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Chapter 3 The Carew murder
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One night in London,nearly a year later, a servant girlwas sitting at her bedroom window, looking out at themoonlit street. She saw a tall, handsome old man with whitehair coming along the street,and a shorter,younger manwalkingtowardshim.The old man spoke politely to theyounger one. He seemed, the girl said later, to be asking hisway. Then the girl looked more closely at the younger manand recognized him.
‘It was Mr Hyde, ’she said later.‘He once visited my master.’
Mr Hyde, the girl said, was carrying a heavy stick. He wasplaying with it impatiently as he listened to the old man. Thensuddenly he seemed to explode with anger.
‘He was like a madman,’the servant girl said.‘ He shookhis stick at the old man,who stepped back in surprise. Thenhe hit the old man violently with the stick and knocked him tothe ground. He beat the helpless body again and again. I couldhear the bones breaking… It was so terrible that I began tofeel ill.Then everything went black and I don't remember anymore.’
It was two o’clock in the morning before she was consciousagain, and able to call the police. The murderer had disappeared,but the dead man was still lying on the ground withthe murder weapon beside him.The stick had broken in themiddle, and one half still lay beside the murdered man. Thepolice decided that the murderer had carried away the otherhalf.A gold watch and a purse were found in the dead man’spockets, but no cards or papers— except a letter addressed toMr Utterson.
A policeman brought this letter to the lawyer the nextmorning.Together they drove to the police station where thebody had been taken.
A police inspector showed him the body.
‘Yes,I recognize him,’said Mr Utterson heavily.‘He isSir Danvers Carew.’
‘Thank you, sir,’said the inspector.‘And do you recognizethis?’ He showed Mr Utterson the broken stick and told himthe servant girl’s story.
Mr Utterson knew the stick at once.‘That’s HenryJekyll’s stick!’he said to himself.‘I gave it to him long ago.’
‘Is this Hyde a short, evil-looking man?’he asked.
‘That’s how the servant girl described him, sir,’agreed theinspector.
‘Come with me,’said Mr Utterson to the inspector.‘Ithink I know where he lives.’
Mr Utterson led him to the address on Mr Hyde’ s visitingcard.It was in a poor part of London,in a dirty street full ofcheap bars and eating-houses. This was the home of HenryJekyll’s favourite friend—the man who would inherit Jekyll’squarter of a million pounds.
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