Mr. Utterson, a socially awkward yet kindly and lovable lawyer, enjoys taking Sunday walks through London with his distant cousin Mr. Enfield, a “well-known man about town” (48). On one such outing they come across a dark and dilapidated building in the Soho district, the sight of whose cellar door reminds Enfield of an odd experience he had early one morning. Returning home at three o’clock AM, Enfield witnessed a short, brutal-looking man collide with a little girl at a street corner and calmly trample over her body. A concerned crowd of people formed, a doctor was summoned for the girl (who was not seriously hurt), and Enfield forced the man to make monetary reparations to the girl’s family for the incident. The man then entered the very door Utterson and Enfield are now looking at, and a moment later stepped out with a check in the name of a well-known and respectable gentleman. Later that morning Enfield and the girl’s father went to the bank and verified that the check was genuine.

Enfield tells Utterson that he suspects that the culprit is blackmailing the respectable gentleman for “some of the capers of his youth” (52). As for the house, it is a curious and suspicious-looking place which seems to be only intermittently inhabited.