STORY OF THE DOOR

Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged 
countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, 
scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in 
sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow 
lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was 
to his taste, something eminently human beaconed 
from his eye; something indeed which never found 
its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in 
these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but 
more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He 
was austere with himself; drank gin when he was 
alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though 
he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors 
of one for twenty years. But he had an approved 
tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost 
with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved 
in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to 
help rather than to reprove. "I incline to Cain's 
heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my brother 
go to the devil in his own way." In this character, 
it was frequently his fortune to be the last 
reputable acquaintance and the last good influence 
in the lives of downgoing men. And to such as these, 
so long as they came about his chambers, he never 
marked a shade of change in his demeanour. 

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he 
was undemonstrative at the best, and even his 
friendship seemed to be founded in a similar 
catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a 
modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made 
from the hands of opportunity; and that was the 
lawyer’s way. His friends were those of his own 
blood or those whom he had known the longest; his 
affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they 
implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt 
the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, 
his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. 
It was a nut to crack for many, what these two 
could see in each other, or what subject they 
could find in common. It was reported by those who 
encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they 
said nothing, looked singularly dull and would 
hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend. 
For all that, the two men put the greatest store 
by these excursions, counted them the chief jewel 
of each week, and not only set aside occasions of 
pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business, 
that they might enjoy them uninterrupted. 

It chanced on one of these rambles that their way 
led them down a by-street in a busy quarter of 
London. The street was small and what is called 
quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on the 
weekdays. The inhabitants were all doing well, it 
seemed and all emulously hoping to do better still, 
and laying out the surplus of their grains in 
coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood along that 
thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows 
of smiling saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when it veiled 
its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of 
passage, the street shone out in contrast to its 
dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and with 
its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, 
and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly 
caught and pleased the eye of the passenger. 

Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going 
east the line was broken by the entry of a court; 
and just at that point a certain sinister block of 
building thrust forward its gable on the street. 
It was two storeys high; showed no window, nothing 
but a door on the lower storey and a blind forehead 
of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every 
feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid 
negligence. The door, which was equipped with 
neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained. 
Tramps slouched into the recess and struck matches 
on the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; 
the schoolboy had tried his knife on the mouldings; 
and for close on a generation, no one had appeared 
to drive away these random visitors or to repair 
their ravages. 

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of 
the by-street; but when they came abreast of the 
entry, the former lifted up his cane and pointed. 

"Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when 
his companion had replied in the affirmative, "It is 
connected in my mind," added he, "with a very odd 
story."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of 
voice, "and what was that?" 

"Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield: "I was 
coming home from some place at the end of the 
world, about three o'clock of a black winter morning, 
and my way lay through a part of town where there 
was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street 
after street and all the folks asleep - street after 
street, all lighted up as if for a procession and 
all as empty as a church - till at last I got into 
that state of mind when a man listens and listens 
and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. 
All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man 
who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and 
the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was 
running as hard as she was able down a cross street. 
Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally 
enough at the corner; and then came the horrible 
part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over 
the child's body and left her screaming on the 
ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish 
to see. It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned 
Juggernaut. I gave a few halloa, took to my heels, 
collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where 
there was already quite a group about the screaming 
child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance,
but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out 
the sweat on me like running. The people who had 
turned out were the girl's own family; and pretty 
soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent put in 
his appearance. Well, the child was not much the 
worse, more frightened, according to the sawbones; 
and there you might have supposed would be an end 
to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had 
taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So 
had the child's family, which was only natural. But the 
doctor's case was what struck me. He was the usual 
cut and dry apothecary, of no particular age and 
colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent and about as 
emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest 
of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw 
that sawbones turn sick and white with the 
desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just 
as he knew what was in mine; and killing being out 
of the question, we did the next best. We told the 
man we could and would make such a scandal out of 
this as should make his name stink from one end of 
London to the other. If he had any friends or any 
credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And 
all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot, we 
were keeping the women off him as best we could for 
they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle 
of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the 
middle, with a kind of black sneering coolness - 
frightened too, I could see that - but carrying it 
off, sir, really like Satan. 'If you choose to make 
capital out of this accident,' said he, 'I am 
naturally helpless. No gentleman but wishes to avoid 
a scene,' says he. 'Name your figure.` Well, we 
screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the child's 
family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; but 
there was something about the lot of us that meant 
mischief, and at last he struck. The next thing was 
to get the money; and where do you think he carried 
us but to that place with the door? - whipped out a 
key, went in, and presently came back with the 
matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the 
balance on Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer and 
signed with a name that I can’t mention, though it's 
one of the points of my story, but it was a name at 
least very well known and often printed. The figure 
was stiff; but the signature was good for more than 
that if it was only genuine. I took the liberty of 
pointing out to my gentleman that the whole business 
looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real 
life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning 
and come out with another man's cheque for close 
upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite easy and 
sneering. 'Set your mind at rest,' says he, 'I will 
stay with you till the banks open and cash the 
cheque myself.' So we all set off, the doctor, and the 
child's father, and our friend and myself, and passed 
the rest of the night in my chambers; and next day, 
when we had breakfasted, went in a body to the 
bank. I gave in the cheque myself, and said I had 
every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of 
it. The cheque was genuine."

