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In the whole extent of the house , which but for the old woman remained otherwise empty , Mr . Hyde had only used a couple of rooms ; but these were furnished with luxury and good taste . A closet was filled with wine ; the plate was of silver , the napery elegant ; a good picture hung upon the walls , a gift ( as Utterson supposed ) from Henry Jekyll , who was much of a connoisseur ; and the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in colour . At this moment , however , the rooms bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked ; clothes lay about the floor , with their pockets inside out ; lock - fast drawers stood open ; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes , as though many papers had been burned . From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt end of a green cheque book , which had resisted the action of the fire ; the other half of the stick was found behind the door ; and as this clinched his suspicions , the officer declared himself delighted . A visit to the bank , where several thousand pounds were found to be lying to the murderer’s credit , completed his gratification . “ You may depend upon it , sir , ” he told Mr . Utterson : “ I have him in my hand . He must have lost his head , or he never would have left the stick or , above all , burned the cheque book . Why , money’s life to the man . We have nothing to do but wait for him at the bank , and get out the handbills . ” This last , however , was not so easy of accomplishment ; for Mr . Hyde had numbered few familiars — even the master of the servant maid had only seen him twice ; his family could nowhere be traced ; he had never been photographed ; and the few who could describe him differed widely , as common observers will . Only on one point were they agreed ; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders . INCIDENT OF THE LETTER It was late in the afternoon , when Mr . Utterson found his way to Dr . Jekyll’s door , where he was at once admitted by Poole , and carried down by the kitchen offices and across a yard which had once been a garden , to the building which was indifferently known as the laboratory or dissecting rooms . The doctor had bought the house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon ; and his own tastes being rather chemical than anatomical , had changed the destination of the block at the bottom of the garden . It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend’s quarters ; and he eyed the dingy , windowless structure with curiosity , and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness as he crossed the theatre , once crowded with eager students and now lying gaunt and silent , the tables laden with chemical apparatus , the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing straw , and the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola . At the further end , a flight of stairs mounted to a door covered with red baize ; and through this , Mr . Utterson was at last received into the doctor’s cabinet .
Назад Сторінка 16 з 51 Сторінка 16 з 51 Вперед Читайте далі з перекладом Створіть безкоштовний акаунт: 7 днів Pro, далі 20 перекладів слів на день або платний тариф.
