by Robert Bloch
His expression alone was enough to signal the burst of words to come. "The man must have been mad! Stark, raving mad. All this business of chemicals and bodily transformations—it's scientifically absurd." Prothore shook his head. "Imagine alchemy and metamorphosis in this day and age. Sheer lunacy, if you ask me."
Newcomen scowled at Hester. "It's easy enough to put words in a dead man's mouth, but you'll not be taking me for a fool. I've a good mind to—"
Whatever the inspector's intentions, his announcement was interrupted by a tap on the door. Now it opened to admit Bertha as Hester rose. "Yes—what is it?" she said.
"Sorry, miss, but I was told it was urgent," the maid murmured.
"Urgent?"
Bertha nodded, displaying the envelope she held in her left hand. "The bobby outside said as to give this to Inspector Newcomer, right off." She glanced with avid interest from one man to the other.
"Right here with you, me gel. And the name is New-comen." The envelope seemed smaller when transferred to the inspector's huge hand. He nodded at Bertha. "Go outside and ask the officer to wait."
"Do as the inspector says," Hester told the girl. As the maid exited, the big man was already opening the message. It seemed lengthy, as did the scowl that accompanied his reading, and the expulsion of breath that followed.
When at last Newcomen looked up, the scowl had softened to a frown. Folding the paper and restoring it to the envelope, he gestured toward Prothore. "Message dispatched from the Yard," the inspector said. "Bob Snell turned up this morning."
"And who might that be?"
"Your cabby—the one who ran off last night." Newcomen shrugged. "Said it was on his conscience, and when he read the paper he came in to make a clean breast of it."
Albert Prothore nodded. "Then you know I was telling the truth."
"That may be the case. Unless the two of you fixed on the same story beforehand."
Hester could contain herself no longer. "You presume too much, Inspector. I am not knowledgeable in police matters, but I think it unlikely this cabby would come forward with a voluntary statement if he felt it might implicate him in a crime."
"Nobody wishes to be implicated in a crime, miss," Newcomen said, "particularly when it's a hanging offense." Once again he directed his attention to Prothore. "Best to tell the truth."
"As I have," the young man responded.
"Up to a point." The inspector paused for a moment. "But not the whole truth. And it's that I'm after." His left forefinger tapped against the envelope in his right hand. "According to this, your cabby saw someone running suspiciously in the tree-shadows to the left and bounding over a hedge. It was that as frightened him off."
"I saw no one," Prothore said. "But I'm inclined to believe him. That would explain why he fled."
"Too much explaining, if you ask me." Newcomen glanced at Hester as he spoke. "Including that story about Dr. Jekyll. There's a goodish bit more to be learned." Newcomen stuffed the envelope into his pocket. "I'd best be about my business now."
"What are you going to do?" Hester said.
Inspector Newcomen was already moving toward the doorway as he spoke. "Something as will put a stop to all this."
Chapter 15
Hester moved across the room to the far window. There was a bar of weak sunshine visible and she gave an impatient pull to the curtains to let that part of the natural world in. This could not truly be happening. She was looking beyond now, across the back garden to that ominous pile of the laboratory where all this horror was supposed to have begun. Supposed? Was she doubting Mr. Utterson's story, too? Pro-thore's reaction, that of the Inspector—though she would distrust anything from that quarter—had they shaken her so? Her mouth suddenly felt very dry and she quickly repressed a shiver as she swung around to face Prothore.
"What proof can there be—now?"
The other was frowning, but somehow in the disorder of his present appearance, in her memory of his story, he was now a rather different person than the haughty and arrogant man she had so resented. Perhaps his own world had been invaded by a reality that he could not have acknowledged before. She had led a retired life, yes, and her first excursion beyond four safe walls had shaken her. But she had not as far to go as Albert Prothore, secure all his life as a member of a caste designed from birth to give orders and not be challenged save by an equal.
"I don't know," he said. "Possibly Utterson left some account among his papers ..."
