Within minutes he was at the George Street address of Theodore Macleod & Sons, a corresponding partner of Utterson & Slaughter. Here he met Tarquin Macleod, a junior associate, who admitted passing familiarity with the case of the ‘MacKenzie claimant’, while noting that the official legal adviser to the laird (and for that matter his impersonator) was Mr. Carroll of Shandwick Place. But since Mr. Carroll had ‘gone soft in the head’, Utterson would be much better consulting Mr. Richard Pringle of the Edinburgh Evening News—a man uniquely well-versed in the city’s criminal history.
Expecting another dour little Scot, granite of face and personality, Utterson was surprised to find in Pringle an energetic, flame-haired young fellow—thirty-five years at most—in gaily-coloured suspenders and ink-stained shirtsleeves.
‘Aye, I remember the claimant well enough,’ the man said, brewing tea. ‘I was serving in the City Police at the time, working under an inspector by the name of Groves. I cannot tell you that the investigation was anything to be proud of—Groves, who took his own life last year, was not the brightest of men—but the facts of the case certainly made an impression on me, for I believe it was one of the boldest and yet most meticulous crimes this city has ever seen, and the claimant one of the boldest and yet most brilliant rogues ever to stalk these streets. Sugar?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘In your tea?’
‘No, thank you. I mean yes, thank you. I mean—you were saying about the claimant?’ Utterson, still clutching his valise, was leaning forward in his seat.
‘The claimant, yes. He was a devilishly clever one, that’s for sure. It’s not just that he fooled Groves—no great accomplishment, it must be said—but that he duped some of MacKenzie’s closest acquaintances, even his family members.’
‘MacKenzie had relations?’
‘Not many, and distant ones at that. He was something of a recluse, in fact, living alone on his estate at Kirkliston—precisely the reason, I suspect, that his identity was so easily fabricated when he disappeared.’
‘And how exactly did he disappear?’ asked Utterson.
‘Well, that’s always been something of a mystery. It’s generally believed he came to grief on one of his hikes through the Highlands—that he fell down a mine shaft or some such thing—but no one can say for sure. Perhaps he ended his own life. Perhaps he was dispatched by some means or other. He was not expected to return, in any case, so there was a good deal of surprise when he did. I hope it’s not too hot?’ Pringle placed a steaming cup upon the table.
‘Yes, thank you,’ Utterson said, ignoring the tea completely. ‘I mean, no thank you. I mean, who was in line to inherit the estate?’
‘Some nieces and nephews from Boston, I believe. But alas, that was not to be, for the claimant successfully proved his identity—fraudulently, as we know now—and liquidated the riches before vanishing without a trace.’
‘So the claimant thoroughly researched MacKenzie’s life in advance, it’s safe to say?’
‘Most thoroughly. Comprehensively. Collecting information from friends, business associates, club members, even tradesman who had worked on the estate. Leaving no stone unturned. And all this so discreetly that nobody at the time was moved to suspicion.’
‘And what about those who furnished this information—what happened to them?’
‘Ah, you know about that as well, do you?’
Utterson squeezed his valise. ‘Know what?’
Pringle, however, suddenly changed direction. ‘May I ask, Mr. Utterson, if you knew Mr. MacKenzie personally? Or are you merely representing someone who did?’
Utterson straightened. ‘I am representing someone in London who finds himself in a remarkably similar situation—someone due to inherit an estate that may yet be denied him, by a man who could very well be the same rogue who plied his trade here in Edinburgh.’
‘You don’t say?’ Pringle stirred his own drink. ‘The same impostor, you think, but claiming another estate?’
‘A scoundrel whose methods seem identical to those you have described. A heartless murderer, not above eliminating those who know too much about him.’
‘And robbing them at the same time?’
Utterson squinted. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Pringle put down his spoon with a clink. ‘Well, if we are speaking of the same man—and it would be most satisfying to think that we are—then you should know that part of the man’s devilry was to case out the homes of MacKenzie’s acquaintances, even while re-introducing himself to them, and later send in one of his accomplices, a one-time chimney sweep, to invade their homes through the roof.’
