Mr. Utterson was a lawyer with a hard, serious face that rarely showed a smile.
He was quiet and reserved when he spoke. He did not express his feelings easily, and he often seemed cold. He was thin, tall, plain-looking, and somewhat gloomy, yet people found it difficult not to like him.
When he met friends and enjoyed the wine they served, a warmer side of him appeared in his eyes. He rarely spoke about his feelings, but he showed his kindness through what he did for others.
Utterson was strict with himself.
When he was alone, he drank gin instead of fine wine because he wanted to control his taste for expensive drinks. He enjoyed the theater, but he had not entered one for twenty years.
Yet he was very tolerant of other people.
He sometimes watched their reckless behavior with a strange kind of curiosity, almost wishing he could understand the excitement that drove them. Whenever someone was in serious trouble, he preferred to help rather than criticize.
He often joked:
“I have a little of Cain in me. I let my brother go to hell in his own way.”
Because of this nature, Utterson often became the last respectable friend and the last good influence left in the lives of men who were falling apart.
Even when such men came to his office, he never treated them differently.
His friendship was not based on excitement or shared interests. He simply accepted people who had been part of his life for a long time.
His closest friends were usually relatives or people he had known for years.
His affection was like ivy. It grew slowly with time and did not depend on whether the other person was especially interesting or admirable.
That was probably why he and Richard Enfield, a distant relative and well-known man about town, were such close companions.
Many people wondered what these two men could possibly have in common.
When people saw them walking together on Sundays, they often noticed that the two men hardly spoke. They looked rather bored and seemed almost relieved whenever they met someone they knew.
And yet, both men valued these walks greatly.
They considered them the best part of their week. They even turned down invitations and put aside business so that nothing would interrupt their walks.
One Sunday, their usual walk took them down a small side street in a busy part of London.
The street was quiet, but during the week it was full of business.
The people who lived there seemed prosperous and eager to become even richer. They spent their extra money making their shops attractive, so the shop fronts looked almost like rows of smiling saleswomen inviting people inside.
On Sundays, the shops were quieter and less colorful, but the street still stood out sharply from the dirty neighborhood around it.
Freshly painted shutters, polished brass, and clean windows made it look bright and cheerful.
Then they reached a strange building.
Two doors from the corner, an entrance to a small courtyard broke the line of buildings. Right beside it stood a dark, unpleasant-looking structure.
It was two stories high, but there were no windows facing the street.
There was only one door on the ground floor and a blank, stained wall above it.
Everything about the building suggested years of neglect.
The door had no bell and no knocker. Its paint was cracked and dirty.
Homeless men often stood inside its entrance and struck matches against the panels.
Children played on the steps as if they owned the place.
Schoolboys had carved the wood with their knives.
For nearly twenty years, nobody seemed to care enough to chase them away or repair the damage.
As they passed the building, Enfield suddenly raised his walking stick and pointed at the door.
“Have you ever noticed that door?”
Utterson looked at it.
“Yes, I have.”
“That door is connected with a very strange story,” Enfield said.
“Really?” Utterson asked, his voice changing slightly. “What happened?”
“Well, it happened like this.”
Enfield began telling his story.
“I was walking home one winter morning at about three o’clock. It was completely dark, and I had been somewhere very far away.”
“The streets were almost empty. All I could see were street lamps.”
“I walked through one street after another. Every house was dark, and everyone seemed to be asleep. The lamps made the streets look as if they had been prepared for some great parade, but there was not a single person around.”
“After a while, I became so uneasy that I started listening for every little sound.”
“I even began wishing I could see a policeman.”
“Then, all of a sudden, I saw two people.”
“One was a small man walking quickly down the street.”
“The other was a little girl, perhaps eight or ten years old, running as fast as she could down a side street.”
“They reached the corner at exactly the same time.”
“And then something terrible happened.”
“The man walked straight over the little girl.”
“He knocked her to the ground and calmly stepped over her body while she screamed.”
“It sounds bad when I tell you about it, but seeing it was far worse.”
“He didn’t behave like an ordinary man.”
“He seemed more like some kind of machine that simply crushed whatever was in its way.”
“I shouted at him, ran after him, grabbed him, and dragged him back.”
“By then, a crowd had gathered around the crying girl.”
“The man was completely calm.”
“He didn’t fight me or try to escape.”
“But then he looked at me.”
Enfield paused.
“That look was so ugly that I immediately began to sweat.”
