The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes (3 page)

‘Purple is the fatal colour, Doctor,’ he informed me. ‘Should the liquid assume that hue once I have introduced this other substance — as I suspect it will — a murder has been committed and a woman will march to the gallows. Thus!’ He tipped the powder into the tube.

The commissionaire and I leant forward to stare at the contents. The powder formed curling patterns as it descended through the liquid, but long before it reached the bottom it dissolved. In its place, a stream of bright bubbles sped to the top and floated there. Holmes drummed the table with impatient fingers, awaiting the expected result.

The liquid retained its bluish tint.

I am not by nature an envious person, and yet, as moment followed upon moment with no change in the colour of the concoction in the tube, I confess that I had all I could do to maintain my countenance in the presence of Holmes’s undisguised bewilderment. He seemed so invariably right that I can scarcely describe the elation which I as a mere mortal felt to witness a rare moment of fallibility upon his part, proving that he, too, was subject to the frailties of the race. Fortunately for our relationship, my efforts to control my own mirth became unnecessary when he burst out laughing.

‘Well, well,’ said he, once he had recaptured his customary calm, ‘so the matter is an innocent one after all, and the joke is on me. Well, it’s a hazard of the profession, this
penchant
for always looking towards the dark side; if nothing else, I have learnt a most valuable lesson.’ He replaced the test tube in its rack, took up a pen and a scrap of paper, scribbled something upon the latter, and handed the message and a coin to the commissionaire. ‘Take this to Inspector Gregson, my good man, and tell him that Mr. Wingate Dennis did indeed die a natural death — as the postmortem will undoubtedly reveal — and that Mrs. Dennis is guilty of no more heinous a crime than a perhaps too free use of sugar in her husband’s tea. And now, Watson,’ said he, as the messenger departed, ‘it’s you and me for King’s Cross Station and the North of England for a well-deserved rest.’ He rose from the stool and reached for his hat and coat.

During the early years of our friendship preceding my marriage, and even before I had begun to chronicle our adventures together, Sherlock Holmes’s fame as a consulting detective had travelled by word-of-mouth throughout London, and people in distress were turning to him for aid in such volumes that by the autumn of 1883 I became seriously concerned for his health and demanded that he take a holiday. This time, to my surprise — for I had made much the same suggestion upon a number of occasions and been turned down — he readily agreed, and at last our bags were packed and loaded and we had but to descend to ground level and climb aboard the hansom to be off to Nottingham for a month of relaxation far from the ills of the city. Under the circumstances, the reader may understand my chagrin when, just as we were heading for the door, our landlady came in with a card upon her salver and announced that we had a visitor.

‘“G. J. Utterson”,’ Holmes read, taking up the card. ‘Did you explain to Mr. Utterson that we are leaving, Mrs. Hudson?’

‘I did, Mr. Holmes, but the gentleman said that his business is urgent.’

‘Very well, then, send him up. And please be good enough to ask the cabby to wait a bit longer.’ He turned a rueful face upon me. ‘I am truly sorry, my dear fellow, but as a doctor you will agree that turning one’s back upon a brother human being in need is hardly the act of a responsible practitioner.’

‘As a doctor,’ said I curtly, ‘I can only warn that you are courting grave danger.’

He removed his outer garments and returned them to their hook. ‘It is the price I pay for being the only one of my kind. But pray, put up your own coat and hat and prepare to assume your favourite seat, for I judge by our visitor’s troubled footfall that he will welcome an extra pair of sympathetic ears.’

Presently the door opened again and a grave-visaged gentleman was ushered into our quarters. In appearance he was between forty and fifty years of age, leaning towards the latter, and was dressed most impeccably in a dark suit and topcoat with a quiet check. On his boots he sported a pair of neat gaiters, but since these were not in keeping with the soberness of the rest of his attire I gathered that they had been donned more for protection than for style, as a light rain had been falling over London throughout the day and puddles were numerous. I have mentioned that his visage was grave, but as he stepped farther into the light cast by the single lamp we had left burning, the similarities between it and the face of a professional mourner grew sharp. Long, rugged, scored across the brow with creases of worry, it might have belonged to an aged bloodhound but for a modest black moustache and greying hair carefully arranged and pomaded to conceal a balding pate. His eyes too were sad, but with a genuine sorrow that could only have been the result of deepest despair. My heart had never gone out to a complete stranger as swiftly as it went out to Mr. G. J. Utterson even before he opened his mouth to speak.

