by Robert Louis Stevenson

STORY OF THE DOOR

Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man  of a rugged countenance that was 

never lighted by a smile; cold,  scanty and embarrassed in discourse; 

backward in sentiment; lean, long,  dusty, dreary and yet somehow 

lovable.At friendly meetings, and  when the wine was to his taste, 

something eminently human beaconed  from his eye; something indeed which 

never found its way into his talk,  but which spoke not only in these 

silent symbols of the after dinner  face, but more often and loudly in 

the acts of his life.He was austere  with himself; drank gin when he 

was alone, to mortify a taste for  vintages; and though he enjoyed the 

theatre, had not crossed the doors  of one for twenty years.But he had 

an approved tolerance for others;  sometimes wondering, almost with 

envy, at the high pressure of spirits  involved in their misdeeds; and 

in any extremity inclined to help  rather than to reprove. “I incline to 

Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly:  

“I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.”  

In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance  

and the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men.And  

to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade  

of change in his demeanour.No doubt the feat was  easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative 

at the best, and even his friendship  seemed to be founded in a similar 

catholicity of good nature.It is  the mark of a modest man to accept 

his friendly circle ready made from  the hands of opportunity; and that 

was the lawyer’s way.His friends  were those of his own blood or those 

whom he had known the longest;  his affections, like ivy, were the 

growth of time, they implied no  aptness in the object.Hence, no doubt 

the bond that united him to Mr.  Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, 

the well known man about town.It  was a nut to crack for many, what 

these two could see in each other,  or what subject they could find in 

common.It was reported by those who  encountered them in their Sunday 

walks, that they said nothing,  looked singularly dull and would hail 

with obvious relief the appearance  of a friend.For all that, the two 

men put the greatest store by these  excursions, counted them the chief 

jewel of each week, and not only  set aside occasions of pleasure, but 

even resisted the calls of  business, that they might enjoy them 

uninterrupted.It chanced on one of these  rambles that their way led them down a 

by street in a busy quarter of  London.The street was small and what is 

called quiet, but it drove a  thriving trade on the weekdays.The 

inhabitants were all doing well, it  seemed and all emulously hoping to 

do better still, and laying out  the surplus of their grains in 

coquetry; so that the shop fronts  stood along that thoroughfare with an 

air of invitation, like rows of  smiling saleswomen.Even on Sunday, 

when it veiled its more florid  charms and lay comparatively empty of 

passage, the street shone out in  contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, 

like a fire in a forest; and with  its freshly painted shutters, 

well polished brasses, and general  cleanliness and gaiety of note, 

instantly caught and pleased the eye of  the passenger.Two doors from one corner,  

on the left hand going east the line was broken by the entry of a court;  

and just at that point a certain sinister block of building thrust  

forward its gable on the street.It was two storeys high; showed no window,  

nothing but a door on the lower storey and a blind forehead of  

discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of  

prolonged and sordid negligence.The door, which was equipped with neither  

bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained.Tramps  

slouched into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children kept shop upon the steps;  

the schoolboy had tried his knife on the mouldings;  

and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to drive away these random  

visitors or to repair their ravages. Mr. Enfield and the lawyer  

were on the other side of the by street; but when they came abreast of the entry, the former  

lifted up his cane and pointed.

“Did you ever remark that door?” he  asked; and when his companion had 

replied in the affirmative, “It is  connected in my mind,” added he, 

“with a very odd story.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Utterson,  with a slight change of voice,  

“and what was that?”

“Well, it was this way,” returned  Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home from 

some place at the end of the world,  about three o’clock of a black 

winter morning, and my way lay  through a part of town where there was 

literally nothing to be seen but  lamps.Street after street and all the 

folks asleep—street after street,  all lighted up as if for a procession 

and all as empty as a church—till at  last I got into that state of mind 

when a man listens and listens and  begins to long for the sight of a 

policeman.All at once, I saw two  figures: one a little man who was 

stumping along eastward at a good  walk, and the other a girl of maybe 

eight or ten who was running as  hard as she was able down a cross 

street.Well, sir, the two ran into  one another naturally enough at the 

corner; and then came the horrible  part of the thing; for the man 

trampled calmly over the child’s  body and left her screaming on the 

ground.It sounds nothing to hear,  but it was hellish to see.It wasn’t 

like a man; it was like some damned  Juggernaut.I gave a few halloa, 

took to my heels, collared my  gentleman, and brought him back to where 

there was already quite a group  about the screaming child.He was 

perfectly cool and made no resistance,  but gave me one look, so ugly 

that it brought out the sweat on  me like running.The people who had 

turned out were the girl’s own family;  and pretty soon, the doctor, for 

whom she had been sent put in his  appearance.Well, the child was not 

much the worse, more frightened,  according to the sawbones; and there 

you might have supposed would be  an end to it.But there was one 

curious circumstance.I had taken a  loathing to my gentleman at first 

sight.So had the child’s family,  which was only natural.But the 

doctor’s case was what struck  me.He was the usual cut and dry 

apothecary, of no particular age  and colour, with a strong Edinburgh 

accent and about as emotional as a  bagpipe.Well, sir, he was like the 

rest of us; every time he looked  at my prisoner, I saw that sawbones 

turn sick and white with the desire  to kill him.I knew what was in his 

mind, just as he knew what was in  mine; and killing being out of the 

question, we did the next best.We  told the man we could 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.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.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 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 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.Blackmail, 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.

“Yes, I know,” said Utterson; “I  know it must seem strange.The fact 

is, if I do not ask you the name  of the other party, it is because I 

know it already.You see, Richard,  your tale has gone home.If you have 

been inexact in any point  you had better correct it.”

“I think you might have warned me,”  returned the other with a touch of 

sullenness. “But I have been  pedantically exact, as you call it.The 

fellow had a key; and what’s  more, he has it still.I  

saw him use it not a week ago.”