Chapter Text
“My, my.” The short man clicked his tongue appreciatively. He appeared to be talking to himself, though his twitching eyes were fixed on Utterson, maintaining a distance and an air of smooth hostility. “He does have good taste.”
The lawyer blinked for a moment and cleared his throat, stepping into the flickering light of the street lamp.
“Are you talking to me?” he asked rather rudely, then remembered himself and stood taller, adjusting his tie. Hyde’s eyes followed the movement with an icy closeness. “My good sir,” Utterson began. “I-“
“I could hang you with that tie, you know. String you up and leave you to rot,” Hyde said in a voice dripping with grime. The lawyer’s breath hitched and a feeling of dull terror seeped though his bones and into his words.
“I beg your pardon?”
Hyde licked his lips in a quick, snakelike motion. “Beg,” he echoed. “Oh, I do like the sound of that.”
Utterson squinted his eyes in the lamplight. For the first time in his life, he found himself at a loss for words. Around them, the houses leered and the darkening sky seemed to be crashing down in slow motion. He grappled with his mind and hung onto the last shred of coherent thought. He found himself mentally launched back into confusion and he resorted to the logical line of questioning that had become second nature to him as a lawyer. He spoke, swallowing hard. The muscles in his throat tensed as though the act of forcing words out was like trying to spit out a cluster of blind bats that kept knocking into the walls of his oesophagus.
“Would I be right to assume that you are the one they call Hyde?”
The other figure scowled and bared his teeth, taking a sharp step backwards out of the light.
“Yes.” A curious hiss caught on to the end of the word.
Utterson seemed to have regained control of himself. “Ah, good. You prove a difficult man to find.” He paused, but Hyde’s face remained unreadable, a cliff face of sanded savagery.
“I hope you don’t mind if I inquire as to the nature of your relationship with Dr Jekyll? I presume you know him well.” Utterson’s voice took on a hardened edge as he spoke about his friend. Enfield’s tale had left him quite shaken, and the name that had slithered its way into the will of the doctor had defied all expectation; the man truly was inconceivably monstrous, extraordinarily so.
Hyde’s eyes were laced with a tinge of sickly amusement that Utterson found bewildering. “Oh, we are twin souls, believe me. But, my dear man, you seem rather on edge,” said Hyde smoothly. “I don’t want anything from him, if that’s what you’re accusing me of. In fact, I felt so incredibly unworthy of such generosity when he put my name on his will,” he tilted his head to the side and let out an almost theatrical exhale. “Oh, I forgot. My apologies, I must come off as so insensitive. I cant imagine how difficult it must be to see my name on the document rather than your own,” Hyde said cuttingly.
Utterson’s face twisted against his will. “Who Harry decides to entrust his money to is none of my business,” he replied coldly. “A a lawyer, it is my duty to remain completely impartial and do as my client wishes in spite of my better judgment,” he spat. That, at least, was a rule that he would uphold under any circumstances. “He’s a good man,” he added as an afterthought, speaking to no one in particular.
Hyde’s lip curled. “He certainly seems to be.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “A damn coward, too.”
Utterson felt a burning urge to leap to his friend’s defence.
“Henry Jekyll is the most respectable and well liked man in this city,” he snapped.
Hyde shrugged, dust flying off his tweed jacket as he did so. “ My point stands.”
Utterson felt a bubbling desire to wrap his hands around the man’s throat and wring the life out of him. How dare he speak of Jekyll in such a way?! The veins in the backs of his hands throbbed angrily as he clenched them by his sides.
Hyde smiled nastily. “Oh, feeling protective, are we?” He sighed irritably. “Honestly, sending me to do this instead of him makes everything so unnecessarily difficult.”
“Do what?” Utterson immediately asked as he felt the blood in him cool from red hot anger to an icy dread.
Hyde’s features shrank into a devilish grin and he shook his head, laughing to himself. His hand shot out to tug roughly on Utterson’s tie and Utterson stumbled forwards, thrown off balance. Hyde sneered, pressing something cold and metallic against Utterson’s neck. A howling silence bound his limbs, rooting him in place as he gulped, feeling the metal press against his jugular. White swirls of mist spilled from Utterson’s mouth as he breathed heavily in the cold air. He could feel the unevenly laid cobblestones through the soles of his shoes and he wondered what his blood would look like, dried in the cracks, running like sewage until it was ingrained into the stones, just another smudge of dirt on the city, mixed with spit and the piss of stray dogs-
Hyde, satisfied with the look of terror in Utterson’s eyes, released him and put the key back in his pocket, serrated edge flashing in the fleeing light.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t carry knives on my person. That would be most unlawful.” The corners of his mouth turned up without a hint of humour. His teeth glinted as he tipped his hat politely and spun around, jammed the key into the door, twisted it with rather more force than necessary and disappeared into the house.
