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Page 28
73)
not come into your hands until to-morrow morning. In that case,
dear Lanyon, do my errand when it shall be most convenient for
you in the course of the day; and once more expect my messenger
at midnight. It may then already be too late; and if that night
passes without event, you will know that you have seen the last
of Henry Jekyll."
Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my colleague was
insane; but till that was proved beyond the possibility of doubt,
I felt bound to do as he requested. The less I understood of this
farrago, the less I was in a position to judge of its importance;
and an appeal so worded could not be set aside without a grave
responsibility. I rose accordingly from table, got into a hansom,
and drove straight to Jekyll's house. The butler was awaiting my
arrival; he had received by the same post as mine a registered
letter of instruction, and had sent at once for a locksmith and a
carpenter. The tradesmen came while we were yet speaking; and we
moved in a body to old Dr. Denman's surgical theatre, from which
(as you are doubtless aware) Jekyll's private cabinet is most
conveniently entered. The door was very strong, the lock
excellent; the carpenter avowed he would have great trouble and
have to do much damage, if force were to be used; and the
locksmith was near despair. But this last was a handy fellow,
74)
and after two hours' work, the door stood open. The press marked
E was unlocked; and I took out the drawer, had it filled up with
straw and tied in a sheet, and returned with it to Cavendish
Square.
Here I proceeded to examine its contents. The powders were neatly
enough made up, but not with the nicety of the dispensing
chemist; so that it was plain they were of Jekyll's private
manufacture; and when I opened one of the wrappers I found what
seemed to me a simple crystalline salt of a white colour. The
phial, to which I next turned my attention, might have been about
half-full of a blood-red liquor, which was highly pungent to the
sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phosphorus and some
volatile ether. At the other ingredients I could make no guess.
The book was an ordinary version-book and contained little but a
series of dates. These covered a period of many years, but I
observed that the entries ceased nearly a year ago and quite
abruptly. Here and there a brief remark was appended to a date,
usually no more than a single word: "double" occurring perhaps
six times in a total of several hundred entries; and once very
early in the list and followed by several marks of exclamation,
"total failure!!!" All this, though it whetted my curiosity, told
me little that was definite. Here were a phial of some tincture,
a paper of some salt, and the record of a series of experi-
75)
ments that had led (like too many of Jekyll's investigations) to
no end of practical usefulness. How could the presence of these
articles in my house affect either the honour, the sanity, or the
life of my flighty colleague? If his messenger could go to one
place, why could he not go to another? And even granting some
impediment, why was this gentleman to be received by me in
secret? The more I reflected the more convinced I grew that I was
dealing with a case of cerebral disease: and though I dismissed
my servants to bed, I loaded an old revolver, that I might be
found in some posture of self-defence.
Twelve o'clock had scarce rung out over London, ere the knocker
sounded very gently on the door. I went myself at the summons,
and found a small man crouching against the pillars of the
portico.
"Are you come from Dr. Jekyll?" I asked.
He told me "yes" by a constrained gesture; and when I had bidden
him enter, he did not obey me without a searching backward glance
into the darkness of the square. There was a policeman not far
off, advancing with his bull's eye open; and at the sight, I
thought my visitor started and made greater haste.
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