This is an excerpt from the diary of Gabriel John Utterson, a Lawyer practising in a small Surrey village called Merstham.
There have been some strange happenings in the village over the past year and a sinister man named Edward Hyde has caused several disturbances at nearby houses. Even recently a young lady was accosted in the sleepy village’s High Street and although Hyde could not be associated with this particular incident, it was of note that a reputable gentleman named Dr Henry Jekyll had given the young lady £100 to avoid any unnecessary scandal.
This was very strange behaviour on his part, as Dr Jekyll was one of my clients, not to mention one of my oldest friends, and he had never mentioned why he would come to involve himself in such matters, nor any acquaintance with Mr Hyde, though to my great dismay Jekyll had recently drafted his will and, upon casting my eye across it when ensconced in his office with the man late one afternoon, made Hyde the sole beneficiary in case of his death, or much to my disturbance, disappearance for more than three months.
I was puzzled by this, so I sought out Hyde, fearing that he had been blackmailing Jekyll. When I met him, tucked away in the corner of The Feathers public house and drinking alone, I was amazed to see how ugly and deformed he was, and, for some reason, it provoked an instinctive feeling of revulsion in me, but it was without any reservations, though some rather colourful language, that he gave me his address should I warrant a call on him, as my heart had rather fled at that particular moment in the darkest corner furthest from the brightly lit bar.
My constitution following gazing upon the man himself meant I could do no more, so disturbing was Hyde’s effect, but a few days or so later, after one of Jekyll’s dinner parties, once my curiosity had been awoken once more, I stayed behind to discuss the matter of Hyde with my old friend. As soon as I discussed Hyde however, I noticed that Jekyll had turned pale, but he quickly assured me that everything involving Hyde was in order and that he should be left alone.
I thought no more about it following our conversation, until one dark night I was contacted by the police, a young constable standing at my door looking green in the face and holding his scuffed helmet beneath his arm, worrying the rim. It had been his superior I had contacted, asking to be notified with any news of the village’s new blight, and he had thought it prudent to ask the man to come collect me for my law expertise.
Apparently, another dreadful altercation had happened, this time at the local train station, a man having been beaten rather badly, and, as I was fast becoming accustomed to, the suspect was Hyde.
Upon taking up my coat to ward off the chill of the dark night and following the nervous constable up the hill past the local children’s school, we came upon an area wreathed in fog, and it was with a sense of foreboding that I was led to Hyde’s apartment. It wasn’t until we entered the dank dwelling, however, clutching at my high collar, that we found the place empty, the door open, and its occupant vanished, leaving nothing but a blood stained walking cane propped against a battered looking armchair by a corner window looking out onto the street from whence we had made our less than careful approach. I noted at the time that the cane had a Gaelic sigil upon its brow, and that it looked familiar to one that I had recently given to Jekyll as a gift of sorts, to aid the limp he had been nursing, one I suspected Hyde had been the culprit of.
I waited until sunrise to see Jekyll, and it was then, among many other questions, that I asked him about the cane.
He said that he had lent it to Hyde but that he had now ended all relations with him. Jekyll handed me a letter allegedly written by Hyde, the contents of which apologised for the trouble he had caused my friend and that he was saying his final goodbye.
I hardly noticed that Hyde’s handwriting bore a remarkable similarity to that of Jekyll’s own, I was so relieved at the news.
It was a few peaceful months later that I happened to walk past Dr Jekyll’s surgery and noticed him in the window, as he was standing in the room I knew to be his laboratory. I waved in greeting, but he did not notice me, as I believed I could see him packing his leather bag, closing it, before disappearing, moving away from the window.
Realising I had been standing and gawking rather obviously, I began to retreat further down the road, but it was then that I heard a voice coming from my friend’s house, one quite unlike his own. Taking the initiative to investigate further, I stepped closer to the open front window of his house, hearing footsteps follow the unfamiliar voice, but they were light and not the heavy footsteps I knew to be the dear doctor’s.
Upon trying the door to the house and finding it locked, I then went away and came back with my cousin Richard Enfield having explained the situation and confided my fear that Mr Hyde had returned for some nefarious reason or other. We had only just decided to break into the laboratory to see what was happening when the door opened, and Jekyll rushed off past us without even the courtesy of a greeting!
Enfield stayed to check the laboratory upon this fleeting glimpse of the doctor, having fear he was fleeing danger, which left me to catch up and follow after Jekyll for some time, calling out often as we made our way into the woods, but it was due to his great speed that I was unable to catch up with him, keeping only my eyes upon his back under the bright moonlight.
However, upon stopping to catch my breath and finding that the doctor had not stopped far from myself, I finally saw the black container in his hands. I watched him remove stoppered glass vials full of colourful concoctions. He mixed some sort of slapdash potion, his graceful doctor’s fingers failing him as he splattered green liquid across his white shirt cuffs and the skin of his hands. He drank the murky contents of the fat vial, before packing the container and discarding it in some thick nearby bushes.
It was then, as I bent double and rested my hand against a felled tree, that he proceeded into the woods, and I lost sight of him. It was to my great surprise and terror however that I was soon tilted off balance in shock by Hyde, appearing from nowhere in the distance and stirring the fallen leaves in a flurry, heading off into the nearby woods. Hyde was wearing Jekyll's clothes!
I resolved to follow him, even though it was fast approaching midnight, and I had no weapon to speak of, as even the sharpest of my wits had been dulled.
The woods were thick and there were brambles and nettles everywhere. I caught my jacket on a tree branch, but I could still hear Hyde moving through the undergrowth and he was not slowing. I reached a clearing in the woods and from a distance I could see Hyde stooping, he was holding a tube which was frothing over at the top. He drank from the vial, dropped it and then continued onto a railway siding, where despite my eager pursuit I eventually lost sight of him.
Since that day I have found neither hide nor hair of either my dear friend nor the embodiment of my deepest terrors. They and any clues to their whereabouts continue to elude me, no matter how many times I search the scene of their disappearance.
Though, rumours tell, that often gatherers come and search the area at all hours of the day, whispering and turning from any prying local eyes as they go about their secretive business.
Perhaps they continue to look for the logs to the ‘magic elixir’ that my dear Jekyll has been rumoured to have created and lost in his disappearance, however his logs once lost are now lost forever and I fear the secrets within have also been lost with them.
I imagine only the cleverest may eventually find them ............
Now let the adventure begin ...................
Start the Adventure Lab and after each location you will receive a special coloured chemical number, be careful as these chemicals are extremely dangerous, hence the appropriate icon on the cache page.
Chemicals Required
Make a note of all the individual numbers below:
Yellow =
Green =
Blue =
Red =
Purple =
Potion Formula
Once you have all the special coloured chemical numbers carefully prepare the potion as follows:
N 51° 15 . Red Red Blue
W 000° 0 Yellow . Green Purple Purple
Potion Test, Search Area and Final Warning
Now carefully pour your potion into the potion checker provided at the bottom of this page, and if you have mixed it correctly you will be able to search for Dr Jekyll's lost logs, if not you will need to check your chemical numbers and mix it again.
Finally, please remember that Mr Hyde could be lurking anywhere, so take care as he's an extremely tricky customer!
Good Luck
Gabriel John Utterson ✍️
NOTES
1 - The difficulty rating of this cache has been calculated on several aspects, including the time it takes to complete the Adventure Lab, which has been designed to be undertaken in a specific location order, as this will help ensure that participants get the maximum enjoyment from the story and their caching experience.
2 - This adventure is based on my highly favorited, but now archived, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde caches, which were orginally published on 28/07/2015.