CHAPTER EIGHT

Hyde's Disappearance

The detective prepared some men to follow them to Mr Hyde's house. Before leaving the police station, the detective showed Mr Utterson the cane that Hyde had murdered the man with. After seeing the cane the lawyer had no doubts that Edward Hyde had murdered the man. He saw that the cane was one he had given Henry Jekyll many years before.

The detective called for a carriage, and the lawyer gave the driver directions to Mr Hyde's house. Mr Hyde lived in a poor part of London, which was full of many thieves and murderers. It was now late morning, and the street was full of people. A thick fog had strangely come into the city, even though it was not the season. The carriage moved slowly through the dark fog. Utterson felt a cold, nervous energy run through him as saw the evil population of the area walk about the deep fog.

The carriage let them out in front of an old house on a dirty street. Thin, dirty children sat in the doorways, and men and women of many nationalities walked drunkenly around. On one side of the street was a wine shop, and on the other side was a cheap restaurant. Utterson thought that the restaurant surely didn't get many customers, because the smells coming from inside were so bad!

Utterson and the detective climbed the old steps up to Hyde's apartment. The lawyer could not believe it.

"So this horrible place is the home of Henry Jekyll's new best friend, the home of a man who will inherit a quarter of a million pounds," thought Utterson.

The detective knocked on the door of the building. The landlady was so angry about being disturbed that she screamed curses as she came to the door. However, when she saw the detective, she tried to look more polite.

The detective immediately demanded to know where Edward Hyde was. The landlady replied that he was not there.

"He came in for a short time very late last night, sir, but he left again soon after," she explained. "He is an odd man, sir, and he always comes and goes at strange times." She told the detective all this information freely, but when he asked to see Hyde's rooms, she would not let him come in.

Now Utterson opened his mouth for the first time. "You listen, woman, I'll tell you who this man you are refusing is. He is Detective Newcomb."

The woman let out an ugly laugh. "Ah, Mr Hyde is in trouble! What terrible thing has he done?"

The men did not answer, and they looked at each other. "I see that Hyde was not liked here, just like everywhere else!" said Newcomb.

Knowing now that her visitors were important men, the woman led them into the building to see Hyde's rooms.

The building was old and in terrible condition, which made the men very surprised to see the apartment. Hyde's rooms were not at all poor, but instead filled with beautiful furniture and nice things. There were cloth napkins, silver forks and knives, and a huge closet filled to the top with good wine. There were soft rugs on the floor and fancy paintings on the walls. Utterson wondered if the paintings were given to Hyde by Jekyll who had a lot of nice paintings also.

The men noticed that it looked like the rooms had been robbed. All the drawers were open, and clothes lay all over the floor. They could also tell that many papers had been taken out of the desk and burned in the fireplace.

The detective began searching for information. In the fireplace he found a green checkbook. Part of it was burned, but he could still read the name of the bank written on it. In the closet he found the top half of Hyde's heavy cane—the murder weapon. This made it even clearer that Hyde was the murderer.

The detective and Utterson left the building and went straight to the bank named on the green checkbook. There, they learned that Hyde had many thousand pounds in his bank account. For some reason the detective was happy to learn this news.

"Now, sir," he said to Utterson, "we have almost caught him. He must have left quickly, or else he wouldn't have left the cane and burned his checkbook. He'll certainly need to get his money out of the bank, and will come to get it. We'll leave a picture of him in the bank, and they will tell us when he arrives."

Though the detective's ideas were good, his plans were not successful. They could not find any photographs of Hyde, and his family could not be found.

An artist tried to draw a picture of Hyde's face from the descriptions of Utterson, his landlady, and the maid Sarah. But the attempt was a failure. Everyone described Hyde differently. The only one thing they all agreed on could not help the artist—that Hyde was frightening to look at.

The police now increased their efforts to find Mr Edward Hyde, the murderer of a member of Parliament.

(end of section)