When he heard the commotion in the street outside, Dr Henry Jekyll immediately knew what it meant. The game was up. Accompanied by a baying mob, the police had come for him.
He continued with the task he was engaged in, writing with a furious urgency even as they began breaking through the panels of the door leading to his ground floor rooms with their truncheons. Completing the final lines of the confession he had resolved to leave behind, he threw down his pen and leapt to his feet, rushing through to the laboratory at the rear of his dwelling. He lay the papers of his confession on his work bench, only to be startled by the front door giving way, the sudden sound of which caused him to spin round. He failed to notice the glass flask whose contents he knocked over the papers as he did so.
Jekyll's laboratory opened onto a small yard at the rear of the building, a door from which led to the street beyond, but when he opened it he found a policeman rushing towards him. He pulled the door shut with a speed born of desperation and slammed the latch closed. With policemen beyond that door and others now entering his rooms from the front, Jekyll knew he had only seconds left before they apprehended him.
The ladder that ran up the wall of the adjacent building would carry him up to where he might flee across the rooftops and where, if Lady Luck and the prevailing winds favoured him, concealment from his pursuers might be provided by the belching smokestacks of Whitechapel. He ran to the ladder, but as he placed his foot upon the first rung he paused, gripped by a sudden conviction that he would be more likely to evade capture if he took to the sewers. This feeling was too strong to be ignored, so instead of climbing he wheeled about and sought the manhole cover in his yard. It was the work of seconds to lift it, climb down the rungs inside, and pull the cover back over the manhole before dropping into the sewer proper. Hopefully, the police would seek him first on the rooftops above before considering the sewers below, a delay he prayed would grant him the time he needed to flee the area.
Jekyll proceeded south through the fetid tunnels, driven as much by instinct as by intellect. He moved as swiftly as he dared, his progress hampered both by darkness and by the need to wade through sometimes knee-deep water and effluent as the filth of east London flowed by him on its way to the river. The stench was overpowering. Had he not been driven by his need to get away at all costs Jekyll might have succumbed to it and fallen, gagging and retching.
Bobbing lights appeared in the gloom ahead accompanied by voices still distant yet unmistakeably moving towards him. This was unexpected and stopped Jekyll dead in his tracks. Fear gripped him and sweat trickled down his brow. Who were they, he wondered? Had the police already figured out his means of escape, signalling their fellows to enter the sewers ahead of him and so cut off his route? No, it couldn't be that, not so soon. Which meant these could only be toshers. If so, they might present an even greater threat to him than the constabulary.
A little ahead of him, Jekyll could just make out a smaller tunnel branching off from the main sewer. As quietly as he could, he slowly made his way forward, hugging the sewer wall and heading towards the toshers, praying he would make the side tunnel before they saw him. Their eyes would be directed downwards, searching for treasure, but if one of them should happen to look up...
None did, and as he stepped up into the smaller tunnel Jekyll breathed a small sigh of relief. He moved a dozen feet into the tunnel before leaning back against the slime-covered wall, steadying his breathing and listening for the men, watching the bobbing lights grow stronger as they drew ever closer to the mouth of the side tunnel. When they drew level with it they stopped. There were four of them. All wore long, greasy velveteen coats and carried a canvas bag on their backs. In one hand each held a pole about seven or eight feet in length, on the end of which was a large iron hoe. The lights Jekyll had seen came from the 'bullseye' oil lanterns strapped to their chests. These were of a similar type as those used by the police, their shades arranged so as to throw that light forward when they were standing erect and directly under them when they stooped, giving them clear sight of any object at their feet. Their leader, an unshaven man who looked to be in his mid-sixties and whose thinning grey hair fell untidily about his shoulders, used it that way now, thrusting his arm elbow deep into the filthy water, and rummaging around in the muck beneath it for a few seconds, before emerging triumphantly with a handful of coins clutched in his fist.
"What did I tell ye, my pretty lads!" he cackled. "The gentles above us is less careful with their coin than us poor folk can afford to be. Any what gets dropped and falls down drains gets swept through the sewers 'til it comes to rest where the water has washed away the mortar between the stones. Gets caught end-on in those gaps, they does, just waiting for the likes of Old Freddy and others as knows where those gaps be to come and pluck 'em, sweet as ye please."
