The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes (23 page)

Newcomen eyed him curiously. ‘If I had not heard what I have about you from people whose opinions I respect, I would accuse you of indulging in idle bombast.’

‘I have my faults — no-one knows that better than Dr. Watson — but idleness is not amongst them. I waste neither words nor actions.’

‘Of the latter I have no doubt’ The Inspector snatched his hat and waterproof from the hook upon which they were hung and donned them. ‘The end of the month, then,’ said he, grasping the doorknob. ‘I shall hold you to that.’ He went out, slamming the door behind him. I heard his waterproof rustling all the way down the stairs, followed by the bang of the front door. Holmes glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece, yawned, and leant forward to knock out his pipe upon the grate.

‘Bedtime, Watson,’ said he, laying aside
Faust
. ‘Be good enough to go downstairs and lock up whilst I snatch a few minutes with my Stradivarius. Otherwise I shall dream of Goethe’s Hell all night through.’ He made a long arm and lifted his violin and bow out of their case.

The strains of something by Liszt followed me as I set about securing the house for the night, and continued as I came back upstairs and then mounted the flight to my own bedroom. By the time I was beneath the counterpane, however, he had exchanged the soaring notes of the Hungarian composer for some eerily beautiful melody which put me in mind of gypsies swaying about a campfire in some lonely moonlit glade. I could not identify it, which may or may not have meant that he was playing some composition of his own. I drifted off with it singing about my ears.

I cannot say how long I had been asleep when I woke to find my friend’s spare figure standing over me, but it could not have been too great a time, for it was still dark out and the beam of moonlight which fell upon him from the window had not noticeably shifted its position since my retiring. He was dressed in his Inverness and ear-flapped cap. I came alert all of a sudden, for that taut face and those glistening eyes could mean only one thing. I sat up, blinking.

‘Holmes, what is it?’

‘There is no time to explain, Watson,’ said he. His voice held that strident note which went hand-in-hand with the volcanic action of his brain and body when the
dénouement
was at hand. ‘Get up and get dressed if you care to accompany me, whilst I hail us a cab. If I am right there is not a second to be lost.’ He turned away without waiting for an answer. ‘And bring your revolver!’ he shouted on his way downstairs.

Five minutes later we were sharing a hansom on its way east at breakneck speed over the treacherous street surface, rocking and fishtailing as we took the corners.

‘Where are we bound this time?’ I was forced to shout to make myself heard over the clatter of hooves, and to hold onto my hat with one hand and the side of the conveyance with the other. The air was bitingly cold.

‘Jekyll’s house,’ snapped my companion, now little more than a keen silhouette in the flashing illumination of the racing gas lamps. The cords in his lean neck stood out like piano wire. ‘No fool was ever so blind as I have been tonight. I pray that we are not too late.’

For all our haste, as we turned into Jekyll’s street we nearly collided with a hansom which was flying in the opposite direction at the same harrowing rate. As it thundered past, the light from the corner gas lamp fell full upon the pale, drawn features of its elderly occupant, in whose anxious expression there was such a singularity of purpose that I doubted he was even aware of the accident which had been so narrowly averted.

‘Holmes!’ I cried as the cabs separated. ‘That was Poole, Jekyll’s butler!’

He nodded curtly but said nothing. His countenance was grimmer than ever.

Every light in Jekyll’s house was burning when we swung round the corner and came to a bouncing halt on the by-street side. Holmes sprang from the cab.

‘It is as I feared, Watson; the worst has happened.’ He hastened across the kerb and down the steps to the door which led into the theatre. A tug at the knob confirmed that the door was locked. He cursed. ‘I came away without my burglar’s kit! I’ll need your good shoulder, Watson.’

Together we braced ourselves before the door, strongest shoulders foremost.

‘On the count of three,’ Holmes directed. ‘One, two, three!’

We struck simultaneously. Pain shot through me. The door creaked in its casing; no more.

‘Again. One, two, three!’

This time the planks bounced and a noise like a pistol-shot rang out. Upon examination in the lamplight, it developed that a portion of the wood round the rusted lock had split in a large semi-circular fissure.

‘One more time, Watson. One, two, three!’

The door sprang open with a splattering crack and we stumbled into the threatre. Scrambling to maintain our balance, we let our momentum carry us forward down the corridor, where in the gloom I perceived the outline of a vague grey figure standing at the nether end. At our entrance it let out a strangled cry, wheeled, and bounded monkey-fashion up the flight of steps which led to the red baize door of the doctor’s laboratory.

‘After him!’ Holmes cried.

During my ball-playing days at Blackheath I had won the admiration of my teammates for my speed afoot, but Holmes was several strides ahead of me as he took the steps two at a time upon the heels of our quarry and seized the door just as it was being slammed shut. With great effort he succeeded in shouldering his way inside. I entered an instant later, drawing my revolver from the pocket of my coat.

I was right glad that I had done so, for in the light of the gas fixture I found myself face to face with Edward Hyde.

S
HOCK
!

T
he reader may dismiss me as shallow, but I confess that in spite of what I know about the man, and independent of that unspeakable revulsion which his very presence engendered, I found his appearance upon this occasion grotesquely comical. For some reason he had seen fit to don the clothing of his benefactor; the sight of his shrunken frame enveloped in Jekyll’s voluminous white smock, the doctor’s collar hanging loose about his scrawny neck and his boots hidden beneath the folds of trousers which were several sizes too large for him, was so ludicrously like that of a small child playing ‘dress-up’ with his father’s wardrobe that in my hyper-excited state I might have been moved to laughter had it not been for the savage expression upon Hyde’s wolfish countenance.

