Norton, Andre - Novel 39 Read Online Free Page B

examined the office, questioned the servants,
and viewed the corpse discovered there. It was Utterson himself who
corroborated statements from Jekyll's household staff and personal friends,
attesting that the deceased was one Edward Hyde.
                   There was no doubt whatsoever that Hyde had
met death by his own hands, through the ingestion of prussic acid, though the
reasons for his apparent suicide were never clarified—at least not by the
enigmatic Mr. Utterson, who said he had little personal contact with Dr.
Jekyll's unfortunate friend. But last October, when Sir Danvers Carew was
clubbed to death by a man identified as Edward Hyde, it was Utterson who
conducted the inspector to Hyde's vacated lodgings, though he claimed no
knowledge of the man himself. Nor did anyone else appear to know much about the
dwarfed and almost apishly deformed man who had seemingly been an intimate of
Dr. Jekyll's for several years.
                   It was then that Inspector Newcomen's
reservations about the solicitor took form. Surely he must have known more
about the relationship than he was willing to volunteer. After his suicide was
officially established Hyde was interred in a pauper's grave. No ceremony was
performed and no mourners were in attendance. It appeared that the late Edward
Hyde had neither family nor friends. Except, of course, for Dr. Jekyll, who
remained absent on that occasion.
                   Inspector Newcomen scowled and stirred
impatiently in his chair. Confound Utterson for keeping him waiting like this!
Months had passed since the death of Hyde and the disappearance of Jekyll, and
during all that time Utterson had played a waiting game. When questioned about
some of the strange apparatus and peculiar chemicals discovered in Jekyll's
laboratory, Utterson protested he knew nothing of them. When confronted with
the fact that Edward Hyde possessed his own key to Dr. Jekyll's private
quarters and apparently came and went as he chose at all hours of the day or
night, Utterson kept mum.
                  It was indeed a waiting game, and no mistake.
But then through his years in the service of the law, Inspector New-comen had
come to despise all men of the law; barristers, solicitors, attorneys,
magistrates, and judges; the whole kit and caboodle infesting Temple Bar,
cluttering the courts as they pranced about in their absurd getups. Silly wigs
and stupid gowns belonged at masked balls rather than in a court of law. As for
the pomp and ceremony—from "Hear ye," to "All rise ,"
to "If it please Your Honor"—Newcomen regarded it as sheer poppycock.
All of it was game-playing, not to serve justice but to obstruct it.
                   That Utterson was obstructing justice he had
no doubt; not after a passage of long months since Henry Jekyll's
disappearance. And it was high time to put paid to the matter once and for all.
                   "Mr. Utterson will see you now."
                   The glorious tidings issued from the lips of
the solicitor's chief clerk, one Robert Guest, who emerged from the inner
sanctum to address the police officer.
                   Newcomen lost no time in acceding to the
invitation. As he entered the private office Mr. Utterson elevated himself from
behind his desk, greeting his visitor in a manner more curtly than courtly. If, indeed, "Inspector?" could be construed as a
greeting. His tone carried with it the unspoken but unmistakable
implication that Newcomen's very presence was a sore trial to his patience.
                   And trial it very well may be, the Inspector
told himself. Complete with judge, jury, and sentence, unless you come up with
some proper testimony.
                   "Please be seated." With a diffident
gesture Utterson indicated the vacant chair placed near the corner of his desk.
As Newcomen moved to occupy it the solicitor uttered a dry cough. "To what
might