On one of their Sunday walks, Utterson and Enfield happen to walk past the door that
they had stopped in front of earlier in the novella. Utterson tells Enfield that he once
saw the man Hyde, and that he shared Enfield’s feelings of revulsion and disgust upon seeing
him.
The pair step into the courtyard of Jekyll’s home as Utterson admits that he is worried
for his old friend and wants to have a look around. At one of the windows, looking miserable
and sick, they see Dr Jekyll.
Utterson calls up to Jekyll, telling him he is looking better but, his friend replies
that he is not and that he believes it will all be over soon. Suddenly, mid-conversation,
Jekyll’s face begins to change and a look of utter terror and despair comes over him
before he quickly pulls down the blind.
The two men leave quickly and, when they are some distance away, they look at each other
with faces full of horror.
At the start of chapter eight, it is evening and Utterson is sitting by his fire when he
is interrupted by a visit from Poole who is clearly distressed. Poole tells him that he
is afraid about something happening with Dr Jekyll. He admits to Utterson that he thinks
Jekyll has been murdered. Utterson gets his coat and his hat and agrees to follow Poole
to Jekyll’s house.
When they arrive at the house, the housemaid is whimpering and hysterical. Poole takes
Utterson around to the back of the house and begs him to be as quiet as possible as he
wants him to hear and not be heard. They arrive at Jekyll’s chamber door and Poole tells
Jekyll that Mr Utterson is there to see him. A voice comes from behind the door saying
he cannot see him, and both Poole and Utterson return to the kitchen. Here Poole says he
believes Jekyll has been murdered because a few days previous they heard a lot of shouting
and crying out.
Utterson cannot understand why, if someone has murdered Jekyll, they would stay at the
scene all this time. Poole tries to explain it by saying that whatever is behind the door
has been calling out for a type of medicine that Jekyll used to keep, but which they have
been unable to get a hold of recently. Jekyll had become frantic to get it, sending out
to chemists all over London but not finding any that was pure enough. Now the person who
has replaced Jekyll, Poole says, has been doing the same, giving orders to the staff
to try different chemists for the powder.
Poole then tells Utterson that he has seen the man who is behind the door. He says that
he saw him digging through crates in the storage area and says that, if it was his master,
he must have been wearing a mask.
Utterson believes he has an answer and suggests that maybe Jekyll has a disease that transforms
and disfigures the sufferer’s face, and that is why he is looking for medicine. Poole
rejects this completely, arguing that what he saw was too short to be his master, and
they both come to the conclusion that there is nothing left to do but break the door down
and find out the truth.
Poole takes an axe and Utterson a poker. The pair stand outside the door listening and
decide that what they hear is not Jekyll’s footsteps. Before they break the door down,
Utterson calls out his final warning and when the voice responds, Utterson is finally convinced
that it is Hyde in the room. They knock through the door, and inside find the figure of Hyde
on the carpet twitching and wearing clothes that are much too big for him. They notice
a phial in his hand and Utterson realises that Hyde has taken a substance and killed
himself.
They look around the rest of the apartment for the body of Jekyll but are unable to find
it. They are entirely confused. Utterson then finds a book that Jekyll had much admired
and spoken highly of but which now has terrible things written about it in the margins of
the book, in Jekyll’s own handwriting. This unsettles Utterson greatly and finally, after
more searching, they find a letter on a table addressed to Utterson. He opens it and papers
fall out. The first is an updated version of Jekyll’s will, similar to the previous
one with one exception: instead of leaving everything to Hyde, Jekyll now leaves everything
to Utterson. The next paper is a note dated with that day’s date and addressed to Utterson.
In it, Jekyll says that he has disappeared and that Utterson should go and read the letter
Dr Lanyon gave to him, before reading the letter Jekyll has written. Utterson goes home
to read the two letters, telling Poole he will report Hyde’s death to the police when
he has finished reading.