"Possibly—" Hester got no further than that when there came a knock at the door and she started forward, wondering for a moment if the inspector had indeed returned. But at her call it was Hannah who entered, her long face even more set in a sharp cast of disapproval.
"Ma'am, it is Cook, she is all upset." She bit off her words as if she were firing them at some target. "Fish 'as been 'ere and wot 'e said—it 'as 'er all apart as it were."
"Fish?" Hester repeated blankly. It took her a full moment to realize that Hannah was referring to the arrival of the fishmonger's deliveryman.
"Yes, ma'am. And Mrs. Dorset, she's 'ad a turn."
Hannah gave an exaggerated shudder that Hester was certain was a piece of play-acting. "Sam Noggins, 'e says as 'ow when he came around by the back lane there was broken wood all around the door—that door into the court. As if someone was a-trying to get in 'ere—and it must 'ave been in the night, ma'am, 'cause there weren't no such signs when Patty were a-dumpin' the swab water from the scullery."
"The door into the back garden?" Hester looked from the maid to Prothore. "But Bradshaw said that it was securely locked, bolted, has been ever since—" She drew a deep breath.
Prothore was already standing over Hannah. "Show me," he demanded and the sharpness in his voice cut away even more of that languorous tone that Hester found so irritating. There was a new swiftness in his movements, as if he were eager to be in action.
She was not to be left alone, and followed as he headed for the rear of the house, with Hannah now a step or so behind. Mrs. Dorset was sunk into the well-cushioned chair that provided her throne in the kitchen. Her cap was pushed so far to the back of her head that her frizzled gray hair was a wild band over her forehead. She was red-faced and gasping as Patty stood beside her, a glass of some dark liquid in her hand trying to urge it on Cook as a restorative.
Leaning against the table was a young man, a stained apron tied about him, with a very strong odor of fish exuding from his untidy person. He was apparently thoroughly enjoying the scene he had helped to create.
It was Prothore who took command. Sam Noggins was summoned to be a guide. Perhaps Prothore supposed that Hester would remain to help revive the cook. Instead she followed the pair. This was her domain and she would have firsthand knowledge of anything that threatened it.
They surveyed marks that clearly indicated a determined attempt to force the gate into the garden area and behind the courtyard. Prothore shook his head.
"New locks—within this morning certainly. And other reinforcements." He took Hester's arm as if he were her elder brother or had some other kinsman's right to so lead her, and when they returned to the house he said abruptly, "This is no place for you!"
Though she had been shaken by the sight of that scratched door, she was still not prepared to surrender independence.
"This is my home. New locks, yes—"
He did not look as if he had even heard her. "Where is the butler?" he demanded as if she could summon the missing manservant with a snap of her fingers.
"I have not the least idea," Hester replied. The softening that she had sensed in him earlier seemed to have been banished. She told him of the disappearance of the servant after his abrupt resignation from service. Then, because she was indeed at a loss, she added: "Perhaps you, Mr. Prothore, can find someone to take his place."
"You are determined to stay on here?"
"Certainly. If it is indeed as Mr. Utterson declared, this house is mine."
He frowned at the fireplace
as if in the dying coals there he could read something as momentous as the horrible story she had learned that very morning.
"You have no friend who is able to come and stay with you?"
"I believe you know something of my circumstances, Mr. Prothore." She was finding it easier now to draw back to her original estimate of him. "I come from overseas and—"
"Overseas! But that is it—of course!"
His eyes were alight and he lost some of that authoritative air. "Miss Jekyll, I would like to make my sister known to you. Margaret, Lady Farlie, has recently returned from India. Her husband's regiment finished its tour of duty, and he may be sending in his papers soon, as he has recently inherited from his uncle. I think"—and for the first time he smiled in a way that changed the image she held of him— "that you and Margaret will get on capitally together. You are of the same type of character. Certainly you can see the advantage of having an acquaintance in somewhat the same situation as yourself. Margaret has been a good many years out of England, with only a few, and curtailed, visits home. She is devoted to Henry and could never be persuaded to leave him for long—so she is finding settling down here something of a puzzle also. I would like very much for you to meet her."
