Nearly a year later London was startled by a crime of great cruelty. A maid servant living alone in a house near the river had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. The night was cloudless, and the lane below her window was brightly lit by the full moon. She saw an aged and beautiful gentleman coming along it, and a small man to whom she paid little attention. When they came within speech the old man bowed and addressed the other very politely. Then all of a sudden the small man broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot and waving his stick like a madman. The old gentleman took a step back, and at that the other clubbed him to the earth and trampled his victim under foot. At the horror of these sights the maid fainted. It was two in the morning when she came to herself and called the police. The murderer had left half of his broken stick behind. It was Mr Hyde, and the dead man was Sir Danvers Carew, a well-known gentleman of Parliament.