Utterson leaves amidst the shouting of newsboys, still hawking papers about the murder of Sir Danvers. When he is at last at home, alone except for his head clerk, Mr. Guest, Utterson sits pondering the details of the case. And then, "insensibly," according to the narrator, the lawyer asks Guest, who happens to be a "great student and critic of handwriting," if he will study the note which Jekyll gave him and if he will comment on it. As the clerk is studying the note, he comments that the man who wrote it is "not mad" (earlier, Guest had commented that Sir Danvers' murderer was certainly mad), but that the note is written in "an odd hand." Just then, a servant enters, carrying an invitation from Jekyll to Utterson, asking the lawyer to dinner. Guest asks Utterson if he may see the invitation and compare the handwriting to the handwriting on the note.
After a pause, Utterson asks why Guest is comparing the two specimens of handwriting. Guest tells him that "there's a rather singular resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical; only differently sloped."
When Utterson is alone, he locks the note in his safe. He is horrified. Henry Jekyll, he is sure, forged the note that was supposedly written by Edward Hyde, the murderer of Sir Danvers. His old friend, the doctor, forged a note to cover up for a murderer!