Utterson slumped into the pole of the streetlamp and gazed upwards, watching insects fry themselves on the bulb.
***
There was something deeply unsettling about the man, Utterson thought as he walked. Overhead, the clouds frowned and spat down a light drizzle that coated the world in a shimmering veil. He certainly knew Jekyll, perhaps better than Utterson did. The thought caused a spark of jealously which was promptly extinguished by a loud splash of water from a hansom passing on the road. Utterson glared at the wheels disappearing around a corner and sighed, a strong desire for a glass of wine filling him. He shook his head against the rain and his thoughts.
He entered a small area of houses that looked down, their chimneys tilted prettily at him. Smoke puffed contentedly from some, and a crow hopped around the perfectly tiled roof of the house that he was approaching.
A sudden sense of urgency came over him and he ran the last few paces. The door shook as he pounded on it and he very nearly tumbled forwards when it opened abruptly. The warm face of Poole peered anxiously at him, half illuminated by the firelight seeping through the doorway from the hall. He stood, staring at Utterson in shock and perplexity for a few moments. Utterson managed a small smile, aware of the state he was in.
“You look like a drowned weasel,” Poole said, after looking at Utterson’s dishevelled clothing, his dripping, straggly hair, the way his collar was half flipped upwards and his strangely skewed tie.
“You’ve never seen a drowned weasel,” he retorted with a touch of annoyance, a shadow of concern fluttering across his mind at Poole’s casually insulting tone. Poole opened the door wider and ushered the shivering man inside, taking his overcoat and hanging it up on a peg on the darkly painted wall.
Poole eyed Utterson warily, less concerned about his wellbeing and more so about the grimy puddle forming around his feet. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” Formalities had to be maintained. Though sometimes they fell into a comfortable stream of conversation and would most likely have been good friends in another life, there were certain unspoken rules regarding friendships with servants. Utterson stood straighter and allowed the flames licking at the grate to run a shiver of warmth through his shoulders. He ran his hands through his hair to smooth down the unruly waves.
“I need to speak to Dr Jekyll,” he said evenly. “Now.” But in truth, he didn’t particularly feel like having such a conversation. What I need, he thought, is a monumentally large glass of gin. Actually, wine. He’d had quite a night.
Utterson exhaled as Poole replied.
“I’m afraid he’s not currently home, sir.”
Now that Utterson had warmed up and was looking more or less presentable, Poole seemed to be much more willing to treat him respectfully.
Utterson leaned against the top of the mantelpiece. “Is… Mr Hyde-“ the name sounded bitter on his tongue. He took a breath and continued. “Has Mr Hyde been given permission by Dr Jekyll to use the old lab door?”
Poole stood opposite him, the firelight lighting up half his face. “Of course, sir. My master gave him a key and expressed that he be treated with the same degree of respect as himself.”
“And Hyde comes here often?” Utterson shuddered at the thought of Jekyll spending even a second with such a monster. The fact that Jekyll trusted him enough to leave him no less than a small fortune was beyond him. Although, ‘trusted’ was certainly the wrong word. No, Jekyll was being forced into this, he was sure. Utterson ran through the little that he did know. Hyde was a frequent visitor. He had a reason to wish Jekyll an untimely death. He could demand huge sums of money in the middle of a black-hearted night.
A new, sickening thought forced its way through the curtains of Utterson’s mind. He couldn’t exactly ask Poole what he knew about the nature of the relationship between Henry and Hyde, but he just had to know…
“And…” how to put this delicately? “You don’t suppose that this Hyde is going through Jekyll’s back door in more ways than one?”
Poole blinked. “Sir?”
Utterson mentally smacked himself upside the head.
“Never you mind,” he said, alarm bells screeching at him from the darkest corners of his mind. It was just as well that Poole looked utterly bewildered. Some things simply weren’t said aloud.
***
The night was just as vicious as he had left it, and he struggled through the torrential rain, vaguely aware of the shadows that crept behind him.