“The girl’s family had come running out of their houses.”
“Not long afterward, the doctor arrived—the man had apparently been sent for because of the accident.”
“Fortunately, the girl wasn’t badly hurt. The doctor said she was mostly frightened.”
“At first, you might have thought that would be the end of it.”
“But there was something strange about the whole situation.”
“I hated the man from the moment I saw him.”
“The girl’s family felt the same way, naturally.”
“But what shocked me most was the doctor.”
“He was a completely ordinary doctor. He was neither young nor old, and he had a strong Scottish accent. Normally, he was so unemotional that you might as well have been talking to a stone.”
“But when he looked at the man, everything changed.”
“I watched his face turn pale.”
“He looked as if he wanted to kill him.”
“I knew exactly what the doctor was thinking.”
“And he knew what I was thinking too.”
“But we couldn’t kill the man.”
“So we did the next best thing.”
“We told him that we would make the whole affair into such a public scandal that his name would become hated throughout London.”
“We told him that if he had friends, they would abandon him. If he had a good reputation, we would destroy it.”
“While we threatened him, we also had to hold back the women in the crowd.”
“They were furious.”
“I have never seen so many faces filled with hatred.”
“And there he stood in the middle of us.”
“He looked cold and mocking.”
“I could see that he was frightened, but he hid it remarkably well.”
“He looked almost like Satan himself.”
“Finally, he said, ‘If you want to make money out of this accident, I have no choice. No respectable man wants a public scene. Tell me how much you want.’”
“We demanded one hundred pounds for the girl’s family.”
“He clearly didn’t want to pay that much.”
“But there was something about the crowd that told him things would get ugly if he refused.”
“So eventually, he agreed.”
“The next problem was getting the money.”
“And do you know where he took us?”
Enfield pointed toward the door.
“Right there.”
“He took out a key, unlocked that door, and went inside.”
“A little later, he came back with ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the remaining ninety pounds.”
“The cheque was drawn on Coutts’s Bank and made payable to the bearer.”
“And it was signed with a name I cannot tell you.”
“That name is an important part of the story.”
“It belonged to a very famous and highly respected man.”
“The amount itself was large.”
“But the signature was worth even more—if it was genuine.”
“I told the man that the whole thing seemed impossible.”
“A person doesn’t normally walk into a basement door at four in the morning and come back with someone else’s cheque for nearly one hundred pounds.”
“But he only smiled.”
“‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay with you until the banks open and cash the cheque myself.’”
“So we all went back to my rooms.”
“The doctor, the girl’s father, the man, and me.”
“We spent the rest of the night there.”
“The next morning, after breakfast, we went together to the bank.”
“I handed over the cheque myself.”
“I told the bank clerk that I had every reason to believe it was a forgery.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“The cheque was completely genuine.”
Utterson stared at him.
“My goodness.”
“I knew you’d feel the same way,” Enfield said.
“It was a terrible story.”
“The man who caused the accident was someone nobody could possibly respect.”
“He was truly a horrible person.”
“But the man who had signed the cheque was the exact opposite.”
“He was extremely respectable, well known, and famous for doing good things.”
“I suppose it was blackmail.”
“Perhaps the respectable man was paying for something shameful he had done when he was younger.”
“That is why I call this place Blackmail House.”
Enfield looked back at the door.
“But even that doesn’t explain everything.”
He fell silent for a moment.
Then Utterson suddenly asked:
“And you don’t know whether the man who signed the cheque lives here?”
“It would make sense, wouldn’t it?”
“But I happened to notice his address.”
“He lives somewhere in a square.”
“And you never asked about this place?”
“No.”
Enfield shook his head.
“I thought it would be improper.”
“I really dislike asking questions.”
“It feels too much like Judgment Day.”
“You ask one question, and it’s like pushing a stone down a hill.”
“You start it moving, and then it knocks into other things.”
“Before you know it, some harmless old man you would never suspect gets hit by the consequences in his own backyard, and his whole family ends up changing their name.”
“No, I have a rule.”
“The stranger the situation looks, the fewer questions I ask.”
“That is a very good rule,” Utterson said.
“But I have investigated the place myself,” Enfield continued.
“It hardly seems like a real house.”
“There is no other door.”
“Nobody ever seems to enter or leave except the strange man from my story.”
“There are three windows on the first floor facing the courtyard, but none on the ground floor.”
“The windows are always closed, but they’re clean.”
