diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:25:05 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:25:05 -0700 |
| commit | 3cd70b2dc3e726d7f0c4c207eeb607e5517361c2 (patch) | |
| tree | 83e7a8f879d28fe818554c3992da2e43bf6b4b88 /5230-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '5230-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 5230-h/5230-h.htm | 8517 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5230-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 261350 bytes |
2 files changed, 8517 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/5230-h/5230-h.htm b/5230-h/5230-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..167a937 --- /dev/null +++ b/5230-h/5230-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8517 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Invisible Man</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: H. G. Wells</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 9, 2002 [eBook #5230]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 16, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Andrew Sly</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVISIBLE MAN ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>The Invisible Man</h1> + +<h3>A Grotesque Romance</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">by H. G. Wells</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. The strange Man’s Arrival</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. Mr. Teddy Henfrey’s first Impressions</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. The thousand and one Bottles</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. Mr. Cuss interviews the Stranger</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. The Burglary at the Vicarage</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. The Furniture that went mad</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. The Unveiling of the Stranger</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. In Transit</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. Mr. Thomas Marvel</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X. Mr. Marvel’s Visit to Iping</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. In the “Coach and Horses”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. The invisible Man loses his Temper</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. Mr. Marvel discusses his Resignation</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. At Port Stowe</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. The Man who was running</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. In the “Jolly Cricketers”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII. Dr. Kemp’s Visitor</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII. The invisible Man sleeps</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX. Certain first Principles</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">XX. At the House in Great Portland Street</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI. In Oxford Street</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII. In the Emporium</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII. In Drury Lane</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">XXIV. The Plan that failed</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">XXV. The Hunting of the invisible Man</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">XXVI. The Wicksteed Murder</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">XXVII. The Siege of Kemp’s House</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">XXVIII. The Hunter hunted</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">The Epilogue</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /> +THE STRANGE MAN’S ARRIVAL</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 maid, 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 +<i>éclat</i>. 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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said without turning. +</p> + +<p> +She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her question. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, sir,” she said. “<i>As</i> you like. In a bit the +room will be warmer.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” he said drily, glancing from her to the door and then +at her again. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>never</i>,” she whispered. “There!” She went quite softly +to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what she was messing +about with <i>now</i>, when she got there. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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 handkerchief over his mouth all +the time. Talkin’ through it! ... Perhaps his mouth was hurt +too—maybe.” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>yet</i>, Millie?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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? +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +But the visitor was not to be drawn so easily. “They do,” he said +through his muffler, eyeing her quietly through his impenetrable glasses. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can quite understand that,” said the visitor. +</p> + +<p> +“He was afraid, one time, that he’d have to have an +op’ration—he was that bad, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The visitor laughed abruptly, a bark of a laugh that he seemed to bite and kill +in his mouth. “<i>Was</i> he?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you get me some matches?” said the visitor, quite abruptly. +“My pipe is out.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /> +MR. TEDDY HENFREY’S FIRST IMPRESSIONS</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +And leading the way, she went across to the parlour door and rapped and +entered. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you mind, sir, this man a-coming to look at the clock, sir?” +she said, recovering from the momentary shock. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at the clock?” he said, staring round in a drowsy manner, and +speaking over his hand, and then, getting more fully awake, +“certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good afternoon,” said the stranger, regarding him—as Mr. +Henfrey says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles—“like a +lobster.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope,” said Mr. Henfrey, “that it’s no +intrusion.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought, sir,” said Mrs. Hall, “you’d prefer the +clock—” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said the stranger, “certainly—but, as a +rule, I like to be alone and undisturbed. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She was certain, with a marked coldness. +</p> + +<p> +“I should explain,” he added, “what I was really too cold and +fatigued to do before, that I am an experimental investigator.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Hall, much impressed. +</p> + +<p> +“And my baggage contains apparatus and appliances.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very useful things indeed they are, sir,” said Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’m very naturally anxious to get on with my inquiries.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought as much,” said Mrs. Hall to herself. +</p> + +<p> +“—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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Hall. “And if I might make so +bold as to ask—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +He looked up as if to take aim with that introductory shot. “The +weather—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, sir—one minute more. I overlooked—” and Mr. +Henfrey finished and went. +</p> + +<p> +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, surely.” +</p> + +<p> +And again, “Can’t a man look at you?—Ugly!” +</p> + +<p> +And yet again, “Seemingly not. If the police was wanting you you +couldn’t be more wropped and bandaged.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You got a rum un up home!” said Teddy. +</p> + +<p> +Hall very sociably pulled up. “What’s that?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Rum-looking customer stopping at the ‘Coach and +Horses,’” said Teddy. “My sakes!” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>my</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t say so!” said Hall, who was a man of sluggish +apprehension. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Teddy trudged on his way with his mind considerably relieved. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You mind your own business, Hall,” said Mrs. Hall, “and +I’ll mind mine.