in its crushed. path. Originally a title of Krishna (an avatar of the 8. Shout. Hindu god Vishnu); at an annual festival his statue 9. Doctor (slang). was drawn on an enormous cart, under whose
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THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / 1647
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.2 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.3 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,4 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 of it 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 check 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.
Black mail, I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose for some of the
capers of his youth. Black Mail House is what I call that 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
