Time passed, and huge rewards were offered for information leading to Mr. Hyde’s capture. Sir Danvers’s murder was seen as a crime against the whole public. Yet Hyde had vanished so completely that it was almost as if he had never existed.
The police uncovered plenty about his past, and none of it was good. People told stories about his shocking cruelty and violence. They spoke of his filthy way of life, his strange companions, and the hatred that seemed to follow him wherever he went.
But no one knew where he was.
From the moment Hyde left the house in Soho on the morning of the murder, he simply disappeared.
As the weeks passed, Mr. Utterson slowly recovered from his fear. He began to feel calmer.
In his mind, the disappearance of Hyde was some compensation for the terrible death of Sir Danvers. With that evil presence gone, Dr. Jekyll seemed to become a different man.
He came out of his isolation.
He began visiting his friends again and inviting them to his house. He had always been generous to the poor, but now he became known for his religious devotion as well.
He was constantly busy.
He spent more time outdoors, helped people whenever he could, and seemed happier than before. His face looked brighter, almost as if he carried a quiet sense of peace inside him.
For more than two months, Dr. Jekyll seemed completely at peace.
On January 8, Utterson had dinner at Jekyll’s house with a small group of friends. Dr. Lanyon was there too.
For one evening, everything felt like the old days.
Jekyll looked happily from Lanyon to Utterson, just as he had when the three men had been close friends.
But on January 12, Jekyll refused to see Utterson.
The same thing happened on January 14.
“Dr. Jekyll is staying inside,” Poole explained. “He doesn’t want to see anyone.”
Utterson returned on January 15.
Again, he was turned away.
For the past two months, Utterson had become used to seeing his friend almost every day. Now Jekyll’s sudden return to isolation began to trouble him deeply.
On the fifth evening, Utterson invited Mr. Guest to dinner.
The following evening, he went to visit Dr. Lanyon.
At least Lanyon allowed him inside.
But the moment Utterson saw him, he was shocked.
Lanyon had changed terribly.
His face looked like that of a man who knew he was going to die.
The healthy color had disappeared from his face. He had become thin and pale. His hair had grown noticeably thinner, and he looked much older than before.
Yet those physical changes were not what frightened Utterson most.
There was something in Lanyon’s eyes.
His whole manner suggested that he was suffering from some terrible fear deep inside his mind.
Utterson could hardly believe Lanyon was afraid of death.
Still, he could not stop himself from thinking it.
He is a doctor. He must understand exactly what is happening to him. He knows that he is dying, and perhaps that knowledge is more than he can bear.
When Utterson mentioned how ill he looked, Lanyon answered firmly.
“I have suffered a terrible shock,” he said. “I will never recover from it. I probably have only a few weeks left.”
He paused.
“But I have had a good life. I enjoyed it. Yes, I truly enjoyed being alive.”
He gave a faint, bitter smile.
“Sometimes I think that if we knew everything about life, we might all be more willing to leave it.”
“Jekyll is ill too,” Utterson said. “Have you seen him?”
At once, Lanyon’s expression changed.
He raised a trembling hand.
“I never want to see or hear anything about Dr. Jekyll again,” he said loudly, though his voice shook. “I am finished with that man. As far as I am concerned, he is dead.”
“Come now,” Utterson said gently.
After a long silence, he continued.
“Can’t I do something to help? We have been friends for many years, Lanyon. We are not going to live forever.”
“Nothing can be done,” Lanyon replied. “You should ask Jekyll himself.”
“He refuses to see me.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Lanyon looked away.
“One day, Utterson, after I am dead, you may discover the truth about all this. You may finally understand what was right and what was wrong. But I cannot tell you.”
He looked back at Utterson.
“For now, if you can stay and talk about something else, please do. I would be grateful for your company.”
His voice became desperate.
“But if you cannot avoid this cursed subject, then please leave. I cannot bear to talk about it.”
