“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, that’s talking!” cried the butler.
“And now comes the second question,” resumed Utterson: “Who is going to do it?”
“Why, you and me, sir,” was the undaunted reply.
“That is very well said,” returned the lawyer; “and whatever comes of it, I shall make it my business to see you are no loser.”
“There is an axe in the theatre,” continued Poole; “and you might take the kitchen poker for yourself.”
The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument into his hand, and balanced it. “Do you know, Poole,” he said, looking up, “that you and I are about to place ourselves in a position of some peril?”
“You may say so, sir, indeed,” returned the butler.
“It is well, then, that we should be frank,” said the other. “We both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast. This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?”