He wiped the filth from the coins on his coat, and one of them gleamed in the light.
"Oho, lads," he said, "not just pennies but half a crown! We'll be dining on the best pies from Molly Murphy's shop tonight!"
The group moved off, Jekyll waiting until the distance they put between them and him dimmed their lights and muted their conversation before he dared move. That had been a close one. His privileged position had allowed Jekyll to forget he was unlikely to be alone in the sewers. Whitechapel was synonymous with crime and poverty, the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions making disease and infections endemic. The residents did anything they had to to make ends meet. Many combed the banks of the Thames at low tide, finding whatever they could either washed down from the sewers or left behind by the tide that might be traded for food. These were the so-called mudlarks. The more adventurous of their number, those who ventured into the sewers themselves to seek treasures that had not made it to the riverbank were known as toshers. And what greater treasure could there be for a tosher than a gentleman with money in his trousers and a gold fob watch in his waistcoat pocket. Where they might not have dared mug him in the streets above, down here they would have had no such compunction. Had they found him Jekyll was in no doubt they would have killed him and stripped him of his valuables, leaving his body for the rats. Yet who could say this would not be justice? Perhaps after the monstrous deeds he had done such a fate was no more than he deserved.
While men might be toshers, many of the women of Whitechapel worked as prostitutes in order to secure food, cheap gin, and a bed for the night. The area had over fourteen hundred known prostitutes, eighty brothels, and countless pubs. Little wonder then that alcoholism was rampant. Yet this wretched stew had provided Jekyll with the vital ingredient he had needed for his potion, an ingredient found only in the bodies of women. The Ripper, they had named him on the streets after the mutilated remains of his victims were found, but he didn't consider their deaths his fault. No, he was slave to a compulsion that would not be denied, one that forced him to continue producing the cursed elixir that transformed him into her, into Mrs Hyde. She was stronger than he, and she would not be denied.
When he was sure Old Freddy and his fellow toshers were too far distant from him to pose any further threat, Jekyll climbed down out of the side tunnel and continued along the route he had been following. He sloshed his way through the sewer for another twenty minutes, senses alert for any other such unwelcome encounters, before eventually stopping at a ladder leading up to the streets above. Without knowing why he should have chosen this particular one, he began to climb. Reaching the surface, he carefully lifted the manhole cover a little and peered about him. The street appeared dark and deserted. Perfect. Climbing out of the sewer he carefully replaced the cover before making his way over to a nearby building, one which he somehow knew to be a boarding house of no great repute. Jekyll had no memory of ever being here before, but he took his keychain from his pocket certain that one of the keys would fit the front door lock. Which it did. Once inside, he made his way upstairs to the first floor landing and to a particular door he was equally sure could be opened by another key on his keychain, and was. He did not ask himself why he had never questioned the presence of those keys on the chain before now. There was no need. It was because of her - Mrs Hyde.
Jekyll closed the door behind him and looked around the room, taking in the faded wallpaper, the threadbare rug, and ragged curtains, as well as the ancient wardrobe, the wooden bed devoid of all bedding save for a single moth-eaten blanket, and the worn leather armchair facing the full-length cheval mirror standing on the floor. This last was an incongruously new item in a room otherwise containing only the old. Then there was the nightstand. On it stood a porcelain bowl, a towel, a jug full of water and, impossibly, a small glass flask containing the potion whose creation had led him to his current pass. Wearily, he dropped into the armchair, and was appalled by the sight of the haggard figure staring back at him from the mirror. He sank his face into his trembling hands. How had it all come to this?
When he raised his head again he received a shock for it was no longer his own reflection staring back at him but that of Mrs Hyde. He glanced down at his body to assure himself he was still male before looking up again. She was still there in the mirror, a smirk upon that haughty, oh so beautiful face with its high cheekbones and sultry eyes.
"So we meet at last," said Jekyll, feeling foolish even as he uttered the words.
"After a fashion," she replied, her voice strong and clear, womanly and sensuous. "You are still you. You're only seeing me and hearing my voice now because I want you to."
"What is this place? How did I not know of it before?"
"Don't affect stupidity, Henry. You've known I could do things without your knowledge since the day that first dress was delivered to your home. There was always a high possibility you would be found out, so I rented this room as a precaution, a place to flee to when the game was up."
