Hardwicke’s command of detail was immaculate. He remembered incidents with astonishing precision; he never faltered or contradicted himself; and moreover he clearly believed everything he said.
And yet he was completely mad. In the Chancery his claims were swiftly put to the sword through evidence from former colleagues and disaffected relations. Hardwicke, it soon became clear, had been cultivating Sullivan as a nemesis for years, in order to project upon him all the sinister motives infecting his own heart; thus he had been able to fabricate events, memories and even documents while being blissfully unaware of his own part in the contrivance. He was, in effect, a divided self, unable to distinguish reality from his own fictions, and unconscious of his own actions even as he was performing them.
Though the case, a sensation in its day, had rapidly faded from the public memory, it had deeply impressed upon Utterson’s mind the distorting power of the imagination. And as a consequence he had resolved never to be caught accepting any man’s testimony without incontrovertible evidence (and even then to reserve an element of suspicion). It was through such means that he became renowned as a man uncorrupted by rashness or sentimentality—a grinding stone upon which others might file away their delusions.
And yet now Utterson had to ask if he himself was deluded. If his own grip on reality had loosened. If he needed to challenge his own identity.
Had he really gone insane?
But again and again, as many times as he prosecuted the case in his mind, he could not shake the foundations of his central convictions. The written statements of Henry Jekyll and Hastie Lanyon had really existed. Nor was he naturally given to fancies. So everything in the documents was true. By drinking a potion Jekyll had transformed himself into Hyde. As Hyde, he had committed many unspeakable crimes. And he had killed himself in the body of Hyde.
Which meant that the claimant was an impostor. He had to be. There was simply no other explanation.
With his faith even firmer now that he had resisted a self-inflicted barrage, Utterson marched with renewed energy back to Gaunt Street, found the trunk containing Jekyll’s receipts, and confronted Poole.
‘You were the one who rounded up the powders and chemicals for Dr. Jekyll’s potions, were you not?’
‘Some of the time,’ the butler admitted.
‘Can you say from which chemist he drew his supplies? In the last year of his life especially?’
‘If you mean before my master disappeared,’ Poole said, ‘there were a number of wholesalers he used, but in the main it was Maw & Co. of C— Street.’
‘The one with the red and blue lanterns?’
‘The same, sir.’
‘Then prepare a light dinner, Poole, and I shall return, if all goes well, by eight o’clock.’
But at Maw & Co. he discovered that the man who customarily filled Jekyll’s orders, a certain Mr. Halliday, had long since retired to Bethnal Green. Undaunted, Utterson took the train out to the old man’s house.
The chemist, who was scarred of hands and caustic of personality, seemed bemused by the lawyer’s questions.
‘You’re seeking what?’
‘A recipe of Jekyll’s, for a potion he mixed numerous times before his death.’ Utterson handed across some of the doctor’s orders.
‘You think I can identify a potion by the ingredients alone?’
‘I am relying on your assistance.’
‘Jekyll was an odd one,’ Halliday reflected. ‘He asked for some queer combinations.’
‘The potion I have in mind was particularly queer, giving off a pungent smell and a visible effervescence. Its effects were swift and dramatic.’
‘Not saying it killed the doctor, are you?’
‘Not directly, no.’
‘Then why do you want it, precisely?’
Utterson sighed. ‘I was Jekyll’s lawyer and his dearest friend. I need to prove that the mixture in question had a conspicuous effect on his personality.’
‘Not a bad thing if it did,’ said Halliday, though he did not elaborate. Finally he peeled one of the receipts from Utterson’s collection. ‘I think this is the one you might be seeking.’
Utterson inspected the ingredients: phosphorous, ethanol, cocaine, psilocybe and other elements—indeed a peculiar mix.
‘Jekyll spoke of a certain quantity of salt.’
‘Possibly sodium chromate.’
‘He suggested that this particular salt, which was essential to his formula, was impure.’
Halliday grunted. ‘At Maw’s we sold no impure salts. Perhaps he obtained it from elsewhere.’
