Chapters 4–6: The Carew Murder and Dr Lanyon
Chapter 4: The Carew Murder Case
Nearly a year after the events of Chapter 2, Hyde commits a far more serious crime. A maid witnesses him brutally beating an elderly gentleman — Sir Danvers Carew, a respected MP — to death with a heavy walking stick. The attack is unprovoked: Carew had simply asked Hyde for directions.
The violence is extreme. The maid describes how Hyde “broke out in a great flame of anger” and “clubbed him to the earth” with “ape-like fury.” The cane snaps in half under the force of the blows. Stevenson uses this scene to show that Hyde’s evil is escalating — from trampling a child to committing murder.
The broken walking stick had originally been Utterson’s gift to Jekyll, and was recognised by Utterson when it was presented to him as evidence. This detail physically connects Jekyll to the murder and foreshadows the eventual revelation that they are the same person.
Utterson takes the police to Hyde’s rooms in Soho. The setting is significant: Soho was one of Victorian London’s most disreputable areas, associated with poverty, crime and vice. Hyde’s rooms are furnished with luxury items but show signs of a hasty departure — ashes in the fireplace, a burnt cheque book. Hyde has vanished.
Stevenson describes Soho in fog and darkness: “a district of some city in a nightmare.” The symbolism is clear — Soho represents the hidden, immoral side of London that respectable Victorians preferred to ignore. The fog that blankets the streets mirrors the moral confusion surrounding Jekyll’s double life.
Chapter 5: The Letter
Utterson visits Jekyll, who is visibly shaken. Jekyll claims he has received a letter from Hyde promising to disappear forever. Jekyll asks Utterson to judge whether the letter should be given to the police. Utterson agrees to keep it.
Later, Utterson’s clerk Mr Guest notices that the handwriting in Hyde’s letter is remarkably similar to Jekyll’s own handwriting — just slanted differently. Utterson is horrified: “Henry Jekyll forge for a murderer!” He assumes Jekyll is covering for Hyde, not yet suspecting the truth.
The matching handwriting is a crucial clue that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. Stevenson plants this evidence for the reader, but Utterson — bound by Victorian propriety — refuses to follow it to its logical conclusion.
Chapter 6: Remarkable Incident of Dr Lanyon
Time passes. Hyde has disappeared, and Jekyll seems renewed — sociable, charitable and “at peace.” For two months, he appears to have conquered his demons. But then Jekyll suddenly withdraws from society, refusing all visitors.
When Utterson visits Dr Lanyon, he finds him shockingly changed — pale, thin and visibly dying. Lanyon says he has received “a shock” from which he will never recover. He refuses to discuss Jekyll, saying only: “I wish to see or hear no more of Dr Jekyll … I am quite done with that person.”
Lanyon’s transformation is one of the novella’s most powerful moments. A once-confident, robust man has been reduced to a dying shell. Stevenson withholds the cause of his horror — we only learn what Lanyon witnessed in Chapter 9. This delayed revelation builds suspense and suggests that the truth is so terrible it literally kills the man who sees it.
Lanyon dies shortly afterwards. He leaves Utterson a sealed letter, only to be opened after Jekyll’s death or disappearance. Utterson — ever the man of principle — respects Lanyon’s wishes and does not open it.
Stevenson uses sealed letters as a structural device throughout the novella. Jekyll’s will, Lanyon’s letter and Jekyll’s own “full statement” are all documents that contain the truth but are withheld from the reader. This creates a pattern of secrets and revelations that mirrors the theme of hidden identity.