While he does not actually narrate the book, the story is presented largely through the perspective of Utterson, a lawyer and good friend of Dr. Jekyll. Utterson functions in the story as a sort of amateur detective on a quest to solve the perplexing mystery of Dr. Jekyll’s identity. In a sense, the reader uncovers the mystery along with Utterson. The very opening of the book sketches Utterson’s character traits. He is man of “rugged countenance,” unsmiling, unemotional, lean, dreary, “yet somehow lovable” (47). Significantly, although he is “austere” in his own personal habits, he is lenient with other people, “inclined to help rather than reprove” (47). This is ironic in light of his later pursuit of the criminal Hyde. Even more significantly, he is often the “last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men” (47), which will prove to be the case in Utterson’s relationship with Dr. Jekyll.

Utterson shows a doggedness in the pursuit of truth tempered by a concern for propriety and reluctance to upset people’s reputations. He goes privately to Jekyll and talks to him man-to-man about his relationship with Hyde. Utterson works, for the most part, independently of the police, but he does join the police inspector in investigating Hyde’s rooms after the murder of Carew.