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| Title: The Invisible Man |
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| Author: H.G. Wells |
| |
| Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5230] |
| [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] |
| [This file was first posted on June 9, 2002] |
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| Edition: 10 |
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| Language: English |
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| *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVISIBLE MAN *** |
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| Produced by Andrew Sly Andrew Sly <wu081@victoria.tc.ca> |
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| The Invisible Man |
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| A Grotesque Romance |
| |
| By H.G. Wells |
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| CONTENTS |
| |
| I The strange Man's Arrival |
| II Mr. Teddy Henfrey's first Impressions |
| III The thousand and one Bottles |
| IV Mr. Cuss interviews the Stranger |
| V The Burglary at the Vicarage |
| VI The Furniture that went mad |
| VII The Unveiling of the Stranger |
| VIII In Transit |
| IX Mr. Thomas Marvel |
| X Mr. Marvel's Visit to Iping |
| XI In the "Coach and Horses" |
| XII The invisible Man loses his Temper |
| XIII Mr. Marvel discusses his Resignation |
| XIV At Port Stowe |
| XV The Man who was running |
| XVI In the "Jolly Cricketers" |
| XVII Dr. Kemp's Visitor |
| XVIII The invisible Man sleeps |
| XIX Certain first Principles |
| XX At the House in Great Portland Street |
| XXI In Oxford Street |
| XXII In the Emporium |
| XXIII In Drury Lane |
| XXIV The Plan that failed |
| XXV The Hunting of the invisible Man |
| XXVI The Wicksteed Murder |
| XXVII The Siege of Kemp's House |
| XXVIII The Hunter hunted |
| The Epilogue |
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| CHAPTER I |
| |
| THE STRANGE MAN'S ARRIVAL |
| |
| |
| The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a |
| biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over |
| the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a |
| little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped |
| up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every |
| inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled |
| itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to |
| the burden he carried. He staggered into the "Coach and Horses" more |
| dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. "A fire," he cried, |
| "in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He stamped and |
| shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall |
| into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much |
| introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, |
| he took up his quarters in the inn. |
| |
| Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare |
| him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the |
| wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who |
| was no "haggler," and she was resolved to show herself worthy of her |
| good fortune. As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie, |
| her lymphatic aid, had been brisked up a bit by a few deftly chosen |
| expressions of contempt, she carried the cloth, plates, and glasses |
| into the parlour and began to lay them with the utmost eclat. |
| Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see |
| that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his back |
| to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the yard. |
| His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost |
| in thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled |
| his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. "Can I take your hat and coat, |
| sir?" she said, "and give them a good dry in the kitchen?" |
| |
| "No," he said without turning. |
| |
| She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her |
| question. |
| |
| He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. "I prefer to |
| keep them on," he said with emphasis, and she noticed that he wore |
| big blue spectacles with sidelights, and had a bush side-whisker |
| over his coat-collar that completely hid his cheeks and face. |
| |
| "Very well, sir," she said. "_As_ you like. In a bit the room will |
| be warmer." |
| |
| He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and |
| Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, |
| laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked |
| out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like |
| a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping |
| hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put |
| down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called |
| rather than said to him, "Your lunch is served, sir." |
| |
| "Thank you," he said at the same time, and did not stir until she |
| was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table |
| with a certain eager quickness. |
| |
| As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated |
| at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a |
| spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin. "That girl!" she said. |
| "There! I clean forgot it. It's her being so long!" And while she |
| herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal |
| stabs for her excessive slowness. She had cooked the ham and eggs, |
| laid the table, and done everything, while Millie (help indeed!) had |
| only succeeded in delaying the mustard. And him a new guest and |
| wanting to stay! Then she filled the mustard pot, and, putting it |
| with a certain stateliness upon a gold and black tea-tray, carried |
| it into the parlour. |
| |
| She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved |
| quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object disappearing |
| behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the |
| floor. She rapped down the mustard pot on the table, and then she |
| noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair |
| in front of the fire, and a pair of wet boots threatened rust to her |
| steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. "I suppose I may |
| have them to dry now," she said in a voice that brooked no denial. |
| |
| "Leave the hat," said her visitor, in a muffled voice, and turning |
| she saw he had raised his head and was sitting and looking at her. |
| |
| For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak. |
| |
| He held a white cloth--it was a serviette he had brought with |
| him--over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws |
| were completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled |
| voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact |
| that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white |
| bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of |
| his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright, |
| pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He wore a dark-brown |
| velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-lined collar turned up about |
| his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and |
| between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns, |
| giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and |
| bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a |
| moment she was rigid. |
| |
| He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she |
| saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his |
| inscrutable blue glasses. "Leave the hat," he said, speaking very |
| distinctly through the white cloth. |
| |
| Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She |
| placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. "I didn't know, sir," |
| she began, "that--" and she stopped embarrassed. |
| |
| "Thank you," he said drily, glancing from her to the door and then |
| at her again. |
| |
| "I'll have them nicely dried, sir, at once," she said, and carried |
| his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head |
| and blue goggles again as she was going out of the door; but his |
| napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she |
| closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise |
| and perplexity. "I never," she whispered. "There!" She went quite |
| softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what |
| she was messing about with now, when she got there. |
| |
| The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced |
| inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette, and |
| resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the |
| window, took another mouthful, then rose and, taking the serviette |
| in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to |
| the top of the white muslin that obscured the lower panes. This |
| left the room in a twilight. This done, he returned with an easier |
| air to the table and his meal. |
| |
| "The poor soul's had an accident or an op'ration or somethin'," said |
| Mrs. Hall. "What a turn them bandages did give me, to be sure!" |
| |
| She put on some more coal, unfolded the clothes-horse, and extended |
| the traveller's coat upon this. "And they goggles! Why, he looked |
| more like a divin' helmet than a human man!" She hung his muffler |
| on a corner of the horse. "And holding that handkercheif over his |
| mouth all the time. Talkin' through it! ... Perhaps his mouth was |
| hurt too--maybe." |
| |
| She turned round, as one who suddenly remembers. "Bless my soul |
| alive!" she said, going off at a tangent; "ain't you done them |
| taters _yet_, Millie?" |
| |
| When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the stranger's lunch, her idea |
| that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident |
| she supposed him to have suffered, was confirmed, for he was smoking |
| a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened |
| the silk muffler he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to |
| put the mouthpiece to his lips. Yet it was not forgetfulness, for |
| she saw he glanced at it as it smouldered out. He sat in the corner |
| with his back to the window-blind and spoke now, having eaten and |
| drunk and being comfortably warmed through, with less aggressive |
| brevity than before. The reflection of the fire lent a kind of red |
| animation to his big spectacles they had lacked hitherto. |
| |
| "I have some luggage," he said, "at Bramblehurst station," and he |
| asked her how he could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head |
| quite politely in acknowledgment of her explanation. "To-morrow?" he |
| said. "There is no speedier delivery?" and seemed quite disappointed |
| when she answered, "No." Was she quite sure? No man with a trap who |
| would go over? |
| |
| Mrs. Hall, nothing loath, answered his questions and developed a |
| conversation. "It's a steep road by the down, sir," she said in |
| answer to the question about a trap; and then, snatching at an |
| opening, said, "It was there a carriage was upsettled, a year ago |
| and more. A gentleman killed, besides his coachman. Accidents, sir, |
| happen in a moment, don't they?" |
| |
| But the visitor was not to be drawn so easily. "They do," he said |
| through his muffler, eyeing her quietly through his impenetrable |
| glasses. |
| |
| "But they take long enough to get well, don't they? ... There was |
| my sister's son, Tom, jest cut his arm with a scythe, tumbled on it |
| in the 'ayfield, and, bless me! he was three months tied up sir. |
| You'd hardly believe it. It's regular given me a dread of a scythe, |
| sir." |
| |
| "I can quite understand that," said the visitor. |
| |
| "He was afraid, one time, that he'd have to have an op'ration--he |
| was that bad, sir." |
| |
| The visitor laughed abruptly, a bark of a laugh that he seemed to |
| bite and kill in his mouth. "_Was_ he?" he said. |
| |
| "He was, sir. And no laughing matter to them as had the doing for |
| him, as I had--my sister being took up with her little ones so |
| much. There was bandages to do, sir, and bandages to undo. So that |
| if I may make so bold as to say it, sir--" |
| |
| "Will you get me some matches?" said the visitor, quite abruptly. |
| "My pipe is out." |
| |
| Mrs. Hall was pulled up suddenly. It was certainly rude of him, |
| after telling him all she had done. She gasped at him for a moment, |
| and remembered the two sovereigns. She went for the matches. |
| |
| "Thanks," he said concisely, as she put them down, and turned his |
| shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again. It was |
| altogether too discouraging. Evidently he was sensitive on the |
| topic of operations and bandages. She did not "make so bold as to |
| say," however, after all. But his snubbing way had irritated her, |
| and Millie had a hot time of it that afternoon. |
| |
| The visitor remained in the parlour until four o'clock, without |
| giving the ghost of an excuse for an intrusion. For the most part |
| he was quite still during that time; it would seem he sat in the |
| growing darkness smoking in the firelight--perhaps dozing. |
| |
| Once or twice a curious listener might have heard him at the coals, |
| and for the space of five minutes he was audible pacing the room. |
| He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as |
| he sat down again. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER II |
| |
| MR. TEDDY HENFREY'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS |
| |
| |
| At four o'clock, when it was fairly dark and Mrs. Hall was screwing |
| up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some |
| tea, Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, came into the bar. "My sakes! |
| Mrs. Hall," said he, "but this is terrible weather for thin boots!" |
| The snow outside was falling faster. |
| |
| Mrs. Hall agreed, and then noticed he had his bag with him. "Now |
| you're here, Mr. Teddy," said she, "I'd be glad if you'd give th' |
| old clock in the parlour a bit of a look. 'Tis going, and it strikes |
| well and hearty; but the hour-hand won't do nuthin' but point at |
| six." |
| |
| And leading the way, she went across to the parlour door and rapped |
| and entered. |
| |
| Her visitor, she saw as she opened the door, was seated in the |
| armchair before the fire, dozing it would seem, with his bandaged |
| head drooping on one side. The only light in the room was the red |
| glow from the fire--which lit his eyes like adverse railway signals, |
| but left his downcast face in darkness--and the scanty vestiges of |
| the day that came in through the open door. Everything was ruddy, |
| shadowy, and indistinct to her, the more so since she had just been |
| lighting the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled. But for a second |
| it seemed to her that the man she looked at had an enormous mouth |
| wide open--a vast and incredible mouth that swallowed the whole of |
| the lower portion of his face. It was the sensation of a moment: |
| the white-bound head, the monstrous goggle eyes, and this huge yawn |
| below it. Then he stirred, started up in his chair, put up his hand. |
| She opened the door wide, so that the room was lighter, and she saw |
| him more clearly, with the muffler held up to his face just as she |
| had seen him hold the serviette before. The shadows, she fancied, |
| had tricked her. |
| |
| "Would you mind, sir, this man a-coming to look at the clock, sir?" |
| she said, recovering from the momentary shock. |
| |
| "Look at the clock?" he said, staring round in a drowsy manner, |
| and speaking over his hand, and then, getting more fully awake, |
| "certainly." |
| |
| Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched |
| himself. Then came the light, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was |
| confronted by this bandaged person. He was, he says, "taken aback." |
| |
| "Good afternoon," said the stranger, regarding him--as Mr. Henfrey |
| says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles--"like a lobster." |
| |
| "I hope," said Mr. Henfrey, "that it's no intrusion." |
| |
| "None whatever," said the stranger. "Though, I understand," he said |
| turning to Mrs. Hall, "that this room is really to be mine for my |
| own private use." |
| |
| "I thought, sir," said Mrs. Hall, "you'd prefer the clock--" |
| |
| "Certainly," said the stranger, "certainly--but, as a rule, I |
| like to be alone and undisturbed. |
| |
| "But I'm really glad to have the clock seen to," he said, seeing a |
| certain hesitation in Mr. Henfrey's manner. "Very glad." Mr. Henfrey |
| had intended to apologise and withdraw, but this anticipation |
| reassured him. The stranger turned round with his back to the |
| fireplace and put his hands behind his back. "And presently," he |
| said, "when the clock-mending is over, I think I should like to |
| have some tea. But not till the clock-mending is over." |
| |
| Mrs. Hall was about to leave the room--she made no conversational |
| advances this time, because she did not want to be snubbed in front |
| of Mr. Henfrey--when her visitor asked her if she had made any |
| arrangements about his boxes at Bramblehurst. She told him she had |
| mentioned the matter to the postman, and that the carrier could |
| bring them over on the morrow. "You are certain that is the |
| earliest?" he said. |
| |
| She was certain, with a marked coldness. |
| |
| "I should explain," he added, "what I was really too cold and |
| fatigued to do before, that I am an experimental investigator." |
| |
| "Indeed, sir," said Mrs. Hall, much impressed. |
| |
| "And my baggage contains apparatus and appliances." |
| |
| "Very useful things indeed they are, sir," said Mrs. Hall. |
| |
| "And I'm very naturally anxious to get on with my inquiries." |
| |
| "Of course, sir." |
| |
| "My reason for coming to Iping," he proceeded, with a certain |
| deliberation of manner, "was ... a desire for solitude. I do not |
| wish to be disturbed in my work. In addition to my work, an |
| accident--" |
| |
| "I thought as much," said Mrs. Hall to herself. |
| |
| "--necessitates a certain retirement. My eyes--are sometimes so |
| weak and painful that I have to shut myself up in the dark for |
| hours together. Lock myself up. Sometimes--now and then. Not at |
| present, certainly. At such times the slightest disturbance, the |
| entry of a stranger into the room, is a source of excruciating |
| annoyance to me--it is well these things should be understood." |
| |
| "Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Hall. "And if I might make so bold as |
| to ask--" |
| |
| "That I think, is all," said the stranger, with that quietly |
| irresistible air of finality he could assume at will. Mrs. Hall |
| reserved her question and sympathy for a better occasion. |
| |
| After Mrs. Hall had left the room, he remained standing in front of |
| the fire, glaring, so Mr. Henfrey puts it, at the clock-mending. Mr. |
| Henfrey not only took off the hands of the clock, and the face, but |
| extracted the works; and he tried to work in as slow and quiet and |
| unassuming a manner as possible. He worked with the lamp close to |
| him, and the green shade threw a brilliant light upon his hands, |
| and upon the frame and wheels, and left the rest of the room |
| shadowy. When he looked up, coloured patches swam in his eyes. |
| Being constitutionally of a curious nature, he had removed the |
| works--a quite unnecessary proceeding--with the idea of delaying his |
| departure and perhaps falling into conversation with the stranger. |
| But the stranger stood there, perfectly silent and still. So still, |
| it got on Henfrey's nerves. He felt alone in the room and looked up, |
| and there, grey and dim, was the bandaged head and huge blue lenses |
| staring fixedly, with a mist of green spots drifting in front of |
| them. It was so uncanny to Henfrey that for a minute they remained |
| staring blankly at one another. Then Henfrey looked down again. Very |
| uncomfortable position! One would like to say something. Should he |
| remark that the weather was very cold for the time of year? |
| |
| He looked up as if to take aim with that introductory shot. "The |
| weather--" he began. |
| |
| "Why don't you finish and go?" said the rigid figure, evidently in |
| a state of painfully suppressed rage. "All you've got to do is to |
| fix the hour-hand on its axle. You're simply humbugging--" |
| |
| "Certainly, sir--one minute more. I overlooked--" and Mr. Henfrey |
| finished and went. |
| |
| But he went feeling excessively annoyed. "Damn it!" said Mr. Henfrey |
| to himself, trudging down the village through the thawing snow; "a |
| man must do a clock at times, sure-ly." |
| |
| And again "Can't a man look at you?--Ugly!" |
| |
| And yet again, "Seemingly not. If the police was wanting you you |
| couldn't be more wropped and bandaged." |
| |
| At Gleeson's corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the |
| stranger's hostess at the "Coach and Horses," and who now drove |
| the Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to |
| Sidderbridge Junction, coming towards him on his return from that |
| place. Hall had evidently been "stopping a bit" at Sidderbridge, |
| to judge by his driving. "'Ow do, Teddy?" he said, passing. |
| |
| "You got a rum un up home!" said Teddy. |
| |
| Hall very sociably pulled up. "What's that?" he asked. |
| |
| "Rum-looking customer stopping at the 'Coach and Horses,'" said |
| Teddy. "My sakes!" |
| |
| And he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his grotesque |
| guest. "Looks a bit like a disguise, don't it? I'd like to see a |
| man's face if I had him stopping in _my_ place," said Henfrey. "But |
| women are that trustful--where strangers are concerned. He's took |
| your rooms and he ain't even given a name, Hall." |
| |
| "You don't say so!" said Hall, who was a man of sluggish apprehension. |
| |
| "Yes," said Teddy. "By the week. Whatever he is, you can't get rid |
| of him under the week. And he's got a lot of luggage coming |
| to-morrow, so he says. Let's hope it won't be stones in boxes, Hall." |
| |
| He told Hall how his aunt at Hastings had been swindled by a |
| stranger with empty portmanteaux. Altogether he left Hall vaguely |
| suspicious. "Get up, old girl," said Hall. "I s'pose I must see |
| 'bout this." |
| |
| Teddy trudged on his way with his mind considerably relieved. |
| |
| Instead of "seeing 'bout it," however, Hall on his return was |
| severely rated by his wife on the length of time he had spent in |
| Sidderbridge, and his mild inquiries were answered snappishly and |
| in a manner not to the point. But the seed of suspicion Teddy |
| had sown germinated in the mind of Mr. Hall in spite of these |
| discouragements. "You wim' don't know everything," said Mr. Hall, |
| resolved to ascertain more about the personality of his guest at |
| the earliest possible opportunity. And after the stranger had gone |
| to bed, which he did about half-past nine, Mr. Hall went very |
| aggressively into the parlour and looked very hard at his wife's |
| furniture, just to show that the stranger wasn't master there, |
| and scrutinised closely and a little contemptuously a sheet of |
| mathematical computations the stranger had left. When retiring |
| for the night he instructed Mrs. Hall to look very closely at |
| the stranger's luggage when it came next day. |
| |
| "You mind you own business, Hall," said Mrs. Hall, "and I'll mind |
| mine." |
| |
| She was all the more inclined to snap at Hall because the stranger |
| was undoubtedly an unusually strange sort of stranger, and she was |
| by no means assured about him in her own mind. In the middle of the |
| night she woke up dreaming of huge white heads like turnips, that |
| came trailing after her, at the end of interminable necks, and with |
| vast black eyes. But being a sensible woman, she subdued her |
| terrors and turned over and went to sleep again. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER III |
| |
| THE THOUSAND AND ONE BOTTLES |
| |
| |
| So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning |
| of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping |
| village. Next day his luggage arrived through the slush--and very |
| remarkable luggage it was. There were a couple of trunks indeed, |
| such as a rational man might need, but in addition there were |
| a box of books--big, fat books, of which some were just in an |
| incomprehensible handwriting--and a dozen or more crates, boxes, |
| and cases, containing objects packed in straw, as it seemed to |
| Hall, tugging with a casual curiosity at the straw--glass bottles. |
| The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came out |
| impatiently to meet Fearenside's cart, while Hall was having a word |
| or so of gossip preparatory to helping being them in. Out he came, |
| not noticing Fearenside's dog, who was sniffing in a dilettante |
| spirit at Hall's legs. "Come along with those boxes," he said. |
| "I've been waiting long enough." |
| |
| And he came down the steps towards the tail of the cart as if to |
| lay hands on the smaller crate. |
| |
| No sooner had Fearenside's dog caught sight of him, however, than |
| it began to bristle and growl savagely, and when he rushed down the |
| steps it gave an undecided hop, and then sprang straight at his |
| hand. "Whup!" cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero with |
| dogs, and Fearenside howled, "Lie down!" and snatched his whip. |
| |
| They saw the dog's teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw the |
| dog execute a flanking jump and get home on the stranger's leg, and |
| heard the rip of his trousering. Then the finer end of Fearenside's |
| whip reached his property, and the dog, yelping with dismay, |
| retreated under the wheels of the waggon. It was all the business of |
| a swift half-minute. No one spoke, everyone shouted. The stranger |
| glanced swiftly at his torn glove and at his leg, made as if he |
| would stoop to the latter, then turned and rushed swiftly up the |
| steps into the inn. They heard him go headlong across the passage |
| and up the uncarpeted stairs to his bedroom. |
| |
| "You brute, you!" said Fearenside, climbing off the waggon with his |
| whip in his hand, while the dog watched him through the wheel. |
| "Come here," said Fearenside--"You'd better." |
| |
| Hall had stood gaping. "He wuz bit," said Hall. "I'd better go and |
| see to en," and he trotted after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall in |
| the passage. "Carrier's darg," he said "bit en." |
| |
| He went straight upstairs, and the stranger's door being ajar, he |
| pushed it open and was entering without any ceremony, being of a |
| naturally sympathetic turn of mind. |
| |
| The blind was down and the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a most |
| singular thing, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and |
| a face of three huge indeterminate spots on white, very like the |
| face of a pale pansy. Then he was struck violently in the chest, |
| hurled back, and the door slammed in his face and locked. It was so |
| rapid that it gave him no time to observe. A waving of indecipherable |
| shapes, a blow, and a concussion. There he stood on the dark little |
| landing, wondering what it might be that he had seen. |
| |
| A couple of minutes after, he rejoined the little group that had |
| formed outside the "Coach and Horses." There was Fearenside telling |
| about it all over again for the second time; there was Mrs. Hall |
| saying his dog didn't have no business to bite her guests; there |
| was Huxter, the general dealer from over the road, interrogative; |
| and Sandy Wadgers from the forge, judicial; besides women and |
| children, all of them saying fatuities: "Wouldn't let en bite |
| _me_, I knows"; "'Tasn't right _have_ such dargs"; "Whad _'e_ bite |
| 'n for, than?" and so forth. |
| |
| Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps and listening, found it |
| incredible that he had seen anything so very remarkable happen |
| upstairs. Besides, his vocabulary was altogether too limited to |
| express his impressions. |
| |
| "He don't want no help, he says," he said in answer to his wife's |
| inquiry. "We'd better be a-takin' of his luggage in." |
| |
| "He ought to have it cauterised at once," said Mr. Huxter; |
| "especially if it's at all inflamed." |
| |
| "I'd shoot en, that's what I'd do," said a lady in the group. |
| |
| Suddenly the dog began growling again. |
| |
| "Come along," cried an angry voice in the doorway, and there stood |
| the muffled stranger with his collar turned up, and his hat-brim |
| bent down. "The sooner you get those things in the better I'll be |
| pleased." It is stated by an anonymous bystander that his trousers |
| and gloves had been changed. |
| |
| "Was you hurt, sir?" said Fearenside. "I'm rare sorry the darg--" |
| |
| "Not a bit," said the stranger. "Never broke the skin. Hurry up |
| with those things." |
| |
| He then swore to himself, so Mr. Hall asserts. |
| |
| Directly the first crate was, in accordance with his directions, |
| carried into the parlour, the stranger flung himself upon it with |
| extraordinary eagerness, and began to unpack it, scattering the |
| straw with an utter disregard of Mrs. Hall's carpet. And from it he |
| began to produce bottles--little fat bottles containing powders, |
| small and slender bottles containing coloured and white fluids, |
| fluted blue bottles labeled Poison, bottles with round bodies and |
| slender necks, large green-glass bottles, large white-glass bottles, |
| bottles with glass stoppers and frosted labels, bottles with fine |
| corks, bottles with bungs, bottles with wooden caps, wine bottles, |
| salad-oil bottles--putting them in rows on the chiffonnier, on the |
| mantel, on the table under the window, round the floor, on the |
| bookshelf--everywhere. The chemist's shop in Bramblehurst could not |
| boast half so many. Quite a sight it was. Crate after crate yielded |
| bottles, until all six were empty and the table high with straw; the |
| only things that came out of these crates besides the bottles were |
| a number of test-tubes and a carefully packed balance. |
| |
| And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to the |
| window and set to work, not troubling in the least about the litter |
| of straw, the fire which had gone out, the box of books outside, |
| nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs. |
| |
| When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already so |
| absorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles into |
| test-tubes, that he did not hear her until she had swept away the |
| bulk of the straw and put the tray on the table, with some little |
| emphasis perhaps, seeing the state that the floor was in. Then he |
| half turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But she |
| saw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table, |
| and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarily |
| hollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and faced |
| her. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when he |
| anticipated her. |
| |
| "I wish you wouldn't come in without knocking," he said in the tone |
| of abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him. |
| |
| "I knocked, but seemingly--" |
| |
| "Perhaps you did. But in my investigations--my really very urgent |
| and necessary investigations--the slightest disturbance, the jar |
| of a door--I must ask you--" |
| |
| "Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you're like that, you |
| know. Any time." |
| |
| "A very good idea," said the stranger. |
| |
| "This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark--" |
| |
| "Don't. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill." And he |
| mumbled at her--words suspiciously like curses. |
| |
| He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle |
| in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite |
| alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. "In which case, I should |
| like to know, sir, what you consider--" |
| |
| "A shilling--put down a shilling. Surely a shilling's enough?" |
| |
| "So be it," said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning |
| to spread it over the table. "If you're satisfied, of course--" |
| |
| He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her. |
| |
| All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall |
| testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a |
| concussion and a sound of bottles ringing together as though the |
| table had been hit, and the smash of a bottle flung violently down, |
| and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing "something was |
| the matter," she went to the door and listened, not caring to |
| knock. |
| |
| "I can't go on," he was raving. "I _can't_ go on. Three hundred |
| thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! All |
| my life it may take me! ... Patience! Patience indeed! ... Fool! |
| fool!" |
| |
| There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs. |
| Hall had very reluctantly to leave the rest of his soliloquy. |
| When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint |
| crepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle. |
| It was all over; the stranger had resumed work. |
| |
| When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the |
| room under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had been |
| carelessly wiped. She called attention to it. |
| |
| "Put it down in the bill," snapped her visitor. "For God's sake |
| don't worry me. If there's damage done, put it down in the bill," |
| and he went on ticking a list in the exercise book before him. |
| |
| "I'll tell you something," said Fearenside, mysteriously. It was |
| late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop of |
| Iping Hanger. |
| |
| "Well?" said Teddy Henfrey. |
| |
| "This chap you're speaking of, what my dog bit. Well--he's black. |
| Leastways, his legs are. I seed through the tear of his trousers |
| and the tear of his glove. You'd have expected a sort of pinky to |
| show, wouldn't you? Well--there wasn't none. Just blackness. I |
| tell you, he's as black as my hat." |
| |
| "My sakes!" said Henfrey. "It's a rummy case altogether. Why, his |
| nose is as pink as paint!" |
| |
| "That's true," said Fearenside. "I knows that. And I tell 'ee what |
| I'm thinking. That marn's a piebald, Teddy. Black here and white |
| there--in patches. And he's ashamed of it. He's a kind of half-breed, |
| and the colour's come off patchy instead of mixing. I've heard of |
| such things before. And it's the common way with horses, as any one |
| can see." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER IV |
| |
| MR. CUSS INTERVIEWS THE STRANGER |
| |
| |
| I have told the circumstances of the stranger's arrival in Iping |
| with a certain fulness of detail, in order that the curious |
| impression he created may be understood by the reader. But |
| excepting two odd incidents, the circumstances of his stay until |
| the extraordinary day of the club festival may be passed over very |
| cursorily. There were a number of skirmishes with Mrs. Hall on |
| matters of domestic discipline, but in every case until late April, |
| when the first signs of penury began, he over-rode her by the easy |
| expedient of an extra payment. Hall did not like him, and whenever |
| he dared he talked of the advisability of getting rid of him; but |
| he showed his dislike chiefly by concealing it ostentatiously, and |
| avoiding his visitor as much as possible. "Wait till the summer," |
| said Mrs. Hall sagely, "when the artisks are beginning to come. |
| Then we'll see. He may be a bit overbearing, but bills settled |
| punctual is bills settled punctual, whatever you'd like to say." |
| |
| The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference |
| between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He |
| worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would |
| come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise |
| late, pace his room, fretting audibly for hours together, smoke, |
| sleep in the armchair by the fire. Communication with the world |
| beyond the village he had none. His temper continued very |
| uncertain; for the most part his manner was that of a man suffering |
| under almost unendurable provocation, and once or twice things were |
| snapped, torn, crushed, or broken in spasmodic gusts of violence. |
| He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His |
| habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily upon him, |
| but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could make |
| neither head nor tail of what she heard. |
| |
| He rarely went abroad by daylight, but at twilight he would go out |
| muffled up invisibly, whether the weather were cold or not, and he |
| chose the loneliest paths and those most overshadowed by trees and |
| banks. His goggling spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under the |
| penthouse of his hat, came with a disagreeable suddenness out of |
| the darkness upon one or two home-going labourers, and Teddy |
| Henfrey, tumbling out of the "Scarlet Coat" one night, at half-past |
| nine, was scared shamefully by the stranger's skull-like head (he |
| was walking hat in hand) lit by the sudden light of the opened inn |
| door. Such children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of bogies, and |
| it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked |
| him, or the reverse; but there was certainly a vivid enough dislike |
| on either side. |
| |
| It was inevitable that a person of so remarkable an appearance and |
| bearing should form a frequent topic in such a village as Iping. |
| Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. Mrs. Hall was |
| sensitive on the point. When questioned, she explained very |
| carefully that he was an "experimental investigator," going |
| gingerly over the syllables as one who dreads pitfalls. When asked |
| what an experimental investigator was, she would say with a touch |
| of superiority that most educated people knew such things as that, |
| and would thus explain that he "discovered things." Her visitor had |
| had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face |
| and hands, and being of a sensitive disposition, he was averse to |
| any public notice of the fact. |
| |
| Out of her hearing there was a view largely entertained that he was |
| a criminal trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so |
| as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This |
| idea sprang from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. No crime of any |
| magnitude dating from the middle or end of February was known to |
| have occurred. Elaborated in the imagination of Mr. Gould, the |
| probationary assistant in the National School, this theory took the |
| form that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing |
| explosives, and he resolved to undertake such detective operations |
| as his time permitted. These consisted for the most part in looking |
| very hard at the stranger whenever they met, or in asking people |
| who had never seen the stranger, leading questions about him. But |
| he detected nothing. |
| |
| Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either |
| accepted the piebald view or some modification of it; as, for |
| instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that "if he choses |
| to show enself at fairs he'd make his fortune in no time," and |
| being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with |
| the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by |
| regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the |
| advantage of accounting for everything straight away. |
| |
| Between these main groups there were waverers and compromisers. |
| Sussex folk have few superstitions, and it was only after the |
| events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was |
| first whispered in the village. Even then it was only credited |
| among the women folk. |
| |
| But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping, on the whole, |
| agreed in disliking him. His irritability, though it might have |
| been comprehensible to an urban brain-worker, was an amazing thing |
| to these quiet Sussex villagers. The frantic gesticulations they |
| surprised now and then, the headlong pace after nightfall that |
| swept him upon them round quiet corners, the inhuman bludgeoning |
| of all tentative advances of curiosity, the taste for twilight |
| that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of blinds, |
| the extinction of candles and lamps--who could agree with such |
| goings on? They drew aside as he passed down the village, and when |
| he had gone by, young humourists would up with coat-collars and |
| down with hat-brims, and go pacing nervously after him in imitation |
| of his occult bearing. There was a song popular at that time called |
| "The Bogey Man". Miss Statchell sang it at the schoolroom concert |
| (in aid of the church lamps), and thereafter whenever one or two of |
| the villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, a |
| bar or so of this tune, more or less sharp or flat, was whistled in |
| the midst of them. Also belated little children would call "Bogey |
| Man!" after him, and make off tremulously elated. |
| |
| Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The |
| bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the |
| thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through |
| April and May he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger, |
| and at last, towards Whitsuntide, he could stand it no longer, but |
| hit upon the subscription-list for a village nurse as an excuse. He |
| was surprised to find that Mr. Hall did not know his guest's name. |
| "He give a name," said Mrs. Hall--an assertion which was quite |
| unfounded--"but I didn't rightly hear it." She thought it seemed |
| so silly not to know the man's name. |
| |
| Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. There was a fairly |
| audible imprecation from within. "Pardon my intrusion," said Cuss, |
| and then the door closed and cut Mrs. Hall off from the rest of |
| the conversation. |
| |
| She could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then |
| a cry of surprise, a stirring of feet, a chair flung aside, a bark |
| of laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face |
| white, his eyes staring over his shoulder. He left the door open |
| behind him, and without looking at her strode across the hall and |
| went down the steps, and she heard his feet hurrying along the |
| road. He carried his hat in his hand. She stood behind the door, |
| looking at the open door of the parlour. Then she heard the |
| stranger laughing quietly, and then his footsteps came across the |
| room. She could not see his face where she stood. The parlour door |
| slammed, and the place was silent again. |
| |
| Cuss went straight up the village to Bunting the vicar. "Am I mad?" |
| Cuss began abruptly, as he entered the shabby little study. "Do I |
| look like an insane person?" |
| |
| "What's happened?" said the vicar, putting the ammonite on the |
| loose sheets of his forth-coming sermon. |
| |
| "That chap at the inn--" |
| |
| "Well?" |
| |
| "Give me something to drink," said Cuss, and he sat down. |
| |
| When his nerves had been steadied by a glass of cheap sherry--the |
| only drink the good vicar had available--he told him of the |
| interview he had just had. "Went in," he gasped, "and began to |
| demand a subscription for that Nurse Fund. He'd stuck his hands in |
| his pockets as I came in, and he sat down lumpily in his chair. |
| Sniffed. I told him I'd heard he took an interest in scientific |
| things. He said yes. Sniffed again. Kept on sniffing all the time; |
| evidently recently caught an infernal cold. No wonder, wrapped up |
| like that! I developed the nurse idea, and all the while kept my |
| eyes open. Bottles--chemicals--everywhere. Balance, test-tubes |
| in stands, and a smell of--evening primrose. Would he subscribe? |
| Said he'd consider it. Asked him, point-blank, was he researching. |
| Said he was. A long research? Got quite cross. 'A damnable long |
| research,' said he, blowing the cork out, so to speak. 'Oh,' said |
| I. And out came the grievance. The man was just on the boil, and my |
| question boiled him over. He had been given a prescription, most |
| valuable prescription--what for he wouldn't say. Was it medical? |
| 'Damn you! What are you fishing after?' I apologised. Dignified |
| sniff and cough. He resumed. He'd read it. Five ingredients. Put it |
| down; turned his head. Draught of air from window lifted the paper. |
| Swish, rustle. He was working in a room with an open fireplace, he |
| said. Saw a flicker, and there was the prescription burning and |
| lifting chimneyward. Rushed towards it just as it whisked up the |
| chimney. So! Just at that point, to illustrate his story, out came |
| his arm." |
| |
| "Well?" |
| |
| "No hand--just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, _that's_ a |
| deformity! Got a cork arm, I suppose, and has taken it off. Then, I |
| thought, there's something odd in that. What the devil keeps that |
| sleeve up and open, if there's nothing in it? There was nothing in |
| it, I tell you. Nothing down it, right down to the joint. I could |
| see right down it to the elbow, and there was a glimmer of light |
| shining through a tear of the cloth. 'Good God!' I said. Then he |
| stopped. Stared at me with those black goggles of his, and then |
| at his sleeve." |
| |
| "Well?" |
| |
| "That's all. He never said a word; just glared, and put his sleeve |
| back in his pocket quickly. 'I was saying,' said he, 'that there |
| was the prescription burning, wasn't I?' Interrogative cough. |
| 'How the devil,' said I, 'can you move an empty sleeve like that?' |
| 'Empty sleeve?' 'Yes,' said I, 'an empty sleeve.' |
| |
| "'It's an empty sleeve, is it? You saw it was an empty sleeve?' He |
| stood up right away. I stood up too. He came towards me in three |
| very slow steps, and stood quite close. Sniffed venomously. I |
| didn't flinch, though I'm hanged if that bandaged knob of his, and |
| those blinkers, aren't enough to unnerve any one, coming quietly |
| up to you. |
| |
| "'You said it was an empty sleeve?' he said. 'Certainly,' I said. |
| At staring and saying nothing a barefaced man, unspectacled, starts |
| scratch. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket |
| again, and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to |
| me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. Seemed an |
| age. 'Well?' said I, clearing my throat, 'there's nothing in it.' |
| |
| "Had to say something. I was beginning to feel frightened. I could |
| see right down it. He extended it straight towards me, slowly, |
| slowly--just like that--until the cuff was six inches from my |
| face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that! |
| And then--" |
| |
| "Well?" |
| |
| "Something--exactly like a finger and thumb it felt--nipped my |
| nose." |
| |
| Bunting began to laugh. |
| |
| "There wasn't anything there!" said Cuss, his voice running up into |
| a shriek at the "there." "It's all very well for you to laugh, but |
| I tell you I was so startled, I hit his cuff hard, and turned |
| around, and cut out of the room--I left him--" |
| |
| Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic. |
| He turned round in a helpless way and took a second glass of the |
| excellent vicar's very inferior sherry. "When I hit his cuff," said |
| Cuss, "I tell you, it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there |
| wasn't an arm! There wasn't the ghost of an arm!" |
| |
| Mr. Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss. "It's |
| a most remarkable story," he said. He looked very wise and grave |
| indeed. "It's really," said Mr. Bunting with judicial emphasis, "a |
| most remarkable story." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER V |
| |
| THE BURGLARY AT THE VICARAGE |
| |
| |
| The facts of the burglary at the vicarage came to us chiefly |
| through the medium of the vicar and his wife. It occurred in the |
| small hours of Whit Monday, the day devoted in Iping to the Club |
| festivities. Mrs. Bunting, it seems, woke up suddenly in the |
| stillness that comes before the dawn, with the strong impression |
| that the door of their bedroom had opened and closed. She did not |
| arouse her husband at first, but sat up in bed listening. She then |
| distinctly heard the pad, pad, pad of bare feet coming out of the |
| adjoining dressing-room and walking along the passage towards the |
| staircase. As soon as she felt assured of this, she aroused the |
| Rev. Mr. Bunting as quietly as possible. He did not strike a light, |
| but putting on his spectacles, her dressing-gown and his bath |
| slippers, he went out on the landing to listen. He heard quite |
| distinctly a fumbling going on at his study desk down-stairs, and |
| then a violent sneeze. |
| |
| At that he returned to his bedroom, armed himself with the most |
| obvious weapon, the poker, and descended the staircase as |
| noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out on the landing. |
| |
| The hour was about four, and the ultimate darkness of the night was |
| past. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall, but the study |
| doorway yawned impenetrably black. Everything was still except the |
| faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting's tread, and the |
| slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer |
| was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an |
| imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with |
| yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the |
| crack of the door he could see the desk and the open drawer and a |
| candle burning on the desk. But the robber he could not see. He |
| stood there in the hall undecided what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her |
| face white and intent, crept slowly downstairs after him. One thing |
| kept Mr. Bunting's courage; the persuasion that this burglar was a |
| resident in the village. |
| |
| They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had |
| found the housekeeping reserve of gold--two pounds ten in half |
| sovereigns altogether. At that sound Mr. Bunting was nerved to |
| abrupt action. Gripping the poker firmly, he rushed into the room, |
| closely followed by Mrs. Bunting. "Surrender!" cried Mr. Bunting, |
| fiercely, and then stooped amazed. Apparently the room was |
| perfectly empty. |
| |
| Yet their conviction that they had, that very moment, heard somebody |
| moving in the room had amounted to a certainty. For half a minute, |
| perhaps, they stood gaping, then Mrs. Bunting went across the room |
| and looked behind the screen, while Mr. Bunting, by a kindred |
| impulse, peered under the desk. Then Mrs. Bunting turned back the |
| window-curtains, and Mr. Bunting looked up the chimney and probed it |
| with the poker. Then Mrs. Bunting scrutinised the waste-paper basket |
| and Mr. Bunting opened the lid of the coal-scuttle. Then they came |
| to a stop and stood with eyes interrogating each other. |
| |
| "I could have sworn--" said Mr. Bunting. |
| |
| "The candle!" said Mr. Bunting. "Who lit the candle?" |
| |
| "The drawer!" said Mrs. Bunting. "And the money's gone!" |
| |
| She went hastily to the doorway. |
| |
| "Of all the strange occurrences--" |
| |
| There was a violent sneeze in the passage. They rushed out, and as |
| they did so the kitchen door slammed. "Bring the candle," said Mr. |
| Bunting, and led the way. They both heard a sound of bolts being |
| hastily shot back. |
| |
| As he opened the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that |
| the back door was just opening, and the faint light of early dawn |
| displayed the dark masses of the garden beyond. He is certain that |
| nothing went out of the door. It opened, stood open for a moment, |
| and then closed with a slam. As it did so, the candle Mrs. Bunting |
| was carrying from the study flickered and flared. It was a minute |
| or more before they entered the kitchen. |
| |
| The place was empty. They refastened the back door, examined the |
| kitchen, pantry, and scullery thoroughly, and at last went down |
| into the cellar. There was not a soul to be found in the house, |
| search as they would. |
| |
| Daylight found the vicar and his wife, a quaintly-costumed little |
| couple, still marvelling about on their own ground floor by the |
| unnecessary light of a guttering candle. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER VI |
| |
| THE FURNITURE THAT WENT MAD |
| |
| |
| Now it happened that in the early hours of Whit Monday, before |
| Millie was hunted out for the day, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both rose |
| and went noiselessly down into the cellar. Their business there was |
| of a private nature, and had something to do with the specific |
| gravity of their beer. They had hardly entered the cellar when Mrs. |
| Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of sarsaparilla |
| from their joint-room. As she was the expert and principal operator |
| in this affair, Hall very properly went upstairs for it. |
| |
| On the landing he was surprised to see that the stranger's door was |
| ajar. He went on into his own room and found the bottle as he had |
| been directed. |
| |
| But returning with the bottle, he noticed that the bolts of the |
| front door had been shot back, that the door was in fact simply on |
| the latch. And with a flash of inspiration he connected this with |
| the stranger's room upstairs and the suggestions of Mr. Teddy |
| Henfrey. He distinctly remembered holding the candle while Mrs. |
| Hall shot these bolts overnight. At the sight he stopped, gaping, |
| then with the bottle still in his hand went upstairs again. He |
| rapped at the stranger's door. There was no answer. He rapped |
| again; then pushed the door wide open and entered. |
| |
| It was as he expected. The bed, the room also, was empty. And what |
| was stranger, even to his heavy intelligence, on the bedroom chair |
| and along the rail of the bed were scattered the garments, the only |
| garments so far as he knew, and the bandages of their guest. His |
| big slouch hat even was cocked jauntily over the bed-post. |
| |
| As Hall stood there he heard his wife's voice coming out of the |
| depth of the cellar, with that rapid telescoping of the syllables |
| and interrogative cocking up of the final words to a high note, |
| by which the West Sussex villager is wont to indicate a brisk |
| impatience. "George! You gart whad a wand?" |
| |
| At that he turned and hurried down to her. "Janny," he said, over |
| the rail of the cellar steps, "'tas the truth what Henfrey sez. |
| 'E's not in uz room, 'e en't. And the front door's onbolted." |
| |
| At first Mrs. Hall did not understand, and as soon as she did she |
| resolved to see the empty room for herself. Hall, still holding the |
| bottle, went first. "If 'e en't there," he said, "'is close are. |
| And what's 'e doin' 'ithout 'is close, then? 'Tas a most curious |
| business." |
| |
| As they came up the cellar steps they both, it was afterwards |
| ascertained, fancied they heard the front door open and shut, but |
| seeing it closed and nothing there, neither said a word to the other |
| about it at the time. Mrs. Hall passed her husband in the passage |
| and ran on first upstairs. Someone sneezed on the staircase. Hall, |
| following six steps behind, thought that he heard her sneeze. She, |
| going on first, was under the impression that Hall was sneezing. |
| She flung open the door and stood regarding the room. "Of all the |
| curious!" she said. |
| |
| She heard a sniff close behind her head as it seemed, and turning, |
| was surprised to see Hall a dozen feet off on the topmost stair. |
| But in another moment he was beside her. She bent forward and put |
| her hand on the pillow and then under the clothes. |
| |
| "Cold," she said. "He's been up this hour or more." |
| |
| As she did so, a most extraordinary thing happened. The bed-clothes |
| gathered themselves together, leapt up suddenly into a sort of peak, |
| and then jumped headlong over the bottom rail. It was exactly as if |
| a hand had clutched them in the centre and flung them aside. |
| Immediately after, the stranger's hat hopped off the bed-post, |
| described a whirling flight in the air through the better part of |
| a circle, and then dashed straight at Mrs. Hall's face. Then as |
| swiftly came the sponge from the washstand; and then the chair, |
| flinging the stranger's coat and trousers carelessly aside, and |
| laughing drily in a voice singularly like the stranger's, turned |
| itself up with its four legs at Mrs. Hall, seemed to take aim at her |
| for a moment, and charged at her. She screamed and turned, and then |
| the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and impelled |
| her and Hall out of the room. The door slammed violently and was |
| locked. The chair and bed seemed to be executing a dance of triumph |
| for a moment, and then abruptly everything was still. |
| |
| Mrs. Hall was left almost in a fainting condition in Mr. Hall's |
| arms on the landing. It was with the greatest difficulty that Mr. |
| Hall and Millie, who had been roused by her scream of alarm, |
| succeeded in getting her downstairs, and applying the restoratives |
| customary in such cases. |
| |
| "'Tas sperits," said Mrs. Hall. "I know 'tas sperits. I've read in |
| papers of en. Tables and chairs leaping and dancing..." |
| |
| "Take a drop more, Janny," said Hall. "'Twill steady ye." |
| |
| "Lock him out," said Mrs. Hall. "Don't let him come in again. |
| I half guessed--I might ha' known. With them goggling eyes and |
| bandaged head, and never going to church of a Sunday. And all |
| they bottles--more'n it's right for any one to have. He's put the |
| sperits into the furniture.... My good old furniture! 'Twas in |
| that very chair my poor dear mother used to sit when I was a |
| little girl. To think it should rise up against me now!" |
| |
| "Just a drop more, Janny," said Hall. "Your nerves is all upset." |
| |
| They sent Millie across the street through the golden five o'clock |
| sunshine to rouse up Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith. Mr. |
| Hall's compliments and the furniture upstairs was behaving most |
| extraordinary. Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a knowing man, |
| was Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful. He took quite a grave view |
| of the case. "Arm darmed if thet ent witchcraft," was the view of |
| Mr. Sandy Wadgers. "You warnt horseshoes for such gentry as he." |
| |
| He came round greatly concerned. They wanted him to lead the way |
| upstairs to the room, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry. He |
| preferred to talk in the passage. Over the way Huxter's apprentice |
| came out and began taking down the shutters of the tobacco window. |
| He was called over to join the discussion. Mr. Huxter naturally |
| followed over in the course of a few minutes. The Anglo-Saxon |
| genius for parliamentary government asserted itself; there was a |
| great deal of talk and no decisive action. "Let's have the facts |
| first," insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers. "Let's be sure we'd be acting |
| perfectly right in bustin' that there door open. A door onbust is |
| always open to bustin', but ye can't onbust a door once you've |
| busted en." |
| |
| And suddenly and most wonderfully the door of the room upstairs |
| opened of its own accord, and as they looked up in amazement, |
| they saw descending the stairs the muffled figure of the stranger |
| staring more blackly and blankly than ever with those unreasonably |
| large blue glass eyes of his. He came down stiffly and slowly, |
| staring all the time; he walked across the passage staring, then |
| stopped. |
| |
| "Look there!" he said, and their eyes followed the direction of his |
| gloved finger and saw a bottle of sarsaparilla hard by the cellar |
| door. Then he entered the parlour, and suddenly, swiftly, |
| viciously, slammed the door in their faces. |
| |
| Not a word was spoken until the last echoes of the slam had died |
| away. They stared at one another. "Well, if that don't lick |
| everything!" said Mr. Wadgers, and left the alternative unsaid. |
| |
| "I'd go in and ask'n 'bout it," said Wadgers, to Mr. Hall. "I'd |
| d'mand an explanation." |
| |
| It took some time to bring the landlady's husband up to that pitch. |
| At last he rapped, opened the door, and got as far as, "Excuse me--" |
| |
| "Go to the devil!" said the stranger in a tremendous voice, and |
| "Shut that door after you." So that brief interview terminated. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER VII |
| |
| THE UNVEILING OF THE STRANGER |
| |
| |
| The stranger went into the little parlour of the "Coach and Horses" |
| about half-past five in the morning, and there he remained until |
| near midday, the blinds down, the door shut, and none, after Hall's |
| repulse, venturing near him. |
| |
| All that time he must have fasted. Thrice he rang his bell, the |
| third time furiously and continuously, but no one answered him. |
| "Him and his 'go to the devil' indeed!" said Mrs. Hall. Presently |
| came an imperfect rumour of the burglary at the vicarage, and two |
| and two were put together. Hall, assisted by Wadgers, went off to |
| find Mr. Shuckleforth, the magistrate, and take his advice. No one |
| ventured upstairs. How the stranger occupied himself is unknown. |
| Now and then he would stride violently up and down, and twice came |
| an outburst of curses, a tearing of paper, and a violent smashing |
| of bottles. |
| |
| The little group of scared but curious people increased. Mrs. Huxter |
| came over; some gay young fellows resplendent in black ready-made |
| jackets and pique paper ties--for it was Whit Monday--joined |
| the group with confused interrogations. Young Archie Harker |
| distinguished himself by going up the yard and trying to peep |
| under the window-blinds. He could see nothing, but gave reason |
| for supposing that he did, and others of the Iping youth |
| presently joined him. |
| |
| It was the finest of all possible Whit Mondays, and down the |
| village street stood a row of nearly a dozen booths, a shooting |
| gallery, and on the grass by the forge were three yellow and |
| chocolate waggons and some picturesque strangers of both sexes |
| putting up a cocoanut shy. The gentlemen wore blue jerseys, the |
| ladies white aprons and quite fashionable hats with heavy plumes. |
| Woodyer, of the "Purple Fawn," and Mr. Jaggers, the cobbler, who |
| also sold old second-hand ordinary bicycles, were stretching a |
| string of union-jacks and royal ensigns (which had originally |
| celebrated the first Victorian Jubilee) across the road. |
| |
| And inside, in the artificial darkness of the parlour, into which |
| only one thin jet of sunlight penetrated, the stranger, hungry we |
| must suppose, and fearful, hidden in his uncomfortable hot wrappings, |
| pored through his dark glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty |
| little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible |
| if invisible, outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace |
| lay the fragments of half a dozen smashed bottles, and a pungent |
| twang of chlorine tainted the air. So much we know from what was |
| heard at the time and from what was subsequently seen in the room. |
| |
| About noon he suddenly opened his parlour door and stood glaring |
| fixedly at the three or four people in the bar. "Mrs. Hall," he |
| said. Somebody went sheepishly and called for Mrs. Hall. |
| |
| Mrs. Hall appeared after an interval, a little short of breath, but |
| all the fiercer for that. Hall was still out. She had deliberated |
| over this scene, and she came holding a little tray with an |
| unsettled bill upon it. "Is it your bill you're wanting, sir?" she |
| said. |
| |
| "Why wasn't my breakfast laid? Why haven't you prepared my meals |
| and answered my bell? Do you think I live without eating?" |
| |
| "Why isn't my bill paid?" said Mrs. Hall. "That's what I want to |
| know." |
| |
| "I told you three days ago I was awaiting a remittance--" |
| |
| "I told you two days ago I wasn't going to await no remittances. |
| You can't grumble if your breakfast waits a bit, if my bill's been |
| waiting these five days, can you?" |
| |
| The stranger swore briefly but vividly. |
| |
| "Nar, nar!" from the bar. |
| |
| "And I'd thank you kindly, sir, if you'd keep your swearing to |
| yourself, sir," said Mrs. Hall. |
| |
| The stranger stood looking more like an angry diving-helmet than |
| ever. It was universally felt in the bar that Mrs. Hall had the |
| better of him. His next words showed as much. |
| |
| "Look here, my good woman--" he began. |
| |
| "Don't 'good woman' _me_," said Mrs. Hall. |
| |
| "I've told you my remittance hasn't come." |
| |
| "Remittance indeed!" said Mrs. Hall. |
| |
| "Still, I daresay in my pocket--" |
| |
| "You told me three days ago that you hadn't anything but a |
| sovereign's worth of silver upon you." |
| |
| "Well, I've found some more--" |
| |
| "'Ul-lo!" from the bar. |
| |
| "I wonder where you found it," said Mrs. Hall. |
| |
| That seemed to annoy the stranger very much. He stamped his foot. |
| "What do you mean?" he said. |
| |
| "That I wonder where you found it," said Mrs. Hall. "And before I |
| take any bills or get any breakfasts, or do any such things |
| whatsoever, you got to tell me one or two things I don't understand, |
| and what nobody don't understand, and what everybody is very anxious |
| to understand. I want to know what you been doing t'my chair |
| upstairs, and I want to know how 'tis your room was empty, and how |
| you got in again. Them as stops in this house comes in by the |
| doors--that's the rule of the house, and that you _didn't_ do, and |
| what I want to know is how you _did_ come in. And I want to know--" |
| |
| Suddenly the stranger raised his gloved hands clenched, stamped his |
| foot, and said, "Stop!" with such extraordinary violence that he |
| silenced her instantly. |
| |
| "You don't understand," he said, "who I am or what I am. I'll show |
| you. By Heaven! I'll show you." Then he put his open palm over his |
| face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity. |
| "Here," he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs. Hall something |
| which she, staring at his metamorphosed face, accepted automatically. |
| Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and |
| staggered back. The nose--it was the stranger's nose! pink and |
| shining--rolled on the floor. |
| |
| Then he removed his spectacles, and everyone in the bar gasped. He |
| took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers |
| and bandages. For a moment they resisted him. A flash of horrible |
| anticipation passed through the bar. "Oh, my Gard!" said some one. |
| Then off they came. |
| |
| It was worse than anything. Mrs. Hall, standing open-mouthed and |
| horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw, and made for the door of |
| the house. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars, |
| disfigurements, tangible horrors, but nothing! The bandages and |
| false hair flew across the passage into the bar, making a |
| hobbledehoy jump to avoid them. Everyone tumbled on everyone else |
| down the steps. For the man who stood there shouting some incoherent |
| explanation, was a solid gesticulating figure up to the coat-collar |
| of him, and then--nothingness, no visible thing at all! |
| |
| People down the village heard shouts and shrieks, and looking up |
| the street saw the "Coach and Horses" violently firing out its |
| humanity. They saw Mrs. Hall fall down and Mr. Teddy Henfrey jump |
| to avoid tumbling over her, and then they heard the frightful |
| screams of Millie, who, emerging suddenly from the kitchen at the |
| noise of the tumult, had come upon the headless stranger from |
| behind. These increased suddenly. |
| |
| Forthwith everyone all down the street, the sweetstuff seller, |
| cocoanut shy proprietor and his assistant, the swing man, little |
| boys and girls, rustic dandies, smart wenches, smocked elders |
| and aproned gipsies--began running towards the inn, and in a |
| miraculously short space of time a crowd of perhaps forty people, |
| and rapidly increasing, swayed and hooted and inquired and |
| exclaimed and suggested, in front of Mrs. Hall's establishment. |
| Everyone seemed eager to talk at once, and the result was Babel. A |
| small group supported Mrs. Hall, who was picked up in a state of |
| collapse. There was a conference, and the incredible evidence of a |
| vociferous eye-witness. "O Bogey!" "What's he been doin', then?" |
| "Ain't hurt the girl, 'as 'e?" "Run at en with a knife, I believe." |
| "No 'ed, I tell ye. I don't mean no manner of speaking. I mean marn |
| 'ithout a 'ed!" "Narnsense! 'tis some conjuring trick." "Fetched |
| off 'is wrapping, 'e did--" |
| |
| In its struggles to see in through the open door, the crowd formed |
| itself into a straggling wedge, with the more adventurous apex |
| nearest the inn. "He stood for a moment, I heerd the gal scream, |
| and he turned. I saw her skirts whisk, and he went after her. |
| Didn't take ten seconds. Back he comes with a knife in uz hand and |
| a loaf; stood just as if he was staring. Not a moment ago. Went in |
| that there door. I tell 'e, 'e ain't gart no 'ed at all. You just |
| missed en--" |
| |
| There was a disturbance behind, and the speaker stopped to step |
| aside for a little procession that was marching very resolutely |
| towards the house; first Mr. Hall, very red and determined, then |
| Mr. Bobby Jaffers, the village constable, and then the wary Mr. |
| Wadgers. They had come now armed with a warrant. |
| |
| People shouted conflicting information of the recent circumstances. |
| "'Ed or no 'ed," said Jaffers, "I got to 'rest en, and 'rest en I |
| _will_." |
| |
| Mr. Hall marched up the steps, marched straight to the door of the |
| parlour and flung it open. "Constable," he said, "do your duty." |
| |
| Jaffers marched in. Hall next, Wadgers last. They saw in the dim |
| light the headless figure facing them, with a gnawed crust of bread |
| in one gloved hand and a chunk of cheese in the other. |
| |
| "That's him!" said Hall. |
| |
| "What the devil's this?" came in a tone of angry expostulation from |
| above the collar of the figure. |
| |
| "You're a damned rum customer, mister," said Mr. Jaffers. "But 'ed |
| or no 'ed, the warrant says 'body,' and duty's duty--" |
| |
| "Keep off!" said the figure, starting back. |
| |
| Abruptly he whipped down the bread and cheese, and Mr. Hall just |
| grasped the knife on the table in time to save it. Off came the |
| stranger's left glove and was slapped in Jaffers' face. In another |
| moment Jaffers, cutting short some statement concerning a warrant, |
| had gripped him by the handless wrist and caught his invisible |
| throat. He got a sounding kick on the shin that made him shout, but |
| he kept his grip. Hall sent the knife sliding along the table to |
| Wadgers, who acted as goal-keeper for the offensive, so to speak, |
| and then stepped forward as Jaffers and the stranger swayed and |
| staggered towards him, clutching and hitting in. A chair stood in |
| the way, and went aside with a crash as they came down together. |
| |
| "Get the feet," said Jaffers between his teeth. |
| |
| Mr. Hall, endeavouring to act on instructions, received a sounding |
| kick in the ribs that disposed of him for a moment, and Mr. |
| Wadgers, seeing the decapitated stranger had rolled over and got |
| the upper side of Jaffers, retreated towards the door, knife in |
| hand, and so collided with Mr. Huxter and the Sidderbridge carter |
| coming to the rescue of law and order. At the same moment down came |
| three or four bottles from the chiffonnier and shot a web of |
| pungency into the air of the room. |
| |
| "I'll surrender," cried the stranger, though he had Jaffers down, |
| and in another moment he stood up panting, a strange figure, |
| headless and handless--for he had pulled off his right glove now |
| as well as his left. "It's no good," he said, as if sobbing for |
| breath. |
| |
| It was the strangest thing in the world to hear that voice coming |
| as if out of empty space, but the Sussex peasants are perhaps the |
| most matter-of-fact people under the sun. Jaffers got up also and |
| produced a pair of handcuffs. Then he stared. |
| |
| "I say!" said Jaffers, brought up short by a dim realization of the |
| incongruity of the whole business, "Darn it! Can't use 'em as I can |
| see." |
| |
| The stranger ran his arm down his waistcoat, and as if by a miracle |
| the buttons to which his empty sleeve pointed became undone. Then |
| he said something about his shin, and stooped down. He seemed to be |
| fumbling with his shoes and socks. |
| |
| "Why!" said Huxter, suddenly, "that's not a man at all. It's just |
| empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of |
| his clothes. I could put my arm--" |
| |
| He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something in mid-air, and |
| he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. "I wish you'd keep your |
| fingers out of my eye," said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage |
| expostulation. "The fact is, I'm all here--head, hands, legs, and |
| all the rest of it, but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded |
| nuisance, but I am. That's no reason why I should be poked to |
| pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?" |
| |
| The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon |
| its unseen supports, stood up, arms akimbo. |
| |
| Several other of the men folks had now entered the room, so that it |
| was closely crowded. "Invisible, eh?" said Huxter, ignoring the |
| stranger's abuse. "Who ever heard the likes of that?" |
| |
| "It's strange, perhaps, but it's not a crime. Why am I assaulted by |
| a policeman in this fashion?" |
| |
| "Ah! that's a different matter," said Jaffers. "No doubt you are a |
| bit difficult to see in this light, but I got a warrant and it's |
| all correct. What I'm after ain't no invisibility,--it's burglary. |
| There's a house been broke into and money took." |
| |
| "Well?" |
| |
| "And circumstances certainly point--" |
| |
| "Stuff and nonsense!" said the Invisible Man. |
| |
| "I hope so, sir; but I've got my instructions." |
| |
| "Well," said the stranger, "I'll come. I'll _come_. But no |
| handcuffs." |
| |
| "It's the regular thing," said Jaffers. |
| |
| "No handcuffs," stipulated the stranger. |
| |
| "Pardon me," said Jaffers. |
| |
| Abruptly the figure sat down, and before any one could realise was |
| was being done, the slippers, socks, and trousers had been kicked |
| off under the table. Then he sprang up again and flung off his coat. |
| |
| "Here, stop that," said Jaffers, suddenly realising what was |
| happening. He gripped at the waistcoat; it struggled, and the shirt |
| slipped out of it and left it limply and empty in his hand. "Hold |
| him!" said Jaffers, loudly. "Once he gets the things off--" |
| |
| "Hold him!" cried everyone, and there was a rush at the fluttering |
| white shirt which was now all that was visible of the stranger. |
| |
| The shirt-sleeve planted a shrewd blow in Hall's face that stopped |
| his open-armed advance, and sent him backward into old Toothsome |
| the sexton, and in another moment the garment was lifted up and |
| became convulsed and vacantly flapping about the arms, even as a |
| shirt that is being thrust over a man's head. Jaffers clutched at |
| it, and only helped to pull it off; he was struck in the mouth out |
| of the air, and incontinently threw his truncheon and smote Teddy |
| Henfrey savagely upon the crown of his head. |
| |
| "Look out!" said everybody, fencing at random and hitting at |
| nothing. "Hold him! Shut the door! Don't let him loose! I got |
| something! Here he is!" A perfect Babel of noises they made. |
| Everybody, it seemed, was being hit all at once, and Sandy Wadgers, |
| knowing as ever and his wits sharpened by a frightful blow in the |
| nose, reopened the door and led the rout. The others, following |
| incontinently, were jammed for a moment in the corner by the |
| doorway. The hitting continued. Phipps, the Unitarian, had a front |
| tooth broken, and Henfrey was injured in the cartilage of his ear. |
| Jaffers was struck under the jaw, and, turning, caught at something |
| that intervened between him and Huxter in the melee, and prevented |
| their coming together. He felt a muscular chest, and in another |
| moment the whole mass of struggling, excited men shot out into the |
| crowded hall. |
| |
| "I got him!" shouted Jaffers, choking and reeling through them all, |
| and wrestling with purple face and swelling veins against his |
| unseen enemy. |
| |
| Men staggered right and left as the extraordinary conflict swayed |
| swiftly towards the house door, and went spinning down the |
| half-dozen steps of the inn. Jaffers cried in a strangled |
| voice--holding tight, nevertheless, and making play with his |
| knee--spun around, and fell heavily undermost with his head on |
| the gravel. Only then did his fingers relax. |
| |
| There were excited cries of "Hold him!" "Invisible!" and so forth, |
| and a young fellow, a stranger in the place whose name did not come |
| to light, rushed in at once, caught something, missed his hold, |
| and fell over the constable's prostrate body. Half-way across the |
| road a woman screamed as something pushed by her; a dog, kicked |
| apparently, yelped and ran howling into Huxter's yard, and with |
| that the transit of the Invisible Man was accomplished. For a space |
| people stood amazed and gesticulating, and then came panic, and |
| scattered them abroad through the village as a gust scatters dead |
| leaves. |
| |
| But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees bent, at the foot |
| of the steps of the inn. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER VIII |
| |
| IN TRANSIT |
| |
| |
| The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that Gibbons, |
| the amateur naturalist of the district, while lying out on the |
| spacious open downs without a soul within a couple of miles of him, |
| as he thought, and almost dozing, heard close to him the sound as |
| of a man coughing, sneezing, and then swearing savagely to himself; |
| and looking, beheld nothing. Yet the voice was indisputable. It |
| continued to swear with that breadth and variety that distinguishes |
| the swearing of a cultivated man. It grew to a climax, diminished |
| again, and died away in the distance, going as it seemed to him in |
| the direction of Adderdean. It lifted to a spasmodic sneeze and |
| ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning's occurrences, but |
| the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical |
| tranquillity vanished; he got up hastily, and hurried down the |
| steepness of the hill towards the village, as fast as he could go. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER IX |
| |
| MR. THOMAS MARVEL |
| |
| |
| You must picture Mr. Thomas Marvel as a person of copious, flexible |
| visage, a nose of cylindrical protrusion, a liquorish, ample, |
| fluctuating mouth, and a beard of bristling eccentricity. His figure |
| inclined to embonpoint; his short limbs accentuated this inclination. |
| He wore a furry silk hat, and the frequent substitution of twine and |
| shoe-laces for buttons, apparent at critical points of his costume, |
| marked a man essentially bachelor. |
| |
| Mr. Thomas Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the |
| roadside over the down towards Adderdean, about a mile and a half |
| out of Iping. His feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, were |
| bare, his big toes were broad, and pricked like the ears of a |
| watchful dog. In a leisurely manner--he did everything in a |
| leisurely manner--he was contemplating trying on a pair of boots. |
| They were the soundest boots he had come across for a long time, but |
| too large for him; whereas the ones he had were, in dry weather, a |
| very comfortable fit, but too thin-soled for damp. Mr. Thomas Marvel |
| hated roomy shoes, but then he hated damp. He had never properly |
| thought out which he hated most, and it was a pleasant day, and |
| there was nothing better to do. So he put the four shoes in a |
| graceful group on the turf and looked at them. And seeing them there |
| among the grass and springing agrimony, it suddenly occurred to him |
| that both pairs were exceedingly ugly to see. He was not at all |
| startled by a voice behind him. |
| |
| "They're boots, anyhow," said the Voice. |
| |
| "They are--charity boots," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with his head |
| on one side regarding them distastefully; "and which is the ugliest |
| pair in the whole blessed universe, I'm darned if I know!" |
| |
| "H'm," said the Voice. |
| |
| "I've worn worse--in fact, I've worn none. But none so owdacious |
| ugly--if you'll allow the expression. I've been cadging boots--in |
| particular--for days. Because I was sick of _them_. They're sound |
| enough, of course. But a gentleman on tramp sees such a thundering |
| lot of his boots. And if you'll believe me, I've raised nothing in |
| the whole blessed country, try as I would, but _them_. Look at 'em! |
| And a good country for boots, too, in a general way. But it's just |
| my promiscuous luck. I've got my boots in this country ten years or |
| more. And then they treat you like this." |
| |
| "It's a beast of a country," said the Voice. "And pigs for people." |
| |
| "Ain't it?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Lord! But them boots! It beats |
| it." |
| |
| He turned his head over his shoulder to the right, to look at the |
| boots of his interlocutor with a view to comparisons, and lo! where |
| the boots of his interlocutor should have been were neither legs |
| nor boots. He was irradiated by the dawn of a great amazement. |
| "Where _are_ yer?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel over his shoulder and |
| coming on all fours. He saw a stretch of empty downs with the wind |
| swaying the remote green-pointed furze bushes. |
| |
| "Am I drunk?" said Mr. Marvel. "Have I had visions? Was I talking |
| to myself? What the--" |
| |
| "Don't be alarmed," said a Voice. |
| |
| "None of your ventriloquising _me_," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rising |
| sharply to his feet. "Where _are_ yer? Alarmed, indeed!" |
| |
| "Don't be alarmed," repeated the Voice. |
| |
| "_You'll_ be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool," said Mr. Thomas |
| Marvel. "Where _are_ yer? Lemme get my mark on yer... |
| |
| "Are yer _buried_?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, after an interval. |
| |
| There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed, |
| his jacket nearly thrown off. |
| |
| "Peewit," said a peewit, very remote. |
| |
| "Peewit, indeed!" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "This ain't no time for |
| foolery." The down was desolate, east and west, north and south; |
| the road with its shallow ditches and white bordering stakes, ran |
| smooth and empty north and south, and, save for that peewit, the |
| blue sky was empty too. "So help me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, |
| shuffling his coat on to his shoulders again. "It's the drink! |
| I might ha' known." |
| |
| "It's not the drink," said the Voice. "You keep your nerves |
| steady." |
| |
| "Ow!" said Mr. Marvel, and his face grew white amidst its patches. |
| "It's the drink!" his lips repeated noiselessly. He remained staring |
| about him, rotating slowly backwards. "I could have _swore_ I heard |
| a voice," he whispered. |
| |
| "Of course you did." |
| |
| "It's there again," said Mr. Marvel, closing his eyes and clasping |
| his hand on his brow with a tragic gesture. He was suddenly taken |
| by the collar and shaken violently, and left more dazed than ever. |
| "Don't be a fool," said the Voice. |
| |
| "I'm--off--my--blooming--chump," said Mr. Marvel. "It's no good. |
| It's fretting about them blarsted boots. I'm off my blessed blooming |
| chump. Or it's spirits." |
| |
| "Neither one thing nor the other," said the Voice. "Listen!" |
| |
| "Chump," said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "One minute," said the Voice, penetratingly, tremulous with |
| self-control. |
| |
| "Well?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with a strange feeling of having |
| been dug in the chest by a finger. |
| |
| "You think I'm just imagination? Just imagination?" |
| |
| "What else _can_ you be?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rubbing the back of |
| his neck. |
| |
| "Very well," said the Voice, in a tone of relief. "Then I'm going |
| to throw flints at you till you think differently." |
| |
| "But where _are_ yer?" |
| |
| The Voice made no answer. Whizz came a flint, apparently out of |
| the air, and missed Mr. Marvel's shoulder by a hair's-breadth. |
| Mr. Marvel, turning, saw a flint jerk up into the air, trace a |
| complicated path, hang for a moment, and then fling at his feet |
| with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to dodge. Whizz |
| it came, and ricochetted from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas |
| Marvel jumped a foot and howled aloud. Then he started to run, |
| tripped over an unseen obstacle, and came head over heels into a |
| sitting position. |
| |
| "_Now_," said the Voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in |
| the air above the tramp. "Am I imagination?" |
| |
| Mr. Marvel by way of reply struggled to his feet, and was |
| immediately rolled over again. He lay quiet for a moment. "If you |
| struggle any more," said the Voice, "I shall throw the flint at |
| your head." |
| |
| "It's a fair do," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his |
| wounded toe in hand and fixing his eye on the third missile. "I |
| don't understand it. Stones flinging themselves. Stones talking. |
| Put yourself down. Rot away. I'm done." |
| |
| The third flint fell. |
| |
| "It's very simple," said the Voice. "I'm an invisible man." |
| |
| "Tell us something I don't know," said Mr. Marvel, gasping with |
| pain. "Where you've hid--how you do it--I _don't_ know. I'm beat." |
| |
| "That's all," said the Voice. "I'm invisible. That's what I want |
| you to understand." |
| |
| "Anyone could see that. There is no need for you to be so confounded |
| impatient, mister. _Now_ then. Give us a notion. How are you hid?" |
| |
| "I'm invisible. That's the great point. And what I want you to |
| understand is this--" |
| |
| "But whereabouts?" interrupted Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "Here! Six yards in front of you." |
| |
| "Oh, _come_! I ain't blind. You'll be telling me next you're just |
| thin air. I'm not one of your ignorant tramps--" |
| |
| "Yes, I am--thin air. You're looking through me." |
| |
| "What! Ain't there any stuff to you. Vox et--what is it?--jabber. |
| Is it that?" |
| |
| "I am just a human being--solid, needing food and drink, needing |
| covering too--But I'm invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea. |
| Invisible." |
| |
| "What, real like?" |
| |
| "Yes, real." |
| |
| "Let's have a hand of you," said Marvel, "if you _are_ real. It won't |
| be so darn out-of-the-way like, then--Lord!" he said, "how you made |
| me jump!--gripping me like that!" |
| |
| He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his disengaged |
| fingers, and his fingers went timorously up the arm, patted a |
| muscular chest, and explored a bearded face. Marvel's face was |
| astonishment. |
| |
| "I'm dashed!" he said. "If this don't beat cock-fighting! Most |
| remarkable!--And there I can see a rabbit clean through you, 'arf |
| a mile away! Not a bit of you visible--except--" |
| |
| He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly. "You 'aven't been |
| eatin' bread and cheese?" he asked, holding the invisible arm. |
| |
| "You're quite right, and it's not quite assimilated into the system." |
| |
| "Ah!" said Mr. Marvel. "Sort of ghostly, though." |
| |
| "Of course, all this isn't half so wonderful as you think." |
| |
| "It's quite wonderful enough for _my_ modest wants," said Mr. Thomas |
| Marvel. "Howjer manage it! How the dooce is it done?" |
| |
| "It's too long a story. And besides--" |
| |
| "I tell you, the whole business fairly beats me," said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "What I want to say at present is this: I need help. I have come to |
| that--I came upon you suddenly. I was wandering, mad with rage, |
| naked, impotent. I could have murdered. And I saw you--" |
| |
| "Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "I came up behind you--hesitated--went on--" |
| |
| Mr. Marvel's expression was eloquent. |
| |
| "--then stopped. 'Here,' I said, 'is an outcast like myself. This is |
| the man for me.' So I turned back and came to you--you. And--" |
| |
| "Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "But I'm all in a tizzy. May I ask--How |
| is it? And what you may be requiring in the way of help?--Invisible!" |
| |
| "I want you to help me get clothes--and shelter--and then, with |
| other things. I've left them long enough. If you won't--well! But |
| you will--must." |
| |
| "Look here," said Mr. Marvel. "I'm too flabbergasted. Don't knock |
| me about any more. And leave me go. I must get steady a bit. And |
| you've pretty near broken my toe. It's all so unreasonable. Empty |
| downs, empty sky. Nothing visible for miles except the bosom of |
| Nature. And then comes a voice. A voice out of heaven! And stones! |
| And a fist--Lord!" |
| |
| "Pull yourself together," said the Voice, "for you have to do the |
| job I've chosen for you." |
| |
| Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were round. |
| |
| "I've chosen you," said the Voice. "You are the only man except |
| some of those fools down there, who knows there is such a thing as |
| an invisible man. You have to be my helper. Help me--and I will |
| do great things for you. An invisible man is a man of power." He |
| stopped for a moment to sneeze violently. |
| |
| "But if you betray me," he said, "if you fail to do as I direct you--" |
| He paused and tapped Mr. Marvel's shoulder smartly. Mr. Marvel |
| gave a yelp of terror at the touch. "I don't want to betray you," |
| said Mr. Marvel, edging away from the direction of the fingers. |
| "Don't you go a-thinking that, whatever you do. All I want to do is |
| to help you--just tell me what I got to do. (Lord!) Whatever you |
| want done, that I'm most willing to do." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER X |
| |
| MR. MARVEL'S VISIT TO IPING |
| |
| |
| After the first gusty panic had spent itself Iping became |
| argumentative. Scepticism suddenly reared its head--rather nervous |
| scepticism, not at all assured of its back, but scepticism |
| nevertheless. It is so much easier not to believe in an invisible |
| man; and those who had actually seen him dissolve into air, or felt |
| the strength of his arm, could be counted on the fingers of two |
| hands. And of these witnesses Mr. Wadgers was presently missing, |
| having retired impregnably behind the bolts and bars of his own |
| house, and Jaffers was lying stunned in the parlour of the "Coach |
| and Horses." Great and strange ideas transcending experience often |
| have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible |
| considerations. Iping was gay with bunting, and everybody was in |
| gala dress. Whit Monday had been looked forward to for a month or |
| more. By the afternoon even those who believed in the Unseen were |
| beginning to resume their little amusements in a tentative fashion, |
| on the supposition that he had quite gone away, and with the |
| sceptics he was already a jest. But people, sceptics and believers |
| alike, were remarkably sociable all that day. |
| |
| Haysman's meadow was gay with a tent, in which Mrs. Bunting and |
| other ladies were preparing tea, while, without, the Sunday-school |
| children ran races and played games under the noisy guidance of the |
| curate and the Misses Cuss and Sackbut. No doubt there was a slight |
| uneasiness in the air, but people for the most part had the sense |
| to conceal whatever imaginative qualms they experienced. On the |
| village green an inclined strong, down which, clinging the while |
| to a pulley-swung handle, one could be hurled violently against a |
| sack at the other end, came in for considerable favour among the |
| adolescent, as also did the swings and the cocoanut shies. There |
| was also promenading, and the steam organ attached to a small |
| roundabout filled the air with a pungent flavour of oil and with |
| equally pungent music. Members of the club, who had attended |
| church in the morning, were splendid in badges of pink and green, |
| and some of the gayer-minded had also adorned their bowler hats |
| with brilliant-coloured favours of ribbon. Old Fletcher, whose |
| conceptions of holiday-making were severe, was visible through the |
| jasmine about his window or through the open door (whichever way |
| you chose to look), poised delicately on a plank supported on two |
| chairs, and whitewashing the ceiling of his front room. |
| |
| About four o'clock a stranger entered the village from the direction |
| of the downs. He was a short, stout person in an extraordinarily |
| shabby top hat, and he appeared to be very much out of breath. His |
| cheeks were alternately limp and tightly puffed. His mottled face |
| was apprehensive, and he moved with a sort of reluctant alacrity. He |
| turned the corner of the church, and directed his way to the "Coach |
| and Horses." Among others old Fletcher remembers seeing him, and |
| indeed the old gentleman was so struck by his peculiar agitation |
| that he inadvertently allowed a quantity of whitewash to run down |
| the brush into the sleeve of his coat while regarding him. |
| |
| This stranger, to the perceptions of the proprietor of the cocoanut |
| shy, appeared to be talking to himself, and Mr. Huxter remarked the |
| same thing. He stopped at the foot of the "Coach and Horses" steps, |
| and, according to Mr. Huxter, appeared to undergo a severe internal |
| struggle before he could induce himself to enter the house. Finally |
| he marched up the steps, and was seen by Mr. Huxter to turn to the |
| left and open the door of the parlour. Mr. Huxter heard voices from |
| within the room and from the bar apprising the man of his error. |
| "That room's private!" said Hall, and the stranger shut the door |
| clumsily and went into the bar. |
| |
| In the course of a few minutes he reappeared, wiping his lips with |
| the back of his hand with an air of quiet satisfaction that somehow |
| impressed Mr. Huxter as assumed. He stood looking about him for |
| some moments, and then Mr. Huxter saw him walk in an oddly furtive |
| manner towards the gates of the yard, upon which the parlour window |
| opened. The stranger, after some hesitation, leant against one of |
| the gate-posts, produced a short clay pipe, and prepared to fill |
| it. His fingers trembled while doing so. He lit it clumsily, and |
| folding his arms began to smoke in a languid attitude, an attitude |
| which his occasional glances up the yard altogether belied. |
| |
| All this Mr. Huxter saw over the canisters of the tobacco window, |
| and the singularity of the man's behaviour prompted him to maintain |
| his observation. |
| |
| Presently the stranger stood up abruptly and put his pipe in his |
| pocket. Then he vanished into the yard. Forthwith Mr. Huxter, |
| conceiving he was witness of some petty larceny, leapt round his |
| counter and ran out into the road to intercept the thief. As he did |
| so, Mr. Marvel reappeared, his hat askew, a big bundle in a blue |
| table-cloth in one hand, and three books tied together--as it proved |
| afterwards with the Vicar's braces--in the other. Directly he saw |
| Huxter he gave a sort of gasp, and turning sharply to the left, |
| began to run. "Stop, thief!" cried Huxter, and set off after him. |
| Mr. Huxter's sensations were vivid but brief. He saw the man just |
| before him and spurting briskly for the church corner and the hill |
| road. He saw the village flags and festivities beyond, and a face or |
| so turned towards him. He bawled, "Stop!" again. He had hardly gone |
| ten strides before his shin was caught in some mysterious fashion, |
| and he was no longer running, but flying with inconceivable rapidity |
| through the air. He saw the ground suddenly close to his face. The |
| world seemed to splash into a million whirling specks of light, and |
| subsequent proceedings interested him no more. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XI |
| |
| IN THE "COACH AND HORSES" |
| |
| |
| Now in order clearly to understand what had happened in the inn, it |
| is necessary to go back to the moment when Mr. Marvel first came |
| into view of Mr. Huxter's window. |
| |
| At that precise moment Mr. Cuss and Mr. Bunting were in the parlour. |
| They were seriously investigating the strange occurrences of the |
| morning, and were, with Mr. Hall's permission, making a thorough |
| examination of the Invisible Man's belongings. Jaffers had partially |
| recovered from his fall and had gone home in the charge of his |
| sympathetic friends. The stranger's scattered garments had been |
| removed by Mrs. Hall and the room tidied up. And on the table under |
| the window where the stranger had been wont to work, Cuss had hit |
| almost at once on three big books in manuscript labelled "Diary." |
| |
| "Diary!" said Cuss, putting the three books on the table. "Now, at |
| any rate, we shall learn something." The Vicar stood with his hands |
| on the table. |
| |
| "Diary," repeated Cuss, sitting down, putting two volumes to |
| support the third, and opening it. "H'm--no name on the fly-leaf. |
| Bother!--cypher. And figures." |
| |
| The vicar came round to look over his shoulder. |
| |
| Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed. |
| "I'm--dear me! It's all cypher, Bunting." |
| |
| "There are no diagrams?" asked Mr. Bunting. "No illustrations |
| throwing light--" |
| |
| "See for yourself," said Mr. Cuss. "Some of it's mathematical and |
| some of it's Russian or some such language (to judge by the |
| letters), and some of it's Greek. Now the Greek I thought _you_--" |
| |
| "Of course," said Mr. Bunting, taking out and wiping his spectacles |
| and feeling suddenly very uncomfortable--for he had no Greek |
| left in his mind worth talking about; "yes--the Greek, of course, |
| may furnish a clue." |
| |
| "I'll find you a place." |
| |
| "I'd rather glance through the volumes first," said Mr. Bunting, |
| still wiping. "A general impression first, Cuss, and _then_, you |
| know, we can go looking for clues." |
| |
| He coughed, put on his glasses, arranged them fastidiously, coughed |
| again, and wished something would happen to avert the seemingly |
| inevitable exposure. Then he took the volume Cuss handed him in a |
| leisurely manner. And then something did happen. |
| |
| The door opened suddenly. |
| |
| Both gentlemen started violently, looked round, and were relieved |
| to see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. "Tap?" |
| asked the face, and stood staring. |
| |
| "No," said both gentlemen at once. |
| |
| "Over the other side, my man," said Mr. Bunting. And "Please shut |
| that door," said Mr. Cuss, irritably. |
| |
| "All right," said the intruder, as it seemed in a low voice |
| curiously different from the huskiness of its first inquiry. "Right |
| you are," said the intruder in the former voice. "Stand clear!" and |
| he vanished and closed the door. |
| |
| "A sailor, I should judge," said Mr. Bunting. "Amusing fellows, they |
| are. Stand clear! indeed. A nautical term, referring to his getting |
| back out of the room, I suppose." |
| |
| "I daresay so," said Cuss. "My nerves are all loose to-day. It quite |
| made me jump--the door opening like that." |
| |
| Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. "And now," he said with |
| a sigh, "these books." |
| |
| Someone sniffed as he did so. |
| |
| "One thing is indisputable," said Bunting, drawing up a chair next |
| to that of Cuss. "There certainly have been very strange things |
| happen in Iping during the last few days--very strange. I cannot |
| of course believe in this absurd invisibility story--" |
| |
| "It's incredible," said Cuss--"incredible. But the fact remains |
| that I saw--I certainly saw right down his sleeve--" |
| |
| "But did you--are you sure? Suppose a mirror, for instance-- |
| hallucinations are so easily produced. I don't know if you |
| have ever seen a really good conjuror--" |
| |
| "I won't argue again," said Cuss. "We've thrashed that out, |
| Bunting. And just now there's these books--Ah! here's some of |
| what I take to be Greek! Greek letters certainly." |
| |
| He pointed to the middle of the page. Mr. Bunting flushed slightly |
| and brought his face nearer, apparently finding some difficulty |
| with his glasses. Suddenly he became aware of a strange feeling at |
| the nape of his neck. He tried to raise his head, and encountered |
| an immovable resistance. The feeling was a curious pressure, the |
| grip of a heavy, firm hand, and it bore his chin irresistibly to |
| the table. "Don't move, little men," whispered a voice, "or I'll |
| brain you both!" He looked into the face of Cuss, close to his own, |
| and each saw a horrified reflection of his own sickly astonishment. |
| |
| "I'm sorry to handle you so roughly," said the Voice, "but it's |
| unavoidable." |
| |
| "Since when did you learn to pry into an investigator's private |
| memoranda," said the Voice; and two chins struck the table |
| simultaneously, and two sets of teeth rattled. |
| |
| "Since when did you learn to invade the private rooms of a man in |
| misfortune?" and the concussion was repeated. |
| |
| "Where have they put my clothes?" |
| |
| "Listen," said the Voice. "The windows are fastened and I've taken |
| the key out of the door. I am a fairly strong man, and I have the |
| poker handy--besides being invisible. There's not the slightest |
| doubt that I could kill you both and get away quite easily if I |
| wanted to--do you understand? Very well. If I let you go will you |
| promise not to try any nonsense and do what I tell you?" |
| |
| The vicar and the doctor looked at one another, and the doctor |
| pulled a face. "Yes," said Mr. Bunting, and the doctor repeated it. |
| Then the pressure on the necks relaxed, and the doctor and the |
| vicar sat up, both very red in the face and wriggling their heads. |
| |
| "Please keep sitting where you are," said the Invisible Man. |
| "Here's the poker, you see." |
| |
| "When I came into this room," continued the Invisible Man, after |
| presenting the poker to the tip of the nose of each of his visitors, |
| "I did not expect to find it occupied, and I expected to find, in |
| addition to my books of memoranda, an outfit of clothing. Where is |
| it? No--don't rise. I can see it's gone. Now, just at present, |
| though the days are quite warm enough for an invisible man to run |
| about stark, the evenings are quite chilly. I want clothing--and |
| other accommodation; and I must also have those three books." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XII |
| |
| THE INVISIBLE MAN LOSES HIS TEMPER |
| |
| |
| It is unavoidable that at this point the narrative should break off |
| again, for a certain very painful reason that will presently be |
| apparent. While these things were going on in the parlour, and |
| while Mr. Huxter was watching Mr. Marvel smoking his pipe against |
| the gate, not a dozen yards away were Mr. Hall and Teddy Henfrey |
| discussing in a state of cloudy puzzlement the one Iping topic. |
| |
| Suddenly there came a violent thud against the door of the parlour, |
| a sharp cry, and then--silence. |
| |
| "Hul-lo!" said Teddy Henfrey. |
| |
| "Hul-lo!" from the Tap. |
| |
| Mr. Hall took things in slowly but surely. "That ain't right," he |
| said, and came round from behind the bar towards the parlour door. |
| |
| He and Teddy approached the door together, with intent faces. Their |
| eyes considered. "Summat wrong," said Hall, and Henfrey nodded |
| agreement. Whiffs of an unpleasant chemical odour met them, and |
| there was a muffled sound of conversation, very rapid and subdued. |
| |
| "You all right thur?" asked Hall, rapping. |
| |
| The muttered conversation ceased abruptly, for a moment silence, |
| then the conversation was resumed, in hissing whispers, then a |
| sharp cry of "No! no, you don't!" There came a sudden motion and |
| the oversetting of a chair, a brief struggle. Silence again. |
| |
| "What the dooce?" exclaimed Henfrey, sotto voce. |
| |
| "You--all--right thur?" asked Mr. Hall, sharply, again. |
| |
| The Vicar's voice answered with a curious jerking intonation: |
| "Quite ri-right. Please don't--interrupt." |
| |
| "Odd!" said Mr. Henfrey. |
| |
| "Odd!" said Mr. Hall. |
| |
| "Says, 'Don't interrupt,'" said Henfrey. |
| |
| "I heerd'n," said Hall. |
| |
| "And a sniff," said Henfrey. |
| |
| They remained listening. The conversation was rapid and subdued. |
| "I can't," said Mr. Bunting, his voice rising; "I tell you, sir, |
| I will not." |
| |
| "What was that?" asked Henfrey. |
| |
| "Says he wi' nart," said Hall. "Warn't speaking to us, wuz he?" |
| |
| "Disgraceful!" said Mr. Bunting, within. |
| |
| "'Disgraceful,'" said Mr. Henfrey. "I heard it--distinct." |
| |
| "Who's that speaking now?" asked Henfrey. |
| |
| "Mr. Cuss, I s'pose," said Hall. "Can you hear--anything?" |
| |
| Silence. The sounds within indistinct and perplexing. |
| |
| "Sounds like throwing the table-cloth about," said Hall. |
| |
| Mrs. Hall appeared behind the bar. Hall made gestures of silence and |
| invitation. This aroused Mrs. Hall's wifely opposition. "What yer |
| listenin' there for, Hall?" she asked. "Ain't you nothin' better to |
| do--busy day like this?" |
| |
| Hall tried to convey everything by grimaces and dumb show, but Mrs. |
| Hall was obdurate. She raised her voice. So Hall and Henfrey, rather |
| crestfallen, tiptoed back to the bar, gesticulating to explain to |
| her. |
| |
| At first she refused to see anything in what they had heard at |
| all. Then she insisted on Hall keeping silence, while Henfrey told |
| her his story. She was inclined to think the whole business |
| nonsense--perhaps they were just moving the furniture about. "I |
| heerd'n say 'disgraceful'; _that_ I did," said Hall. |
| |
| "_I_ heerd that, Mrs. Hall," said Henfrey. |
| |
| "Like as not--" began Mrs. Hall. |
| |
| "Hsh!" said Mr. Teddy Henfrey. "Didn't I hear the window?" |
| |
| "What window?" asked Mrs. Hall. |
| |
| "Parlour window," said Henfrey. |
| |
| Everyone stood listening intently. Mrs. Hall's eyes, directed |
| straight before her, saw without seeing the brilliant oblong of the |
| inn door, the road white and vivid, and Huxter's shop-front |
| blistering in the June sun. Abruptly Huxter's door opened and Huxter |
| appeared, eyes staring with excitement, arms gesticulating. "Yap!" |
| cried Huxter. "Stop thief!" and he ran obliquely across the oblong |
| towards the yard gates, and vanished. |
| |
| Simultaneously came a tumult from the parlour, and a sound of |
| windows being closed. |
| |
| Hall, Henfrey, and the human contents of the tap rushed out at once |
| pell-mell into the street. They saw someone whisk round the corner |
| towards the road, and Mr. Huxter executing a complicated leap in |
| the air that ended on his face and shoulder. Down the street people |
| were standing astonished or running towards them. |
| |
| Mr. Huxter was stunned. Henfrey stopped to discover this, but Hall |
| and the two labourers from the Tap rushed at once to the corner, |
| shouting incoherent things, and saw Mr. Marvel vanishing by the |
| corner of the church wall. They appear to have jumped to the |
| impossible conclusion that this was the Invisible Man suddenly |
| become visible, and set off at once along the lane in pursuit. But |
| Hall had hardly run a dozen yards before he gave a loud shout of |
| astonishment and went flying headlong sideways, clutching one of |
| the labourers and bringing him to the ground. He had been charged |
| just as one charges a man at football. The second labourer came |
| round in a circle, stared, and conceiving that Hall had tumbled |
| over of his own accord, turned to resume the pursuit, only to be |
| tripped by the ankle just as Huxter had been. Then, as the first |
| labourer struggled to his feet, he was kicked sideways by a blow |
| that might have felled an ox. |
| |
| As he went down, the rush from the direction of the village green |
| came round the corner. The first to appear was the proprietor of |
| the cocoanut shy, a burly man in a blue jersey. He was astonished |
| to see the lane empty save for three men sprawling absurdly on the |
| ground. And then something happened to his rear-most foot, and he |
| went headlong and rolled sideways just in time to graze the feet |
| of his brother and partner, following headlong. The two were then |
| kicked, knelt on, fallen over, and cursed by quite a number of |
| over-hasty people. |
| |
| Now when Hall and Henfrey and the labourers ran out of the house, |
| Mrs. Hall, who had been disciplined by years of experience, |
| remained in the bar next the till. And suddenly the parlour door |
| was opened, and Mr. Cuss appeared, and without glancing at her |
| rushed at once down the steps toward the corner. "Hold him!" he |
| cried. "Don't let him drop that parcel." |
| |
| He knew nothing of the |
| existence of Marvel. For the Invisible Man had handed over the |
| books and bundle in the yard. The face of Mr. Cuss was angry and |
| resolute, but his costume was defective, a sort of limp white kilt |
| that could only have passed muster in Greece. "Hold him!" he |
| bawled. "He's got my trousers! And every stitch of the Vicar's |
| clothes!" |
| |
| "'Tend to him in a minute!" he cried to Henfrey as he passed the |
| prostrate Huxter, and, coming round the corner to join the tumult, |
| was promptly knocked off his feet into an indecorous sprawl. |
| Somebody in full flight trod heavily on his finger. He yelled, |
| struggled to regain his feet, was knocked against and thrown on all |
| fours again, and became aware that he was involved not in a capture, |
| but a rout. Everyone was running back to the village. He rose again |
| and was hit severely behind the ear. He staggered and set off back |
| to the "Coach and Horses" forthwith, leaping over the deserted |
| Huxter, who was now sitting up, on his way. |
| |
| Behind him as he was halfway up the inn steps he heard a sudden |
| yell of rage, rising sharply out of the confusion of cries, and a |
| sounding smack in someone's face. He recognised the voice as that |
| of the Invisible Man, and the note was that of a man suddenly |
| infuriated by a painful blow. |
| |
| In another moment Mr. Cuss was back in the parlour. "He's coming |
| back, Bunting!" he said, rushing in. "Save yourself!" |
| |
| Mr. Bunting was standing in the window engaged in an attempt to |
| clothe himself in the hearth-rug and a West Surrey Gazette. "Who's |
| coming?" he said, so startled that his costume narrowly escaped |
| disintegration. |
| |
| "Invisible Man," said Cuss, and rushed on to the window. "We'd |
| better clear out from here! He's fighting mad! Mad!" |
| |
| In another moment he was out in the yard. |
| |
| "Good heavens!" said Mr. Bunting, hesitating between two horrible |
| alternatives. He heard a frightful struggle in the passage of the |
| inn, and his decision was made. He clambered out of the window, |
| adjusted his costume hastily, and fled up the village as fast as |
| his fat little legs would carry him. |
| |
| From the moment when the Invisible Man screamed with rage and Mr. |
| Bunting made his memorable flight up the village, it became |
| impossible to give a consecutive account of affairs in Iping. |
| Possibly the Invisible Man's original intention was simply to cover |
| Marvel's retreat with the clothes and books. But his temper, at no |
| time very good, seems to have gone completely at some chance blow, |
| and forthwith he set to smiting and overthrowing, for the mere |
| satisfaction of hurting. |
| |
| You must figure the street full of running figures, of doors |
| slamming and fights for hiding-places. You must figure the tumult |
| suddenly striking on the unstable equilibrium of old Fletcher's |
| planks and two chairs--with cataclysmic results. You must figure |
| an appalled couple caught dismally in a swing. And then the whole |
| tumultuous rush has passed and the Iping street with its gauds and |
| flags is deserted save for the still raging unseen, and littered |
| with cocoanuts, overthrown canvas screens, and the scattered stock |
| in trade of a sweetstuff stall. Everywhere there is a sound of |
| closing shutters and shoving bolts, and the only visible humanity |
| is an occasional flitting eye under a raised eyebrow in the corner |
| of a window pane. |
| |
| The Invisible Man amused himself for a little while by breaking all |
| the windows in the "Coach and Horses," and then he thrust a street |
| lamp through the parlour window of Mrs. Gribble. He it must have |
| been who cut the telegraph wire to Adderdean just beyond Higgins' |
| cottage on the Adderdean road. And after that, as his peculiar |
| qualities allowed, he passed out of human perceptions altogether, |
| and he was neither heard, seen, nor felt in Iping any more. He |
| vanished absolutely. |
| |
| But it was the best part of two hours before any human being |
| ventured out again into the desolation of Iping street. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XIII |
| |
| MR. MARVEL DISCUSSES HIS RESIGNATION |
| |
| |
| When the dusk was gathering and Iping was just beginning to peep |
| timorously forth again upon the shattered wreckage of its Bank |
| Holiday, a short, thick-set man in a shabby silk hat was marching |
| painfully through the twilight behind the beechwoods on the road to |
| Bramblehurst. He carried three books bound together by some sort |
| of ornamental elastic ligature, and a bundle wrapped in a blue |
| table-cloth. His rubicund face expressed consternation and fatigue; |
| he appeared to be in a spasmodic sort of hurry. He was accompanied |
| by a voice other than his own, and ever and again he winced under |
| the touch of unseen hands. |
| |
| "If you give me the slip again," said the Voice, "if you attempt to |
| give me the slip again--" |
| |
| "Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "That shoulder's a mass of bruises as it |
| is." |
| |
| "On my honour," said the Voice, "I will kill you." |
| |
| "I didn't try to give you the slip," said Marvel, in a voice that |
| was not far remote from tears. "I swear I didn't. I didn't know the |
| blessed turning, that was all! How the devil was I to know the |
| blessed turning? As it is, I've been knocked about--" |
| |
| "You'll get knocked about a great deal more if you don't mind," |
| said the Voice, and Mr. Marvel abruptly became silent. He blew out |
| his cheeks, and his eyes were eloquent of despair. |
| |
| "It's bad enough to let these floundering yokels explode my little |
| secret, without _your_ cutting off with my books. It's lucky for some |
| of them they cut and ran when they did! Here am I ... No one knew I |
| was invisible! And now what am I to do?" |
| |
| "What am _I_ to do?" asked Marvel, sotto voce. |
| |
| "It's all about. It will be in the papers! Everybody will be |
| looking for me; everyone on their guard--" The Voice broke off |
| into vivid curses and ceased. |
| |
| The despair of Mr. Marvel's face deepened, and his pace slackened. |
| |
| "Go on!" said the Voice. |
| |
| Mr. Marvel's face assumed a greyish tint between the ruddier |
| patches. |
| |
| "Don't drop those books, stupid," said the Voice, sharply--overtaking |
| him. |
| |
| "The fact is," said the Voice, "I shall have to make use of you.... |
| You're a poor tool, but I must." |
| |
| "I'm a _miserable_ tool," said Marvel. |
| |
| "You are," said the Voice. |
| |
| "I'm the worst possible tool you could have," said Marvel. |
| |
| "I'm not strong," he said after a discouraging silence. |
| |
| "I'm not over strong," he repeated. |
| |
| "No?" |
| |
| "And my heart's weak. That little business--I pulled it through, |
| of course--but bless you! I could have dropped." |
| |
| "Well?" |
| |
| "I haven't the nerve and strength for the sort of thing you want." |
| |
| "_I'll_ stimulate you." |
| |
| "I wish you wouldn't. I wouldn't like to mess up your plans, you |
| know. But I might--out of sheer funk and misery." |
| |
| "You'd better not," said the Voice, with quiet emphasis. |
| |
| "I wish I was dead," said Marvel. |
| |
| "It ain't justice," he said; "you must admit.... It seems to me I've |
| a perfect right--" |
| |
| "_Get_ on!" said the Voice. |
| |
| Mr. Marvel mended his pace, and for a time they went in silence |
| again. |
| |
| "It's devilish hard," said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| This was quite ineffectual. He tried another tack. |
| |
| "What do I make by it?" he began again in a tone of unendurable |
| wrong. |
| |
| "Oh! _shut_up_!" said the Voice, with sudden amazing vigour. "I'll |
| see to you all right. You do what you're told. You'll do it all |
| right. You're a fool and all that, but you'll do--" |
| |
| "I tell you, sir, I'm not the man for it. Respectfully--but |
| it _is_ so--" |
| |
| "If you don't shut up I shall twist your wrist again," said the |
| Invisible Man. "I want to think." |
| |
| Presently two oblongs of yellow light appeared through the trees, |
| and the square tower of a church loomed through the gloaming. "I |
| shall keep my hand on your shoulder," said the Voice, "all through |
| the village. Go straight through and try no foolery. It will be the |
| worse for you if you do." |
| |
| "I know that," sighed Mr. Marvel, "I know all that." |
| |
| The unhappy-looking figure in the obsolete silk hat passed up the |
| street of the little village with his burdens, and vanished into |
| the gathering darkness beyond the lights of the windows. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XIV |
| |
| AT PORT STOWE |
| |
| |
| Ten o'clock the next morning found Mr. Marvel, unshaven, dirty, and |
| travel-stained, sitting with the books beside him and his hands deep |
| in his pockets, looking very weary, nervous, and uncomfortable, and |
| inflating his cheeks at infrequent intervals, on the bench outside |
| a little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe. Beside him were the |
| books, but now they were tied with string. The bundle had been |
| abandoned in the pine-woods beyond Bramblehurst, in accordance with |
| a charge in the plans of the Invisible Man. Mr. Marvel sat on the |
| bench, and although no one took the slightest notice of him, his |
| agitation remained at fever heat. His hands would go ever and again |
| to his various pockets with a curious nervous fumbling. |
| |
| When he had been sitting for the best part of an hour, however, an |
| elderly mariner, carrying a newspaper, came out of the inn and sat |
| down beside him. "Pleasant day," said the mariner. |
| |
| Mr. Marvel glanced about him with something very like terror. |
| "Very," he said. |
| |
| "Just seasonable weather for the time of year," said the mariner, |
| taking no denial. |
| |
| "Quite," said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| The mariner produced a toothpick, and (saving his regard) was |
| engrossed thereby for some minutes. His eyes meanwhile were at |
| liberty to examine Mr. Marvel's dusty figure, and the books beside |
| him. As he had approached Mr. Marvel he had heard a sound like the |
| dropping of coins into a pocket. He was struck by the contrast of |
| Mr. Marvel's appearance with this suggestion of opulence. Thence |
| his mind wandered back again to a topic that had taken a curiously |
| firm hold of his imagination. |
| |
| "Books?" he said suddenly, noisily finishing with the toothpick. |
| |
| Mr. Marvel started and looked at them. "Oh, yes," he said. "Yes, |
| they're books." |
| |
| "There's some ex-traordinary things in books," said the mariner. |
| |
| "I believe you," said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "And some extra-ordinary things out of 'em," said the mariner. |
| |
| "True likewise," said Mr. Marvel. He eyed his interlocutor, and |
| then glanced about him. |
| |
| "There's some extra-ordinary things in newspapers, for example," |
| said the mariner. |
| |
| "There are." |
| |
| "In _this_ newspaper," said the mariner. |
| |
| "Ah!" said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "There's a story," said the mariner, fixing Mr. Marvel with an eye |
| that was firm and deliberate; "there's a story about an Invisible |
| Man, for instance." |
| |
| Mr. Marvel pulled his mouth askew and scratched his cheek and felt |
| his ears glowing. "What will they be writing next?" he asked |
| faintly. "Ostria, or America?" |
| |
| "Neither," said the mariner. "_Here_." |
| |
| "Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, starting. |
| |
| "When I say _here_," said the mariner, to Mr. Marvel's intense |
| relief, "I don't of course mean here in this place, I mean |
| hereabouts." |
| |
| "An Invisible Man!" said Mr. Marvel. "And what's _he_ been up to?" |
| |
| "Everything," said the mariner, controlling Marvel with his eye, |
| and then amplifying, "every--blessed--thing." |
| |
| "I ain't seen a paper these four days," said Marvel. |
| |
| "Iping's the place he started at," said the mariner. |
| |
| "In-deed!" said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "He started there. And where he came from, nobody don't seem to |
| know. Here it is: 'Pe-culiar Story from Iping.' And it says in this |
| paper that the evidence is extra-ordinary strong--extra-ordinary." |
| |
| "Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "But then, it's an extra-ordinary story. There is a clergyman and a |
| medical gent witnesses--saw 'im all right and proper--or leastways |
| didn't see 'im. He was staying, it says, at the 'Coach an' Horses,' |
| and no one don't seem to have been aware of his misfortune, it says, |
| aware of his misfortune, until in an Altercation in the inn, it |
| says, his bandages on his head was torn off. It was then ob-served |
| that his head was invisible. Attempts were At Once made to secure |
| him, but casting off his garments, it says, he succeeded in |
| escaping, but not until after a desperate struggle, in which he |
| had inflicted serious injuries, it says, on our worthy and able |
| constable, Mr. J. A. Jaffers. Pretty straight story, eh? Names and |
| everything." |
| |
| "Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, looking nervously about him, trying to |
| count the money in his pockets by his unaided sense of touch, and |
| full of a strange and novel idea. "It sounds most astonishing." |
| |
| "Don't it? Extra-ordinary, _I_ call it. Never heard tell of Invisible |
| Men before, I haven't, but nowadays one hears such a lot of |
| extra-ordinary things--that--" |
| |
| "That all he did?" asked Marvel, trying to seem at his ease. |
| |
| "It's enough, ain't it?" said the mariner. |
| |
| "Didn't go Back by any chance?" asked Marvel. "Just escaped and |
| that's all, eh?" |
| |
| "All!" said the mariner. "Why!--ain't it enough?" |
| |
| "Quite enough," said Marvel. |
| |
| "I should think it was enough," said the mariner. "I should think |
| it was enough." |
| |
| "He didn't have any pals--it don't say he had any pals, does it?" |
| asked Mr. Marvel, anxious. |
| |
| "Ain't one of a sort enough for you?" asked the mariner. "No, thank |
| Heaven, as one might say, he didn't." |
| |
| He nodded his head slowly. "It makes me regular uncomfortable, |
| the bare thought of that chap running about the country! He is at |
| present At Large, and from certain evidence it is supposed that he |
| has--taken--took, I suppose they mean--the road to Port Stowe. You |
| see we're right _in_ it! None of your American wonders, this time. |
| And just think of the things he might do! Where'd you be, if he took |
| a drop over and above, and had a fancy to go for you? Suppose he |
| wants to rob--who can prevent him? He can trespass, he can burgle, |
| he could walk through a cordon of policemen as easy as me or you |
| could give the slip to a blind man! Easier! For these here blind |
| chaps hear uncommon sharp, I'm told. And wherever there was liquor |
| he fancied--" |
| |
| "He's got a tremenjous advantage, certainly," said Mr. Marvel. |
| "And--well..." |
| |
| "You're right," said the mariner. "He _has_." |
| |
| All this time Mr. Marvel had been glancing about him intently, |
| listening for faint footfalls, trying to detect imperceptible |
| movements. He seemed on the point of some great resolution. He |
| coughed behind his hand. |
| |
| He looked about him again, listened, bent towards the mariner, and |
| lowered his voice: "The fact of it is--I happen--to know just a |
| thing or two about this Invisible Man. From private sources." |
| |
| "Oh!" said the mariner, interested. "_You_?" |
| |
| "Yes," said Mr. Marvel. "Me." |
| |
| "Indeed!" said the mariner. "And may I ask--" |
| |
| "You'll be astonished," said Mr. Marvel behind his hand. "It's |
| tremenjous." |
| |
| "Indeed!" said the mariner. |
| |
| "The fact is," began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a confidential undertone. |
| Suddenly his expression changed marvellously. "Ow!" he said. He rose |
| stiffly in his seat. His face was eloquent of physical suffering. |
| "Wow!" he said. |
| |
| "What's up?" said the mariner, concerned. |
| |
| "Toothache," said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear. He caught |
| hold of his books. "I must be getting on, I think," he said. He |
| edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor. |
| "But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!" |
| protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself. |
| "Hoax," said a Voice. "It's a hoax," said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "But it's in the paper," said the mariner. |
| |
| "Hoax all the same," said Marvel. "I know the chap that started the |
| lie. There ain't no Invisible Man whatsoever--Blimey." |
| |
| "But how 'bout this paper? D'you mean to say--?" |
| |
| "Not a word of it," said Marvel, stoutly. |
| |
| The mariner stared, paper in hand. Mr. Marvel jerkily faced about. |
| "Wait a bit," said the mariner, rising and speaking slowly, "D'you |
| mean to say--?" |
| |
| "I do," said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "Then why did you let me go on and tell you all this blarsted |
| stuff, then? What d'yer mean by letting a man make a fool of |
| himself like that for? Eh?" |
| |
| Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks. The mariner was suddenly very red |
| indeed; he clenched his hands. "I been talking here this ten |
| minutes," he said; "and you, you little pot-bellied, leathery-faced |
| son of an old boot, couldn't have the elementary manners--" |
| |
| "Don't you come bandying words with me," said Mr. Marvel. |
| |
| "Bandying words! I'm a jolly good mind--" |
| |
| "Come up," said a Voice, and Mr. Marvel was suddenly whirled about |
| and started marching off in a curious spasmodic manner. "You'd |
| better move on," said the mariner. "Who's moving on?" said Mr. |
| Marvel. He was receding obliquely with a curious hurrying gait, with |
| occasional violent jerks forward. Some way along the road he began |
| a muttered monologue, protests and recriminations. |
| |
| "Silly devil!" said the mariner, legs wide apart, elbows akimbo, |
| watching the receding figure. "I'll show you, you silly ass-- |
| hoaxing _me_! It's here--on the paper!" |
| |
| Mr. Marvel retorted incoherently and, receding, was hidden by a bend |
| in the road, but the mariner still stood magnificent in the midst |
| of the way, until the approach of a butcher's cart dislodged him. |
| Then he turned himself towards Port Stowe. "Full of extra-ordinary |
| asses," he said softly to himself. "Just to take me down a bit--that |
| was his silly game--It's on the paper!" |
| |
| And there was another extraordinary thing he was presently to hear, |
| that had happened quite close to him. And that was a vision of a |
| "fist full of money" (no less) travelling without visible agency, |
| along by the wall at the corner of St. Michael's Lane. A brother |
| mariner had seen this wonderful sight that very morning. He had |
| snatched at the money forthwith and had been knocked headlong, and |
| when he had got to his feet the butterfly money had vanished. Our |
| mariner was in the mood to believe anything, he declared, but that |
| was a bit _too_ stiff. Afterwards, however, he began to think things |
| over. |
| |
| The story of the flying money was true. And all about that |
| neighbourhood, even from the august London and Country Banking |
| Company, from the tills of shops and inns--doors standing that sunny |
| weather entirely open--money had been quietly and dexterously making |
| off that day in handfuls and rouleaux, floating quietly along by |
| walls and shady places, dodging quickly from the approaching eyes of |
| men. And it had, though no man had traced it, invariably ended its |
| mysterious flight in the pocket of that agitated gentleman in the |
| obsolete silk hat, sitting outside the little inn on the outskirts |
| of Port Stowe. |
| |
| It was ten days after--and indeed only when the Burdock story was |
| already old--that the mariner collated these facts and began to |
| understand how near he had been to the wonderful Invisible Man. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XV |
| |
| THE MAN WHO WAS RUNNING |
| |
| |
| In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the |
| belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little |
| room, with three windows--north, west, and south--and bookshelves |
| covered with books and scientific publications, and a broad |
| writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass |
| slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of |
| reagents. Dr. Kemp's solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was still |
| bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there |
| was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down. |
| Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a |
| moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he |
| hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think |
| of it. |
| |
| And his eye, presently wandering from his work, caught the sunset |
| blazing at the back of the hill that is over against his own. For a |
| minute perhaps he sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich golden |
| colour above the crest, and then his attention was attracted by the |
| little figure of a man, inky black, running over the hill-brow |
| towards him. He was a shortish little man, and he wore a high hat, |
| and he was running so fast that his legs verily twinkled. |
| |
| "Another of those fools," said Dr. Kemp. "Like that ass who ran |
| into me this morning round a corner, with the ''Visible Man |
| a-coming, sir!' I can't imagine what possess people. One might |
| think we were in the thirteenth century." |
| |
| He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky hillside, and |
| the dark little figure tearing down it. "He seems in a confounded |
| hurry," said Dr. Kemp, "but he doesn't seem to be getting on. If |
| his pockets were full of lead, he couldn't run heavier." |
| |
| "Spurted, sir," said Dr. Kemp. |
| |
| In another moment the higher of the villas that had clambered up the |
| hill from Burdock had occulted the running figure. He was visible |
| again for a moment, and again, and then again, three times between |
| the three detached houses that came next, and then the terrace hid |
| him. |
| |
| "Asses!" said Dr. Kemp, swinging round on his heel and walking |
| back to his writing-table. |
| |
| But those who saw the fugitive nearer, and perceived the abject |
| terror on his perspiring face, being themselves in the open roadway, |
| did not share in the doctor's contempt. By the man pounded, and as |
| he ran he chinked like a well-filled purse that is tossed to and |
| fro. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but his dilated |
| eyes stared straight downhill to where the lamps were being lit, and |
| the people were crowded in the street. And his ill-shaped mouth fell |
| apart, and a glairy foam lay on his lips, and his breath came hoarse |
| and noisy. All he passed stopped and began staring up the road and |
| down, and interrogating one another with an inkling of discomfort |
| for the reason of his haste. |
| |
| And then presently, far up the hill, a dog playing in the road |
| yelped and ran under a gate, and as they still wondered |
| something--a wind--a pad, pad, pad,--a sound like a panting breathing, |
| rushed by. |
| |
| People screamed. People sprang off the pavement: It passed in |
| shouts, it passed by instinct down the hill. They were shouting in |
| the street before Marvel was halfway there. They were bolting into |
| houses and slamming the doors behind them, with the news. He heard |
| it and made one last desperate spurt. Fear came striding by, rushed |
| ahead of him, and in a moment had seized the town. |
| |
| "The Invisible Man is coming! The Invisible Man!" |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XVI |
| |
| IN THE "JOLLY CRICKETERS" |
| |
| |
| The "Jolly Cricketers" is just at the bottom of the hill, where the |
| tram-lines begin. The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter |
| and talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black-bearded |
| man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton, and |
| conversed in American with a policeman off duty. |
| |
| "What's the shouting about!" said the anaemic cabman, going off at a |
| tangent, trying to see up the hill over the dirty yellow blind in |
| the low window of the inn. Somebody ran by outside. "Fire, perhaps," |
| said the barman. |
| |
| Footsteps approached, running heavily, the door was pushed open |
| violently, and Marvel, weeping and dishevelled, his hat gone, the |
| neck of his coat torn open, rushed in, made a convulsive turn, and |
| attempted to shut the door. It was held half open by a strap. |
| |
| "Coming!" he bawled, his voice shrieking with terror. "He's coming. |
| The 'Visible Man! After me! For Gawd's sake! 'Elp! 'Elp! 'Elp!" |
| |
| "Shut the doors," said the policeman. "Who's coming? What's the |
| row?" He went to the door, released the strap, and it slammed. The |
| American closed the other door. |
| |
| "Lemme go inside," said Marvel, staggering and weeping, but still |
| clutching the books. "Lemme go inside. Lock me in--somewhere. I |
| tell you he's after me. I give him the slip. He said he'd kill me |
| and he will." |
| |
| "_You're_ safe," said the man with the black beard. "The door's shut. |
| What's it all about?" |
| |
| "Lemme go inside," said Marvel, and shrieked aloud as a blow |
| suddenly made the fastened door shiver and was followed by a hurried |
| rapping and a shouting outside. "Hullo," cried the policeman, "who's |
| there?" Mr. Marvel began to make frantic dives at panels that looked |
| like doors. "He'll kill me--he's got a knife or something. For |
| Gawd's sake--!" |
| |
| "Here you are," said the barman. "Come in here." And he held up the |
| flap of the bar. |
| |
| Mr. Marvel rushed behind the bar as the summons outside was |
| repeated. "Don't open the door," he screamed. "_Please_ don't open |
| the door. _Where_ shall I hide?" |
| |
| "This, this Invisible Man, then?" asked the man with the black |
| beard, with one hand behind him. "I guess it's about time we saw |
| him." |
| |
| The window of the inn was suddenly smashed in, and there was a |
| screaming and running to and fro in the street. The policeman had |
| been standing on the settee staring out, craning to see who was at |
| the door. He got down with raised eyebrows. "It's that," he said. |
| The barman stood in front of the bar-parlour door which was now |
| locked on Mr. Marvel, stared at the smashed window, and came round |
| to the two other men. |
| |
| Everything was suddenly quiet. "I wish I had my truncheon," said |
| the policeman, going irresolutely to the door. "Once we open, in he |
| comes. There's no stopping him." |
| |
| "Don't you be in too much hurry about that door," said the anaemic |
| cabman, anxiously. |
| |
| "Draw the bolts," said the man with the black beard, "and if he |
| comes--" He showed a revolver in his hand. |
| |
| "That won't do," said the policeman; "that's murder." |
| |
| "I know what country I'm in," said the man with the beard. "I'm |
| going to let off at his legs. Draw the bolts." |
| |
| "Not with that blinking thing going off behind me," said the |
| barman, craning over the blind. |
| |
| "Very well," said the man with the black beard, and stooping down, |
| revolver ready, drew them himself. Barman, cabman, and policeman |
| faced about. |
| |
| "Come in," said the bearded man in an undertone, standing back and |
| facing the unbolted doors with his pistol behind him. No one came |
| in, the door remained closed. Five minutes afterwards when a second |
| cabman pushed his head in cautiously, they were still waiting, and |
| an anxious face peered out of the bar-parlour and supplied |
| information. "Are all the doors of the house shut?" asked Marvel. |
| "He's going round--prowling round. He's as artful as the devil." |
| |
| "Good Lord!" said the burly barman. "There's the back! Just watch |
| them doors! I say--!" He looked about him helplessly. The |
| bar-parlour door slammed and they heard the key turn. "There's |
| the yard door and the private door. The yard door--" |
| |
| He rushed out of the bar. |
| |
| In a minute he reappeared with a carving-knife in his hand. "The |
| yard door was open!" he said, and his fat underlip dropped. "He may |
| be in the house now!" said the first cabman. |
| |
| "He's not in the kitchen," said the barman. "There's two women |
| there, and I've stabbed every inch of it with this little beef |
| slicer. And they don't think he's come in. They haven't noticed--" |
| |
| "Have you fastened it?" asked the first cabman. |
| |
| "I'm out of frocks," said the barman. |
| |
| The man with the beard replaced his revolver. And even as he did so |
| the flap of the bar was shut down and the bolt clicked, and then |
| with a tremendous thud the catch of the door snapped and the |
| bar-parlour door burst open. They heard Marvel squeal like a caught |
| leveret, and forthwith they were clambering over the bar to his |
| rescue. The bearded man's revolver cracked and the looking-glass at |
| the back of the parlour starred and came smashing and tinkling down. |
| |
| As the barman entered the room he saw Marvel, curiously crumpled up |
| and struggling against the door that led to the yard and kitchen. |
| The door flew open while the barman hesitated, and Marvel was |
| dragged into the kitchen. There was a scream and a clatter of pans. |
| Marvel, head down, and lugging back obstinately, was forced to the |
| kitchen door, and the bolts were drawn. |
| |
| Then the policeman, who had been trying to pass the barman, rushed |
| in, followed by one of the cabmen, gripped the wrist of the |
| invisible hand that collared Marvel, was hit in the face and went |
| reeling back. The door opened, and Marvel made a frantic effort to |
| obtain a lodgment behind it. Then the cabman collared something. |
| "I got him," said the cabman. The barman's red hands came clawing |
| at the unseen. "Here he is!" said the barman. |
| |
| Mr. Marvel, released, suddenly dropped to the ground and made an |
| attempt to crawl behind the legs of the fighting men. The struggle |
| blundered round the edge of the door. The voice of the Invisible |
| Man was heard for the first time, yelling out sharply, as the |
| policeman trod on his foot. Then he cried out passionately and |
| his fists flew round like flails. The cabman suddenly whooped |
| and doubled up, kicked under the diaphragm. The door into the |
| bar-parlour from the kitchen slammed and covered Mr. Marvel's |
| retreat. The men in the kitchen found themselves clutching at and |
| struggling with empty air. |
| |
| "Where's he gone?" cried the man with the beard. "Out?" |
| |
| "This way," said the policeman, stepping into the yard and |
| stopping. |
| |
| A piece of tile whizzed by his head and smashed among the crockery |
| on the kitchen table. |
| |
| "I'll show him," shouted the man with the black beard, and suddenly |
| a steel barrel shone over the policeman's shoulder, and five |
| bullets had followed one another into the twilight whence the |
| missile had come. As he fired, the man with the beard moved his |
| hand in a horizontal curve, so that his shots radiated out into the |
| narrow yard like spokes from a wheel. |
| |
| A silence followed. "Five cartridges," said the man with the black |
| beard. "That's the best of all. Four aces and a joker. Get a |
| lantern, someone, and come and feel about for his body." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XVII |
| |
| DR. KEMP'S VISITOR |
| |
| |
| Dr. Kemp had continued writing in his study until the shots |
| aroused him. Crack, crack, crack, they came one after the other. |
| |
| "Hullo!" said Dr. Kemp, putting his pen into his mouth again and |
| listening. "Who's letting off revolvers in Burdock? What are the |
| asses at now?" |
| |
| He went to the south window, threw it up, and leaning out stared |
| down on the network of windows, beaded gas-lamps and shops, with its |
| black interstices of roof and yard that made up the town at night. |
| "Looks like a crowd down the hill," he said, "by 'The Cricketers,'" |
| and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered over the town to far |
| away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed--a little |
| illuminated, facetted pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon |
| in its first quarter hung over the westward hill, and the stars were |
| clear and almost tropically bright. |
| |
| After five minutes, during which his mind had travelled into a |
| remote speculation of social conditions of the future, and lost |
| itself at last over the time dimension, Dr. Kemp roused himself |
| with a sigh, pulled down the window again, and returned to his |
| writing desk. |
| |
| It must have been about an hour after this that the front-door bell |
| rang. He had been writing slackly, and with intervals of |
| abstraction, since the shots. He sat listening. He heard the servant |
| answer the door, and waited for her feet on the staircase, but she |
| did not come. "Wonder what that was," said Dr. Kemp. |
| |
| He tried to resume his work, failed, got up, went downstairs from |
| his study to the landing, rang, and called over the balustrade to |
| the housemaid as she appeared in the hall below. "Was that a |
| letter?" he asked. |
| |
| "Only a runaway ring, sir," she answered. |
| |
| "I'm restless to-night," he said to himself. He went back to his |
| study, and this time attacked his work resolutely. In a little |
| while he was hard at work again, and the only sounds in the room |
| were the ticking of the clock and the subdued shrillness of his |
| quill, hurrying in the very centre of the circle of light his |
| lampshade threw on his table. |
| |
| It was two o'clock before Dr. Kemp had finished his work for the |
| night. He rose, yawned, and went downstairs to bed. He had already |
| removed his coat and vest, when he noticed that he was thirsty. He |
| took a candle and went down to the dining-room in search of a |
| syphon and whiskey. |
| |
| Dr. Kemp's scientific pursuits have made him a very observant |
| man, and as he recrossed the hall, he noticed a dark spot on the |
| linoleum near the mat at the foot of the stairs. He went on |
| upstairs, and then it suddenly occurred to him to ask himself what |
| the spot on the linoleum might be. Apparently some subconscious |
| element was at work. At any rate, he turned with his burden, went |
| back to the hall, put down the syphon and whiskey, and bending |
| down, touched the spot. Without any great surprise he found it had |
| the stickiness and colour of drying blood. |
| |
| He took up his burden again, and returned upstairs, looking about |
| him and trying to account for the blood-spot. On the landing he saw |
| something and stopped astonished. The door-handle of his own room |
| was blood-stained. |
| |
| He looked at his own hand. It was quite clean, and then he |
| remembered that the door of his room had been open when he came down |
| from his study, and that consequently he had not touched the handle |
| at all. He went straight into his room, his face quite calm--perhaps |
| a trifle more resolute than usual. His glance, wandering |
| inquisitively, fell on the bed. On the counterpane was a mess of |
| blood, and the sheet had been torn. He had not noticed this before |
| because he had walked straight to the dressing-table. On the further |
| side the bedclothes were depressed as if someone had been recently |
| sitting there. |
| |
| Then he had an odd impression that he had heard a low voice say, |
| "Good Heavens!--Kemp!" But Dr. Kemp was no believer in voices. |
| |
| He stood staring at the tumbled sheets. Was that really a voice? He |
| looked about again, but noticed nothing further than the disordered |
| and blood-stained bed. Then he distinctly heard a movement across |
| the room, near the wash-hand stand. All men, however highly |
| educated, retain some superstitious inklings. The feeling that is |
| called "eerie" came upon him. He closed the door of the room, came |
| forward to the dressing-table, and put down his burdens. Suddenly, |
| with a start, he perceived a coiled and blood-stained bandage of |
| linen rag hanging in mid-air, between him and the wash-hand stand. |
| |
| He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage, a bandage |
| properly tied but quite empty. He would have advanced to grasp it, |
| but a touch arrested him, and a voice speaking quite close to him. |
| |
| "Kemp!" said the Voice. |
| |
| "Eh?" said Kemp, with his mouth open. |
| |
| "Keep your nerve," said the Voice. "I'm an Invisible Man." |
| |
| Kemp made no answer for a space, simply stared at the bandage. |
| "Invisible Man," he said. |
| |
| "I am an Invisible Man," repeated the Voice. |
| |
| The story he had been active to ridicule only that morning rushed |
| through Kemp's brain. He does not appear to have been either very |
| much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment. |
| Realisation came later. |
| |
| "I thought it was all a lie," he said. The thought uppermost in his |
| mind was the reiterated arguments of the morning. "Have you a |
| bandage on?" he asked. |
| |
| "Yes," said the Invisible Man. |
| |
| "Oh!" said Kemp, and then roused himself. "I say!" he said. "But |
| this is nonsense. It's some trick." He stepped forward suddenly, |
| and his hand, extended towards the bandage, met invisible fingers. |
| |
| He recoiled at the touch and his colour changed. |
| |
| "Keep steady, Kemp, for God's sake! I want help badly. Stop!" |
| |
| The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it. |
| |
| "Kemp!" cried the Voice. "Kemp! Keep steady!" and the grip |
| tightened. |
| |
| A frantic desire to free himself took possession of Kemp. The hand |
| of the bandaged arm gripped his shoulder, and he was suddenly |
| tripped and flung backwards upon the bed. He opened his mouth to |
| shout, and the corner of the sheet was thrust between his teeth. |
| The Invisible Man had him down grimly, but his arms were free and |
| he struck and tried to kick savagely. |
| |
| "Listen to reason, will you?" said the Invisible Man, sticking to |
| him in spite of a pounding in the ribs. "By Heaven! you'll madden |
| me in a minute! |
| |
| "Lie still, you fool!" bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp's ear. |
| |
| Kemp struggled for another moment and then lay still. |
| |
| "If you shout, I'll smash your face," said the Invisible Man, |
| relieving his mouth. |
| |
| "I'm an Invisible Man. It's no foolishness, and no magic. I really |
| am an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don't want to hurt |
| you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic, I must. Don't you |
| remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College?" |
| |
| "Let me get up," said Kemp. "I'll stop where I am. And let me sit |
| quiet for a minute." |
| |
| He sat up and felt his neck. |
| |
| "I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself |
| invisible. I am just an ordinary man--a man you have known--made |
| invisible." |
| |
| "Griffin?" said Kemp. |
| |
| "Griffin," answered the Voice. A younger student than you were, |
| almost an albino, six feet high, and broad, with a pink and white |
| face and red eyes, who won the medal for chemistry." |
| |
| "I am confused," said Kemp. "My brain is rioting. What has this to |
| do with Griffin?" |
| |
| "I _am_ Griffin." |
| |
| Kemp thought. "It's horrible," he said. "But what devilry must |
| happen to make a man invisible?" |
| |
| "It's no devilry. It's a process, sane and intelligible enough--" |
| |
| "It's horrible!" said Kemp. "How on earth--?" |
| |
| "It's horrible enough. But I'm wounded and in pain, and tired ... |
| Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food |
| and drink, and let me sit down here." |
| |
| Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a |
| basket chair dragged across the floor and come to rest near the bed. |
| It creaked, and the seat was depressed the quarter of an inch or so. |
| He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. "This beats ghosts," he |
| said, and laughed stupidly. |
| |
| "That's better. Thank Heaven, you're getting sensible!" |
| |
| "Or silly," said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes. |
| |
| "Give me some whiskey. I'm near dead." |
| |
| "It didn't feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you? |
| _There_! all right. Whiskey? Here. Where shall I give it to you?" |
| |
| The chair creaked and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He |
| let go by an effort; his instinct was all against it. It came to |
| rest poised twenty inches above the front edge of the seat of the |
| chair. He stared at it in infinite perplexity. "This is--this |
| must be--hypnotism. You have suggested you are invisible." |
| |
| "Nonsense," said the Voice. |
| |
| "It's frantic." |
| |
| "Listen to me." |
| |
| "I demonstrated conclusively this morning," began Kemp, "that |
| invisibility--" |
| |
| "Never mind what you've demonstrated!--I'm starving," said the |
| Voice, "and the night is chilly to a man without clothes." |
| |
| "Food?" said Kemp. |
| |
| The tumbler of whiskey tilted itself. "Yes," said the Invisible Man |
| rapping it down. "Have you a dressing-gown?" |
| |
| Kemp made some exclamation in an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe |
| and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. "This do?" he asked. It was |
| taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid-air, fluttered |
| weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in |
| his chair. "Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort," said the |
| Unseen, curtly. "And food." |
| |
| "Anything. But this is the insanest thing I ever was in, in my |
| life!" |
| |
| He turned out his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs |
| to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and |
| bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest. |
| "Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air, |
| with a sound of gnawing. |
| |
| "Invisible!" said Kemp, and sat down on a bedroom chair. |
| |
| "I always like to get something about me before I eat," said the |
| Invisible Man, with a full mouth, eating greedily. "Queer fancy!" |
| |
| "I suppose that wrist is all right," said Kemp. |
| |
| "Trust me," said the Invisible Man. |
| |
| "Of all the strange and wonderful--" |
| |
| "Exactly. But it's odd I should blunder into _your_ house to get my |
| bandaging. My first stroke of luck! Anyhow I meant to sleep in this |
| house to-night. You must stand that! It's a filthy nuisance, my |
| blood showing, isn't it? Quite a clot over there. Gets visible as |
| it coagulates, I see. It's only the living tissue I've changed, and |
| only for as long as I'm alive.... I've been in the house three hours." |
| |
| "But how's it done?" began Kemp, in a tone of exasperation. |
| "Confound it! The whole business--it's unreasonable from |
| beginning to end." |
| |
| "Quite reasonable," said the Invisible Man. "Perfectly reasonable." |
| |
| He reached over and secured the whiskey bottle. Kemp stared at the |
| devouring dressing gown. A ray of candle-light penetrating a torn |
| patch in the right shoulder, made a triangle of light under the |
| left ribs. "What were the shots?" he asked. "How did the shooting |
| begin?" |
| |
| "There was a real fool of a man--a sort of confederate of |
| mine--curse him!--who tried to steal my money. Has done so." |
| |
| "Is he invisible too?" |
| |
| "No." |
| |
| "Well?" |
| |
| "Can't I have some more to eat before I tell you all that? I'm |
| hungry--in pain. And you want me to tell stories!" |
| |
| Kemp got up. "_You_ didn't do any shooting?" he asked. |
| |
| "Not me," said his visitor. "Some fool I'd never seen fired at |
| random. A lot of them got scared. They all got scared at me. Curse |
| them!--I say--I want more to eat than this, Kemp." |
| |
| "I'll see what there is to eat downstairs," said Kemp. "Not much, |
| I'm afraid." |
| |
| After he had done eating, and he made a heavy meal, the Invisible |
| Man demanded a cigar. He bit the end savagely before Kemp could |
| find a knife, and cursed when the outer leaf loosened. It was |
| strange to see him smoking; his mouth, and throat, pharynx and |
| nares, became visible as a sort of whirling smoke cast. |
| |
| "This blessed gift of smoking!" he said, and puffed vigorously. |
| "I'm lucky to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy |
| tumbling on you just now! I'm in a devilish scrape--I've been mad, |
| I think. The things I have been through! But we will do things yet. |
| Let me tell you--" |
| |
| He helped himself to more whiskey and soda. Kemp got up, looked |
| about him, and fetched a glass from his spare room. "It's wild--but |
| I suppose I may drink." |
| |
| "You haven't changed much, Kemp, these dozen years. You fair men |
| don't. Cool and methodical--after the first collapse. I must tell |
| you. We will work together!" |
| |
| "But how was it all done?" said Kemp, "and how did you get like |
| this?" |
| |
| "For God's sake, let me smoke in peace for a little while! And then |
| I will begin to tell you." |
| |
| But the story was not told that night. The Invisible Man's wrist |
| was growing painful; he was feverish, exhausted, and his mind came |
| round to brood upon his chase down the hill and the struggle about |
| the inn. He spoke in fragments of Marvel, he smoked faster, his |
| voice grew angry. Kemp tried to gather what he could. |
| |
| "He was afraid of me, I could see that he was afraid of me," said |
| the Invisible Man many times over. "He meant to give me the slip--he |
| was always casting about! What a fool I was!" |
| |
| "The cur! |
| |
| "I should have killed him!" |
| |
| "Where did you get the money?" asked Kemp, abruptly. |
| |
| The Invisible Man was silent for a space. "I can't tell you |
| to-night," he said. |
| |
| He groaned suddenly and leant forward, supporting his invisible |
| head on invisible hands. "Kemp," he said, "I've had no sleep for |
| near three days, except a couple of dozes of an hour or so. I |
| must sleep soon." |
| |
| "Well, have my room--have this room." |
| |
| "But how can I sleep? If I sleep--he will get away. Ugh! What |
| does it matter?" |
| |
| "What's the shot wound?" asked Kemp, abruptly. |
| |
| "Nothing--scratch and blood. Oh, God! How I want sleep!" |
| |
| "Why not?" |
| |
| The Invisible Man appeared to be regarding Kemp. "Because I've a |
| particular objection to being caught by my fellow-men," he said |
| slowly. |
| |
| Kemp started. |
| |
| "Fool that I am!" said the Invisible Man, striking the table |
| smartly. "I've put the idea into your head." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XVIII |
| |
| THE INVISIBLE MAN SLEEPS |
| |
| |
| Exhausted and wounded as the Invisible Man was, he refused to accept |
| Kemp's word that his freedom should be respected. He examined the |
| two windows of the bedroom, drew up the blinds and opened the |
| sashes, to confirm Kemp's statement that a retreat by them would be |
| possible. Outside the night was very quiet and still, and the new |
| moon was setting over the down. Then he examined the keys of the |
| bedroom and the two dressing-room doors, to satisfy himself that |
| these also could be made an assurance of freedom. Finally he |
| expressed himself satisfied. He stood on the hearth rug and Kemp |
| heard the sound of a yawn. |
| |
| "I'm sorry," said the Invisible Man, "if I cannot tell you all that |
| I have done to-night. But I am worn out. It's grotesque, no doubt. |
| It's horrible! But believe me, Kemp, in spite of your arguments of |
| this morning, it is quit a possible thing. I have made a discovery. |
| I meant to keep it to myself. I can't. I must have a partner. And |
| you.... We can do such things ... But to-morrow. Now, Kemp, I feel |
| as though I must sleep or perish." |
| |
| Kemp stood in the middle of the room staring at the headless |
| garment. "I suppose I must leave you," he said. "It's-- |
| incredible. Three things happening like this, overturning all |
| my preconceptions--would make me insane. But it's real! Is |
| there anything more that I can get you?" |
| |
| "Only bid me good-night," said Griffin. |
| |
| "Good-night," said Kemp, and shook an invisible hand. He walked |
| sideways to the door. Suddenly the dressing-gown walked quickly |
| towards him. "Understand me!" said the dressing-gown. "No attempts |
| to hamper me, or capture me! Or--" |
| |
| Kemp's face changed a little. "I thought I gave you my word," he |
| said. |
| |
| Kemp closed the door softly behind him, and the key was turned upon |
| him forthwith. Then, as he stood with an expression of passive |
| amazement on his face, the rapid feet came to the door of the |
| dressing-room and that too was locked. Kemp slapped his brow with |
| his hand. "Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad--or have I?" |
| |
| He laughed, and put his hand to the locked door. "Barred out of my |
| own bedroom, by a flagrant absurdity!" he said. |
| |
| He walked to the head of the staircase, turned, and stared at the |
| locked doors. "It's fact," he said. He put his fingers to his |
| slightly bruised neck. "Undeniable fact! |
| |
| "But--" |
| |
| He shook his head hopelessly, turned, and went downstairs. |
| |
| He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the |
| room, ejaculating. Now and then he would argue with himself. |
| |
| "Invisible!" he said. |
| |
| "Is there such a thing as an invisible animal? ... In the sea, yes. |
| Thousands--millions. All the larvae, all the little nauplii and |
| tornarias, all the microscopic things, the jelly-fish. In the sea |
| there are more things invisible than visible! I never thought of |
| that before. And in the ponds too! All those little pond-life |
| things--specks of colourless translucent jelly! But in air? No! |
| |
| "It can't be. |
| |
| "But after all--why not? |
| |
| "If a man was made of glass he would still be visible." |
| |
| His meditation became profound. The bulk of three cigars had passed |
| into the invisible or diffused as a white ash over the carpet before |
| he spoke again. Then it was merely an exclamation. He turned aside, |
| walked out of the room, and went into his little consulting-room and |
| lit the gas there. It was a little room, because Dr. Kemp did not |
| live by practice, and in it were the day's newspapers. The morning's |
| paper lay carelessly opened and thrown aside. He caught it up, |
| turned it over, and read the account of a "Strange Story from Iping" |
| that the mariner at Port Stowe had spelt over so painfully to Mr. |
| Marvel. Kemp read it swiftly. |
| |
| "Wrapped up!" said Kemp. "Disguised! Hiding it! 'No one seems to |
| have been aware of his misfortune.' What the devil _is_ his game?" |
| |
| He dropped the paper, and his eye went seeking. "Ah!" he said, and |
| caught up the St. James' Gazette, lying folded up as it arrived. |
| "Now we shall get at the truth," said Dr. Kemp. He rent the paper |
| open; a couple of columns confronted him. "An Entire Village in |
| Sussex goes Mad" was the heading. |
| |
| "Good Heavens!" said Kemp, reading eagerly an incredulous account |
| of the events in Iping, of the previous afternoon, that have |
| already been described. Over the leaf the report in the morning |
| paper had been reprinted. |
| |
| He re-read it. "Ran through the streets striking right and left. |
| Jaffers insensible. Mr. Huxter in great pain--still unable to |
| describe what he saw. Painful humiliation--vicar. Woman ill with |
| terror! Windows smashed. This extraordinary story probably a |
| fabrication. Too good not to print--cum grano!" |
| |
| He dropped the paper and stared blankly in front of him. "Probably |
| a fabrication!" |
| |
| He caught up the paper again, and re-read the whole business. "But |
| when does the Tramp come in? Why the deuce was he chasing a tramp?" |
| |
| He sat down abruptly on the surgical bench. "He's not only |
| invisible," he said, "but he's mad! Homicidal!" |
| |
| When dawn came to mingle its pallor with the lamp-light and cigar |
| smoke of the dining-room, Kemp was still pacing up and down, trying |
| to grasp the incredible. |
| |
| He was altogether too excited to sleep. His servants, descending |
| sleepily, discovered him, and were inclined to think that |
| over-study had worked this ill on him. He gave them extraordinary |
| but quite explicit instructions to lay breakfast for two in the |
| belvedere study--and then to confine themselves to the basement |
| and ground-floor. Then he continued to pace the dining-room until |
| the morning's paper came. That had much to say and little to tell, |
| beyond the confirmation of the evening before, and a very badly |
| written account of another remarkable tale from Port Burdock. This |
| gave Kemp the essence of the happenings at the "Jolly Cricketers," |
| and the name of Marvel. "He has made me keep with him twenty-four |
| hours," Marvel testified. Certain minor facts were added to the |
| Iping story, notably the cutting of the village telegraph-wire. |
| But there was nothing to throw light on the connexion between |
| the Invisible Man and the Tramp; for Mr. Marvel had supplied no |
| information about the three books, or the money with which he was |
| lined. The incredulous tone had vanished and a shoal of reporters |
| and inquirers were already at work elaborating the matter. |
| |
| Kemp read every scrap of the report and sent his housemaid out to |
| get everyone of the morning papers she could. These also he |
| devoured. |
| |
| "He is invisible!" he said. "And it reads like rage growing to |
| mania! The things he may do! The things he may do! And he's |
| upstairs free as the air. What on earth ought I to do?" |
| |
| "For instance, would it be a breach of faith if--? No." |
| |
| He went to a little untidy desk in the corner, and began a note. He |
| tore this up half written, and wrote another. He read it over and |
| considered it. Then he took an envelope and addressed it to "Colonel |
| Adye, Port Burdock." |
| |
| The Invisible Man awoke even as Kemp was doing this. He awoke in an |
| evil temper, and Kemp, alert for every sound, heard his pattering |
| feet rush suddenly across the bedroom overhead. Then a chair was |
| flung over and the wash-hand stand tumbler smashed. Kemp hurried |
| upstairs and rapped eagerly. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XIX |
| |
| CERTAIN FIRST PRINCIPLES |
| |
| |
| "What's the matter?" asked Kemp, when the Invisible Man admitted him. |
| |
| "Nothing," was the answer. |
| |
| "But, confound it! The smash?" |
| |
| "Fit of temper," said the Invisible Man. "Forgot this arm; and it's |
| sore." |
| |
| "You're rather liable to that sort of thing." |
| |
| "I am." |
| |
| Kemp walked across the room and picked up the fragments of broken |
| glass. "All the facts are out about you," said Kemp, standing up |
| with the glass in his hand; "all that happened in Iping, and down |
| the hill. The world has become aware of its invisible citizen. But |
| no one knows you are here." |
| |
| The Invisible Man swore. |
| |
| "The secret's out. I gather it was a secret. I don't know what your |
| plans are, but of course I'm anxious to help you." |
| |
| The Invisible Man sat down on the bed. |
| |
| "There's breakfast upstairs," said Kemp, speaking as easily as |
| possible, and he was delighted to find his strange guest rose |
| willingly. Kemp led the way up the narrow staircase to the |
| belvedere. |
| |
| "Before we can do anything else," said Kemp, "I must understand a |
| little more about this invisibility of yours." He had sat down, |
| after one nervous glance out of the window, with the air of a man |
| who has talking to do. His doubts of the sanity of the entire |
| business flashed and vanished again as he looked across to |
| where Griffin sat at the breakfast-table--a headless, handless |
| dressing-gown, wiping unseen lips on a miraculously held serviette. |
| |
| "It's simple enough--and credible enough," said Griffin, putting |
| the serviette aside and leaning the invisible head on an invisible |
| hand. |
| |
| "No doubt, to you, but--" Kemp laughed. |
| |
| "Well, yes; to me it seemed wonderful at first, no doubt. But now, |
| great God! ... But we will do great things yet! I came on the stuff |
| first at Chesilstowe." |
| |
| "Chesilstowe?" |
| |
| "I went there after I left London. You know I dropped medicine and |
| took up physics? No; well, I did. _Light_ fascinated me." |
| |
| "Ah!" |
| |
| "Optical density! The whole subject is a network of riddles--a |
| network with solutions glimmering elusively through. And being but |
| two-and-twenty and full of enthusiasm, I said, 'I will devote my |
| life to this. This is worth while.' You know what fools we are at |
| two-and-twenty?" |
| |
| "Fools then or fools now," said Kemp. |
| |
| "As though knowing could be any satisfaction to a man! |
| |
| "But I went to work--like a slave. And I had hardly worked and |
| thought about the matter six months before light came through one |
| of the meshes suddenly--blindingly! I found a general principle |
| of pigments and refraction--a formula, a geometrical expression |
| involving four dimensions. Fools, common men, even common |
| mathematicians, do not know anything of what some general expression |
| may mean to the student of molecular physics. In the books--the |
| books that tramp has hidden--there are marvels, miracles! But this |
| was not a method, it was an idea, that might lead to a method by |
| which it would be possible, without changing any other property of |
| matter--except, in some instances colours--to lower the refractive |
| index of a substance, solid or liquid, to that of air--so far as all |
| practical purposes are concerned." |
| |
| "Phew!" said Kemp. "That's odd! But still I don't see quite ... I |
| can understand that thereby you could spoil a valuable stone, but |
| personal invisibility is a far cry." |
| |
| "Precisely," said Griffin. "But consider, visibility depends on the |
| action of the visible bodies on light. Either a body absorbs light, |
| or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things. If it |
| neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of |
| itself be visible. You see an opaque red box, for instance, because |
| the colour absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest, all the |
| red part of the light, to you. If it did not absorb any particular |
| part of the light, but reflected it all, then it would be a shining |
| white box. Silver! A diamond box would neither absorb much of the |
| light nor reflect much from the general surface, but just here |
| and there where the surfaces were favourable the light would |
| be reflected and refracted, so that you would get a brilliant |
| appearance of flashing reflections and translucencies--a sort of |
| skeleton of light. A glass box would not be so brilliant, not so |
| clearly visible, as a diamond box, because there would be less |
| refraction and reflection. See that? From certain points of view |
| you would see quite clearly through it. Some kinds of glass would |
| be more visible than others, a box of flint glass would be brighter |
| than a box of ordinary window glass. A box of very thin common |
| glass would be hard to see in a bad light, because it would absorb |
| hardly any light and refract and reflect very little. And if you |
| put a sheet of common white glass in water, still more if you |
| put it in some denser liquid than water, it would vanish almost |
| altogether, because light passing from water to glass is only |
| slightly refracted or reflected or indeed affected in any way. |
| It is almost as invisible as a jet of coal gas or hydrogen is in |
| air. And for precisely the same reason!" |
| |
| "Yes," said Kemp, "that is pretty plain sailing." |
| |
| "And here is another fact you will know to be true. If a sheet of |
| glass is smashed, Kemp, and beaten into a powder, it becomes much |
| more visible while it is in the air; it becomes at last an opaque |
| white powder. This is because the powdering multiplies the surfaces |
| of the glass at which refraction and reflection occur. In the sheet |
| of glass there are only two surfaces; in the powder the light is |
| reflected or refracted by each grain it passes through, and very |
| little gets right through the powder. But if the white powdered |
| glass is put into water, it forthwith vanishes. The powdered glass |
| and water have much the same refractive index; that is, the light |
| undergoes very little refraction or reflection in passing from one |
| to the other. |
| |
| "You make the glass invisible by putting it into a liquid of nearly |
| the same refractive index; a transparent thing becomes invisible if |
| it is put in any medium of almost the same refractive index. And if |
| you will consider only a second, you will see also that the powder |
| of glass might be made to vanish in air, if its refractive index |
| could be made the same as that of air; for then there would be no |
| refraction or reflection as the light passed from glass to air." |
| |
| "Yes, yes," said Kemp. "But a man's not powdered glass!" |
| |
| "No," said Griffin. "He's more transparent!" |
| |
| "Nonsense!" |
| |
| "That from a doctor! How one forgets! Have you already forgotten |
| your physics, in ten years? Just think of all the things that are |
| transparent and seem not to be so. Paper, for instance, is made up |
| of transparent fibres, and it is white and opaque only for the same |
| reason that a powder of glass is white and opaque. Oil white paper, |
| fill up the interstices between the particles with oil so that there |
| is no longer refraction or reflection except at the surfaces, and |
| it becomes as transparent as glass. And not only paper, but cotton |
| fibre, linen fibre, wool fibre, woody fibre, and _bone_, Kemp, |
| _flesh_, Kemp, _hair_, Kemp, _nails_ and _nerves_, Kemp, in fact |
| the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black |
| pigment of hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue. |
| So little suffices to make us visible one to the other. For the |
| most part the fibres of a living creature are no more opaque than |
| water." |
| |
| "Great Heavens!" cried Kemp. "Of course, of course! I was thinking |
| only last night of the sea larvae and all jelly-fish!" |
| |
| "_Now_ you have me! And all that I knew and had in mind a year after |
| I left London--six years ago. But I kept it to myself. I had to do |
| my work under frightful disadvantages. Oliver, my professor, was a |
| scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas--he |
| was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific |
| world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I |
| went on working; I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an |
| experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to |
| flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous |
| at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain |
| gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a |
| discovery in physiology." |
| |
| "Yes?" |
| |
| "You know the red colouring matter of blood; it can be made |
| white--colourless--and remain with all the functions it has now!" |
| |
| Kemp gave a cry of incredulous amazement. |
| |
| The Invisible Man rose and began pacing the little study. "You may |
| well exclaim. I remember that night. It was late at night--in the |
| daytime one was bothered with the gaping, silly students--and I |
| worked then sometimes till dawn. It came suddenly, splendid and |
| complete in my mind. I was alone; the laboratory was still, with the |
| tall lights burning brightly and silently. In all my great moments |
| I have been alone. 'One could make an animal--a tissue--transparent! |
| One could make it invisible! All except the pigments--I could be |
| invisible!' I said, suddenly realising what it meant to be an albino |
| with such knowledge. It was overwhelming. I left the filtering I was |
| doing, and went and stared out of the great window at the stars. |
| 'I could be invisible!' I repeated. |
| |
| "To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, |
| unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility |
| might mean to a man--the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks |
| I saw none. You have only to think! And I, a shabby, poverty-struck, |
| hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college, |
| might suddenly become--this. I ask you, Kemp if _you_ ... Anyone, I |
| tell you, would have flung himself upon that research. And I worked |
| three years, and every mountain of difficulty I toiled over showed |
| another from its summit. The infinite details! And the exasperation! |
| A professor, a provincial professor, always prying. 'When are you |
| going to publish this work of yours?' was his everlasting question. |
| And the students, the cramped means! Three years I had of it-- |
| |
| "And after three years of secrecy and exasperation, I found that to |
| complete it was impossible--impossible." |
| |
| "How?" asked Kemp. |
| |
| "Money," said the Invisible Man, and went again to stare out of the |
| window. |
| |
| He turned around abruptly. "I robbed the old man--robbed my |
| father. |
| |
| "The money was not his, and he shot himself." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XX |
| |
| AT THE HOUSE IN GREAT PORTLAND STREET |
| |
| |
| For a moment Kemp sat in silence, staring at the back of the |
| headless figure at the window. Then he started, struck by a thought, |
| rose, took the Invisible Man's arm, and turned him away from the |
| outlook. |
| |
| "You are tired," he said, "and while I sit, you walk about. Have |
| my chair." |
| |
| He placed himself between Griffin and the nearest window. |
| |
| For a space Griffin sat silent, and then he resumed abruptly: |
| |
| "I had left the Chesilstowe cottage already," he said, "when that |
| happened. It was last December. I had taken a room in London, a |
| large unfurnished room in a big ill-managed lodging-house in a slum |
| near Great Portland Street. The room was soon full of the appliances |
| I had bought with his money; the work was going on steadily, |
| successfully, drawing near an end. I was like a man emerging from a |
| thicket, and suddenly coming on some unmeaning tragedy. I went to |
| bury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift |
| a finger to save his character. I remember the funeral, the cheap |
| hearse, the scant ceremony, the windy frost-bitten hillside, and the |
| old college friend of his who read the service over him--a shabby, |
| black, bent old man with a snivelling cold. |
| |
| "I remember walking back to the empty house, through the place that |
| had once been a village and was now patched and tinkered by the |
| jerry builders into the ugly likeness of a town. Every way the |
| roads ran out at last into the desecrated fields and ended in |
| rubble heaps and rank wet weeds. I remember myself as a gaunt black |
| figure, going along the slippery, shiny pavement, and the strange |
| sense of detachment I felt from the squalid respectability, the |
| sordid commercialism of the place. |
| |
| "I did not feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me to be |
| the victim of his own foolish sentimentality. The current cant |
| required my attendance at his funeral, but it was really not my |
| affair. |
| |
| "But going along the High Street, my old life came back to me |
| for a space, for I met the girl I had known ten years since. |
| Our eyes met. |
| |
| "Something moved me to turn back and talk to her. She was a very |
| ordinary person. |
| |
| "It was all like a dream, that visit to the old places. I did not |
| feel then that I was lonely, that I had come out from the world |
| into a desolate place. I appreciated my loss of sympathy, but I put |
| it down to the general inanity of things. Re-entering my room |
| seemed like the recovery of reality. There were the things I knew |
| and loved. There stood the apparatus, the experiments arranged and |
| waiting. And now there was scarcely a difficulty left, beyond the |
| planning of details. |
| |
| "I will tell you, Kemp, sooner or later, all the complicated |
| processes. We need not go into that now. For the most part, saving |
| certain gaps I chose to remember, they are written in cypher in |
| those books that tramp has hidden. We must hunt him down. We must |
| get those books again. But the essential phase was to place the |
| transparent object whose refractive index was to be lowered between |
| two radiating centres of a sort of ethereal vibration, of which I |
| will tell you more fully later. No, not those Roentgen vibrations--I |
| don't know that these others of mine have been described. Yet |
| they are obvious enough. I needed two little dynamos, and these I |
| worked with a cheap gas engine. My first experiment was with a bit |
| of white wool fabric. It was the strangest thing in the world to |
| see it in the flicker of the flashes soft and white, and then to |
| watch it fade like a wreath of smoke and vanish. |
| |
| "I could scarcely believe I had done it. I put my hand into the |
| emptiness, and there was the thing as solid as ever. I felt it |
| awkwardly, and threw it on the floor. I had a little trouble |
| finding it again. |
| |
| "And then came a curious experience. I heard a miaow behind me, and |
| turning, saw a lean white cat, very dirty, on the cistern cover |
| outside the window. A thought came into my head. 'Everything ready |
| for you,' I said, and went to the window, opened it, and called |
| softly. She came in, purring--the poor beast was starving--and |
| I gave her some milk. All my food was in a cupboard in the |
| corner of the room. After that she went smelling round the room, |
| evidently with the idea of making herself at home. The invisible |
| rag upset her a bit; you should have seen her spit at it! But I |
| made her comfortable on the pillow of my truckle-bed. And I gave |
| her butter to get her to wash." |
| |
| "And you processed her?" |
| |
| "I processed her. But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp! And |
| the process failed." |
| |
| "Failed!" |
| |
| "In two particulars. These were the claws and the pigment stuff, |
| what is it?--at the back of the eye in a cat. You know?" |
| |
| "Tapetum." |
| |
| "Yes, the tapetum. It didn't go. After I'd given the stuff to |
| bleach the blood and done certain other things to her, I gave the |
| beast opium, and put her and the pillow she was sleeping on, on the |
| apparatus. And after all the rest had faded and vanished, there |
| remained two little ghosts of her eyes." |
| |
| "Odd!" |
| |
| "I can't explain it. She was bandaged and clamped, of course--so |
| I had her safe; but she woke while she was still misty, and miaowed |
| dismally, and someone came knocking. It was an old woman from |
| downstairs, who suspected me of vivisecting--a drink-sodden old |
| creature, with only a white cat to care for in all the world. I |
| whipped out some chloroform, applied it, and answered the door. |
| 'Did I hear a cat?' she asked. 'My cat?' 'Not here,' said I, very |
| politely. She was a little doubtful and tried to peer past me into |
| the room; strange enough to her no doubt--bare walls, uncurtained |
| windows, truckle-bed, with the gas engine vibrating, and the |
| seethe of the radiant points, and that faint ghastly stinging of |
| chloroform in the air. She had to be satisfied at last and went |
| away again." |
| |
| "How long did it take?" asked Kemp. |
| |
| "Three or four hours--the cat. The bones and sinews and the fat |
| were the last to go, and the tips of the coloured hairs. And, as I |
| say, the back part of the eye, tough, iridescent stuff it is, |
| wouldn't go at all. |
| |
| "It was night outside long before the business was over, and nothing |
| was to be seen but the dim eyes and the claws. I stopped the gas |
| engine, felt for and stroked the beast, which was still insensible, |
| and then, being tired, left it sleeping on the invisible pillow and |
| went to bed. I found it hard to sleep. I lay awake thinking weak |
| aimless stuff, going over the experiment over and over again, or |
| dreaming feverishly of things growing misty and vanishing about me, |
| until everything, the ground I stood on, vanished, and so I came to |
| that sickly falling nightmare one gets. About two, the cat began |
| miaowing about the room. I tried to hush it by talking to it, and |
| then I decided to turn it out. I remember the shock I had when |
| striking a light--there were just the round eyes shining green--and |
| nothing round them. I would have given it milk, but I hadn't any. It |
| wouldn't be quiet, it just sat down and miaowed at the door. I tried |
| to catch it, with an idea of putting it out of the window, but it |
| wouldn't be caught, it vanished. Then it began miaowing in different |
| parts of the room. At last I opened the window and made a bustle. I |
| suppose it went out at last. I never saw any more of it. |
| |
| "Then--Heaven knows why--I fell thinking of my father's funeral |
| again, and the dismal windy hillside, until the day had come. I |
| found sleeping was hopeless, and, locking my door after me, |
| wandered out into the morning streets." |
| |
| "You don't mean to say there's an invisible cat at large!" said |
| Kemp. |
| |
| "If it hasn't been killed," said the Invisible Man. "Why not?" |
| |
| "Why not?" said Kemp. "I didn't mean to interrupt." |
| |
| "It's very probably been killed," said the Invisible Man. "It |
| was alive four days after, I know, and down a grating in Great |
| Tichfield Street; because I saw a crowd round the place, trying |
| to see whence the miaowing came." |
| |
| He was silent for the best part of a minute. Then he resumed |
| abruptly: |
| |
| "I remember that morning before the change very vividly. I must have |
| gone up Great Portland Street. I remember the barracks in Albany |
| Street, and the horse soldiers coming out, and at last I found the |
| summit of Primrose Hill. It was a sunny day in January--one of those |
| sunny, frosty days that came before the snow this year. My weary |
| brain tried to formulate the position, to plot out a plan of action. |
| |
| "I was surprised to find, now that my prize was within my grasp, how |
| inconclusive its attainment seemed. As a matter of fact I was worked |
| out; the intense stress of nearly four years' continuous work left |
| me incapable of any strength of feeling. I was apathetic, and I |
| tried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries, |
| the passion of discovery that had enabled me to compass even the |
| downfall of my father's grey hairs. Nothing seemed to matter. I saw |
| pretty clearly this was a transient mood, due to overwork and want |
| of sleep, and that either by drugs or rest it would be possible to |
| recover my energies. |
| |
| "All I could think clearly was that the thing had to be carried |
| through; the fixed idea still ruled me. And soon, for the money I |
| had was almost exhausted. I looked about me at the hillside, with |
| children playing and girls watching them, and tried to think of all |
| the fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world. |
| After a time I crawled home, took some food and a strong dose of |
| strychnine, and went to sleep in my clothes on my unmade bed. |
| Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out of |
| a man." |
| |
| "It's the devil," said Kemp. "It's the palaeolithic in a bottle." |
| |
| "I awoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable. You know?" |
| |
| "I know the stuff." |
| |
| "And there was someone rapping at the door. It was my landlord |
| with threats and inquiries, an old Polish Jew in a long grey coat |
| and greasy slippers. I had been tormenting a cat in the night, he |
| was sure--the old woman's tongue had been busy. He insisted on |
| knowing all about it. The laws in this country against vivisection |
| were very severe--he might be liable. I denied the cat. Then the |
| vibration of the little gas engine could be felt all over the |
| house, he said. That was true, certainly. He edged round me into |
| the room, peering about over his German-silver spectacles, and a |
| sudden dread came into my mind that he might carry away something |
| of my secret. I tried to keep between him and the concentrating |
| apparatus I had arranged, and that only made him more curious. What |
| was I doing? Why was I always alone and secretive? Was it legal? |
| Was it dangerous? I paid nothing but the usual rent. His had always |
| been a most respectable house--in a disreputable neighbourhood. |
| Suddenly my temper gave way. I told him to get out. He began to |
| protest, to jabber of his right of entry. In a moment I had him by |
| the collar; something ripped, and he went spinning out into his own |
| passage. I slammed and locked the door and sat down quivering. |
| |
| "He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a time he |
| went away. |
| |
| "But this brought matters to a crisis. I did not know what he |
| would do, nor even what he had the power to do. To move to fresh |
| apartments would have meant delay; altogether I had barely twenty |
| pounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank--and I |
| could not afford that. Vanish! It was irresistible. Then there |
| would be an inquiry, the sacking of my room. |
| |
| "At the thought of the possibility of my work being exposed or |
| interrupted at its very climax, I became very angry and active. I |
| hurried out with my three books of notes, my cheque-book--the tramp |
| has them now--and directed them from the nearest Post Office to a |
| house of call for letters and parcels in Great Portland Street. I |
| tried to go out noiselessly. Coming in, I found my landlord going |
| quietly upstairs; he had heard the door close, I suppose. You would |
| have laughed to see him jump aside on the landing as came tearing |
| after him. He glared at me as I went by him, and I made the house |
| quiver with the slamming of my door. I heard him come shuffling up |
| to my floor, hesitate, and go down. I set to work upon my |
| preparations forthwith. |
| |
| "It was all done that evening and night. While I was still sitting |
| under the sickly, drowsy influence of the drugs that decolourise |
| blood, there came a repeated knocking at the door. It ceased, |
| footsteps went away and returned, and the knocking was resumed. |
| There was an attempt to push something under the door--a blue |
| paper. Then in a fit of irritation I rose and went and flung the |
| door wide open. 'Now then?' said I. |
| |
| "It was my landlord, with a notice of ejectment or something. He |
| held it out to me, saw something odd about my hands, I expect, and |
| lifted his eyes to my face. |
| |
| "For a moment he gaped. Then he gave a sort of inarticulate cry, |
| dropped candle and writ together, and went blundering down the dark |
| passage to the stairs. I shut the door, locked it, and went to the |
| looking-glass. Then I understood his terror.... My face was |
| white--like white stone. |
| |
| "But it was all horrible. I had not expected the suffering. A night |
| of racking anguish, sickness and fainting. I set my teeth, though my |
| skin was presently afire, all my body afire; but I lay there like |
| grim death. I understood now how it was the cat had howled until I |
| chloroformed it. Lucky it was I lived alone and untended in my room. |
| There were times when I sobbed and groaned and talked. But I stuck |
| to it.... I became insensible and woke languid in the darkness. |
| |
| "The pain had passed. I thought I was killing myself and I did not |
| care. I shall never forget that dawn, and the strange horror of |
| seeing that my hands had become as clouded glass, and watching them |
| grow clearer and thinner as the day went by, until at last I could |
| see the sickly disorder of my room through them, though I closed my |
| transparent eyelids. My limbs became glassy, the bones and arteries |
| faded, vanished, and the little white nerves went last. I gritted |
| my teeth and stayed there to the end. At last only the dead tips of |
| the fingernails remained, pallid and white, and the brown stain of |
| some acid upon my fingers. |
| |
| "I struggled up. At first I was as incapable as a swathed |
| infant--stepping with limbs I could not see. I was weak and very |
| hungry. I went and stared at nothing in my shaving-glass, at nothing |
| save where an attenuated pigment still remained behind the retina of |
| my eyes, fainter than mist. I had to hang on to the table and press |
| my forehead against the glass. |
| |
| "It was only by a frantic effort of will that I dragged myself back |
| to the apparatus and completed the process. |
| |
| "I slept during the forenoon, pulling the sheet over my eyes to shut |
| out the light, and about midday I was awakened again by a knocking. |
| My strength had returned. I sat up and listened and heard a |
| whispering. I sprang to my feet and as noiselessly as possible began |
| to detach the connections of my apparatus, and to distribute it |
| about the room, so as to destroy the suggestions of its arrangement. |
| Presently the knocking was renewed and voices called, first my |
| landlord's, and then two others. To gain time I answered them. The |
| invisible rag and pillow came to hand and I opened the window and |
| pitched them out on to the cistern cover. As the window opened, a |
| heavy crash came at the door. Someone had charged it with the idea |
| of smashing the lock. But the stout bolts I had screwed up some |
| days before stopped him. That startled me, made me angry. I began |
| to tremble and do things hurriedly. |
| |
| "I tossed together some loose paper, straw, packing paper and so |
| forth, in the middle of the room, and turned on the gas. Heavy |
| blows began to rain upon the door. I could not find the matches. I |
| beat my hands on the wall with rage. I turned down the gas again, |
| stepped out of the window on the cistern cover, very softly lowered |
| the sash, and sat down, secure and invisible, but quivering with |
| anger, to watch events. They split a panel, I saw, and in another |
| moment they had broken away the staples of the bolts and stood in |
| the open doorway. It was the landlord and his two step-sons, sturdy |
| young men of three or four and twenty. Behind them fluttered the |
| old hag of a woman from downstairs. |
| |
| "You may imagine their astonishment to find the room empty. One of |
| the younger men rushed to the window at once, flung it up and stared |
| out. His staring eyes and thick-lipped bearded face came a foot |
| from my face. I was half minded to hit his silly countenance, but I |
| arrested my doubled fist. He stared right through me. So did the |
| others as they joined him. The old man went and peered under the |
| bed, and then they all made a rush for the cupboard. They had to |
| argue about it at length in Yiddish and Cockney English. They |
| concluded I had not answered them, that their imagination had |
| deceived them. A feeling of extraordinary elation took the place |
| of my anger as I sat outside the window and watched these four |
| people--for the old lady came in, glancing suspiciously about her |
| like a cat, trying to understand the riddle of my behaviour. |
| |
| "The old man, so far as I could understand his patois, agreed with |
| the old lady that I was a vivisectionist. The sons protested in |
| garbled English that I was an electrician, and appealed to the |
| dynamos and radiators. They were all nervous about my arrival, |
| although I found subsequently that they had bolted the front door. |
| The old lady peered into the cupboard and under the bed, and one of |
| the young men pushed up the register and stared up the chimney. One |
| of my fellow lodgers, a coster-monger who shared the opposite room |
| with a butcher, appeared on the landing, and he was called in and |
| told incoherent things. |
| |
| "It occurred to me that the radiators, if they fell into the hands |
| of some acute well-educated person, would give me away too much, |
| and watching my opportunity, I came into the room and tilted one of |
| the little dynamos off its fellow on which it was standing, and |
| smashed both apparatus. Then, while they were trying to explain the |
| smash, I dodged out of the room and went softly downstairs. |
| |
| "I went into one of the sitting-rooms and waited until they came |
| down, still speculating and argumentative, all a little disappointed |
| at finding no 'horrors,' and all a little puzzled how they stood |
| legally towards me. Then I slipped up again with a box of matches, |
| fired my heap of paper and rubbish, put the chairs and bedding |
| thereby, led the gas to the affair, by means of an india-rubber |
| tube, and waving a farewell to the room left it for the last time." |
| |
| "You fired the house!" exclaimed Kemp. |
| |
| "Fired the house. It was the only way to cover my trail--and no |
| doubt it was insured. I slipped the bolts of the front door quietly |
| and went out into the street. I was invisible, and I was only just |
| beginning to realise the extraordinary advantage my invisibility |
| gave me. My head was already teeming with plans of all the wild and |
| wonderful things I had now impunity to do. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XXI |
| |
| IN OXFORD STREET |
| |
| |
| "In going downstairs the first time I found an unexpected difficulty |
| because I could not see my feet; indeed I stumbled twice, and there |
| was an unaccustomed clumsiness in gripping the bolt. By not looking |
| down, however, I managed to walk on the level passably well. |
| |
| "My mood, I say, was one of exaltation. I felt as a seeing man |
| might do, with padded feet and noiseless clothes, in a city of the |
| blind. I experienced a wild impulse to jest, to startle people, to |
| clap men on the back, fling people's hats astray, and generally |
| revel in my extraordinary advantage. |
| |
| "But hardly had I emerged upon Great Portland Street, however (my |
| lodging was close to the big draper's shop there), when I heard a |
| clashing concussion and was hit violently behind, and turning saw |
| a man carrying a basket of soda-water syphons, and looking in |
| amazement at his burden. Although the blow had really hurt me, I |
| found something so irresistible in his astonishment that I laughed |
| aloud. 'The devil's in the basket,' I said, and suddenly twisted |
| it out of his hand. He let go incontinently, and I swung the whole |
| weight into the air. |
| |
| "But a fool of a cabman, standing outside a public house, made a |
| sudden rush for this, and his extending fingers took me with |
| excruciating violence under the ear. I let the whole down with a |
| smash on the cabman, and then, with shouts and the clatter of feet |
| about me, people coming out of shops, vehicles pulling up, I |
| realised what I had done for myself, and cursing my folly, backed |
| against a shop window and prepared to dodge out of the confusion. In |
| a moment I should be wedged into a crowd and inevitably discovered. |
| I pushed by a butcher boy, who luckily did not turn to see the |
| nothingness that shoved him aside, and dodged behind the cab-man's |
| four-wheeler. I do not know how they settled the business, I hurried |
| straight across the road, which was happily clear, and hardly |
| heeding which way I went, in the fright of detection the incident |
| had given me, plunged into the afternoon throng of Oxford Street. |
| |
| "I tried to get into the stream of people, but they were too thick |
| for me, and in a moment my heels were being trodden upon. I took to |
| the gutter, the roughness of which I found painful to my feet, and |
| forthwith the shaft of a crawling hansom dug me forcibly under the |
| shoulder blade, reminding me that I was already bruised severely. I |
| staggered out of the way of the cab, avoided a perambulator by a |
| convulsive movement, and found myself behind the hansom. A happy |
| thought saved me, and as this drove slowly along I followed in its |
| immediate wake, trembling and astonished at the turn of my |
| adventure. And not only trembling, but shivering. It was a bright |
| day in January and I was stark naked and the thin slime of mud that |
| covered the road was freezing. Foolish as it seems to me now, I had |
| not reckoned that, transparent or not, I was still amenable to the |
| weather and all its consequences. |
| |
| "Then suddenly a bright idea came into my head. I ran round and got |
| into the cab. And so, shivering, scared, and sniffing with the first |
| intimations of a cold, and with the bruises in the small of my back |
| growing upon my attention, I drove slowly along Oxford Street and |
| past Tottenham Court Road. My mood was as different from that in |
| which I had sallied forth ten minutes ago as it is possible to |
| imagine. This invisibility indeed! The one thought that possessed |
| me was--how was I to get out of the scrape I was in. |
| |
| "We crawled past Mudie's, and there a tall woman with five or six |
| yellow-labelled books hailed my cab, and I sprang out just in time |
| to escape her, shaving a railway van narrowly in my flight. I made |
| off up the roadway to Bloomsbury Square, intending to strike north |
| past the Museum and so get into the quiet district. I was now |
| cruelly chilled, and the strangeness of my situation so unnerved me |
| that I whimpered as I ran. At the northward corner of the Square a |
| little white dog ran out of the Pharmaceutical Society's offices, |
| and incontinently made for me, nose down. |
| |
| "I had never realised it before, but the nose is to the mind of a |
| dog what the eye is to the mind of a seeing man. Dogs perceive the |
| scent of a man moving as men perceive his vision. This brute began |
| barking and leaping, showing, as it seemed to me, only too plainly |
| that he was aware of me. I crossed Great Russell Street, glancing |
| over my shoulder as I did so, and went some way along Montague |
| Street before I realised what I was running towards. |
| |
| "Then I became aware of a blare of music, and looking along the |
| street saw a number of people advancing out of Russell Square, red |
| shirts, and the banner of the Salvation Army to the fore. Such a |
| crowd, chanting in the roadway and scoffing on the pavement, I |
| could not hope to penetrate, and dreading to go back and farther |
| from home again, and deciding on the spur of the moment, I ran up |
| the white steps of a house facing the museum railings, and stood |
| there until the crowd should have passed. Happily the dog stopped |
| at the noise of the band too, hesitated, and turned tail, running |
| back to Bloomsbury Square again. |
| |
| "On came the band, bawling with unconscious irony some hymn about |
| 'When shall we see His face?' and it seemed an interminable time |
| to me before the tide of the crowd washed along the pavement by me. |
| Thud, thud, thud, came the drum with a vibrating resonance, and for |
| the moment I did not notice two urchins stopping at the railings by |
| me. 'See 'em,' said one. 'See what?' said the other. 'Why--them |
| footmarks--bare. Like what you makes in mud.' |
| |
| "I looked down and saw the youngsters had stopped and were gaping |
| at the muddy footmarks I had left behind me up the newly whitened |
| steps. The passing people elbowed and jostled them, but their |
| confounded intelligence was arrested. 'Thud, thud, thud, when, |
| thud, shall we see, thud, his face, thud, thud.' 'There's a |
| barefoot man gone up them steps, or I don't know nothing,' said |
| one. 'And he ain't never come down again. And his foot was |
| a-bleeding.' |
| |
| "The thick of the crowd had already passed. 'Looky there, Ted,' |
| quoth the younger of the detectives, with the sharpness of surprise |
| in his voice, and pointed straight to my feet. I looked down and |
| saw at once the dim suggestion of their outline sketched in |
| splashes of mud. For a moment I was paralysed. |
| |
| "'Why, that's rum,' said the elder. 'Dashed rum! It's just like |
| the ghost of a foot, ain't it?' He hesitated and advanced with |
| outstretched hand. A man pulled up short to see what he was |
| catching, and then a girl. In another moment he would have touched |
| me. Then I saw what to do. I made a step, the boy started back with |
| an exclamation, and with a rapid movement I swung myself over into |
| the portico of the next house. But the smaller boy was sharp-eyed |
| enough to follow the movement, and before I was well down the |
| steps and upon the pavement, he had recovered from his momentary |
| astonishment and was shouting out that the feet had gone over the |
| wall. |
| |
| "They rushed round and saw my new footmarks flash into being on the |
| lower step and upon the pavement. 'What's up?' asked someone. |
| 'Feet! Look! Feet running!' |
| |
| "Everybody in the road, except my three pursuers, was pouring along |
| after the Salvation Army, and this blow not only impeded me but them. |
| There was an eddy of surprise and interrogation. At the cost of |
| bowling over one young fellow I got through, and in another moment |
| I was rushing headlong round the circuit of Russell Square, with |
| six or seven astonished people following my footmarks. There was |
| no time for explanation, or else the whole host would have been |
| after me. |
| |
| "Twice I doubled round corners, thrice I crossed the road and came |
| back upon my tracks, and then, as my feet grew hot and dry, the |
| damp impressions began to fade. At last I had a breathing space |
| and rubbed my feet clean with my hands, and so got away altogether. |
| The last I saw of the chase was a little group of a dozen people |
| perhaps, studying with infinite perplexity a slowly drying |
| footprint that had resulted from a puddle in Tavistock Square, a |
| footprint as isolated and incomprehensible to them as Crusoe's |
| solitary discovery. |
| |
| "This running warmed me to a certain extent, and I went on with a |
| better courage through the maze of less frequented roads that runs |
| hereabouts. My back had now become very stiff and sore, my tonsils |
| were painful from the cabman's fingers, and the skin of my neck |
| had been scratched by his nails; my feet hurt exceedingly and I |
| was lame from a little cut on one foot. I saw in time a blind |
| man approaching me, and fled limping, for I feared his subtle |
| intuitions. Once or twice accidental collisions occurred and I left |
| people amazed, with unaccountable curses ringing in their ears. |
| Then came something silent and quiet against my face, and across |
| the Square fell a thin veil of slowly falling flakes of snow. I had |
| caught a cold, and do as I would I could not avoid an occasional |
| sneeze. And every dog that came in sight, with its pointing nose |
| and curious sniffing, was a terror to me. |
| |
| "Then came men and boys running, first one and then others, and |
| shouting as they ran. It was a fire. They ran in the direction of |
| my lodging, and looking back down a street I saw a mass of black |
| smoke streaming up above the roofs and telephone wires. It was my |
| lodging burning; my clothes, my apparatus, all my resources indeed, |
| except my cheque-book and the three volumes of memoranda that |
| awaited me in Great Portland Street, were there. Burning! I had |
| burnt my boats--if ever a man did! The place was blazing." |
| |
| The Invisible Man paused and thought. Kemp glanced nervously out of |
| the window. "Yes?" he said. "Go on." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XXII |
| |
| IN THE EMPORIUM |
| |
| |
| "So last January, with the beginning of a snowstorm in the air |
| about me--and if it settled on me it would betray me!--weary, |
| cold, painful, inexpressibly wretched, and still but half convinced |
| of my invisible quality, I began this new life to which I am |
| committed. I had no refuge, no appliances, no human being in the |
| world in whom I could confide. To have told my secret would have |
| given me away--made a mere show and rarity of me. Nevertheless, I |
| was half-minded to accost some passer-by and throw myself upon his |
| mercy. But I knew too clearly the terror and brutal cruelty my |
| advances would evoke. I made no plans in the street. My sole object |
| was to get shelter from the snow, to get myself covered and warm; |
| then I might hope to plan. But even to me, an Invisible Man, the |
| rows of London houses stood latched, barred, and bolted |
| impregnably. |
| |
| "Only one thing could I see clearly before me--the cold exposure |
| and misery of the snowstorm and the night. |
| |
| "And then I had a brilliant idea. I turned down one of the roads |
| leading from Gower Street to Tottenham Court Road, and found myself |
| outside Omniums, the big establishment where everything is to be |
| bought--you know the place: meat, grocery, linen, furniture, |
| clothing, oil paintings even--a huge meandering collection of shops |
| rather than a shop. I had thought I should find the doors open, but |
| they were closed, and as I stood in the wide entrance a carriage |
| stopped outside, and a man in uniform--you know the kind of |
| personage with 'Omnium' on his cap--flung open the door. I contrived |
| to enter, and walking down the shop--it was a department where they |
| were selling ribbons and gloves and stockings and that kind of |
| thing--came to a more spacious region devoted to picnic baskets and |
| wicker furniture. |
| |
| "I did not feel safe there, however; people were going to and fro, |
| and I prowled restlessly about until I came upon a huge section in |
| an upper floor containing multitudes of bedsteads, and over these I |
| clambered, and found a resting-place at last among a huge pile of |
| folded flock mattresses. The place was already lit up and agreeably |
| warm, and I decided to remain where I was, keeping a cautious |
| eye on the two or three sets of shopmen and customers who were |
| meandering through the place, until closing time came. Then I |
| should be able, I thought, to rob the place for food and clothing, |
| and disguised, prowl through it and examine its resources, perhaps |
| sleep on some of the bedding. That seemed an acceptable plan. |
| My idea was to procure clothing to make myself a muffled but |
| acceptable figure, to get money, and then to recover my books |
| and parcels where they awaited me, take a lodging somewhere and |
| elaborate plans for the complete realisation of the advantages my |
| invisibility gave me (as I still imagined) over my fellow-men. |
| |
| "Closing time arrived quickly enough. It could not have been more |
| than an hour after I took up my position on the mattresses before I |
| noticed the blinds of the windows being drawn, and customers being |
| marched doorward. And then a number of brisk young men began with |
| remarkable alacrity to tidy up the goods that remained disturbed. I |
| left my lair as the crowds diminished, and prowled cautiously out |
| into the less desolate parts of the shop. I was really surprised to |
| observe how rapidly the young men and women whipped away the goods |
| displayed for sale during the day. All the boxes of goods, the |
| hanging fabrics, the festoons of lace, the boxes of sweets in the |
| grocery section, the displays of this and that, were being whipped |
| down, folded up, slapped into tidy receptacles, and everything that |
| could not be taken down and put away had sheets of some coarse |
| stuff like sacking flung over them. Finally all the chairs were |
| turned up on to the counters, leaving the floor clear. Directly |
| each of these young people had done, he or she made promptly for |
| the door with such an expression of animation as I have rarely |
| observed in a shop assistant before. Then came a lot of youngsters |
| scattering sawdust and carrying pails and brooms. I had to dodge |
| to get out of the way, and as it was, my ankle got stung with the |
| sawdust. For some time, wandering through the swathed and darkened |
| departments, I could hear the brooms at work. And at last a good |
| hour or more after the shop had been closed, came a noise of |
| locking doors. Silence came upon the place, and I found myself |
| wandering through the vast and intricate shops, galleries, show-rooms |
| of the place, alone. It was very still; in one place I remember |
| passing near one of the Tottenham Court Road entrances and listening |
| to the tapping of boot-heels of the passers-by. |
| |
| "My first visit was to the place where I had seen stockings and |
| gloves for sale. It was dark, and I had the devil of a hunt after |
| matches, which I found at last in the drawer of the little cash |
| desk. Then I had to get a candle. I had to tear down wrappings and |
| ransack a number of boxes and drawers, but at last I managed to turn |
| out what I sought; the box label called them lambswool pants, and |
| lambswool vests. Then socks, a thick comforter, and then I went to |
| the clothing place and got trousers, a lounge jacket, an overcoat |
| and a slouch hat--a clerical sort of hat with the brim turned down. |
| I began to feel a human being again, and my next thought was food. |
| |
| "Upstairs was a refreshment department, and there I got cold meat. |
| There was coffee still in the urn, and I lit the gas and warmed it |
| up again, and altogether I did not do badly. Afterwards, prowling |
| through the place in search of blankets--I had to put up at last |
| with a heap of down quilts--I came upon a grocery section with |
| a lot of chocolate and candied fruits, more than was good for me |
| indeed--and some white burgundy. And near that was a toy department, |
| and I had a brilliant idea. I found some artificial noses--dummy |
| noses, you know, and I thought of dark spectacles. But Omniums had |
| no optical department. My nose had been a difficulty indeed--I had |
| thought of paint. But the discovery set my mind running on wigs and |
| masks and the like. Finally I went to sleep in a heap of down |
| quilts, very warm and comfortable. |
| |
| "My last thoughts before sleeping were the most agreeable I had had |
| since the change. I was in a state of physical serenity, and that |
| was reflected in my mind. I thought that I should be able to slip |
| out unobserved in the morning with my clothes upon me, muffling my |
| face with a white wrapper I had taken, purchase, with the money I |
| had taken, spectacles and so forth, and so complete my disguise. I |
| lapsed into disorderly dreams of all the fantastic things that had |
| happened during the last few days. I saw the ugly little Jew of a |
| landlord vociferating in his rooms; I saw his two sons marvelling, |
| and the wrinkled old woman's gnarled face as she asked for her cat. |
| I experienced again the strange sensation of seeing the cloth |
| disappear, and so I came round to the windy hillside and the |
| sniffing old clergyman mumbling 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, |
| dust to dust,' at my father's open grave. |
| |
| "'You also,' said a voice, and suddenly I was being forced towards |
| the grave. I struggled, shouted, appealed to the mourners, but they |
| continued stonily following the service; the old clergyman, too, |
| never faltered droning and sniffing through the ritual. I realised |
| I was invisible and inaudible, that overwhelming forces had their |
| grip on me. I struggled in vain, I was forced over the brink, the |
| coffin rang hollow as I fell upon it, and the gravel came flying |
| after me in spadefuls. Nobody heeded me, nobody was aware of me. I |
| made convulsive struggles and awoke. |
| |
| "The pale London dawn had come, the place was full of a chilly grey |
| light that filtered round the edges of the window blinds. I sat up, |
| and for a time I could not think where this ample apartment, with |
| its counters, its piles of rolled stuff, its heap of quilts and |
| cushions, its iron pillars, might be. Then, as recollection came |
| back to me, I heard voices in conversation. |
| |
| "Then far down the place, in the brighter light of some department |
| which had already raised its blinds, I saw two men approaching. I |
| scrambled to my feet, looking about me for some way of escape, and |
| even as I did so the sound of my movement made them aware of me. I |
| suppose they saw merely a figure moving quietly and quickly away. |
| 'Who's that?' cried one, and 'Stop, there!' shouted the other. I |
| dashed around a corner and came full tilt--a faceless figure, |
| mind you!--on a lanky lad of fifteen. He yelled and I bowled him |
| over, rushed past him, turned another corner, and by a happy |
| inspiration threw myself behind a counter. In another moment feet |
| went running past and I heard voices shouting, 'All hands to the |
| doors!' asking what was 'up,' and giving one another advice how to |
| catch me. |
| |
| "Lying on the ground, I felt scared out of my wits. But--odd as |
| it may seem--it did not occur to me at the moment to take off my |
| clothes as I should have done. I had made up my mind, I suppose, to |
| get away in them, and that ruled me. And then down the vista of the |
| counters came a bawling of 'Here he is!' |
| |
| "I sprang to my feet, whipped a chair off the counter, and sent it |
| whirling at the fool who had shouted, turned, came into another |
| round a corner, sent him spinning, and rushed up the stairs. He |
| kept his footing, gave a view hallo, and came up the staircase hot |
| after me. Up the staircase were piled a multitude of those |
| bright-coloured pot things--what are they?" |
| |
| "Art pots," suggested Kemp. |
| |
| "That's it! Art pots. Well, I turned at the top step and swung |
| round, plucked one out of a pile and smashed it on his silly head |
| as he came at me. The whole pile of pots went headlong, and I heard |
| shouting and footsteps running from all parts. I made a mad rush |
| for the refreshment place, and there was a man in white like a man |
| cook, who took up the chase. I made one last desperate turn and |
| found myself among lamps and ironmongery. I went behind the counter |
| of this, and waited for my cook, and as he bolted in at the head of |
| the chase, I doubled him up with a lamp. Down he went, and I |
| crouched down behind the counter and began whipping off my clothes |
| as fast as I could. Coat, jacket, trousers, shoes were all right, |
| but a lambswool vest fits a man like a skin. I heard more men |
| coming, my cook was lying quiet on the other side of the counter, |
| stunned or scared speechless, and I had to make another dash for |
| it, like a rabbit hunted out of a wood-pile. |
| |
| "'This way, policeman!' I heard someone shouting. I found myself in |
| my bedstead storeroom again, and at the end of a wilderness of |
| wardrobes. I rushed among them, went flat, got rid of my vest after |
| infinite wriggling, and stood a free man again, panting and scared, |
| as the policeman and three of the shopmen came round the corner. |
| They made a rush for the vest and pants, and collared the trousers. |
| 'He's dropping his plunder,' said one of the young men. 'He _must_ |
| be somewhere here.' |
| |
| "But they did not find me all the same. |
| |
| "I stood watching them hunt for me for a time, and cursing my |
| ill-luck in losing the clothes. Then I went into the refreshment-room, |
| drank a little milk I found there, and sat down by the fire to |
| consider my position. |
| |
| "In a little while two assistants came in and began to talk over |
| the business very excitedly and like the fools they were. I heard a |
| magnified account of my depredations, and other speculations as to |
| my whereabouts. Then I fell to scheming again. The insurmountable |
| difficulty of the place, especially now it was alarmed, was to get |
| any plunder out of it. I went down into the warehouse to see if |
| there was any chance of packing and addressing a parcel, but I |
| could not understand the system of checking. About eleven o'clock, |
| the snow having thawed as it fell, and the day being finer and a |
| little warmer than the previous one, I decided that the Emporium |
| was hopeless, and went out again, exasperated at my want of |
| success, with only the vaguest plans of action in my mind." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XXIII |
| |
| IN DRURY LANE |
| |
| |
| "But you begin now to realise," said the Invisible Man, "the full |
| disadvantage of my condition. I had no shelter--no covering--to |
| get clothing was to forego all my advantage, to make myself a |
| strange and terrible thing. I was fasting; for to eat, to fill |
| myself with unassimilated matter, would be to become grotesquely |
| visible again." |
| |
| "I never thought of that," said Kemp. |
| |
| "Nor had I. And the snow had warned me of other dangers. I could not |
| go abroad in snow--it would settle on me and expose me. Rain, too, |
| would make me a watery outline, a glistening surface of a man--a |
| bubble. And fog--I should be like a fainter bubble in a fog, |
| a surface, a greasy glimmer of humanity. Moreover, as I went |
| abroad--in the London air--I gathered dirt about my ankles, floating |
| smuts and dust upon my skin. I did not know how long it would be |
| before I should become visible from that cause also. But I saw |
| clearly it could not be for long. |
| |
| "Not in London at any rate. |
| |
| "I went into the slums towards Great Portland Street, and found |
| myself at the end of the street in which I had lodged. I did not |
| go that way, because of the crowd halfway down it opposite to the |
| still smoking ruins of the house I had fired. My most immediate |
| problem was to get clothing. What to do with my face puzzled me. |
| Then I saw in one of those little miscellaneous shops--news, |
| sweets, toys, stationery, belated Christmas tomfoolery, and so |
| forth--an array of masks and noses. I realised that problem was |
| solved. In a flash I saw my course. I turned about, no longer |
| aimless, and went--circuitously in order to avoid the busy ways, |
| towards the back streets north of the Strand; for I remembered, |
| though not very distinctly where, that some theatrical costumiers |
| had shops in that district. |
| |
| "The day was cold, with a nipping wind down the northward running |
| streets. I walked fast to avoid being overtaken. Every crossing was |
| a danger, every passenger a thing to watch alertly. One man as I |
| was about to pass him at the top of Bedford Street, turned upon |
| me abruptly and came into me, sending me into the road and almost |
| under the wheel of a passing hansom. The verdict of the cab-rank |
| was that he had had some sort of stroke. I was so unnerved by this |
| encounter that I went into Covent Garden Market and sat down for |
| some time in a quiet corner by a stall of violets, panting and |
| trembling. I found I had caught a fresh cold, and had to turn out |
| after a time lest my sneezes should attract attention. |
| |
| "At last I reached the object of my quest, a dirty, fly-blown little |
| shop in a by-way near Drury Lane, with a window full of tinsel |
| robes, sham jewels, wigs, slippers, dominoes and theatrical |
| photographs. The shop was old-fashioned and low and dark, and the |
| house rose above it for four storeys, dark and dismal. I peered |
| through the window and, seeing no one within, entered. The opening |
| of the door set a clanking bell ringing. I left it open, and walked |
| round a bare costume stand, into a corner behind a cheval glass. For |
| a minute or so no one came. Then I heard heavy feet striding across |
| a room, and a man appeared down the shop. |
| |
| "My plans were now perfectly definite. I proposed to make my way |
| into the house, secrete myself upstairs, watch my opportunity, and |
| when everything was quiet, rummage out a wig, mask, spectacles, and |
| costume, and go into the world, perhaps a grotesque but still a |
| credible figure. And incidentally of course I could rob the house |
| of any available money. |
| |
| "The man who had just entered the shop was a short, slight, |
| hunched, beetle-browed man, with long arms and very short bandy |
| legs. Apparently I had interrupted a meal. He stared about the shop |
| with an expression of expectation. This gave way to surprise, and |
| then to anger, as he saw the shop empty. 'Damn the boys!' he said. |
| He went to stare up and down the street. He came in again in a |
| minute, kicked the door to with his foot spitefully, and went |
| muttering back to the house door. |
| |
| "I came forward to follow him, and at the noise of my movement he |
| stopped dead. I did so too, startled by his quickness of ear. He |
| slammed the house door in my face. |
| |
| "I stood hesitating. Suddenly I heard his quick footsteps returning, |
| and the door reopened. He stood looking about the shop like one who |
| was still not satisfied. Then, murmuring to himself, he examined the |
| back of the counter and peered behind some fixtures. Then he stood |
| doubtful. He had left the house door open and I slipped into the |
| inner room. |
| |
| "It was a queer little room, poorly furnished and with a number of |
| big masks in the corner. On the table was his belated breakfast, |
| and it was a confoundedly exasperating thing for me, Kemp, to have |
| to sniff his coffee and stand watching while he came in and resumed |
| his meal. And his table manners were irritating. Three doors opened |
| into the little room, one going upstairs and one down, but they |
| were all shut. I could not get out of the room while he was there; |
| I could scarcely move because of his alertness, and there was a |
| draught down my back. Twice I strangled a sneeze just in time. |
| |
| "The spectacular quality of my sensations was curious and novel, but |
| for all that I was heartily tired and angry long before he had done |
| his eating. But at last he made an end and putting his beggarly |
| crockery on the black tin tray upon which he had had his teapot, and |
| gathering all the crumbs up on the mustard stained cloth, he took |
| the whole lot of things after him. His burden prevented his shutting |
| the door behind him--as he would have done; I never saw such a man |
| for shutting doors--and I followed him into a very dirty underground |
| kitchen and scullery. I had the pleasure of seeing him begin to wash |
| up, and then, finding no good in keeping down there, and the brick |
| floor being cold on my feet, I returned upstairs and sat in his |
| chair by the fire. It was burning low, and scarcely thinking, I put |
| on a little coal. The noise of this brought him up at once, and |
| he stood aglare. He peered about the room and was within an ace |
| of touching me. Even after that examination, he scarcely seemed |
| satisfied. He stopped in the doorway and took a final inspection |
| before he went down. |
| |
| "I waited in the little parlour for an age, and at last he came up |
| and opened the upstairs door. I just managed to get by him. |
| |
| "On the staircase he stopped suddenly, so that I very nearly |
| blundered into him. He stood looking back right into my face and |
| listening. 'I could have sworn,' he said. His long hairy hand |
| pulled at his lower lip. His eye went up and down the staircase. |
| Then he grunted and went on up again. |
| |
| "His hand was on the handle of a door, and then he stopped again |
| with the same puzzled anger on his face. He was becoming aware of |
| the faint sounds of my movements about him. The man must have had |
| diabolically acute hearing. He suddenly flashed into rage. 'If |
| there's anyone in this house--' he cried with an oath, and left the |
| threat unfinished. He put his hand in his pocket, failed to find |
| what he wanted, and rushing past me went blundering noisily and |
| pugnaciously downstairs. But I did not follow him. I sat on the |
| head of the staircase until his return. |
| |
| "Presently he came up again, still muttering. He opened the door of |
| the room, and before I could enter, slammed it in my face. |
| |
| "I resolved to explore the house, and spent some time in doing so |
| as noiselessly as possible. The house was very old and tumble-down, |
| damp so that the paper in the attics was peeling from the walls, and |
| rat infested. Some of the door handles were stiff and I was afraid |
| to turn them. Several rooms I did inspect were unfurnished, and |
| others were littered with theatrical lumber, bought second-hand, I |
| judged, from its appearance. In one room next to his I found a lot |
| of old clothes. I began routing among these, and in my eagerness |
| forgot again the evident sharpness of his ears. I heard a stealthy |
| footstep and, looking up just in time, saw him peering in at the |
| tumbled heap and holding an old-fashioned revolver in his hand. |
| I stood perfectly still while he stared about open-mouthed and |
| suspicious. 'It must have been her,' he said slowly. 'Damn her!' |
| |
| "He shut the door quietly, and immediately I heard the key turn in |
| the lock. Then his footsteps retreated. I realised abruptly that I |
| was locked in. For a minute I did not know what to do. I walked |
| from door to window and back, and stood perplexed. A gust of anger |
| came upon me. But I decided to inspect the clothes before I did |
| anything further, and my first attempt brought down a pile from an |
| upper shelf. This brought him back, more sinister than ever. That |
| time he actually touched me, jumped back with amazement and stood |
| astonished in the middle of the room. |
| |
| "Presently he calmed a little. 'Rats,' he said in an undertone, |
| fingers on lips. He was evidently a little scared. I edged quietly |
| out of the room, but a plank creaked. Then the infernal little brute |
| started going all over the house, revolver in hand and locking door |
| after door and pocketing the keys. When I realised what he was up to |
| I had a fit of rage--I could hardly control myself sufficiently to |
| watch my opportunity. By this time I knew he was alone in the house, |
| and so I made no more ado, but knocked him on the head." |
| |
| "Knocked him on the head?" exclaimed Kemp. |
| |
| "Yes--stunned him--as he was going downstairs. Hit him from |
| behind with a stool that stood on the landing. He went downstairs |
| like a bag of old boots." |
| |
| "But--I say! The common conventions of humanity--" |
| |
| "Are all very well for common people. But the point was, Kemp, that |
| I had to get out of that house in a disguise without his seeing me. |
| I couldn't think of any other way of doing it. And then I gagged |
| him with a Louis Quatorze vest and tied him up in a sheet." |
| |
| "Tied him up in a sheet!" |
| |
| "Made a sort of bag of it. It was rather a good idea to keep the |
| idiot scared and quiet, and a devilish hard thing to get out |
| of--head away from the string. My dear Kemp, it's no good your |
| sitting glaring as though I was a murderer. It had to be done. He |
| had his revolver. If once he saw me he would be able to describe |
| me--" |
| |
| "But still," said Kemp, "in England--to-day. And the man was in |
| his own house, and you were--well, robbing." |
| |
| "Robbing! Confound it! You'll call me a thief next! Surely, Kemp, |
| you're not fool enough to dance on the old strings. Can't you see |
| my position?" |
| |
| "And his too," said Kemp. |
| |
| The Invisible Man stood up sharply. "What do you mean to say?" |
| |
| Kemp's face grew a trifle hard. He was about to speak and checked |
| himself. "I suppose, after all," he said with a sudden change of |
| manner, "the thing had to be done. You were in a fix. But still--" |
| |
| "Of course I was in a fix--an infernal fix. And he made me wild |
| too--hunting me about the house, fooling about with his revolver, |
| locking and unlocking doors. He was simply exasperating. You don't |
| blame me, do you? You don't blame me?" |
| |
| "I never blame anyone," said Kemp. "It's quite out of fashion. What |
| did you do next?" |
| |
| "I was hungry. Downstairs I found a loaf and some rank cheese--more |
| than sufficient to satisfy my hunger. I took some brandy and |
| water, and then went up past my impromptu bag--he was lying quite |
| still--to the room containing the old clothes. This looked out |
| upon the street, two lace curtains brown with dirt guarding the |
| window. I went and peered out through their interstices. Outside |
| the day was bright--by contrast with the brown shadows of the |
| dismal house in which I found myself, dazzlingly bright. A brisk |
| traffic was going by, fruit carts, a hansom, a four-wheeler with a |
| pile of boxes, a fishmonger's cart. I turned with spots of colour |
| swimming before my eyes to the shadowy fixtures behind me. My |
| excitement was giving place to a clear apprehension of my position |
| again. The room was full of a faint scent of benzoline, used, I |
| suppose, in cleaning the garments. |
| |
| "I began a systematic search of the place. I should judge the |
| hunchback had been alone in the house for some time. He was a |
| curious person. Everything that could possibly be of service to me |
| I collected in the clothes storeroom, and then I made a deliberate |
| selection. I found a handbag I thought a suitable possession, and |
| some powder, rouge, and sticking-plaster. |
| |
| "I had thought of painting and powdering my face and all that |
| there was to show of me, in order to render myself visible, but |
| the disadvantage of this lay in the fact that I should require |
| turpentine and other appliances and a considerable amount of time |
| before I could vanish again. Finally I chose a mask of the better |
| type, slightly grotesque but not more so than many human beings, |
| dark glasses, greyish whiskers, and a wig. I could find no |
| underclothing, but that I could buy subsequently, and for the time I |
| swathed myself in calico dominoes and some white cashmere scarfs. I |
| could find no socks, but the hunchback's boots were rather a loose |
| fit and sufficed. In a desk in the shop were three sovereigns and |
| about thirty shillings' worth of silver, and in a locked cupboard I |
| burst in the inner room were eight pounds in gold. I could go forth |
| into the world again, equipped. |
| |
| "Then came a curious hesitation. Was my appearance really |
| credible? I tried myself with a little bedroom looking-glass, |
| inspecting myself from every point of view to discover any |
| forgotten chink, but it all seemed sound. I was grotesque to the |
| theatrical pitch, a stage miser, but I was certainly not a physical |
| impossibility. Gathering confidence, I took my looking-glass down |
| into the shop, pulled down the shop blinds, and surveyed myself |
| from every point of view with the help of the cheval glass in the |
| corner. |
| |
| "I spent some minutes screwing up my courage and then unlocked the |
| shop door and marched out into the street, leaving the little man |
| to get out of his sheet again when he liked. In five minutes a |
| dozen turnings intervened between me and the costumier's shop. No |
| one appeared to notice me very pointedly. My last difficulty seemed |
| overcome." |
| |
| He stopped again. |
| |
| "And you troubled no more about the hunchback?" said Kemp. |
| |
| "No," said the Invisible Man. "Nor have I heard what became of him. |
| I suppose he untied himself or kicked himself out. The knots were |
| pretty tight." |
| |
| He became silent and went to the window and stared out. |
| |
| "What happened when you went out into the Strand?" |
| |
| "Oh!--disillusionment again. I thought my troubles were over. |
| Practically I thought I had impunity to do whatever I chose, |
| everything--save to give away my secret. So I thought. Whatever I |
| did, whatever the consequences might be, was nothing to me. I had |
| merely to fling aside my garments and vanish. No person could hold |
| me. I could take my money where I found it. I decided to treat |
| myself to a sumptuous feast, and then put up at a good hotel, and |
| accumulate a new outfit of property. I felt amazingly confident; |
| it's not particularly pleasant recalling that I was an ass. I went |
| into a place and was already ordering lunch, when it occurred to me |
| that I could not eat unless I exposed my invisible face. I finished |
| ordering the lunch, told the man I should be back in ten minutes, |
| and went out exasperated. I don't know if you have ever been |
| disappointed in your appetite." |
| |
| "Not quite so badly," said Kemp, "but I can imagine it." |
| |
| "I could have smashed the silly devils. At last, faint with the |
| desire for tasteful food, I went into another place and demanded a |
| private room. 'I am disfigured,' I said. 'Badly.' They looked at |
| me curiously, but of course it was not their affair--and so at |
| last I got my lunch. It was not particularly well served, but it |
| sufficed; and when I had had it, I sat over a cigar, trying to plan |
| my line of action. And outside a snowstorm was beginning. |
| |
| "The more I thought it over, Kemp, the more I realised what a |
| helpless absurdity an Invisible Man was--in a cold and dirty |
| climate and a crowded civilised city. Before I made this mad |
| experiment I had dreamt of a thousand advantages. That afternoon |
| it seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things |
| a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible |
| to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they |
| are got. Ambition--what is the good of pride of place when you |
| cannot appear there? What is the good of the love of woman when |
| her name must needs be Delilah? I have no taste for politics, for |
| the blackguardisms of fame, for philanthropy, for sport. What was |
| I to do? And for this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed |
| and bandaged caricature of a man!" |
| |
| He paused, and his attitude suggested a roving glance at the |
| window. |
| |
| "But how did you get to Iping?" said Kemp, anxious to keep his |
| guest busy talking. |
| |
| "I went there to work. I had one hope. It was a half idea! I have |
| it still. It is a full blown idea now. A way of getting back! Of |
| restoring what I have done. When I choose. When I have done all I |
| mean to do invisibly. And that is what I chiefly want to talk to |
| you about now." |
| |
| "You went straight to Iping?" |
| |
| "Yes. I had simply to get my three volumes of memoranda and my |
| cheque-book, my luggage and underclothing, order a quantity of |
| chemicals to work out this idea of mine--I will show you the |
| calculations as soon as I get my books--and then I started. Jove! |
| I remember the snowstorm now, and the accursed bother it was to |
| keep the snow from damping my pasteboard nose." |
| |
| "At the end," said Kemp, "the day before yesterday, when they found |
| you out, you rather--to judge by the papers--" |
| |
| "I did. Rather. Did I kill that fool of a constable?" |
| |
| "No," said Kemp. "He's expected to recover." |
| |
| "That's his luck, then. I clean lost my temper, the fools! Why |
| couldn't they leave me alone? And that grocer lout?" |
| |
| "There are no deaths expected," said Kemp. |
| |
| "I don't know about that tramp of mine," said the Invisible Man, |
| with an unpleasant laugh. |
| |
| "By Heaven, Kemp, you don't know what rage is! ... To have worked |
| for years, to have planned and plotted, and then to get some |
| fumbling purblind idiot messing across your course! ... Every |
| conceivable sort of silly creature that has ever been created has |
| been sent to cross me. |
| |
| "If I have much more of it, I shall go wild--I shall start |
| mowing 'em. |
| |
| "As it is, they've made things a thousand times more difficult." |
| |
| "No doubt it's exasperating," said Kemp, drily. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XXIV |
| |
| THE PLAN THAT FAILED |
| |
| |
| "But now," said Kemp, with a side glance out of the window, "what |
| are we to do?" |
| |
| He moved nearer his guest as he spoke in such a manner as to |
| prevent the possibility of a sudden glimpse of the three men who |
| were advancing up the hill road--with an intolerable slowness, as |
| it seemed to Kemp. |
| |
| "What were you planning to do when you were heading for Port |
| Burdock? Had you any plan?" |
| |
| "I was going to clear out of the country. But I have altered that |
| plan rather since seeing you. I thought it would be wise, now the |
| weather is hot and invisibility possible, to make for the South. |
| Especially as my secret was known, and everyone would be on the |
| lookout for a masked and muffled man. You have a line of steamers |
| from here to France. My idea was to get aboard one and run the |
| risks of the passage. Thence I could go by train into Spain, or else |
| get to Algiers. It would not be difficult. There a man might always |
| be invisible--and yet live. And do things. I was using that tramp |
| as a money box and luggage carrier, until I decided how to get my |
| books and things sent over to meet me." |
| |
| "That's clear." |
| |
| "And then the filthy brute must needs try and rob me! He _has_ hidden |
| my books, Kemp. Hidden my books! If I can lay my hands on him!" |
| |
| "Best plan to get the books out of him first." |
| |
| "But where is he? Do you know?" |
| |
| "He's in the town police station, locked up, by his own request, in |
| the strongest cell in the place." |
| |
| "Cur!" said the Invisible Man. |
| |
| "But that hangs up your plans a little." |
| |
| "We must get those books; those books are vital." |
| |
| "Certainly," said Kemp, a little nervously, wondering if he heard |
| footsteps outside. "Certainly we must get those books. But that |
| won't be difficult, if he doesn't know they're for you." |
| |
| "No," said the Invisible Man, and thought. |
| |
| Kemp tried to think of something to keep the talk going, but the |
| Invisible Man resumed of his own accord. |
| |
| "Blundering into your house, Kemp," he said, "changes all my plans. |
| For you are a man that can understand. In spite of all that has |
| happened, in spite of this publicity, of the loss of my books, of |
| what I have suffered, there still remain great possibilities, huge |
| possibilities--" |
| |
| "You have told no one I am here?" he asked abruptly. |
| |
| Kemp hesitated. "That was implied," he said. |
| |
| "No one?" insisted Griffin. |
| |
| "Not a soul." |
| |
| "Ah! Now--" The Invisible Man stood up, and sticking his arms akimbo |
| began to pace the study. |
| |
| "I made a mistake, Kemp, a huge mistake, in carrying this thing |
| through alone. I have wasted strength, time, opportunities. Alone--it |
| is wonderful how little a man can do alone! To rob a little, |
| to hurt a little, and there is the end. |
| |
| "What I want, Kemp, is a goal-keeper, a helper, and a hiding-place, |
| an arrangement whereby I can sleep and eat and rest in peace, and |
| unsuspected. I must have a confederate. With a confederate, with |
| food and rest--a thousand things are possible. |
| |
| "Hitherto I have gone on vague lines. We have to consider all that |
| invisibility means, all that it does not mean. It means little |
| advantage for eavesdropping and so forth--one makes sounds. It's |
| of little help--a little help perhaps--in housebreaking and so |
| forth. Once you've caught me you could easily imprison me. But on |
| the other hand I am hard to catch. This invisibility, in fact, is |
| only good in two cases: It's useful in getting away, it's useful in |
| approaching. It's particularly useful, therefore, in killing. I can |
| walk round a man, whatever weapon he has, choose my point, strike |
| as I like. Dodge as I like. Escape as I like." |
| |
| Kemp's hand went to his moustache. Was that a movement |
| downstairs? |
| |
| "And it is killing we must do, Kemp." |
| |
| "It is killing we must do," repeated Kemp. "I'm listening to your |
| plan, Griffin, but I'm not agreeing, mind. _Why_ killing?" |
| |
| "Not wanton killing, but a judicious slaying. The point is, they |
| know there is an Invisible Man--as well as we know there is an |
| Invisible Man. And that Invisible Man, Kemp, must now establish a |
| Reign of Terror. Yes; no doubt it's startling. But I mean it. A |
| Reign of Terror. He must take some town like your Burdock and |
| terrify and dominate it. He must issue his orders. He can do that |
| in a thousand ways--scraps of paper thrust under doors would |
| suffice. And all who disobey his orders he must kill, and kill |
| all who would defend them." |
| |
| "Humph!" said Kemp, no longer listening to Griffin but to the sound |
| of his front door opening and closing. |
| |
| "It seems to me, Griffin," he said, to cover his wandering |
| attention, "that your confederate would be in a difficult |
| position." |
| |
| "No one would know he was a confederate," said the Invisible Man, |
| eagerly. And then suddenly, "Hush! What's that downstairs?" |
| |
| "Nothing," said Kemp, and suddenly began to speak loud and fast. |
| "I don't agree to this, Griffin," he said. "Understand me, I don't |
| agree to this. Why dream of playing a game against the race? How |
| can you hope to gain happiness? Don't be a lone wolf. Publish |
| your results; take the world--take the nation at least--into your |
| confidence. Think what you might do with a million helpers--" |
| |
| The Invisible Man interrupted--arm extended. "There are |
| footsteps coming upstairs," he said in a low voice. |
| |
| "Nonsense," said Kemp. |
| |
| "Let me see," said the Invisible Man, and advanced, arm extended, |
| to the door. |
| |
| And then things happened very swiftly. Kemp hesitated for a second |
| and then moved to intercept him. The Invisible Man started and stood |
| still. "Traitor!" cried the Voice, and suddenly the dressing-gown |
| opened, and sitting down the Unseen began to disrobe. Kemp made |
| three swift steps to the door, and forthwith the Invisible Man--his |
| legs had vanished--sprang to his feet with a shout. Kemp flung the |
| door open. |
| |
| As it opened, there came a sound of hurrying feet downstairs and |
| voices. |
| |
| With a quick movement Kemp thrust the Invisible Man back, sprang |
| aside, and slammed the door. The key was outside and ready. In |
| another moment Griffin would have been alone in the belvedere |
| study, a prisoner. Save for one little thing. The key had been |
| slipped in hastily that morning. As Kemp slammed the door it fell |
| noisily upon the carpet. |
| |
| Kemp's face became white. He tried to grip the door handle with |
| both hands. For a moment he stood lugging. Then the door gave six |
| inches. But he got it closed again. The second time it was jerked a |
| foot wide, and the dressing-gown came wedging itself into the |
| opening. His throat was gripped by invisible fingers, and he left |
| his hold on the handle to defend himself. He was forced back, |
| tripped and pitched heavily into the corner of the landing. The |
| empty dressing-gown was flung on the top of him. |
| |
| Halfway up the staircase was Colonel Adye, the recipient of Kemp's |
| letter, the chief of the Burdock police. He was staring aghast at |
| the sudden appearance of Kemp, followed by the extraordinary sight |
| of clothing tossing empty in the air. He saw Kemp felled, and |
| struggling to his feet. He saw him rush forward, and go down again, |
| felled like an ox. |
| |
| Then suddenly he was struck violently. By nothing! A vast weight, |
| it seemed, leapt upon him, and he was hurled headlong down the |
| staircase, with a grip on his throat and a knee in his groin. An |
| invisible foot trod on his back, a ghostly patter passed downstairs, |
| he heard the two police officers in the hall shout and run, and the |
| front door of the house slammed violently. |
| |
| He rolled over and sat up staring. He saw, staggering down the |
| staircase, Kemp, dusty and disheveled, one side of his face white |
| from a blow, his lip bleeding, and a pink dressing-gown and some |
| underclothing held in his arms. |
| |
| "My God!" cried Kemp, "the game's up! He's gone!" |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XXV |
| |
| THE HUNTING OF THE INVISIBLE MAN |
| |
| |
| For a space Kemp was too inarticulate to make Adye understand the |
| swift things that had just happened. They stood on the landing, |
| Kemp speaking swiftly, the grotesque swathings of Griffin still on |
| his arm. But presently Adye began to grasp something of the |
| situation. |
| |
| "He is mad," said Kemp; "inhuman. He is pure selfishness. He thinks |
| of nothing but his own advantage, his own safety. I have listened |
| to such a story this morning of brutal self-seeking.... He has wounded |
| men. He will kill them unless we can prevent him. He will create a |
| panic. Nothing can stop him. He is going out now--furious!" |
| |
| "He must be caught," said Adye. "That is certain." |
| |
| "But how?" cried Kemp, and suddenly became full of ideas. "You must |
| begin at once. You must set every available man to work; you must |
| prevent his leaving this district. Once he gets away, he may go |
| through the countryside as he wills, killing and maiming. He dreams |
| of a reign of terror! A reign of terror, I tell you. You must set a |
| watch on trains and roads and shipping. The garrison must help. You |
| must wire for help. The only thing that may keep him here is the |
| thought of recovering some books of notes he counts of value. I will |
| tell you of that! There is a man in your police station--Marvel." |
| |
| "I know," said Adye, "I know. Those books--yes. But the tramp...." |
| |
| "Says he hasn't them. But he thinks the tramp has. And you must |
| prevent him from eating or sleeping; day and night the country must |
| be astir for him. Food must be locked up and secured, all food, so |
| that he will have to break his way to it. The houses everywhere must |
| be barred against him. Heaven send us cold nights and rain! The |
| whole country-side must begin hunting and keep hunting. I tell you, |
| Adye, he is a danger, a disaster; unless he is pinned and secured, |
| it is frightful to think of the things that may happen." |
| |
| "What else can we do?" said Adye. "I must go down at once and begin |
| organising. But why not come? Yes--you come too! Come, and we |
| must hold a sort of council of war--get Hopps to help--and the |
| railway managers. By Jove! it's urgent. Come along--tell me as we |
| go. What else is there we can do? Put that stuff down." |
| |
| In another moment Adye was leading the way downstairs. They found |
| the front door open and the policemen standing outside staring at |
| empty air. "He's got away, sir," said one. |
| |
| "We must go to the central station at once," said Adye. "One of you |
| go on down and get a cab to come up and meet us--quickly. And |
| now, Kemp, what else?" |
| |
| "Dogs," said Kemp. "Get dogs. They don't see him, but they wind |
| him. Get dogs." |
| |
| "Good," said Adye. "It's not generally known, but the prison |
| officials over at Halstead know a man with bloodhounds. Dogs. What |
| else?" |
| |
| "Bear in mind," said Kemp, "his food shows. After eating, his food |
| shows until it is assimilated. So that he has to hide after eating. |
| You must keep on beating. Every thicket, every quiet corner. And |
| put all weapons--all implements that might be weapons, away. He |
| can't carry such things for long. And what he can snatch up and |
| strike men with must be hidden away." |
| |
| "Good again," said Adye. "We shall have him yet!" |
| |
| "And on the roads," said Kemp, and hesitated. |
| |
| "Yes?" said Adye. |
| |
| "Powdered glass," said Kemp. "It's cruel, I know. But think of what |
| he may do!" |
| |
| Adye drew the air in sharply between his teeth. "It's |
| unsportsmanlike. I don't know. But I'll have powdered glass got |
| ready. If he goes too far...." |
| |
| "The man's become inhuman, I tell you," said Kemp. "I am as sure he |
| will establish a reign of terror--so soon as he has got over the |
| emotions of this escape--as I am sure I am talking to you. Our |
| only chance is to be ahead. He has cut himself off from his kind. |
| His blood be upon his own head." |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XXVI |
| |
| THE WICKSTEED MURDER |
| |
| |
| The Invisible Man seems to have rushed out of Kemp's house in a |
| state of blind fury. A little child playing near Kemp's gateway was |
| violently caught up and thrown aside, so that its ankle was broken, |
| and thereafter for some hours the Invisible Man passed out of human |
| perceptions. No one knows where he went nor what he did. But one |
| can imagine him hurrying through the hot June forenoon, up the |
| hill and on to the open downland behind Port Burdock, raging and |
| despairing at his intolerable fate, and sheltering at last, heated |
| and weary, amid the thickets of Hintondean, to piece together again |
| his shattered schemes against his species. That seems to most |
| probable refuge for him, for there it was he re-asserted himself in |
| a grimly tragical manner about two in the afternoon. |
| |
| One wonders what his state of mind may have been during that time, |
| and what plans he devised. No doubt he was almost ecstatically |
| exasperated by Kemp's treachery, and though we may be able to |
| understand the motives that led to that deceit, we may still |
| imagine and even sympathise a little with the fury the attempted |
| surprise must have occasioned. Perhaps something of the stunned |
| astonishment of his Oxford Street experiences may have returned to |
| him, for he had evidently counted on Kemp's co-operation in his |
| brutal dream of a terrorised world. At any rate he vanished from |
| human ken about midday, and no living witness can tell what he did |
| until about half-past two. It was a fortunate thing, perhaps, for |
| humanity, but for him it was a fatal inaction. |
| |
| During that time a growing multitude of men scattered over the |
| countryside were busy. In the morning he had still been simply a |
| legend, a terror; in the afternoon, by virtue chiefly of Kemp's |
| drily worded proclamation, he was presented as a tangible |
| antagonist, to be wounded, captured, or overcome, and the |
| countryside began organising itself with inconceivable rapidity. |
| By two o'clock even he might still have removed himself out of |
| the district by getting aboard a train, but after two that became |
| impossible. Every passenger train along the lines on a great |
| parallelogram between Southampton, Manchester, Brighton and Horsham, |
| travelled with locked doors, and the goods traffic was almost |
| entirely suspended. And in a great circle of twenty miles round Port |
| Burdock, men armed with guns and bludgeons were presently setting |
| out in groups of three and four, with dogs, to beat the roads and |
| fields. |
| |
| Mounted policemen rode along the country lanes, stopping at every |
| cottage and warning the people to lock up their houses, and keep |
| indoors unless they were armed, and all the elementary schools had |
| broken up by three o'clock, and the children, scared and keeping |
| together in groups, were hurrying home. Kemp's proclamation--signed |
| indeed by Adye--was posted over almost the whole district by four or |
| five o'clock in the afternoon. It gave briefly but clearly all the |
| conditions of the struggle, the necessity of keeping the Invisible |
| Man from food and sleep, the necessity for incessant watchfulness |
| and for a prompt attention to any evidence of his movements. And |
| so swift and decided was the action of the authorities, so prompt |
| and universal was the belief in this strange being, that before |
| nightfall an area of several hundred square miles was in a stringent |
| state of siege. And before nightfall, too, a thrill of horror |
| went through the whole watching nervous countryside. Going from |
| whispering mouth to mouth, swift and certain over the length and |
| breadth of the country, passed the story of the murder of Mr. |
| Wicksteed. |
| |
| If our supposition that the Invisible Man's refuge was the |
| Hintondean thickets, then we must suppose that in the early |
| afternoon he sallied out again bent upon some project that involved |
| the use of a weapon. We cannot know what the project was, but the |
| evidence that he had the iron rod in hand before he met Wicksteed |
| is to me at least overwhelming. |
| |
| Of course we can know nothing of the details of that encounter. |
| It occurred on the edge of a gravel pit, not two hundred yards |
| from Lord Burdock's lodge gate. Everything points to a desperate |
| struggle--the trampled ground, the numerous wounds Mr. Wicksteed |
| received, his splintered walking-stick; but why the attack was made, |
| save in a murderous frenzy, it is impossible to imagine. Indeed the |
| theory of madness is almost unavoidable. Mr. Wicksteed was a man of |
| forty-five or forty-six, steward to Lord Burdock, of inoffensive |
| habits and appearance, the very last person in the world to provoke |
| such a terrible antagonist. Against him it would seem the Invisible |
| Man used an iron rod dragged from a broken piece of fence. He |
| stopped this quiet man, going quietly home to his midday meal, |
| attacked him, beat down his feeble defences, broke his arm, felled |
| him, and smashed his head to a jelly. |
| |
| Of course, he must have dragged this rod out of the fencing before |
| he met his victim--he must have been carrying it ready in his hand. |
| Only two details beyond what has already been stated seem to bear |
| on the matter. One is the circumstance that the gravel pit was not |
| in Mr. Wicksteed's direct path home, but nearly a couple of hundred |
| yards out of his way. The other is the assertion of a little girl |
| to the effect that, going to her afternoon school, she saw the |
| murdered man "trotting" in a peculiar manner across a field towards |
| the gravel pit. Her pantomime of his action suggests a man pursuing |
| something on the ground before him and striking at it ever and |
| again with his walking-stick. She was the last person to see him |
| alive. He passed out of her sight to his death, the struggle being |
| hidden from her only by a clump of beech trees and a slight |
| depression in the ground. |
| |
| Now this, to the present writer's mind at least, lifts the murder |
| out of the realm of the absolutely wanton. We may imagine that |
| Griffin had taken the rod as a weapon indeed, but without any |
| deliberate intention of using it in murder. Wicksteed may then have |
| come by and noticed this rod inexplicably moving through the air. |
| Without any thought of the Invisible Man--for Port Burdock is ten |
| miles away--he may have pursued it. It is quite conceivable that |
| he may not even have heard of the Invisible Man. One can then |
| imagine the Invisible Man making off--quietly in order to avoid |
| discovering his presence in the neighbourhood, and Wicksteed, |
| excited and curious, pursuing this unaccountably locomotive |
| object--finally striking at it. |
| |
| No doubt the Invisible Man could easily have distanced his |
| middle-aged pursuer under ordinary circumstances, but the position |
| in which Wicksteed's body was found suggests that he had the |
| ill luck to drive his quarry into a corner between a drift of |
| stinging nettles and the gravel pit. To those who appreciate the |
| extraordinary irascibility of the Invisible Man, the rest of the |
| encounter will be easy to imagine. |
| |
| But this is pure hypothesis. The only undeniable facts--for stories |
| of children are often unreliable--are the discovery of Wicksteed's |
| body, done to death, and of the blood-stained iron rod flung among |
| the nettles. The abandonment of the rod by Griffin, suggests that |
| in the emotional excitement of the affair, the purpose for which |
| he took it--if he had a purpose--was abandoned. He was certainly |
| an intensely egotistical and unfeeling man, but the sight of his |
| victim, his first victim, bloody and pitiful at his feet, may have |
| released some long pent fountain of remorse which for a time may |
| have flooded whatever scheme of action he had contrived. |
| |
| After the murder of Mr. Wicksteed, he would seem to have struck |
| across the country towards the downland. There is a story of a |
| voice heard about sunset by a couple of men in a field near Fern |
| Bottom. It was wailing and laughing, sobbing and groaning, and ever |
| and again it shouted. It must have been queer hearing. It drove up |
| across the middle of a clover field and died away towards the |
| hills. |
| |
| That afternoon the Invisible Man must have learnt something of |
| the rapid use Kemp had made of his confidences. He must have |
| found houses locked and secured; he may have loitered about |
| railway stations and prowled about inns, and no doubt he read the |
| proclamations and realised something of the nature of the campaign |
| against him. And as the evening advanced, the fields became dotted |
| here and there with groups of three or four men, and noisy with the |
| yelping of dogs. These men-hunters had particular instructions in |
| the case of an encounter as to the way they should support one |
| another. But he avoided them all. We may understand something of |
| his exasperation, and it could have been none the less because |
| he himself had supplied the information that was being used so |
| remorselessly against him. For that day at least he lost heart; for |
| nearly twenty-four hours, save when he turned on Wicksteed, he was |
| a hunted man. In the night, he must have eaten and slept; for in |
| the morning he was himself again, active, powerful, angry, and |
| malignant, prepared for his last great struggle against the world. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XXVII |
| |
| THE SIEGE OF KEMP'S HOUSE |
| |
| |
| Kemp read a strange missive, written in pencil on a greasy sheet of |
| paper. |
| |
| "You have been amazingly energetic and clever," this letter ran, |
| "though what you stand to gain by it I cannot imagine. You are |
| against me. For a whole day you have chased me; you have tried to |
| rob me of a night's rest. But I have had food in spite of you, I |
| have slept in spite of you, and the game is only beginning. The |
| game is only beginning. There is nothing for it, but to start the |
| Terror. This announces the first day of the Terror. Port Burdock |
| is no longer under the Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and |
| the rest of them; it is under me--the Terror! This is day one of |
| year one of the new epoch--the Epoch of the Invisible Man. I am |
| Invisible Man the First. To begin with the rule will be easy. The |
| first day there will be one execution for the sake of example--a |
| man named Kemp. Death starts for him to-day. He may lock himself |
| away, hide himself away, get guards about him, put on armour |
| if he likes--Death, the unseen Death, is coming. Let him take |
| precautions; it will impress my people. Death starts from the |
| pillar box by midday. The letter will fall in as the postman comes |
| along, then off! The game begins. Death starts. Help him not, my |
| people, lest Death fall upon you also. To-day Kemp is to die." |
| |
| Kemp read this letter twice, "It's no hoax," he said. "That's |
| his voice! And he means it." |
| |
| He turned the folded sheet over and saw on the addressed side of it |
| the postmark Hintondean, and the prosaic detail "2d. to pay." |
| |
| He got up slowly, leaving his lunch unfinished--the letter had |
| come by the one o'clock post--and went into his study. He rang |
| for his housekeeper, and told her to go round the house at once, |
| examine all the fastenings of the windows, and close all the |
| shutters. He closed the shutters of his study himself. From a |
| locked drawer in his bedroom he took a little revolver, examined it |
| carefully, and put it into the pocket of his lounge jacket. He |
| wrote a number of brief notes, one to Colonel Adye, gave them to |
| his servant to take, with explicit instructions as to her way of |
| leaving the house. "There is no danger," he said, and added a |
| mental reservation, "to you." He remained meditative for a space |
| after doing this, and then returned to his cooling lunch. |
| |
| He ate with gaps of thought. Finally he struck the table sharply. |
| "We will have him!" he said; "and I am the bait. He will come too |
| far." |
| |
| He went up to the belvedere, carefully shutting every door after |
| him. "It's a game," he said, "an odd game--but the chances are |
| all for me, Mr. Griffin, in spite of your invisibility. Griffin |
| contra mundum ... with a vengeance." |
| |
| He stood at the window staring at the hot hillside. "He must get |
| food every day--and I don't envy him. Did he really sleep last |
| night? Out in the open somewhere--secure from collisions. I wish |
| we could get some good cold wet weather instead of the heat. |
| |
| "He may be watching me now." |
| |
| He went close to the window. Something rapped smartly against the |
| brickwork over the frame, and made him start violently back. |
| |
| "I'm getting nervous," said Kemp. But it was five minutes before he |
| went to the window again. "It must have been a sparrow," he said. |
| |
| Presently he heard the front-door bell ringing, and hurried |
| downstairs. He unbolted and unlocked the door, examined the chain, |
| put it up, and opened cautiously without showing himself. A |
| familiar voice hailed him. It was Adye. |
| |
| "Your servant's been assaulted, Kemp," he said round the door. |
| |
| "What!" exclaimed Kemp. |
| |
| "Had that note of yours taken away from her. He's close about here. |
| Let me in." |
| |
| Kemp released the chain, and Adye entered through as narrow an |
| opening as possible. He stood in the hall, looking with infinite |
| relief at Kemp refastening the door. "Note was snatched out of her |
| hand. Scared her horribly. She's down at the station. Hysterics. |
| He's close here. What was it about?" |
| |
| Kemp swore. |
| |
| "What a fool I was," said Kemp. "I might have known. It's not an |
| hour's walk from Hintondean. Already?" |
| |
| "What's up?" said Adye. |
| |
| "Look here!" said Kemp, and led the way into his study. He handed |
| Adye the Invisible Man's letter. Adye read it and whistled softly. |
| "And you--?" said Adye. |
| |
| "Proposed a trap--like a fool," said Kemp, "and sent my proposal |
| out by a maid servant. To him." |
| |
| Adye followed Kemp's profanity. |
| |
| "He'll clear out," said Adye. |
| |
| "Not he," said Kemp. |
| |
| A resounding smash of glass came from upstairs. Adye had a silvery |
| glimpse of a little revolver half out of Kemp's pocket. "It's a |
| window, upstairs!" said Kemp, and led the way up. There came a |
| second smash while they were still on the staircase. When they |
| reached the study they found two of the three windows smashed, |
| half the room littered with splintered glass, and one big flint |
| lying on the writing table. The two men stopped in the doorway, |
| contemplating the wreckage. Kemp swore again, and as he did so the |
| third window went with a snap like a pistol, hung starred for a |
| moment, and collapsed in jagged, shivering triangles into the room. |
| |
| "What's this for?" said Adye. |
| |
| "It's a beginning," said Kemp. |
| |
| "There's no way of climbing up here?" |
| |
| "Not for a cat," said Kemp. |
| |
| "No shutters?" |
| |
| "Not here. All the downstairs rooms--Hullo!" |
| |
| Smash, and then whack of boards hit hard came from downstairs. |
| "Confound him!" said Kemp. "That must be--yes--it's one of the |
| bedrooms. He's going to do all the house. But he's a fool. The |
| shutters are up, and the glass will fall outside. He'll cut his |
| feet." |
| |
| Another window proclaimed its destruction. The two men stood on the |
| landing perplexed. "I have it!" said Adye. "Let me have a stick or |
| something, and I'll go down to the station and get the bloodhounds |
| put on. That ought to settle him! They're hard by--not ten |
| minutes--" |
| |
| Another window went the way of its fellows. |
| |
| "You haven't a revolver?" asked Adye. |
| |
| Kemp's hand went to his pocket. Then he hesitated. "I haven't |
| one--at least to spare." |
| |
| "I'll bring it back," said Adye, "you'll be safe here." |
| |
| Kemp, ashamed of his momentary lapse from truthfulness, handed him |
| the weapon. |
| |
| "Now for the door," said Adye. |
| |
| As they stood hesitating in the hall, they heard one of the |
| first-floor bedroom windows crack and clash. Kemp went to the door |
| and began to slip the bolts as silently as possible. His face was a |
| little paler than usual. "You must step straight out," said Kemp. In |
| another moment Adye was on the doorstep and the bolts were dropping |
| back into the staples. He hesitated for a moment, feeling more |
| comfortable with his back against the door. Then he marched, upright |
| and square, down the steps. He crossed the lawn and approached the |
| gate. A little breeze seemed to ripple over the grass. Something |
| moved near him. "Stop a bit," said a Voice, and Adye stopped dead |
| and his hand tightened on the revolver. |
| |
| "Well?" said Adye, white and grim, and every nerve tense. |
| |
| "Oblige me by going back to the house," said the Voice, as tense |
| and grim as Adye's. |
| |
| "Sorry," said Adye a little hoarsely, and moistened his lips with |
| his tongue. The Voice was on his left front, he thought. Suppose he |
| were to take his luck with a shot? |
| |
| "What are you going for?" said the Voice, and there was a quick |
| movement of the two, and a flash of sunlight from the open lip of |
| Adye's pocket. |
| |
| Adye desisted and thought. "Where I go," he said slowly, "is my own |
| business." The words were still on his lips, when an arm came round |
| his neck, his back felt a knee, and he was sprawling backward. He |
| drew clumsily and fired absurdly, and in another moment he was |
| struck in the mouth and the revolver wrested from his grip. He made |
| a vain clutch at a slippery limb, tried to struggle up and fell |
| back. "Damn!" said Adye. The Voice laughed. "I'd kill you now if it |
| wasn't the waste of a bullet," it said. He saw the revolver in |
| mid-air, six feet off, covering him. |
| |
| "Well?" said Adye, sitting up. |
| |
| "Get up," said the Voice. |
| |
| Adye stood up. |
| |
| "Attention," said the Voice, and then fiercely, "Don't try any |
| games. Remember I can see your face if you can't see mine. You've |
| got to go back to the house." |
| |
| "He won't let me in," said Adye. |
| |
| "That's a pity," said the Invisible Man. "I've got no quarrel with |
| you." |
| |
| Adye moistened his lips again. He glanced away from the barrel of |
| the revolver and saw the sea far off very blue and dark under the |
| midday sun, the smooth green down, the white cliff of the Head, and |
| the multitudinous town, and suddenly he knew that life was very |
| sweet. His eyes came back to this little metal thing hanging |
| between heaven and earth, six yards away. "What am I to do?" he |
| said sullenly. |
| |
| "What am _I_ to do?" asked the Invisible Man. "You will get help. The |
| only thing is for you to go back." |
| |
| "I will try. If he lets me in will you promise not to rush the |
| door?" |
| |
| "I've got no quarrel with you," said the Voice. |
| |
| Kemp had hurried upstairs after letting Adye out, and now crouching |
| among the broken glass and peering cautiously over the edge of the |
| study window sill, he saw Adye stand parleying with the Unseen. |
| "Why doesn't he fire?" whispered Kemp to himself. Then the revolver |
| moved a little and the glint of the sunlight flashed in Kemp's |
| eyes. He shaded his eyes and tried to see the source of the |
| blinding beam. |
| |
| "Surely!" he said, "Adye has given up the revolver." |
| |
| "Promise not to rush the door," Adye was saying. "Don't push a |
| winning game too far. Give a man a chance." |
| |
| "You go back to the house. I tell you flatly I will not promise |
| anything." |
| |
| Adye's decision seemed suddenly made. He turned towards the house, |
| walking slowly with his hands behind him. Kemp watched him--puzzled. |
| The revolver vanished, flashed again into sight, vanished again, |
| and became evident on a closer scrutiny as a little dark object |
| following Adye. Then things happened very quickly. Adye leapt |
| backwards, swung around, clutched at this little object, missed it, |
| threw up his hands and fell forward on his face, leaving a little |
| puff of blue in the air. Kemp did not hear the sound of the shot. |
| Adye writhed, raised himself on one arm, fell forward, and lay |
| still. |
| |
| For a space Kemp remained staring at the quiet carelessness of |
| Adye's attitude. The afternoon was very hot and still, nothing |
| seemed stirring in all the world save a couple of yellow butterflies |
| chasing each other through the shrubbery between the house and the |
| road gate. Adye lay on the lawn near the gate. The blinds of all |
| the villas down the hill-road were drawn, but in one little green |
| summer-house was a white figure, apparently an old man asleep. Kemp |
| scrutinised the surroundings of the house for a glimpse of the |
| revolver, but it had vanished. His eyes came back to Adye. The game |
| was opening well. |
| |
| Then came a ringing and knocking at the front door, that grew at |
| last tumultuous, but pursuant to Kemp's instructions the servants |
| had locked themselves into their rooms. This was followed by a |
| silence. Kemp sat listening and then began peering cautiously out |
| of the three windows, one after another. He went to the staircase |
| head and stood listening uneasily. He armed himself with his |
| bedroom poker, and went to examine the interior fastenings of the |
| ground-floor windows again. Everything was safe and quiet. He |
| returned to the belvedere. Adye lay motionless over the edge of the |
| gravel just as he had fallen. Coming along the road by the villas |
| were the housemaid and two policemen. |
| |
| Everything was deadly still. The three people seemed very slow in |
| approaching. He wondered what his antagonist was doing. |
| |
| He started. There was a smash from below. He hesitated and went |
| downstairs again. Suddenly the house resounded with heavy blows and |
| the splintering of wood. He heard a smash and the destructive clang |
| of the iron fastenings of the shutters. He turned the key and |
| opened the kitchen door. As he did so, the shutters, split and |
| splintering, came flying inward. He stood aghast. The window frame, |
| save for one crossbar, was still intact, but only little teeth of |
| glass remained in the frame. The shutters had been driven in with |
| an axe, and now the axe was descending in sweeping blows upon the |
| window frame and the iron bars defending it. Then suddenly it leapt |
| aside and vanished. He saw the revolver lying on the path outside, |
| and then the little weapon sprang into the air. He dodged back. The |
| revolver cracked just too late, and a splinter from the edge of the |
| closing door flashed over his head. He slammed and locked the door, |
| and as he stood outside he heard Griffin shouting and laughing. |
| Then the blows of the axe with its splitting and smashing |
| consequences, were resumed. |
| |
| Kemp stood in the passage trying to think. In a moment the |
| Invisible Man would be in the kitchen. This door would not keep him |
| a moment, and then-- |
| |
| A ringing came at the front door again. It would be the policemen. |
| He ran into the hall, put up the chain, and drew the bolts. He made |
| the girl speak before he dropped the chain, and the three people |
| blundered into the house in a heap, and Kemp slammed the door |
| again. |
| |
| "The Invisible Man!" said Kemp. "He has a revolver, with two |
| shots--left. He's killed Adye. Shot him anyhow. Didn't you see him on |
| the lawn? He's lying there." |
| |
| "Who?" said one of the policemen. |
| |
| "Adye," said Kemp. |
| |
| "We came in the back way," said the girl. |
| |
| "What's that smashing?" asked one of the policemen. |
| |
| "He's in the kitchen--or will be. He has found an axe--" |
| |
| Suddenly the house was full of the Invisible Man's resounding |
| blows on the kitchen door. The girl stared towards the kitchen, |
| shuddered, and retreated into the dining-room. Kemp tried to |
| explain in broken sentences. They heard the kitchen door give. |
| |
| "This way," said Kemp, starting into activity, and bundled the |
| policemen into the dining-room doorway. |
| |
| "Poker," said Kemp, and rushed to the fender. He handed the poker |
| he had carried to the policeman and the dining-room one to the |
| other. He suddenly flung himself backward. |
| |
| "Whup!" said one policeman, ducked, and caught the axe on his poker. |
| The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable Sidney |
| Cooper. The second policeman brought his poker down on the little |
| weapon, as one might knock down a wasp, and sent it rattling to the |
| floor. |
| |
| At the first clash the girl screamed, stood screaming for a moment |
| by the fireplace, and then ran to open the shutters--possibly |
| with an idea of escaping by the shattered window. |
| |
| The axe receded into the passage, and fell to a position about two |
| feet from the ground. They could hear the Invisible Man breathing. |
| "Stand away, you two," he said. "I want that man Kemp." |
| |
| "We want you," said the first policeman, making a quick step |
| forward and wiping with his poker at the Voice. The Invisible Man |
| must have started back, and he blundered into the umbrella stand. |
| |
| Then, as the policeman staggered with the swing of the blow he had |
| aimed, the Invisible Man countered with the axe, the helmet crumpled |
| like paper, and the blow sent the man spinning to the floor at the |
| head of the kitchen stairs. But the second policeman, aiming behind |
| the axe with his poker, hit something soft that snapped. There was a |
| sharp exclamation of pain and then the axe fell to the ground. The |
| policeman wiped again at vacancy and hit nothing; he put his foot on |
| the axe, and struck again. Then he stood, poker clubbed, listening |
| intent for the slightest movement. |
| |
| He heard the dining-room window open, and a quick rush of feet |
| within. His companion rolled over and sat up, with the blood |
| running down between his eye and ear. "Where is he?" asked the man |
| on the floor. |
| |
| "Don't know. I've hit him. He's standing somewhere in the hall. |
| Unless he's slipped past you. Doctor Kemp--sir." |
| |
| Pause. |
| |
| "Doctor Kemp," cried the policeman again. |
| |
| The second policeman began struggling to his feet. He stood up. |
| Suddenly the faint pad of bare feet on the kitchen stairs could be |
| heard. "Yap!" cried the first policeman, and incontinently flung |
| his poker. It smashed a little gas bracket. |
| |
| He made as if he would pursue the Invisible Man downstairs. Then he |
| throught better of it and stepped into the dining-room. |
| |
| "Doctor Kemp--" he began, and stopped short. |
| |
| "Doctor Kemp's a hero," he said, as his companion looked over his |
| shoulder. |
| |
| The dining-room window was wide open, and neither housemaid nor |
| Kemp was to be seen. |
| |
| The second policeman's opinion of Kemp was terse and vivid. |
| |
| |
| |
| CHAPTER XXVIII |
| |
| THE HUNTER HUNTED |
| |
| |
| Mr. Heelas, Mr. Kemp's nearest neighbour among the villa holders, |
| was asleep in his summer house when the siege of Kemp's house |
| began. Mr. Heelas was one of the sturdy minority who refused to |
| believe "in all this nonsense" about an Invisible Man. His wife, |
| however, as he was subsequently to be reminded, did. He insisted |
| upon walking about his garden just as if nothing was the matter, |
| and he went to sleep in the afternoon in accordance with the custom |
| of years. He slept through the smashing of the windows, and then |
| woke up suddenly with a curious persuasion of something wrong. He |
| looked across at Kemp's house, rubbed his eyes and looked again. |
| Then he put his feet to the ground, and sat listening. He said he |
| was damned, but still the strange thing was visible. The house |
| looked as though it had been deserted for weeks--after a violent |
| riot. Every window was broken, and every window, save those of the |
| belvedere study, was blinded by the internal shutters. |
| |
| "I could have sworn it was all right"--he looked at his watch--"twenty |
| minutes ago." |
| |
| He became aware of a measured concussion and the clash of glass, |
| far away in the distance. And then, as he sat open-mouthed, came a |
| still more wonderful thing. The shutters of the drawing-room window |
| were flung open violently, and the housemaid in her outdoor hat and |
| garments, appeared struggling in a frantic manner to throw up the |
| sash. Suddenly a man appeared beside her, helping her--Dr. Kemp! |
| In another moment the window was open, and the housemaid was |
| struggling out; she pitched forward and vanished among the shrubs. |
| Mr. Heelas stood up, exclaiming vaguely and vehemently at all these |
| wonderful things. He saw Kemp stand on the sill, spring from the |
| window, and reappear almost instantaneously running along a path in |
| the shrubbery and stooping as he ran, like a man who evades |
| observation. He vanished behind a laburnum, and appeared again |
| clambering over a fence that abutted on the open down. In a second |
| he had tumbled over and was running at a tremendous pace down the |
| slope towards Mr. Heelas. |
| |
| "Lord!" cried Mr. Heelas, struck with an idea; "it's that Invisible |
| Man brute! It's right, after all!" |
| |
| With Mr. Heelas to think things like that was to act, and his cook |
| watching him from the top window was amazed to see him come pelting |
| towards the house at a good nine miles an hour. There was a |
| slamming of doors, a ringing of bells, and the voice of Mr. Heelas |
| bellowing like a bull. "Shut the doors, shut the windows, shut |
| everything!--the Invisible Man is coming!" Instantly the house was |
| full of screams and directions, and scurrying feet. He ran himself |
| to shut the French windows that opened on the veranda; as he did so |
| Kemp's head and shoulders and knee appeared over the edge of the |
| garden fence. In another moment Kemp had ploughed through the |
| asparagus, and was running across the tennis lawn to the house. |
| |
| "You can't come in," said Mr. Heelas, shutting the bolts. "I'm very |
| sorry if he's after you, but you can't come in!" |
| |
| Kemp appeared with a face of terror close to the glass, rapping and |
| then shaking frantically at the French window. Then, seeing his |
| efforts were useless, he ran along the veranda, vaulted the end, |
| and went to hammer at the side door. Then he ran round by the side |
| gate to the front of the house, and so into the hill-road. And Mr. |
| Heelas staring from his window--a face of horror--had scarcely |
| witnessed Kemp vanish, ere the asparagus was being trampled this |
| way and that by feet unseen. At that Mr. Heelas fled precipitately |
| upstairs, and the rest of the chase is beyond his purview. But as |
| he passed the staircase window, he heard the side gate slam. |
| |
| Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward |
| direction, and so it was he came to run in his own person the very |
| race he had watched with such a critical eye from the belvedere |
| study only four days ago. He ran it well, for a man out of |
| training, and though his face was white and wet, his wits were cool |
| to the last. He ran with wide strides, and wherever a patch of |
| rough ground intervened, wherever there came a patch of raw flints, |
| or a bit of broken glass shone dazzling, he crossed it and left the |
| bare invisible feet that followed to take what line they would. |
| |
| For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill-road |
| was indescribably vast and desolate, and that the beginnings of the |
| town far below at the hill foot were strangely remote. Never had |
| there been a slower or more painful method of progression that |
| running. All the gaunt villas, sleeping in the afternoon sun, |
| looked locked and barred; no doubt they were locked and barred--by |
| his own orders. But at any rate they might have kept a lookout |
| for an eventuality like this! The town was rising up now, the sea |
| had dropped out of sight behind it, and people down below were |
| stirring. A tram was just arriving at the hill foot. Beyond that |
| was the police station. Was that footsteps he heard behind him? |
| Spurt. |
| |
| The people below were staring at him, one or two were running, and |
| his breath was beginning to saw in his throat. The tram was quite |
| near now, and the "Jolly Cricketers" was noisily barring its doors. |
| Beyond the tram were posts and heaps of gravel--the drainage |
| works. He had a transitory idea of jumping into the tram and |
| slamming the doors, and then he resolved to go for the police |
| station. In another moment he had passed the door of the "Jolly |
| Cricketers," and was in the blistering fag end of the street, with |
| human beings about him. The tram driver and his helper--arrested |
| by the sight of his furious haste--stood staring with the tram |
| horses unhitched. Further on the astonished features of navvies |
| appeared above the mounds of gravel. |
| |
| His pace broke a little, and then he heard the swift pad of his |
| pursuer, and leapt forward again. "The Invisible Man!" he cried to |
| the navvies, with a vague indicative gesture, and by an inspiration |
| leapt the excavation and placed a burly group between him and the |
| chase. Then abandoning the idea of the police station he turned |
| into a little side street, rushed by a greengrocer's cart, |
| hesitated for the tenth of a second at the door of a sweetstuff |
| shop, and then made for the mouth of an alley that ran back into |
| the main Hill Street again. Two or three little children were |
| playing here, and shrieked and scattered at his apparition, and |
| forthwith doors and windows opened and excited mothers revealed |
| their hearts. Out he shot into Hill Street again, three hundred |
| yards from the tram-line end, and immediately he became aware of a |
| tumultuous vociferation and running people. |
| |
| He glanced up the street towards the hill. Hardly a dozen yards off |
| ran a huge navvy, cursing in fragments and slashing viciously with |
| a spade, and hard behind him came the tram conductor with his fists |
| clenched. Up the street others followed these two, striking and |
| shouting. Down towards the town, men and women were running, and he |
| noticed clearly one man coming out of a shop-door with a stick in |
| his hand. "Spread out! Spread out!" cried some one. Kemp suddenly |
| grasped the altered condition of the chase. He stopped, and looked |
| round, panting. "He's close here!" he cried. "Form a line across--" |
| |
| He was hit hard under the ear, and went reeling, trying to face |
| round towards his unseen antagonist. He just managed to keep his |
| feet, and he struck a vain counter in the air. Then he was hit |
| again under the jaw, and sprawled headlong on the ground. In |
| another moment a knee compressed his diaphragm, and a couple of |
| eager hands gripped his throat, but the grip of one was weaker than |
| the other; he grasped the wrists, heard a cry of pain from his |
| assailant, and then the spade of the navvy came whirling through |
| the air above him, and struck something with a dull thud. He felt |
| a drop of moisture on his face. The grip at his throat suddenly |
| relaxed, and with a convulsive effort, Kemp loosed himself, grasped |
| a limp shoulder, and rolled uppermost. He gripped the unseen elbows |
| near the ground. "I've got him!" screamed Kemp. "Help! Help--hold! |
| He's down! Hold his feet!" |
| |
| In another second there was a simultaneous rush upon the struggle, |
| and a stranger coming into the road suddenly might have thought an |
| exceptionally savage game of Rugby football was in progress. And |
| there was no shouting after Kemp's cry--only a sound of blows |
| and feet and heavy breathing. |
| |
| Then came a mighty effort, and the Invisible Man threw off a couple |
| of his antagonists and rose to his knees. Kemp clung to him in |
| front like a hound to a stag, and a dozen hands gripped, clutched, |
| and tore at the Unseen. The tram conductor suddenly got the neck |
| and shoulders and lugged him back. |
| |
| Down went the heap of struggling men again and rolled over. There |
| was, I am afraid, some savage kicking. Then suddenly a wild scream |
| of "Mercy! Mercy!" that died down swiftly to a sound like choking. |
| |
| "Get back, you fools!" cried the muffled voice of Kemp, and there |
| was a vigorous shoving back of stalwart forms. "He's hurt, I tell |
| you. Stand back!" |
| |
| There was a brief struggle to clear a space, and then the circle of |
| eager faces saw the doctor kneeling, as it seemed, fifteen inches |
| in the air, and holding invisible arms to the ground. Behind him a |
| constable gripped invisible ankles. |
| |
| "Don't you leave go of en," cried the big navvy, holding a |
| blood-stained spade; "he's shamming." |
| |
| "He's not shamming," said the doctor, cautiously raising his knee; |
| "and I'll hold him." His face was bruised and already going red; he |
| spoke thickly because of a bleeding lip. He released one hand and |
| seemed to be feeling at the face. "The mouth's all wet," he said. |
| And then, "Good God!" |
| |
| He stood up abruptly and then knelt down on the ground by the side |
| of the thing unseen. There was a pushing and shuffling, a sound of |
| heavy feet as fresh people turned up to increase the pressure of |
| the crowd. People now were coming out of the houses. The doors of |
| the "Jolly Cricketers" stood suddenly wide open. Very little was said. |
| |
| Kemp felt about, his hand seeming to pass through empty air. "He's |
| not breathing," he said, and then, "I can't feel his heart. His |
| side--ugh!" |
| |
| Suddenly an old woman, peering under the arm of the big navvy, |
| screamed sharply. "Looky there!" she said, and thrust out a |
| wrinkled finger. |
| |
| And looking where she pointed, everyone saw, faint and transparent |
| as though it was made of glass, so that veins and arteries and |
| bones and nerves could be distinguished, the outline of a hand, a |
| hand limp and prone. It grew clouded and opaque even as they stared. |
| |
| "Hullo!" cried the constable. "Here's his feet a-showing!" |
| |
| And so, slowly, beginning at his hands and feet and creeping along |
| his limbs to the vital centres of his body, that strange change |
| continued. It was like the slow spreading of a poison. First came |
| the little white nerves, a hazy grey sketch of a limb, then the |
| glassy bones and intricate arteries, then the flesh and skin, first |
| a faint fogginess, and then growing rapidly dense and opaque. |
| Presently they could see his crushed chest and his shoulders, and |
| the dim outline of his drawn and battered features. |
| |
| When at last the crowd made way for Kemp to stand erect, there lay, |
| naked and pitiful on the ground, the bruised and broken body of a |
| young man about thirty. His hair and brow were white--not grey |
| with age, but white with the whiteness of albinism--and his eyes |
| were like garnets. His hands were clenched, his eyes wide open, and |
| his expression was one of anger and dismay. |
| |
| "Cover his face!" said a man. "For Gawd's sake, cover that face!" |
| and three little children, pushing forward through the crowd, were |
| suddenly twisted round and sent packing off again. |
| |
| Someone brought a sheet from the "Jolly Cricketers," and having |
| covered him, they carried him into that house. And there it was, on |
| a shabby bed in a tawdry, ill-lighted bedroom, surrounded by a crowd |
| of ignorant and excited people, broken and wounded, betrayed and |
| unpitied, that Griffin, the first of all men to make himself |
| invisible, Griffin, the most gifted physicist the world has ever |
| seen, ended in infinite disaster his strange and terrible career. |
| |
| |
| |
| THE EPILOGUE |
| |
| |
| So ends the story of the strange and evil experiments of the |
| Invisible Man. And if you would learn more of him you must go to a |
| little inn near Port Stowe and talk to the landlord. The sign of |
| the inn is an empty board save for a hat and boots, and the name is |
| the title of this story. The landlord is a short and corpulent |
| little man with a nose of cylindrical proportions, wiry hair, and a |
| sporadic rosiness of visage. Drink generously, and he will tell you |
| generously of all the things that happened to him after that time, |
| and of how the lawyers tried to do him out of the treasure found |
| upon him. |
| |
| "When they found they couldn't prove who's money was which, I'm |
| blessed," he says, "if they didn't try to make me out a blooming |
| treasure trove! Do I _look_ like a Treasure Trove? And then a |
| gentleman gave me a guinea a night to tell the story at the Empire |
| Music 'All--just to tell 'em in my own words--barring one." |
| |
| And if you want to cut off the flow of his reminiscences abruptly, |
| you can always do so by asking if there weren't three manuscript |
| books in the story. He admits there were and proceeds to explain, |
| with asseverations that everybody thinks _he_ has 'em! But bless you! |
| he hasn't. "The Invisible Man it was took 'em off to hide 'em when |
| I cut and ran for Port Stowe. It's that Mr. Kemp put people on with |
| the idea of _my_ having 'em." |
| |
| And then he subsides into a pensive state, watches you furtively, |
| bustles nervously with glasses, and presently leaves the bar. |
| |
| He is a bachelor man--his tastes were ever bachelor, and there |
| are no women folk in the house. Outwardly he buttons--it is |
| expected of him--but in his more vital privacies, in the matter |
| of braces for example, he still turns to string. He conducts his |
| house without enterprise, but with eminent decorum. His movements |
| are slow, and he is a great thinker. But he has a reputation for |
| wisdom and for a respectable parsimony in the village, and his |
| knowledge of the roads of the South of England would beat Cobbett. |
| |
| And on Sunday mornings, every Sunday morning, all the year round, |
| while he is closed to the outer world, and every night after ten, |
| he goes into his bar parlour, bearing a glass of gin faintly tinged |
| with water, and having placed this down, he locks the door and |
| examines the blinds, and even looks under the table. And then, |
| being satisfied of his solitude, he unlocks the cupboard and a box |
| in the cupboard and a drawer in that box, and produces three |
| volumes bound in brown leather, and places them solemnly in the |
| middle of the table. The covers are weather-worn and tinged with an |
| algal green--for once they sojourned in a ditch and some of the |
| pages have been washed blank by dirty water. The landlord sits down |
| in an armchair, fills a long clay pipe slowly--gloating over the |
| books the while. Then he pulls one towards him and opens it, and |
| begins to study it--turning over the leaves backwards and forwards. |
| |
| His brows are knit and his lips move painfully. "Hex, little two up |
| in the air, cross and a fiddle-de-dee. Lord! what a one he was for |
| intellect!" |
| |
| Presently he relaxes and leans back, and blinks through his smoke |
| across the room at things invisible to other eyes. "Full of |
| secrets," he says. "Wonderful secrets!" |
| |
| "Once I get the haul of them--Lord!" |
| |
| "I wouldn't do what _he_ did; I'd just--well!" He pulls at his |
| pipe. |
| |
| So he lapses into a dream, the undying wonderful dream of his life. |
| And though Kemp has fished unceasingly, no human being save the |
| landlord knows those books are there, with the subtle secret of |
| invisibility and a dozen other strange secrets written therein. |
| And none other will know of them until he dies. |
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