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /> +THE THOUSAND AND ONE BOTTLES</h2> + +<p> +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 bring them in. Out he came, not noticing +Fearenside’s dog, who was sniffing in a <i>dilettante</i> spirit at +Hall’s legs. “Come along with those boxes,” he said. +“I’ve been waiting long enough.” +</p> + +<p> +And he came down the steps towards the tail of the cart as if to lay hands on +the smaller crate. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>me</i>, I knows”; “’Tasn’t right +<i>have</i> such dargs”; “Whad ’<i>e</i> bite ’n for, +then?” and so forth. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“He ought to have it cauterised at once,” said Mr. Huxter; +“especially if it’s at all inflamed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d shoot en, that’s what I’d do,” said a lady +in the group. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the dog began growling again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Was you hurt, sir?” said Fearenside. “I’m rare sorry +the darg—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit,” said the stranger. “Never broke the skin. Hurry +up with those things.” +</p> + +<p> +He then swore to himself, so Mr. Hall asserts. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t come in without knocking,” he said in +the tone of abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him. +</p> + +<p> +“I knocked, but seemingly—” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you’re like that, you +know. Any time.” +</p> + +<p> +“A very good idea,” said the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill.” +And he mumbled at her—words suspiciously like curses. +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +“A shilling—put down a shilling. Surely a shilling’s +enough?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t go on,” he was raving. “I <i>can’t</i> +go on. Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! +Cheated! All my life it may take me! ... Patience! Patience indeed! ... Fool! +fool!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Teddy Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“My sakes!” said Henfrey. “It’s a rummy case +altogether. Why, his nose is as pink as paint!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /> +MR. CUSS INTERVIEWS THE STRANGER</h2> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 chooses 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s happened?” said the vicar, putting the ammonite on +the loose sheets of his forth-coming sermon. +</p> + +<p> +“That chap at the inn—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me something to drink,” said Cuss, and he sat down. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“No hand—just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, <i>that’s</i> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘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. +</p> + +<p> +“‘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.’ +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something—exactly like a finger and thumb it felt—nipped my +nose.” +</p> + +<p> +Bunting began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /> +THE BURGLARY AT THE VICARAGE</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I could have sworn—” said Mr. Bunting. +</p> + +<p> +“The candle!” said Mr. Bunting. “Who lit the candle?” +</p> + +<p> +“The drawer!” said Mrs. Bunting. “And the money’s +gone!” +</p> + +<p> +She went hastily to the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Of all the strange occurrences—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /> +THE FURNITURE THAT WENT MAD</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Cold,” she said. “He’s been up this hour or +more.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tas sperits,” said Mrs. Hall. “I know ’tas +sperits. I’ve read in papers of en. Tables and chairs leaping and +dancing...” +</p> + +<p> +“Take a drop more, Janny,” said Hall. “’Twill steady +ye.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Just a drop more, Janny,” said Hall. “Your nerves is all +upset.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d go in and ask’n ’bout it,” said Wadgers, to +Mr. Hall. “I’d d’mand an explanation.” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Go to the devil!” said the stranger in a tremendous voice, and +“Shut that door after you.” So that brief interview terminated. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /> +THE UNVEILING OF THE STRANGER</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The little group of scared but curious people increased. Mrs. Huxter came over; +some gay young fellows resplendent in black ready-made jackets and +<i>piqué</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +Wodger, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why wasn’t my breakfast laid? Why haven’t you prepared my +meals and answered my bell? Do you think I live without eating?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why isn’t my bill paid?” said Mrs. Hall. “That’s +what I want to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you three days ago I was awaiting a remittance—” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +The stranger swore briefly but vividly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nar, nar!” from the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’d thank you kindly, sir, if you’d keep your swearing +to yourself, sir,” said Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, my good woman—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ‘good woman’ <i>me</i>,” said Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve told you my remittance hasn’t come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Remittance indeed!” said Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Still, I daresay in my pocket—” +</p> + +<p> +“You told me three days ago that you hadn’t anything but a +sovereign’s worth of silver upon you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ve found some more—” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ul-lo!” from the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder where you found it,” said Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +That seemed to annoy the stranger very much. He stamped his foot. “What +do you mean?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>didn’t</i> do, and what I want to know is how you +<i>did</i> come in. And I want to know—” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the stranger raised his gloved hands clenched, stamped his foot, and +said, “Stop!” with such extraordinary violence that he silenced her +instantly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>marn ’ithout a ’ed</i>!” +“Narnsense! ’tis some conjuring trick.” “Fetched off +’is wrapping, ’e did—” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +People shouted conflicting information of the recent circumstances. +“’Ed or no ’ed,” said Jaffers, “I got to +’rest en, and ’rest en I <i>will</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hall marched up the steps, marched straight to the door of the parlour and +flung it open. “Constable,” he said, “do your duty.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s him!” said Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“What the devil’s this?” came in a tone of angry +expostulation from above the collar of the figure. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a damned rum customer, mister,” said Mr. Jaffers. +“But ’ed or no ’ed, the warrant says ‘body,’ and +duty’s duty—” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep off!” said the figure, starting back. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Get the feet,” said Jaffers between his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon its unseen +supports, stood up, arms akimbo. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s strange, perhaps, but it’s not a crime. Why am I +assaulted by a policeman in this fashion?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“And circumstances certainly point—” +</p> + +<p> +“Stuff and nonsense!” said the Invisible Man. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so, sir; but I’ve got my instructions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the stranger, “I’ll come. I’ll +<i>come</i>. But no handcuffs.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the regular thing,” said Jaffers. +</p> + +<p> +“No handcuffs,” stipulated the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” said Jaffers. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 limp and empty in his hand. “Hold him!” said +Jaffers, loudly. “Once he gets the things off—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold him!” cried everyone, and there was a rush at the fluttering +white shirt which was now all that was visible of the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 mêlée, 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. +</p> + +<p> +“I got him!” shouted Jaffers, choking and reeling through them all, +and wrestling with purple face and swelling veins against his unseen enemy. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees bent, at the foot of the +steps of the inn. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +IN TRANSIT</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /> +MR. THOMAS MARVEL</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re boots, anyhow,” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m,” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>them</i>. 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 +<i>them</i>. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a beast of a country,” said the Voice. “And pigs +for people.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t it?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel. “Lord! But them +boots! It beats it.” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>are</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I drunk?” said Mr. Marvel. “Have I had visions? Was I +talking to myself? What the—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be alarmed,” said a Voice. +</p> + +<p> +“None of your ventriloquising <i>me</i>,” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, +rising sharply to his feet. “Where <i>are</i> yer? Alarmed, +indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be alarmed,” repeated the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You’ll</i> be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool,” said +Mr. Thomas Marvel. “Where <i>are</i> yer? Lemme get my mark on yer... +</p> + +<p> +“Are yer <i>buried</i>?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, after an interval. +</p> + +<p> +There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed, his jacket +nearly thrown off. +</p> + +<p> +“Peewit,” said a peewit, very remote. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not the drink,” said the Voice. “You keep your +nerves steady.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>swore</i> +I heard a voice,” he whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you did.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither one thing nor the other,” said the Voice. +“Listen!” +</p> + +<p> +“Chump,” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“One minute,” said the Voice, penetratingly, tremulous with +self-control. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with a strange feeling of having +been dug in the chest by a finger. +</p> + +<p> +“You think I’m just imagination? Just imagination?” +</p> + +<p> +“What else <i>can</i> you be?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rubbing the +back of his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said the Voice, in a tone of relief. “Then +I’m going to throw flints at you till you think differently.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where <i>are</i> yer?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Now</i>,” said the Voice, as a third stone curved upward and +hung in the air above the tramp. “Am I imagination?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The third flint fell. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very simple,” said the Voice. “I’m an +invisible man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell us something I don’t know,” said Mr. Marvel, gasping +with pain. “Where you’ve hid—how you do it—I +<i>don’t</i> know. I’m beat.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all,” said the Voice. “I’m invisible. +That’s what I want you to understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyone could see that. There is no need for you to be so confounded +impatient, mister. <i>Now</i> then. Give us a notion. How are you hid?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m invisible. That’s the great point. And what I want you +to understand is this—” +</p> + +<p> +“But whereabouts?” interrupted Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“Here! Six yards in front of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>come</i>! I ain’t blind. You’ll be telling me next +you’re just thin air. I’m not one of your ignorant +tramps—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I am—thin air. You’re looking through me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! Ain’t there any stuff to you. <i>Vox et</i>—what is +it?—jabber. Is it that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am just a human being—solid, needing food and drink, needing +covering too—But I’m invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea. +Invisible.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, real like?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, real.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s have a hand of you,” said Marvel, “if you +<i>are</i> real. It won’t be so darn out-of-the-way like, +then—<i>Lord</i>!” he said, “how you made me +jump!—gripping me like that!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly. “You +’aven’t been eatin’ bread and cheese?” he asked, +holding the invisible arm. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re quite right, and it’s not quite assimilated into the +system.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Mr. Marvel. “Sort of ghostly, though.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, all this isn’t half so wonderful as you think.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s quite wonderful enough for <i>my</i> modest wants,” +said Mr. Thomas Marvel. “Howjer manage it! How the dooce is it +done?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s too long a story. And besides—” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you, the whole business fairly beats me,” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Lord</i>!” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“I came up behind you—hesitated—went on—” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Marvel’s expression was eloquent. +</p> + +<p> +“—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—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Lord</i>!” 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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>will—must</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pull yourself together,” said the Voice, “for you have to do +the job I’ve chosen for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were round. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /> +MR. MARVEL’S VISIT TO IPING</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 [rope?], 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 +adolescents, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /> +IN THE “COACH AND HORSES”</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The vicar came round to look over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed. +“I’m—dear me! It’s all cypher, Bunting.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are no diagrams?” asked Mr. Bunting. “No illustrations +throwing light—” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>you</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll find you a place.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather glance through the volumes first,” said Mr. +Bunting, still wiping. “A general impression first, Cuss, and +<i>then</i>, you know, we can go looking for clues.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said both gentlemen at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Over the other side, my man,” said Mr. Bunting. And “Please +shut that door,” said Mr. Cuss, irritably. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay so,” said Cuss. “My nerves are all loose to-day. +It quite made me jump—the door opening like that.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. “And now,” he said with +a sigh, “these books.” +</p> + +<p> +Someone sniffed as he did so. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s incredible,” said Cuss—“incredible. But the +fact remains that I saw—I certainly saw right down his +sleeve—” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry to handle you so roughly,” said the Voice, +“but it’s unavoidable.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Since when did you learn to invade the private rooms of a man in +misfortune?” and the concussion was repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“Where have they put my clothes?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Please keep sitting where you are,” said the Invisible Man. +“Here’s the poker, you see.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /> +THE INVISIBLE MAN LOSES HIS TEMPER</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly there came a violent thud against the door of the parlour, a sharp +cry, and then—silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Hul-lo!” said Teddy Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +“Hul-lo!” from the Tap. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You all right thur?” asked Hall, rapping. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What the dooce?” exclaimed Henfrey, <i>sotto voce</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“You—all—right thur?” asked Mr. Hall, sharply, again. +</p> + +<p> +The Vicar’s voice answered with a curious jerking intonation: +“Quite ri-right. Please don’t—interrupt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Odd!” said Mr. Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +“Odd!” said Mr. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Says, ‘Don’t interrupt,’” said Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +“I heerd’n,” said Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“And a sniff,” said Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +They remained listening. The conversation was rapid and subdued. “I +<i>can’t</i>,” said Mr. Bunting, his voice rising; “I tell +you, sir, I <i>will</i> not.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was that?” asked Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +“Says he wi’ nart,” said Hall. “Warn’t speaking +to us, wuz he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Disgraceful!” said Mr. Bunting, within. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Disgraceful,’” said Mr. Henfrey. “I heard +it—distinct.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s that speaking now?” asked Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Cuss, I s’pose,” said Hall. “Can you +hear—anything?” +</p> + +<p> +Silence. The sounds within indistinct and perplexing. +</p> + +<p> +“Sounds like throwing the table-cloth about,” said Hall. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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’; <i>that</i> I did,” said Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> heerd that, Mrs. Hall,” said Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +“Like as not—” began Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Hsh!” said Mr. Teddy Henfrey. “Didn’t I hear the +window?” +</p> + +<p> +“What window?” asked Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Parlour window,” said Henfrey. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Simultaneously came a tumult from the parlour, and a sound of windows being +closed. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +In another moment Mr. Cuss was back in the parlour. “He’s coming +back, Bunting!” he said, rushing in. “Save yourself!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bunting was standing in the window engaged in an attempt to clothe himself +in the hearth-rug and a <i>West Surrey Gazette</i>. “Who’s +coming?” he said, so startled that his costume narrowly escaped +disintegration. +</p> + +<p> +“Invisible Man,” said Cuss, and rushed on to the window. +“We’d better clear out from here! He’s fighting mad! +Mad!” +</p> + +<p> +In another moment he was out in the yard. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But it was the best part of two hours before any human being ventured out again +into the desolation of Iping street. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /> +MR. MARVEL DISCUSSES HIS RESIGNATION</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“If you give me the slip again,” said the Voice, “if you +attempt to give me the slip again—” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” said Mr. Marvel. “That shoulder’s a mass of +bruises as it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“On my honour,” said the Voice, “I will kill you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s bad enough to let these floundering yokels explode my little +secret, without <i>your</i> 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?” +</p> + +<p> +“What am <i>I</i> to do?” asked Marvel, <i>sotto voce</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The despair of Mr. Marvel’s face deepened, and his pace slackened. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on!” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Marvel’s face assumed a greyish tint between the ruddier patches. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t drop those books, stupid,” said the Voice, +sharply—overtaking him. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is,” said the Voice, “I shall have to make use of +you.... You’re a poor tool, but I must.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a <i>miserable</i> tool,” said Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“You are,” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m the worst possible tool you could have,” said Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not strong,” he said after a discouraging silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not over strong,” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“No?” +</p> + +<p> +“And my heart’s weak. That little business—I pulled it +through, of course—but bless you! I could have dropped.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t the nerve and strength for the sort of thing you +want.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I’ll</i> stimulate you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better not,” said the Voice, with quiet emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I was dead,” said Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“It ain’t justice,” he said; “you must admit.... It +seems to me I’ve a perfect right—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Get</i> on!” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Marvel mended his pace, and for a time they went in silence again. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s devilish hard,” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +This was quite ineffectual. He tried another tack. +</p> + +<p> +“What do I make by it?” he began again in a tone of unendurable +wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! <i>shut up</i>!” 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—” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you, sir, I’m not the man for it. Respectfully—but it +<i>is</i> so—” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t shut up I shall twist your wrist again,” said +the Invisible Man. “I want to think.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that,” sighed Mr. Marvel, “I know all that.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /> +AT PORT STOWE</h2> + +<p> +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 change 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Marvel glanced about him with something very like terror. +“Very,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Just seasonable weather for the time of year,” said the mariner, +taking no denial. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite,” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Books?” he said suddenly, noisily finishing with the toothpick. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Marvel started and looked at them. “Oh, yes,” he said. +“Yes, they’re books.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s some extra-ordinary things in books,” said the +mariner. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you,” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“And some extra-ordinary things out of ’em,” said the +mariner. +</p> + +<p> +“True likewise,” said Mr. Marvel. He eyed his interlocutor, and +then glanced about him. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s some extra-ordinary things in newspapers, for +example,” said the mariner. +</p> + +<p> +“There are.” +</p> + +<p> +“In <i>this</i> newspaper,” said the mariner. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither,” said the mariner. “<i>Here</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” said Mr. Marvel, starting. +</p> + +<p> +“When I say <i>here</i>,” said the mariner, to Mr. Marvel’s +intense relief, “I don’t of course mean here in this place, I mean +hereabouts.” +</p> + +<p> +“An Invisible Man!” said Mr. Marvel. “And what’s +<i>he</i> been up to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything,” said the mariner, controlling Marvel with his eye, +and then amplifying, “every—blessed—thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t seen a paper these four days,” said Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“Iping’s the place he started at,” said the mariner. +</p> + +<p> +“In-<i>deed</i>!” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t it? Extra-ordinary, <i>I</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—” +</p> + +<p> +“That all he did?” asked Marvel, trying to seem at his ease. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s enough, ain’t it?” said the mariner. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t go Back by any chance?” asked Marvel. “Just +escaped and that’s all, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“All!” said the mariner. “Why!—ain’t it +enough?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite enough,” said Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“I should think it was enough,” said the mariner. “I should +think it was enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t have any pals—it don’t say he had any pals, +does it?” asked Mr. Marvel, anxious. +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t one of a sort enough for you?” asked the mariner. +“No, thank Heaven, as one might say, he didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +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—<i>took</i>, +I suppose they mean—the road to Port Stowe. You see we’re right +<i>in</i> 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—” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got a tremenjous advantage, certainly,” said Mr. +Marvel. “And—well...” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re right,” said the mariner. “He +<i>has</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said the mariner, interested. “<i>You</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Marvel. “Me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” said the mariner. “And may I ask—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be astonished,” said Mr. Marvel behind his hand. +“It’s tremenjous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” said the mariner. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up?” said the mariner, concerned. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s in the paper,” said the mariner. +</p> + +<p> +“Hoax all the same,” said Marvel. “I know the chap that +started the lie. There ain’t no Invisible Man +whatsoever—Blimey.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how ’bout this paper? D’you mean to say—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word of it,” said Marvel, stoutly. +</p> + +<p> +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—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said Mr. Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you come bandying words with <i>me</i>,” said Mr. +Marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“Bandying words! I’m a jolly good mind—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Silly devil!” said the mariner, legs wide apart, elbows akimbo, +watching the receding figure. “I’ll show you, you silly +ass—hoaxing <i>me</i>! It’s here—on the paper!” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>too</i> stiff. Afterwards, however, he began to think things +over. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /> +THE MAN WHO WAS RUNNING</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 possesses people. One might +think we were in the thirteenth century.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Spurted, sir,” said Dr. Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Asses!” said Dr. Kemp, swinging round on his heel and walking back +to his writing-table. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“The Invisible Man is coming! The Invisible Man!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br /> +IN THE “JOLLY CRICKETERS”</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Coming!” he bawled, his voice shrieking with terror. +“He’s coming. The ’Visible Man! After me! For Gawd’s +sake! ’Elp! ’Elp! ’Elp!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You’re</i> safe,” said the man with the black beard. +“The door’s shut. What’s it all about?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Here you are,” said the barman. “Come in here.” And he +held up the flap of the bar. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Marvel rushed behind the bar as the summons outside was repeated. +“Don’t open the door,” he screamed. “<i>Please</i> +don’t open the door. <i>Where</i> shall I hide?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you be in too much hurry about that door,” said the +anaemic cabman, anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Draw the bolts,” said the man with the black beard, “and if +he comes—” He showed a revolver in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“That won’t do,” said the policeman; “that’s +murder.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not with that blinking thing going off behind me,” said the +barman, craning over the blind. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said the man with the black beard, and stooping down, +revolver ready, drew them himself. Barman, cabman, and policeman faced about. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +He rushed out of the bar. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you fastened it?” asked the first cabman. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m out of frocks,” said the barman. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s he gone?” cried the man with the beard. +“Out?” +</p> + +<p> +“This way,” said the policeman, stepping into the yard and +stopping. +</p> + +<p> +A piece of tile whizzed by his head and smashed among the crockery on the +kitchen table. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br /> +DR. KEMP’S VISITOR</h2> + +<p> +Dr. Kemp had continued writing in his study until the shots aroused him. Crack, +crack, crack, they came one after the other. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Only a runaway ring, sir,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Kemp!” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?” said Kemp, with his mouth open. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your nerve,” said the Voice. “I’m an Invisible +Man.” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp made no answer for a space, simply stared at the bandage. “Invisible +Man,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I am an Invisible Man,” repeated the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the Invisible Man. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +He recoiled at the touch and his colour changed. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep steady, Kemp, for God’s sake! I want help badly. Stop!” +</p> + +<p> +The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it. +</p> + +<p> +“Kemp!” cried the Voice. “Kemp! Keep steady!” and the +grip tightened. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +“Lie still, you fool!” bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp’s +ear. +</p> + +<p> +Kemp struggled for another moment and then lay still. +</p> + +<p> +“If you shout, I’ll smash your face,” said the Invisible Man, +relieving his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me get up,” said Kemp. “I’ll stop where I am. And +let me sit quiet for a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +He sat up and felt his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Griffin?” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am confused,” said Kemp. “My brain is rioting. What has +this to do with Griffin?” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>am</i> Griffin.” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp thought. “It’s horrible,” he said. “But what +devilry must happen to make a man invisible?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no devilry. It’s a process, sane and intelligible +enough—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s horrible!” said Kemp. “How on +earth—?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s better. Thank Heaven, you’re getting sensible!” +</p> + +<p> +“Or silly,” said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me some whiskey. I’m near dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“It didn’t feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into +you? <i>There</i>! all right. Whiskey? Here. Where shall I give it to +you?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s frantic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I demonstrated conclusively this morning,” began Kemp, “that +invisibility—” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind what you’ve demonstrated!—I’m +starving,” said the Voice, “and the night is chilly to a man +without clothes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Food?” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +The tumbler of whiskey tilted itself. “Yes,” said the Invisible Man +rapping it down. “Have you a dressing-gown?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything. But this is the insanest thing I ever was in, in my +life!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Invisible!” said Kemp, and sat down on a bedroom chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I always like to get something about me before I eat,” said the +Invisible Man, with a full mouth, eating greedily. “Queer fancy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose that wrist is all right,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“Trust me,” said the Invisible Man. +</p> + +<p> +“Of all the strange and wonderful—” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly. But it’s odd I should blunder into <i>your</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how’s it done?” began Kemp, in a tone of exasperation. +“Confound it! The whole business—it’s unreasonable from +beginning to end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite reasonable,” said the Invisible Man. “Perfectly +reasonable.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“There was a real fool of a man—a sort of confederate of +mine—curse him!—who tried to steal my money. <i>Has</i> done +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is <i>he</i> invisible too?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp got up. “<i>You</i> didn’t do any shooting?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see what there is to eat downstairs,” said Kemp. +“Not much, I’m afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“But how was it all done?” said Kemp, “and how did you get +like this?” +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake, let me smoke in peace for a little while! And then +I will begin to tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +“The cur! +</p> + +<p> +“I should have killed him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you get the money?” asked Kemp, abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +The Invisible Man was silent for a space. “I can’t tell you +to-night,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, have my room—have this room.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how can I sleep? If I sleep—he will get away. Ugh! What does +it matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the shot wound?” asked Kemp, abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing—scratch and blood. Oh, God! How I want sleep!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +The Invisible Man appeared to be regarding Kemp. “Because I’ve a +particular objection to being caught by my fellow-men,” he said slowly. +</p> + +<p> +Kemp started. +</p> + +<p> +“Fool that I am!” said the Invisible Man, striking the table +smartly. “I’ve put the idea into your head.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /> +THE INVISIBLE MAN SLEEPS</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 quite 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only bid me good-night,” said Griffin. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp’s face changed a little. “I thought I gave you my word,” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed, and put his hand to the locked door. “Barred out of my own +bedroom, by a flagrant absurdity!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +“But—” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head hopelessly, turned, and went downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the room, +ejaculating. Now and then he would argue with himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Invisible!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t be. +</p> + +<p> +“But after all—why not? +</p> + +<p> +“If a man was made of glass he would still be visible.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Wrapped up!” said Kemp. “Disguised! Hiding it! ‘No one +seems to have been aware of his misfortune.’ What the devil <i>is</i> his +game?” +</p> + +<p> +He dropped the paper, and his eye went seeking. “Ah!” he said, and +caught up the <i>St. James’ Gazette</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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—<i>cum grano</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +He dropped the paper and stared blankly in front of him. “Probably a +fabrication!” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down abruptly on the surgical bench. “He’s not only +invisible,” he said, “but he’s mad! Homicidal!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Kemp read every scrap of the report and sent his housemaid out to get every one +of the morning papers she could. These also he devoured. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“For instance, would it be a breach of faith if—? No.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br /> +CERTAIN FIRST PRINCIPLES</h2> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” asked Kemp, when the Invisible Man +admitted him. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“But, confound it! The smash?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fit of temper,” said the Invisible Man. “Forgot this arm; +and it’s sore.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re rather liable to that sort of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +The Invisible Man swore. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The Invisible Man sat down on the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s simple enough—and credible enough,” said Griffin, +putting the serviette aside and leaning the invisible head on an invisible +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt, to you, but—” Kemp laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chesilstowe?” +</p> + +<p> +“I went there after I left London. You know I dropped medicine and took +up physics? No; well, I did. <i>Light</i> fascinated me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fools then or fools now,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“As though knowing could be any satisfaction to a man! +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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, nor 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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Kemp, “that is pretty plain sailing.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” said Kemp. “But a man’s not powdered +glass!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Griffin. “He’s more transparent!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>bone</i>, Kemp, <i>flesh</i>, +Kemp, <i>hair</i>, Kemp, <i>nails</i> and <i>nerves</i>, 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great Heavens!” cried Kemp. “Of course, of course! I was +thinking only last night of the sea larvae and all jelly-fish!” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Now</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know the red colouring matter of blood; it can be made +white—colourless—and remain with all the functions it has +now!” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp gave a cry of incredulous amazement. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>you</i> ... 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— +</p> + +<p> +“And after three years of secrecy and exasperation, I found that to +complete it was impossible—impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” asked Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“Money,” said the Invisible Man, and went again to stare out of the +window. +</p> + +<p> +He turned around abruptly. “I robbed the old man—robbed my father. +</p> + +<p> +“The money was not his, and he shot himself.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br /> +AT THE HOUSE IN GREAT PORTLAND STREET</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You are tired,” he said, “and while I sit, you walk about. +Have my chair.” +</p> + +<p> +He placed himself between Griffin and the nearest window. +</p> + +<p> +For a space Griffin sat silent, and then he resumed abruptly: +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Something moved me to turn back and talk to her. She was a very ordinary +person. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 Röntgen 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you processed her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I processed her. But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp! And the +process failed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Failed!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Tapetum</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, the <i>tapetum</i>. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Odd!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long did it take?” asked Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say there’s an invisible cat at +large!” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“If it hasn’t been killed,” said the Invisible Man. +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” said Kemp. “I didn’t mean to +interrupt.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very probably been killed,” said the Invisible Man. +“It was alive four days after, I know, and down a grating in Great +Titchfield Street; because I saw a crowd round the place, trying to see whence +the miaowing came.” +</p> + +<p> +He was silent for the best part of a minute. Then he resumed abruptly: +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the devil,” said Kemp. “It’s the +palaeolithic in a bottle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I awoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable. You know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know the stuff.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a time he went +away. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 I 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“It was only by a frantic effort of will that I dragged myself back to +the apparatus and completed the process. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“The old man, so far as I could understand his <i>patois</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You fired the house!” exclaimed Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br /> +IN OXFORD STREET</h2> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.’ +</p> + +<p> +“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.’ +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“‘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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!’ +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The Invisible Man paused and thought. Kemp glanced nervously out of the window. +“Yes?” he said. “Go on.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br /> +IN THE EMPORIUM</h2> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Only one thing could I see clearly before me—the cold exposure and +misery of the snowstorm and the night. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“‘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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!’ +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Art pots,” suggested Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“‘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 <i>must</i> be somewhere +here.’ +</p> + +<p> +“But they did not find me all the same. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /> +IN DRURY LANE</h2> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never thought of that,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Not in London at any rate. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Presently he came up again, still muttering. He opened the door of the +room, and before I could enter, slammed it in my face. +</p> + +<p> +“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!’ +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Knocked him on the head?” exclaimed Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—I say! The common conventions of humanity—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tied him up in a sheet!” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“But still,” said Kemp, “in England—to-day. And the man +was in his own house, and you were—well, robbing.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“And his too,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +The Invisible Man stood up sharply. “What do you mean to say?” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never blame anyone,” said Kemp. “It’s quite out of +fashion. What did you do next?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped again. +</p> + +<p> +“And you troubled no more about the hunchback?” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He became silent and went to the window and stared out. +</p> + +<p> +“What happened when you went out into the Strand?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite so badly,” said Kemp, “but I can imagine +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, and his attitude suggested a roving glance at the window. +</p> + +<p> +“But how did you get to Iping?” said Kemp, anxious to keep his +guest busy talking. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You went straight to Iping?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“At the end,” said Kemp, “the day before yesterday, when they +found you out, you rather—to judge by the papers—” +</p> + +<p> +“I did. Rather. Did I kill that fool of a constable?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Kemp. “He’s expected to recover.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s his luck, then. I clean lost my temper, the fools! Why +couldn’t they leave me alone? And that grocer lout?” +</p> + +<p> +“There are no deaths expected,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that tramp of mine,” said the Invisible +Man, with an unpleasant laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“By Heaven, Kemp, you don’t know what rage <i>is</i>! ... 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. +</p> + +<p> +“If I have much more of it, I shall go wild—I shall start mowing +’em. +</p> + +<p> +“As it is, they’ve made things a thousand times more +difficult.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt it’s exasperating,” said Kemp, drily. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br /> +THE PLAN THAT FAILED</h2> + +<p> +“But now,” said Kemp, with a side glance out of the window, +“what are we to do?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What were you planning to do when you were heading for Port Burdock? +<i>Had</i> you any plan?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s clear.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then the filthy brute must needs try and rob me! He <i>has</i> +hidden my books, Kemp. Hidden my books! If I can lay my hands on him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Best plan to get the books out of him first.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where is he? Do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s in the town police station, locked up, by his own request, in +the strongest cell in the place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cur!” said the Invisible Man. +</p> + +<p> +“But that hangs up your plans a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must get those books; those books are vital.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the Invisible Man, and thought. +</p> + +<p> +Kemp tried to think of something to keep the talk going, but the Invisible Man +resumed of his own accord. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“You have told no one I am here?” he asked abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +Kemp hesitated. “That was implied,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“No one?” insisted Griffin. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Now—” The Invisible Man stood up, and sticking his arms +akimbo began to pace the study. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp’s hand went to his moustache. Was that a movement downstairs? +</p> + +<p> +“And it is killing we must do, Kemp.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is killing we must do,” repeated Kemp. “I’m +listening to your plan, Griffin, but I’m not agreeing, mind. <i>Why</i> +killing?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Humph!” said Kemp, no longer listening to Griffin but to the sound +of his front door opening and closing. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me, Griffin,” he said, to cover his wandering +attention, “that your confederate would be in a difficult +position.” +</p> + +<p> +“No one would know he was a confederate,” said the Invisible Man, +eagerly. And then suddenly, “Hush! What’s that downstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +The Invisible Man interrupted—arm extended. “There are footsteps +coming upstairs,” he said in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see,” said the Invisible Man, and advanced, arm extended, +to the door. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +As it opened, there came a sound of hurrying feet downstairs and voices. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“My God!” cried Kemp, “the game’s up! He’s +gone!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br /> +THE HUNTING OF THE INVISIBLE MAN</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“He must be caught,” said Adye. “That is certain.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Adye, “I know. Those books—yes. But the +tramp....” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dogs,” said Kemp. “Get dogs. They don’t see him, but +they wind him. Get dogs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good,” said Adye. “It’s not generally known, but the +prison officials over at Halstead know a man with bloodhounds. Dogs. What +else?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good again,” said Adye. “We shall have him yet!” +</p> + +<p> +“And on the roads,” said Kemp, and hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said Adye. +</p> + +<p> +“Powdered glass,” said Kemp. “It’s cruel, I know. But +think of what he may do!” +</p> + +<p> +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....” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br /> +THE WICKSTEED MURDER</h2> + +<p> +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 the most probable refuge for +him, for there it was he re-asserted himself in a grimly tragical manner about +two in the afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br /> +THE SIEGE OF KEMP’S HOUSE</h2> + +<p> +Kemp read a strange missive, written in pencil on a greasy sheet of paper. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp read this letter twice, “It’s no hoax,” he said. +“That’s his voice! And he means it.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned the folded sheet over and saw on the addressed side of it the +postmark Hintondean, and the prosaic detail “2d. to pay.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>contra mundum</i> ... with a vengeance.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He may be watching me now.” +</p> + +<p> +He went close to the window. Something rapped smartly against the brickwork +over the frame, and made him start violently back. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Your servant’s been assaulted, Kemp,” he said round the +door. +</p> + +<p> +“What!” exclaimed Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“Had that note of yours taken away from her. He’s close about here. +Let me in.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp swore. +</p> + +<p> +“What a fool I was,” said Kemp. “I might have known. +It’s not an hour’s walk from Hintondean. Already?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up?” said Adye. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Proposed a trap—like a fool,” said Kemp, “and sent my +proposal out by a maid servant. To him.” +</p> + +<p> +Adye followed Kemp’s profanity. +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll clear out,” said Adye. +</p> + +<p> +“Not he,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this for?” said Adye. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a beginning,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no way of climbing up here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not for a cat,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“No shutters?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not here. All the downstairs rooms—Hullo!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +Another window went the way of its fellows. +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t a revolver?” asked Adye. +</p> + +<p> +Kemp’s hand went to his pocket. Then he hesitated. “I haven’t +one—at least to spare.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll bring it back,” said Adye, “you’ll be safe +here.” +</p> + +<p> +Kemp, ashamed of his momentary lapse from truthfulness, handed him the weapon. +</p> + +<p> +“Now for the door,” said Adye. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Adye, white and grim, and every nerve tense. +</p> + +<p> +“Oblige me by going back to the house,” said the Voice, as tense +and grim as Adye’s. +</p> + +<p> +“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? +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Adye, sitting up. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up,” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +Adye stood up. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“He won’t let me in,” said Adye. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a pity,” said the Invisible Man. “I’ve +got no quarrel with you.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What am <i>I</i> to do?” asked the Invisible Man. “You will +get help. The only thing is for you to go back.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will try. If he lets me in will you promise not to rush the +door?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got no quarrel with you,” said the Voice. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely!” he said, “Adye has given up the revolver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Promise not to rush the door,” Adye was saying. “Don’t +push a winning game too far. Give a man a chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“You go back to the house. I tell you flatly I will not promise +anything.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Everything was deadly still. The three people seemed very slow in approaching. +He wondered what his antagonist was doing. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” said one of the policemen. +</p> + +<p> +“Adye,” said Kemp. +</p> + +<p> +“We came in the back way,” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that smashing?” asked one of the policemen. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s in the kitchen—or will be. He has found an +axe—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“This way,” said Kemp, starting into activity, and bundled the +policemen into the dining-room doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know. I’ve hit him. He’s standing somewhere in +the hall. Unless he’s slipped past you. Doctor Kemp—sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor Kemp,” cried the policeman again. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He made as if he would pursue the Invisible Man downstairs. Then he thought +better of it and stepped into the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor Kemp—” he began, and stopped short. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor Kemp’s a hero,” he said, as his companion looked over +his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +The dining-room window was wide open, and neither housemaid nor Kemp was to be +seen. +</p> + +<p> +The second policeman’s opinion of Kemp was terse and vivid. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br /> +THE HUNTER HUNTED</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I could have sworn it was all right”—he looked at his +watch—“twenty minutes ago.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” cried Mr. Heelas, struck with an idea; “it’s +that Invisible Man brute! It’s right, after all!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 than 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you leave go of en,” cried the big navvy, holding a +blood-stained spade; “he’s shamming.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly an old woman, peering under the arm of the big navvy, screamed +sharply. “Looky there!” she said, and thrust out a wrinkled finger. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” cried the constable. “Here’s his feet +a-showing!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>THE EPILOGUE</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“When they found they couldn’t prove whose money was which, +I’m blessed,” he says, “if they didn’t try to make me +out a blooming treasure trove! Do I <i>look</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>he</i> 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 +<i>my</i> having ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +And then he subsides into a pensive state, watches you furtively, bustles +nervously with glasses, and presently leaves the bar. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Once I get the haul of them—<i>Lord</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t do what <i>he</i> did; I’d +just—well!” He pulls at his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVISIBLE MAN ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> +<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most + other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions + whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms + of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online + at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you + are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws + of the country where you are located before using this eBook. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</div> + +</body> + +</html> + + diff --git a/5230-h/images/cover.jpg b/5230-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7ee392 --- /dev/null +++ b/5230-h/images/cover.jpg |