Utterson was chilled. ‘A chimney sweeper?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So the man had an accomplice?’
‘He did.’
‘Then tell me’—Utterson’s voice snagged in his throat—‘then tell me … was this chimney sweeper a swarthy little fellow with a particularly ugly visage?’
‘He was indeed,’ Pringle confirmed. ‘Why? You have met the rascal yourself?’
Utterson began to shake. ‘I might have done.’
‘Then you can count yourself lucky that you are still alive, Mr. Utterson. The claimant and his accomplices stole a great deal of bounty from the homes of the unsuspecting, and did not hesitate to kill if they needed to. Though of course they did their best to disguise the crimes as natural accidents—fooling many, including the law here, I’m ashamed to say.’
‘So perhaps,’ Utterson said, swallowing, ‘so perhaps a dead man might be found with a crack in his skull, and it would be mistakenly assumed that he struck his head against a bannister or a table?’
‘That’s it precisely. They were exceptionally proficient at covering their tracks. Even after making off with their loot they were at great pains to destroy all evidence. A young secretary at the claimant’s law firm, for instance, had recorded details of his dealings with the men, on the instruction of the police, only to be found garrotted days later, with all his records missing.’
Utterson shuddered. ‘And tell me,’ he said, his voice lowering to a whisper, ‘tell me, was this impostor, the man who took the place of MacKenzie … would you recall what he looked like?’
‘I saw him myself on several occasions.’
‘Then was he … was he …’ Utterson moistened his lips. ‘Was he an especially handsome, statuesque fellow with a Mediterranean pallor, and glossy brown eyes, and thick well-groomed hair, and sparkling white teeth?’
Pringle frowned. ‘Why no … no … he was not like that at all.’
‘No?’
‘Not handsome at all, I’m afraid. Though neither was MacKenzie, the man he was impersonating.’
Utterson grasped at other possibilities. ‘Then perhaps he was just in disguise … an elaborate disguise?’
‘I doubt that any man could have disguised himself to that extent. For MacKenzie was broad and stocky, and very unprepossessing in looks.’
‘Then perhaps …’ Utterson began despairingly, but found he could not continue: Then perhaps we are not speaking of the same man after all …
‘Please,’ Pringle decided. ‘Allow me a minute or two. The claimant never allowed himself to be photographed, it’s true, but in the files here we have a portrait of Alexander MacKenzie, and that itself should give you a good idea of the claimant’s appearance.’
Pringle made off to the newspaper’s library as Utterson brooded over this strange turn of events. Were there two different impostors? Had he come to Edinburgh chasing shadows? Could God be mocking him one final time? The floor beneath his feet was vibrating with the thunder of the printing presses.
‘Here it is,’ said Pringle, returning with a folio sheet. ‘An engraving of Alexander MacKenzie. Which, minus a few years perhaps, is identical to the appearance of the man who assumed his identity.’
Utterson looked down at the picture and immediately gasped.
The man in the portrait was the spitti
ng image of Baxter, the bent-nosed butler!
He Knew What They Would Say
SITTING IN THE carriage of the train, armed with a sheaf of newspaper accounts and police reports as thick as a Bradshaw’s, Utterson felt vindicated. He was not mad. He was not even eccentric. Indeed, it was darker and more sinister than anything he had imagined. The impostor and his associates had committed all manner of crimes in the past—fraud, theft, murder—and escaped without a single conviction. Small wonder, then, that they acted with such audacity now—because they fully expected to escape scot-free again!
Nonetheless Utterson had little confidence that any of his new evidence would convince Inspector Newcomen and his colleagues. The claimant had already done enough to discredit him fatally in their eyes. And he knew exactly what they would say.
