glance, for all were empty, and all, by the dust that fell
from their doors, had stood long unopened. The cellar, indeed, was
filled with crazy lumber, mostly dating from the times of the surgeon
who was Jekyll's predecessor; but even as they opened the door, they
were advertised of the uselessness of further search, by the fall of a
perfect mat of cobweb which had for years sealed up the entrance.
Nowhere was there any trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive.

Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor. "He must be buried here," he
said, hearkening to the sound.

"Or he may have fled," said Utterson, and he turned to examine the door
in the by-street. It was locked; and lying near by on the flags, they
found the key, already stained with rust.

"This does not look like use," observed the lawyer.

"Use!" echoed Poole. "Do you not see, sir, it is broken? much as if a
man had stamped on it."

"Ay," continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too, are rusty." The two
men looked at each other with a scare. "This is beyond me, Poole," said
the lawyer. "Let us go back to the cabinet."

They mounted the stair in silence, and, still with an occasional
awe-struck glance at the dead body, proceeded more thoroughly to examine
the contents of the cabinet. At one table there were traces of chemical
work, various measured heaps of some white salt being laid on glass
saucers, as though for an experiment in which the unhappy man had been
prevented.

"That is the same drug that I was always bringing him," said Poole; and
even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise boiled over.

This brought them to the fireside, where the easy-chair was drawn cosily
up, and the tea-things stood ready to the sitter's elbow, the very sugar
in the cup. There were several books on a shelf; one lay beside the
tea-things open, and Utterson was amazed to find it a copy of a pious
work, for which Jekyll had several times expressed a great esteem,
annotated, in his own hand, with startling blasphemies.

Next, in the course of their review of the chamber, the searchers came
to the cheval-glass, into whose depths they looked with an involuntary
horror. But it was so turned as to show them nothing but the rosy glow
playing on the roof, the fire sparkling in a hundred repetitions along
the glazed front of the presses, and their own pale and fearful
countenances stooping to look in.

"This glass have seen some strange things, sir," whispered Poole.

"A