Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the eighth chapter of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

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Today we'll be continuing The Strange Case of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson the last night, Mr.

Utterson was sitting by his fireside one evening after dinner, when he was surprised to receive a visit from Poole.

Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?

He cried, and then, taking a second look at him, what ails you?

He added.

Is the doctor ill, Mr.

Utterson?

Said the man, there is something wrong.

Take a seat and here's a glass of wine for you, said the lawyer.

Now take your time and tell me plainly what you want.

You know the doctor's ways, sir, replied Poole, and how he shuts himself up.

Well, he shut up again in the cabinet, and I don't like it, sir.

I wish I may die if I like it.

Mr.

Utterson.

Sir, I'm afraid.

Now, my good man, said the lawyer, be explicit.

What are you afraid of?

I've been afraid for about a week.

Returned Poole, doggedly disregarding the question, and.

I can bear it no more.

The man's appearance amply bore out his words.

His manner was altered for the worse, and except for the moment when he had first announced his terror, he had not once looked the lawyer in the face.

Even now he sat with a glass of wine untasted on his knee and his eyes directed to a corner of the floor.

I can bear it no more, he repeated.

Come, said the lawyer.

I see you have some good reason, Poole.

I see there's something seriously amiss.

Try to tell me what it is.

I think there's been foul play, said Poole hoarsely.

Foul play?

Cried the lawyer.

A good deal frightened and rather inclined to be irritated in consequence.

What foul play?

What does the man mean?

I daren't say, sir, was the answer.

But will you come along with me and see for yourself?

Mr Utterson's only answer was to rise and get his hat and great coat.

But he observed with wonder the greatness of the relief that appeared upon the butler's face, and perhaps with no less that the wine was still untasted when he set it down to follow.

It was a wild, cold seasonable night of March, with a pale moon lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and flying rack of the most diphaneous and lawny texture.

The wind made talking difficult inflect the blood into the face.

It seemed to have swept at the streets unusually bare of passengers.

Besides, for Mr Utterson thought he had never seen that part of London so deserted.

He could have wished it otherwise.

Never in his life had he been conscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch his fellow creatures for a struggle as he might.

There was borne in upon his mind a crushing anticipation of calamity.

The square, when they got there, was full of wind and dust, and the thin trees in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing.

Pool, who had kept all the way apace or two ahead now pulled up in the middle of the pavement, and in spite of the biting weather took off his hat and mopped his brow with a red pocket handkerchief.

But for all the hurry of his coming, these were not the dews of exertion and he wiped away, but the moisture of some strangling anguish.

For his face was white and his voice when he spoke harsh and broken.

Well, sir, he said, here we are, and God grant there be nothing wrong.

Amen.

Poole.

Said the lawyer.

Thereupon.

The servant knocked in a very guarded manner.

The door was opened on the chain, and a voice asked from within is that you, Poole?

It's all right, said Poole.

Open the door.

The hall, when they entered, it was brightly lighted up.

The fire was built high, and about the hearth the whole of the servants, men and women, stood huddled together like a flock of sheep.

At the sight of Mr Utterson, the housemaid broke into hysterical whimpering and the cook crying out, bless God, it's mr Utterson ran forward as if to take him in her arms.

What what are you all here?

Said the lawyer, peevishly.

Very irregular, very unseemly.

Your master would be far from pleased.

They're all afraid, said Poole.

Blank silence followed, no one protesting.

Only the maid lifted her voice and now wept louder.

Hold your tongue, Poole, said to her.

With a ferocity of accent that testified to his own jangled nerves.

And indeed, when the girl had so suddenly raised the note of her lamentation, they had all started and turned towards the inner door with faces of dreadful expectation.

And now, continued the butler, addressing the.

Knife boy, reach me a candle and we'll get this through hands at once.

And then he begged Mr.

Utterson to follow him and led the way to the back garden.

Now, sir, said he, you come as gently as you can.

I want you to hear and I don't want you to be heard and see.

Here, sir, if by any chance he was to ask you in, don't go.

Mr.

Utterson's nerves at this unlooked for termination gave a jerk that nearly threw him from his balance.

