Chapter 5 - Page 2

have--I have received a
letter; and I am at a loss whether I should show it to the police.
I should like to leave it in your hands, Utterson; you would judge
wisely, I am sure; I have so great a trust in you."

"You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detection?"
asked the lawyer.

"No," said the other. "I cannot say that I care what becomes
of Hyde; I am quite done with him. I was thinking of my own
character, which this hateful business has rather exposed."

Utterson ruminated awhile; he was surprised at his friend's
selfishness, and yet relieved by it. "Well," said he, at last,
let me see the letter."

The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and signed
"Edward Hyde": and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer's
benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for
a thousand generosities, need labour under no alarm for his
safety, as he had means of escape on which he placed a sure
dependence. The lawyer liked this letter well enough; it put a
better colour on the intimacy than he had looked for; and he
blamed himself for some of his past suspicions.

"Have you the envelope?" he asked.

"I burned it," replied Jekyll, "before I thought what I was
about. But it bore no postmark. The note was handed in."

"Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?" asked Utterson.

"I wish you to judge for me entirely," was the reply. "I have
lost confidence in myself."

"Well, I shall consider," returned the lawyer. "And now one
word more: it was Hyde who dictated the terms in your will about
that disappearance?"

The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; he shut
his mouth tight and nodded.

"I knew it," said Utterson. "He meant to murder you. You had
a fine escape."

"I have had what is far more to the purpose," returned the
doctor solemnly: "I have had a lesson--O God, Utterson, what a
lesson I have had!" And he covered his face for a moment with his
hands.

On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with
Poole. "By the bye," said he, "there was a letter handed in
to-day: what was the messenger like?" But Poole was positive
nothing had come except by post; "and only circulars by that," he
added.

This news sent off the visitor with his fears renewed.
Plainly the letter had come by the laboratory door; possibly,
indeed, it had been written in the cabinet; and if that were so,
it must be differently judged, and handled with the more caution.
The newsboys, as he went, were crying themselves hoarse along the
footways: "Special edition. Shocking murder of an M.P." That was
the funeral oration of one friend and client; and he could not
help a certain apprehension lest the good