"Or he may have fled," said Utterson, and he turned to examine
the door in the by-street. It was locked; and lying near by on
the flags, they found the key, already stained with rust.
"This does not look like use," observed the lawyer.
"Use!" echoed Poole. "Do you not see, sir, it is broken?
much as if a man had stamped on it."
"Ay," continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too, are rusty."
The two men looked at each other with a scare. "This is beyond
me, Poole," said the lawyer. "Let us go back to the cabinet."
They mounted the stair in silence, and still with an
occasional awestruck glance at the dead body, proceeded more
thoroughly to examine the contents of the cabinet. At one table,
there were traces of chemical work, various measured heaps of some
white salt being laid on glass saucers, as though for an
experiment in which the unhappy man had been prevented.
"That is the same drug that I was always bringing him," said
Poole; and even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise
boiled over.
This brought them to the fireside, where the easy-chair was
drawn cosily up, and the tea things stood ready to the sitter's
elbow, the very sugar in the cup. There were several books on a
shelf; one lay beside the tea things open, and Utterson was amazed
to find it a copy of a pious work, for which Jekyll had several
times expressed a great esteem, annotated, in his own hand with
startling blasphemies.
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