‘Might you know where?’
‘Jekyll did not tell me everything.’
‘Then do you have any idea how it might have become impure?’
‘As I said to you, Jekyll ordered a great deal of sodium chromate—it yellowed his fingers. It might have become contaminated if it were stored in a vessel containing the residue of other powders. At any rate, that’s the salt I’d be looking for if I were you.’
‘Does Maw & Co. sell this salt, by any chance?’
‘Of course,’ said Halliday, ‘but it would not be tainted, I tell you, unless their standards have fallen since my days.’
‘Then I shall have to work with what they have.’
He hastened back to Maw & Co., rounded up the necessary supplies and hefted them in a crate to Gaunt Street, where his dinner was still simmering on the stove.
‘Never mind that, Poole,’ he said. ‘Come upstairs with me.’
The butler dutifully followed his master to the business room, where Utterson laid out the various ingredients.
‘Do you recognise these salts and tinctures?’
The butler looked uncertain.
‘These are the same ingredients that Jekyll used in his last and most infamous experiment.’
‘Sir?’
‘That’s right—and now I intend to mix them into a potion, in order to prove that a man is capable of transforming into another being, just as your former master turned himself into Edward Hyde.’
Poole blinked. ‘My master … turned himself into Mr. Hyde?’
‘Shocking, Poole, but true! That is the secret I have concealed from you for the last seven years. The man we found dead in the dissecting rooms that night was not just Mr. Hyde—it was Dr. Jekyll as well. And tonight, right here in this house, I shall prove it to you. I shall mix this potion in front of you, and I shall transform into another man!’
‘Sir—’
‘Doubt it all you like, Poole, but wait—wait and see!’
Swiftly he measured out his liquids and powders and mixed them together in a graduated glass, from whence issued vapours and odours. And when the concoction turned vivid purple, then vegetable green, just as Hastie Lanyon described in his statement, Utterson knew the compound was true.
‘And now, Poole,’ he said, hoisting the glass, ‘you must bear witness to the folly of your former master. You must not avert your eyes; you must not shudder or recoil; above all you must use all your powers to prevent me from leaving this room, for I have in my hand the keys of hell and of death, and a monster inside me is about to be uncaged!’
‘Sir—’
‘Shut the door, Poole—and behold!’
And with that, Utterson tilted his head and in one gulp drained the contents of the foaming glass.
Mr. Utterson and Jericho Horn
THE POTION EXPLODED in Utterson’s innards; his head ignited, his vision blurred; he convulsed, he struggled to breathe, he reached for his throat, he felt bile erupt; his eyes rolled, blood roared around his body, and his skin heated like a hot plate.
‘Sir! Sir!’ he heard Poole cry.
For a moment Utterson was convinced he was dying; he even wondered if he had just partaken of the same poison that had killed Mr. Hyde. And he recognised that this would be a just punishment for his folly, for being such a deluded, reckless, whimsical fool; so he surrendered; and the floor peeled away beneath him; a
nd he collapsed onto a chaise longue; and his limbs slackened, and his body went limp; and his heart stilled; and he gave himself over to God.
There was blackness; and even more blackness.
But then something remarkable happened. As though in a dream Utterson saw his own body twitching and buckling; he saw Poole bending over him; he felt his whole body rearranging, he heard his bones grinding and bending, his muscles tighten and swell, his hair bristling like a wolf’s, his bowels filling with foam, his knuckles cracking, his teeth sawing into his lips, and he tasted blood like an elixir in his throat.
‘Great God!’ exclaimed Poole, recoiling.
And Utterson, exulting, understood that he was not dead after all; he had reshaped himself; he had unleashed a demon within; and years of respectability had been torn away like a veil.
‘Sir!’
This transformation, for Utterson, should have been enough. His intention, when mixing the potion, had been only to prove a possibility to both the butler and himself. But now, like Dr. Jekyll before him, he found himself intoxicated by a sense of freedom, of overwhelming recklessness—for all the walls of London were lined up before him, and they were crying out to be smashed.