But he recollected his courage and followed the butler into the laboratory building through the surgical theater with its lumber of crates and bottles to the foot of the stair.

Here Poole motioned him to stand on one side and listen while he himself, setting down the candle and making a great and obvious call on his resolution, mounted the steps and knocked with a somewhat uncertain hand on the red bays of the cabinet door.

Mr.

Utterson, sir, asking to see you.

He called, and even as he did so once more violently signed to the lawyer to give ear, a voice answered from within.

Tell him I cannot see anyone, it said, complainingly.

Thank you, sir, said Poole.

With a note of something like triumph in his voice.

And taking up his candle, he led Mr.

Utterson back across the yard and into the great kitchen where the fire was out and the Beatles were leaping on the floor.

Sir, he said, looking Mr.

Utterson in.

The eyes, was that my master's voice?

It seems much changed, replied the lawyer, very pale, but giving look for look.

Changed?

Well, yes, I think so, said the butler.

Have I been 20 years in this man's house to be deceived about his voice?

No, sir, master's made away with.

He was made away with eight days ago when we heard him cry out upon the name of God, and who's in there instead of him and why it stays there is a thing that cries to heaven.

Mr.

Utterson, this is a very strange tailpool.

This is rather a wild tale, my man, said Mr.

Utterson, biting his finger.

Suppose it were, as you suppose, supposing Dr.

Jekyll to have been, well, murdered.

What could induce the murderer to stay?

That won't hold water.

It doesn't commend itself to reason.

Well, Mr.

Utterson, you are a hard man to satisfy.

But I'll do it yet, said Poole.

All this last week, you must know him.

Or it whatever it is that lives in that cabinet has been crying night and day for some sort of medicine and cannot get it to his mind.

It was sometimes his way, the master's, that is to write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair.

We've had nothing else this week back.

Nothing but papers and a closed door and the very meals left there to be smuggled in when nobody was looking.

Well, sir, every day I and twice and thrice in the same day there have been orders and complaints, and I've been sent flying to all the wholesale chemists in town.

Every time I brought the stuff back.

There would be another paper telling me to return it because it was not pure, and another order to a different firm.

This drug is wanted bitter bad, sir.

Whatever for?

Have you any of these papers?

Asked Mr.

Utterson.

Pull felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled note, which the lawyer, bending nearer to the candle, carefully examined its contents, ran thus dr.

Jekyll presents his compliments to messer's ma.

He assures them that their last sample is impure and quite useless for his present purpose.

In the year 18, dr.

J.

Purchased a somewhat large quantity from messer's m.

He now begs them to search with the most sedulous care, and should any of the same quality be left, forward it to him at once.

Expense is no consideration.

The importance of this to dr.

J can hardly be exaggerated.

So far the letter had run composedly enough, but here, with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had broken loose.

For god's sake, he added, find me some of the old this is a strange note, said Mr.

Utterson, and then sharply, how do you come to have it open?

The man at maz was made angry, sir, and he threw it back to me like so much dirt, returned Poole.

This is unquestionably.

The doctor's hand, do you know?

Resumed the lawyer.

I thought it looked like it, said.

The servant, rather sulkily.

And then with another voice, what matters.

Hand of right, he said.

I've seen him.

Seen him?

Repeated Mr.

Utterson.

Well, that's it said poole.

It was this way.

I came suddenly into the theater from the garden.

It seems he had slipped out to look for this drug or whatever it is for the cabinet door was open, and there he was at the far end of the room, digging among the crates.

He looked up when I came in, gave a kind of cry, and whipped upstairs into the cabinet.

It was but for 1 minute that I saw him.

But the hair stood upon my head like quills.

Sir, if thou was my master, why had he a mask upon his face?

If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat and run from me?

I've served him long enough.

And then the man paused and passed.

His hand over his face.

These are all very strange circumstances, said Mr.

Utterson, but I think I begin to see daylight.

Your master pool is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer.

Hence for aught I know the alteration of his voice.

Hence the mask and the avoidance of his friends hence his eagerness to find this drug by means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery.

God grant that he be not deceived.

There is my explanation.