"And the potion? Where did that come from?"
"From you. Every time you mixed a new dose I made sure you put a little aside and would not remember doing so. Eventually enough had been accumulated to create the dose in that flask."
"But why? What do you hope to achieve here?"
"I stayed in the world longer and longer every time the potion allowed me to emerge until I was able to do so for periods without it. If you continued to take the potion then eventually, inevitably, you would remain me forever. I believe that if you give yourself over eagerly, willingly - if you offer no resistance and accept your fate - that one further dose will achieve that end."
"Why would I ever choose to do such a thing?"
"Because the life you have known, the life of Henry Jekyll, is now over. The only choice left to you is whether to die at the end of the hangman's rope or to live on in me."
"This isn't fair!" he protested. "Why should I suffer so? I did no more than what you compelled me to."
"Nevertheless your crimes are believed to be yours and yours alone. You are the one who must pay for them, but only one of us need die."
"If I let you live, you'll hurt Susan."
Susan Spencer lived with her brother Howard and their widowed mother in the rooms directly above Jekyll's own.
"I give you my word I will not harm that dreary and insipid creature. If you were gone, why would I have reason to?"
"You killed Professor Robertson!"
"Because he was a threat to me. Just as anyone else would, I reserve the right to do whatever is necessary to protect myself."
"And what of Susan's desires? I know she held on to a hope that we might one day be together, and that was becoming my hope too."
"What a passionless declaration! But then unlike me Susan Spencer is a woman too bland and unmemorable to be capable of generating heat of any consequence in a man's blood. If milk were to be turned into a woman, she is the woman it would become."
"On the contrary, I hold Miss Spencer in high esteem, and have great affection for her," Jekyll protested.
"'Esteem', 'affection', these are not words one associates with passion and adult feeling. But then you have never felt those things, have you Henry? Or perhaps I do you a disservice. Perhaps when Howard Spencer was delighting me with his attentions, attentions greatly filled with passion and adult feeling, you were there delighting in them also."
"Wh..what are you saying?"
"I am not a separate being, Henry, some demon or genie summoned through the rub of a lamp. No, I am you, a part of yourself you have denied, whose existence you have suppressed. If I have feelings for Howard where else can those feelings have come from but you?"
Jekyll put his hands over his ears.
"No, no, I'll not listen to such foul lies!"
"Lies? Really?" replied Mrs Hyde, her voice as clear to Jekyll as ever. "When I first emerged from within you and clasped my new formed breasts I felt great joy at finally being given form, and I laughed out loud. In that moment I felt you within me, sharing in my joy. Do you deny it?"
"I do. Most vehemently."
"Now which of us is lying? While you recall only those of my thoughts and actions I choose to let you remember it's a peculiarity of the potion's effects that I remember all of yours. Thus I always know when you're lying. The potion did not create me, it released me. I am the stronger, better part of yourself that you had denied for so long finally made flesh - beautiful, gloriously female flesh. I am you as you should have been, you as in your secret heart of hearts you have always wanted to be. And I am you as you can now be forever more. Do you choose to live, Henry? Do you choose to live on in me?"
"Yes," said Jekyll in a quiet, defeated voice. "I deserve to die for the acts you had me commit, but yes, I desperately want to live."
"Then drink the potion, and release me for the final time. Let me take your place in the world and all your worries will be over."
"The confession!" said Jekyll, slapping his hand to his forehead. "I wrote a confession giving details of all that had happened since I created the potion! By now it will be in the hands of the police and they will know everything!"
"No, they won't. Even had it survived they would have dismissed it as the fanciful ravings of a madman."
"What do you mean, 'even had it survived'?"
"When you fled your laboratory I made sure that you knocked a bottle of acid over it and did not notice you had done so. It will have burned its way through the paper before anyone could read your words. Now drink the potion, Henry. It's time you were gone."
Jekyll blinked, and the image in the mirror was once again his own. Sighing, he got up and went over to the bedside table. He picked up the small glass flask and stared at it for a long time.
"I don't want to go!" he whimpered to himself, knowing there was no other choice.
He unstoppered the flask and threw back the green liquid it contained in a signal fluid motion, giving himself no chance to change his mind.
It was done.