He was no longer the angel Gabriel. He was Jericho Horn.
He snapped his eyes open and sprang to his feet, feeling stronger, leaner, sinewy, as taut as a coiled spring.
‘You must sit!’ Poole tried.
‘Stand back, you ingrate!’
The voice, both guttural and forceful, rent the air like shrapnel; and only belatedly did Utterson realise, with surprise and delight, that it was his own.
‘Sir—’
Utterson slammed the butler in the chest so hard that Poole toppled, grappling at the curtains before hitting the floor; and Utterson threw back his head and laughed.
‘I should have done so years ago!’ he cried, and spat hatefully at Poole before bustling out the door.
He capered down the stairs, seized his hat and cobra-headed cane—the hat slipped down around his temples, the cane felt like a truncheon—and tore open the door with wickedness in his heart and vengeance in his soul.
Heading up the street he found his tremendous energy and myriad thoughts could barely be contained in one body; so he jerked and jolted and snarled and chuckled; he loped and hunched and sprang and twisted from one side of the street to the other; he banged off lampposts and thumped off walls.
Passers-by shrank back and shielded themselves, for Utterson was like a ball of lightning in the shape of a man. ‘Good evening, ladies,’ he snarled, doffing his hat. ‘And say how’d-you-do to Jericho Horn!’
As he approached the Thames his mind filled with the sound of bells and horns and sawing cellos, so that he imagined he was about to come upon some infernal orchestra, but then he understood he was not smelling the river but hearing it, because all his senses had been rearranged, and now smell had sound and sound had smell and colour had feeling—truly he had been born anew!
He did not pause for a single moment; he never faltered in his locomotive pace; he was an instrument of his bestial instincts; he charged headlong through bustling boulevards, curling streets and twisting lanes; he terrified rats and cats and cockroaches; he hissed in excitement as people around him dived for safety; and all the while the gas lights squealed, the air licked his face, colours reeked, the flagstones dazzled beneath his feet.
Finally he found himself outside the Jekyll home, where there were no lights in the windows; he hammered with the knocker and pounded the wood to no avail; he spun around and snarled at a cluster of curious onlookers—they wilted and ran—then rounded the corner to the dissecting rooms’ entrance, where he found the knife-boy Eddie returning home with a bag of booty.
‘Recognise me, do you?’
And when the scoundrel failed to respond Utterson seized him by the collar and flung him onto the cobbles, locking his hands around his throat and digging thumbnails through flesh.
‘Where now is your master?’
Eddie squirmed and gasped as his eyeballs bulged; he struggled to say something, and Mr. Horn loosened his hands.
‘Where is your master, I say?’
‘At … at the theatre!’
‘A surgical theatre?’
‘A theatre … in the West End!’
‘Which one?’
‘D-don’t’—Eddie sucked desperately at air—‘don’t know!’
Horn tossed the man aside and made off, shuffling, scrambling, gaining speed, his elbows pumping, his feet barely touching the ground; he giggled and cawed and hacked and hummed; and overheard lightning boomed and thunder flashed and oh, his senses reeled with the glory of it all, for inside him and out there was a tremendous storm.
In the theatre district the lights were sizzling as the crowds swarmed onto the streets amid a chaos of cabs and carriages; there were dowagers and stately gentlemen, men in court suits and gleaming top hats, ladies in plumes and furs and rustling silks.
Through all this Horn drove like a spear, gorging on his own distaste, thrilling at his revulsion; but everywhere his eyes darted he saw no sign of the claimant, nothing at all, until an odour invaded his nostrils and struck a switch in his brain; and then his nose, his eyes, his ears—all his senses in concert—told him he had picked up the stink of the impostor.
And there he was, the loathsome villain, made up like a Prussian horse guard, emerging from the Gaiety Theatre arm-in-arm with the widow Spratling—the duplicitous wench!—who in crimson bombazine looked as cheap as a cabbage-leaf cigar.