It is sad enough pool eye and appalling to consider but it is the plain and natural hangs well together and delivers us from all exorbitant alarms.

Sir, said the butler, turning a sort.

Of modeled pallor, that thing was not my master.

And there's the truth.

My master Harry looked round him and began to whisper is a tall, fine build of a man.

And this was more of a dwarf.

Utterson attempted to protest.

Oh, sir, cried Poole, do you think I do not know my master after 20 years?

Do you think I do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet door where I saw him every morning of my life?

No, sir.

That thing in the mask was never Dr.

Jekyll.

God knows what it was, but it was never Dr.

Jekyll.

And it is the belief of my heart that there was murder done.

Poole, replied the lawyer.

If you say that, it will become my duty to make certain.

Much as I desire to spare your master's feelings much as I am puzzled by this note which seems to prove him to be still alive I shall consider it my duty to break in.

That door, Mr.

Utterson.

That's talking.

Cried the butler.

And now comes the second question, resumed Utterson.

Who is going to do it?

Why, you and me, sir, was the undaunted reply.

That's very well said, returned the lawyer.

And whatever comes of it I shall make it my business to see you are no loser.

There's an axe in the theater, continued Poole and you might take the kitchen poker for yourself.

The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument into his hand and balanced it.

Do you know, Poole, he said looking up, that you and I are about to place ourselves in a position of some peril?

You may say so, sir.

Indeed?

Returned the butler.

It is well, then, that we should be frank, said the other.

We both think more than we have said.

Let us make a clean breast.

This masked figure that you saw, did you recognize it?

Well, sir, it went so quick and the creature was so doubled up that I could hardly swear to that was the answer.

But if you mean, was it, Mr.

Hyde, why, yes, I think it was.

You see, it was much of the same bigness and it had the same quick, light way with it.

And then who else could have gone in by the laboratory door?

You've not forgot, sir, that at the time of the murder he had still the key with him?

But that's not all.

I don't know, Mr.

Utterson, if you've ever met this Mr Hyde?

Yes, said the lawyer.

I once spoke with him.

Then you must know as well as the rest of us that there was something queer about that gentleman, something that gave a man a turn.

I don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this that you felt in your marrow kind of cold and thin?

I own I felt something of what you describe, said Mr Utterson.

Quite so, sir, returned Poole woe.

When that masked thing, like a monkey, jumped from among the chemicals and whipped into the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice.

Oh, I know it's not evidence, Mr Utterson.

I'm book learned enough for that.

But a man has his feelings, and I give you my Bible word it was Mr Hyde.

I i, said the lawyer.

My fears inclined to the same point.

Evil, I fear, founded evil was sure to come of that connection.

I truly I believe you.

I believe poor Harry is killed and I believe his murderer for what purpose God alone can tell, is still lurking in his victim's room.

Well, let our name be vengeance.

Call Bradshaw.

The footman came at the summons very white and nervous.

Pull yourself together, Bradshaw, said the lawyer.

This suspense, I know, is telling upon all of you, but it is now our intention to make an end of it.

Poole here and I are going to force our way into the cabinet.

If all is well, my shoulders are broad enough to bear the blame.

Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss, or any malfactor seek to escape by the back, you and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good sticks and take your post at the laboratory door.

We give you ten minutes to get to your stations.

As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch.

And now, Poole, let us get to ours, he said, and taking the poker under his arm, led the way into the yard.

The scutted banked over the moon, and it was now quite dark.

The wind, which only broken, puffs and draughts into that deep well of building, tossed the light of the candle to and fro about their steps until they came into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down silently to wait.

London hummed solemnly all around, but nearer at hand, the stillness was only broken by the sounds of a footfall moving to and fro along the cabinet floor.

So it will walk all day, sir, whispered Poole.

Aye, in the better part of the night.

Only, when a new sample comes from the chemist, there's a bit of a break.

It's an ill conscience that's such an enemy to rest.

Ah, sir, there's blood folly shed in every step of it.

But hark again.

A little closer.

Put your heart in your ears, Mr Utterson, and tell me, is that the doctor's foot?

The steps fell lightly and oddly with a certain swing for all they went so slowly, it was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll.