Lady Farlie, Hester thought. Another such as Lady Ames—but maybe not. For some reason she liked what Prothore had to say of his sister. It was plain he admired her, and that there was more than just a family tie between them. To her own faint surprise she found herself agreeing.
"Very good! And I shall see to a locksmith and also look for a reliable man to live in." All the distress and hesitancy that had been about him when he first arrived had disappeared. He strode briskly and stepped into the cab Hester had called for him with the assurance of a man of affairs with important business waiting.
Cook had been sent to her room for a lie-down. The fumes of brandy she wafted about her suggested that her withdrawal from the scene might be somewhat lengthy. Hester herself, to the openmouthed astonishment of Patty and the consternation of Hannah, set about getting a small lunch. Events had moved so swiftly and it was now well past noon. But Bertha slipped in deftly to aid her and they managed quite well in Hester's opinion.
Suddenly she was more than eager to meet Lady Farlie. But she could not go there dressed as a dowd. When she discussed the matter with Bertha as they worked together, Hannah surprised Hester by speaking up. There was a dressmaking establishment not too far away, she reported, that rented sewing machines. She had a cousin, in business for herself, who rented one from them.
Hannah was dispatched in a cab, money in hand, to get a sewing machine as quickly as possible. The routine of the house had certainly been shattered, but Hester was able to forget for a little while what had made her morning a time of uneasy foreboding.
Bertha next made a suggestion that could provide Hester with a respectable wardrobe in a very short time. The three least shabby of Hester's dresses were hung out on the edge of the wardrobe door, and now, with the assurance of one who knew exactly what she was doing, Bertha selected the one of gray poplin.
"At the sewing room," she said, "we get a lot of clothes— some of them lady's things as you would think could never be used, stained, and torn. But Mrs. Kirby, she can think of things as can be done to make them worth selling. Gets a nice little lot for 'em, sometimes, she does. Now, look 'ere, miss. We takes this and that nice violet stuff as you got at Myers. We drapes it, then we uses that ribbon there, and those buttons of cut steel as you got a card of at Gathers, and finally a rushing of the ribbon here."
While speaking she was hard at work, pinning and pulling material and dress until Hester could share her vision. By teatime, with the aid of the machine Hannah had brought back in triumph, Bertha, with some help from Hester, had produced a dress that was nothing like the dowdy, out-of-style, limp thing Hester had first shown her.
Inspired by their success, Bertha had gone on to cut out two new gowns. She insisted upon making one that would be suitable for evening wear. It would go well with the chinchilla-trimmed mantle Hester had bought on her whirlwind shopping trip.
Cook seemed to have recovered far enough to produce tea, though the sandwich slices of bread might not have been as paper-thin as desired. Hester was sitting by the fire in the hall resting her eyes and her cramped fingers when there was a knock at the outer door and Hannah admitted a footman with a note.
Prothore had certainly acted quickly. What she had was a request from Lady Farlie that she excuse the shortness of time and would she come to tea the following day. Hester hesitated only a moment before writing an acceptance. The thought of being able to meet someone who was perhaps as approachable as Mrs. Kirby, and who would certainly not hold her background against her, was refreshing.
But she had had enough of the darkness that seemed to linger even in the well-lighted hall. With no Bradshaw to do his proper duties that night, she made the rounds of the house herself, accompanied by Bertha. Mr. Hobbs, the locksmith promised by Prothore, had indeed shown up, and was kept very busy. She now had a new collection of keys and tonight, after all doors were locked and window catches inspected, they would be left beside her bed.
Bertha was still at the machine when Hester entered the disused bedroom they had turned into a sewing room. Hester scolded her gently.