He waited until Mrs. Hudson had withdrawn, closing the door behind her, then looked from one to the other of us as if uncertain which man to address first.

‘Good afternoon, Mr. Utterson,’ Holmes opened, offering his hand, which was reservedly accepted. ‘I am Sherlock Holmes and this is my companion, Dr. Watson, in whom you may place whatever confidence you extend to me. I shan’t ask you to remove your coat — it is, after all, chilly in here without a fire — but there is a chair; I suggest that you take it, for you must be exhausted after walking about London most of the day.’

Our visitor had been in the act of seating himself in the chair which we set aside for prospective clients; at Holmes’s final remark he paused in some astonishment, then dropped into it as though weakened by a physical blow. ‘However did you ascertain that?’ he stammered. ‘What you say is true, but I cannot imagine how —’

‘Common observation,’ interrupted my friend, offering the newcomer a cigar from his case, which was declined. ‘Your trousers are liberally splashed with various kinds of mud from different parts of the city. They reach rather higher than they would have had you been traveling in, say, a hansom or a four-wheeler; hence my deduction that you were walking. That you have been doing so for the best part of the day is evident by the variety of the splashes, indicating that you covered a great deal of ground in your meanderings. There is also a dried crust upon the left side of the crown of your hat — precipitated there, most likely, by the hand of some ruffian in the East End, which from the quality of your attire I should judge to be somewhat removed from your usual surroundings.’

Mr. Utterson looked down at the top hat resting upon his knee, the band of which was indeed encrusted with dirt upon one side. ‘My hat was dislodged by a handful of mud hurled by a filthy little chimney sweep in Houndsditch, but a wave of my stick put him to flight. In another moment I suppose you will tell me his name.’

‘You flatter me beyond my abilities,’ said Holmes. But his cheeks flushed at the compliment. He sank into his beloved armchair and stretched his long legs out before the nonexistent fire. ‘I should like to hear a statement of your problem, Mr. Utterson, which my landlady informs me is of some moment. I beg you to lay it before me exactly as you would prepare any case for a magistrate. Oh, no more praise, if you please’ — here he raised a hand — ‘that sheaf of legal documents protruding from your inside breast pocket could only belong to an lawyer. I recognise a telltale Latin phrase here and there among its text.’

At the mention of his profession, our visitor had shot bolt upright, gripping the arms of his chair, but as Holmes explained the simple steps by which he had arrived at his conclusion, he relaxed, though not so completely as he might have done were he at home in his own sitting-room. I knew from prior experience how unsettling it was to be in the presence of a man before whom one’s life was an open book.

‘If it please you, sir,’ he said, ‘I think I have use for that cigar which you offered me earlier.’

The case being out of Holmes’s reach, I picked it up and pushed it across to the lawyer. He selected a cigar, snipped the end off fastidiously with a silver clipper on the end of his watch-chain, shook his head politely to my offer of a match, and lit it with one of his own.

‘Your name, Mr. Holmes, was given me by my cousin, Mr. Richard Enfield, who engaged your services some time ago in a matter involving the disappearance of a rare coin which had been entrusted to his care. He told me that you were a man upon whose confidence I could rely absolutely.’

Holmes caught my eye and wiggled a finger in the direction of his desk. I caught his meaning and, after unlocking and opening the drawer, drew out his small case-book and brought it over to him.

‘Thank you, Watson,’ said he, flipping through the pages. ‘Enfield. Here it is.’ He read swiftly and closed the book. ‘I remember the case. An 1813 guinea, stamped twice by accident, resulting in a double image of George III. He was holding it for a friend. It was not stolen at all, but merely misplaced. I found it inside the velvet lining of the box in which it was kept.’ He held up the book, which I returned to the drawer and locked away. ‘Would that all of life’s difficulties were as easily resolved, eh, Mr. Utterson?’

