Seeking Hyde

by Reed, Thomas;

“You are fortunate, friend,” said Symonds, taking the rare liberty of tapping his companion on the knee. “If I could be married to a person I loved in every way a man can love…if I could live with that person every day of my life…” He shook his head and rode on in silence.

  “I would wish that for you,” said Stevenson, quietly.

  As the cab rattled on through the drizzle, it abruptly occurred to Stevenson that the fellow they were stalking might once have expressed a sentiment very similar to John’s. Were his bestial deeds, perhaps, nothing more or less than the cankered fruits of a stymied nature? The depredations of another Hyde, born of another Jekyll’s inhibitions? Stevenson felt more than reluctant to afford any sympathy whatsoever to such a blackguard. But what lesson, he wondered, lay in the fact of that reluctance?

  18

  Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me. With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror. A mist dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost peg.

  —DR. HENRY JEKYLL

  “There is a letter for you, Mr. Stevenson,” called the young man from the porter’s lodge. “Shall I fetch it?”

  “Please do.”

  Stevenson had just returned to the Savile from a long-overdue luncheon with Henley. His old friend and literary advocate, ever in quest of a quick fortune, had proposed yet another dramatic collaboration. Stevenson had resolutely declined, citing the miserable record of their collaborations to date.

  “Thank you,” said the writer, glancing quickly at the envelope. It had been posted from Bournemouth and was inscribed with a most familiar hand. He looked up. “I see Dobbs is away again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have any notion as to why?”

  “I’m afraid his wife has not been well.”

  “Really? Do you know any particulars?”

  “I believe it’s cancer, sir. Quite grave, I’ve heard.”

  “My goodness,” sighed Stevenson. “You would never know it to speak with him.”

  “Dobbs is a cheerful sort, sir. Never one to complain.”

  He returned to his room, tossing his things onto the bed and sinking into the chair by the window. He must speak with Dobbs as soon as he had the opportunity. The man deserved a word of kindness and sympathy, perhaps a modest offer of help. With a shake of the head, he ripped open the envelope he had brought from downstairs and pulled out Fanny’s letter.

  Dear Louis,

  I have delayed writing until now so as to spit as little venom onto the paper as I can manage. I’m glad I waited, because I am angry and hurt enough now. If I had sat down any earlier to write, you can be sure that the stationery would have burst into flames from the heat of my pen.

  What have I done to deserve so little of your trust? I have been asking myself that question over and over again, and I can honestly come up with no satisfactory answer. If there is anything you feel you need to tell me—if I have any traits or if I have done things that you think are bothersome or insufferable, any grievance or disappointments at all—you have to tell me. I’ve barely been able to sleep, despite drinking an alarming quantity of laudanum. I seem to be constantly in the kitchen, pestering Valentine for something to take my mind off missing you and not knowing why you’ve run off the way you have. Fortunately, she has been very sweet, as sweet as I can ever remember. But I’ve surely packed on several pounds. When you see me, you may not even recognize your dear wife.

  Oh, Louis. I hope and pray I am still your Dear Wife, your ‘Sweet Pig.’ You know how foolish and ignorant those people are who think you and your story had anything to do with these awful murders. If they keep hounding you, just tell me, and I’ll come straight up and treat them like the banditos they are.

  There. I’ve gotten it off my chest and I feel so much better. As I’m sure you can feel, this paper is now quite cool to the touch. I do hope to hear more from you soon, to know what you have been doing and who you’ve been seeing. Most of all to know when you will be coming back to our dear Skerryvore. We won’t have many more days here, you know.

  Cruikshank is a disaster! I think we’ll have to let him go. Valentine found him yesterday going through her things in her room. Can you imagine? I thought he had been a pretty good valet to your father, but life in the south has turned him into a lazy Lothario. I’m quite prepared to live without the services of a butler as long as I have the services of my dear husband, the esteemed author and bony master of my boudoir.