"There is no need to strain your eyes. Off with you to supper or you'll have a bad headache and may not feel like work at all tomorrow."
"I ain't inclined to 'eadache, miss. Seems like I'm blest that way. Poor Missus Kirby, she 'as cruel ones sometimes. They lay 'er sick in bed. Many a time I've seen 'er so. She won't even 've one of us near 'er then. Says any noise make it worse. She takes to 'er room and jus' lies there."
"Can't she get help from a doctor?"
"Says she knows rest is all what 'elps."
"It is too bad she has those attacks," commented Hester. "Now, I mean it, Bertha, put away the sewing."
Two lamps and the candles on the small dressing table were alight, as Hester came into the room that had enchanted her so much on the day she had first seen it. She went to the small desk and opened her journal. But even as she picked up her pen, she found it suddenly difficult to order her thoughts. Order her thoughts, that was an expression of her father's that had often rung in her ears as a command. He had had no time for an emotional response to anything.
Her father, with his quest for complete good, complete evil—had, in his way, walked a path close to Dr. Jekyll's. It was the first time that comparison had occurred to her. Her father's research had been undertaken through the printed page; he had struggled to draw wisdom from earlier ages. Dr. Jekyll had sought another path. Because he was a man of science and not a philosopher, he had taken the riskier and more dangerous way of physical experimentation, which had ended in foul defeat. Her father's way had also warped him—had robbed him of emotion—while the doctor's research had transformed him into a creature of emotions which could not be controlled. Had her father ever, during his life of austere scholarship, been aware that he had also stepped beyond certain limits?
Both of them had sought, both of them had found—but in the doctor's case the taint lived on. She sat staring straight into the lamplight. During the day she had been able to avoid thinking about the horror of Utterson's death, but now memory broke through and could not be dismissed. Resolutely she opened the journal, determined not to give way to what she realized was fear. She was a Jekyll; could "this strange obsession touch her? She did not believe it, she dared not! As carefully as if she were transcribing some passage for her father, Hester set down the events of the day.
Prothore's part in the action—she remembered how distraught he had been earlier when he had told his story—that was such folly that she had to believe that Newcomen was also a man under an obsession. Such were clearly dangerous.
There were marks on the back gate. Well, London was certainly not devoid of thieves. A large house might well attract their attention. But with the newly changed
locks there was no chance of a lost key giving a stranger entrance. Bradshaw! For the first time she wondered about the abrupt flight of the new butler. He had been for some years in-this house, keys could well have come into his hands—but if he were on good terms with any questionable person there would have been no need for that attempt at forcing the back gate. She hoped that Prothore would be as good as his word and see that she had a reliable manservant soon.
Hester made herself write on. The only thing that gave her spirits a lift was the note that had come from Lady Farlie. She made herself concentrate on the morrow and turn her back on today.
But once she was ready for bed she could not settle down. Something to read? She remembered those well-filled bookcases in the library. Hester had had no time to explore their contents but surely they could not be all medical books or scientific material. There would be no harm in finding out—several times in the past when her nerves had been overwrought she had been able to forget worries and irritations and woo slumber with what lay on a printed page.
Lamp in hand she resolutely went out into the hall, down the stairs. It was like venturing into some cavern, and she pulled her wrapper closer together at the throat, shivering, but refusing to surrender to what could only be illogical uneasiness.
In the library she lit two more candles, leaving a pool of light around the desk while she held her lamp high and went to the edge of the bookshelves. As she had expected, there were mainly treatises of a scientific nature, but she persevered and at length the name of Dickens shone out in tarnished gold. She pulled the nearest such volume from the shelves and went back with it under her arm. Our Mutual Friend. She frowned a little. Not too cheerful a tale in itself but certainly interesting enough to hold back thoughts she had no desire to welcome this night.
Hester blew out the candles and hastened along the big hall and up the stairs. She was eager to leave the chill dark of the lower part of the house as speedily as she could.
