He Knew What They Would Say

SITTING IN THE carriage of the train, armed with a sheaf of newspaper accounts and police reports as thick as a Bradshaw’s, Utterson felt vindicated. He was not mad. He was not even eccentric. Indeed, it was darker and more sinister than anything he had imagined. The impostor and his associates had committed all manner of crimes in the past—fraud, theft, murder—and escaped without a single conviction. Small wonder, then, that they acted with such audacity now—because they fully expected to escape scot-free again!

Nonetheless Utterson had little confidence that any of his new evidence would convince Inspector Newcomen and his colleagues. The claimant had already done enough to discredit him fatally in their eyes. And he knew exactly what they would say.

The portrait of the MacKenzie claimant, for instance: they would insist that it bore only a faint resemblance to Butler. Or Baxter. Whatever he was called.. They would cite the unblemished nose, the flat ears, the more prominent chin. They would insist that the real MacKenzie looked considerably older than his supposed impersonator. And they would reject the very possibility that a gruffly mannered boxer could ever pass himself off as a Scottish laird.

They would sniff indifferently at the newspaper descriptions of the MacKenzie claimant’s manservant (Spanish, dark-haired, meticulously groomed), denying that they proved, as Utterson firmly believed, that this was the man presently masquerading as Henry Jekyll.

They would argue, too, that the MacKenzie claimant’s errand boy—the former chimney sweeper—was clearly not the same person as the Jekyll claimant’s knife-boy Eddie. To do so they would make the most of the differences apparent in the police report—where the chimney sweeper was broadly described as ‘Mongoloid’ and ‘simian’—before declaring that the two were entirely different men.

They would delight in pointing out that the man claiming to be Jekyll had amassed an impressive number of affidavits from men of rank, wilfully ignoring all the affidavits the MacKenzie claimant had similarly accrued—as if the endorsements of London gentlemen were plainly more credible than those of whisky-bibbing Scotsmen!

And finally they would say that Utterson had already proved himself to be entirely unreliable. They would recall his false accusations and preposterous theories. They would sneer at his absurd insistence that Jekyll and Hyde were the same man. They would murmur about the vast inheritance of which he stood to be deprived. They would encourage Poole to recount details of his erratic behaviour. They would chuckle about his unrequited love for the widow Spratling. They might even have learned of his desperate assault on the impostor and the widow in a West End alley … no, wait, Utterson thought, that was only a dream …

In any event, it was enough to know that there had been other victims before him, and now, if nothing else, he could at least prevent the same fate befalling others in the future. But how, exactly, would he confront the villains? What could he, a lean lawyer in his late fifties, hope to accomplish against a ruthless gang of three? Should he threaten them? Abduct them? Was he ready, God forbid, to sacrifice his own life? Or were the impostors intending to do away with him right now—with just one day remaining before Jekyll was to be declared officially dead?

Such were the questions that swirled through Utterson’s mind as the train streaked through the quilted English countryside and the necklace of noble cities between Edinburgh and London.

He shot out of King’s Cross glancing repeatedly over his shoulder. He dived into a cab and rattled home with his heart thumping. He dashed for the door and was fumbling for his key—there was no longer any butler to open the place—when a figure emerged from the shadows next door. Utterson drew back defensively, raising his owl-headed cane.

But it was only his neighbour, the retired surveyor Mr. Grimsby. ‘The postman asked me to pass this over,’ Grimsby explained, handing across some mail and frowning concernedly. ‘But is something ailing you, Mr. Utterson? You look unwell.’

‘Unwell?’ Utterson laughed. ‘I’ve never been better!’

In the hall he made a cursory examination of the letters, flinging aside two messages from Mr. Slaughter before tearing open a parcel from the chemist Enoch Fell.

Inside was a fold of coloured paper with an explanatory note:

SIR—

I have been told that you have been searching for a special Provision of Salt, of a Type that was supplied by me to HENRY JEKYLL. The Salt was from a Consignment that I purchased from a disreputable Dealer in CHEAPSIDE, my usual Dealer being absent.

I later learned that this Salt had been stored in a Vessel also containing various other Salts, in sufficient quantities to contaminate the marked Powder. I thereafter refrained from selling this Salt, but retained a small Quantity lest it be required again.

I herewith enclose a measure of this Salt, in the hope that it proves useful to you, but under the circumstances I have decided not to include a Bill. I trust you to use this Substance judiciously.

Your faithful Servant,

Enoch Fell, CHEMIST

Utterson shivered. As much as he had felt as if higher powers were mocking him, he now wondered if God Himself might not be guiding him down the final path. For here, on top of all the evidence he had amassed in Edinburgh, was the last piece of the puzzle—the powder that made the potion complete. And here, too, was the answer to all his problems: a means of disguising himself and gaining inhuman strength in the process. He would confront the villains now, he would overpower them, and he would escape without ever being identified.

The bell tinkled on the porch. Utterson raised his cane and tore open the door, ready for anything. But it was only his head clerk.

‘Mr. Utterson,’ said Guest, doffing his hat, ‘may I have a word?’

Utterson was on the point of slamming the door before realising that this was exactly what he required. ‘By all means!’ he declared, practically dragging the young man inside. ‘Come in, dear Guest, and observe!’

In the hallway Guest attempted to splutter something but Utterson had no time for it.

‘Never mind that!’ he said. ‘You are here for a reason, did you know that? You have been sent by God! You are a holy chronicler. You have a divine purpose!’

He shoved the clerk up the stairs to his business room, where he frantically added Fell’s salt to the other ingredients and stirred them furiously in a glass while informing Guest of everything he had discovered in Edinburgh—the full story of the MacKenzie claimant and everything before that.

‘So beware, dear fellow, for your own life!’ he finished. ‘Beware, at all times, of Dr. Guise!’

‘Sir, sir’—Guest looked confounded—‘you’re not going to drink that liquid?’

‘Oh, do not concern yourself for me—do not worry for a minute about Gabriel Utterson—for just as Satan transformed into an angel of light, so an angel of light will now transform into Satan!’

And with that he seized the glass of foaming liquid and hurled it down his throat, slamming the empty glass back onto the table and wiping his lips with the back of his sleeve.

Then he stared at Guest even as his vision blurred and swam and his muscles throbbed and fluttered, as his blood heated and stormed through his head, as his muscles swelled and rearranged; his bones contorted audibly, his hair twisted, his teeth and nails lengthened, his back arched; and he saw the look of astonishment—of sheer disbelief—on his head clerk’s face.

But no, this was no dream—Utterson knew it this time. This was reality. This was actually happening. Foundations were crumbling, walls were collapsing; he had finally done it. He had breached—no, demolished—the fortress of identity.