“There is also a chimney, and smoke usually comes out of it.”
“So someone must live there.”
“Although I’m not completely certain.”
“The buildings around the courtyard are packed so tightly together that it’s difficult to tell where one house ends and another begins.”
The two men walked on in silence.
After a while, Utterson spoke.
“Enfield, that’s a very good rule of yours.”
“I think so too,” Enfield replied.
“But even so, there is one thing I want to know.”
“What?”
“I want the name of the man who walked over the child.”
Enfield looked at him.
“I don’t see any harm in telling you.”
“His name was Hyde.”
Utterson was quiet for a moment.
“What does he look like?”
“That’s difficult to explain.”
“There’s something wrong with him.”
“Something unpleasant.”
“Something I find completely disgusting.”
“I’ve never disliked anyone so strongly, yet I can’t tell you exactly why.”
“He must be physically deformed in some way.”
“I can’t point to any particular deformity, but being near him gives you the strong impression that something about him is terribly wrong.”
“He looks strange.”
“But if you asked me to describe exactly what is strange about him, I couldn’t do it.”
“It isn’t because I’ve forgotten.”
“I can still see his face clearly in my mind.”
Utterson walked on in silence.
He was obviously thinking hard.
Then he asked:
“Are you sure he used a key to open that door?”
Enfield stared at him.
“My dear fellow…”
“Yes, I know,” Utterson said.
“I know that sounds like a strange question.”
“The truth is, if I didn’t ask you the name of the man who signed the cheque, it’s because I already know who he is.”
“You see, Richard, your story has hit very close to home.”
“If you’ve got any detail wrong, you’d better correct it now.”
Enfield frowned.
“I think you could have warned me.”
“But I’ve been completely accurate.”
“The man had a key.”
“And he still has it.”
“I saw him use it less than a week ago.”
Utterson let out a deep sigh.
He said nothing.
After a moment, Enfield spoke again.
“Here’s another lesson for me: I should learn to keep my mouth shut.”
“I’ve said too much already.”
“Let’s make a deal.”
“Neither of us will ever mention this again.”
“With all my heart,” Utterson replied.
He held out his hand.
“Agreed, Richard.”
They shook hands.
The Strange Door
Mr. Utterson was a lawyer with a hard, serious face that rarely showed a smile.
He was quiet and reserved when he spoke. He did not express his feelings easily, and he often seemed cold. He was thin, tall, plain-looking, and somewhat gloomy, yet people found it difficult not to like him.
When he met friends and enjoyed the wine they served, a warmer side of him appeared in his eyes. He rarely spoke about his feelings, but he showed his kindness through what he did for others.
Utterson was strict with himself.
When he was alone, he drank gin instead of fine wine because he wanted to control his taste for expensive drinks. He enjoyed the theater, but he had not entered one for twenty years.
Yet he was very tolerant of other people.
He sometimes watched their reckless behavior with a strange kind of curiosity, almost wishing he could understand the excitement that drove them. Whenever someone was in serious trouble, he preferred to help rather than criticize.
He often joked:
“I have a little of Cain in me. I let my brother go to hell in his own way.”
Because of this nature, Utterson often became the last respectable friend and the last good influence left in the lives of men who were falling apart.
Even when such men came to his office, he never treated them differently.
His friendship was not based on excitement or shared interests. He simply accepted people who had been part of his life for a long time.
His closest friends were usually relatives or people he had known for years.
His affection was like ivy. It grew slowly with time and did not depend on whether the other person was especially interesting or admirable.
That was probably why he and Richard Enfield, a distant relative and well-known man about town, were such close companions.
Many people wondered what these two men could possibly have in common.
When people saw them walking together on Sundays, they often noticed that the two men hardly spoke. They looked rather bored and seemed almost relieved whenever they met someone they knew.
And yet, both men valued these walks greatly.
They considered them the best part of their week. They even turned down invitations and put aside business so that nothing would interrupt their walks.
One Sunday, their usual walk took them down a small side street in a busy part of London.
The street was quiet, but during the week it was full of business.
The people who lived there seemed prosperous and eager to become even richer. They spent their extra money making their shops attractive, so the shop fronts looked almost like rows of smiling saleswomen inviting people inside.
On Sundays, the shops were quieter and less colorful, but the street still stood out sharply from the dirty neighborhood around it.
Freshly painted shutters, polished brass, and clean windows made it look bright and cheerful.