Utterson sighed.

Is there never anything else?

He asked.

Pulle nodded.

Once, he said.

Once I heard it weeping.

Weeping?

How that?

Said the lawyer, conscious of a sudden chill of horror.

Weeping like a woman or lost soul, said the butler.

I came away with that upon my heart that I could have wept too.

But now the ten minutes drew to an end.

Pool disintered the axe from under a stack of packing straw.

The candle was set upon the nearest table to light them to the attack, and they drew near with bated breath to where that patient foot was still going.

Up and down, up and down in the quiet of the night.

Jekyll.

Cried Utterson with a loud voice, I demand to see you.

He paused a moment, but there came no reply.

I give you fair warning.

Our suspicions are aroused, and I must and shall see you, he resumed, if not by fair means, then by foul.

If not of your consent, then by brute force.

Utterson.

Said the voice.

For God's sake, have mercy.

Ah.

That's not Jekyll's voice.

It's Hyde's.

Cried Utterson.

Down with the door.

Pool.

Pool swung the axe over his shoulder.

The blow shook the building, and the red bay's door leapt against the lock and hinges.

A dismal screech, as of mere animal terror rang from the cabinet.

Up went the axe again and again the panels crashed, and the frame bounded four times.

The blow fell, but the wood was tough, and the fittings were of excellent workmanship, and it was not until the fifth that the lock burst and the wreck of the door fell inwards on the cabinet.

The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness that had succeeded, stood back a little and peered in.

There lay the cabinet before their eyes in the quiet lamplight, a good fire glowing and chattering on the hearth, the kettle singing its thin strain, a drawer or two open papers neatly set forth on the business table, and nearer the fire, the things laid out for tea.

The quietest room, you would have said, and but for the glazed presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace that night in London.

Right in the middle there lay the body of a man, sorely, contorted and still twitching.

They drew near on tiptoe, turned it on its back, and beheld the face of Edward Hyde.

He was dressed in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the Doctor's Bigness.

The cords of his face still moved with the semblance of life.

But life was quite gone, and by the crushed file in his hand and the strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew that he was looking on the body of a self destroyer.

We have come too late, he said sternly, whether to save or punish.

Hyde is gone to his account and it only remains for us to find the body of your master.

A far greater proportion of the building was occupied by theater, which filled almost the whole ground story and was lighted from above, and by the cabinet, which formed an upper story at one end and looked upon the court.

A quarter joined theater 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.

Nowhere was there any trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive, pulle 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 nearby 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?

I 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 stare 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 Ketle with the startling noise boiled over.

This brought them to the fireside, where the easy chair was drawn cozily up and the teathings 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 Chevell glass and to 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.

Miss 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 malfactor 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 not destroyed this document.

He caught up the next paper.

It was a brief note in the doctor's hand and dated at the top.

Oh, pool.

The lawyer cried.

He was alive, and here this day.

He cannot have been disposed of in so short a space.

He must be still alive.

He must have fled.

And then why fled?

And how, in that case, can we venture to declare this suicide?

Oh, we must be careful.

I foresee that we may yet involve your master in some dire catastrophe.

Why don't you read it, sir?

Asked Poole.

Because I fear, replied the lawyer solemnly, god grant I have no cause for it.

And with that he brought the paper to his eyes and read as follows my dear Utterson, when this shall fall into your hands, I shall have disappeared.

Under what circumstances I have not the penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances of my nameless situation.

Tell me that the end is sure and must be early.

Go, then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to place in your hands.

And if you care to hear more, turn to the confession of your unworthy and unhappy friend, Henry Jekyll.

There was a third enclosure?

Asked Utterson.

Here, sir, said Poole, and gave into.

His hands a considerable packet sealed in several places.

The lawyer put it in his pocket.

I would say nothing of this paper.

If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save his credit.

It is now ten.

I must go home and read these documents.

In quiet, but I shall be back before midnight when we shall send for the police.

They went out, locking the door of theater behind them and Utterson once more leaving.

The servants gathered about the fire in the hall, trudged back to his office to read the two narratives in which this mystery was now to be explained.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time Books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of the Strange case of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde.

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