  I remain, troubled but patient and so desiring news from you, your dear wife,

  Fanny

  Stevenson leaned back in his chair, relieved and smiling to himself. How concisely and profoundly Fanny managed to work upon his conscience. Of course she had not deserved the treatment he had accorded her, rushing off to London with hardly a fare-thee-well and following up with nothing more than the briefest of telegrams telling her not to worry. Fortunately, she closed her note in a way that suggested he could readily return to her good graces—provided he sent her some kind of honest communiqué rather soon. And, he supposed, if he were also prepared to cope with a few, perhaps repeated, displays of petulance once he returned to Skerryvore.

  He sat down at his desk and penned a letter that sketched in bare outline what he had been up to, strategically allowing her to believe that the London police were playing a significant role as well. As a final sop, he told her that her estimate of Symonds’s amorous character had turned out to be far more accurate than his own—but that she had absolutely no reason to worry that her bag-o’-bones lover would ever turn from her transcendent embodiment of female perfection to the questionable enticements of Ganymede. The sum of it, he thought, might keep her safely in Bournemouth and reasonably content.

  He was to meet with Symonds again that evening for their eighth consecutive night of surveillance. The regimen was truthfully proving to be exhausting, but Stevenson had throughout been reminded of how delightful and knowledgeable a conversationalist was Symonds. Despite the profound differences in their personal worlds, a great ease had developed between the two of them, far more marked than anything he could remember when they were fellow invalids in Davos. As a result, they seemed comfortable sitting for hours in each other’s company without having to fill the cab with idle chatter. At the same time, when they spoke, their conversations were, by turns, searching, profound, and hilarious. There were nights when Stevenson worried that eruptions of laughter from their sequestered cab would betray their presence and spoil the game entirely.

  It was therefore almost with more regret than relief that he received word from Symonds that their suspect was leaving London that day by the noon train to Dover and would be away across the channel for a full fortnight. Stevenson replied, saying that he was as determined as ever to complete their work together and that he would be back in London on the 28th. In the mean time, he said, he would return to Bournemouth to see about salvaging his marriage. If Symonds were perchance to hear that he had been shot dead by a .38-calibre handgun—from extremely close range—he should make sure to testify in court on Fanny’s behalf, given she had been sorely provoked and was more than justified in doing in her prodigal husband.

  Having dispatched word to his old friend, Stevenson resolved to catch a train the next morning. He dined unfashionably early at the Savile and spent a pleasant evening at the Savoy Opera, setting aside his recent aversion for theater in order to take in Gilbert and Sullivan’s latest, Yeomen of the Guard. While Jessie Bond was superb in the female lead, Stevenson was frankly disappointed at the operetta’s lack of trenchant topical satire, and quite unprepared for the seriousness of the ending. The plot, however, focused on a risky intrigue at the Tower of London—which,
under the circumstances, struck him as engagingly coincidental.

  He arose before dawn to make the 8:54 at Waterloo. He took a light breakfast at the club almost as early as the dining room opened, then hastened back upstairs. As he descended the carpeted stairway to the entrance hall, he spied Dobbs, once again, standing by the door.

  “Good morning, Dobbs,” he called as he walked across the broad, diamond-tiled floor.

  “Good morning, Mr. Stevenson,” offered the porter with a bright smile. “Shall I…summon a cab?”

  “Please do,” the writer replied through a chuckle. “I see you have chosen your words carefully this morning.”

  “Live and learn, sir. May I take your bag?”

  “Please.” Stevenson handed him the well-worn Gladstone.

  The porter was turning to go when Stevenson spoke again. “By the way, Dobbs.”

  “Sir?” The man stood there, bag in hand, an open and kindly expression on his face.

  “I am told your wife has not been well.”

  Dobbs glanced quickly towards the door of the porter’s lodge, a shade of annoyance flitting across his face.

  “Well, sir—”

  “You needn’t be guarded, Dobbs. Trust in my sincere interest.”

  The man’s eyes widened and he shook his head ever so slightly.