The other nodded in grave agreement. ‘I fear that the problem which I bring does not fall into that category.’ He leant forward in his chair. ‘Please do not think it an insult, but I must stress the value — nay, the necessity — of secrecy in this affair. It must not go beyond this room.’

‘You have my promise,’ said Holmes.

‘And mine,’ said I.

Our responses seemed to satisfy him, for he nodded again and sat back, puffing at his cigar.

‘My oldest client and dearest friend,’ he began, ‘is a man by the name of Dr. Henry Jekyll, about whom you may have heard. His name is not unknown among circles both social and scientific.’

‘I am familiar with his reputation,’ said I.

‘Then you know that he has been deemed brilliant by a number of our leading medical journals for the great strides which he has made in that field through his research. He is moreover a decent man, to whom friendship is no idle word but a sacred bond, to be preserved at the cost of life itself. Some time ago, however, he came to me with a most unsettling request having to do with his last will and testament.’

‘Excuse me,’ broke in the detective. ‘How old a man is Dr. Jekyll?’

‘He is nearing the half-century mark, as indeed am I.’

‘Is that not the age at which a man begins seriously to contemplate his own mortality?’

‘It is not his wish to draw up a will which upset me,’ said the other. ‘Rather, it was the terms which he dictated. Shall I show you the document?’ He reached inside his coat and drew forth a packet of papers, which he proceeded to unfold.

‘Would you not be betraying a confidence if you did?’ asked my friend.

‘I would rather be deprived of the privilege to practise law because of an indiscretion than lose a friend as close as Henry Jekyll, for it is for his life that I fear.’

‘Then pray, summarise the terms. My Latin grows rustier by the day.’

The lawyer donned a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles to consult the paper which he held in his hands. ‘Briefly, they add up to the following: In the event of Henry Jekyll’s death, disappearance, or unexplained absence for any period to exceed three calendar months, all of his worldly possessions — some two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling — are to pass into the hands of a gentleman by the name of Edward Hyde.’ He refolded the document and returned it, along with his spectacles, to his pocket. ‘Mr. Holmes, have you ever in your life heard of such terms?’

‘They are singular, to say the least. Who is this Edward Hyde?’

‘That is the mystery which has brought me to you. I never heard of the man before Jekyll named him as beneficiary.’

‘You questioned Jekyll?’

‘He said only that he had a special interest in the young man. I could draw him out no further.’

‘Is that all the information you can supply?’

‘There is a second part to my story. I mentioned my cousin, Richard Enfield, earlier. He is a gadabout and something of a gossip, but I find his company refreshing after hours of seclusion with dry paperwork. It was during our constitutional a week ago Sunday that he related to me the details of an incident which have left me virtually sleepless these past eleven nights.

‘He told me that he was on his way home from some revel in the wee hours of a winter morning when he chanced to witness a collision involving two pedestrians at a nearby corner. One, a little, dwarf-like man, was hurrying along towards the corner whilst the other, a very young girl, was running at top speed at right angles to him, neither being aware of the other’s presence until the moment of impact. It was a commonplace occurrence; a blustering apology would usually ensue if the man was a gentleman, or, if he was not, a sharp word — one could hardly expect more. But the girl fell, and before she could get to her feet this brute trampled right over her, oblivious to her cries and proceeding as if she were the merest pile of debris round which he had not the time to walk. A shocking scene, as Enfield described it.’

‘I should say so!’ I blurted out, unable to control my reaction to such uncivilised behaviour in the age of Victoria.

Utterson continued, ignoring my comment. ‘The ruffian might have escaped, for his pace was swift, but Enfield’s stride was longer and he collared him at the corner. By that time the girl’s family had arrived and the local physician was summoned, and though by God’s grace the child was unharmed, their anger was such that they might have fallen upon the offender and torn him to pieces then and there had not my cousin held them back through sheer force of reason. This was more out of respect for human life upon his part than from any sympathy towards the ruffian, who seemed to inspire a strange revulsion in whoever glimpsed his face beneath the lamplight, including Enfield himself. A blackguard of the most obvious sort, this fellow, was the impression I got.