Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde: Part5
Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde: Part5
Part Five: The Last Night
Mr Utterson was at home one evening, when Dr Jekyll's servant came to
the house.
'Good evening, Poole,' the lawyer said. 'What can I do for you?' He looked
at the servant for a moment.
Poole was very white and frightened.
'What's the matter?' asked Mr Utterson.
'Mr Utterson,' Poole said, 'there is something wrong at Dr Jekyll's house. I
am very worried.'
Mr Utterson gave the man a glass of wine.
'Drink this,' he ordered, 'and try to be calm. Tell me everything. Why are
you afraid?'
'I think something has happened to the doctor,' Poole said.
'Something has happened to Dr Jekyll? What do you mean?' demanded Mr
Utterson.
'I want you to come to the house, sir,' Poole said. 'Then you can see for
yourself, sir.'
Mr Utterson walked to Dr Jekyll's house with the servant. It was a cold,
March night. The wind was strong. The streets were empty, and Mr Utterson
was nervous. He was sure something bad had happened. The two men
reached the house. Poole knocked on the door.
Another servant opened the door, and Mr Utterson entered the house. All
Dr Jekyll's servants were standing in the hall —they looked frightened. One
of the servant girls began to cry.
'Be quiet!' Poole told her angrily. Then he turned to Mr Utterson. 'I'm sorry,
sir, they're all afraid,' he explained.
'Will you come with me, sir? I want you to hear something. Please be very
quiet.'
The servant led Mr Utterson through the house, to the laboratory. Then
he spoke again.
'If Dr Jekyll asks you to come into the laboratory, you must not go.'
Poole knocked on the door of the laboratory, and called out, 'Mr Utterson
is here, Dr Jekyll—he wants to see you, sir.'
A voice answered from inside the laboratory, 'Tell him I cannot see
anyone.'
'Thank you, sir,' replied Poole. He then took Mr Utterson back into the
main part of the house. When they arrived he asked the lawyer, 'Now Mr
Utterson, tell me. Did that voice sound like Dr Jekyll?'
'His voice is different, certainly,' Mr Utterson admitted.
'Different!' repeated Poole. 'I have known Dr Jekyll for twenty years, and I
tell you, sir, that was not his voice. Dr Jekyll was murdered eight days ago. I
heard him cry out eight days ago—but who is in that room, and why he stays
there, I don't know.'
'This has no sense, Poole,' Mr Utterson said. 'Why should anyone kill Dr
Jekyll, and stay in the same roomwith the body? You must be wrong!'
'There is more, sir,' said the servant. 'Every day for a week the person in
the laboratory has left notes for me to go to the chemist to buy some kind
of medicine. Every day there are more notes. I have gone to every chemist in
the city. There is always something wrong with the medicine.'
'Show me one of these notes,' Mr Utterson ordered.
Poole took a letter out of his pocket, and gave it to Mr Utterson. The note
said:
Dr Jekyll presents his compliments to Maw the chemist's. The sample
you sent me is useless. Dr Jekyll needs a sample of the highest quality-like
the one he bought from you in the year 18-.Please send this immediately.
'At the bottom of the note was written 'I'm desperate—send me some of
the good stuff! '
'I have seen the way Dr Jekyll writes,' Mr Utterson said.
'This seems to be the doctor's writing. Do you agree?'
'I don't know, sir,' Poole said. 'Writing isn't important —I've seen him! I've
seen him, I tell you! I came to the laboratory door one day, and the door was
open. I saw a man outside the laboratory. The man's face was covered. When
he saw me, he ran back into the laboratory and closed the door.
That man was not Dr Jekyll, I'm sure of it! It wasn't the doctor!'
'You cannot be sure, Poole,' the lawyer told him. 'Perhaps the doctor's
illness has changed his face. Perhaps that's why he needs the medicine.'
'No, sir,' said Poole firmly. 'Dr Jekyll is a tall man—and the man I saw
outside the laboratory was small. It was not the doctor!'
'Very well,' Mr Utterson said. 'We will go to the laboratory.
We have to find out the truth of this. We will break down the door of the
laboratory.'
Poole and the lawyer picked up an axe and a metal bar. They walked
towards the laboratory. Mr Utterson stopped for a moment.
'Poole,' he said, 'we must be honest with each other. You have not told me
everything. The man you saw outside the laboratory —who was it?'
'I think it was Mr Hyde, sir,' replied the servant. 'I did not see him well.
But I think it was him.'
'I believe you,' Mr Utterson said. 'I think it was Mr Hyde. I fear that Dr
Jekyll is dead. But I don't understand why Hyde is staying in the laboratory.
I don't understand that at all.'
When the two men reached the laboratory door, they stopped again. Then
Mr Utterson called out to the person behind the door.
'Jekyll! This is Utterson. Open the door. I must see you.'
A voice from behind the door answered the lawyer's command.
'No, Utterson, no!'
'That's not the voice of Henry Jekyll,' the lawyer said to Poole. 'Let's break
down the door!'
Poole hit the door of the laboratory with the axe. They heard a frightened
cry from the other side. The door was strong, and Poole hit it five times
before it opened.
Mr Utterson looked into the room. A man's body lay on the floor. It was
Edward Hyde. He was dressed in the doctor's clothes.
'Hyde is dead,' Mr Utterson said to Poole. 'We will now look for the body
of Dr Jekyll.'
The two men looked everywhere in the laboratory for the doctor, but they
found nothing.
'Perhaps he ran away,' Mr Utterson said at last. He went to the door that
opened onto the street. The door was locked, and the key was on the floor. It
was impossible for someone to have left the laboratory.
They returned to the laboratory, and searched carefully. 'This is the
medicine which Dr Jekyll ordered from the chemist,' said Poole, 'and here
are the doctor's papers.'
Mr Utterson took his friend's papers, and began to read them.
One of them was a new will. The new will gave all the doctor's money to
Mr Utterson.
'I don't understand it!' Mr Utterson said to Poole. 'Hyde has been here in
the laboratory for a week. Why didn't he destroy this new will?'
Then the lawyer picked up another paper.
'This is a letter from Dr Jekyll!' he shouted to Poole. 'And look at the date
on it—he wrote it today! He must still be alive, Poole.'
The lawyer read the letter quickly. It said:
My dear Utterson,
I will not be here when you read this letter. I know the end is near. I
want you to read the letter which Dr Lanyon sent you, then I want you to
read my confession.
Your unhappy friend,
Henry Jekyll
There is another paper here,' Poole told Mr Utterson. He passed a large
document to the lawyer.
'Do not talk about these papers to anyone,' Mr Utterson told the servant. 'I
will read them and then I will decide what to do. I will return here before
midnight. Then we will call the police.'