  “No, sir. Of course, sir. Thank you for asking.”

  “I…I am led to believe it may be quite serious.”

  “Cancer, sir. Of the womb, is what they’ve seen, anyhow.”

  “I am so sorry, Dobbs.”

  “Thank you again, sir.” The man’s eyes were misting.

  “If there is anything I can do to help, I should very much like to.”

  “You are very kind, sir. Extremely. There is really nothing to be done.”

  “Oh my!”

  Dobbs bobbed his head grimly.

  “For your children, then?”

  “Oh, sir. They’re all long out of the house. Married. With young ’uns of their own.”

  “So you have a large family, then?”

  “I do.”

  “Good. You’re blessed in that.”

  “I am, sir.” The man sniffed twice and adjusted his grip on the bag.

  “Well,” said Stevenson, thinking it best to leave the conversation there. “I shall be back in a fortnight. I shall look forward to seeing you then.”

  “Thank you, sir. It’s not for me to say, but…” He looked down awkwardly. “You’re a kind soul, sir.”

  As he rode to Waterloo Station, it struck Stevenson how remarkable it was that a man like Dobbs should have his life crumbling around him and still find it in himself to show a cheerful face to the public eye. It was clear that a sense of Duty might hold as powerful a sway over the working classes as respectability held over the more privileged. Was the one a more noble deity, he wondered, than the other? More internal? Substantial? Could duty possibly turn a man against himself—or in the case of some, against humanity at large—in anything like as damaging a way as a consummate regard for appearances? He doubted it. To carry on bravely in the face of trial, burdening no one else with one’s anguish, was no hypocrisy in Stevenson’s estimation. In this instance, however, it did wall others off from the truth—and denied them the opportunity at the very least to express their sympathy and, perhaps, to help. He deeply wished the man had suggested something he might do.

  By September 30th, Stevenson had been back in the capital for two nights, both of them spent in Symonds’s company, once again on the watch in Portman Square. On neither occasion had their subject stirred from his house, and they spent the time much as they had done earlier. Symonds expressed delight that Stevenson seemed to have gotten his marriage back on a proper footing, and only once did Stevenson fail to recall that his companion no longer used tobacco.

  The evening of the 30th was unseasonably warm and pleasant, but their wait was a long one. Twice, the vigilant pair heard a snore erupt from the coachman above. The waxing moon had long since dropped below the rooftops to the west of the square when a light winked on in the bedroom of Number 43. Within minutes it was extinguished, and shortly afterward the black landau wheeled up in front of the house, its big team snorting and jostling as it waited in the traces. Stevenson cringed as their own horse caught the equine mood and whinnied loudly. The beast had fortunately settled itself by the time the door of the house swung open and the big man bounced down the steps and up into the carriage. With a tap of the coachman’s whip, his team burst into motion and clattered down Orchard Street.

  The hansom driver waited the requisite moment, then wheeled his horse around in pursuit. They reached Oxford Street in a trice and followed the landau east at a distance of a hundred yards or so. Stevenson checked his watch in the light of the passing streetlamps. It was just past midnight.

  They passed at a brisk trot down to High Holbourn and then over the Viaduct. Stevenson’s father had often touted the impressive span, close to twenty-years-old now, as a perfect example of engineering’s key role in the Triumph of Civilization. Yet while it may have been a cosmetic and olfactory success, thought Stevenson as they raced over the bridge, down beneath the pavement, rank floods of offal still ran their course to the Thames, unseen but hardly eliminated.

  As their carriage hastened through Cheapside and Cornhill, Symonds and Stevenson peered at each other now and again with a mixture of excitement and dread. At each measure of eastward progress, it became increasingly clear where the landau was headed—and, given the hour, what its passenger’s evening plans would likely entail.

