This Chapter begins almost a year later and recounts the details of the murder of Sir Danvers Carew, a well-known and highly respected London gentleman. Carew was murdered near midnight on a foggy, full-moon night in October, and his murder was witnessed by a maid who worked and lived in a house not far from the Thames. That night, she went upstairs to bed about eleven o'clock and, because the night was so mysteriously romantic, she sat gazing out of her bedroom window for a time, "in a dream of musing." Never, she tells the police, had she felt happier and more at peace with the world.
Ironically, her mood of languid revery is broken, for as she gazes down beneath her window, she recognizes the "small" figure of Mr. Hyde, a man who had once visited her master and for whom she had immediately taken an instant dislike. From her window that October night, the woman saw the detestable Mr. Hyde meet "an aged and beautiful gentleman with white hair"; then suddenly, after a few words, Mr. Hyde lifted his heavy walking stick and clubbed the old gentleman to death. Indeed, the blows which he struck were so thunderous that "bones were audibly shattered," and then, "with ape-like fury," Hyde trampled the old gentleman underfoot. At the horror of what she saw, the maid suddenly fainted.
When the police arrive on the scene, they find no identification on the body, and they are puzzled that neither the victim's gold watch nor his wallet was taken. The only bit of evidence they discover concerning the man's identity is a sealed envelope addressed to Mr. Utterson. Thus, they call Utterson, and he is able to identify the corpse. The police are visibly stunned. "This will make a deal of noise," they comment, meaning that the case will draw a lot of publicity because Sir Danvers was such a well-known figure in London society and politics.