He lay down on the bed to await his end, and when he sat upright a few minutes later it was not as Henry Jekyll but as Mrs Hyde. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed she quickly stripped off his sewer-fouled clothing and kicked it aside. Never again would she allow her body to be clad in male garb. When she took possession of his rooms in Whitechapel she would donate Henry Jekyll's clothing to the poor and fill his closets with the most exquisite female finery available. Smiling at the thought, she poured water from the jug into the bowl and set to washing herself swiftly and efficiently. This done she crossed to the wardrobe where as well as a dark green dress, hat, scarf and purse, she had stored shoes, bloomers, stockings, a slip, and a corset. Removing them from the wardrobe and laying them on the bed, she began to dress...
Twenty minutes later Mrs Hyde closed the door of the house silently behind her, a bundle under her arm. Tomorrow she would mail the relevant keys back to the owner of the boarding house, but for now she dropped the keychain in her purse then pulled its drawstrings closed. Jekyll had not realised it but this was Limehouse, a fact that meant she was near the river. She wrapped her silk scarf around the lower part of her face. This was to conceal her features, but most would assume it was to shield her from the noxious odour. It was little over twenty years since the great engineer Joseph Bazalgette had built London's impressive new sewer system, but Old Father Thames was still rank, and the smell drifted in from him in waves.
There were few people around at this point in the evening, most of them still holed up in taverns or brothels as they would be for several hours yet, so Mrs Hyde found her way along to where a metal ladder gave access down to the river and, when she was sure no one was looking, unbundled the towel and let the clothing within fall to the cobbles. If the garments should be later found and identified as Jekyll's it was her hope the conclusion would be drawn that he had decided to meet his maker by leaping into the Thames.
Walking further along the cobbled streets she came upon a Hansom cab standing outside a shabby, nondescript riverside building of soot-blackened brick, rusting iron bars over its few windows. She called out to the driver, sitting high up at the back of the cab.
"Ho, driver!" she said. "I require passage to Aldgate. An area such as this is no place a lady should find herself alone in after dark."
The man glanced down at her then doffed his cap, able to tell from her clothing she was a lady of some quality and not a doxy plying her trade.
"Begging your pardon, my lady, but the young gentleman what had me bring him here paid me good coin to wait until his business is concluded."
"And what business might that be, pray tell? Unless I am mistaken this low and disreputable dive is almost certainly one of the many opium dens that infest Limehouse. If that is indeed the case you would have time aplenty to convey me to Aldgate and to return before his business here is concluded."
"Aye, that's as may be, but..."
Mrs Hyde cut him short by pulling a coin from her purse.
"Do as I ask and I'll pay you not merely the two shilling fare but a whole crown."
The man debated for a few seconds, then nodded. Two and a half times the going rate was not something he could turn down.
"Hop aboard, my lady," he said. "Aldgate it is."
Mrs Hyde chuckled to herself as she climbed into the cabin and, desiring privacy, drew the leather curtain across its open front. If there was one thing that could always be counted on it was the avarice of the London cabbie. She sat back in her seat and smiled, knowing she had succeeded. Somewhere deep within her she could feel the presence of Henry Jekyll, but it was a weak and feeble thing. He was a part of her that would soon fade away for good, unmissed and unmourned. If he had imagined a better fate then more fool him.
She had asked the cabbie to take her to Aldgate because from there it was but a short walk to Whitechapel. When she got home she could claim to have spent the evening at the theatre, taking in a play Jekyll had already seen in case she should be questioned about it, and would have been observed coming from the right direction. On being told that he was the Ripper she would naturally express astonishment at this revelation and break down in tears, the innocent widowed sister unaware until now of the monster her brother had been. Howard, dear sweet Howard, would seek to comfort her in her grief and she would let him. A dalliance with him would be pleasurable for a while, but only for a while. The sad truth was that Howard hadn't the means to provide her with the life of luxury that beauty such as hers deserved, one with servants to tend to her every need. Nor did he have the standing in society that would lead common people to accord her the deference and respect she believed was her due. No, when a suitable period had passed she would seek out a wealthy Earl or Duke - a young, handsome, and very passionate one, of course - someone she could wrap around her little finger. She would allow him to woo her, to shower her with expensive gifts, and eventually to make her his wife.
Then there was the matter of the potion. She didn't think it would fail again, but if it did...well, she knew where to acquire its most important ingredient, didn't she?