The eyes beneath the soaring brows were wild, the aquiline nostrils flaring. White teeth flashed in a snarl of warning, whilst his razor-edged features, their sharpness intensified in contrast with his massive head, writhed with a hatred deep as Cain’s. He hissed like an animal at bay.

He had snatched up a graduated glass from the work-table at his back, in which some evil-looking yellowish liquid boiled and spumed vapour, and now he stood holding it before him as if it were a weapon with which he hoped to keep us at arm’s length.

‘Meddling imbeciles!’ Suddenly I recognised that harsh, croaking whisper as the same voice which we had heard enjoining us to leave during our last visit to the laboratory. But that was impossible, for we had searched the room thoroughly and found no trace of the fiend. It was difficult to think straight in the presence of this malevolent force. ‘What right have you to interrupt me in my work?’

An empty retort reposed atop the burning Bunsen upon the table behind him. He had evidently just transferred its contents into the glass in his hand when our labours at the street door had forced him to investigate.

‘The right of citizens to apprehend a foul murderer!’ said I, raising my revolver.

He was silent for a moment; then, inexplicably, his snarl altered to become an obscene smirk.

‘A foul murderer,’ he echoed. ‘That is a curious appellation for one who has unlocked the secret of a thousand generations. What matter a single life when mankind teeters upon the brink of a discovery which will change for ever the shape of the world in which we live?’

‘Do not attempt to confuse us,’ I barked. ‘We have been on your trail too long to let go now.’

‘Let him speak, Watson,’ said Holmes.

I glanced at my companion and noticed for the first time that, though he had drawn his own pistol, it was not aimed at Hyde but rather at the floor between his feet.

‘But, Holmes!’

Hyde laughed — a mocking sound which turned the blood in my veins to ice.

‘Heed your friend’s words. He speaks wisdom.’ He sneered. ‘You with your courage and your honour. Hypocrisy! That at least is one crime with which you cannot charge me. My nature is plain for all to see.’

‘Wickedness!’

‘Wickedness — by your standards. But you sail beneath false colours. I, however, am exactly what you see; no more and no less. Edward Hyde, whom you can trust not to be worthy of your trust. Now, Doctor, which of us is the more honest?’

‘You speak in riddles! What have you done with Jekyll?’

He ignored the question and addressed himself to Holmes. ‘The fact that you are here on this most fateful of nights indicates that you suspect the truth. Is that so?’

‘I suspected it nearly two months ago, when I heard your voice behind this door,’ Holmes informed him. ‘I did not become convinced of it until tonight.’

Hyde’s reaction was a mixture of astonishment and fascination. After a pause he said, ‘I imagined that Jekyll was the only man capable of comprehending such an idea. And he was able to do so only after three decades of study. Is it that he is dense or that you are that brilliant?’

‘Neither. It is the trail-blazer who assumes all the risks and paves the way for them to follow. Jekyll’s studies and the evidence of recent months led me to this conclusion.’

‘You do yourself an injustice.’

‘On the contrary, it is you who have suffered the most harm through your own actions.’

Hyde considered that. At length he nodded, dipping his great head down and then up in the fashion of a huge reptile. In his eyes I perceived an unfathomable sorrow which was hardly in keeping with his image.

‘I am certain that Jekyll would concur.’

‘Hold on!’ I cried. ‘I realise that I am a poor simpleton, but this entire conversation is beyond me. Where is Jekyll?’

Hyde’s attention remained centred upon Holmes. ‘He does not know?’

Holmes shook his head.

‘A fair question, Doctor.’ The murderer turned his eyes upon me, and now there was no trace in them of anything but loathsome arrogance. My flesh crawled; I had all I could do to restrain myself from squeezing the trigger of my weapon and removing this malignant growth from the face of the earth. He continued. ‘To answer it would take too many words and consume valuable time, time which I no longer have. How is your health?’

The question caught me off-guard. ‘Good,’ I blurted out, without thinking. ‘Excellent.’

‘For your sake I hope that you speak the truth. What you are about to see sent Hastie Lanyon to an early grave. Behold!’ He raised the foaming glass to his lips and downed the bilious liquid in a single draught.

The reaction was immediate and startling. The glass shattered at his feet; he reeled backwards, clutching at the edge of the table for support. His face turned purple and he doubled over. Gasping and strangling noises issued from his throat.

‘He’s poisoned himself!’ I cried, and started forward. Holmes’s iron grip closed about my right arm. I stopped.

Hyde was bent with his face inches from the plank floor, arms folded about his torso, hugging himself. He was panting. Perspiration streamed down his face and dripped from his chin to the floor. His features writhed. He appeared to be going through his final agonies.

And then a curious thing began to happen.

Slowly he came up from his crouch, and as he did so his body seemed to swell and his contorted features to slacken. As do the pockets of a silken bag when it takes on gas, the folds and wrinkles in his ill-fitting attire appeared to straighten and fill. Hyde’s ape-like crest of hair fell forward over his brow and, incredibly, began to soften and change colour. Before my eyes it turned from raven black to silver-streaked chestnut. His features broadened; his shrunken body grew into proportion with his oversize head. Gradually his breathing returned to normal.

And there, in the spot where seconds before Edward Hyde had stood, a dissipated Henry Jekyll raised his head and met our astonished gazes with steady blue eyes.