Then they reached a strange building.
Two doors from the corner, an entrance to a small courtyard broke the line of buildings. Right beside it stood a dark, unpleasant-looking structure.
It was two stories high, but there were no windows facing the street.
There was only one door on the ground floor and a blank, stained wall above it.
Everything about the building suggested years of neglect.
The door had no bell and no knocker. Its paint was cracked and dirty.
Homeless men often stood inside its entrance and struck matches against the panels.
Children played on the steps as if they owned the place.
Schoolboys had carved the wood with their knives.
For nearly twenty years, nobody seemed to care enough to chase them away or repair the damage.
As they passed the building, Enfield suddenly raised his walking stick and pointed at the door.
“Have you ever noticed that door?”
Utterson looked at it.
“Yes, I have.”
“That door is connected with a very strange story,” Enfield said.
“Really?” Utterson asked, his voice changing slightly. “What happened?”
“Well, it happened like this.”
Enfield began telling his story.
“I was walking home one winter morning at about three o’clock. It was completely dark, and I had been somewhere very far away.”
“The streets were almost empty. All I could see were street lamps.”
“I walked through one street after another. Every house was dark, and everyone seemed to be asleep. The lamps made the streets look as if they had been prepared for some great parade, but there was not a single person around.”
“After a while, I became so uneasy that I started listening for every little sound.”
“I even began wishing I could see a policeman.”
“Then, all of a sudden, I saw two people.”
“One was a small man walking quickly down the street.”
“The other was a little girl, perhaps eight or ten years old, running as fast as she could down a side street.”
“They reached the corner at exactly the same time.”
“And then something terrible happened.”
“The man walked straight over the little girl.”
“He knocked her to the ground and calmly stepped over her body while she screamed.”
“It sounds bad when I tell you about it, but seeing it was far worse.”
“He didn’t behave like an ordinary man.”
“He seemed more like some kind of machine that simply crushed whatever was in its way.”
“I shouted at him, ran after him, grabbed him, and dragged him back.”
“By then, a crowd had gathered around the crying girl.”
“The man was completely calm.”
“He didn’t fight me or try to escape.”
“But then he looked at me.”
Enfield paused.
“That look was so ugly that I immediately began to sweat.”
“The girl’s family had come running out of their houses.”
“Not long afterward, the doctor arrived—the man had apparently been sent for because of the accident.”
“Fortunately, the girl wasn’t badly hurt. The doctor said she was mostly frightened.”
“At first, you might have thought that would be the end of it.”
“But there was something strange about the whole situation.”
“I hated the man from the moment I saw him.”
“The girl’s family felt the same way, naturally.”
“But what shocked me most was the doctor.”
“He was a completely ordinary doctor. He was neither young nor old, and he had a strong Scottish accent. Normally, he was so unemotional that you might as well have been talking to a stone.”
“But when he looked at the man, everything changed.”
“I watched his face turn pale.”
“He looked as if he wanted to kill him.”
“I knew exactly what the doctor was thinking.”
“And he knew what I was thinking too.”
“But we couldn’t kill the man.”
“So we did the next best thing.”
“We told him that we would make the whole affair into such a public scandal that his name would become hated throughout London.”
“We told him that if he had friends, they would abandon him. If he had a good reputation, we would destroy it.”
“While we threatened him, we also had to hold back the women in the crowd.”
“They were furious.”
“I have never seen so many faces filled with hatred.”
“And there he stood in the middle of us.”
“He looked cold and mocking.”
“I could see that he was frightened, but he hid it remarkably well.”
“He looked almost like Satan himself.”
“Finally, he said, ‘If you want to make money out of this accident, I have no choice. No respectable man wants a public scene. Tell me how much you want.’”
“We demanded one hundred pounds for the girl’s family.”
“He clearly didn’t want to pay that much.”
“But there was something about the crowd that told him things would get ugly if he refused.”
“So eventually, he agreed.”
“The next problem was getting the money.”
“And do you know where he took us?”
Enfield pointed toward the door.
“Right there.”
“He took out a key, unlocked that door, and went inside.”
“A little later, he came back with ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the remaining ninety pounds.”
“The cheque was drawn on Coutts’s Bank and made payable to the bearer.”
“And it was signed with a name I cannot tell you.”
“That name is an important part of the story.”
“It belonged to a very famous and highly respected man.”
“The amount itself was large.”
“But the signature was worth even more—if it was genuine.”
