Hyde–Carew murder

The murder of Sir Danvers Carew by Edward Hyde is the central violent event of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a crime of such sudden, ape-like ferocity that it shatters the story's earlier atmosphere of ambiguous moral dread and sets in motion the final, irreversible collapse of Henry Jekyll's double life. The killing is witnessed, its weapon is traced directly to Jekyll, and it transforms Hyde from a vaguely repellent figure into a hunted murderer, forcing the narrative toward the revelations of Lanyon's narrative and Jekyll's full confession.

Circumstances and the Witness

The murder took place nearly a year after the child-trampling incident, in October of an unspecified year, in a lane not far from the river, brilliantly lit by the full moon. A maid-servant, living alone in a house overlooking the lane, sat down on her box under the window and fell into a romantic reverie; she later narrated the experience with streaming tears, saying she had never felt more at peace with all men or thought more kindly of the world. As she watched, an aged, beautiful gentleman with white hair drew near along the lane, and advancing to meet him came another, very small gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention. The older man bowed and accosted the smaller with a very pretty manner of politeness, his face in the moonlight seeming to breathe an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition, with something high as of a well-founded self-content. The maid was surprised to recognise in the smaller man a certain Mr. Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling, but he answered never a word and seemed to listen with ill-contained impatience.

The Attack

All of a sudden, Hyde broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on like a madman. The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt. At that, Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth. The next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted. It was two o'clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was long gone, but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled.

The Victim and the Weapon

The victim was Sir Danvers Carew, an aged, beautiful gentleman with white hair, a man high in public estimation. His identity was confirmed the next morning by Mr. Utterson, who recognised him at the police station and said, "I am sorry to say that this is Sir Danvers Carew." The murder weapon was a heavy cane of some rare, very tough and heavy wood, which had broken in the middle under the stress of the insensate cruelty; one splintered half had rolled in the neighbouring gutter, the other was carried away by the murderer. A purse and gold watch were found upon the victim, but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped envelope bearing the name and address of Mr. Utterson. When the broken stick was laid before Utterson, he recognised it as one he had himself presented many years before to Henry Jekyll. This direct link between Jekyll and the murder weapon confirmed Utterson's worst fears and made the crime the turning point of the plot.

Consequences and Aftermath

The murder of Sir Danvers Carew was resented as a public injury, and thousands of pounds were offered in reward. Hyde disappeared completely, blotted out from the ken of the police as though he had never existed. The crime forced Jekyll into a period of apparent reform and religious devotion, but it also precipitated the irreversible breakdown of his dual existence. The murder weapon's connection to Jekyll, the discovery of Hyde's burnt cheque book and the other half of the stick in his Soho rooms, and the subsequent investigation all tightened the net around Hyde. Most critically, the murder provided the moral and legal pressure that, after Jekyll's involuntary transformations resumed, drove him to seek Lanyon's help, leading to Lanyon's witnessing of the transformation and his subsequent death. The Carew murder thus functions as the story's central catastrophe, the event that transforms a private moral struggle into a public crime and makes the final revelations inevitable.