  As they left the precincts of the old city, under the gatehouse Geoffrey Chaucer had once called home, Stevenson registered the almost instantaneous degradation of the surroundings. The tall, well-kept stone buildings of Leadenhall gave rapid way to slouching dens of brick, as though the proud constructions of the London town fathers were somehow sinking back into the mire of an ancient Thames-side marsh. The streetlamps were spaced parsimoniously now in this neighborhood of struggling immigrants and down-going Britons, and they burned with a listless flicker, as though they knew too well the hopeless task they faced in checking the encroaching darkness. Here and there, the garish lights of a gin palace blazed like beacons on a dark headland. Despite the lateness of the hour, crowds of shabbily dressed men still raised a glass or roared a song, wooing or winking at this or that equally convivial and ragged woman. Stevenson caught glimpses of low and parted bodices the likes of which had not been seen in western portions of the city since the days of King George. Here and there a skirt, too, was adjusted salaciously, and a raised knee or a smooth thigh invited a purchase as clearly as any gilded shopfront sign. This was the home of Henry Jekyll’s favourite, Stevenson recited to himself, like a district of some city in a nightmare.

  The landau’s lanterns converged ahead as the carriage turned south towards the river. As their hansom followed around the corner, the two saw with shock that the lane before them lay completely empty. Unless the landau had for some reason broken into a gallop, it could never have covered so quickly the full length of the block. Symonds tapped on the hatch and softly instructed the driver to slow to a walk, but keep going down to the next thoroughfare. As they crossed the head of a tenebrous cul-de-sac on the left side of the lane, a quick glance revealed the landau turning around at the far end.

  “That is where he’ll wait,” whispered Symonds, “or at least take to his feet.”

  “It’s a perfect bolt hole,” agreed Stevenson.

  “Left ahead,” hissed Symonds up to the cabman. “Then pull to the side. Briskly now.”

  The hansom rounded onto Commercial Road, lurching to a halt just east of the corner.

  “I’ll jump down,” said Symonds. “Wait here, but be ready.”

  As his companion exited, Stevenson noted that his heart was racing uncomfortably. He took a deep breath, then another, and gripped his heavy stick tightly in both hands. He and Symonds had decided, their first night on vig
il, that their job was not to intervene in their man’s deeds, but rather to trail him and collect whatever incriminating evidence they could. Stevenson had first proposed that, if they could bring a number of henchmen with them, they might overpower the fellow in the act and perhaps even save his intended quarry; but as sad as Symonds was to admit it, he was reluctant to bring anyone beyond Stevenson into a matter with such potential for compromise. Might they arm themselves, then, such that they could still save a wretched life? Again, Symonds regretted to observe that, were the man apprehended before completing his intended assault, a compelling case could not easily be made against him. And as for their joint capacity, in any case, to subdue him with anything less than lethal force—outright murder not being in their brief—the man’s formidable stature and military background left them little hope of success. It was unfortunate, thought Stevenson, that Fanny had not brought her revolvers from California. Their weight in his pockets would have been reassuring.

  “Quick,” cried Symonds as he ran back around the corner. “He’s walking up to Whitechapel Road. You have your stick?”

  “I do.” Stevenson slapped its heavy head into his gloved palm.

  “Driver, wait here. I don’t know how long we shall be.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Once Stevenson was down from the carriage, Symonds grabbed his elbow and pulled him strongly towards the corner.

  “Quickly. We’ll lose him.”

  As they reentered what turned out to be Union Street, they could just make out a single pedestrian at the far end, barely visible against the glow of a streetlamp across the road at the top of the passage.

  “That will be him.”

  “His coachman may see us,” warned Stevenson as they approached the cul-de-sac.

  “Shhh!” hissed Symonds, hurrying on. “I can’t imagine he’s looking out,” he added once the side street was behind them. “And there are doubtless enough of our sort out and about. Gentleman anglers.”

  Their man had turned west on Whitechapel Road, and they halted cautiously at the corner to see how far he had gone on. There he was, crossing the high road towards one of the gin palaces. Stevenson looked back behind them, relieved to see that no one had emerged from the alley where the landau lay waiting.