The portrait of the MacKenzie claimant, for instance: they would insist that it bore only a faint resemblance to Butler. Or Baxter. Whatever he was called.. They would cite the unblemished nose, the flat ears, the more prominent chin. They would insist that the real MacKenzie looked considerably older than his supposed impersonator. And they would reject the very possibility that a gruffly mannered boxer could ever pass himself off as a Scottish laird.
They would sniff indifferently at the newspaper descriptions of the MacKenzie claimant’s manservant (Spanish, dark-haired, meticulously groomed), denying that they proved, as Utterson firmly believed, that this was the man presently masquerading as Henry Jekyll.
They would argue, too, that the MacKenzie claimant’s errand boy—the former chimney sweeper—was clearly not the same person as the Jekyll claimant’s knife-boy Eddie. To do so they would make the most of the differences apparent in the police report—where the chimney sweeper was broadly described as ‘Mongoloid’ and ‘simian’—before declaring that the two were entirely different men.
They would delight in pointing out that the man claiming to be Jekyll had amassed an impressive number of affidavits from men of rank, wilfully ignoring all the affidavits the MacKenzie claimant had similarly accrued—as if the endorsements of London gentlemen were plainly more credible than those of whisky-bibbing Scotsmen!
And finally they would say that Utterson had already proved himself to be entirely unreliable. They would recall his false accusations and preposterous theories. They would sneer at his absurd insistence that Jekyll and Hyde were the same man. They would murmur about the vast inheritance of which he stood to be deprived. They would encourage Poole to recount details of his erratic behaviour. They would chuckle about his unrequited love for the widow Spratling. They might even have learned of his desperate assault on the impostor and the widow in a West End alley … no, wait, Utterson thought, that was only a dream …
In any event, it was enough to know that there had been other victims before him, and now, if nothing else, he could at least prevent the same fate befalling others in the future. But how, exactly, would he confront the villains? What could he, a lean lawyer in his late fifties, hope to accomplish against a ruthless gang of three? Should he threaten them? Abduct them? Was he ready, God forbid, to sacrifice his own life? Or were the impostors intending to do away with him right now—with just one day remaining before Jekyll was to be declared officially dead?
Such were the questions that swirled through Utterson’s mind as the train streaked through the quilted English countryside and the necklace of noble cities between Edinburgh and London.
He shot out of King’s Cross glancing repeatedly over his shoulder. He dived into a cab and rattled home with his heart thumping. He dashed for the door and was fumbling for his key—there was no longer any butler to open the place—when a figure emerged from the shadows next door. Utterson drew back defensively, raising his owl-headed cane.
But it was only his neighbour, the retired surveyor Mr. Grimsby. ‘The postman asked me to pass this over,’ Grimsby explained, handing across some mail and frowning concernedly. ‘But is something ailing you, Mr. Utterson? You look unwell.’
‘Unwell?’ Utterson laughed. ‘I’ve never been better!’
In the hall he made a cursory examination of the letters, flinging aside two messages from Mr. Slaughter before tearing open a parcel from the chemist Enoch Fell.
Inside was a fold of coloured paper with an explanatory note:
SIR—
I have been told that you have been searching for a special Provision of Salt, of a Type that was supplied by me to HENRY JEKYLL. The Salt was from a Consignment that I purchased from a disreputable Dealer in CHEAPSIDE, my usual Dealer being absent.
I later learned that this Salt had been stored in a Vessel also containing various other Salts, in sufficient quantities to contaminate the marked Powder. I thereafter refrained from selling this Salt, but retained a small Quantity lest it be required again.
I herewith enclose a measure of this Salt, in the hope that it proves useful to you, but under the circumstances I have decided not to include a Bill. I trust you to use this Substance judiciously.
Your faithful Servant,
Enoch Fell, CHEMIST
Utterson shivered. As much as he had felt as if higher powers were mocking him, he now wondered if God Himself might not be guiding him down the final path. For here, on top of all the evidence he had amassed in Edinburgh, was the last piece of the puzzle—the powder that made the potion complete. And here, too, was the answer to all his problems: a means of disguising himself and gaining inhuman strength in the process. He would confront the villains now, he would overpower them, and he would escape without ever being identified.
