`Poole,' replied the lawyer, `if you say that, it will become my duty to make certain. Much as I desire to spare your master's feelings, much as I am puzzled about this note, which seems to prove him to be still alive, I shall consider it my duty to break in that door.'

`Ah, Mr Utterson, that's talking!' cried the butler.

`And now comes the second question,' resumed Utterson: `Who is going to do it?'

`Why, you and me, sir,' was the undaunted reply.

`That is very well said,' returned the lawyer; `and whatever comes of it, I shall make it my business to see you are no loser.'

`There is an axe in the theatre,' continued Poole; `and you might take the kitchen poker for yourself.'

The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument into his hand, and balanced it. `Do you know, Poole,' he said, looking up, `that you and I are about to place ourselves in a position of some peril?'

`You may say so, sir, indeed,' returned the butler.

`It is well, then, that we should be frank,' said the other. `We both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast. This masked figure that you saw, did you recognize it?'

`Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so doubled up, that I could hardly swear to that,' was the answer. `But if you mean, was it Mr Hyde? - why, yes, I think it was! You see, it was much of the same bigness; and it had the same quick light way with it; and then who else could have got in by the laboratory door? You have not forgot, sir, that at the time of the murder he had still the key with him? But that's not all. I don't know, Mr Utterson, if ever you met this Mr Hyde?'

`Yes,' said the lawyer, `I once spoke with him.'

`Then you must know, as well as the rest of us, that there was something queer about that gentleman - something that gave a man a turn - I don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this: that you felt in your marrow - kind of cold and thin.'

`I own I felt something of what you describe,' said Mr Utterson.

`Quite so, sir,' returned Poole. `Well, when that masked thing like a monkey jumped up from among the chemicals and whipped into the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice. O, I know it's not evidence, Mr Utterson; I'm book-learned enough for that; but a man had his feelings; and I give you my bible-word it was Mr Hyde!'

`Ay, ay,' said the lawyer. `My fears incline to the same point. Evil, I fear, founded - evil was sure to come - of that connection. Ay, truly, I believe you; I believe poor Harry is killed; and I believe his murderer (for what purpose, God alone can tell) is still lurking in his victim's room. Well, let our name be vengeance. Call Bradshaw.'

The footman came at the summons, very white and nervous.

`Pull yourself together, Bradshaw,' said the lawyer. `This suspense, I know, is telling upon all of you; but it is now our intention to make an end of it. Poole, here, and I are going to force our way into the cabinet. If all is well, my shoulders are broad enough to bear the blame. Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss, or any male-factor seek to escape by the back, you and the boy must go round the comer with a pair of good sticks, and take your post at the laboratory door. We give you ten minutes, to get to your stations.'