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I . The Story of the Door Mr Utterson was a lawyer in London . He was a tall , thin man with a serious face , and he almost never smiled . He did not talk much , but his friends loved him . He was hard on himself and gentle with other people . When a friend was in trouble , he did not judge him . He tried to help . Every Sunday he went for a long walk with a distant cousin , Mr Richard Enfield . On these walks the two men hardly spoke , but they both loved them more than anything else in the week . One Sunday they walked down a small street in a busy part of London . The shops there were bright and clean . But near one corner stood a strange , dark building . It had no windows on the street , only an old door with no bell and no knocker . Poor men sat in the doorway , and nobody ever came out to send them away . Enfield pointed at it with his stick . “ Have you ever noticed that door ? ” he asked . “ It always makes me think of a very strange story . ” “ Really ? ” said Mr Utterson , and his voice changed a little . “ What story ? ” “ I was coming home at about three o’clock on a black winter morning , ” said Enfield . “ The streets were all lit up and all as empty as a church . Then I saw two people . One was a small man who was walking quickly . The other was a girl of about eight , who was running down a side street . They ran into each other at the corner . And then came the terrible part . The man did not stop . He walked calmly over the child and left her crying on the ground . He was not like a man at all . He was like a machine . “ I ran after him and brought him back . A small crowd was already around the girl . She was not badly hurt , only very frightened . But everyone who looked at that man hated him , and so did I . Even the doctor who came went white with hate . We told the man that we would tell the whole story all over London . He was frightened , I could see that , but he only sneered . “ ‘ Tell me how much , ’ he said . We asked for a hundred pounds for the child’s family . And where do you think he went for the money ? To that door ! He took out a key , went inside and came back with ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the rest . A cheque , you know , is a paper that tells a bank to pay money . It had a very famous name at the bottom , a name that I cannot tell you . I was sure that it was false . So we all waited together until the bank opened in the morning . But the cheque was good . ” “ Dear , dear , ” said Mr Utterson . “ It is a bad story , ” said Enfield . “ The man who signed the cheque is a very good and respected person . I suppose it is blackmail . Perhaps that other man knows some old secret of his and makes him pay to keep it quiet . ”
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