The first Few Chapters of Dr.jekylland Mr. Hyde
...heck" for nearly one hundred pounds. Of course, Enfield says, he immediately thought that the check was forged, but the man agreed to wait until the banks opened, and when a teller was questioned, the check proved to be genuine. Enfield surmises that perhaps blackmail was involved, and ever since that winter morning, he has referred to that house as the "Black Mail House." He has "studied the place," and there seems to be no other door, and no one ever comes in or out, except, occasionally, the villainous man who ran down the child. But Enfield feels strongly that someone else must live there, and yet the houses in that block are built so oddly and so compactly that he cannot ascertain where one house ends and the next house begins. Utterson, the lawyer, tells his friend Enfield that sometimes it's best to mind one's own business, but he does want to know the name of the man who ran down the child. Enfield tells him that "it was a man of the name of Hyde." Asked to describe Hyde, Enfield finds it difficult because the man had "something wrong with his appearance, something displeasing, something downright detestable." Utterson then asks a very lawyer-like question: "You are quite sure that he used a key?" He explains that he already knows the name of the other party involved in Enfield's story, and he wants Enfield to be as exact as possible. Enfield swears that everything he has said has been true: "The fellow had a key." And then he adds, "What's more, he has it still. I saw him use it, not a week ago." Utterson sighs, and the two men make a pact never to speak of the horrible incident again, shaking hands to seal their agreement. Chpater 2 That evening, instead of coming home and ending the day with supper and "a volume of some dry divinity," Mr. Utterson (the lawyer) eats, and then he takes a candle and goes into his business room. There, he opens a safe and takes out the will of Dr. Henry Jekyll. He ponders over it for a long time. The terms of the will stipulate that all of the doctor's possessions are "to pass into the hands of his friend and benefactor Edward Hyde" in case of--and this phrase, in particular, troubles Utterson --"Dr. Jekyll's 'disappearance or unexplained absence.'" Utterson realizes that, in essence, the will allows Edward Hyde to, in theory, "step into Dr. Jekyll's shoes . . . free from any burden or obligation." Utterson feels troubled and uneasy. The terms of the will offend his sense of propriety; he is "a lover of the sane and customary sides of life." Until now, Dr. Jekyll's will has seemed merely irregular and fanciful. Since Utterson's talk with Enfield, however, the name of Edward Hyde has taken on new and ominous connotations. Blowing out his candle, Utterson puts on his greatcoat and sets out for the home of a well-known London physician, Dr. Lanyon. Perhaps Lanyon can explain Dr. Jekyll's relationship to this fiendish Hyde person. Dr. Lanyon is having a glass of wine when Utterson arrives, and he greets his old friend warmly; the two men have been close ever since they were in school and college together. They talk easily for awhile, and then Utterson remarks that Lanyon and he are probably "the two oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has." Lanyon replies that he himself hasn't seen much of Jekyll for ten years, ever since Jekyll "became too fanciful . . . wrong in mind." Utterson inquires about Edward Hyde, but Lanyon has never heard of the man. Thus, Utterson returns home, but he is uneasy; his dreams that night are more like nightmares, inhabited by Hyde's sense of evil and by a screaming, crushed child. Why, he frets, would Jekyll have such a man as Hyde as his beneficiary? Utterson begins watching "the door" in the mornings, at noon, at night, and "at all hours of solitude." He must see this detestable man for himself. At last, Mr. Hyde appears. Utterson hears "odd, light footsteps drawing near," and when Hyde rounds the corner, Utterson steps up and, just as Hyde is inserting his k...