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 of, 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.
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 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.