"Tut-tut!" said Mr. Utterson. 

"I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it's a 
bad story. For my man was a fellow that nobody could 
have to do with, a really damnable man; and the 
person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the 
proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it 
worse) one of your fellows who do what they call 
good. Blackmail, I suppose; an honest man paying 
through the nose for some of the capers of his 
youth. Black Mail House is what I call the place with 
the door, in consequence. Though even that, you 
know, is far from explaining all," he added, and with 
the words fell into a vein of musing. 

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking 
rather suddenly: "And you don't know if the drawer of 
the cheque lives there?"

"A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield. "But I 
happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some 
square or other."

"And you never asked about the place with the 
door?" said Mr. Utterson. 

"No, sir; I had a delicacy," was the reply. "I feel very 
strongly about putting questions; it partakes too 
much of the style of the day of judgment. You start 
a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit 
quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, 
starting others; and presently some bland old bird 
(the last you would have thought of) is knocked on 
the head in his own back garden and the family have 
to change their name. No sir, I make it a rule of 
mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the 
less I ask." 

"A very good rule, too," said the lawyer. 

"But I have studied the place for myself," continued 
Mr. Enfield. "It seems scarcely a house. There is no 
other door, and nobody goes in or out of that one 
but, once in a great while, the gentleman of my 
adventure. There are three windows looking on the 
court on the first floor; none below; the windows are 
always shut but they're clean. And then there is a 
chimney which is generally smoking; so somebody must 
live there. And yet it's not so sure; for the buildings 
are so packed together about the court, that it's 
hard to say where one ends and another begins."

The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and 
then "Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule 
of yours."

"Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield. 

"But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one 
point I want to ask. I want to ask the name of that 
man who walked over the child."

"Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it would 
do. It was a man of the name of Hyde."
 
"Hm," said Mr. Utterson. "What sort of a man is he to 
see?"

"He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong 
with his appearance; something displeasing, something 
down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, 
and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed 
somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, 
although I couldn’t specify the point. He's an 
extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name 
nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand 
of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of 
memory; for I declare I can see him this moment."
 
Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and 
obviously under a weight of consideration. "You 
are sure he used a key?" he inquired at last. 

"My dear sir..." began Enfield, surprised out of himself. 

"Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem 
strange. The fact is, if I do not ask you the name 
of the other party, it is because I know it already. 
You see, Richard, your tale has gone home. If you 
have been inexact in any point you had better 
correct it."

"I think you might have warned me," returned the 
other with a touch of sullenness. "But I have been 
pedantically exact, as you call it. The fellow had a 
key; and what's more, he has it still. I saw him use 
it not a week ago."

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; and 
the young man presently resumed. "Here is another 
lesson to say nothing," said he. "I am ashamed of my 
long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to refer to 
this again."

"With all my heart," said the lawyer. "I shake hands on 
that, Richard."