Horn felt his heart crashing, his brows bending; he heard the widow’s lust like a mule driver’s cry; and he drank of his own hatred as of a long-fermented wine.
Lightning snaked across the sky; rain slashed at the streets; the claimant and the widow ducked down a dimly lighted alley; and Horn himself hurtled after them, his blood so hot it was steaming through his skin. Halfway down, with water roiling and gurgling in the drainpipes, the claimant wheeled around with a look of reproach.
‘Do I know you, sir?’
‘You might know this!’ cried Horn, and brought his cane flashing down on the man’s nose; there was a crack of cartilage and a burst of blood. Horn struck again and again and again and again, a rain of bone-crunching blows, and the widow howled like a harpy.
Finally the impostor was on the floor of the alleyway, his life gushing into twinkling puddles and bloody Nora was pressed back against the bricks, with thunder growling, as Horn thrust his head into her face.
‘Be I Gabriel now,’ he cackled, ‘or be I Lucifer?’
Then he lunged forward and tore the dress from her shoulders, so that her pink skin gleamed in the gaslight, and he seized her throat and stared into her eyes, fully prepared to take her like a tomcat.
But suddenly there was a whistle blast and he whirled around to see four constables flooding into the alley, and with one final grope at the fainting Nora he shot down the alley into Surrey Street and skittered down the darkest pathways to the embankment, taking many twists and turns until he had melted into the night.
The storm by now was fading but icy rain still cut through his clothes; he was heading swiftly to Gaunt Street with his bones grinding and rearranging, his muscles deflating, so that he sensed he was transforming back into the respectable lawyer of Bedford Row. And with that conviction a great shame seized him, and with every step he could scarce credit what diabolical powers had taken dominion of him. He shrank from the light and wept into the rain, filled not with desire but disgrace, and yearning for the consoling familiarity of his hearth.
At Gaunt Street, unable to find his key, he pounded on the door until Poole appeared and then Utterson dived into the hall where he stood dripping and bedraggled.
‘I … I …’ But he could not speak.
He raced up the stairway to his business room and sprawled across the chaise longue and sobbed into his hands until the darkness once more overcame him. And when he opened his eyes he found
his butler standing over him with a searching look on his face.
‘I smote him, Poole!’ he exclaimed.
‘You smote … who?’
‘The impostor! The man calling himself Jekyll!’
‘Faith!’ Poole said. ‘When?’
‘Just now. But twenty minutes ago.’
‘Twenty minutes ago!’
‘In an alley off the Strand. Oh, why did you not obey me, Poole? When I ordered you not to allow me to leave this room?’
The butler was taken aback. ‘But sir—’
‘Oh, I know, Poole, it’s my fault, of course it is! It’s mine, for taking that infernal potion!’
‘But sir—’
‘None of this would have happened but for that formula. It ruined Jekyll and it has ruined me! What am I to do now, with blood on my hands?’
‘But sir …’ Poole licked his lips. ‘I assure you, sir, you have not killed anyone.’
‘But I did, Poole, you were not there to see!’
‘But you did not, sir, I know it for certain.’
‘You cannot know it, Poole.’
‘But I can,’ the butler insisted. ‘Because you have not left this room, sir. After you drank from the glass you fell upon the sofa, twisting and shuddering, and drifting in and out of sleep.’
Utterson squinted incredulously. ‘What?’
‘Sir, I promise you—you have been here in this room for at least an hour.’
Utterson shook his head. ‘You lie … you must be lying!’
‘Sir, I give you my bible-word.’
‘But I was in the streets … I saw it all … I felt it all.’
‘You tossed and moaned, sir, and you cried out, but you did not leave this room.’
Utterson prodded his shirtfront, which was damp. ‘Then what about this rain on my clothes?’
‘It is not rain, sir, but perspiration.’
‘Perspiration!’
‘You were very worked up, sir, and frothing at the mouth, as well.’
‘Ahhh!’ said Utterson, seeing for the first time that it might well be true. ‘You mean I have not ventured out at all?’
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Seek Page 9