do you know?" resumed the
lawyer.

"I thought it looked like it," said the servant rather sulkily; and
then, with another voice, "But what matters hand-of-write?" he said.
"I've seen him!"

"Seen him?" repeated Mr. Utterson. "Well?"

"That's it!" said Poole. "It was this way. I came suddenly into the
theatre from the garden. It seems he had slipped out to look for this
drug, or whatever it is; for the cabinet door was open, and there he
was at the far end of the room digging among the crates. He looked up
when I came in, gave a kind of cry, and whipped upstairs into the
cabinet. It was but for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood up
on my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask
upon his face? If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat, and
run from me? I have served him long enough. And then ..." the man paused
and passed his hand over his face.

"These are all very strange circumstances," said Mr. Utterson, "but I
think I begin to see daylight. Your master, Poole, is plainly seized
with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer;
hence, for aught I know, the alteration of his voice; hence the mask and
his avoidance of his friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug, by
means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery--God
grant that he be not deceived. There is my explanation; it is sad
enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and
natural, hangs well together, and delivers us from all exorbitant
alarms."

"Sir," said the butler, turning to a sort of mottled pallor, "that thing
was not my master, and there's the truth. My master"--here he looked
round him and began to whisper--"is a tall, fine build of a man, and
this was more of a dwarf." Utterson attempted to protest. "O sir," cried
Poole, "do you think I do not know my master after twenty years? do you
think I do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet door, where I
saw him every morning of my life? No, sir, that thing in the mask was
never Dr. Jekyll--God knows what it was, but it was never Dr. Jekyll;
and it is the belief of my heart that there was murder done."

"Poole," replied the lawyer, "if you say that, it will become my duty to
make certain. Much as I desire to spare your master's feelings, much as
I am puzzled by this note which seems to prove him to be still alive, I
shall consider it my duty to break in that door."

"Ah, Mr. Utterson,