CHAPTER ONE
The Story of the Door
MR. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never
lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in
sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. At friendly
meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed
from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but
which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but
more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself;
drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though
he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years.
But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost
with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and
in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove.
"I incline to, Cain's heresy," he used to say. "I let my brother go to the
devil in his quaintly: "own way." In this character, it was frequently his
fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence
in the lives of down-going men. And to such as these, so long as they came
about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.
No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at
the best, and even his friendship seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity
of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle
ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way.
His friends were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest;
his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness
in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield,
his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack
for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could
find in common. It was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday
walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with
obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For all that, the two men put
the greatest store by these excursions, counted them the chief jewel of each
week, and not only set aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the
calls of business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.
It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them down aby-street
in a busy quarter of London. The street was small and what is called quiet,
but it drove a thriving trade on the week-days. The inhabitants were all
doing well, it seemed, and all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying
out the surplus of their gains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood
along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of smiling
saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms and lay
comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in contrast to its dingy
neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its freshly painted shutters,
well-polished brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly
caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.
Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east, the line was broken
by the entry of a court; and just at that point, a certain sinister block
of building thrust forward its gable on the street. It was two stories high;
showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower story and a blind forehead
of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of
prolonged and sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither
bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched into the recess
and struck matches on the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; the
schoolboy had tried his knife on the mouldings; and for close on a generation,
no one had appeared to drive away these random visitors or to repair their
ravages.
Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the by-street; but when
they came abreast of the entry, the former lifted up his cane and pointed.
"Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when his companion had replied
in the affirmative, "It is connected in my mind," added he, "with a very
odd story."
"Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice, "and what was
that?"
"Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield: "I was coming home from some
place at the end of the world, about three o' clock of a black winter morning,
and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to
be seen but lamps. Street after street, and all the folks asleep -- street
after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a
church -- till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and
listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. All at once, I saw
two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk,
and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she
was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally
enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the
man trampled calmly over the, child's body and left her screaming on the
ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn't like
a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a view-halloa, took to
my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was
already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and
made no resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the
sweat on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl's own
family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his
appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened, according
to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it.
But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman
at first sight. So had the child's family, which was only natural. But the
doctor's case was what struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary,
of no particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about
as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every time
he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with the
desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was
in mine; and killing being out of the question, we did the next best. We
told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this, as should
make his name stink from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends
or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time, as
we were pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the women off him as best
we could, for they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such
hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black,
sneering coolness -- frightened too, I could see that -- but carrying it
off, sir, really like Satan.
'If you choose to make capital out of this accident,' said he, 'I am naturally
helpless. No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says he. 'Name your
figure.' Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the child's family;
he would have clearly liked to stick out; but there was something about the
lot of us that meant mischief, and at last he struck. The next thing was
to get the money; and where do you think he carried us but to that place
with the door? -- whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with
the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on Coutts's,
drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I can't mention, though
it's one of the points of my story, but it was a name at least very well
known and often printed. The figure was stiff; but the signature was good
for more than that, if it was only genuine. I took the liberty of pointing
out to my gentleman that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a
man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning
and come out of it with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred pounds.
But he was quite easy and sneering.
'Set your mind at rest,' says he, 'I will stay with you till the banks open
and cash the cheque myself.' So we all set off, the doctor, and the child's
father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the night in my
chambers; and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in a body to the bank.
I gave in the check myself, and said I had every reason to believe it was
a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine."
"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.
"I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it's a bad story. For my
man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable man;
and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the proprieties,
celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what
they call good. Black-mail, I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose
for some of the capers of his youth. Black-Mail House is what I call that
place with the door, in consequence. Though even that, you know, is far from
explaining all," he added, and with the words fell into a vein of musing.
From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather suddenly:" And you
don't know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?"
"A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield. "But I happen to have noticed
his address; he lives in some square or other."
"And you never asked about the -- place with the door?" said Mr.Utterson.
"No, sir: I had a delicacy," was the reply. "I feel very strongly about putting
questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You
start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the
top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some
bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head
in his own back-garden and the family have to change their name. No, sir,
I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I
ask."
" A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.
"But I have studied the place for myself," continued Mr. Enfield. "It seems
scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes in or out of that
one but, once in a great while, the gentleman of my adventure. There are
three windows looking on the court on the first floor; none below; the windows
are always shut but they're clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally
smoking; so somebody must live there. And yet it's not so sure; for the buildings
are so packed together about that court, that it's hard to say where one
ends and another begins."
The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then,
"Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule of yours."
"Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield.
"But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one point I want to ask:
I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the child."
"Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it would do. It was a man
of the name of Hyde."
"H'm," said Mr. Utterson. "What sort of a man is he to see?"
"He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance;
something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man
I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere;
he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point.
He's an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out
of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can't describe him. And
it's not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment."
Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and obviously under a weight
of consideration.
"You are sure he used a key?" he inquired at last.
"My dear sir..." began Enfield, surprised out of himself.
"Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem strange. The fact is,
if I do not ask you the name of the other party, it is because I know it
already. You see, Richard, your tale has gone home. If you have been inexact
in any point, you had better correct it."
"I think you might have warned me," returned the other, with a touch of
sullenness. "But I have been pedantically exact, as you call it. The fellow
had a key; and what's more, he has it still. I saw him use it, not a week
ago."
Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; and the young man presently
resumed. "Here is another lesson to say nothing," said he. "I am ashamed
of my long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to refer to this again."
"With all my heart," said the lawyer. "I shake hands on that, Richard."
Chapter Two |
