set aside without a grave responsibility. I rose
accordingly from table, got into a hansom, and drove straight to
Jekyll's house. The butler was awaiting my arrival; he had received by
the same post as mine a registered letter of instruction, and had sent
at once for a locksmith and a carpenter. The tradesmen came while we
were yet speaking; and we moved in a body to old Dr. Denman's surgical
theatre, from which (as you are doubtless aware) Jekyll's private
cabinet is most conveniently entered. The door was very strong, the lock
excellent; the carpenter avowed he would have great trouble and have
to do much damage, if force were to be used; and the locksmith was near
despair. But this last was a handy fellow, and after two hour's work,
the door stood open. The press marked E was unlocked; and I took out the
drawer, had it filled up with straw and tied in a sheet, and returned
with it to Cavendish Square.

Here I proceeded to examine its contents. The powders were neatly enough
made up, but not with the nicety of the dispensing chemist; so that it
was plain they were of Jekyll's private manufacture: and when I opened
one of the wrappers I found what seemed to me a simple crystalline salt
of a white colour. The phial, to which I next turned my attention,
might have been about half full of a blood-red liquor, which was highly
pungent to the sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phosphorus and
some volatile ether. At the other ingredients I could make no guess. The
book was an ordinary version book and contained little but a series of
dates. These covered a period of many years, but I observed that the
entries ceased nearly a year ago and quite abruptly. Here and there a
brief remark was appended to a date, usually no more than a single
word: "double" occurring perhaps six times in a total of several hundred
entries; and once very early in the list and followed by several marks
of exclamation, "total failure!!!" All this, though it whetted my
curiosity, told me little that was definite. Here were a phial of some
salt, and the record of a series of experiments that had led (like too
many of Jekyll's investigations) to no end of practical usefulness.
How could the presence of these articles in my house affect either
the honour, the sanity, or the life of my flighty colleague? If his
messenger could go to one place, why could he not go to another? And
even granting some impediment, why was this gentleman to be received by