The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Page A

building was occupied by
the theatre, which filled almost the whole ground storey and was
lighted from above, and by the cabinet, which formed an upper
story at one end and looked upon the court. A corridor joined the
theatre to the door on the by-street; and with this the cabinet
communicated separately by a second flight of stairs. There were
besides a few dark closets and a spacious cellar. All these they
now thoroughly examined. Each closet needed but a glance, for all
were empty, and all, by the dust that fell from their doors, had
stood long unopened. The cellar, indeed, was filled with crazy
lumber, mostly dating from the times of the surgeon who was
Jekyll's predecessor; but even as they opened the door they were
advertised of the uselessness of further search, by the fall of a
perfect mat of cobweb which had for years sealed up the entrance.
No where was there any trace of Henry Jekyll dead or alive.
    Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor. "He must be
buried here," he said, hearkening to the sound.
    "Or he may have fled," said Utterson, and he turned to examine
the door in the by-street. It was locked; and lying near by on
the flags, they found the key, already stained with rust.
    "This does not look like use," observed the lawyer.
    "Use!" echoed Poole. "Do you not see, sir, it is broken?
much as if a man had stamped on it."
    "Ay," continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too, are rusty."
The two men looked at each other with a scare. "This is beyond
me, Poole," said the lawyer. "Let us go back to the cabinet."
    They mounted the stair in silence, and still with an
occasional awestruck glance at the dead body, proceeded more
thoroughly to examine the contents of the cabinet. At one table,
there were traces of chemical work, various measured heaps of some
white salt being laid on glass saucers, as though for an
experiment in which the unhappy man had been prevented.
    "That is the same drug that I was always bringing him," said
Poole; and even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise
boiled over.
    This brought them to the fireside, where the easy-chair was
drawn cosily up, and the tea things stood ready to the sitter's
elbow, the very sugar in the cup. There were several books on a
shelf; one lay beside the tea things open, and Utterson was amazed
to find it a copy of a pious work, for which Jekyll had several
times expressed a great esteem, annotated, in his own hand with
startling blasphemies.
    Next, in the course of their review of the chamber, the
searchers came to the cheval-glass, into whose depths they looked
with an involuntary horror. But it was so turned as to show them
nothing but the rosy glow playing on the roof, the fire sparkling
in a hundred repetitions along the glazed front of the presses,
and their own pale and fearful countenances stooping to look in.
    "This glass has seen some strange things, sir," whispered
Poole.
    "And surely none stranger than itself," echoed the lawyer in
the same tones. "For what did Jekyll"—he caught himself up at
the word with a start, and then conquering the weakness—"what
could Jekyll want with it?" he said.
    "You may say that!" said Poole.
    Next they turned to the business table. On the desk, among
the neat array of papers, a large envelope was uppermost, and
bore, in the doctor's hand, the name of Mr. Utterson. The lawyer
unsealed it, and several enclosures fell to the floor. The first
was a will, drawn in the same eccentric terms as the one which he
had returned six months before, to serve as a testament in case of
death and as a deed of gift in case of disappearance; but in place
of the name of Edward Hyde, the lawyer, with indescribable
amazement read the name of Gabriel John Utterson. He looked at
Poole, and then back at the paper, and last of all at the dead
malefactor stretched upon the carpet.
    "My head goes round," he said. "He has been all these days in
possession; he had no cause to like me; he must have raged to see
himself displaced; and he has