Poole
Poole, the butler of Dr. Henry Jekyll, is a figure of steadfast loyalty and acute observation, whose role shifts from that of a discreet domestic servant to the primary instigator of the final, violent revelation of the mystery. For twenty years he has served in Jekyll's house, a period that gives his testimony an authority no other character can match. It is Poole who first articulates the suspicion that his master has been murdered and replaced by an impostor, and it is his desperate plea that compels the cautious lawyer Mr. Utterson to take decisive action. In the novel's economy of revelation, Poole functions as the threshold guardian whose insistence on the truth forces the narrative past the point of no return, transforming a series of unsettling clues into a direct confrontation with the horror within the cabinet.
Identity and Role in the Household
Poole is introduced as a well-dressed, elderly servant who opens the door of Jekyll's house in the square, a residence that still wears "a great air of wealth and comfort" . He admits Mr. Utterson into a large, low-roofed, comfortable hall paved with flags, warmed by a bright open fire and furnished with costly cabinets of oak, offering the lawyer a choice of waiting by the fire or in the dining-room . This initial portrait establishes Poole as the guardian of a domestic order that is both prosperous and carefully maintained. His position is one of complete trust: he knows that Mr. Hyde has a key to the laboratory, that the household has orders to obey Hyde, and that Hyde "mostly comes and goes by the laboratory" rather than the main house . This intimate knowledge of the household's secret rhythms makes him the first to detect when those rhythms break down.
The Growing Alarm and the Appeal to Utterson
Months after the Carew murder and Jekyll's subsequent seclusion, Poole's unease becomes unbearable. One evening, he appears unexpectedly at Mr. Utterson's fireside, a visit so unusual that the lawyer is immediately struck by the butler's altered appearance: his manner is changed for the worse, he cannot look the lawyer in the face, and he sits with a glass of wine untasted on his knee, his eyes fixed on a corner of the floor . "I've been afraid for about a week," Poole says, "and I can bear it no more" . He speaks of "foul play" and, when pressed, refuses to elaborate, instead urging Utterson to come and see for himself . The lawyer's only answer is to rise and get his hat and greatcoat, and he observes with wonder the greatness of the relief that appears upon the butler's face .
On the wild, cold March night, Poole leads Utterson through the deserted square, keeping a pace or two ahead. In the middle of the pavement, despite the biting weather, he takes off his hat and mops his brow with a red pocket-handkerchief; the moisture is not from exertion but from "the moisture of some strangling anguish," for his face is white and his voice harsh and broken . At the house, the servants are huddled together like a flock of sheep, the housemaid breaks into hysterical whimpering, and the cook cries out "Bless God! it's Mr. Utterson" and runs forward as if to take him in her arms . Poole silences the weeping maid with a ferocity that testifies to his own jangled nerves, then leads Utterson through the back garden to the laboratory building .
The Testimony of the Voice and the Mask
In the surgical theatre, Poole motions Utterson to stand aside and listen while he mounts the steps and knocks on the red baize of the cabinet door, calling out that Mr. Utterson is asking to see the doctor . A voice answers complainingly from within: "Tell him I cannot see anyone" . Poole's response carries a note of triumph as he leads Utterson back to the kitchen and asks directly: "Was that my master's voice?" . When Utterson admits it seems much changed, Poole presses his case with the full weight of his twenty years of service: "Have I been twenty years in this man's house, to be deceived about his voice? No, sir; master's made away with; he was made away with eight days ago, when we heard him cry out upon the name of God; and who's in there instead of him, and why it stays there, is a thing that cries to Heaven, Mr. Utterson!" .
Poole then provides the evidence of the frantic orders for medicine. All week, the occupant of the cabinet has been crying night and day for a particular drug, sending out papers with orders and complaints, and sending Poole flying to all the wholesale chemists in town, only to reject each new sample as impure . He produces a crumpled note from Messrs. Maw, written in the doctor's hand but ending with a desperate splutter: "For God's sake, find me some of the old" . When Utterson observes that the handwriting is unquestionably the doctor's, Poole dismisses the point: "But what matters hand of write? I've seen him!" . He describes how he came suddenly into the theatre and saw a figure at the far end, digging among the crates; the figure looked up, gave a kind of cry, and whipped upstairs into the cabinet. "If that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face? If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat, and run from me?" .
Utterson offers a natural explanation—that Jekyll is seized with a malady that both tortures and deforms the sufferer, hence the mask and the altered voice—but Poole rejects it with a certainty that shakes the lawyer. "That thing was not my master," he says, turning to a sort of mottled pallor. "My master is a tall, fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf" . He insists that after twenty years he knows exactly where his master's head comes to in the cabinet door, and that the masked thing was never Dr. Jekyll. When Utterson finally agrees to break in the door, Poole's response is one of relief: "Ah, Mr. Utterson, that's talking!" .
The Breaking of the Door and the Aftermath
Poole arms himself with an axe from the theatre, and Utterson takes the kitchen poker . As they wait in the shelter of the theatre, listening to the footfall moving to and fro along the cabinet floor, Poole whispers that the steps are not the doctor's: they fall lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, different from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll . He adds a detail that chills the lawyer: "Once I heard it weeping! Weeping like a woman or a lost soul" . When the ten minutes are up, Poole disinters the axe from under a stack of packing straw, and at Utterson's cry that the voice is Hyde's, he swings the axe over his shoulder. The blow shakes the building; a dismal screech of animal terror rings from the cabinet. Four times the axe falls, and on the fifth the lock bursts and the wreck of the door falls inward .
Inside, they find the body of Edward Hyde, dressed in clothes far too large for him, a crushed phial in his hand, dead by his own hand . Utterson declares that they have come too late, and that it only remains to find the body of the master . They search the building thoroughly—the theatre, the closets, the cellar sealed by cobwebs—but find no trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive . Poole stamps on the flags of the corridor, suggesting the body must be buried there, but Utterson points to the locked by-street door and the rusted key lying nearby . In the cabinet, they find a new will naming Utterson as heir, a brief note from Jekyll, and a sealed packet that Poole hands to the lawyer . Poole's final act is to lock the door of the theatre behind them as they leave, the servants still gathered about the fire in the hall, while Utterson trudges back to his office to read the narratives that will finally explain the mystery .
Narrative Role and Significance
Poole is the most fully realized minor character in the novel, a figure whose loyalty and perceptiveness make him the catalyst for the story's climax. His testimony carries unique weight because it is grounded in twenty years of daily observation: he knows the doctor's voice, his stature, his habits, and the precise height of his head in the cabinet door. This accumulated knowledge allows him to recognize, before anyone else, that the creature in the cabinet is not his master. His role is that of the faithful servant who, when the established order breaks down, takes the initiative to summon the one man who can act. In doing so, he becomes the agent through which the narrative's accumulated suspense is finally discharged into action. His presence also grounds the gothic horror in a domestic reality: the weeping heard through the door, the servants huddled like sheep, the cook crying out in relief at the sight of a familiar face—these details make the supernatural terror feel immediate and human. Poole is the character who, by refusing to accept the mask and the altered voice, forces the truth into the open, and his steadfastness in the face of the unknown makes him one of the novel's most quietly heroic figures.