“I told the man that the whole thing seemed impossible.”
“A person doesn’t normally walk into a basement door at four in the morning and come back with someone else’s cheque for nearly one hundred pounds.”
“But he only smiled.”
“‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay with you until the banks open and cash the cheque myself.’”
“So we all went back to my rooms.”
“The doctor, the girl’s father, the man, and me.”
“We spent the rest of the night there.”
“The next morning, after breakfast, we went together to the bank.”
“I handed over the cheque myself.”
“I told the bank clerk that I had every reason to believe it was a forgery.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“The cheque was completely genuine.”
Utterson stared at him.
“My goodness.”
“I knew you’d feel the same way,” Enfield said.
“It was a terrible story.”
“The man who caused the accident was someone nobody could possibly respect.”
“He was truly a horrible person.”
“But the man who had signed the cheque was the exact opposite.”
“He was extremely respectable, well known, and famous for doing good things.”
“I suppose it was blackmail.”
“Perhaps the respectable man was paying for something shameful he had done when he was younger.”
“That is why I call this place Blackmail House.”
Enfield looked back at the door.
“But even that doesn’t explain everything.”
He fell silent for a moment.
Then Utterson suddenly asked:
“And you don’t know whether the man who signed the cheque lives here?”
“It would make sense, wouldn’t it?”
“But I happened to notice his address.”
“He lives somewhere in a square.”
“And you never asked about this place?”
“No.”
Enfield shook his head.
“I thought it would be improper.”
“I really dislike asking questions.”
“It feels too much like Judgment Day.”
“You ask one question, and it’s like pushing a stone down a hill.”
“You start it moving, and then it knocks into other things.”
“Before you know it, some harmless old man you would never suspect gets hit by the consequences in his own backyard, and his whole family ends up changing their name.”
“No, I have a rule.”
“The stranger the situation looks, the fewer questions I ask.”
“That is a very good rule,” Utterson said.
“But I have investigated the place myself,” Enfield continued.
“It hardly seems like a real house.”
“There is no other door.”
“Nobody ever seems to enter or leave except the strange man from my story.”
“There are three windows on the first floor facing the courtyard, but none on the ground floor.”
“The windows are always closed, but they’re clean.”
“There is also a chimney, and smoke usually comes out of it.”
“So someone must live there.”
“Although I’m not completely certain.”
“The buildings around the courtyard are packed so tightly together that it’s difficult to tell where one house ends and another begins.”
The two men walked on in silence.
After a while, Utterson spoke.
“Enfield, that’s a very good rule of yours.”
“I think so too,” Enfield replied.
“But even so, there is one thing I want to know.”
“What?”
“I want the name of the man who walked over the child.”
Enfield looked at him.
“I don’t see any harm in telling you.”
“His name was Hyde.”
Utterson was quiet for a moment.
“What does he look like?”
“That’s difficult to explain.”
“There’s something wrong with him.”
“Something unpleasant.”
“Something I find completely disgusting.”
“I’ve never disliked anyone so strongly, yet I can’t tell you exactly why.”
“He must be physically deformed in some way.”
“I can’t point to any particular deformity, but being near him gives you the strong impression that something about him is terribly wrong.”
“He looks strange.”
“But if you asked me to describe exactly what is strange about him, I couldn’t do it.”
“It isn’t because I’ve forgotten.”
“I can still see his face clearly in my mind.”
Utterson walked on in silence.
He was obviously thinking hard.
Then he asked:
“Are you sure he used a key to open that door?”
Enfield stared at him.
“My dear fellow…”
“Yes, I know,” Utterson said.
“I know that sounds like a strange question.”
“The truth is, if I didn’t ask you the name of the man who signed the cheque, it’s because I already know who he is.”
“You see, Richard, your story has hit very close to home.”
“If you’ve got any detail wrong, you’d better correct it now.”
Enfield frowned.
“I think you could have warned me.”
“But I’ve been completely accurate.”
“The man had a key.”
“And he still has it.”
“I saw him use it less than a week ago.”
Utterson let out a deep sigh.
He said nothing.
After a moment, Enfield spoke again.
“Here’s another lesson for me: I should learn to keep my mouth shut.”
“I’ve said too much already.”
“Let’s make a deal.”
“Neither of us will ever mention this again.”
“With all my heart,” Utterson replied.
He held out his hand.
“Agreed, Richard.”
They shook hands.