The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde

Stakeout

On the first night of October, Elizabeth Hyde laughed to herself as she left the back wing of the mansion. "Let us have some fun tonight!" She laughed to herself. "If it is more fun I seek, I shall have to go somewhere else. Maybe I could sneak my way into the Red Rat to find some men to seduce... then kill.! She giggled with her evil plan in mind, she felt her urges high today, so she felt she must act on them. She walked down the cobblestone by-street, feeling sudden irritation.

"Why is there no fog this evening?" she wondered. "And the peelers are swarming around the alley. She groaned as she spotted the Scotland Yard walking about the alley. She took a sharp breath, not wanting to be caught by the police. "Damn. I must avoid them. If I get caught, it will be troublesome!" She smiled to herself. "Why am I worried? I have escaped these wankers before! They always fail to catch Elizabeth Hyde."

She hid in the shadows and dashed past the police officers, and all they felt was a small wind. She managed to get back to the mansion and smiled. "No patrols left now. I shall have to go in quickly."

Mrs. Utterson began to haunt the door in the by-street of shops. In the morning before office hours, at noon when business was plentiful, and time scarce, at night under the face of the fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude or concourse, the lawyer was to be found on her chosen post.

"If she be Ms. Hyde," she had thought, "I shall be Ms. Seek."

Mrs. Utterson sighed to herself. "I suppose I am going to be in another long night..."

She yawned and readjusted herself. "The sun is sure to rise soon., and the last few days have been in vain. I suppose today will not be any different. I should retire and rest..."

She began to recede, but she stopped. "No. Perhaps this time shall be different. Who will know?"

And at last Mrs. Utterson's patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night; frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow. By ten o'clock, when the shops were closed the by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of London from all round, very silent. Small sounds carried far; domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either side of the roadway; and the rumour of the approach of any passenger preceded her by a long time. Mrs. Utterson had been some minutes at her post, when she was aware of an odd light footstep drawing near. In the course of her nightly patrols, she had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, while she is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. Yether attention had never before been so sharply and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitious prevision of success that she withdrew into the entry of the court.

The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as they turned the end of the street. The lawyer, looking forth from the entry, could soon see what manner of a lady she had to deal with. She was small and very plainly dressed and the look of her, even at that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher's inclination. But she made straight for the door, crossing the roadway to save time; and as she came, she drew a key from her pocket like one approaching home.

Elizabeth had taken out her bronze key and was close to opening the door, but she paused. "Something is not right." She said. "It is too quiet. Something must be happening. I feel as if something is watching... but it is not the Scotland Yard." She groaned and leaned against her cane. "I can wait until the little rat comes out."

Mrs. Utterson stepped out and touched her on the shoulder as she passed. "Ms. Hyde, I think?"

Ms. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath. But her fear was only momentary; and though she did not look the lawyer in the face, she answered coolly enough: "That is my name. What do you want?"

"I see you are going in," returned the lawyer. "I am an old friend of Dr. Jekyll's—Mrs. Utterson of Gaunt Street—you must have heard of my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might admit me."

"You will not find Dr. Jekyll; she is from home," replied Ms. Hyde, blowing in the key. And then suddenly, but still without looking up, "How did you know me?" she asked.

"On your side," said Mrs. Utterson, "will you do me a favour?"

"With pleasure," replied the other. "What shall it be?"

"Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer.

Ms. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as if upon some sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. "Now I shall know you again," said Mrs. Utterson. "It may be useful."

"Yes," returned Ms. Hyde, "It is as well we have met; and apropos, you should have my address." And she gave a number of a street in Soho.

"Good God!" thought Mrs. Utterson, "can she, too, have been thinking of the will?" But she kept her feelings to herself and only grunted in acknowledgment of the address.

"And now," said the other, "how did you know me?"

"By description," was the reply.

"Whose description?"

"We have common friends," said Mrs. Utterson.

"Common friends," echoed Ms. Hyde, a little hoarsely. "Who are they?"

"Jekyll, for instance," said the lawyer.

"She never told you," cried Ms. Hyde, with a flush of anger. "I did not think you would have lied."

"Come," said Mrs. Utterson, "that is not fitting language."

The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment, with extraordinary quickness, she had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house.

The lawyer stood awhile when Ms. Hyde had left her, the picture of disquietude. Then she began slowly to mount the street, pausing every step or two and putting her hand to her brow like a lady in mental perplexity. The problem she was thus debating as she walked, was one of a class that is rarely solved. Ms. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, she gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, she had a displeasing smile, she had borne herself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and she spoke with a smooth, seductive, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against her, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mrs. Utterson regarded her. "There must be something else," said the perplexed woman. "There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the lady seems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it be the old story of Dr. Fell? or is it the mere radience of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent? The last, I think; for, O my poor old Katherine Jekyll, if ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend."