the hour of twelve
`` I shake hands on that , Richard . '' 11 -RRB- spirits and sat down to dinner without relish . It was his custom of a Sunday , when this meal was over , to sit close by the fire , a volume of some dry divinity on his reading-desk , until the clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve , when he would go soberly and gratefully to bed . On this night , however , as soon as the cloth was taken away , he took up a candle and went into his business-room . There he opened his safe , took from the most private part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll 's Will , and sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents . The will was holograph , for Mr. Utterson , though he took charge of it now that it was made , had refused to lend the least assistance in the making of it ; it provided not only that , in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll , M.D. , D.C.L. , L.L.D. , F.R.S. , etc. , all his possessions were to pass into the hands of his `` friend and benefactor Edward Hyde , '' but that in case of 12 -RRB-