One evening after dinner, Utterson is sitting peacefully beside his fireplace when he receives a visit by a very agitated and upset Mr. Poole. He offers Poole a glass of wine to calm him, and although Poole accepts it, he neglects to drink it as he hesitatingly tells Utterson about his fears concerning Dr. Jekyll. Poole is terribly afraid. He fears that there has been "foul play," the nature of which he "daren't say." At this, Utterson grabs up his hat and his greatcoat, and the two men set forth in the wild, cold March night for Jekyll's house. When they arrive at Jekyll's quarters, a servant opens the door very guardedly, asking, "Is that you, Poole?" Once inside, Utterson finds all of Jekyll's servants "huddled together like a flock of sheep," and when they see Utterson, one maid breaks into "hysterical whimpering." This matter is far more serious than Utterson ever imagined. Several of the servants try to speak up, but Poole silences them and leads Utterson through the back garden, warning the lawyer that if "by any chance" Jekyll asks him into his private room, don't go." This advice, along with Poole's barely controlled terror, unnerves Utterson.
The two men go to Dr. Jekyll's cabinet door in the laboratory. Poole calls out that Utterson is here, asking to see the doctor. A strange voice within states that Jekyll will see no one. Politely, Poole says, "Thank you." Then, back in the kitchen, he asks Utterson, "Was that my master's voice?" Utterson grows pale. "It seems much changed," he says, trying to conceal his own fears. Poole is blunt. "Changed," he says, is hardly the word for "Jekyll's" voice. Poole says that he has worked for Jekyll for twenty years. The voice which they heard was not Dr. Jekyll's voice. Eight days ago, Poole says, he heard Jekyll cry out the name of God.
It is Poole's opinion that Dr. Jekyll was "made away with" at that time, and whoever is in the room now is "a thing known only to heaven."
Utterson tries his best to be rational about the mystery. Logically, he says, if someone had murdered Jekyll, why would he still be in there? Poole then explains more about whoever is in the room. "Whatever it is," he says, it "has been crying night after night for some sort of medicine." Earlier, Jekyll used to cry out for certain medicines and would write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw the paper on the stairs. For a week, there's been more papers on the stairs, a closed door, and whimpering. Poole has done his best to find the exact medicine, but no matter what he has brought back, it has not been "the right stuff." "It" always says that Poole has brought something that is "not pure" and, therefore, Poole has continued to receive orders to go on yet another errand to yet another store. "The drug is wanted bitter bad," Poole tells Utterson.
Utterson asks for some of these notes, and Poole is able to find one, crumpled up in one of his pockets. At first glance, the note seems to be merely a formal request--nothing amiss--asking that the pharmacist search for the drug "with the most sedulous care." Expense is no consideration, the note stresses, and there is a sense of urgency: "The importance of this to Dr. Jekyll can hardly be exaggerated." And then in a scribbled postscript, there is: "For God's sake, find me some of the old [drug]."
Utterson finally has to admit that this is indeed murky business. More than murky, says Poole: "I've seen him," he adds, referring to whoever lurks behind Jekyll's door. One day, Poole says, he came into the large room just below Jekyll's private room and there, digging among some crates, was a creature who was so startled at seeing Poole that he cried out "and whipped upstairs." If that were Jekyll, why did it run? Why did it "cry out like a rat?" And why did it wear a mask?
