Lanyon dined with Jekyll the night before. Then a registered letter arrives, as if they were not old friends at all. My life, my honour, my reason, are all at your mercy. If you fail me to-night, I am lost. Force the cabinet. Take the fourth drawer, powders, phial, and book, exactly as it stands. At midnight, alone, let a man in who comes in my name, and put the drawer in his hands. If that night passes without event, you will know that you have seen the last of Henry Jekyll. Lanyon is sure his colleague is insane. An appeal so worded cannot be set aside. He takes a cab.
Poole is already waiting with a locksmith. After two hours the door stands open. The drawer goes home in a sheet. The powders look home-made. The red liquor smells of phosphorus. The book is dates, then a stop nearly a year ago, a few marks that say double, and once, early, total failure. Why must the messenger come in secret? Lanyon sends the servants to bed and loads an old revolver. At twelve the knocker sounds very gently. A small man crouches by the pillars, clothes of rich cloth hanging off him, rolled at the ankle, collar sprawling. A policeman's lamp moves in the square, and the visitor hurries. Have you got it? He lays a hand on Lanyon's arm. The touch is ice. The sheet comes off, and the man sobs with relief, then asks for a glass. Red goes to purple, then to a watery green. He smiles, and turns.
Will you be wise? Will you let me take this glass and go? Or has curiosity too much command of you? Stay, and a new province of knowledge opens here, upon the instant. Lanyon affects a coolness he does not feel. I have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end. It is well, says the visitor. Behold. He drinks at one gulp. He seems to swell. The face goes black and melts. Lanyon leaps back against the wall. O God, he screams, and O God again. There, pale and groping like a man restored from death, stands Henry Jekyll. What was said in the next hour, Lanyon cannot set on paper. He saw what he saw. He asks himself if he believes it, and he cannot answer. Sleep has left him. The deadliest terror sits by him at all hours. His days are numbered. And yet I shall die incredulous. He will say only one thing to Utterson. The creature who crept into the house that night was, on Jekyll's own confession, Hyde, hunted as the murderer of Carew.
Coming Up in Chapter 10
In the final chapter, Jekyll himself tells his story - how he discovered the formula that split his soul in two, and why he created the monster that destroyed everything he held dear. His confession reveals the true horror of what happens when we try to separate the good and evil within ourselves..
