That Sunday evening, Mr. Utterson returned to his quiet bachelor house in a dark and uneasy mood.
After dinner, he did not follow his usual routine. Instead of sitting beside the fire with his book until midnight, he took a candle and went into his study.
He opened his safe and pulled out a document that had troubled him for a long time.
It was Dr. Jekyll’s will.
Utterson read it again.
According to the will, if Dr. Henry Jekyll died, everything he owned would go to his “friend and benefactor,” Edward Hyde.
But there was another condition that disturbed Utterson even more.
If Jekyll disappeared or remained missing for more than three months, Edward Hyde would immediately take control of everything Jekyll owned.
Utterson had always hated the document.
At first, he had been angry simply because he knew nothing about Edward Hyde.
Now he had learned enough to be frightened.
The name was no longer just a name.
There was a real man behind it.
And everything Utterson had heard about that man was deeply disturbing.
He put the will back into the safe and shook his head.
“I used to think this was simply madness,” he murmured. “But now I’m beginning to fear that it’s something much worse.”
Utterson blew out the candle, put on his coat, and left the house.
There was only one man he thought might be able to explain what was happening.
Dr. Lanyon.
If anyone knew something about Edward Hyde, it would be Lanyon.
Dr. Lanyon lived near Cavendish Square, in an area filled with doctors and medical practices.
When Utterson arrived, Lanyon’s butler welcomed him and took him straight into the dining room.
Dr. Lanyon was sitting alone, enjoying a glass of wine.
He was a cheerful, healthy-looking man with a red face, thick white hair, and a loud, confident manner.
The moment he saw Utterson, he stood up and greeted his old friend warmly.
The two men had known each other since school and university. They respected one another deeply, and despite their differences, they had always enjoyed each other’s company.
After some casual conversation, Utterson finally brought up the subject that had been troubling him.
“Lanyon, I suppose you and I are probably Henry Jekyll’s oldest friends.”
Lanyon laughed.
“I wish our friendship with him were younger. But yes, I suppose we are. Why?”
“I thought you and Jekyll had a lot in common.”
“We used to.”
Lanyon’s expression changed.
“But I haven’t had much to do with him for more than ten years.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Henry became far too strange for me. He started going down a path I couldn’t understand. His ideas became increasingly bizarre.”
Lanyon shook his head.
“I still care about him because we were friends for so many years. But I hardly see him anymore.”
His face suddenly reddened with anger.
“Some of the nonsense he calls science is enough to destroy any friendship. Even the closest friends would have fallen out over that.”
Utterson felt slightly relieved.
So that was all it was.
Perhaps Jekyll and Lanyon had simply disagreed about science.
“That’s nothing worse than I expected,” Utterson thought.
He waited until Lanyon had calmed down.
Then he asked the question he had come for.
“Have you ever heard of a man named Hyde? Someone connected with Jekyll?”
“Hyde?”
Lanyon frowned.
“No. I’ve never heard of him.”
“Never?”
“Not until now.”
That was all Lanyon could tell him.
Utterson thanked him and eventually returned home.
But he could not sleep.
He lay awake in his large, dark bedroom, turning the problem over and over in his mind.
There were too many unanswered questions.
By six in the morning, he was still awake.
The problem had started as a matter of curiosity.
Now it had taken hold of his imagination.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw scenes from Mr. Enfield’s story.
He imagined the dark streets of London.
He saw a man walking quickly through the night.
Then he saw a little girl running into the street.
The man knocked her down and simply walked over her as if she were nothing.
In another dream, Utterson saw a wealthy bedroom.
Jekyll was sleeping peacefully.
Then the bedroom door slowly opened.
The curtains around the bed were pulled apart.
And standing beside the sleeping doctor was a strange figure.
Jekyll woke up.
He looked terrified.
Yet somehow he seemed unable to resist the stranger.
The figure kept appearing in Utterson’s dreams.
Sometimes it moved silently through sleeping houses.
Sometimes it ran through the brightly lit streets of London.
Wherever it went, children seemed to be in danger.
But there was one thing Utterson could never see.
The face.
The figure always seemed to have no face at all.
