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.
SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE
That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre
spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of a
Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of
some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the clock of the
neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would go
soberly and gratefully to bed. On this night however, as soon as the
cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went into his business
room. There he opened his safe, took from the most private part of it a
document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll s Will and sat down
with a clouded brow to study its contents. The will was holograph, for
Mr. Utterson though he took charge of it now that it was made, had
refused to lend the least assistance in the making of it; it provided
not only that, in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L.,
L.L.D., F.R.S., etc., all his possessions were to pass into the hands
of his friend and benefactor Edward Hyde, but that in case of Dr.
Jekyll s disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding
7