Chapter Four

The Carew Murder Case

NEARLY A YEAR LATER, in the month of October, 18—, London was startled by a crime of singular ferocity, and rendered all the more notable by the high position of the victim. The details were few and startling. A maid-servant, living alone in a house not far from the river, had gone up-stairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid’s window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. It seems she was romantically given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience), never had she felt more at peace with all men or thought more kindly of the world. And as she so sat she became aware of an aged and beautiful gentleman with white hair, drawing near along the lane; and advancing to meet him, another and very small gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention.

When they had come within speech (which was just under the maid’s eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the moon shone on his face as he spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition, yet with something high, too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eyes wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognize in him a certain Mr. Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling; but he answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman. The old gentleman took a step back with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted.

It was two o’clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighboring gutter—the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. A purse and a gold watch were found upon the victim; but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped envelope, which he had been probably carrying to the post, and which bore the name and address of Mr. Utterson.

This was brought to the lawyer the next morning, before he was out of bed; and he had no sooner seen it, and been told the circumstances, than he shot out a solemn lip. “I shall say nothing till I have seen the body,” said he; “this may be very serious. Have the kindness to wait while I dress.” And with the same grave countenance he hurried through his breakfast and drove to the police station, whither the body had been carried. As soon as he came into the cell, he nodded.

“Yes,” said he, “I recognize him. I am sorry to say that this is Sir Danvers Carew.”

“Good God, sir,” exclaimed the officer, “is it possible?” and the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition. “This will make a deal of noise,” he said. “And perhaps you can help us to the man.” And he briefly narrated what the maid had seen, and showed the broken stick.

Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of Hyde, but when the stick was laid before him, he could doubt no longer; broken and battered as it was, he recognized it for one that he had himself presented many years before to Henry Jekyll.

“Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?” he inquired.

“Particularly small and particularly wicked-looking, is what the maid calls him,” said the officer.

Mr. Utterson reflected; and then, raising his head, “If you will come with me in my cab,” he said, “I think I can take you to his house.”

It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-colored pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapors; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer’s eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of his mind, besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that terror of the law and the law’s officers, which may at times assail the most honest.

As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little and showed him a dingy street, a gin-palace, a low French eating-house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and twopenny salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many women of many different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a morning glass; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as brown as umber, and cut him off from his blackguardly surroundings. This was the home of Henry Jekyll’s favorite; of a man who was heir to quarter of a million sterling.

An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy, but her manners were excellent. Yes, she said, this was Mr. Hyde’s, but he was not at home; he had been in that night very late, but had gone away again in less than an hour; there was nothing strange in that; his habits were very irregular, and he was often absent; for instance, it was nearly two months since she had seen him till yesterday.

“Very well, then, we wish to see his rooms,” said the lawyer; and when the woman began to declare it was impossible, “I had better tell you who this person is,” he added. “This is Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard.”

A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman’s face. “Ah!” said she, “he is in trouble! What has he done?”

Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged glances. “He don’t seem a very popular character,” observed the latter. “And now, my good woman, just let me and this gentleman have a look about us.”

In the whole extent of the house, which but for the old woman remained otherwise empty, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of rooms; but these were furnished with luxury and good taste. A closet was filled with wine; the plate was of silver, the napery elegant; a good picture hung upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson supposed) from Henry Jekyll, who was much of a connoisseur; and the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in color. At this moment, however, the rooms bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside out; lockfast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of gray ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt-end of a green check-book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the other half of the stick was found behind the door; and as this clinched his suspicions, the officer declared himself delighted. A visit to the bank, where several thousand pounds were found to be lying to the murderer’s credit, completed his gratification.

“You may depend upon it, sir,” he told Mr. Utterson: “I have him in my hand. He must have lost his head, or he never would have left the stick, or, above all, burned the check-book. Why, money’s life to the man. We have nothing to do but wait for him at the bank, and get out the handbills.”

This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for Mr. Hyde had numbered few familiars—even the master of the servant-maid had only seen him twice; his family could nowhere be traced; he had never been photographed; and the few who could describe him differed widely, as common observers will. Only on one point were they agreed; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.