The bell tinkled on the porch. Utterson raised his cane and tore open the door, ready for anything. But it was only his head clerk.
‘Mr. Utterson,’ said Guest, doffing his hat, ‘may I have a word?’
Utterson was on the point of slamming the door before realising that this was exactly what he required. ‘By all means!’ he declared, practically dragging the young man inside. ‘Come in, dear Guest, and observe!’
In the hallway Guest attempted to splutter something but Utterson had no time for it.
‘Never mind that!’ he said. ‘You are here for a reason, did you know that? You have been sent by God! You are a holy chronicler. You have a divine purpose!’
He shoved the clerk up the stairs to his business room, where he frantically added Fell’s salt to the other ingredients and stirred them furiously in a glass while informing Guest of everything he had discovered in Edinburgh—the full story of the MacKenzie claimant and everything before that.
‘So beware, dear fellow, for your own life!’ he finished. ‘Beware, at all times, of Dr. Guise!’
‘Sir, sir’—Guest looked confounded—‘you’re not going to drink that liquid?’
‘Oh, do not concern yourself for me—do not worry for a minute about Gabriel Utterson—for just as Satan transformed into an angel of light, so an angel of light will now transform into Satan!’
And with that he seized the glass of foaming liquid and hurled it down his throat, slamming the empty glass back onto the table and wiping his lips with the back of his sleeve.
Then he stared at Guest even as his vision blurred and swam and his muscles throbbed and fluttered, as his blood heated and stormed through his head, as his muscles swelled and rearranged; his bones contorted audibly, his hair twisted, his teeth and nails lengthened, his back arched; and he saw the look of astonishment—of sheer disbelief—on his head clerk’s face.
But no, this was no dream—Utterson knew it this time. This was reality. This was actually happening. Foundations were crumbling, walls were collapsing; he had finally done it. He had breached—no, demolished—the fortress of identity.
Teddy Guest’s Statement of the Case
IT IS NOW over twenty-four hours since the events of yesterday evening and it has become my unhappy task to put on paper my thoughts regarding Mr. Gabriel Utterson and the madness that ultimately claimed him. Detective Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard has promised
to visit me shortly, both to collect my statement and to inspect some other documents in my possession, so there is no certainty that I shall be able to complete this narrative in time for his perusal. Nevertheless, as much as my hand trembles as I write this, I regard it as something of a sacred duty—‘a holy purpose’ as Mr. Utterson himself might have called it—to record these recollections for posterity, and to leave others to make of it what they will.
I first came into contact with Mr. Utterson some fourteen years ago, shortly after he entered into partnership with Mr. Slaughter, and not long before the two men moved into the premises in Bedford Row (which the firm still occupies). Owing to the straitened circumstances of my employer at that stage, and the high regard in which my penmanship was held—for I believe I can say without hubris that I was among the best of my profession, mentioned in the same breath as Mr. Greaves of Burton & Leach and Mr. Fairley of Marshall, Bidwell & Swanston—I quickly found myself transferred to the front desk of Utterson & Slaughter, a post which I quickly made my domicile.
I must say now without hesitation that I am forever indebted to Mr. Utterson; both for employing me in the first place and thereafter for championing me at every opportunity. He became, in loco parentis, a fatherly figure to me, most keenly interested in my progress and unflaggingly helpful in matters both professional and personal. He never intimidated me, never admonished me publicly, and was always quick to acknowledge my good work and punctuality. A most ascetic man in all but his weakness for vintage wines, he even extended to me the intimacy of his own home on some occasions (the greatest honour of which I believe he was capable), and rarely hesitated to entrust me with the knowledge of all his doubts and uncertainties (of which, before his decline, there were conspicuously few).
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Seek Page 11