During their weekly walk, an extremely sensitive and trustworthy lawyer named Mr. Utterson listens to his friend Enfield tell a gruesome story of assault. The tale describes a sinister figure named Mr. Hyde who tramples on a young girl, disappears into a street door, and reemerges to repay his relatives with a check signed by a respectable gentleman. Since both Utterson and Enfield disapprove of the gossip, they agree not to speak on the matter further. It happens, however, that one of Utterson's clients and close friends, Dr. Jekyll, wrote a will in which he transfers all his property to Mr. Hyde himself. Soon, Utterson begins having dreams in which a faceless figure wanders around a nightmarish version of London. Perplexed, the lawyer visits Jekyll and their mutual friend, Doctor Lanyon, to try to learn more. Lanyon reports that he doesn't see Jekyll much anymore, since they had a dispute over the course of Jekyll's search, which Lanyon calls "unscientific nonsense". Intrigued, Utterson stakes out a building that Hyde visits, which, it turns out, is a laboratory attached to the back of Jekyll's house. Meeting Hyde, Utterson is amazed by how indefinably ugly the man seems, as if he were deformed, although Utterson cannot say exactly how. Much to Utterson's surprise, Hyde willingly offers Utterson his address. Jekyll tells Utterson not to worry about the Hyde matter. A year passes without incident. Then, one night, a servant sees Hyde brutally beating to death an old man named Sir Danvers Carew, a member of Parliament and a client of Utterson's. The police contact Utterson and Utterson suspects Hyde of being the killer. He leads the agents to Hyde's apartment, feeling a sense of foreboding amid the ominous weather: the morning is dark and shrouded in fog. When they arrive at the apartment, the killer has disappeared and the police searches prove futile. Shortly afterwards, Utterson again visits Jekyll, who now claims to have broken off all relations with Hyde; he shows Utterson a note, supposedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for the trouble he has caused him and saying goodbye. That night, however, Utterson's clerk points out that Hyde's handwriting bears a remarkable resemblance to Jekyll's. For a few months, Jekyll acts particularly friendly and sociable, as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. But then Jekyll suddenly begins to refuse visitors, and Lanyon dies from some kind of shock received in relation to Jekyll..