Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde - Story Summery

~•~Chapter 2 - Search For Mr. Hyde~•~

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 key, Utterson asks, "Mr. Hyde, I think?"

Hyde shrinks back with a "hissing intake of breath." Then he collects his cool veneer: "That is my name. What do you want?" Utterson explains that he is an old friend of Dr. Jekyll's, and Hyde coldly tells him that Jekyll is away. Utterson asks to see Hyde's face clearly, and Hyde consents if Utterson will explain how he knew him. "We have common friends," Utterson says. Hyde is not convinced, and with a snarling, savage laugh, he accuses Utterson of lying. Then, with a sudden jerk, he unlocks the door and disappears inside.

The lawyer is stunned by Hyde's behavior. Enfield was right; Hyde does have a sense of "deformity . . . a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness." Utterson realizes that until now he has never felt such loathing; the man seemed "hardly human." He fears for the life of his old friend Dr. Jekyll because he feels sure that he has read "Satan's signature on the face of Edward Hyde."

Sadly, Utterson goes around the corner and knocks at the second house in the block. The door is opened by Poole, Dr. Jekyll's elderly servant, who takes the lawyer in to wait by the fire. Utterson surveys the room, "the pleasantest room in London." But the face of Hyde poisons his thoughts, and he is suddenly filled with nausea and uneasiness. Poole returns and says that Jekyll is out. Utterson questions him about Hyde's having a key to "the old dissecting room." Poole replies that nothing is amiss: "Mr. Hyde has a key." Furthermore, he says, "we have all orders to obey him."

After Utterson leaves, he is stunned; he is absolutely convinced that his old friend Jekyll "is in deep waters"; perhaps the doctor is being haunted by "the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace." His thoughts return again to Mr. Hyde; he is positive that Hyde has "secrets of his own — black secrets." He must warn Jekyll; he feels that if Hyde knew the contents of Jekyll's will, he would not hesitate to murder the good doctor.