The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Read Online Free PDF Page B

at
a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a
particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the
foundations of his house. The fog still slept on the wing above
the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and
through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the
procession of the town's life was still rolling in through the
great arteries with a sound as of a mighty wind. But the room was
gay with firelight. In the bottle the acids were long ago
resolved; the imperial dye had softened with time, as the colour
grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of hot autumn
afternoons on hillside vineyards, was ready to be set free and to
disperse the fogs of London. Insensibly the lawyer melted. There
was no man from whom he kept fewer secrets than Mr. Guest; and he
was not always sure that he kept as many as he meant. Guest had
often been on business to the doctor's; he knew Poole; he could
scarce have failed to hear of Mr. Hyde's familiarity about the
house; he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that
he should see a letter which put that mystery to right? and above
all since Guest, being a great student and critic of handwriting,
would consider the step natural and obliging? The clerk, besides,
was a man of counsel; he could scarce read so strange a document
without dropping a remark; and by that remark Mr. Utterson might
shape his future course.
    "This is a sad business about Sir Danvers," he said.
    "Yes, sir, indeed. It has elicited a great deal of public
feeling," returned Guest. "The man, of course, was mad."
    "I should like to hear your views on that," replied Utterson.
"I have a document here in his handwriting; it is between
ourselves, for I scarce know what to do about it; it is an ugly
business at the best. But there it is; quite in your way: a
murderer's autograph."
    Guest's eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied
it with passion. "No sir," he said: "not mad; but it is an odd
hand."
    "And by all accounts a very odd writer," added the lawyer.
    Just then the servant entered with a note.
    "Is that from Dr. Jekyll, sir?" inquired the clerk. "I
thought I knew the writing. Anything private, Mr. Utterson?"
    "Only an invitation to dinner. Why? Do you want to see it?"
    "One moment. I thank you, sir;" and the clerk laid the two
sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents.
"Thank you, sir," he said at last, returning both; "it's a very
interesting autograph."
    There was a pause, during which Mr. Utterson struggled with
himself. "Why did you compare them, Guest?" he inquired suddenly.
    "Well, sir," returned the clerk, "there's a rather singular
resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical: only
differently sloped."
    "Rather quaint," said Utterson.
    "It is, as you say, rather quaint," returned Guest.
    "I wouldn't speak of this note, you know," said the master.
    "No, sir," said the clerk. "I understand."
    But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone that night, than he
locked the note into his safe, where it reposed from that time
forward. "What!" he thought. "Henry Jekyll forge for a
murderer!" And his blood ran cold in his veins.

Incident of Dr. Lanyon
*
    Time ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in reward, for the
death of Sir Danvers was resented as a public injury; but Mr.
Hyde had disappeared out of the ken of the police as though he had
never existed. Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all
disreputable: tales came out of the man's cruelty, at once so
callous and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates,
of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; but of
his present whereabouts, not a whisper. From the time he had left
the house in Soho on the morning of the murder, he was simply
blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to
recover from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow more at quiet
with himself. The death of Sir Danvers was, to his way of
thinking, more than paid for by