Or perhaps the face was there, but whenever Utterson tried to look closely, it changed and disappeared.
This only made him more determined.
He needed to see Edward Hyde with his own eyes.
Perhaps once he saw the man clearly, the mystery would finally make sense.
Maybe he would understand why Jekyll trusted this man.
Maybe he would understand why Jekyll had written such a strange will.
And perhaps he would finally discover what kind of man could make even the calm and reasonable Mr. Enfield feel such intense hatred.
From that day on, Utterson began watching the entrance to the small street where Hyde was known to appear.
He watched in the morning before work.
He watched at lunchtime.
He watched in the evening.
He watched in fog, rain, darkness, and clear weather.
He waited patiently.
“If he is Mr. Hyde,” he told himself, “then I’ll become Mr. Seek.”
At last, his patience paid off.
One cold, clear night, the streets were almost empty.
The shops had closed.
The lamps stood quietly along the road, casting regular pools of light and shadow.
Utterson was standing near the entrance to the small street when he heard footsteps.
They were light and quick.
He had spent so much time listening to footsteps in London that he could usually recognize when someone was still far away.
But these footsteps caught his attention immediately.
He stepped into the doorway and waited.
The footsteps came closer.
A small man appeared at the end of the street.
He was plainly dressed and rather short.
Even from a distance, something about him made Utterson uncomfortable.
The man crossed the road directly toward the door.
As he approached, he pulled a key from his pocket.
Utterson stepped out.
He reached out and touched the man on the shoulder.
“Mr. Hyde, I believe?”
The man suddenly pulled back and sucked in his breath.
For a moment, he looked frightened.
Then he recovered himself.
Without looking directly at Utterson, he answered calmly.
“Yes. That’s my name. What do you want?”
“I saw you were about to enter this house.”
Utterson paused.
“I’m an old friend of Dr. Jekyll’s. My name is Mr. Utterson.”
“I assume you’ve heard of me.”
“Since we’ve happened to meet here, I thought you might allow me to come inside.”
“You won’t find Dr. Jekyll here.”
Hyde put the key into the lock.
“He’s away.”
Then he suddenly looked up slightly.
“How did you know who I was?”
Utterson studied him.
“Before we go any further, would you do me a favor?”
“With pleasure.”
Hyde gave him a faint smile.
“What would you like?”
“Let me see your face.”
Hyde hesitated.
For several seconds, he seemed to consider whether he should refuse.
Then something changed in his expression.
He turned toward Utterson with an almost defiant attitude.
The two men stared directly at each other.
Utterson carefully memorized his face.
“Now I’ll recognize you if I see you again,” he said.
“That may prove useful.”
“Yes,” Hyde replied quietly.
“It’s probably a good thing we’ve met.”
He paused.
“And since we have, you should have my address.”
Hyde gave him an address in Soho.
Utterson felt a sudden chill.
“Could he know about the will too?”
But he kept the thought to himself.
He merely acknowledged the address.
Hyde looked at him again.
“And now tell me something.”
“How did you know who I was?”
“People have described you to me.”
“Who?”
“We have mutual friends.”
Hyde’s expression hardened.
“Mutual friends?”
“Yes.”
“Who are they?”
“Jekyll, for one.”
Hyde suddenly became angry.
“He never told you about me.”
His voice grew sharper.
“I didn’t think you would lie to me.”
Utterson frowned.
“That is an inappropriate thing to say.”
Hyde stared at him.
Then he gave a strange, harsh laugh.
Before Utterson could say anything else, Hyde quickly unlocked the door.
He slipped inside.
The door closed behind him.
Utterson remained in the street for a while.
He was deeply disturbed.
Slowly, he began walking home.
Every few steps, he stopped and touched his forehead, trying to understand what he had just experienced.
There was something terribly wrong with Edward Hyde.
He was pale and very small.
There was something almost deformed about him, although Utterson could not identify any specific physical defect.
His smile was unpleasant.
His behavior was strange—timid one moment, threatening the next.
His voice was rough, quiet, and broken.
But none of those things fully explained the feeling Hyde had created in him.
