me what I can do to make you less excitable still?’
An hour or so later the two men were being led through the Jekyll home by the claimant himself. An encroaching storm was sending out salvoes of thunder, and the china in the kitchen, the mirrors in the passage, the brass before the fireplace—all were rattling to its tempo.
‘I hope there’s nothing wrong.’ The claimant, fitted snugly in Jekyll’s favourite smoking jacket, had his eyebrows knitted innocently.
‘Just a small matter,’ Newcomen assured him, ‘that needs to be cleared up.’
Utterson, irritated, was more forthright. ‘Where were you last night, sir—can you answer that?’
‘Last night?’ The claimant’s brow furrowed further. ‘Why do you ask, dear Utterson?’
‘Were you out on the streets, by any chance?’
‘As it happens I was visiting our mutual friend Christopher Piggott—as you can verify with Piggott himself.’
‘And after that? When you returned home?’
‘I retired to bed, naturally.’
‘Did you? Really?’
‘I don’t suppose I can prove it to you, Utterson, if you are intent on disbelieving everything I say.’
Utterson scowled. ‘And where pray tell was Mr. Butler?’
‘Mr. Butler?’
‘Mr. Baxter. Your butler. You know who I mean.’
‘Baxter? You weren’t following him, I hope.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘Well, I hate to disappoint you, but Mr. Baxter was fetching some supplies for my next dinner.’
‘Supplies for your dinner, eh?’
‘Pork, mainly. There’s a slaughterhouse, Ogden’s—he knows the foreman there.’
‘He visits in the middle of the night?’
‘Well, I don’t ask too many questions. Back door, cough cough, look the other way, you know. I hope this doesn’t upset you, Inspector.’
Newcomen shrugged. ‘I’ve heard of such things.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Utterson chuckled. ‘A slaughterhouse, you call it? Yes, it’s a slaughterhouse, all right! But tell me, which of them does the slaughtering? Is it Baxter or the other one?’
‘Other one?’ By this time they had passed through the yard and arrived at the inner door to the dissecting rooms.
‘The little fellow. The goblin. Who is he? Is he you?’
‘Oh’—the claimant was inserting a key in the lock—‘you’ve already met Eddie, have you?’
‘Eddie!’ It was Hyde’s first name.
‘My knife-boy.’
‘A knife-boy now, is he?’
The claimant had now opened the door, and there, within the semi-darkness of the dissecting rooms, as if by some pre-arranged cue, was the hideous little man with the scorched and scoured countenance—‘Eddie’—actually sharpening a knife on a stone.
‘Speak of the devil,’ the claimant said, faintly amused. ‘Utterson here was just talking about you.’
‘Nothing amiss, sir?’ said the little man, scrunching his face.
‘Nothing at all,’ returned his master. ‘Though I think, for the time being, you might be better off occupying yourself in the kitchen, old chap.’
‘Cert’ly, sir.’ With a tip of his cap, the little man—who smelled like an ill-tended fireplace—shuffled past and headed inside.
Utterson was taken aback by the casual insolence of it all—as though they were mocking him. But his distraction was not so great that he failed to notice, in the gloom of the dissecting rooms, the stolen articles still concealed under dustsheets. So it was on these that he now made an assault, lunging into the room and ripping off the first cover with a conjuror’s flourish.
But there was nothing underneath apart from one of Jekyll’s old vanity tables. Utterson tore off another sheet: a chest of drawers, also native to the Jekyll home. Another: an ornately carved ottoman. Utterson did not recognise it at first, and his heart leapt—but then he did.
Another. Another. Another.
In the end he exposed an entire gloomy chamber of disrobed furniture, but nowhere had he found a Hindoo sculpture, a Louis Quinze lampstand, or anything else he had glimpsed only the night before.
He looked up, blood pumping, and found the claimant and the inspector surveying him coolly.
‘You’ve hidden them!’ he spat at the claimant. ‘You’ve hidden them somewhere else in the house!’
‘Hidden, Utterson?’
‘The bounty! The treasures you’ve stolen from the homes of others!’
‘You’re welcome to search through the whole place, if you so wish.’
The claimant had a glint in his eye; the inspector, by contrast, was visibly unimpressed; lightning was flashing through the cupola.
And suddenly a terrible conviction seized Utterson. ‘You saw me last night, didn’t you? You knew I was tracking your men! And you knew I was here as well—right here in this chamber!’
The claimant seemed perplexed. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘I’m not even sure what you’re suggesting …’ He looked for assistance to Newcomen. ‘Is he saying that he broke in here last night?’
‘I hope not,’ said Newcomen.
‘Good Lord,’ the
claimant went on, frowning some more. ‘But that doesn’t bear thinking about. I mean, a man’s home is his castle, his last refuge, his fortress.’ He glanced at Utterson. ‘The very fortress of his identity.’
Utterson gasped. ‘The fortress …!’ He stared at the claimant wide-eyed; he gulped; he looked to the inspector; and he stabbed his finger accusingly. ‘He’s using Jekyll’s words! From the statement!’ he cried. ‘He’s using Henry Jekyll’s words!’
To which Inspector Newcomen exuded even more contempt, while the claimant himself offered a vaporous smile.
And Utterson, standing alone in the middle of the dissecting rooms, knew he had been dismantled—surgically cut apart. And he knew that he would forever be regarded as mad.
But he was not mad.
He was not!
Even if he was the only man in London who knew it.
The Keys of Hell and Death
MANY YEARS EARLIER Utterson had been a junior defence counsel representing Travis Hardwicke CIE, erstwhile district governor of the East India Company, after Hardwicke had been found alone with the body of Percy Sullivan, a rival businessman, in the rear of the company’s club rooms in St James’s Square. Sullivan’s head had been bludgeoned; the weapon, a poker, was still in Hardwicke’s grasp; Hardwicke himself was in a state of shock; and no one else was found in the vicinity. Notwithstanding the absence of any clear motive, it seemed an open and shut case of murder.
But when Hardwicke was interrogated by his legal team he insisted repeatedly and persuasively that he had acted in self-defence. He said that the victim had lured him to the deserted club with malicious intent; he said that Sullivan had for years been consumed by jealousy and ambition; he referred to the man’s substantial history of fraud and misrepresentation; and he claimed that Sullivan had long been hounding him with threats and blackmail.
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