As soon as Utterson returned home, he sat down and wrote to Jekyll.
He complained about being shut out of the house and asked what had caused the terrible break between Jekyll and Lanyon.
The next day, Jekyll sent him a long reply.
Some parts of the letter were deeply emotional.
Other parts were strangely mysterious.
Jekyll made it clear that his quarrel with Lanyon could never be repaired.
“I do not blame our old friend,” Jekyll wrote. “In fact, I understand why he feels the way he does.”
He continued:
“We must never meet again.”
“From now on, I intend to live in complete isolation. So you must not be surprised if I sometimes refuse to see even you.”
“And please do not think that this means I have stopped caring about you.”
“You must allow me to follow my own dark path.”
“I have brought a terrible punishment and danger upon myself, though I cannot tell you what they are.”
“If I am the greatest sinner, then I am also the greatest sufferer.”
“I never imagined that such terrible suffering and fear could exist in this world. They have reduced me to something less than a man.”
“There is only one thing you can do to make my fate easier.”
“Respect my silence.”
Utterson was stunned.
Only a short time earlier, Hyde had disappeared. Jekyll had returned to his old friendships and his old way of life.
Just a week before, everything had seemed to promise Jekyll a peaceful and respected old age.
Now, in a matter of days, his friendship, his peace of mind, and his entire life seemed to have collapsed.
Such a sudden change might have suggested madness.
But after seeing Lanyon and hearing his strange words, Utterson felt certain that something much deeper was happening.
A week later, Dr. Lanyon became seriously ill and was confined to his bed.
Less than two weeks after that, he was dead.
The night after Lanyon’s funeral, Utterson was deeply shaken.
He locked the door of his office and sat alone beneath the dim light of a single candle.
Then he took out an envelope.
It had been written and sealed by his dead friend.
Across the front were the words:
“PRIVATE: For the hands of G. J. Utterson alone. If he dies before me, this must be destroyed without being read.”
Utterson stared at it nervously.
He was afraid of what he might find inside.
I have buried one friend today, he thought.
What if this letter costs me another?
He immediately felt ashamed of the thought.
That is disloyal to Lanyon.
He broke the seal.
Inside was another sealed envelope.
Written on that envelope were even more disturbing instructions:
“Not to be opened until the death or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll.”
Utterson stared at the words in disbelief.
Disappearance.
There it was again.
Just as in the strange will he had once returned to Jekyll, the idea of Jekyll disappearing was connected directly with his name.
In the will, the idea had come from the sinister presence of Hyde. At the time, its meaning had seemed obvious and terrifying.
But now the words had been written by Lanyon himself.
What could they possibly mean?
Utterson was overwhelmed by curiosity.
He wanted to tear open the second envelope immediately and discover the truth behind the mystery.
But he was a lawyer.
His professional honor mattered to him.
So did his loyalty to his dead friend.
He could not break Lanyon’s final instructions.
He placed the sealed packet deep inside his private safe.
It is easy to control curiosity for a moment.
It is much harder to defeat it completely.
From that day forward, Utterson was no longer as eager to visit his surviving friend.
He still cared about Jekyll.
But whenever he thought about him, he also felt uneasy and afraid.
He continued to visit the house from time to time.
Yet, strangely enough, he was almost relieved whenever Jekyll refused to see him.
Perhaps, deep down, he preferred standing outside with Poole, surrounded by the sounds and fresh air of the city, rather than entering that dark, closed house and sitting with the mysterious man who had shut himself away from the world.
Poole had little good news to offer.
Dr. Jekyll was now spending almost all his time in the private room above the laboratory.
Sometimes, he even slept there.
“He hardly talks anymore,” Poole told Utterson.
“He seems very unhappy.”
“He doesn’t read like he used to.”
“It’s as if something is constantly troubling him.”
Utterson heard the same report again and again.
Eventually, he became so accustomed to hearing it that he slowly began visiting less and less often.