Utterson stopped walking.
“There must be something else,” he said to himself.
“There has to be.”
He struggled to find the right word.
“The man hardly seems human.”
He thought about Hyde’s face again.
“Perhaps there’s something primitive about him.”
Utterson shook his head.
“Or perhaps it’s simply that something evil inside him somehow shows through his face.”
He sighed.
“Yes. That must be it.”
His thoughts returned to his old friend.
“Poor Harry Jekyll.”
“If I have ever seen evil written on a man’s face, I saw it on the face of your new friend.”
Not far from the street where Hyde lived stood a square of old, elegant houses.
They had once belonged to wealthy families.
Now most had fallen into decline and been divided into apartments and offices.
People from all kinds of professions lived there—mapmakers, architects, questionable lawyers, and businessmen involved in mysterious enterprises.
But one house near the corner remained intact.
It still looked wealthy and comfortable.
Utterson stopped outside and knocked.
An elderly, well-dressed servant opened the door.
“Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole?”
“I’ll check, Mr. Utterson.”
Poole let him inside.
The entrance hall was large, warm, and comfortable.
A bright fire burned in the fireplace.
Expensive wooden cabinets stood against the walls.
“Would you like to wait here by the fire, sir?”
“Or shall I take you into the dining room?”
“Here is fine, thank you.”
Utterson moved closer to the fireplace and rested his hands on the tall metal guard.
He had always liked this room.
Jekyll had designed it according to his own taste, and Utterson often called it the most pleasant room in London.
But tonight, he felt completely different.
The memory of Hyde’s face still weighed heavily on him.
For once, Utterson felt sick and deeply uncomfortable.
Even the firelight seemed threatening.
The shadows moved strangely across the ceiling.
When Poole returned, Utterson was almost relieved to hear that Jekyll was not there.
“Poole,” he said, “I saw Mr. Hyde enter through the old dissecting room.”
“Is that normal when Dr. Jekyll is away?”
“Yes, sir.”
Poole answered without hesitation.
“Mr. Hyde has a key.”
Utterson frowned.
“Your master seems to trust that young man a great deal.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He certainly does.”
“We have all been instructed to obey Mr. Hyde.”
Utterson looked at him carefully.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met Mr. Hyde here.”
“Oh, no, sir.”
Poole shook his head.
“He never eats here.”
“In fact, we hardly ever see him on this side of the house.”
“He usually comes and goes through the laboratory.”
Utterson nodded.
“I see.”
“Well, good night, Poole.”
“Good night, Mr. Utterson.”
The lawyer left the house and began walking home.
His heart felt heavier than before.
“Poor Harry Jekyll,” he thought.
“I’m afraid he’s in serious trouble.”
Jekyll had been wild when he was young.
That had been many years ago.
But Utterson knew that time did not always erase the consequences of a person’s actions.
“Perhaps that’s what this is,” he thought.
“Something from Jekyll’s past.”
“An old sin.”
“A secret shame.”
“Something he thought was forgotten, now coming back to punish him.”
The thought frightened Utterson enough to make him examine his own past.
As he walked, he searched his memory for anything shameful he might have done.
His past was relatively clean.
Few men would have had less reason to fear such an examination.
Still, he remembered enough mistakes to humble him.
He also remembered the many wrong things he had almost done but had managed to avoid.
That thought made him grateful.
Then his mind returned to Hyde.
A new possibility occurred to him.
“If I could learn more about Hyde,” he thought, “I might discover what he’s hiding.”
“Whatever his secrets are, they must be terrible.”
He imagined Hyde secretly entering Jekyll’s bedroom at night.
The thought made him shiver.
“Things cannot continue like this.”
“What if Hyde knows about the will?”
“What if he becomes impatient?”
“What if he wants Jekyll’s property now?”
Utterson clenched his jaw.
“I have to do something.”
Then he hesitated.
“If Jekyll will let me.”
He continued walking through the dark streets.
Once again, the strange clauses of Jekyll’s will appeared clearly in his mind.
And for the first time, Utterson understood that the mystery of Edward Hyde might be far more dangerous than he had ever imagined.