Footnotes

  1. Because Hyde lives in an unsavory part of town, Utterson assumes that his art must have come from Jekyll, who is much more refined and sophisticated. This speaks to the Victorian emphasis on appearances; because Hyde seems to be poor or criminal, Utterson assumes he cannot also have good taste in art.

    — Kim, Owl Eyes Staff
  2. Penny numbers were a type of cheap periodical publication costing one penny (one pence). Twopenny salads, which cost two pence, are also quite cheap and fairly low quality, consisting of inferior vegetables; that these items are sold in Hyde’s neighborhood indicates that he does not live in the best part of town.

    — Kim, Owl Eyes Staff
  3. To “disinter” is to unearth an object which had been buried. In this context, the word carries several meanings. On the surface, the inspector pulls the checkbook out of the ashes of the fire. On a deeper level, the checkbook represents a secret, a buried, concealed clue drawn up into awareness. Deeper still, the word evokes the interment—or burial—of Sir Danvers Carew, the man whose murder sparked the investigation.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  4. “Blackguardly surroundings” are those pertaining to or associated with blackguards—villainous, contemptible men. In other words, Soho is a worthless, vile place, at least by Utterson’s estimation.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  5. Mr. Hyde’s landlady is characterized by “an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy.” In Stevenson’s witty phrasing, we get the impression of a woman at once immoral in her actions and yet proficient at lying and concealing those immoral ways. Much of the thematic tension of the story lies in the push and pull between good and evil, as those two moral poles are perceived by the Victorians.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  6. The description of Utterson’s thought being “of the gloomiest dye” creates an intriguing interrelationship between the inner and outer worlds of the story. Both London and Utterson’s interior state are of a dour hue, as of darkened, coal-laden smog. Whether Utterson feels this gloom as a result of his environment, or whether London is described in such dingy terms because of Utterson’s subjective opinion of it, is not quite the question. Both are true. As in the best works of fiction, we witness here how inner and outer worlds collide, overlap, and collapse together.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  7. Soho is a neighborhood in the West End of London. In Victorian times Soho was known as the city’s center of prostitution. The word “slatternly” comes from “slattern,” a derogatory word for a promiscuous young woman or prostitute. Soho, it becomes clear in the next paragraph, is where Mr. Hyde lives. It is fitting that Hyde, who represents many of the traits despised by the Victorians, resides in the least reputable quarter of London.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  8. Stevenson renders the fog in metaphorical language that underscores the events which are unfolding in its midst. The metaphor of the fog as a “pall” being “lowered” evokes a funeral pall, a cloth used to cover corpses and coffins, a fitting image in the aftermath of Sir Danvers Carew’s murder. The idea of the fog being “lowered over heaven” creates an infernal atmosphere, as if, after the killing, goodness were being occluded by evil.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  9. The London fog is an important feature in a great deal of Victorian literature. As a result of increasingly dense urban living, as well as the rapid industrialization of the 19th century, frequent blankets of smog overtook the city of London. This mixture of fog and coal smoke from factories and homes came to be termed “pea soup” for its thick, dark appearance. Stevenson opts for a chocolate-based metaphor, but the phenomenon is the same. Writers such as Dickens, Doyle, and Eliot have taken turns describing this signature aspect of London life.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  10. As an adverb, “trifle” means “a little bit” or “to a small degree.”

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  11. To “trifle” is to fool around and behave frivolously. In this context, Mr. Hyde’s frivolous activity serves as a contrast to his subsequent outburst of violence. This contrast shows Mr. Hyde to be unpredictable and irrational.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  12. In this instance, the moon symbolizes Danvers Carew’s innocence, a connection underscored in the further characterization of his “innocent and old-world kindness of disposition.” In the Western tradition, white images often carry such a connotation of purity. This idea of purity is important here in that it renders Sir Danvers Carew’s murder all the more despicable.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  13. Fog is an indelible piece of London’s environment, mood, and atmosphere as well as a rich literary symbol for confusion and obscurity. The fog rolling in over the streets of London before the murder of Sir Danvers Carew creates the conditions which allow the murder and also symbolize the mystery of the murderer’s identity and motivations.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor