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diff --git a/old/nvsbl10.txt b/old/nvsbl10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f6bb15 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/nvsbl10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6337 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells +#23 in our series by H.G. Wells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Invisible Man + +Author: H.G. Wells + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5230] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 9, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVISIBLE MAN *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Sly Andrew Sly <wu081@victoria.tc.ca> + + + + + +The Invisible Man + +A Grotesque Romance + +By H.G. Wells + + + +CONTENTS + + I The strange Man's Arrival + II Mr. Teddy Henfrey's first Impressions + III The thousand and one Bottles + IV Mr. Cuss interviews the Stranger + V The Burglary at the Vicarage + VI The Furniture that went mad + VII The Unveiling of the Stranger + VIII In Transit + IX Mr. Thomas Marvel + X Mr. Marvel's Visit to Iping + XI In the "Coach and Horses" + XII The invisible Man loses his Temper + XIII Mr. Marvel discusses his Resignation + XIV At Port Stowe + XV The Man who was running + XVI In the "Jolly Cricketers" + XVII Dr. Kemp's Visitor + XVIII The invisible Man sleeps + XIX Certain first Principles + XX At the House in Great Portland Street + XXI In Oxford Street + XXII In the Emporium + XXIII In Drury Lane + XXIV The Plan that failed + XXV The Hunting of the invisible Man + XXVI The Wicksteed Murder + XXVII The Siege of Kemp's House + XXVIII The Hunter hunted + The Epilogue + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE STRANGE MAN'S ARRIVAL + + +The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a +biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over +the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a +little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped +up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every +inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled +itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to +the burden he carried. He staggered into the "Coach and Horses" more +dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. "A fire," he cried, +"in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He stamped and +shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall +into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much +introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, +he took up his quarters in the inn. + +Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare +him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the +wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who +was no "haggler," and she was resolved to show herself worthy of her +good fortune. As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie, +her lymphatic aid, had been brisked up a bit by a few deftly chosen +expressions of contempt, she carried the cloth, plates, and glasses +into the parlour and began to lay them with the utmost eclat. +Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see +that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his back +to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the yard. +His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost +in thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled +his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. "Can I take your hat and coat, +sir?" she said, "and give them a good dry in the kitchen?" + +"No," he said without turning. + +She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her +question. + +He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. "I prefer to +keep them on," he said with emphasis, and she noticed that he wore +big blue spectacles with sidelights, and had a bush side-whisker +over his coat-collar that completely hid his cheeks and face. + +"Very well, sir," she said. "_As_ you like. In a bit the room will +be warmer." + +He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and +Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, +laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked +out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like +a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping +hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put +down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called +rather than said to him, "Your lunch is served, sir." + +"Thank you," he said at the same time, and did not stir until she +was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table +with a certain eager quickness. + +As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated +at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a +spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin. "That girl!" she said. +"There! I clean forgot it. It's her being so long!" And while she +herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal +stabs for her excessive slowness. She had cooked the ham and eggs, +laid the table, and done everything, while Millie (help indeed!) had +only succeeded in delaying the mustard. And him a new guest and +wanting to stay! Then she filled the mustard pot, and, putting it +with a certain stateliness upon a gold and black tea-tray, carried +it into the parlour. + +She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved +quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object disappearing +behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the +floor. She rapped down the mustard pot on the table, and then she +noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair +in front of the fire, and a pair of wet boots threatened rust to her +steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. "I suppose I may +have them to dry now," she said in a voice that brooked no denial. + +"Leave the hat," said her visitor, in a muffled voice, and turning +she saw he had raised his head and was sitting and looking at her. + +For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak. + +He held a white cloth--it was a serviette he had brought with +him--over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws +were completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled +voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact +that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white +bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of +his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright, +pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He wore a dark-brown +velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-lined collar turned up about +his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and +between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns, +giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and +bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a +moment she was rigid. + +He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she +saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his +inscrutable blue glasses. "Leave the hat," he said, speaking very +distinctly through the white cloth. + +Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She +placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. "I didn't know, sir," +she began, "that--" and she stopped embarrassed. + +"Thank you," he said drily, glancing from her to the door and then +at her again. + +"I'll have them nicely dried, sir, at once," she said, and carried +his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head +and blue goggles again as she was going out of the door; but his +napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she +closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise +and perplexity. "I never," she whispered. "There!" She went quite +softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what +she was messing about with now, when she got there. + +The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced +inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette, and +resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the +window, took another mouthful, then rose and, taking the serviette +in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to +the top of the white muslin that obscured the lower panes. This +left the room in a twilight. This done, he returned with an easier +air to the table and his meal. + +"The poor soul's had an accident or an op'ration or somethin'," said +Mrs. Hall. "What a turn them bandages did give me, to be sure!" + +She put on some more coal, unfolded the clothes-horse, and extended +the traveller's coat upon this. "And they goggles! Why, he looked +more like a divin' helmet than a human man!" She hung his muffler +on a corner of the horse. "And holding that handkercheif over his +mouth all the time. Talkin' through it! ... Perhaps his mouth was +hurt too--maybe." + +She turned round, as one who suddenly remembers. "Bless my soul +alive!" she said, going off at a tangent; "ain't you done them +taters _yet_, Millie?" + +When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the stranger's lunch, her idea +that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident +she supposed him to have suffered, was confirmed, for he was smoking +a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened +the silk muffler he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to +put the mouthpiece to his lips. Yet it was not forgetfulness, for +she saw he glanced at it as it smouldered out. He sat in the corner +with his back to the window-blind and spoke now, having eaten and +drunk and being comfortably warmed through, with less aggressive +brevity than before. The reflection of the fire lent a kind of red +animation to his big spectacles they had lacked hitherto. + +"I have some luggage," he said, "at Bramblehurst station," and he +asked her how he could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head +quite politely in acknowledgment of her explanation. "To-morrow?" he +said. "There is no speedier delivery?" and seemed quite disappointed +when she answered, "No." Was she quite sure? No man with a trap who +would go over? + +Mrs. Hall, nothing loath, answered his questions and developed a +conversation. "It's a steep road by the down, sir," she said in +answer to the question about a trap; and then, snatching at an +opening, said, "It was there a carriage was upsettled, a year ago +and more. A gentleman killed, besides his coachman. Accidents, sir, +happen in a moment, don't they?" + +But the visitor was not to be drawn so easily. "They do," he said +through his muffler, eyeing her quietly through his impenetrable +glasses. + +"But they take long enough to get well, don't they? ... There was +my sister's son, Tom, jest cut his arm with a scythe, tumbled on it +in the 'ayfield, and, bless me! he was three months tied up sir. +You'd hardly believe it. It's regular given me a dread of a scythe, +sir." + +"I can quite understand that," said the visitor. + +"He was afraid, one time, that he'd have to have an op'ration--he +was that bad, sir." + +The visitor laughed abruptly, a bark of a laugh that he seemed to +bite and kill in his mouth. "_Was_ he?" he said. + +"He was, sir. And no laughing matter to them as had the doing for +him, as I had--my sister being took up with her little ones so +much. There was bandages to do, sir, and bandages to undo. So that +if I may make so bold as to say it, sir--" + +"Will you get me some matches?" said the visitor, quite abruptly. +"My pipe is out." + +Mrs. Hall was pulled up suddenly. It was certainly rude of him, +after telling him all she had done. She gasped at him for a moment, +and remembered the two sovereigns. She went for the matches. + +"Thanks," he said concisely, as she put them down, and turned his +shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again. It was +altogether too discouraging. Evidently he was sensitive on the +topic of operations and bandages. She did not "make so bold as to +say," however, after all. But his snubbing way had irritated her, +and Millie had a hot time of it that afternoon. + +The visitor remained in the parlour until four o'clock, without +giving the ghost of an excuse for an intrusion. For the most part +he was quite still during that time; it would seem he sat in the +growing darkness smoking in the firelight--perhaps dozing. + +Once or twice a curious listener might have heard him at the coals, +and for the space of five minutes he was audible pacing the room. +He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as +he sat down again. + + + +CHAPTER II + +MR. TEDDY HENFREY'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS + + +At four o'clock, when it was fairly dark and Mrs. Hall was screwing +up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some +tea, Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, came into the bar. "My sakes! +Mrs. Hall," said he, "but this is terrible weather for thin boots!" +The snow outside was falling faster. + +Mrs. Hall agreed, and then noticed he had his bag with him. "Now +you're here, Mr. Teddy," said she, "I'd be glad if you'd give th' +old clock in the parlour a bit of a look. 'Tis going, and it strikes +well and hearty; but the hour-hand won't do nuthin' but point at +six." + +And leading the way, she went across to the parlour door and rapped +and entered. + +Her visitor, she saw as she opened the door, was seated in the +armchair before the fire, dozing it would seem, with his bandaged +head drooping on one side. The only light in the room was the red +glow from the fire--which lit his eyes like adverse railway signals, +but left his downcast face in darkness--and the scanty vestiges of +the day that came in through the open door. Everything was ruddy, +shadowy, and indistinct to her, the more so since she had just been +lighting the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled. But for a second +it seemed to her that the man she looked at had an enormous mouth +wide open--a vast and incredible mouth that swallowed the whole of +the lower portion of his face. It was the sensation of a moment: +the white-bound head, the monstrous goggle eyes, and this huge yawn +below it. Then he stirred, started up in his chair, put up his hand. +She opened the door wide, so that the room was lighter, and she saw +him more clearly, with the muffler held up to his face just as she +had seen him hold the serviette before. The shadows, she fancied, +had tricked her. + +"Would you mind, sir, this man a-coming to look at the clock, sir?" +she said, recovering from the momentary shock. + +"Look at the clock?" he said, staring round in a drowsy manner, +and speaking over his hand, and then, getting more fully awake, +"certainly." + +Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched +himself. Then came the light, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was +confronted by this bandaged person. He was, he says, "taken aback." + +"Good afternoon," said the stranger, regarding him--as Mr. Henfrey +says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles--"like a lobster." + +"I hope," said Mr. Henfrey, "that it's no intrusion." + +"None whatever," said the stranger. "Though, I understand," he said +turning to Mrs. Hall, "that this room is really to be mine for my +own private use." + +"I thought, sir," said Mrs. Hall, "you'd prefer the clock--" + +"Certainly," said the stranger, "certainly--but, as a rule, I +like to be alone and undisturbed. + +"But I'm really glad to have the clock seen to," he said, seeing a +certain hesitation in Mr. Henfrey's manner. "Very glad." Mr. Henfrey +had intended to apologise and withdraw, but this anticipation +reassured him. The stranger turned round with his back to the +fireplace and put his hands behind his back. "And presently," he +said, "when the clock-mending is over, I think I should like to +have some tea. But not till the clock-mending is over." + +Mrs. Hall was about to leave the room--she made no conversational +advances this time, because she did not want to be snubbed in front +of Mr. Henfrey--when her visitor asked her if she had made any +arrangements about his boxes at Bramblehurst. She told him she had +mentioned the matter to the postman, and that the carrier could +bring them over on the morrow. "You are certain that is the +earliest?" he said. + +She was certain, with a marked coldness. + +"I should explain," he added, "what I was really too cold and +fatigued to do before, that I am an experimental investigator." + +"Indeed, sir," said Mrs. Hall, much impressed. + +"And my baggage contains apparatus and appliances." + +"Very useful things indeed they are, sir," said Mrs. Hall. + +"And I'm very naturally anxious to get on with my inquiries." + +"Of course, sir." + +"My reason for coming to Iping," he proceeded, with a certain +deliberation of manner, "was ... a desire for solitude. I do not +wish to be disturbed in my work. In addition to my work, an +accident--" + +"I thought as much," said Mrs. Hall to herself. + +"--necessitates a certain retirement. My eyes--are sometimes so +weak and painful that I have to shut myself up in the dark for +hours together. Lock myself up. Sometimes--now and then. Not at +present, certainly. At such times the slightest disturbance, the +entry of a stranger into the room, is a source of excruciating +annoyance to me--it is well these things should be understood." + +"Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Hall. "And if I might make so bold as +to ask--" + +"That I think, is all," said the stranger, with that quietly +irresistible air of finality he could assume at will. Mrs. Hall +reserved her question and sympathy for a better occasion. + +After Mrs. Hall had left the room, he remained standing in front of +the fire, glaring, so Mr. Henfrey puts it, at the clock-mending. Mr. +Henfrey not only took off the hands of the clock, and the face, but +extracted the works; and he tried to work in as slow and quiet and +unassuming a manner as possible. He worked with the lamp close to +him, and the green shade threw a brilliant light upon his hands, +and upon the frame and wheels, and left the rest of the room +shadowy. When he looked up, coloured patches swam in his eyes. +Being constitutionally of a curious nature, he had removed the +works--a quite unnecessary proceeding--with the idea of delaying his +departure and perhaps falling into conversation with the stranger. +But the stranger stood there, perfectly silent and still. So still, +it got on Henfrey's nerves. He felt alone in the room and looked up, +and there, grey and dim, was the bandaged head and huge blue lenses +staring fixedly, with a mist of green spots drifting in front of +them. It was so uncanny to Henfrey that for a minute they remained +staring blankly at one another. Then Henfrey looked down again. Very +uncomfortable position! One would like to say something. Should he +remark that the weather was very cold for the time of year? + +He looked up as if to take aim with that introductory shot. "The +weather--" he began. + +"Why don't you finish and go?" said the rigid figure, evidently in +a state of painfully suppressed rage. "All you've got to do is to +fix the hour-hand on its axle. You're simply humbugging--" + +"Certainly, sir--one minute more. I overlooked--" and Mr. Henfrey +finished and went. + +But he went feeling excessively annoyed. "Damn it!" said Mr. Henfrey +to himself, trudging down the village through the thawing snow; "a +man must do a clock at times, sure-ly." + +And again "Can't a man look at you?--Ugly!" + +And yet again, "Seemingly not. If the police was wanting you you +couldn't be more wropped and bandaged." + +At Gleeson's corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the +stranger's hostess at the "Coach and Horses," and who now drove +the Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to +Sidderbridge Junction, coming towards him on his return from that +place. Hall had evidently been "stopping a bit" at Sidderbridge, +to judge by his driving. "'Ow do, Teddy?" he said, passing. + +"You got a rum un up home!" said Teddy. + +Hall very sociably pulled up. "What's that?" he asked. + +"Rum-looking customer stopping at the 'Coach and Horses,'" said +Teddy. "My sakes!" + +And he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his grotesque +guest. "Looks a bit like a disguise, don't it? I'd like to see a +man's face if I had him stopping in _my_ place," said Henfrey. "But +women are that trustful--where strangers are concerned. He's took +your rooms and he ain't even given a name, Hall." + +"You don't say so!" said Hall, who was a man of sluggish apprehension. + +"Yes," said Teddy. "By the week. Whatever he is, you can't get rid +of him under the week. And he's got a lot of luggage coming +to-morrow, so he says. Let's hope it won't be stones in boxes, Hall." + +He told Hall how his aunt at Hastings had been swindled by a +stranger with empty portmanteaux. Altogether he left Hall vaguely +suspicious. "Get up, old girl," said Hall. "I s'pose I must see +'bout this." + +Teddy trudged on his way with his mind considerably relieved. + +Instead of "seeing 'bout it," however, Hall on his return was +severely rated by his wife on the length of time he had spent in +Sidderbridge, and his mild inquiries were answered snappishly and +in a manner not to the point. But the seed of suspicion Teddy +had sown germinated in the mind of Mr. Hall in spite of these +discouragements. "You wim' don't know everything," said Mr. Hall, +resolved to ascertain more about the personality of his guest at +the earliest possible opportunity. And after the stranger had gone +to bed, which he did about half-past nine, Mr. Hall went very +aggressively into the parlour and looked very hard at his wife's +furniture, just to show that the stranger wasn't master there, +and scrutinised closely and a little contemptuously a sheet of +mathematical computations the stranger had left. When retiring +for the night he instructed Mrs. Hall to look very closely at +the stranger's luggage when it came next day. + +"You mind you own business, Hall," said Mrs. Hall, "and I'll mind +mine." + +She was all the more inclined to snap at Hall because the stranger +was undoubtedly an unusually strange sort of stranger, and she was +by no means assured about him in her own mind. In the middle of the +night she woke up dreaming of huge white heads like turnips, that +came trailing after her, at the end of interminable necks, and with +vast black eyes. But being a sensible woman, she subdued her +terrors and turned over and went to sleep again. + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE THOUSAND AND ONE BOTTLES + + +So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning +of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping +village. Next day his luggage arrived through the slush--and very +remarkable luggage it was. There were a couple of trunks indeed, +such as a rational man might need, but in addition there were +a box of books--big, fat books, of which some were just in an +incomprehensible handwriting--and a dozen or more crates, boxes, +and cases, containing objects packed in straw, as it seemed to +Hall, tugging with a casual curiosity at the straw--glass bottles. +The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came out +impatiently to meet Fearenside's cart, while Hall was having a word +or so of gossip preparatory to helping being them in. Out he came, +not noticing Fearenside's dog, who was sniffing in a dilettante +spirit at Hall's legs. "Come along with those boxes," he said. +"I've been waiting long enough." + +And he came down the steps towards the tail of the cart as if to +lay hands on the smaller crate. + +No sooner had Fearenside's dog caught sight of him, however, than +it began to bristle and growl savagely, and when he rushed down the +steps it gave an undecided hop, and then sprang straight at his +hand. "Whup!" cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero with +dogs, and Fearenside howled, "Lie down!" and snatched his whip. + +They saw the dog's teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw the +dog execute a flanking jump and get home on the stranger's leg, and +heard the rip of his trousering. Then the finer end of Fearenside's +whip reached his property, and the dog, yelping with dismay, +retreated under the wheels of the waggon. It was all the business of +a swift half-minute. No one spoke, everyone shouted. The stranger +glanced swiftly at his torn glove and at his leg, made as if he +would stoop to the latter, then turned and rushed swiftly up the +steps into the inn. They heard him go headlong across the passage +and up the uncarpeted stairs to his bedroom. + +"You brute, you!" said Fearenside, climbing off the waggon with his +whip in his hand, while the dog watched him through the wheel. +"Come here," said Fearenside--"You'd better." + +Hall had stood gaping. "He wuz bit," said Hall. "I'd better go and +see to en," and he trotted after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall in +the passage. "Carrier's darg," he said "bit en." + +He went straight upstairs, and the stranger's door being ajar, he +pushed it open and was entering without any ceremony, being of a +naturally sympathetic turn of mind. + +The blind was down and the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a most +singular thing, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and +a face of three huge indeterminate spots on white, very like the +face of a pale pansy. Then he was struck violently in the chest, +hurled back, and the door slammed in his face and locked. It was so +rapid that it gave him no time to observe. A waving of indecipherable +shapes, a blow, and a concussion. There he stood on the dark little +landing, wondering what it might be that he had seen. + +A couple of minutes after, he rejoined the little group that had +formed outside the "Coach and Horses." There was Fearenside telling +about it all over again for the second time; there was Mrs. Hall +saying his dog didn't have no business to bite her guests; there +was Huxter, the general dealer from over the road, interrogative; +and Sandy Wadgers from the forge, judicial; besides women and +children, all of them saying fatuities: "Wouldn't let en bite +_me_, I knows"; "'Tasn't right _have_ such dargs"; "Whad _'e_ bite +'n for, than?" and so forth. + +Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps and listening, found it +incredible that he had seen anything so very remarkable happen +upstairs. Besides, his vocabulary was altogether too limited to +express his impressions. + +"He don't want no help, he says," he said in answer to his wife's +inquiry. "We'd better be a-takin' of his luggage in." + +"He ought to have it cauterised at once," said Mr. Huxter; +"especially if it's at all inflamed." + +"I'd shoot en, that's what I'd do," said a lady in the group. + +Suddenly the dog began growling again. + +"Come along," cried an angry voice in the doorway, and there stood +the muffled stranger with his collar turned up, and his hat-brim +bent down. "The sooner you get those things in the better I'll be +pleased." It is stated by an anonymous bystander that his trousers +and gloves had been changed. + +"Was you hurt, sir?" said Fearenside. "I'm rare sorry the darg--" + +"Not a bit," said the stranger. "Never broke the skin. Hurry up +with those things." + +He then swore to himself, so Mr. Hall asserts. + +Directly the first crate was, in accordance with his directions, +carried into the parlour, the stranger flung himself upon it with +extraordinary eagerness, and began to unpack it, scattering the +straw with an utter disregard of Mrs. Hall's carpet. And from it he +began to produce bottles--little fat bottles containing powders, +small and slender bottles containing coloured and white fluids, +fluted blue bottles labeled Poison, bottles with round bodies and +slender necks, large green-glass bottles, large white-glass bottles, +bottles with glass stoppers and frosted labels, bottles with fine +corks, bottles with bungs, bottles with wooden caps, wine bottles, +salad-oil bottles--putting them in rows on the chiffonnier, on the +mantel, on the table under the window, round the floor, on the +bookshelf--everywhere. The chemist's shop in Bramblehurst could not +boast half so many. Quite a sight it was. Crate after crate yielded +bottles, until all six were empty and the table high with straw; the +only things that came out of these crates besides the bottles were +a number of test-tubes and a carefully packed balance. + +And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to the +window and set to work, not troubling in the least about the litter +of straw, the fire which had gone out, the box of books outside, +nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs. + +When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already so +absorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles into +test-tubes, that he did not hear her until she had swept away the +bulk of the straw and put the tray on the table, with some little +emphasis perhaps, seeing the state that the floor was in. Then he +half turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But she +saw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table, +and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarily +hollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and faced +her. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when he +anticipated her. + +"I wish you wouldn't come in without knocking," he said in the tone +of abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him. + +"I knocked, but seemingly--" + +"Perhaps you did. But in my investigations--my really very urgent +and necessary investigations--the slightest disturbance, the jar +of a door--I must ask you--" + +"Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you're like that, you +know. Any time." + +"A very good idea," said the stranger. + +"This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark--" + +"Don't. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill." And he +mumbled at her--words suspiciously like curses. + +He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle +in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite +alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. "In which case, I should +like to know, sir, what you consider--" + +"A shilling--put down a shilling. Surely a shilling's enough?" + +"So be it," said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning +to spread it over the table. "If you're satisfied, of course--" + +He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her. + +All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall +testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a +concussion and a sound of bottles ringing together as though the +table had been hit, and the smash of a bottle flung violently down, +and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing "something was +the matter," she went to the door and listened, not caring to +knock. + +"I can't go on," he was raving. "I _can't_ go on. Three hundred +thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! All +my life it may take me! ... Patience! Patience indeed! ... Fool! +fool!" + +There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs. +Hall had very reluctantly to leave the rest of his soliloquy. +When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint +crepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle. +It was all over; the stranger had resumed work. + +When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the +room under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had been +carelessly wiped. She called attention to it. + +"Put it down in the bill," snapped her visitor. "For God's sake +don't worry me. If there's damage done, put it down in the bill," +and he went on ticking a list in the exercise book before him. + +"I'll tell you something," said Fearenside, mysteriously. It was +late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop of +Iping Hanger. + +"Well?" said Teddy Henfrey. + +"This chap you're speaking of, what my dog bit. Well--he's black. +Leastways, his legs are. I seed through the tear of his trousers +and the tear of his glove. You'd have expected a sort of pinky to +show, wouldn't you? Well--there wasn't none. Just blackness. I +tell you, he's as black as my hat." + +"My sakes!" said Henfrey. "It's a rummy case altogether. Why, his +nose is as pink as paint!" + +"That's true," said Fearenside. "I knows that. And I tell 'ee what +I'm thinking. That marn's a piebald, Teddy. Black here and white +there--in patches. And he's ashamed of it. He's a kind of half-breed, +and the colour's come off patchy instead of mixing. I've heard of +such things before. And it's the common way with horses, as any one +can see." + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MR. CUSS INTERVIEWS THE STRANGER + + +I have told the circumstances of the stranger's arrival in Iping +with a certain fulness of detail, in order that the curious +impression he created may be understood by the reader. But +excepting two odd incidents, the circumstances of his stay until +the extraordinary day of the club festival may be passed over very +cursorily. There were a number of skirmishes with Mrs. Hall on +matters of domestic discipline, but in every case until late April, +when the first signs of penury began, he over-rode her by the easy +expedient of an extra payment. Hall did not like him, and whenever +he dared he talked of the advisability of getting rid of him; but +he showed his dislike chiefly by concealing it ostentatiously, and +avoiding his visitor as much as possible. "Wait till the summer," +said Mrs. Hall sagely, "when the artisks are beginning to come. +Then we'll see. He may be a bit overbearing, but bills settled +punctual is bills settled punctual, whatever you'd like to say." + +The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference +between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He +worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would +come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise +late, pace his room, fretting audibly for hours together, smoke, +sleep in the armchair by the fire. Communication with the world +beyond the village he had none. His temper continued very +uncertain; for the most part his manner was that of a man suffering +under almost unendurable provocation, and once or twice things were +snapped, torn, crushed, or broken in spasmodic gusts of violence. +He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His +habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily upon him, +but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could make +neither head nor tail of what she heard. + +He rarely went abroad by daylight, but at twilight he would go out +muffled up invisibly, whether the weather were cold or not, and he +chose the loneliest paths and those most overshadowed by trees and +banks. His goggling spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under the +penthouse of his hat, came with a disagreeable suddenness out of +the darkness upon one or two home-going labourers, and Teddy +Henfrey, tumbling out of the "Scarlet Coat" one night, at half-past +nine, was scared shamefully by the stranger's skull-like head (he +was walking hat in hand) lit by the sudden light of the opened inn +door. Such children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of bogies, and +it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked +him, or the reverse; but there was certainly a vivid enough dislike +on either side. + +It was inevitable that a person of so remarkable an appearance and +bearing should form a frequent topic in such a village as Iping. +Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. Mrs. Hall was +sensitive on the point. When questioned, she explained very +carefully that he was an "experimental investigator," going +gingerly over the syllables as one who dreads pitfalls. When asked +what an experimental investigator was, she would say with a touch +of superiority that most educated people knew such things as that, +and would thus explain that he "discovered things." Her visitor had +had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face +and hands, and being of a sensitive disposition, he was averse to +any public notice of the fact. + +Out of her hearing there was a view largely entertained that he was +a criminal trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so +as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This +idea sprang from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. No crime of any +magnitude dating from the middle or end of February was known to +have occurred. Elaborated in the imagination of Mr. Gould, the +probationary assistant in the National School, this theory took the +form that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing +explosives, and he resolved to undertake such detective operations +as his time permitted. These consisted for the most part in looking +very hard at the stranger whenever they met, or in asking people +who had never seen the stranger, leading questions about him. But +he detected nothing. + +Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either +accepted the piebald view or some modification of it; as, for +instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that "if he choses +to show enself at fairs he'd make his fortune in no time," and +being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with +the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by +regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the +advantage of accounting for everything straight away. + +Between these main groups there were waverers and compromisers. +Sussex folk have few superstitions, and it was only after the +events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was +first whispered in the village. Even then it was only credited +among the women folk. + +But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping, on the whole, +agreed in disliking him. His irritability, though it might have +been comprehensible to an urban brain-worker, was an amazing thing +to these quiet Sussex villagers. The frantic gesticulations they +surprised now and then, the headlong pace after nightfall that +swept him upon them round quiet corners, the inhuman bludgeoning +of all tentative advances of curiosity, the taste for twilight +that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of blinds, +the extinction of candles and lamps--who could agree with such +goings on? They drew aside as he passed down the village, and when +he had gone by, young humourists would up with coat-collars and +down with hat-brims, and go pacing nervously after him in imitation +of his occult bearing. There was a song popular at that time called +"The Bogey Man". Miss Statchell sang it at the schoolroom concert +(in aid of the church lamps), and thereafter whenever one or two of +the villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, a +bar or so of this tune, more or less sharp or flat, was whistled in +the midst of them. Also belated little children would call "Bogey +Man!" after him, and make off tremulously elated. + +Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The +bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the +thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through +April and May he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger, +and at last, towards Whitsuntide, he could stand it no longer, but +hit upon the subscription-list for a village nurse as an excuse. He +was surprised to find that Mr. Hall did not know his guest's name. +"He give a name," said Mrs. Hall--an assertion which was quite +unfounded--"but I didn't rightly hear it." She thought it seemed +so silly not to know the man's name. + +Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. There was a fairly +audible imprecation from within. "Pardon my intrusion," said Cuss, +and then the door closed and cut Mrs. Hall off from the rest of +the conversation. + +She could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then +a cry of surprise, a stirring of feet, a chair flung aside, a bark +of laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face +white, his eyes staring over his shoulder. He left the door open +behind him, and without looking at her strode across the hall and +went down the steps, and she heard his feet hurrying along the +road. He carried his hat in his hand. She stood behind the door, +looking at the open door of the parlour. Then she heard the +stranger laughing quietly, and then his footsteps came across the +room. She could not see his face where she stood. The parlour door +slammed, and the place was silent again. + +Cuss went straight up the village to Bunting the vicar. "Am I mad?" +Cuss began abruptly, as he entered the shabby little study. "Do I +look like an insane person?" + +"What's happened?" said the vicar, putting the ammonite on the +loose sheets of his forth-coming sermon. + +"That chap at the inn--" + +"Well?" + +"Give me something to drink," said Cuss, and he sat down. + +When his nerves had been steadied by a glass of cheap sherry--the +only drink the good vicar had available--he told him of the +interview he had just had. "Went in," he gasped, "and began to +demand a subscription for that Nurse Fund. He'd stuck his hands in +his pockets as I came in, and he sat down lumpily in his chair. +Sniffed. I told him I'd heard he took an interest in scientific +things. He said yes. Sniffed again. Kept on sniffing all the time; +evidently recently caught an infernal cold. No wonder, wrapped up +like that! I developed the nurse idea, and all the while kept my +eyes open. Bottles--chemicals--everywhere. Balance, test-tubes +in stands, and a smell of--evening primrose. Would he subscribe? +Said he'd consider it. Asked him, point-blank, was he researching. +Said he was. A long research? Got quite cross. 'A damnable long +research,' said he, blowing the cork out, so to speak. 'Oh,' said +I. And out came the grievance. The man was just on the boil, and my +question boiled him over. He had been given a prescription, most +valuable prescription--what for he wouldn't say. Was it medical? +'Damn you! What are you fishing after?' I apologised. Dignified +sniff and cough. He resumed. He'd read it. Five ingredients. Put it +down; turned his head. Draught of air from window lifted the paper. +Swish, rustle. He was working in a room with an open fireplace, he +said. Saw a flicker, and there was the prescription burning and +lifting chimneyward. Rushed towards it just as it whisked up the +chimney. So! Just at that point, to illustrate his story, out came +his arm." + +"Well?" + +"No hand--just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, _that's_ a +deformity! Got a cork arm, I suppose, and has taken it off. Then, I +thought, there's something odd in that. What the devil keeps that +sleeve up and open, if there's nothing in it? There was nothing in +it, I tell you. Nothing down it, right down to the joint. I could +see right down it to the elbow, and there was a glimmer of light +shining through a tear of the cloth. 'Good God!' I said. Then he +stopped. Stared at me with those black goggles of his, and then +at his sleeve." + +"Well?" + +"That's all. He never said a word; just glared, and put his sleeve +back in his pocket quickly. 'I was saying,' said he, 'that there +was the prescription burning, wasn't I?' Interrogative cough. +'How the devil,' said I, 'can you move an empty sleeve like that?' +'Empty sleeve?' 'Yes,' said I, 'an empty sleeve.' + +"'It's an empty sleeve, is it? You saw it was an empty sleeve?' He +stood up right away. I stood up too. He came towards me in three +very slow steps, and stood quite close. Sniffed venomously. I +didn't flinch, though I'm hanged if that bandaged knob of his, and +those blinkers, aren't enough to unnerve any one, coming quietly +up to you. + +"'You said it was an empty sleeve?' he said. 'Certainly,' I said. +At staring and saying nothing a barefaced man, unspectacled, starts +scratch. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket +again, and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to +me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. Seemed an +age. 'Well?' said I, clearing my throat, 'there's nothing in it.' + +"Had to say something. I was beginning to feel frightened. I could +see right down it. He extended it straight towards me, slowly, +slowly--just like that--until the cuff was six inches from my +face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that! +And then--" + +"Well?" + +"Something--exactly like a finger and thumb it felt--nipped my +nose." + +Bunting began to laugh. + +"There wasn't anything there!" said Cuss, his voice running up into +a shriek at the "there." "It's all very well for you to laugh, but +I tell you I was so startled, I hit his cuff hard, and turned +around, and cut out of the room--I left him--" + +Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic. +He turned round in a helpless way and took a second glass of the +excellent vicar's very inferior sherry. "When I hit his cuff," said +Cuss, "I tell you, it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there +wasn't an arm! There wasn't the ghost of an arm!" + +Mr. Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss. "It's +a most remarkable story," he said. He looked very wise and grave +indeed. "It's really," said Mr. Bunting with judicial emphasis, "a +most remarkable story." + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE BURGLARY AT THE VICARAGE + + +The facts of the burglary at the vicarage came to us chiefly +through the medium of the vicar and his wife. It occurred in the +small hours of Whit Monday, the day devoted in Iping to the Club +festivities. Mrs. Bunting, it seems, woke up suddenly in the +stillness that comes before the dawn, with the strong impression +that the door of their bedroom had opened and closed. She did not +arouse her husband at first, but sat up in bed listening. She then +distinctly heard the pad, pad, pad of bare feet coming out of the +adjoining dressing-room and walking along the passage towards the +staircase. As soon as she felt assured of this, she aroused the +Rev. Mr. Bunting as quietly as possible. He did not strike a light, +but putting on his spectacles, her dressing-gown and his bath +slippers, he went out on the landing to listen. He heard quite +distinctly a fumbling going on at his study desk down-stairs, and +then a violent sneeze. + +At that he returned to his bedroom, armed himself with the most +obvious weapon, the poker, and descended the staircase as +noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out on the landing. + +The hour was about four, and the ultimate darkness of the night was +past. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall, but the study +doorway yawned impenetrably black. Everything was still except the +faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting's tread, and the +slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer +was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an +imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with +yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the +crack of the door he could see the desk and the open drawer and a +candle burning on the desk. But the robber he could not see. He +stood there in the hall undecided what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her +face white and intent, crept slowly downstairs after him. One thing +kept Mr. Bunting's courage; the persuasion that this burglar was a +resident in the village. + +They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had +found the housekeeping reserve of gold--two pounds ten in half +sovereigns altogether. At that sound Mr. Bunting was nerved to +abrupt action. Gripping the poker firmly, he rushed into the room, +closely followed by Mrs. Bunting. "Surrender!" cried Mr. Bunting, +fiercely, and then stooped amazed. Apparently the room was +perfectly empty. + +Yet their conviction that they had, that very moment, heard somebody +moving in the room had amounted to a certainty. For half a minute, +perhaps, they stood gaping, then Mrs. Bunting went across the room +and looked behind the screen, while Mr. Bunting, by a kindred +impulse, peered under the desk. Then Mrs. Bunting turned back the +window-curtains, and Mr. Bunting looked up the chimney and probed it +with the poker. Then Mrs. Bunting scrutinised the waste-paper basket +and Mr. Bunting opened the lid of the coal-scuttle. Then they came +to a stop and stood with eyes interrogating each other. + +"I could have sworn--" said Mr. Bunting. + +"The candle!" said Mr. Bunting. "Who lit the candle?" + +"The drawer!" said Mrs. Bunting. "And the money's gone!" + +She went hastily to the doorway. + +"Of all the strange occurrences--" + +There was a violent sneeze in the passage. They rushed out, and as +they did so the kitchen door slammed. "Bring the candle," said Mr. +Bunting, and led the way. They both heard a sound of bolts being +hastily shot back. + +As he opened the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that +the back door was just opening, and the faint light of early dawn +displayed the dark masses of the garden beyond. He is certain that +nothing went out of the door. It opened, stood open for a moment, +and then closed with a slam. As it did so, the candle Mrs. Bunting +was carrying from the study flickered and flared. It was a minute +or more before they entered the kitchen. + +The place was empty. They refastened the back door, examined the +kitchen, pantry, and scullery thoroughly, and at last went down +into the cellar. There was not a soul to be found in the house, +search as they would. + +Daylight found the vicar and his wife, a quaintly-costumed little +couple, still marvelling about on their own ground floor by the +unnecessary light of a guttering candle. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE FURNITURE THAT WENT MAD + + +Now it happened that in the early hours of Whit Monday, before +Millie was hunted out for the day, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both rose +and went noiselessly down into the cellar. Their business there was +of a private nature, and had something to do with the specific +gravity of their beer. They had hardly entered the cellar when Mrs. +Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of sarsaparilla +from their joint-room. As she was the expert and principal operator +in this affair, Hall very properly went upstairs for it. + +On the landing he was surprised to see that the stranger's door was +ajar. He went on into his own room and found the bottle as he had +been directed. + +But returning with the bottle, he noticed that the bolts of the +front door had been shot back, that the door was in fact simply on +the latch. And with a flash of inspiration he connected this with +the stranger's room upstairs and the suggestions of Mr. Teddy +Henfrey. He distinctly remembered holding the candle while Mrs. +Hall shot these bolts overnight. At the sight he stopped, gaping, +then with the bottle still in his hand went upstairs again. He +rapped at the stranger's door. There was no answer. He rapped +again; then pushed the door wide open and entered. + +It was as he expected. The bed, the room also, was empty. And what +was stranger, even to his heavy intelligence, on the bedroom chair +and along the rail of the bed were scattered the garments, the only +garments so far as he knew, and the bandages of their guest. His +big slouch hat even was cocked jauntily over the bed-post. + +As Hall stood there he heard his wife's voice coming out of the +depth of the cellar, with that rapid telescoping of the syllables +and interrogative cocking up of the final words to a high note, +by which the West Sussex villager is wont to indicate a brisk +impatience. "George! You gart whad a wand?" + +At that he turned and hurried down to her. "Janny," he said, over +the rail of the cellar steps, "'tas the truth what Henfrey sez. +'E's not in uz room, 'e en't. And the front door's onbolted." + +At first Mrs. Hall did not understand, and as soon as she did she +resolved to see the empty room for herself. Hall, still holding the +bottle, went first. "If 'e en't there," he said, "'is close are. +And what's 'e doin' 'ithout 'is close, then? 'Tas a most curious +business." + +As they came up the cellar steps they both, it was afterwards +ascertained, fancied they heard the front door open and shut, but +seeing it closed and nothing there, neither said a word to the other +about it at the time. Mrs. Hall passed her husband in the passage +and ran on first upstairs. Someone sneezed on the staircase. Hall, +following six steps behind, thought that he heard her sneeze. She, +going on first, was under the impression that Hall was sneezing. +She flung open the door and stood regarding the room. "Of all the +curious!" she said. + +She heard a sniff close behind her head as it seemed, and turning, +was surprised to see Hall a dozen feet off on the topmost stair. +But in another moment he was beside her. She bent forward and put +her hand on the pillow and then under the clothes. + +"Cold," she said. "He's been up this hour or more." + +As she did so, a most extraordinary thing happened. The bed-clothes +gathered themselves together, leapt up suddenly into a sort of peak, +and then jumped headlong over the bottom rail. It was exactly as if +a hand had clutched them in the centre and flung them aside. +Immediately after, the stranger's hat hopped off the bed-post, +described a whirling flight in the air through the better part of +a circle, and then dashed straight at Mrs. Hall's face. Then as +swiftly came the sponge from the washstand; and then the chair, +flinging the stranger's coat and trousers carelessly aside, and +laughing drily in a voice singularly like the stranger's, turned +itself up with its four legs at Mrs. Hall, seemed to take aim at her +for a moment, and charged at her. She screamed and turned, and then +the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and impelled +her and Hall out of the room. The door slammed violently and was +locked. The chair and bed seemed to be executing a dance of triumph +for a moment, and then abruptly everything was still. + +Mrs. Hall was left almost in a fainting condition in Mr. Hall's +arms on the landing. It was with the greatest difficulty that Mr. +Hall and Millie, who had been roused by her scream of alarm, +succeeded in getting her downstairs, and applying the restoratives +customary in such cases. + +"'Tas sperits," said Mrs. Hall. "I know 'tas sperits. I've read in +papers of en. Tables and chairs leaping and dancing..." + +"Take a drop more, Janny," said Hall. "'Twill steady ye." + +"Lock him out," said Mrs. Hall. "Don't let him come in again. +I half guessed--I might ha' known. With them goggling eyes and +bandaged head, and never going to church of a Sunday. And all +they bottles--more'n it's right for any one to have. He's put the +sperits into the furniture.... My good old furniture! 'Twas in +that very chair my poor dear mother used to sit when I was a +little girl. To think it should rise up against me now!" + +"Just a drop more, Janny," said Hall. "Your nerves is all upset." + +They sent Millie across the street through the golden five o'clock +sunshine to rouse up Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith. Mr. +Hall's compliments and the furniture upstairs was behaving most +extraordinary. Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a knowing man, +was Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful. He took quite a grave view +of the case. "Arm darmed if thet ent witchcraft," was the view of +Mr. Sandy Wadgers. "You warnt horseshoes for such gentry as he." + +He came round greatly concerned. They wanted him to lead the way +upstairs to the room, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry. He +preferred to talk in the passage. Over the way Huxter's apprentice +came out and began taking down the shutters of the tobacco window. +He was called over to join the discussion. Mr. Huxter naturally +followed over in the course of a few minutes. The Anglo-Saxon +genius for parliamentary government asserted itself; there was a +great deal of talk and no decisive action. "Let's have the facts +first," insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers. "Let's be sure we'd be acting +perfectly right in bustin' that there door open. A door onbust is +always open to bustin', but ye can't onbust a door once you've +busted en." + +And suddenly and most wonderfully the door of the room upstairs +opened of its own accord, and as they looked up in amazement, +they saw descending the stairs the muffled figure of the stranger +staring more blackly and blankly than ever with those unreasonably +large blue glass eyes of his. He came down stiffly and slowly, +staring all the time; he walked across the passage staring, then +stopped. + +"Look there!" he said, and their eyes followed the direction of his +gloved finger and saw a bottle of sarsaparilla hard by the cellar +door. Then he entered the parlour, and suddenly, swiftly, +viciously, slammed the door in their faces. + +Not a word was spoken until the last echoes of the slam had died +away. They stared at one another. "Well, if that don't lick +everything!" said Mr. Wadgers, and left the alternative unsaid. + +"I'd go in and ask'n 'bout it," said Wadgers, to Mr. Hall. "I'd +d'mand an explanation." + +It took some time to bring the landlady's husband up to that pitch. +At last he rapped, opened the door, and got as far as, "Excuse me--" + +"Go to the devil!" said the stranger in a tremendous voice, and +"Shut that door after you." So that brief interview terminated. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE UNVEILING OF THE STRANGER + + +The stranger went into the little parlour of the "Coach and Horses" +about half-past five in the morning, and there he remained until +near midday, the blinds down, the door shut, and none, after Hall's +repulse, venturing near him. + +All that time he must have fasted. Thrice he rang his bell, the +third time furiously and continuously, but no one answered him. +"Him and his 'go to the devil' indeed!" said Mrs. Hall. Presently +came an imperfect rumour of the burglary at the vicarage, and two +and two were put together. Hall, assisted by Wadgers, went off to +find Mr. Shuckleforth, the magistrate, and take his advice. No one +ventured upstairs. How the stranger occupied himself is unknown. +Now and then he would stride violently up and down, and twice came +an outburst of curses, a tearing of paper, and a violent smashing +of bottles. + +The little group of scared but curious people increased. Mrs. Huxter +came over; some gay young fellows resplendent in black ready-made +jackets and pique paper ties--for it was Whit Monday--joined +the group with confused interrogations. Young Archie Harker +distinguished himself by going up the yard and trying to peep +under the window-blinds. He could see nothing, but gave reason +for supposing that he did, and others of the Iping youth +presently joined him. + +It was the finest of all possible Whit Mondays, and down the +village street stood a row of nearly a dozen booths, a shooting +gallery, and on the grass by the forge were three yellow and +chocolate waggons and some picturesque strangers of both sexes +putting up a cocoanut shy. The gentlemen wore blue jerseys, the +ladies white aprons and quite fashionable hats with heavy plumes. +Woodyer, of the "Purple Fawn," and Mr. Jaggers, the cobbler, who +also sold old second-hand ordinary bicycles, were stretching a +string of union-jacks and royal ensigns (which had originally +celebrated the first Victorian Jubilee) across the road. + +And inside, in the artificial darkness of the parlour, into which +only one thin jet of sunlight penetrated, the stranger, hungry we +must suppose, and fearful, hidden in his uncomfortable hot wrappings, +pored through his dark glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty +little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible +if invisible, outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace +lay the fragments of half a dozen smashed bottles, and a pungent +twang of chlorine tainted the air. So much we know from what was +heard at the time and from what was subsequently seen in the room. + +About noon he suddenly opened his parlour door and stood glaring +fixedly at the three or four people in the bar. "Mrs. Hall," he +said. Somebody went sheepishly and called for Mrs. Hall. + +Mrs. Hall appeared after an interval, a little short of breath, but +all the fiercer for that. Hall was still out. She had deliberated +over this scene, and she came holding a little tray with an +unsettled bill upon it. "Is it your bill you're wanting, sir?" she +said. + +"Why wasn't my breakfast laid? Why haven't you prepared my meals +and answered my bell? Do you think I live without eating?" + +"Why isn't my bill paid?" said Mrs. Hall. "That's what I want to +know." + +"I told you three days ago I was awaiting a remittance--" + +"I told you two days ago I wasn't going to await no remittances. +You can't grumble if your breakfast waits a bit, if my bill's been +waiting these five days, can you?" + +The stranger swore briefly but vividly. + +"Nar, nar!" from the bar. + +"And I'd thank you kindly, sir, if you'd keep your swearing to +yourself, sir," said Mrs. Hall. + +The stranger stood looking more like an angry diving-helmet than +ever. It was universally felt in the bar that Mrs. Hall had the +better of him. His next words showed as much. + +"Look here, my good woman--" he began. + +"Don't 'good woman' _me_," said Mrs. Hall. + +"I've told you my remittance hasn't come." + +"Remittance indeed!" said Mrs. Hall. + +"Still, I daresay in my pocket--" + +"You told me three days ago that you hadn't anything but a +sovereign's worth of silver upon you." + +"Well, I've found some more--" + +"'Ul-lo!" from the bar. + +"I wonder where you found it," said Mrs. Hall. + +That seemed to annoy the stranger very much. He stamped his foot. +"What do you mean?" he said. + +"That I wonder where you found it," said Mrs. Hall. "And before I +take any bills or get any breakfasts, or do any such things +whatsoever, you got to tell me one or two things I don't understand, +and what nobody don't understand, and what everybody is very anxious +to understand. I want to know what you been doing t'my chair +upstairs, and I want to know how 'tis your room was empty, and how +you got in again. Them as stops in this house comes in by the +doors--that's the rule of the house, and that you _didn't_ do, and +what I want to know is how you _did_ come in. And I want to know--" + +Suddenly the stranger raised his gloved hands clenched, stamped his +foot, and said, "Stop!" with such extraordinary violence that he +silenced her instantly. + +"You don't understand," he said, "who I am or what I am. I'll show +you. By Heaven! I'll show you." Then he put his open palm over his +face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity. +"Here," he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs. Hall something +which she, staring at his metamorphosed face, accepted automatically. +Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and +staggered back. The nose--it was the stranger's nose! pink and +shining--rolled on the floor. + +Then he removed his spectacles, and everyone in the bar gasped. He +took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers +and bandages. For a moment they resisted him. A flash of horrible +anticipation passed through the bar. "Oh, my Gard!" said some one. +Then off they came. + +It was worse than anything. Mrs. Hall, standing open-mouthed and +horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw, and made for the door of +the house. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars, +disfigurements, tangible horrors, but nothing! The bandages and +false hair flew across the passage into the bar, making a +hobbledehoy jump to avoid them. Everyone tumbled on everyone else +down the steps. For the man who stood there shouting some incoherent +explanation, was a solid gesticulating figure up to the coat-collar +of him, and then--nothingness, no visible thing at all! + +People down the village heard shouts and shrieks, and looking up +the street saw the "Coach and Horses" violently firing out its +humanity. They saw Mrs. Hall fall down and Mr. Teddy Henfrey jump +to avoid tumbling over her, and then they heard the frightful +screams of Millie, who, emerging suddenly from the kitchen at the +noise of the tumult, had come upon the headless stranger from +behind. These increased suddenly. + +Forthwith everyone all down the street, the sweetstuff seller, +cocoanut shy proprietor and his assistant, the swing man, little +boys and girls, rustic dandies, smart wenches, smocked elders +and aproned gipsies--began running towards the inn, and in a +miraculously short space of time a crowd of perhaps forty people, +and rapidly increasing, swayed and hooted and inquired and +exclaimed and suggested, in front of Mrs. Hall's establishment. +Everyone seemed eager to talk at once, and the result was Babel. A +small group supported Mrs. Hall, who was picked up in a state of +collapse. There was a conference, and the incredible evidence of a +vociferous eye-witness. "O Bogey!" "What's he been doin', then?" +"Ain't hurt the girl, 'as 'e?" "Run at en with a knife, I believe." +"No 'ed, I tell ye. I don't mean no manner of speaking. I mean marn +'ithout a 'ed!" "Narnsense! 'tis some conjuring trick." "Fetched +off 'is wrapping, 'e did--" + +In its struggles to see in through the open door, the crowd formed +itself into a straggling wedge, with the more adventurous apex +nearest the inn. "He stood for a moment, I heerd the gal scream, +and he turned. I saw her skirts whisk, and he went after her. +Didn't take ten seconds. Back he comes with a knife in uz hand and +a loaf; stood just as if he was staring. Not a moment ago. Went in +that there door. I tell 'e, 'e ain't gart no 'ed at all. You just +missed en--" + +There was a disturbance behind, and the speaker stopped to step +aside for a little procession that was marching very resolutely +towards the house; first Mr. Hall, very red and determined, then +Mr. Bobby Jaffers, the village constable, and then the wary Mr. +Wadgers. They had come now armed with a warrant. + +People shouted conflicting information of the recent circumstances. +"'Ed or no 'ed," said Jaffers, "I got to 'rest en, and 'rest en I +_will_." + +Mr. Hall marched up the steps, marched straight to the door of the +parlour and flung it open. "Constable," he said, "do your duty." + +Jaffers marched in. Hall next, Wadgers last. They saw in the dim +light the headless figure facing them, with a gnawed crust of bread +in one gloved hand and a chunk of cheese in the other. + +"That's him!" said Hall. + +"What the devil's this?" came in a tone of angry expostulation from +above the collar of the figure. + +"You're a damned rum customer, mister," said Mr. Jaffers. "But 'ed +or no 'ed, the warrant says 'body,' and duty's duty--" + +"Keep off!" said the figure, starting back. + +Abruptly he whipped down the bread and cheese, and Mr. Hall just +grasped the knife on the table in time to save it. Off came the +stranger's left glove and was slapped in Jaffers' face. In another +moment Jaffers, cutting short some statement concerning a warrant, +had gripped him by the handless wrist and caught his invisible +throat. He got a sounding kick on the shin that made him shout, but +he kept his grip. Hall sent the knife sliding along the table to +Wadgers, who acted as goal-keeper for the offensive, so to speak, +and then stepped forward as Jaffers and the stranger swayed and +staggered towards him, clutching and hitting in. A chair stood in +the way, and went aside with a crash as they came down together. + +"Get the feet," said Jaffers between his teeth. + +Mr. Hall, endeavouring to act on instructions, received a sounding +kick in the ribs that disposed of him for a moment, and Mr. +Wadgers, seeing the decapitated stranger had rolled over and got +the upper side of Jaffers, retreated towards the door, knife in +hand, and so collided with Mr. Huxter and the Sidderbridge carter +coming to the rescue of law and order. At the same moment down came +three or four bottles from the chiffonnier and shot a web of +pungency into the air of the room. + +"I'll surrender," cried the stranger, though he had Jaffers down, +and in another moment he stood up panting, a strange figure, +headless and handless--for he had pulled off his right glove now +as well as his left. "It's no good," he said, as if sobbing for +breath. + +It was the strangest thing in the world to hear that voice coming +as if out of empty space, but the Sussex peasants are perhaps the +most matter-of-fact people under the sun. Jaffers got up also and +produced a pair of handcuffs. Then he stared. + +"I say!" said Jaffers, brought up short by a dim realization of the +incongruity of the whole business, "Darn it! Can't use 'em as I can +see." + +The stranger ran his arm down his waistcoat, and as if by a miracle +the buttons to which his empty sleeve pointed became undone. Then +he said something about his shin, and stooped down. He seemed to be +fumbling with his shoes and socks. + +"Why!" said Huxter, suddenly, "that's not a man at all. It's just +empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of +his clothes. I could put my arm--" + +He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something in mid-air, and +he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. "I wish you'd keep your +fingers out of my eye," said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage +expostulation. "The fact is, I'm all here--head, hands, legs, and +all the rest of it, but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded +nuisance, but I am. That's no reason why I should be poked to +pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?" + +The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon +its unseen supports, stood up, arms akimbo. + +Several other of the men folks had now entered the room, so that it +was closely crowded. "Invisible, eh?" said Huxter, ignoring the +stranger's abuse. "Who ever heard the likes of that?" + +"It's strange, perhaps, but it's not a crime. Why am I assaulted by +a policeman in this fashion?" + +"Ah! that's a different matter," said Jaffers. "No doubt you are a +bit difficult to see in this light, but I got a warrant and it's +all correct. What I'm after ain't no invisibility,--it's burglary. +There's a house been broke into and money took." + +"Well?" + +"And circumstances certainly point--" + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Invisible Man. + +"I hope so, sir; but I've got my instructions." + +"Well," said the stranger, "I'll come. I'll _come_. But no +handcuffs." + +"It's the regular thing," said Jaffers. + +"No handcuffs," stipulated the stranger. + +"Pardon me," said Jaffers. + +Abruptly the figure sat down, and before any one could realise was +was being done, the slippers, socks, and trousers had been kicked +off under the table. Then he sprang up again and flung off his coat. + +"Here, stop that," said Jaffers, suddenly realising what was +happening. He gripped at the waistcoat; it struggled, and the shirt +slipped out of it and left it limply and empty in his hand. "Hold +him!" said Jaffers, loudly. "Once he gets the things off--" + +"Hold him!" cried everyone, and there was a rush at the fluttering +white shirt which was now all that was visible of the stranger. + +The shirt-sleeve planted a shrewd blow in Hall's face that stopped +his open-armed advance, and sent him backward into old Toothsome +the sexton, and in another moment the garment was lifted up and +became convulsed and vacantly flapping about the arms, even as a +shirt that is being thrust over a man's head. Jaffers clutched at +it, and only helped to pull it off; he was struck in the mouth out +of the air, and incontinently threw his truncheon and smote Teddy +Henfrey savagely upon the crown of his head. + +"Look out!" said everybody, fencing at random and hitting at +nothing. "Hold him! Shut the door! Don't let him loose! I got +something! Here he is!" A perfect Babel of noises they made. +Everybody, it seemed, was being hit all at once, and Sandy Wadgers, +knowing as ever and his wits sharpened by a frightful blow in the +nose, reopened the door and led the rout. The others, following +incontinently, were jammed for a moment in the corner by the +doorway. The hitting continued. Phipps, the Unitarian, had a front +tooth broken, and Henfrey was injured in the cartilage of his ear. +Jaffers was struck under the jaw, and, turning, caught at something +that intervened between him and Huxter in the melee, and prevented +their coming together. He felt a muscular chest, and in another +moment the whole mass of struggling, excited men shot out into the +crowded hall. + +"I got him!" shouted Jaffers, choking and reeling through them all, +and wrestling with purple face and swelling veins against his +unseen enemy. + +Men staggered right and left as the extraordinary conflict swayed +swiftly towards the house door, and went spinning down the +half-dozen steps of the inn. Jaffers cried in a strangled +voice--holding tight, nevertheless, and making play with his +knee--spun around, and fell heavily undermost with his head on +the gravel. Only then did his fingers relax. + +There were excited cries of "Hold him!" "Invisible!" and so forth, +and a young fellow, a stranger in the place whose name did not come +to light, rushed in at once, caught something, missed his hold, +and fell over the constable's prostrate body. Half-way across the +road a woman screamed as something pushed by her; a dog, kicked +apparently, yelped and ran howling into Huxter's yard, and with +that the transit of the Invisible Man was accomplished. For a space +people stood amazed and gesticulating, and then came panic, and +scattered them abroad through the village as a gust scatters dead +leaves. + +But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees bent, at the foot +of the steps of the inn. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN TRANSIT + + +The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that Gibbons, +the amateur naturalist of the district, while lying out on the +spacious open downs without a soul within a couple of miles of him, +as he thought, and almost dozing, heard close to him the sound as +of a man coughing, sneezing, and then swearing savagely to himself; +and looking, beheld nothing. Yet the voice was indisputable. It +continued to swear with that breadth and variety that distinguishes +the swearing of a cultivated man. It grew to a climax, diminished +again, and died away in the distance, going as it seemed to him in +the direction of Adderdean. It lifted to a spasmodic sneeze and +ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning's occurrences, but +the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical +tranquillity vanished; he got up hastily, and hurried down the +steepness of the hill towards the village, as fast as he could go. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MR. THOMAS MARVEL + + +You must picture Mr. Thomas Marvel as a person of copious, flexible +visage, a nose of cylindrical protrusion, a liquorish, ample, +fluctuating mouth, and a beard of bristling eccentricity. His figure +inclined to embonpoint; his short limbs accentuated this inclination. +He wore a furry silk hat, and the frequent substitution of twine and +shoe-laces for buttons, apparent at critical points of his costume, +marked a man essentially bachelor. + +Mr. Thomas Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the +roadside over the down towards Adderdean, about a mile and a half +out of Iping. His feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, were +bare, his big toes were broad, and pricked like the ears of a +watchful dog. In a leisurely manner--he did everything in a +leisurely manner--he was contemplating trying on a pair of boots. +They were the soundest boots he had come across for a long time, but +too large for him; whereas the ones he had were, in dry weather, a +very comfortable fit, but too thin-soled for damp. Mr. Thomas Marvel +hated roomy shoes, but then he hated damp. He had never properly +thought out which he hated most, and it was a pleasant day, and +there was nothing better to do. So he put the four shoes in a +graceful group on the turf and looked at them. And seeing them there +among the grass and springing agrimony, it suddenly occurred to him +that both pairs were exceedingly ugly to see. He was not at all +startled by a voice behind him. + +"They're boots, anyhow," said the Voice. + +"They are--charity boots," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with his head +on one side regarding them distastefully; "and which is the ugliest +pair in the whole blessed universe, I'm darned if I know!" + +"H'm," said the Voice. + +"I've worn worse--in fact, I've worn none. But none so owdacious +ugly--if you'll allow the expression. I've been cadging boots--in +particular--for days. Because I was sick of _them_. They're sound +enough, of course. But a gentleman on tramp sees such a thundering +lot of his boots. And if you'll believe me, I've raised nothing in +the whole blessed country, try as I would, but _them_. Look at 'em! +And a good country for boots, too, in a general way. But it's just +my promiscuous luck. I've got my boots in this country ten years or +more. And then they treat you like this." + +"It's a beast of a country," said the Voice. "And pigs for people." + +"Ain't it?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Lord! But them boots! It beats +it." + +He turned his head over his shoulder to the right, to look at the +boots of his interlocutor with a view to comparisons, and lo! where +the boots of his interlocutor should have been were neither legs +nor boots. He was irradiated by the dawn of a great amazement. +"Where _are_ yer?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel over his shoulder and +coming on all fours. He saw a stretch of empty downs with the wind +swaying the remote green-pointed furze bushes. + +"Am I drunk?" said Mr. Marvel. "Have I had visions? Was I talking +to myself? What the--" + +"Don't be alarmed," said a Voice. + +"None of your ventriloquising _me_," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rising +sharply to his feet. "Where _are_ yer? Alarmed, indeed!" + +"Don't be alarmed," repeated the Voice. + +"_You'll_ be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool," said Mr. Thomas +Marvel. "Where _are_ yer? Lemme get my mark on yer... + +"Are yer _buried_?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, after an interval. + +There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed, +his jacket nearly thrown off. + +"Peewit," said a peewit, very remote. + +"Peewit, indeed!" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "This ain't no time for +foolery." The down was desolate, east and west, north and south; +the road with its shallow ditches and white bordering stakes, ran +smooth and empty north and south, and, save for that peewit, the +blue sky was empty too. "So help me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, +shuffling his coat on to his shoulders again. "It's the drink! +I might ha' known." + +"It's not the drink," said the Voice. "You keep your nerves +steady." + +"Ow!" said Mr. Marvel, and his face grew white amidst its patches. +"It's the drink!" his lips repeated noiselessly. He remained staring +about him, rotating slowly backwards. "I could have _swore_ I heard +a voice," he whispered. + +"Of course you did." + +"It's there again," said Mr. Marvel, closing his eyes and clasping +his hand on his brow with a tragic gesture. He was suddenly taken +by the collar and shaken violently, and left more dazed than ever. +"Don't be a fool," said the Voice. + +"I'm--off--my--blooming--chump," said Mr. Marvel. "It's no good. +It's fretting about them blarsted boots. I'm off my blessed blooming +chump. Or it's spirits." + +"Neither one thing nor the other," said the Voice. "Listen!" + +"Chump," said Mr. Marvel. + +"One minute," said the Voice, penetratingly, tremulous with +self-control. + +"Well?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with a strange feeling of having +been dug in the chest by a finger. + +"You think I'm just imagination? Just imagination?" + +"What else _can_ you be?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rubbing the back of +his neck. + +"Very well," said the Voice, in a tone of relief. "Then I'm going +to throw flints at you till you think differently." + +"But where _are_ yer?" + +The Voice made no answer. Whizz came a flint, apparently out of +the air, and missed Mr. Marvel's shoulder by a hair's-breadth. +Mr. Marvel, turning, saw a flint jerk up into the air, trace a +complicated path, hang for a moment, and then fling at his feet +with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to dodge. Whizz +it came, and ricochetted from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas +Marvel jumped a foot and howled aloud. Then he started to run, +tripped over an unseen obstacle, and came head over heels into a +sitting position. + +"_Now_," said the Voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in +the air above the tramp. "Am I imagination?" + +Mr. Marvel by way of reply struggled to his feet, and was +immediately rolled over again. He lay quiet for a moment. "If you +struggle any more," said the Voice, "I shall throw the flint at +your head." + +"It's a fair do," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his +wounded toe in hand and fixing his eye on the third missile. "I +don't understand it. Stones flinging themselves. Stones talking. +Put yourself down. Rot away. I'm done." + +The third flint fell. + +"It's very simple," said the Voice. "I'm an invisible man." + +"Tell us something I don't know," said Mr. Marvel, gasping with +pain. "Where you've hid--how you do it--I _don't_ know. I'm beat." + +"That's all," said the Voice. "I'm invisible. That's what I want +you to understand." + +"Anyone could see that. There is no need for you to be so confounded +impatient, mister. _Now_ then. Give us a notion. How are you hid?" + +"I'm invisible. That's the great point. And what I want you to +understand is this--" + +"But whereabouts?" interrupted Mr. Marvel. + +"Here! Six yards in front of you." + +"Oh, _come_! I ain't blind. You'll be telling me next you're just +thin air. I'm not one of your ignorant tramps--" + +"Yes, I am--thin air. You're looking through me." + +"What! Ain't there any stuff to you. Vox et--what is it?--jabber. +Is it that?" + +"I am just a human being--solid, needing food and drink, needing +covering too--But I'm invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea. +Invisible." + +"What, real like?" + +"Yes, real." + +"Let's have a hand of you," said Marvel, "if you _are_ real. It won't +be so darn out-of-the-way like, then--Lord!" he said, "how you made +me jump!--gripping me like that!" + +He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his disengaged +fingers, and his fingers went timorously up the arm, patted a +muscular chest, and explored a bearded face. Marvel's face was +astonishment. + +"I'm dashed!" he said. "If this don't beat cock-fighting! Most +remarkable!--And there I can see a rabbit clean through you, 'arf +a mile away! Not a bit of you visible--except--" + +He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly. "You 'aven't been +eatin' bread and cheese?" he asked, holding the invisible arm. + +"You're quite right, and it's not quite assimilated into the system." + +"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel. "Sort of ghostly, though." + +"Of course, all this isn't half so wonderful as you think." + +"It's quite wonderful enough for _my_ modest wants," said Mr. Thomas +Marvel. "Howjer manage it! How the dooce is it done?" + +"It's too long a story. And besides--" + +"I tell you, the whole business fairly beats me," said Mr. Marvel. + +"What I want to say at present is this: I need help. I have come to +that--I came upon you suddenly. I was wandering, mad with rage, +naked, impotent. I could have murdered. And I saw you--" + +"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. + +"I came up behind you--hesitated--went on--" + +Mr. Marvel's expression was eloquent. + +"--then stopped. 'Here,' I said, 'is an outcast like myself. This is +the man for me.' So I turned back and came to you--you. And--" + +"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "But I'm all in a tizzy. May I ask--How +is it? And what you may be requiring in the way of help?--Invisible!" + +"I want you to help me get clothes--and shelter--and then, with +other things. I've left them long enough. If you won't--well! But +you will--must." + +"Look here," said Mr. Marvel. "I'm too flabbergasted. Don't knock +me about any more. And leave me go. I must get steady a bit. And +you've pretty near broken my toe. It's all so unreasonable. Empty +downs, empty sky. Nothing visible for miles except the bosom of +Nature. And then comes a voice. A voice out of heaven! And stones! +And a fist--Lord!" + +"Pull yourself together," said the Voice, "for you have to do the +job I've chosen for you." + +Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were round. + +"I've chosen you," said the Voice. "You are the only man except +some of those fools down there, who knows there is such a thing as +an invisible man. You have to be my helper. Help me--and I will +do great things for you. An invisible man is a man of power." He +stopped for a moment to sneeze violently. + +"But if you betray me," he said, "if you fail to do as I direct you--" +He paused and tapped Mr. Marvel's shoulder smartly. Mr. Marvel +gave a yelp of terror at the touch. "I don't want to betray you," +said Mr. Marvel, edging away from the direction of the fingers. +"Don't you go a-thinking that, whatever you do. All I want to do is +to help you--just tell me what I got to do. (Lord!) Whatever you +want done, that I'm most willing to do." + + + +CHAPTER X + +MR. MARVEL'S VISIT TO IPING + + +After the first gusty panic had spent itself Iping became +argumentative. Scepticism suddenly reared its head--rather nervous +scepticism, not at all assured of its back, but scepticism +nevertheless. It is so much easier not to believe in an invisible +man; and those who had actually seen him dissolve into air, or felt +the strength of his arm, could be counted on the fingers of two +hands. And of these witnesses Mr. Wadgers was presently missing, +having retired impregnably behind the bolts and bars of his own +house, and Jaffers was lying stunned in the parlour of the "Coach +and Horses." Great and strange ideas transcending experience often +have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible +considerations. Iping was gay with bunting, and everybody was in +gala dress. Whit Monday had been looked forward to for a month or +more. By the afternoon even those who believed in the Unseen were +beginning to resume their little amusements in a tentative fashion, +on the supposition that he had quite gone away, and with the +sceptics he was already a jest. But people, sceptics and believers +alike, were remarkably sociable all that day. + +Haysman's meadow was gay with a tent, in which Mrs. Bunting and +other ladies were preparing tea, while, without, the Sunday-school +children ran races and played games under the noisy guidance of the +curate and the Misses Cuss and Sackbut. No doubt there was a slight +uneasiness in the air, but people for the most part had the sense +to conceal whatever imaginative qualms they experienced. On the +village green an inclined strong, down which, clinging the while +to a pulley-swung handle, one could be hurled violently against a +sack at the other end, came in for considerable favour among the +adolescent, as also did the swings and the cocoanut shies. There +was also promenading, and the steam organ attached to a small +roundabout filled the air with a pungent flavour of oil and with +equally pungent music. Members of the club, who had attended +church in the morning, were splendid in badges of pink and green, +and some of the gayer-minded had also adorned their bowler hats +with brilliant-coloured favours of ribbon. Old Fletcher, whose +conceptions of holiday-making were severe, was visible through the +jasmine about his window or through the open door (whichever way +you chose to look), poised delicately on a plank supported on two +chairs, and whitewashing the ceiling of his front room. + +About four o'clock a stranger entered the village from the direction +of the downs. He was a short, stout person in an extraordinarily +shabby top hat, and he appeared to be very much out of breath. His +cheeks were alternately limp and tightly puffed. His mottled face +was apprehensive, and he moved with a sort of reluctant alacrity. He +turned the corner of the church, and directed his way to the "Coach +and Horses." Among others old Fletcher remembers seeing him, and +indeed the old gentleman was so struck by his peculiar agitation +that he inadvertently allowed a quantity of whitewash to run down +the brush into the sleeve of his coat while regarding him. + +This stranger, to the perceptions of the proprietor of the cocoanut +shy, appeared to be talking to himself, and Mr. Huxter remarked the +same thing. He stopped at the foot of the "Coach and Horses" steps, +and, according to Mr. Huxter, appeared to undergo a severe internal +struggle before he could induce himself to enter the house. Finally +he marched up the steps, and was seen by Mr. Huxter to turn to the +left and open the door of the parlour. Mr. Huxter heard voices from +within the room and from the bar apprising the man of his error. +"That room's private!" said Hall, and the stranger shut the door +clumsily and went into the bar. + +In the course of a few minutes he reappeared, wiping his lips with +the back of his hand with an air of quiet satisfaction that somehow +impressed Mr. Huxter as assumed. He stood looking about him for +some moments, and then Mr. Huxter saw him walk in an oddly furtive +manner towards the gates of the yard, upon which the parlour window +opened. The stranger, after some hesitation, leant against one of +the gate-posts, produced a short clay pipe, and prepared to fill +it. His fingers trembled while doing so. He lit it clumsily, and +folding his arms began to smoke in a languid attitude, an attitude +which his occasional glances up the yard altogether belied. + +All this Mr. Huxter saw over the canisters of the tobacco window, +and the singularity of the man's behaviour prompted him to maintain +his observation. + +Presently the stranger stood up abruptly and put his pipe in his +pocket. Then he vanished into the yard. Forthwith Mr. Huxter, +conceiving he was witness of some petty larceny, leapt round his +counter and ran out into the road to intercept the thief. As he did +so, Mr. Marvel reappeared, his hat askew, a big bundle in a blue +table-cloth in one hand, and three books tied together--as it proved +afterwards with the Vicar's braces--in the other. Directly he saw +Huxter he gave a sort of gasp, and turning sharply to the left, +began to run. "Stop, thief!" cried Huxter, and set off after him. +Mr. Huxter's sensations were vivid but brief. He saw the man just +before him and spurting briskly for the church corner and the hill +road. He saw the village flags and festivities beyond, and a face or +so turned towards him. He bawled, "Stop!" again. He had hardly gone +ten strides before his shin was caught in some mysterious fashion, +and he was no longer running, but flying with inconceivable rapidity +through the air. He saw the ground suddenly close to his face. The +world seemed to splash into a million whirling specks of light, and +subsequent proceedings interested him no more. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +IN THE "COACH AND HORSES" + + +Now in order clearly to understand what had happened in the inn, it +is necessary to go back to the moment when Mr. Marvel first came +into view of Mr. Huxter's window. + +At that precise moment Mr. Cuss and Mr. Bunting were in the parlour. +They were seriously investigating the strange occurrences of the +morning, and were, with Mr. Hall's permission, making a thorough +examination of the Invisible Man's belongings. Jaffers had partially +recovered from his fall and had gone home in the charge of his +sympathetic friends. The stranger's scattered garments had been +removed by Mrs. Hall and the room tidied up. And on the table under +the window where the stranger had been wont to work, Cuss had hit +almost at once on three big books in manuscript labelled "Diary." + +"Diary!" said Cuss, putting the three books on the table. "Now, at +any rate, we shall learn something." The Vicar stood with his hands +on the table. + +"Diary," repeated Cuss, sitting down, putting two volumes to +support the third, and opening it. "H'm--no name on the fly-leaf. +Bother!--cypher. And figures." + +The vicar came round to look over his shoulder. + +Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed. +"I'm--dear me! It's all cypher, Bunting." + +"There are no diagrams?" asked Mr. Bunting. "No illustrations +throwing light--" + +"See for yourself," said Mr. Cuss. "Some of it's mathematical and +some of it's Russian or some such language (to judge by the +letters), and some of it's Greek. Now the Greek I thought _you_--" + +"Of course," said Mr. Bunting, taking out and wiping his spectacles +and feeling suddenly very uncomfortable--for he had no Greek +left in his mind worth talking about; "yes--the Greek, of course, +may furnish a clue." + +"I'll find you a place." + +"I'd rather glance through the volumes first," said Mr. Bunting, +still wiping. "A general impression first, Cuss, and _then_, you +know, we can go looking for clues." + +He coughed, put on his glasses, arranged them fastidiously, coughed +again, and wished something would happen to avert the seemingly +inevitable exposure. Then he took the volume Cuss handed him in a +leisurely manner. And then something did happen. + +The door opened suddenly. + +Both gentlemen started violently, looked round, and were relieved +to see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. "Tap?" +asked the face, and stood staring. + +"No," said both gentlemen at once. + +"Over the other side, my man," said Mr. Bunting. And "Please shut +that door," said Mr. Cuss, irritably. + +"All right," said the intruder, as it seemed in a low voice +curiously different from the huskiness of its first inquiry. "Right +you are," said the intruder in the former voice. "Stand clear!" and +he vanished and closed the door. + +"A sailor, I should judge," said Mr. Bunting. "Amusing fellows, they +are. Stand clear! indeed. A nautical term, referring to his getting +back out of the room, I suppose." + +"I daresay so," said Cuss. "My nerves are all loose to-day. It quite +made me jump--the door opening like that." + +Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. "And now," he said with +a sigh, "these books." + +Someone sniffed as he did so. + +"One thing is indisputable," said Bunting, drawing up a chair next +to that of Cuss. "There certainly have been very strange things +happen in Iping during the last few days--very strange. I cannot +of course believe in this absurd invisibility story--" + +"It's incredible," said Cuss--"incredible. But the fact remains +that I saw--I certainly saw right down his sleeve--" + +"But did you--are you sure? Suppose a mirror, for instance-- +hallucinations are so easily produced. I don't know if you +have ever seen a really good conjuror--" + +"I won't argue again," said Cuss. "We've thrashed that out, +Bunting. And just now there's these books--Ah! here's some of +what I take to be Greek! Greek letters certainly." + +He pointed to the middle of the page. Mr. Bunting flushed slightly +and brought his face nearer, apparently finding some difficulty +with his glasses. Suddenly he became aware of a strange feeling at +the nape of his neck. He tried to raise his head, and encountered +an immovable resistance. The feeling was a curious pressure, the +grip of a heavy, firm hand, and it bore his chin irresistibly to +the table. "Don't move, little men," whispered a voice, "or I'll +brain you both!" He looked into the face of Cuss, close to his own, +and each saw a horrified reflection of his own sickly astonishment. + +"I'm sorry to handle you so roughly," said the Voice, "but it's +unavoidable." + +"Since when did you learn to pry into an investigator's private +memoranda," said the Voice; and two chins struck the table +simultaneously, and two sets of teeth rattled. + +"Since when did you learn to invade the private rooms of a man in +misfortune?" and the concussion was repeated. + +"Where have they put my clothes?" + +"Listen," said the Voice. "The windows are fastened and I've taken +the key out of the door. I am a fairly strong man, and I have the +poker handy--besides being invisible. There's not the slightest +doubt that I could kill you both and get away quite easily if I +wanted to--do you understand? Very well. If I let you go will you +promise not to try any nonsense and do what I tell you?" + +The vicar and the doctor looked at one another, and the doctor +pulled a face. "Yes," said Mr. Bunting, and the doctor repeated it. +Then the pressure on the necks relaxed, and the doctor and the +vicar sat up, both very red in the face and wriggling their heads. + +"Please keep sitting where you are," said the Invisible Man. +"Here's the poker, you see." + +"When I came into this room," continued the Invisible Man, after +presenting the poker to the tip of the nose of each of his visitors, +"I did not expect to find it occupied, and I expected to find, in +addition to my books of memoranda, an outfit of clothing. Where is +it? No--don't rise. I can see it's gone. Now, just at present, +though the days are quite warm enough for an invisible man to run +about stark, the evenings are quite chilly. I want clothing--and +other accommodation; and I must also have those three books." + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE INVISIBLE MAN LOSES HIS TEMPER + + +It is unavoidable that at this point the narrative should break off +again, for a certain very painful reason that will presently be +apparent. While these things were going on in the parlour, and +while Mr. Huxter was watching Mr. Marvel smoking his pipe against +the gate, not a dozen yards away were Mr. Hall and Teddy Henfrey +discussing in a state of cloudy puzzlement the one Iping topic. + +Suddenly there came a violent thud against the door of the parlour, +a sharp cry, and then--silence. + +"Hul-lo!" said Teddy Henfrey. + +"Hul-lo!" from the Tap. + +Mr. Hall took things in slowly but surely. "That ain't right," he +said, and came round from behind the bar towards the parlour door. + +He and Teddy approached the door together, with intent faces. Their +eyes considered. "Summat wrong," said Hall, and Henfrey nodded +agreement. Whiffs of an unpleasant chemical odour met them, and +there was a muffled sound of conversation, very rapid and subdued. + +"You all right thur?" asked Hall, rapping. + +The muttered conversation ceased abruptly, for a moment silence, +then the conversation was resumed, in hissing whispers, then a +sharp cry of "No! no, you don't!" There came a sudden motion and +the oversetting of a chair, a brief struggle. Silence again. + +"What the dooce?" exclaimed Henfrey, sotto voce. + +"You--all--right thur?" asked Mr. Hall, sharply, again. + +The Vicar's voice answered with a curious jerking intonation: +"Quite ri-right. Please don't--interrupt." + +"Odd!" said Mr. Henfrey. + +"Odd!" said Mr. Hall. + +"Says, 'Don't interrupt,'" said Henfrey. + +"I heerd'n," said Hall. + +"And a sniff," said Henfrey. + +They remained listening. The conversation was rapid and subdued. +"I can't," said Mr. Bunting, his voice rising; "I tell you, sir, +I will not." + +"What was that?" asked Henfrey. + +"Says he wi' nart," said Hall. "Warn't speaking to us, wuz he?" + +"Disgraceful!" said Mr. Bunting, within. + +"'Disgraceful,'" said Mr. Henfrey. "I heard it--distinct." + +"Who's that speaking now?" asked Henfrey. + +"Mr. Cuss, I s'pose," said Hall. "Can you hear--anything?" + +Silence. The sounds within indistinct and perplexing. + +"Sounds like throwing the table-cloth about," said Hall. + +Mrs. Hall appeared behind the bar. Hall made gestures of silence and +invitation. This aroused Mrs. Hall's wifely opposition. "What yer +listenin' there for, Hall?" she asked. "Ain't you nothin' better to +do--busy day like this?" + +Hall tried to convey everything by grimaces and dumb show, but Mrs. +Hall was obdurate. She raised her voice. So Hall and Henfrey, rather +crestfallen, tiptoed back to the bar, gesticulating to explain to +her. + +At first she refused to see anything in what they had heard at +all. Then she insisted on Hall keeping silence, while Henfrey told +her his story. She was inclined to think the whole business +nonsense--perhaps they were just moving the furniture about. "I +heerd'n say 'disgraceful'; _that_ I did," said Hall. + +"_I_ heerd that, Mrs. Hall," said Henfrey. + +"Like as not--" began Mrs. Hall. + +"Hsh!" said Mr. Teddy Henfrey. "Didn't I hear the window?" + +"What window?" asked Mrs. Hall. + +"Parlour window," said Henfrey. + +Everyone stood listening intently. Mrs. Hall's eyes, directed +straight before her, saw without seeing the brilliant oblong of the +inn door, the road white and vivid, and Huxter's shop-front +blistering in the June sun. Abruptly Huxter's door opened and Huxter +appeared, eyes staring with excitement, arms gesticulating. "Yap!" +cried Huxter. "Stop thief!" and he ran obliquely across the oblong +towards the yard gates, and vanished. + +Simultaneously came a tumult from the parlour, and a sound of +windows being closed. + +Hall, Henfrey, and the human contents of the tap rushed out at once +pell-mell into the street. They saw someone whisk round the corner +towards the road, and Mr. Huxter executing a complicated leap in +the air that ended on his face and shoulder. Down the street people +were standing astonished or running towards them. + +Mr. Huxter was stunned. Henfrey stopped to discover this, but Hall +and the two labourers from the Tap rushed at once to the corner, +shouting incoherent things, and saw Mr. Marvel vanishing by the +corner of the church wall. They appear to have jumped to the +impossible conclusion that this was the Invisible Man suddenly +become visible, and set off at once along the lane in pursuit. But +Hall had hardly run a dozen yards before he gave a loud shout of +astonishment and went flying headlong sideways, clutching one of +the labourers and bringing him to the ground. He had been charged +just as one charges a man at football. The second labourer came +round in a circle, stared, and conceiving that Hall had tumbled +over of his own accord, turned to resume the pursuit, only to be +tripped by the ankle just as Huxter had been. Then, as the first +labourer struggled to his feet, he was kicked sideways by a blow +that might have felled an ox. + +As he went down, the rush from the direction of the village green +came round the corner. The first to appear was the proprietor of +the cocoanut shy, a burly man in a blue jersey. He was astonished +to see the lane empty save for three men sprawling absurdly on the +ground. And then something happened to his rear-most foot, and he +went headlong and rolled sideways just in time to graze the feet +of his brother and partner, following headlong. The two were then +kicked, knelt on, fallen over, and cursed by quite a number of +over-hasty people. + +Now when Hall and Henfrey and the labourers ran out of the house, +Mrs. Hall, who had been disciplined by years of experience, +remained in the bar next the till. And suddenly the parlour door +was opened, and Mr. Cuss appeared, and without glancing at her +rushed at once down the steps toward the corner. "Hold him!" he +cried. "Don't let him drop that parcel." + +He knew nothing of the +existence of Marvel. For the Invisible Man had handed over the +books and bundle in the yard. The face of Mr. Cuss was angry and +resolute, but his costume was defective, a sort of limp white kilt +that could only have passed muster in Greece. "Hold him!" he +bawled. "He's got my trousers! And every stitch of the Vicar's +clothes!" + +"'Tend to him in a minute!" he cried to Henfrey as he passed the +prostrate Huxter, and, coming round the corner to join the tumult, +was promptly knocked off his feet into an indecorous sprawl. +Somebody in full flight trod heavily on his finger. He yelled, +struggled to regain his feet, was knocked against and thrown on all +fours again, and became aware that he was involved not in a capture, +but a rout. Everyone was running back to the village. He rose again +and was hit severely behind the ear. He staggered and set off back +to the "Coach and Horses" forthwith, leaping over the deserted +Huxter, who was now sitting up, on his way. + +Behind him as he was halfway up the inn steps he heard a sudden +yell of rage, rising sharply out of the confusion of cries, and a +sounding smack in someone's face. He recognised the voice as that +of the Invisible Man, and the note was that of a man suddenly +infuriated by a painful blow. + +In another moment Mr. Cuss was back in the parlour. "He's coming +back, Bunting!" he said, rushing in. "Save yourself!" + +Mr. Bunting was standing in the window engaged in an attempt to +clothe himself in the hearth-rug and a West Surrey Gazette. "Who's +coming?" he said, so startled that his costume narrowly escaped +disintegration. + +"Invisible Man," said Cuss, and rushed on to the window. "We'd +better clear out from here! He's fighting mad! Mad!" + +In another moment he was out in the yard. + +"Good heavens!" said Mr. Bunting, hesitating between two horrible +alternatives. He heard a frightful struggle in the passage of the +inn, and his decision was made. He clambered out of the window, +adjusted his costume hastily, and fled up the village as fast as +his fat little legs would carry him. + +From the moment when the Invisible Man screamed with rage and Mr. +Bunting made his memorable flight up the village, it became +impossible to give a consecutive account of affairs in Iping. +Possibly the Invisible Man's original intention was simply to cover +Marvel's retreat with the clothes and books. But his temper, at no +time very good, seems to have gone completely at some chance blow, +and forthwith he set to smiting and overthrowing, for the mere +satisfaction of hurting. + +You must figure the street full of running figures, of doors +slamming and fights for hiding-places. You must figure the tumult +suddenly striking on the unstable equilibrium of old Fletcher's +planks and two chairs--with cataclysmic results. You must figure +an appalled couple caught dismally in a swing. And then the whole +tumultuous rush has passed and the Iping street with its gauds and +flags is deserted save for the still raging unseen, and littered +with cocoanuts, overthrown canvas screens, and the scattered stock +in trade of a sweetstuff stall. Everywhere there is a sound of +closing shutters and shoving bolts, and the only visible humanity +is an occasional flitting eye under a raised eyebrow in the corner +of a window pane. + +The Invisible Man amused himself for a little while by breaking all +the windows in the "Coach and Horses," and then he thrust a street +lamp through the parlour window of Mrs. Gribble. He it must have +been who cut the telegraph wire to Adderdean just beyond Higgins' +cottage on the Adderdean road. And after that, as his peculiar +qualities allowed, he passed out of human perceptions altogether, +and he was neither heard, seen, nor felt in Iping any more. He +vanished absolutely. + +But it was the best part of two hours before any human being +ventured out again into the desolation of Iping street. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +MR. MARVEL DISCUSSES HIS RESIGNATION + + +When the dusk was gathering and Iping was just beginning to peep +timorously forth again upon the shattered wreckage of its Bank +Holiday, a short, thick-set man in a shabby silk hat was marching +painfully through the twilight behind the beechwoods on the road to +Bramblehurst. He carried three books bound together by some sort +of ornamental elastic ligature, and a bundle wrapped in a blue +table-cloth. His rubicund face expressed consternation and fatigue; +he appeared to be in a spasmodic sort of hurry. He was accompanied +by a voice other than his own, and ever and again he winced under +the touch of unseen hands. + +"If you give me the slip again," said the Voice, "if you attempt to +give me the slip again--" + +"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "That shoulder's a mass of bruises as it +is." + +"On my honour," said the Voice, "I will kill you." + +"I didn't try to give you the slip," said Marvel, in a voice that +was not far remote from tears. "I swear I didn't. I didn't know the +blessed turning, that was all! How the devil was I to know the +blessed turning? As it is, I've been knocked about--" + +"You'll get knocked about a great deal more if you don't mind," +said the Voice, and Mr. Marvel abruptly became silent. He blew out +his cheeks, and his eyes were eloquent of despair. + +"It's bad enough to let these floundering yokels explode my little +secret, without _your_ cutting off with my books. It's lucky for some +of them they cut and ran when they did! Here am I ... No one knew I +was invisible! And now what am I to do?" + +"What am _I_ to do?" asked Marvel, sotto voce. + +"It's all about. It will be in the papers! Everybody will be +looking for me; everyone on their guard--" The Voice broke off +into vivid curses and ceased. + +The despair of Mr. Marvel's face deepened, and his pace slackened. + +"Go on!" said the Voice. + +Mr. Marvel's face assumed a greyish tint between the ruddier +patches. + +"Don't drop those books, stupid," said the Voice, sharply--overtaking +him. + +"The fact is," said the Voice, "I shall have to make use of you.... +You're a poor tool, but I must." + +"I'm a _miserable_ tool," said Marvel. + +"You are," said the Voice. + +"I'm the worst possible tool you could have," said Marvel. + +"I'm not strong," he said after a discouraging silence. + +"I'm not over strong," he repeated. + +"No?" + +"And my heart's weak. That little business--I pulled it through, +of course--but bless you! I could have dropped." + +"Well?" + +"I haven't the nerve and strength for the sort of thing you want." + +"_I'll_ stimulate you." + +"I wish you wouldn't. I wouldn't like to mess up your plans, you +know. But I might--out of sheer funk and misery." + +"You'd better not," said the Voice, with quiet emphasis. + +"I wish I was dead," said Marvel. + +"It ain't justice," he said; "you must admit.... It seems to me I've +a perfect right--" + +"_Get_ on!" said the Voice. + +Mr. Marvel mended his pace, and for a time they went in silence +again. + +"It's devilish hard," said Mr. Marvel. + +This was quite ineffectual. He tried another tack. + +"What do I make by it?" he began again in a tone of unendurable +wrong. + +"Oh! _shut_up_!" said the Voice, with sudden amazing vigour. "I'll +see to you all right. You do what you're told. You'll do it all +right. You're a fool and all that, but you'll do--" + +"I tell you, sir, I'm not the man for it. Respectfully--but +it _is_ so--" + +"If you don't shut up I shall twist your wrist again," said the +Invisible Man. "I want to think." + +Presently two oblongs of yellow light appeared through the trees, +and the square tower of a church loomed through the gloaming. "I +shall keep my hand on your shoulder," said the Voice, "all through +the village. Go straight through and try no foolery. It will be the +worse for you if you do." + +"I know that," sighed Mr. Marvel, "I know all that." + +The unhappy-looking figure in the obsolete silk hat passed up the +street of the little village with his burdens, and vanished into +the gathering darkness beyond the lights of the windows. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AT PORT STOWE + + +Ten o'clock the next morning found Mr. Marvel, unshaven, dirty, and +travel-stained, sitting with the books beside him and his hands deep +in his pockets, looking very weary, nervous, and uncomfortable, and +inflating his cheeks at infrequent intervals, on the bench outside +a little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe. Beside him were the +books, but now they were tied with string. The bundle had been +abandoned in the pine-woods beyond Bramblehurst, in accordance with +a charge in the plans of the Invisible Man. Mr. Marvel sat on the +bench, and although no one took the slightest notice of him, his +agitation remained at fever heat. His hands would go ever and again +to his various pockets with a curious nervous fumbling. + +When he had been sitting for the best part of an hour, however, an +elderly mariner, carrying a newspaper, came out of the inn and sat +down beside him. "Pleasant day," said the mariner. + +Mr. Marvel glanced about him with something very like terror. +"Very," he said. + +"Just seasonable weather for the time of year," said the mariner, +taking no denial. + +"Quite," said Mr. Marvel. + +The mariner produced a toothpick, and (saving his regard) was +engrossed thereby for some minutes. His eyes meanwhile were at +liberty to examine Mr. Marvel's dusty figure, and the books beside +him. As he had approached Mr. Marvel he had heard a sound like the +dropping of coins into a pocket. He was struck by the contrast of +Mr. Marvel's appearance with this suggestion of opulence. Thence +his mind wandered back again to a topic that had taken a curiously +firm hold of his imagination. + +"Books?" he said suddenly, noisily finishing with the toothpick. + +Mr. Marvel started and looked at them. "Oh, yes," he said. "Yes, +they're books." + +"There's some ex-traordinary things in books," said the mariner. + +"I believe you," said Mr. Marvel. + +"And some extra-ordinary things out of 'em," said the mariner. + +"True likewise," said Mr. Marvel. He eyed his interlocutor, and +then glanced about him. + +"There's some extra-ordinary things in newspapers, for example," +said the mariner. + +"There are." + +"In _this_ newspaper," said the mariner. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel. + +"There's a story," said the mariner, fixing Mr. Marvel with an eye +that was firm and deliberate; "there's a story about an Invisible +Man, for instance." + +Mr. Marvel pulled his mouth askew and scratched his cheek and felt +his ears glowing. "What will they be writing next?" he asked +faintly. "Ostria, or America?" + +"Neither," said the mariner. "_Here_." + +"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, starting. + +"When I say _here_," said the mariner, to Mr. Marvel's intense +relief, "I don't of course mean here in this place, I mean +hereabouts." + +"An Invisible Man!" said Mr. Marvel. "And what's _he_ been up to?" + +"Everything," said the mariner, controlling Marvel with his eye, +and then amplifying, "every--blessed--thing." + +"I ain't seen a paper these four days," said Marvel. + +"Iping's the place he started at," said the mariner. + +"In-deed!" said Mr. Marvel. + +"He started there. And where he came from, nobody don't seem to +know. Here it is: 'Pe-culiar Story from Iping.' And it says in this +paper that the evidence is extra-ordinary strong--extra-ordinary." + +"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. + +"But then, it's an extra-ordinary story. There is a clergyman and a +medical gent witnesses--saw 'im all right and proper--or leastways +didn't see 'im. He was staying, it says, at the 'Coach an' Horses,' +and no one don't seem to have been aware of his misfortune, it says, +aware of his misfortune, until in an Altercation in the inn, it +says, his bandages on his head was torn off. It was then ob-served +that his head was invisible. Attempts were At Once made to secure +him, but casting off his garments, it says, he succeeded in +escaping, but not until after a desperate struggle, in which he +had inflicted serious injuries, it says, on our worthy and able +constable, Mr. J. A. Jaffers. Pretty straight story, eh? Names and +everything." + +"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, looking nervously about him, trying to +count the money in his pockets by his unaided sense of touch, and +full of a strange and novel idea. "It sounds most astonishing." + +"Don't it? Extra-ordinary, _I_ call it. Never heard tell of Invisible +Men before, I haven't, but nowadays one hears such a lot of +extra-ordinary things--that--" + +"That all he did?" asked Marvel, trying to seem at his ease. + +"It's enough, ain't it?" said the mariner. + +"Didn't go Back by any chance?" asked Marvel. "Just escaped and +that's all, eh?" + +"All!" said the mariner. "Why!--ain't it enough?" + +"Quite enough," said Marvel. + +"I should think it was enough," said the mariner. "I should think +it was enough." + +"He didn't have any pals--it don't say he had any pals, does it?" +asked Mr. Marvel, anxious. + +"Ain't one of a sort enough for you?" asked the mariner. "No, thank +Heaven, as one might say, he didn't." + +He nodded his head slowly. "It makes me regular uncomfortable, +the bare thought of that chap running about the country! He is at +present At Large, and from certain evidence it is supposed that he +has--taken--took, I suppose they mean--the road to Port Stowe. You +see we're right _in_ it! None of your American wonders, this time. +And just think of the things he might do! Where'd you be, if he took +a drop over and above, and had a fancy to go for you? Suppose he +wants to rob--who can prevent him? He can trespass, he can burgle, +he could walk through a cordon of policemen as easy as me or you +could give the slip to a blind man! Easier! For these here blind +chaps hear uncommon sharp, I'm told. And wherever there was liquor +he fancied--" + +"He's got a tremenjous advantage, certainly," said Mr. Marvel. +"And--well..." + +"You're right," said the mariner. "He _has_." + +All this time Mr. Marvel had been glancing about him intently, +listening for faint footfalls, trying to detect imperceptible +movements. He seemed on the point of some great resolution. He +coughed behind his hand. + +He looked about him again, listened, bent towards the mariner, and +lowered his voice: "The fact of it is--I happen--to know just a +thing or two about this Invisible Man. From private sources." + +"Oh!" said the mariner, interested. "_You_?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Marvel. "Me." + +"Indeed!" said the mariner. "And may I ask--" + +"You'll be astonished," said Mr. Marvel behind his hand. "It's +tremenjous." + +"Indeed!" said the mariner. + +"The fact is," began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a confidential undertone. +Suddenly his expression changed marvellously. "Ow!" he said. He rose +stiffly in his seat. His face was eloquent of physical suffering. +"Wow!" he said. + +"What's up?" said the mariner, concerned. + +"Toothache," said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear. He caught +hold of his books. "I must be getting on, I think," he said. He +edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor. +"But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!" +protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself. +"Hoax," said a Voice. "It's a hoax," said Mr. Marvel. + +"But it's in the paper," said the mariner. + +"Hoax all the same," said Marvel. "I know the chap that started the +lie. There ain't no Invisible Man whatsoever--Blimey." + +"But how 'bout this paper? D'you mean to say--?" + +"Not a word of it," said Marvel, stoutly. + +The mariner stared, paper in hand. Mr. Marvel jerkily faced about. +"Wait a bit," said the mariner, rising and speaking slowly, "D'you +mean to say--?" + +"I do," said Mr. Marvel. + +"Then why did you let me go on and tell you all this blarsted +stuff, then? What d'yer mean by letting a man make a fool of +himself like that for? Eh?" + +Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks. The mariner was suddenly very red +indeed; he clenched his hands. "I been talking here this ten +minutes," he said; "and you, you little pot-bellied, leathery-faced +son of an old boot, couldn't have the elementary manners--" + +"Don't you come bandying words with me," said Mr. Marvel. + +"Bandying words! I'm a jolly good mind--" + +"Come up," said a Voice, and Mr. Marvel was suddenly whirled about +and started marching off in a curious spasmodic manner. "You'd +better move on," said the mariner. "Who's moving on?" said Mr. +Marvel. He was receding obliquely with a curious hurrying gait, with +occasional violent jerks forward. Some way along the road he began +a muttered monologue, protests and recriminations. + +"Silly devil!" said the mariner, legs wide apart, elbows akimbo, +watching the receding figure. "I'll show you, you silly ass-- +hoaxing _me_! It's here--on the paper!" + +Mr. Marvel retorted incoherently and, receding, was hidden by a bend +in the road, but the mariner still stood magnificent in the midst +of the way, until the approach of a butcher's cart dislodged him. +Then he turned himself towards Port Stowe. "Full of extra-ordinary +asses," he said softly to himself. "Just to take me down a bit--that +was his silly game--It's on the paper!" + +And there was another extraordinary thing he was presently to hear, +that had happened quite close to him. And that was a vision of a +"fist full of money" (no less) travelling without visible agency, +along by the wall at the corner of St. Michael's Lane. A brother +mariner had seen this wonderful sight that very morning. He had +snatched at the money forthwith and had been knocked headlong, and +when he had got to his feet the butterfly money had vanished. Our +mariner was in the mood to believe anything, he declared, but that +was a bit _too_ stiff. Afterwards, however, he began to think things +over. + +The story of the flying money was true. And all about that +neighbourhood, even from the august London and Country Banking +Company, from the tills of shops and inns--doors standing that sunny +weather entirely open--money had been quietly and dexterously making +off that day in handfuls and rouleaux, floating quietly along by +walls and shady places, dodging quickly from the approaching eyes of +men. And it had, though no man had traced it, invariably ended its +mysterious flight in the pocket of that agitated gentleman in the +obsolete silk hat, sitting outside the little inn on the outskirts +of Port Stowe. + +It was ten days after--and indeed only when the Burdock story was +already old--that the mariner collated these facts and began to +understand how near he had been to the wonderful Invisible Man. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MAN WHO WAS RUNNING + + +In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the +belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little +room, with three windows--north, west, and south--and bookshelves +covered with books and scientific publications, and a broad +writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass +slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of +reagents. Dr. Kemp's solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was still +bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there +was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down. +Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a +moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he +hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think +of it. + +And his eye, presently wandering from his work, caught the sunset +blazing at the back of the hill that is over against his own. For a +minute perhaps he sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich golden +colour above the crest, and then his attention was attracted by the +little figure of a man, inky black, running over the hill-brow +towards him. He was a shortish little man, and he wore a high hat, +and he was running so fast that his legs verily twinkled. + +"Another of those fools," said Dr. Kemp. "Like that ass who ran +into me this morning round a corner, with the ''Visible Man +a-coming, sir!' I can't imagine what possess people. One might +think we were in the thirteenth century." + +He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky hillside, and +the dark little figure tearing down it. "He seems in a confounded +hurry," said Dr. Kemp, "but he doesn't seem to be getting on. If +his pockets were full of lead, he couldn't run heavier." + +"Spurted, sir," said Dr. Kemp. + +In another moment the higher of the villas that had clambered up the +hill from Burdock had occulted the running figure. He was visible +again for a moment, and again, and then again, three times between +the three detached houses that came next, and then the terrace hid +him. + +"Asses!" said Dr. Kemp, swinging round on his heel and walking +back to his writing-table. + +But those who saw the fugitive nearer, and perceived the abject +terror on his perspiring face, being themselves in the open roadway, +did not share in the doctor's contempt. By the man pounded, and as +he ran he chinked like a well-filled purse that is tossed to and +fro. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but his dilated +eyes stared straight downhill to where the lamps were being lit, and +the people were crowded in the street. And his ill-shaped mouth fell +apart, and a glairy foam lay on his lips, and his breath came hoarse +and noisy. All he passed stopped and began staring up the road and +down, and interrogating one another with an inkling of discomfort +for the reason of his haste. + +And then presently, far up the hill, a dog playing in the road +yelped and ran under a gate, and as they still wondered +something--a wind--a pad, pad, pad,--a sound like a panting breathing, +rushed by. + +People screamed. People sprang off the pavement: It passed in +shouts, it passed by instinct down the hill. They were shouting in +the street before Marvel was halfway there. They were bolting into +houses and slamming the doors behind them, with the news. He heard +it and made one last desperate spurt. Fear came striding by, rushed +ahead of him, and in a moment had seized the town. + +"The Invisible Man is coming! The Invisible Man!" + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN THE "JOLLY CRICKETERS" + + +The "Jolly Cricketers" is just at the bottom of the hill, where the +tram-lines begin. The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter +and talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black-bearded +man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton, and +conversed in American with a policeman off duty. + +"What's the shouting about!" said the anaemic cabman, going off at a +tangent, trying to see up the hill over the dirty yellow blind in +the low window of the inn. Somebody ran by outside. "Fire, perhaps," +said the barman. + +Footsteps approached, running heavily, the door was pushed open +violently, and Marvel, weeping and dishevelled, his hat gone, the +neck of his coat torn open, rushed in, made a convulsive turn, and +attempted to shut the door. It was held half open by a strap. + +"Coming!" he bawled, his voice shrieking with terror. "He's coming. +The 'Visible Man! After me! For Gawd's sake! 'Elp! 'Elp! 'Elp!" + +"Shut the doors," said the policeman. "Who's coming? What's the +row?" He went to the door, released the strap, and it slammed. The +American closed the other door. + +"Lemme go inside," said Marvel, staggering and weeping, but still +clutching the books. "Lemme go inside. Lock me in--somewhere. I +tell you he's after me. I give him the slip. He said he'd kill me +and he will." + +"_You're_ safe," said the man with the black beard. "The door's shut. +What's it all about?" + +"Lemme go inside," said Marvel, and shrieked aloud as a blow +suddenly made the fastened door shiver and was followed by a hurried +rapping and a shouting outside. "Hullo," cried the policeman, "who's +there?" Mr. Marvel began to make frantic dives at panels that looked +like doors. "He'll kill me--he's got a knife or something. For +Gawd's sake--!" + +"Here you are," said the barman. "Come in here." And he held up the +flap of the bar. + +Mr. Marvel rushed behind the bar as the summons outside was +repeated. "Don't open the door," he screamed. "_Please_ don't open +the door. _Where_ shall I hide?" + +"This, this Invisible Man, then?" asked the man with the black +beard, with one hand behind him. "I guess it's about time we saw +him." + +The window of the inn was suddenly smashed in, and there was a +screaming and running to and fro in the street. The policeman had +been standing on the settee staring out, craning to see who was at +the door. He got down with raised eyebrows. "It's that," he said. +The barman stood in front of the bar-parlour door which was now +locked on Mr. Marvel, stared at the smashed window, and came round +to the two other men. + +Everything was suddenly quiet. "I wish I had my truncheon," said +the policeman, going irresolutely to the door. "Once we open, in he +comes. There's no stopping him." + +"Don't you be in too much hurry about that door," said the anaemic +cabman, anxiously. + +"Draw the bolts," said the man with the black beard, "and if he +comes--" He showed a revolver in his hand. + +"That won't do," said the policeman; "that's murder." + +"I know what country I'm in," said the man with the beard. "I'm +going to let off at his legs. Draw the bolts." + +"Not with that blinking thing going off behind me," said the +barman, craning over the blind. + +"Very well," said the man with the black beard, and stooping down, +revolver ready, drew them himself. Barman, cabman, and policeman +faced about. + +"Come in," said the bearded man in an undertone, standing back and +facing the unbolted doors with his pistol behind him. No one came +in, the door remained closed. Five minutes afterwards when a second +cabman pushed his head in cautiously, they were still waiting, and +an anxious face peered out of the bar-parlour and supplied +information. "Are all the doors of the house shut?" asked Marvel. +"He's going round--prowling round. He's as artful as the devil." + +"Good Lord!" said the burly barman. "There's the back! Just watch +them doors! I say--!" He looked about him helplessly. The +bar-parlour door slammed and they heard the key turn. "There's +the yard door and the private door. The yard door--" + +He rushed out of the bar. + +In a minute he reappeared with a carving-knife in his hand. "The +yard door was open!" he said, and his fat underlip dropped. "He may +be in the house now!" said the first cabman. + +"He's not in the kitchen," said the barman. "There's two women +there, and I've stabbed every inch of it with this little beef +slicer. And they don't think he's come in. They haven't noticed--" + +"Have you fastened it?" asked the first cabman. + +"I'm out of frocks," said the barman. + +The man with the beard replaced his revolver. And even as he did so +the flap of the bar was shut down and the bolt clicked, and then +with a tremendous thud the catch of the door snapped and the +bar-parlour door burst open. They heard Marvel squeal like a caught +leveret, and forthwith they were clambering over the bar to his +rescue. The bearded man's revolver cracked and the looking-glass at +the back of the parlour starred and came smashing and tinkling down. + +As the barman entered the room he saw Marvel, curiously crumpled up +and struggling against the door that led to the yard and kitchen. +The door flew open while the barman hesitated, and Marvel was +dragged into the kitchen. There was a scream and a clatter of pans. +Marvel, head down, and lugging back obstinately, was forced to the +kitchen door, and the bolts were drawn. + +Then the policeman, who had been trying to pass the barman, rushed +in, followed by one of the cabmen, gripped the wrist of the +invisible hand that collared Marvel, was hit in the face and went +reeling back. The door opened, and Marvel made a frantic effort to +obtain a lodgment behind it. Then the cabman collared something. +"I got him," said the cabman. The barman's red hands came clawing +at the unseen. "Here he is!" said the barman. + +Mr. Marvel, released, suddenly dropped to the ground and made an +attempt to crawl behind the legs of the fighting men. The struggle +blundered round the edge of the door. The voice of the Invisible +Man was heard for the first time, yelling out sharply, as the +policeman trod on his foot. Then he cried out passionately and +his fists flew round like flails. The cabman suddenly whooped +and doubled up, kicked under the diaphragm. The door into the +bar-parlour from the kitchen slammed and covered Mr. Marvel's +retreat. The men in the kitchen found themselves clutching at and +struggling with empty air. + +"Where's he gone?" cried the man with the beard. "Out?" + +"This way," said the policeman, stepping into the yard and +stopping. + +A piece of tile whizzed by his head and smashed among the crockery +on the kitchen table. + +"I'll show him," shouted the man with the black beard, and suddenly +a steel barrel shone over the policeman's shoulder, and five +bullets had followed one another into the twilight whence the +missile had come. As he fired, the man with the beard moved his +hand in a horizontal curve, so that his shots radiated out into the +narrow yard like spokes from a wheel. + +A silence followed. "Five cartridges," said the man with the black +beard. "That's the best of all. Four aces and a joker. Get a +lantern, someone, and come and feel about for his body." + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +DR. KEMP'S VISITOR + + +Dr. Kemp had continued writing in his study until the shots +aroused him. Crack, crack, crack, they came one after the other. + +"Hullo!" said Dr. Kemp, putting his pen into his mouth again and +listening. "Who's letting off revolvers in Burdock? What are the +asses at now?" + +He went to the south window, threw it up, and leaning out stared +down on the network of windows, beaded gas-lamps and shops, with its +black interstices of roof and yard that made up the town at night. +"Looks like a crowd down the hill," he said, "by 'The Cricketers,'" +and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered over the town to far +away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed--a little +illuminated, facetted pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon +in its first quarter hung over the westward hill, and the stars were +clear and almost tropically bright. + +After five minutes, during which his mind had travelled into a +remote speculation of social conditions of the future, and lost +itself at last over the time dimension, Dr. Kemp roused himself +with a sigh, pulled down the window again, and returned to his +writing desk. + +It must have been about an hour after this that the front-door bell +rang. He had been writing slackly, and with intervals of +abstraction, since the shots. He sat listening. He heard the servant +answer the door, and waited for her feet on the staircase, but she +did not come. "Wonder what that was," said Dr. Kemp. + +He tried to resume his work, failed, got up, went downstairs from +his study to the landing, rang, and called over the balustrade to +the housemaid as she appeared in the hall below. "Was that a +letter?" he asked. + +"Only a runaway ring, sir," she answered. + +"I'm restless to-night," he said to himself. He went back to his +study, and this time attacked his work resolutely. In a little +while he was hard at work again, and the only sounds in the room +were the ticking of the clock and the subdued shrillness of his +quill, hurrying in the very centre of the circle of light his +lampshade threw on his table. + +It was two o'clock before Dr. Kemp had finished his work for the +night. He rose, yawned, and went downstairs to bed. He had already +removed his coat and vest, when he noticed that he was thirsty. He +took a candle and went down to the dining-room in search of a +syphon and whiskey. + +Dr. Kemp's scientific pursuits have made him a very observant +man, and as he recrossed the hall, he noticed a dark spot on the +linoleum near the mat at the foot of the stairs. He went on +upstairs, and then it suddenly occurred to him to ask himself what +the spot on the linoleum might be. Apparently some subconscious +element was at work. At any rate, he turned with his burden, went +back to the hall, put down the syphon and whiskey, and bending +down, touched the spot. Without any great surprise he found it had +the stickiness and colour of drying blood. + +He took up his burden again, and returned upstairs, looking about +him and trying to account for the blood-spot. On the landing he saw +something and stopped astonished. The door-handle of his own room +was blood-stained. + +He looked at his own hand. It was quite clean, and then he +remembered that the door of his room had been open when he came down +from his study, and that consequently he had not touched the handle +at all. He went straight into his room, his face quite calm--perhaps +a trifle more resolute than usual. His glance, wandering +inquisitively, fell on the bed. On the counterpane was a mess of +blood, and the sheet had been torn. He had not noticed this before +because he had walked straight to the dressing-table. On the further +side the bedclothes were depressed as if someone had been recently +sitting there. + +Then he had an odd impression that he had heard a low voice say, +"Good Heavens!--Kemp!" But Dr. Kemp was no believer in voices. + +He stood staring at the tumbled sheets. Was that really a voice? He +looked about again, but noticed nothing further than the disordered +and blood-stained bed. Then he distinctly heard a movement across +the room, near the wash-hand stand. All men, however highly +educated, retain some superstitious inklings. The feeling that is +called "eerie" came upon him. He closed the door of the room, came +forward to the dressing-table, and put down his burdens. Suddenly, +with a start, he perceived a coiled and blood-stained bandage of +linen rag hanging in mid-air, between him and the wash-hand stand. + +He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage, a bandage +properly tied but quite empty. He would have advanced to grasp it, +but a touch arrested him, and a voice speaking quite close to him. + +"Kemp!" said the Voice. + +"Eh?" said Kemp, with his mouth open. + +"Keep your nerve," said the Voice. "I'm an Invisible Man." + +Kemp made no answer for a space, simply stared at the bandage. +"Invisible Man," he said. + +"I am an Invisible Man," repeated the Voice. + +The story he had been active to ridicule only that morning rushed +through Kemp's brain. He does not appear to have been either very +much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment. +Realisation came later. + +"I thought it was all a lie," he said. The thought uppermost in his +mind was the reiterated arguments of the morning. "Have you a +bandage on?" he asked. + +"Yes," said the Invisible Man. + +"Oh!" said Kemp, and then roused himself. "I say!" he said. "But +this is nonsense. It's some trick." He stepped forward suddenly, +and his hand, extended towards the bandage, met invisible fingers. + +He recoiled at the touch and his colour changed. + +"Keep steady, Kemp, for God's sake! I want help badly. Stop!" + +The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it. + +"Kemp!" cried the Voice. "Kemp! Keep steady!" and the grip +tightened. + +A frantic desire to free himself took possession of Kemp. The hand +of the bandaged arm gripped his shoulder, and he was suddenly +tripped and flung backwards upon the bed. He opened his mouth to +shout, and the corner of the sheet was thrust between his teeth. +The Invisible Man had him down grimly, but his arms were free and +he struck and tried to kick savagely. + +"Listen to reason, will you?" said the Invisible Man, sticking to +him in spite of a pounding in the ribs. "By Heaven! you'll madden +me in a minute! + +"Lie still, you fool!" bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp's ear. + +Kemp struggled for another moment and then lay still. + +"If you shout, I'll smash your face," said the Invisible Man, +relieving his mouth. + +"I'm an Invisible Man. It's no foolishness, and no magic. I really +am an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don't want to hurt +you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic, I must. Don't you +remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College?" + +"Let me get up," said Kemp. "I'll stop where I am. And let me sit +quiet for a minute." + +He sat up and felt his neck. + +"I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself +invisible. I am just an ordinary man--a man you have known--made +invisible." + +"Griffin?" said Kemp. + +"Griffin," answered the Voice. A younger student than you were, +almost an albino, six feet high, and broad, with a pink and white +face and red eyes, who won the medal for chemistry." + +"I am confused," said Kemp. "My brain is rioting. What has this to +do with Griffin?" + +"I _am_ Griffin." + +Kemp thought. "It's horrible," he said. "But what devilry must +happen to make a man invisible?" + +"It's no devilry. It's a process, sane and intelligible enough--" + +"It's horrible!" said Kemp. "How on earth--?" + +"It's horrible enough. But I'm wounded and in pain, and tired ... +Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food +and drink, and let me sit down here." + +Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a +basket chair dragged across the floor and come to rest near the bed. +It creaked, and the seat was depressed the quarter of an inch or so. +He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. "This beats ghosts," he +said, and laughed stupidly. + +"That's better. Thank Heaven, you're getting sensible!" + +"Or silly," said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes. + +"Give me some whiskey. I'm near dead." + +"It didn't feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you? +_There_! all right. Whiskey? Here. Where shall I give it to you?" + +The chair creaked and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He +let go by an effort; his instinct was all against it. It came to +rest poised twenty inches above the front edge of the seat of the +chair. He stared at it in infinite perplexity. "This is--this +must be--hypnotism. You have suggested you are invisible." + +"Nonsense," said the Voice. + +"It's frantic." + +"Listen to me." + +"I demonstrated conclusively this morning," began Kemp, "that +invisibility--" + +"Never mind what you've demonstrated!--I'm starving," said the +Voice, "and the night is chilly to a man without clothes." + +"Food?" said Kemp. + +The tumbler of whiskey tilted itself. "Yes," said the Invisible Man +rapping it down. "Have you a dressing-gown?" + +Kemp made some exclamation in an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe +and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. "This do?" he asked. It was +taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid-air, fluttered +weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in +his chair. "Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort," said the +Unseen, curtly. "And food." + +"Anything. But this is the insanest thing I ever was in, in my +life!" + +He turned out his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs +to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and +bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest. +"Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air, +with a sound of gnawing. + +"Invisible!" said Kemp, and sat down on a bedroom chair. + +"I always like to get something about me before I eat," said the +Invisible Man, with a full mouth, eating greedily. "Queer fancy!" + +"I suppose that wrist is all right," said Kemp. + +"Trust me," said the Invisible Man. + +"Of all the strange and wonderful--" + +"Exactly. But it's odd I should blunder into _your_ house to get my +bandaging. My first stroke of luck! Anyhow I meant to sleep in this +house to-night. You must stand that! It's a filthy nuisance, my +blood showing, isn't it? Quite a clot over there. Gets visible as +it coagulates, I see. It's only the living tissue I've changed, and +only for as long as I'm alive.... I've been in the house three hours." + +"But how's it done?" began Kemp, in a tone of exasperation. +"Confound it! The whole business--it's unreasonable from +beginning to end." + +"Quite reasonable," said the Invisible Man. "Perfectly reasonable." + +He reached over and secured the whiskey bottle. Kemp stared at the +devouring dressing gown. A ray of candle-light penetrating a torn +patch in the right shoulder, made a triangle of light under the +left ribs. "What were the shots?" he asked. "How did the shooting +begin?" + +"There was a real fool of a man--a sort of confederate of +mine--curse him!--who tried to steal my money. Has done so." + +"Is he invisible too?" + +"No." + +"Well?" + +"Can't I have some more to eat before I tell you all that? I'm +hungry--in pain. And you want me to tell stories!" + +Kemp got up. "_You_ didn't do any shooting?" he asked. + +"Not me," said his visitor. "Some fool I'd never seen fired at +random. A lot of them got scared. They all got scared at me. Curse +them!--I say--I want more to eat than this, Kemp." + +"I'll see what there is to eat downstairs," said Kemp. "Not much, +I'm afraid." + +After he had done eating, and he made a heavy meal, the Invisible +Man demanded a cigar. He bit the end savagely before Kemp could +find a knife, and cursed when the outer leaf loosened. It was +strange to see him smoking; his mouth, and throat, pharynx and +nares, became visible as a sort of whirling smoke cast. + +"This blessed gift of smoking!" he said, and puffed vigorously. +"I'm lucky to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy +tumbling on you just now! I'm in a devilish scrape--I've been mad, +I think. The things I have been through! But we will do things yet. +Let me tell you--" + +He helped himself to more whiskey and soda. Kemp got up, looked +about him, and fetched a glass from his spare room. "It's wild--but +I suppose I may drink." + +"You haven't changed much, Kemp, these dozen years. You fair men +don't. Cool and methodical--after the first collapse. I must tell +you. We will work together!" + +"But how was it all done?" said Kemp, "and how did you get like +this?" + +"For God's sake, let me smoke in peace for a little while! And then +I will begin to tell you." + +But the story was not told that night. The Invisible Man's wrist +was growing painful; he was feverish, exhausted, and his mind came +round to brood upon his chase down the hill and the struggle about +the inn. He spoke in fragments of Marvel, he smoked faster, his +voice grew angry. Kemp tried to gather what he could. + +"He was afraid of me, I could see that he was afraid of me," said +the Invisible Man many times over. "He meant to give me the slip--he +was always casting about! What a fool I was!" + +"The cur! + +"I should have killed him!" + +"Where did you get the money?" asked Kemp, abruptly. + +The Invisible Man was silent for a space. "I can't tell you +to-night," he said. + +He groaned suddenly and leant forward, supporting his invisible +head on invisible hands. "Kemp," he said, "I've had no sleep for +near three days, except a couple of dozes of an hour or so. I +must sleep soon." + +"Well, have my room--have this room." + +"But how can I sleep? If I sleep--he will get away. Ugh! What +does it matter?" + +"What's the shot wound?" asked Kemp, abruptly. + +"Nothing--scratch and blood. Oh, God! How I want sleep!" + +"Why not?" + +The Invisible Man appeared to be regarding Kemp. "Because I've a +particular objection to being caught by my fellow-men," he said +slowly. + +Kemp started. + +"Fool that I am!" said the Invisible Man, striking the table +smartly. "I've put the idea into your head." + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE INVISIBLE MAN SLEEPS + + +Exhausted and wounded as the Invisible Man was, he refused to accept +Kemp's word that his freedom should be respected. He examined the +two windows of the bedroom, drew up the blinds and opened the +sashes, to confirm Kemp's statement that a retreat by them would be +possible. Outside the night was very quiet and still, and the new +moon was setting over the down. Then he examined the keys of the +bedroom and the two dressing-room doors, to satisfy himself that +these also could be made an assurance of freedom. Finally he +expressed himself satisfied. He stood on the hearth rug and Kemp +heard the sound of a yawn. + +"I'm sorry," said the Invisible Man, "if I cannot tell you all that +I have done to-night. But I am worn out. It's grotesque, no doubt. +It's horrible! But believe me, Kemp, in spite of your arguments of +this morning, it is quit a possible thing. I have made a discovery. +I meant to keep it to myself. I can't. I must have a partner. And +you.... We can do such things ... But to-morrow. Now, Kemp, I feel +as though I must sleep or perish." + +Kemp stood in the middle of the room staring at the headless +garment. "I suppose I must leave you," he said. "It's-- +incredible. Three things happening like this, overturning all +my preconceptions--would make me insane. But it's real! Is +there anything more that I can get you?" + +"Only bid me good-night," said Griffin. + +"Good-night," said Kemp, and shook an invisible hand. He walked +sideways to the door. Suddenly the dressing-gown walked quickly +towards him. "Understand me!" said the dressing-gown. "No attempts +to hamper me, or capture me! Or--" + +Kemp's face changed a little. "I thought I gave you my word," he +said. + +Kemp closed the door softly behind him, and the key was turned upon +him forthwith. Then, as he stood with an expression of passive +amazement on his face, the rapid feet came to the door of the +dressing-room and that too was locked. Kemp slapped his brow with +his hand. "Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad--or have I?" + +He laughed, and put his hand to the locked door. "Barred out of my +own bedroom, by a flagrant absurdity!" he said. + +He walked to the head of the staircase, turned, and stared at the +locked doors. "It's fact," he said. He put his fingers to his +slightly bruised neck. "Undeniable fact! + +"But--" + +He shook his head hopelessly, turned, and went downstairs. + +He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the +room, ejaculating. Now and then he would argue with himself. + +"Invisible!" he said. + +"Is there such a thing as an invisible animal? ... In the sea, yes. +Thousands--millions. All the larvae, all the little nauplii and +tornarias, all the microscopic things, the jelly-fish. In the sea +there are more things invisible than visible! I never thought of +that before. And in the ponds too! All those little pond-life +things--specks of colourless translucent jelly! But in air? No! + +"It can't be. + +"But after all--why not? + +"If a man was made of glass he would still be visible." + +His meditation became profound. The bulk of three cigars had passed +into the invisible or diffused as a white ash over the carpet before +he spoke again. Then it was merely an exclamation. He turned aside, +walked out of the room, and went into his little consulting-room and +lit the gas there. It was a little room, because Dr. Kemp did not +live by practice, and in it were the day's newspapers. The morning's +paper lay carelessly opened and thrown aside. He caught it up, +turned it over, and read the account of a "Strange Story from Iping" +that the mariner at Port Stowe had spelt over so painfully to Mr. +Marvel. Kemp read it swiftly. + +"Wrapped up!" said Kemp. "Disguised! Hiding it! 'No one seems to +have been aware of his misfortune.' What the devil _is_ his game?" + +He dropped the paper, and his eye went seeking. "Ah!" he said, and +caught up the St. James' Gazette, lying folded up as it arrived. +"Now we shall get at the truth," said Dr. Kemp. He rent the paper +open; a couple of columns confronted him. "An Entire Village in +Sussex goes Mad" was the heading. + +"Good Heavens!" said Kemp, reading eagerly an incredulous account +of the events in Iping, of the previous afternoon, that have +already been described. Over the leaf the report in the morning +paper had been reprinted. + +He re-read it. "Ran through the streets striking right and left. +Jaffers insensible. Mr. Huxter in great pain--still unable to +describe what he saw. Painful humiliation--vicar. Woman ill with +terror! Windows smashed. This extraordinary story probably a +fabrication. Too good not to print--cum grano!" + +He dropped the paper and stared blankly in front of him. "Probably +a fabrication!" + +He caught up the paper again, and re-read the whole business. "But +when does the Tramp come in? Why the deuce was he chasing a tramp?" + +He sat down abruptly on the surgical bench. "He's not only +invisible," he said, "but he's mad! Homicidal!" + +When dawn came to mingle its pallor with the lamp-light and cigar +smoke of the dining-room, Kemp was still pacing up and down, trying +to grasp the incredible. + +He was altogether too excited to sleep. His servants, descending +sleepily, discovered him, and were inclined to think that +over-study had worked this ill on him. He gave them extraordinary +but quite explicit instructions to lay breakfast for two in the +belvedere study--and then to confine themselves to the basement +and ground-floor. Then he continued to pace the dining-room until +the morning's paper came. That had much to say and little to tell, +beyond the confirmation of the evening before, and a very badly +written account of another remarkable tale from Port Burdock. This +gave Kemp the essence of the happenings at the "Jolly Cricketers," +and the name of Marvel. "He has made me keep with him twenty-four +hours," Marvel testified. Certain minor facts were added to the +Iping story, notably the cutting of the village telegraph-wire. +But there was nothing to throw light on the connexion between +the Invisible Man and the Tramp; for Mr. Marvel had supplied no +information about the three books, or the money with which he was +lined. The incredulous tone had vanished and a shoal of reporters +and inquirers were already at work elaborating the matter. + +Kemp read every scrap of the report and sent his housemaid out to +get everyone of the morning papers she could. These also he +devoured. + +"He is invisible!" he said. "And it reads like rage growing to +mania! The things he may do! The things he may do! And he's +upstairs free as the air. What on earth ought I to do?" + +"For instance, would it be a breach of faith if--? No." + +He went to a little untidy desk in the corner, and began a note. He +tore this up half written, and wrote another. He read it over and +considered it. Then he took an envelope and addressed it to "Colonel +Adye, Port Burdock." + +The Invisible Man awoke even as Kemp was doing this. He awoke in an +evil temper, and Kemp, alert for every sound, heard his pattering +feet rush suddenly across the bedroom overhead. Then a chair was +flung over and the wash-hand stand tumbler smashed. Kemp hurried +upstairs and rapped eagerly. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +CERTAIN FIRST PRINCIPLES + + +"What's the matter?" asked Kemp, when the Invisible Man admitted him. + +"Nothing," was the answer. + +"But, confound it! The smash?" + +"Fit of temper," said the Invisible Man. "Forgot this arm; and it's +sore." + +"You're rather liable to that sort of thing." + +"I am." + +Kemp walked across the room and picked up the fragments of broken +glass. "All the facts are out about you," said Kemp, standing up +with the glass in his hand; "all that happened in Iping, and down +the hill. The world has become aware of its invisible citizen. But +no one knows you are here." + +The Invisible Man swore. + +"The secret's out. I gather it was a secret. I don't know what your +plans are, but of course I'm anxious to help you." + +The Invisible Man sat down on the bed. + +"There's breakfast upstairs," said Kemp, speaking as easily as +possible, and he was delighted to find his strange guest rose +willingly. Kemp led the way up the narrow staircase to the +belvedere. + +"Before we can do anything else," said Kemp, "I must understand a +little more about this invisibility of yours." He had sat down, +after one nervous glance out of the window, with the air of a man +who has talking to do. His doubts of the sanity of the entire +business flashed and vanished again as he looked across to +where Griffin sat at the breakfast-table--a headless, handless +dressing-gown, wiping unseen lips on a miraculously held serviette. + +"It's simple enough--and credible enough," said Griffin, putting +the serviette aside and leaning the invisible head on an invisible +hand. + +"No doubt, to you, but--" Kemp laughed. + +"Well, yes; to me it seemed wonderful at first, no doubt. But now, +great God! ... But we will do great things yet! I came on the stuff +first at Chesilstowe." + +"Chesilstowe?" + +"I went there after I left London. You know I dropped medicine and +took up physics? No; well, I did. _Light_ fascinated me." + +"Ah!" + +"Optical density! The whole subject is a network of riddles--a +network with solutions glimmering elusively through. And being but +two-and-twenty and full of enthusiasm, I said, 'I will devote my +life to this. This is worth while.' You know what fools we are at +two-and-twenty?" + +"Fools then or fools now," said Kemp. + +"As though knowing could be any satisfaction to a man! + +"But I went to work--like a slave. And I had hardly worked and +thought about the matter six months before light came through one +of the meshes suddenly--blindingly! I found a general principle +of pigments and refraction--a formula, a geometrical expression +involving four dimensions. Fools, common men, even common +mathematicians, do not know anything of what some general expression +may mean to the student of molecular physics. In the books--the +books that tramp has hidden--there are marvels, miracles! But this +was not a method, it was an idea, that might lead to a method by +which it would be possible, without changing any other property of +matter--except, in some instances colours--to lower the refractive +index of a substance, solid or liquid, to that of air--so far as all +practical purposes are concerned." + +"Phew!" said Kemp. "That's odd! But still I don't see quite ... I +can understand that thereby you could spoil a valuable stone, but +personal invisibility is a far cry." + +"Precisely," said Griffin. "But consider, visibility depends on the +action of the visible bodies on light. Either a body absorbs light, +or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things. If it +neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of +itself be visible. You see an opaque red box, for instance, because +the colour absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest, all the +red part of the light, to you. If it did not absorb any particular +part of the light, but reflected it all, then it would be a shining +white box. Silver! A diamond box would neither absorb much of the +light nor reflect much from the general surface, but just here +and there where the surfaces were favourable the light would +be reflected and refracted, so that you would get a brilliant +appearance of flashing reflections and translucencies--a sort of +skeleton of light. A glass box would not be so brilliant, not so +clearly visible, as a diamond box, because there would be less +refraction and reflection. See that? From certain points of view +you would see quite clearly through it. Some kinds of glass would +be more visible than others, a box of flint glass would be brighter +than a box of ordinary window glass. A box of very thin common +glass would be hard to see in a bad light, because it would absorb +hardly any light and refract and reflect very little. And if you +put a sheet of common white glass in water, still more if you +put it in some denser liquid than water, it would vanish almost +altogether, because light passing from water to glass is only +slightly refracted or reflected or indeed affected in any way. +It is almost as invisible as a jet of coal gas or hydrogen is in +air. And for precisely the same reason!" + +"Yes," said Kemp, "that is pretty plain sailing." + +"And here is another fact you will know to be true. If a sheet of +glass is smashed, Kemp, and beaten into a powder, it becomes much +more visible while it is in the air; it becomes at last an opaque +white powder. This is because the powdering multiplies the surfaces +of the glass at which refraction and reflection occur. In the sheet +of glass there are only two surfaces; in the powder the light is +reflected or refracted by each grain it passes through, and very +little gets right through the powder. But if the white powdered +glass is put into water, it forthwith vanishes. The powdered glass +and water have much the same refractive index; that is, the light +undergoes very little refraction or reflection in passing from one +to the other. + +"You make the glass invisible by putting it into a liquid of nearly +the same refractive index; a transparent thing becomes invisible if +it is put in any medium of almost the same refractive index. And if +you will consider only a second, you will see also that the powder +of glass might be made to vanish in air, if its refractive index +could be made the same as that of air; for then there would be no +refraction or reflection as the light passed from glass to air." + +"Yes, yes," said Kemp. "But a man's not powdered glass!" + +"No," said Griffin. "He's more transparent!" + +"Nonsense!" + +"That from a doctor! How one forgets! Have you already forgotten +your physics, in ten years? Just think of all the things that are +transparent and seem not to be so. Paper, for instance, is made up +of transparent fibres, and it is white and opaque only for the same +reason that a powder of glass is white and opaque. Oil white paper, +fill up the interstices between the particles with oil so that there +is no longer refraction or reflection except at the surfaces, and +it becomes as transparent as glass. And not only paper, but cotton +fibre, linen fibre, wool fibre, woody fibre, and _bone_, Kemp, +_flesh_, Kemp, _hair_, Kemp, _nails_ and _nerves_, Kemp, in fact +the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black +pigment of hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue. +So little suffices to make us visible one to the other. For the +most part the fibres of a living creature are no more opaque than +water." + +"Great Heavens!" cried Kemp. "Of course, of course! I was thinking +only last night of the sea larvae and all jelly-fish!" + +"_Now_ you have me! And all that I knew and had in mind a year after +I left London--six years ago. But I kept it to myself. I had to do +my work under frightful disadvantages. Oliver, my professor, was a +scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas--he +was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific +world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I +went on working; I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an +experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to +flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous +at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain +gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a +discovery in physiology." + +"Yes?" + +"You know the red colouring matter of blood; it can be made +white--colourless--and remain with all the functions it has now!" + +Kemp gave a cry of incredulous amazement. + +The Invisible Man rose and began pacing the little study. "You may +well exclaim. I remember that night. It was late at night--in the +daytime one was bothered with the gaping, silly students--and I +worked then sometimes till dawn. It came suddenly, splendid and +complete in my mind. I was alone; the laboratory was still, with the +tall lights burning brightly and silently. In all my great moments +I have been alone. 'One could make an animal--a tissue--transparent! +One could make it invisible! All except the pigments--I could be +invisible!' I said, suddenly realising what it meant to be an albino +with such knowledge. It was overwhelming. I left the filtering I was +doing, and went and stared out of the great window at the stars. +'I could be invisible!' I repeated. + +"To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, +unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility +might mean to a man--the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks +I saw none. You have only to think! And I, a shabby, poverty-struck, +hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college, +might suddenly become--this. I ask you, Kemp if _you_ ... Anyone, I +tell you, would have flung himself upon that research. And I worked +three years, and every mountain of difficulty I toiled over showed +another from its summit. The infinite details! And the exasperation! +A professor, a provincial professor, always prying. 'When are you +going to publish this work of yours?' was his everlasting question. +And the students, the cramped means! Three years I had of it-- + +"And after three years of secrecy and exasperation, I found that to +complete it was impossible--impossible." + +"How?" asked Kemp. + +"Money," said the Invisible Man, and went again to stare out of the +window. + +He turned around abruptly. "I robbed the old man--robbed my +father. + +"The money was not his, and he shot himself." + + + +CHAPTER XX + +AT THE HOUSE IN GREAT PORTLAND STREET + + +For a moment Kemp sat in silence, staring at the back of the +headless figure at the window. Then he started, struck by a thought, +rose, took the Invisible Man's arm, and turned him away from the +outlook. + +"You are tired," he said, "and while I sit, you walk about. Have +my chair." + +He placed himself between Griffin and the nearest window. + +For a space Griffin sat silent, and then he resumed abruptly: + +"I had left the Chesilstowe cottage already," he said, "when that +happened. It was last December. I had taken a room in London, a +large unfurnished room in a big ill-managed lodging-house in a slum +near Great Portland Street. The room was soon full of the appliances +I had bought with his money; the work was going on steadily, +successfully, drawing near an end. I was like a man emerging from a +thicket, and suddenly coming on some unmeaning tragedy. I went to +bury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift +a finger to save his character. I remember the funeral, the cheap +hearse, the scant ceremony, the windy frost-bitten hillside, and the +old college friend of his who read the service over him--a shabby, +black, bent old man with a snivelling cold. + +"I remember walking back to the empty house, through the place that +had once been a village and was now patched and tinkered by the +jerry builders into the ugly likeness of a town. Every way the +roads ran out at last into the desecrated fields and ended in +rubble heaps and rank wet weeds. I remember myself as a gaunt black +figure, going along the slippery, shiny pavement, and the strange +sense of detachment I felt from the squalid respectability, the +sordid commercialism of the place. + +"I did not feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me to be +the victim of his own foolish sentimentality. The current cant +required my attendance at his funeral, but it was really not my +affair. + +"But going along the High Street, my old life came back to me +for a space, for I met the girl I had known ten years since. +Our eyes met. + +"Something moved me to turn back and talk to her. She was a very +ordinary person. + +"It was all like a dream, that visit to the old places. I did not +feel then that I was lonely, that I had come out from the world +into a desolate place. I appreciated my loss of sympathy, but I put +it down to the general inanity of things. Re-entering my room +seemed like the recovery of reality. There were the things I knew +and loved. There stood the apparatus, the experiments arranged and +waiting. And now there was scarcely a difficulty left, beyond the +planning of details. + +"I will tell you, Kemp, sooner or later, all the complicated +processes. We need not go into that now. For the most part, saving +certain gaps I chose to remember, they are written in cypher in +those books that tramp has hidden. We must hunt him down. We must +get those books again. But the essential phase was to place the +transparent object whose refractive index was to be lowered between +two radiating centres of a sort of ethereal vibration, of which I +will tell you more fully later. No, not those Roentgen vibrations--I +don't know that these others of mine have been described. Yet +they are obvious enough. I needed two little dynamos, and these I +worked with a cheap gas engine. My first experiment was with a bit +of white wool fabric. It was the strangest thing in the world to +see it in the flicker of the flashes soft and white, and then to +watch it fade like a wreath of smoke and vanish. + +"I could scarcely believe I had done it. I put my hand into the +emptiness, and there was the thing as solid as ever. I felt it +awkwardly, and threw it on the floor. I had a little trouble +finding it again. + +"And then came a curious experience. I heard a miaow behind me, and +turning, saw a lean white cat, very dirty, on the cistern cover +outside the window. A thought came into my head. 'Everything ready +for you,' I said, and went to the window, opened it, and called +softly. She came in, purring--the poor beast was starving--and +I gave her some milk. All my food was in a cupboard in the +corner of the room. After that she went smelling round the room, +evidently with the idea of making herself at home. The invisible +rag upset her a bit; you should have seen her spit at it! But I +made her comfortable on the pillow of my truckle-bed. And I gave +her butter to get her to wash." + +"And you processed her?" + +"I processed her. But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp! And +the process failed." + +"Failed!" + +"In two particulars. These were the claws and the pigment stuff, +what is it?--at the back of the eye in a cat. You know?" + +"Tapetum." + +"Yes, the tapetum. It didn't go. After I'd given the stuff to +bleach the blood and done certain other things to her, I gave the +beast opium, and put her and the pillow she was sleeping on, on the +apparatus. And after all the rest had faded and vanished, there +remained two little ghosts of her eyes." + +"Odd!" + +"I can't explain it. She was bandaged and clamped, of course--so +I had her safe; but she woke while she was still misty, and miaowed +dismally, and someone came knocking. It was an old woman from +downstairs, who suspected me of vivisecting--a drink-sodden old +creature, with only a white cat to care for in all the world. I +whipped out some chloroform, applied it, and answered the door. +'Did I hear a cat?' she asked. 'My cat?' 'Not here,' said I, very +politely. She was a little doubtful and tried to peer past me into +the room; strange enough to her no doubt--bare walls, uncurtained +windows, truckle-bed, with the gas engine vibrating, and the +seethe of the radiant points, and that faint ghastly stinging of +chloroform in the air. She had to be satisfied at last and went +away again." + +"How long did it take?" asked Kemp. + +"Three or four hours--the cat. The bones and sinews and the fat +were the last to go, and the tips of the coloured hairs. And, as I +say, the back part of the eye, tough, iridescent stuff it is, +wouldn't go at all. + +"It was night outside long before the business was over, and nothing +was to be seen but the dim eyes and the claws. I stopped the gas +engine, felt for and stroked the beast, which was still insensible, +and then, being tired, left it sleeping on the invisible pillow and +went to bed. I found it hard to sleep. I lay awake thinking weak +aimless stuff, going over the experiment over and over again, or +dreaming feverishly of things growing misty and vanishing about me, +until everything, the ground I stood on, vanished, and so I came to +that sickly falling nightmare one gets. About two, the cat began +miaowing about the room. I tried to hush it by talking to it, and +then I decided to turn it out. I remember the shock I had when +striking a light--there were just the round eyes shining green--and +nothing round them. I would have given it milk, but I hadn't any. It +wouldn't be quiet, it just sat down and miaowed at the door. I tried +to catch it, with an idea of putting it out of the window, but it +wouldn't be caught, it vanished. Then it began miaowing in different +parts of the room. At last I opened the window and made a bustle. I +suppose it went out at last. I never saw any more of it. + +"Then--Heaven knows why--I fell thinking of my father's funeral +again, and the dismal windy hillside, until the day had come. I +found sleeping was hopeless, and, locking my door after me, +wandered out into the morning streets." + +"You don't mean to say there's an invisible cat at large!" said +Kemp. + +"If it hasn't been killed," said the Invisible Man. "Why not?" + +"Why not?" said Kemp. "I didn't mean to interrupt." + +"It's very probably been killed," said the Invisible Man. "It +was alive four days after, I know, and down a grating in Great +Tichfield Street; because I saw a crowd round the place, trying +to see whence the miaowing came." + +He was silent for the best part of a minute. Then he resumed +abruptly: + +"I remember that morning before the change very vividly. I must have +gone up Great Portland Street. I remember the barracks in Albany +Street, and the horse soldiers coming out, and at last I found the +summit of Primrose Hill. It was a sunny day in January--one of those +sunny, frosty days that came before the snow this year. My weary +brain tried to formulate the position, to plot out a plan of action. + +"I was surprised to find, now that my prize was within my grasp, how +inconclusive its attainment seemed. As a matter of fact I was worked +out; the intense stress of nearly four years' continuous work left +me incapable of any strength of feeling. I was apathetic, and I +tried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries, +the passion of discovery that had enabled me to compass even the +downfall of my father's grey hairs. Nothing seemed to matter. I saw +pretty clearly this was a transient mood, due to overwork and want +of sleep, and that either by drugs or rest it would be possible to +recover my energies. + +"All I could think clearly was that the thing had to be carried +through; the fixed idea still ruled me. And soon, for the money I +had was almost exhausted. I looked about me at the hillside, with +children playing and girls watching them, and tried to think of all +the fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world. +After a time I crawled home, took some food and a strong dose of +strychnine, and went to sleep in my clothes on my unmade bed. +Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out of +a man." + +"It's the devil," said Kemp. "It's the palaeolithic in a bottle." + +"I awoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable. You know?" + +"I know the stuff." + +"And there was someone rapping at the door. It was my landlord +with threats and inquiries, an old Polish Jew in a long grey coat +and greasy slippers. I had been tormenting a cat in the night, he +was sure--the old woman's tongue had been busy. He insisted on +knowing all about it. The laws in this country against vivisection +were very severe--he might be liable. I denied the cat. Then the +vibration of the little gas engine could be felt all over the +house, he said. That was true, certainly. He edged round me into +the room, peering about over his German-silver spectacles, and a +sudden dread came into my mind that he might carry away something +of my secret. I tried to keep between him and the concentrating +apparatus I had arranged, and that only made him more curious. What +was I doing? Why was I always alone and secretive? Was it legal? +Was it dangerous? I paid nothing but the usual rent. His had always +been a most respectable house--in a disreputable neighbourhood. +Suddenly my temper gave way. I told him to get out. He began to +protest, to jabber of his right of entry. In a moment I had him by +the collar; something ripped, and he went spinning out into his own +passage. I slammed and locked the door and sat down quivering. + +"He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a time he +went away. + +"But this brought matters to a crisis. I did not know what he +would do, nor even what he had the power to do. To move to fresh +apartments would have meant delay; altogether I had barely twenty +pounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank--and I +could not afford that. Vanish! It was irresistible. Then there +would be an inquiry, the sacking of my room. + +"At the thought of the possibility of my work being exposed or +interrupted at its very climax, I became very angry and active. I +hurried out with my three books of notes, my cheque-book--the tramp +has them now--and directed them from the nearest Post Office to a +house of call for letters and parcels in Great Portland Street. I +tried to go out noiselessly. Coming in, I found my landlord going +quietly upstairs; he had heard the door close, I suppose. You would +have laughed to see him jump aside on the landing as came tearing +after him. He glared at me as I went by him, and I made the house +quiver with the slamming of my door. I heard him come shuffling up +to my floor, hesitate, and go down. I set to work upon my +preparations forthwith. + +"It was all done that evening and night. While I was still sitting +under the sickly, drowsy influence of the drugs that decolourise +blood, there came a repeated knocking at the door. It ceased, +footsteps went away and returned, and the knocking was resumed. +There was an attempt to push something under the door--a blue +paper. Then in a fit of irritation I rose and went and flung the +door wide open. 'Now then?' said I. + +"It was my landlord, with a notice of ejectment or something. He +held it out to me, saw something odd about my hands, I expect, and +lifted his eyes to my face. + +"For a moment he gaped. Then he gave a sort of inarticulate cry, +dropped candle and writ together, and went blundering down the dark +passage to the stairs. I shut the door, locked it, and went to the +looking-glass. Then I understood his terror.... My face was +white--like white stone. + +"But it was all horrible. I had not expected the suffering. A night +of racking anguish, sickness and fainting. I set my teeth, though my +skin was presently afire, all my body afire; but I lay there like +grim death. I understood now how it was the cat had howled until I +chloroformed it. Lucky it was I lived alone and untended in my room. +There were times when I sobbed and groaned and talked. But I stuck +to it.... I became insensible and woke languid in the darkness. + +"The pain had passed. I thought I was killing myself and I did not +care. I shall never forget that dawn, and the strange horror of +seeing that my hands had become as clouded glass, and watching them +grow clearer and thinner as the day went by, until at last I could +see the sickly disorder of my room through them, though I closed my +transparent eyelids. My limbs became glassy, the bones and arteries +faded, vanished, and the little white nerves went last. I gritted +my teeth and stayed there to the end. At last only the dead tips of +the fingernails remained, pallid and white, and the brown stain of +some acid upon my fingers. + +"I struggled up. At first I was as incapable as a swathed +infant--stepping with limbs I could not see. I was weak and very +hungry. I went and stared at nothing in my shaving-glass, at nothing +save where an attenuated pigment still remained behind the retina of +my eyes, fainter than mist. I had to hang on to the table and press +my forehead against the glass. + +"It was only by a frantic effort of will that I dragged myself back +to the apparatus and completed the process. + +"I slept during the forenoon, pulling the sheet over my eyes to shut +out the light, and about midday I was awakened again by a knocking. +My strength had returned. I sat up and listened and heard a +whispering. I sprang to my feet and as noiselessly as possible began +to detach the connections of my apparatus, and to distribute it +about the room, so as to destroy the suggestions of its arrangement. +Presently the knocking was renewed and voices called, first my +landlord's, and then two others. To gain time I answered them. The +invisible rag and pillow came to hand and I opened the window and +pitched them out on to the cistern cover. As the window opened, a +heavy crash came at the door. Someone had charged it with the idea +of smashing the lock. But the stout bolts I had screwed up some +days before stopped him. That startled me, made me angry. I began +to tremble and do things hurriedly. + +"I tossed together some loose paper, straw, packing paper and so +forth, in the middle of the room, and turned on the gas. Heavy +blows began to rain upon the door. I could not find the matches. I +beat my hands on the wall with rage. I turned down the gas again, +stepped out of the window on the cistern cover, very softly lowered +the sash, and sat down, secure and invisible, but quivering with +anger, to watch events. They split a panel, I saw, and in another +moment they had broken away the staples of the bolts and stood in +the open doorway. It was the landlord and his two step-sons, sturdy +young men of three or four and twenty. Behind them fluttered the +old hag of a woman from downstairs. + +"You may imagine their astonishment to find the room empty. One of +the younger men rushed to the window at once, flung it up and stared +out. His staring eyes and thick-lipped bearded face came a foot +from my face. I was half minded to hit his silly countenance, but I +arrested my doubled fist. He stared right through me. So did the +others as they joined him. The old man went and peered under the +bed, and then they all made a rush for the cupboard. They had to +argue about it at length in Yiddish and Cockney English. They +concluded I had not answered them, that their imagination had +deceived them. A feeling of extraordinary elation took the place +of my anger as I sat outside the window and watched these four +people--for the old lady came in, glancing suspiciously about her +like a cat, trying to understand the riddle of my behaviour. + +"The old man, so far as I could understand his patois, agreed with +the old lady that I was a vivisectionist. The sons protested in +garbled English that I was an electrician, and appealed to the +dynamos and radiators. They were all nervous about my arrival, +although I found subsequently that they had bolted the front door. +The old lady peered into the cupboard and under the bed, and one of +the young men pushed up the register and stared up the chimney. One +of my fellow lodgers, a coster-monger who shared the opposite room +with a butcher, appeared on the landing, and he was called in and +told incoherent things. + +"It occurred to me that the radiators, if they fell into the hands +of some acute well-educated person, would give me away too much, +and watching my opportunity, I came into the room and tilted one of +the little dynamos off its fellow on which it was standing, and +smashed both apparatus. Then, while they were trying to explain the +smash, I dodged out of the room and went softly downstairs. + +"I went into one of the sitting-rooms and waited until they came +down, still speculating and argumentative, all a little disappointed +at finding no 'horrors,' and all a little puzzled how they stood +legally towards me. Then I slipped up again with a box of matches, +fired my heap of paper and rubbish, put the chairs and bedding +thereby, led the gas to the affair, by means of an india-rubber +tube, and waving a farewell to the room left it for the last time." + +"You fired the house!" exclaimed Kemp. + +"Fired the house. It was the only way to cover my trail--and no +doubt it was insured. I slipped the bolts of the front door quietly +and went out into the street. I was invisible, and I was only just +beginning to realise the extraordinary advantage my invisibility +gave me. My head was already teeming with plans of all the wild and +wonderful things I had now impunity to do. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +IN OXFORD STREET + + +"In going downstairs the first time I found an unexpected difficulty +because I could not see my feet; indeed I stumbled twice, and there +was an unaccustomed clumsiness in gripping the bolt. By not looking +down, however, I managed to walk on the level passably well. + +"My mood, I say, was one of exaltation. I felt as a seeing man +might do, with padded feet and noiseless clothes, in a city of the +blind. I experienced a wild impulse to jest, to startle people, to +clap men on the back, fling people's hats astray, and generally +revel in my extraordinary advantage. + +"But hardly had I emerged upon Great Portland Street, however (my +lodging was close to the big draper's shop there), when I heard a +clashing concussion and was hit violently behind, and turning saw +a man carrying a basket of soda-water syphons, and looking in +amazement at his burden. Although the blow had really hurt me, I +found something so irresistible in his astonishment that I laughed +aloud. 'The devil's in the basket,' I said, and suddenly twisted +it out of his hand. He let go incontinently, and I swung the whole +weight into the air. + +"But a fool of a cabman, standing outside a public house, made a +sudden rush for this, and his extending fingers took me with +excruciating violence under the ear. I let the whole down with a +smash on the cabman, and then, with shouts and the clatter of feet +about me, people coming out of shops, vehicles pulling up, I +realised what I had done for myself, and cursing my folly, backed +against a shop window and prepared to dodge out of the confusion. In +a moment I should be wedged into a crowd and inevitably discovered. +I pushed by a butcher boy, who luckily did not turn to see the +nothingness that shoved him aside, and dodged behind the cab-man's +four-wheeler. I do not know how they settled the business, I hurried +straight across the road, which was happily clear, and hardly +heeding which way I went, in the fright of detection the incident +had given me, plunged into the afternoon throng of Oxford Street. + +"I tried to get into the stream of people, but they were too thick +for me, and in a moment my heels were being trodden upon. I took to +the gutter, the roughness of which I found painful to my feet, and +forthwith the shaft of a crawling hansom dug me forcibly under the +shoulder blade, reminding me that I was already bruised severely. I +staggered out of the way of the cab, avoided a perambulator by a +convulsive movement, and found myself behind the hansom. A happy +thought saved me, and as this drove slowly along I followed in its +immediate wake, trembling and astonished at the turn of my +adventure. And not only trembling, but shivering. It was a bright +day in January and I was stark naked and the thin slime of mud that +covered the road was freezing. Foolish as it seems to me now, I had +not reckoned that, transparent or not, I was still amenable to the +weather and all its consequences. + +"Then suddenly a bright idea came into my head. I ran round and got +into the cab. And so, shivering, scared, and sniffing with the first +intimations of a cold, and with the bruises in the small of my back +growing upon my attention, I drove slowly along Oxford Street and +past Tottenham Court Road. My mood was as different from that in +which I had sallied forth ten minutes ago as it is possible to +imagine. This invisibility indeed! The one thought that possessed +me was--how was I to get out of the scrape I was in. + +"We crawled past Mudie's, and there a tall woman with five or six +yellow-labelled books hailed my cab, and I sprang out just in time +to escape her, shaving a railway van narrowly in my flight. I made +off up the roadway to Bloomsbury Square, intending to strike north +past the Museum and so get into the quiet district. I was now +cruelly chilled, and the strangeness of my situation so unnerved me +that I whimpered as I ran. At the northward corner of the Square a +little white dog ran out of the Pharmaceutical Society's offices, +and incontinently made for me, nose down. + +"I had never realised it before, but the nose is to the mind of a +dog what the eye is to the mind of a seeing man. Dogs perceive the +scent of a man moving as men perceive his vision. This brute began +barking and leaping, showing, as it seemed to me, only too plainly +that he was aware of me. I crossed Great Russell Street, glancing +over my shoulder as I did so, and went some way along Montague +Street before I realised what I was running towards. + +"Then I became aware of a blare of music, and looking along the +street saw a number of people advancing out of Russell Square, red +shirts, and the banner of the Salvation Army to the fore. Such a +crowd, chanting in the roadway and scoffing on the pavement, I +could not hope to penetrate, and dreading to go back and farther +from home again, and deciding on the spur of the moment, I ran up +the white steps of a house facing the museum railings, and stood +there until the crowd should have passed. Happily the dog stopped +at the noise of the band too, hesitated, and turned tail, running +back to Bloomsbury Square again. + +"On came the band, bawling with unconscious irony some hymn about +'When shall we see His face?' and it seemed an interminable time +to me before the tide of the crowd washed along the pavement by me. +Thud, thud, thud, came the drum with a vibrating resonance, and for +the moment I did not notice two urchins stopping at the railings by +me. 'See 'em,' said one. 'See what?' said the other. 'Why--them +footmarks--bare. Like what you makes in mud.' + +"I looked down and saw the youngsters had stopped and were gaping +at the muddy footmarks I had left behind me up the newly whitened +steps. The passing people elbowed and jostled them, but their +confounded intelligence was arrested. 'Thud, thud, thud, when, +thud, shall we see, thud, his face, thud, thud.' 'There's a +barefoot man gone up them steps, or I don't know nothing,' said +one. 'And he ain't never come down again. And his foot was +a-bleeding.' + +"The thick of the crowd had already passed. 'Looky there, Ted,' +quoth the younger of the detectives, with the sharpness of surprise +in his voice, and pointed straight to my feet. I looked down and +saw at once the dim suggestion of their outline sketched in +splashes of mud. For a moment I was paralysed. + +"'Why, that's rum,' said the elder. 'Dashed rum! It's just like +the ghost of a foot, ain't it?' He hesitated and advanced with +outstretched hand. A man pulled up short to see what he was +catching, and then a girl. In another moment he would have touched +me. Then I saw what to do. I made a step, the boy started back with +an exclamation, and with a rapid movement I swung myself over into +the portico of the next house. But the smaller boy was sharp-eyed +enough to follow the movement, and before I was well down the +steps and upon the pavement, he had recovered from his momentary +astonishment and was shouting out that the feet had gone over the +wall. + +"They rushed round and saw my new footmarks flash into being on the +lower step and upon the pavement. 'What's up?' asked someone. +'Feet! Look! Feet running!' + +"Everybody in the road, except my three pursuers, was pouring along +after the Salvation Army, and this blow not only impeded me but them. +There was an eddy of surprise and interrogation. At the cost of +bowling over one young fellow I got through, and in another moment +I was rushing headlong round the circuit of Russell Square, with +six or seven astonished people following my footmarks. There was +no time for explanation, or else the whole host would have been +after me. + +"Twice I doubled round corners, thrice I crossed the road and came +back upon my tracks, and then, as my feet grew hot and dry, the +damp impressions began to fade. At last I had a breathing space +and rubbed my feet clean with my hands, and so got away altogether. +The last I saw of the chase was a little group of a dozen people +perhaps, studying with infinite perplexity a slowly drying +footprint that had resulted from a puddle in Tavistock Square, a +footprint as isolated and incomprehensible to them as Crusoe's +solitary discovery. + +"This running warmed me to a certain extent, and I went on with a +better courage through the maze of less frequented roads that runs +hereabouts. My back had now become very stiff and sore, my tonsils +were painful from the cabman's fingers, and the skin of my neck +had been scratched by his nails; my feet hurt exceedingly and I +was lame from a little cut on one foot. I saw in time a blind +man approaching me, and fled limping, for I feared his subtle +intuitions. Once or twice accidental collisions occurred and I left +people amazed, with unaccountable curses ringing in their ears. +Then came something silent and quiet against my face, and across +the Square fell a thin veil of slowly falling flakes of snow. I had +caught a cold, and do as I would I could not avoid an occasional +sneeze. And every dog that came in sight, with its pointing nose +and curious sniffing, was a terror to me. + +"Then came men and boys running, first one and then others, and +shouting as they ran. It was a fire. They ran in the direction of +my lodging, and looking back down a street I saw a mass of black +smoke streaming up above the roofs and telephone wires. It was my +lodging burning; my clothes, my apparatus, all my resources indeed, +except my cheque-book and the three volumes of memoranda that +awaited me in Great Portland Street, were there. Burning! I had +burnt my boats--if ever a man did! The place was blazing." + +The Invisible Man paused and thought. Kemp glanced nervously out of +the window. "Yes?" he said. "Go on." + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +IN THE EMPORIUM + + +"So last January, with the beginning of a snowstorm in the air +about me--and if it settled on me it would betray me!--weary, +cold, painful, inexpressibly wretched, and still but half convinced +of my invisible quality, I began this new life to which I am +committed. I had no refuge, no appliances, no human being in the +world in whom I could confide. To have told my secret would have +given me away--made a mere show and rarity of me. Nevertheless, I +was half-minded to accost some passer-by and throw myself upon his +mercy. But I knew too clearly the terror and brutal cruelty my +advances would evoke. I made no plans in the street. My sole object +was to get shelter from the snow, to get myself covered and warm; +then I might hope to plan. But even to me, an Invisible Man, the +rows of London houses stood latched, barred, and bolted +impregnably. + +"Only one thing could I see clearly before me--the cold exposure +and misery of the snowstorm and the night. + +"And then I had a brilliant idea. I turned down one of the roads +leading from Gower Street to Tottenham Court Road, and found myself +outside Omniums, the big establishment where everything is to be +bought--you know the place: meat, grocery, linen, furniture, +clothing, oil paintings even--a huge meandering collection of shops +rather than a shop. I had thought I should find the doors open, but +they were closed, and as I stood in the wide entrance a carriage +stopped outside, and a man in uniform--you know the kind of +personage with 'Omnium' on his cap--flung open the door. I contrived +to enter, and walking down the shop--it was a department where they +were selling ribbons and gloves and stockings and that kind of +thing--came to a more spacious region devoted to picnic baskets and +wicker furniture. + +"I did not feel safe there, however; people were going to and fro, +and I prowled restlessly about until I came upon a huge section in +an upper floor containing multitudes of bedsteads, and over these I +clambered, and found a resting-place at last among a huge pile of +folded flock mattresses. The place was already lit up and agreeably +warm, and I decided to remain where I was, keeping a cautious +eye on the two or three sets of shopmen and customers who were +meandering through the place, until closing time came. Then I +should be able, I thought, to rob the place for food and clothing, +and disguised, prowl through it and examine its resources, perhaps +sleep on some of the bedding. That seemed an acceptable plan. +My idea was to procure clothing to make myself a muffled but +acceptable figure, to get money, and then to recover my books +and parcels where they awaited me, take a lodging somewhere and +elaborate plans for the complete realisation of the advantages my +invisibility gave me (as I still imagined) over my fellow-men. + +"Closing time arrived quickly enough. It could not have been more +than an hour after I took up my position on the mattresses before I +noticed the blinds of the windows being drawn, and customers being +marched doorward. And then a number of brisk young men began with +remarkable alacrity to tidy up the goods that remained disturbed. I +left my lair as the crowds diminished, and prowled cautiously out +into the less desolate parts of the shop. I was really surprised to +observe how rapidly the young men and women whipped away the goods +displayed for sale during the day. All the boxes of goods, the +hanging fabrics, the festoons of lace, the boxes of sweets in the +grocery section, the displays of this and that, were being whipped +down, folded up, slapped into tidy receptacles, and everything that +could not be taken down and put away had sheets of some coarse +stuff like sacking flung over them. Finally all the chairs were +turned up on to the counters, leaving the floor clear. Directly +each of these young people had done, he or she made promptly for +the door with such an expression of animation as I have rarely +observed in a shop assistant before. Then came a lot of youngsters +scattering sawdust and carrying pails and brooms. I had to dodge +to get out of the way, and as it was, my ankle got stung with the +sawdust. For some time, wandering through the swathed and darkened +departments, I could hear the brooms at work. And at last a good +hour or more after the shop had been closed, came a noise of +locking doors. Silence came upon the place, and I found myself +wandering through the vast and intricate shops, galleries, show-rooms +of the place, alone. It was very still; in one place I remember +passing near one of the Tottenham Court Road entrances and listening +to the tapping of boot-heels of the passers-by. + +"My first visit was to the place where I had seen stockings and +gloves for sale. It was dark, and I had the devil of a hunt after +matches, which I found at last in the drawer of the little cash +desk. Then I had to get a candle. I had to tear down wrappings and +ransack a number of boxes and drawers, but at last I managed to turn +out what I sought; the box label called them lambswool pants, and +lambswool vests. Then socks, a thick comforter, and then I went to +the clothing place and got trousers, a lounge jacket, an overcoat +and a slouch hat--a clerical sort of hat with the brim turned down. +I began to feel a human being again, and my next thought was food. + +"Upstairs was a refreshment department, and there I got cold meat. +There was coffee still in the urn, and I lit the gas and warmed it +up again, and altogether I did not do badly. Afterwards, prowling +through the place in search of blankets--I had to put up at last +with a heap of down quilts--I came upon a grocery section with +a lot of chocolate and candied fruits, more than was good for me +indeed--and some white burgundy. And near that was a toy department, +and I had a brilliant idea. I found some artificial noses--dummy +noses, you know, and I thought of dark spectacles. But Omniums had +no optical department. My nose had been a difficulty indeed--I had +thought of paint. But the discovery set my mind running on wigs and +masks and the like. Finally I went to sleep in a heap of down +quilts, very warm and comfortable. + +"My last thoughts before sleeping were the most agreeable I had had +since the change. I was in a state of physical serenity, and that +was reflected in my mind. I thought that I should be able to slip +out unobserved in the morning with my clothes upon me, muffling my +face with a white wrapper I had taken, purchase, with the money I +had taken, spectacles and so forth, and so complete my disguise. I +lapsed into disorderly dreams of all the fantastic things that had +happened during the last few days. I saw the ugly little Jew of a +landlord vociferating in his rooms; I saw his two sons marvelling, +and the wrinkled old woman's gnarled face as she asked for her cat. +I experienced again the strange sensation of seeing the cloth +disappear, and so I came round to the windy hillside and the +sniffing old clergyman mumbling 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, +dust to dust,' at my father's open grave. + +"'You also,' said a voice, and suddenly I was being forced towards +the grave. I struggled, shouted, appealed to the mourners, but they +continued stonily following the service; the old clergyman, too, +never faltered droning and sniffing through the ritual. I realised +I was invisible and inaudible, that overwhelming forces had their +grip on me. I struggled in vain, I was forced over the brink, the +coffin rang hollow as I fell upon it, and the gravel came flying +after me in spadefuls. Nobody heeded me, nobody was aware of me. I +made convulsive struggles and awoke. + +"The pale London dawn had come, the place was full of a chilly grey +light that filtered round the edges of the window blinds. I sat up, +and for a time I could not think where this ample apartment, with +its counters, its piles of rolled stuff, its heap of quilts and +cushions, its iron pillars, might be. Then, as recollection came +back to me, I heard voices in conversation. + +"Then far down the place, in the brighter light of some department +which had already raised its blinds, I saw two men approaching. I +scrambled to my feet, looking about me for some way of escape, and +even as I did so the sound of my movement made them aware of me. I +suppose they saw merely a figure moving quietly and quickly away. +'Who's that?' cried one, and 'Stop, there!' shouted the other. I +dashed around a corner and came full tilt--a faceless figure, +mind you!--on a lanky lad of fifteen. He yelled and I bowled him +over, rushed past him, turned another corner, and by a happy +inspiration threw myself behind a counter. In another moment feet +went running past and I heard voices shouting, 'All hands to the +doors!' asking what was 'up,' and giving one another advice how to +catch me. + +"Lying on the ground, I felt scared out of my wits. But--odd as +it may seem--it did not occur to me at the moment to take off my +clothes as I should have done. I had made up my mind, I suppose, to +get away in them, and that ruled me. And then down the vista of the +counters came a bawling of 'Here he is!' + +"I sprang to my feet, whipped a chair off the counter, and sent it +whirling at the fool who had shouted, turned, came into another +round a corner, sent him spinning, and rushed up the stairs. He +kept his footing, gave a view hallo, and came up the staircase hot +after me. Up the staircase were piled a multitude of those +bright-coloured pot things--what are they?" + +"Art pots," suggested Kemp. + +"That's it! Art pots. Well, I turned at the top step and swung +round, plucked one out of a pile and smashed it on his silly head +as he came at me. The whole pile of pots went headlong, and I heard +shouting and footsteps running from all parts. I made a mad rush +for the refreshment place, and there was a man in white like a man +cook, who took up the chase. I made one last desperate turn and +found myself among lamps and ironmongery. I went behind the counter +of this, and waited for my cook, and as he bolted in at the head of +the chase, I doubled him up with a lamp. Down he went, and I +crouched down behind the counter and began whipping off my clothes +as fast as I could. Coat, jacket, trousers, shoes were all right, +but a lambswool vest fits a man like a skin. I heard more men +coming, my cook was lying quiet on the other side of the counter, +stunned or scared speechless, and I had to make another dash for +it, like a rabbit hunted out of a wood-pile. + +"'This way, policeman!' I heard someone shouting. I found myself in +my bedstead storeroom again, and at the end of a wilderness of +wardrobes. I rushed among them, went flat, got rid of my vest after +infinite wriggling, and stood a free man again, panting and scared, +as the policeman and three of the shopmen came round the corner. +They made a rush for the vest and pants, and collared the trousers. +'He's dropping his plunder,' said one of the young men. 'He _must_ +be somewhere here.' + +"But they did not find me all the same. + +"I stood watching them hunt for me for a time, and cursing my +ill-luck in losing the clothes. Then I went into the refreshment-room, +drank a little milk I found there, and sat down by the fire to +consider my position. + +"In a little while two assistants came in and began to talk over +the business very excitedly and like the fools they were. I heard a +magnified account of my depredations, and other speculations as to +my whereabouts. Then I fell to scheming again. The insurmountable +difficulty of the place, especially now it was alarmed, was to get +any plunder out of it. I went down into the warehouse to see if +there was any chance of packing and addressing a parcel, but I +could not understand the system of checking. About eleven o'clock, +the snow having thawed as it fell, and the day being finer and a +little warmer than the previous one, I decided that the Emporium +was hopeless, and went out again, exasperated at my want of +success, with only the vaguest plans of action in my mind." + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +IN DRURY LANE + + +"But you begin now to realise," said the Invisible Man, "the full +disadvantage of my condition. I had no shelter--no covering--to +get clothing was to forego all my advantage, to make myself a +strange and terrible thing. I was fasting; for to eat, to fill +myself with unassimilated matter, would be to become grotesquely +visible again." + +"I never thought of that," said Kemp. + +"Nor had I. And the snow had warned me of other dangers. I could not +go abroad in snow--it would settle on me and expose me. Rain, too, +would make me a watery outline, a glistening surface of a man--a +bubble. And fog--I should be like a fainter bubble in a fog, +a surface, a greasy glimmer of humanity. Moreover, as I went +abroad--in the London air--I gathered dirt about my ankles, floating +smuts and dust upon my skin. I did not know how long it would be +before I should become visible from that cause also. But I saw +clearly it could not be for long. + +"Not in London at any rate. + +"I went into the slums towards Great Portland Street, and found +myself at the end of the street in which I had lodged. I did not +go that way, because of the crowd halfway down it opposite to the +still smoking ruins of the house I had fired. My most immediate +problem was to get clothing. What to do with my face puzzled me. +Then I saw in one of those little miscellaneous shops--news, +sweets, toys, stationery, belated Christmas tomfoolery, and so +forth--an array of masks and noses. I realised that problem was +solved. In a flash I saw my course. I turned about, no longer +aimless, and went--circuitously in order to avoid the busy ways, +towards the back streets north of the Strand; for I remembered, +though not very distinctly where, that some theatrical costumiers +had shops in that district. + +"The day was cold, with a nipping wind down the northward running +streets. I walked fast to avoid being overtaken. Every crossing was +a danger, every passenger a thing to watch alertly. One man as I +was about to pass him at the top of Bedford Street, turned upon +me abruptly and came into me, sending me into the road and almost +under the wheel of a passing hansom. The verdict of the cab-rank +was that he had had some sort of stroke. I was so unnerved by this +encounter that I went into Covent Garden Market and sat down for +some time in a quiet corner by a stall of violets, panting and +trembling. I found I had caught a fresh cold, and had to turn out +after a time lest my sneezes should attract attention. + +"At last I reached the object of my quest, a dirty, fly-blown little +shop in a by-way near Drury Lane, with a window full of tinsel +robes, sham jewels, wigs, slippers, dominoes and theatrical +photographs. The shop was old-fashioned and low and dark, and the +house rose above it for four storeys, dark and dismal. I peered +through the window and, seeing no one within, entered. The opening +of the door set a clanking bell ringing. I left it open, and walked +round a bare costume stand, into a corner behind a cheval glass. For +a minute or so no one came. Then I heard heavy feet striding across +a room, and a man appeared down the shop. + +"My plans were now perfectly definite. I proposed to make my way +into the house, secrete myself upstairs, watch my opportunity, and +when everything was quiet, rummage out a wig, mask, spectacles, and +costume, and go into the world, perhaps a grotesque but still a +credible figure. And incidentally of course I could rob the house +of any available money. + +"The man who had just entered the shop was a short, slight, +hunched, beetle-browed man, with long arms and very short bandy +legs. Apparently I had interrupted a meal. He stared about the shop +with an expression of expectation. This gave way to surprise, and +then to anger, as he saw the shop empty. 'Damn the boys!' he said. +He went to stare up and down the street. He came in again in a +minute, kicked the door to with his foot spitefully, and went +muttering back to the house door. + +"I came forward to follow him, and at the noise of my movement he +stopped dead. I did so too, startled by his quickness of ear. He +slammed the house door in my face. + +"I stood hesitating. Suddenly I heard his quick footsteps returning, +and the door reopened. He stood looking about the shop like one who +was still not satisfied. Then, murmuring to himself, he examined the +back of the counter and peered behind some fixtures. Then he stood +doubtful. He had left the house door open and I slipped into the +inner room. + +"It was a queer little room, poorly furnished and with a number of +big masks in the corner. On the table was his belated breakfast, +and it was a confoundedly exasperating thing for me, Kemp, to have +to sniff his coffee and stand watching while he came in and resumed +his meal. And his table manners were irritating. Three doors opened +into the little room, one going upstairs and one down, but they +were all shut. I could not get out of the room while he was there; +I could scarcely move because of his alertness, and there was a +draught down my back. Twice I strangled a sneeze just in time. + +"The spectacular quality of my sensations was curious and novel, but +for all that I was heartily tired and angry long before he had done +his eating. But at last he made an end and putting his beggarly +crockery on the black tin tray upon which he had had his teapot, and +gathering all the crumbs up on the mustard stained cloth, he took +the whole lot of things after him. His burden prevented his shutting +the door behind him--as he would have done; I never saw such a man +for shutting doors--and I followed him into a very dirty underground +kitchen and scullery. I had the pleasure of seeing him begin to wash +up, and then, finding no good in keeping down there, and the brick +floor being cold on my feet, I returned upstairs and sat in his +chair by the fire. It was burning low, and scarcely thinking, I put +on a little coal. The noise of this brought him up at once, and +he stood aglare. He peered about the room and was within an ace +of touching me. Even after that examination, he scarcely seemed +satisfied. He stopped in the doorway and took a final inspection +before he went down. + +"I waited in the little parlour for an age, and at last he came up +and opened the upstairs door. I just managed to get by him. + +"On the staircase he stopped suddenly, so that I very nearly +blundered into him. He stood looking back right into my face and +listening. 'I could have sworn,' he said. His long hairy hand +pulled at his lower lip. His eye went up and down the staircase. +Then he grunted and went on up again. + +"His hand was on the handle of a door, and then he stopped again +with the same puzzled anger on his face. He was becoming aware of +the faint sounds of my movements about him. The man must have had +diabolically acute hearing. He suddenly flashed into rage. 'If +there's anyone in this house--' he cried with an oath, and left the +threat unfinished. He put his hand in his pocket, failed to find +what he wanted, and rushing past me went blundering noisily and +pugnaciously downstairs. But I did not follow him. I sat on the +head of the staircase until his return. + +"Presently he came up again, still muttering. He opened the door of +the room, and before I could enter, slammed it in my face. + +"I resolved to explore the house, and spent some time in doing so +as noiselessly as possible. The house was very old and tumble-down, +damp so that the paper in the attics was peeling from the walls, and +rat infested. Some of the door handles were stiff and I was afraid +to turn them. Several rooms I did inspect were unfurnished, and +others were littered with theatrical lumber, bought second-hand, I +judged, from its appearance. In one room next to his I found a lot +of old clothes. I began routing among these, and in my eagerness +forgot again the evident sharpness of his ears. I heard a stealthy +footstep and, looking up just in time, saw him peering in at the +tumbled heap and holding an old-fashioned revolver in his hand. +I stood perfectly still while he stared about open-mouthed and +suspicious. 'It must have been her,' he said slowly. 'Damn her!' + +"He shut the door quietly, and immediately I heard the key turn in +the lock. Then his footsteps retreated. I realised abruptly that I +was locked in. For a minute I did not know what to do. I walked +from door to window and back, and stood perplexed. A gust of anger +came upon me. But I decided to inspect the clothes before I did +anything further, and my first attempt brought down a pile from an +upper shelf. This brought him back, more sinister than ever. That +time he actually touched me, jumped back with amazement and stood +astonished in the middle of the room. + +"Presently he calmed a little. 'Rats,' he said in an undertone, +fingers on lips. He was evidently a little scared. I edged quietly +out of the room, but a plank creaked. Then the infernal little brute +started going all over the house, revolver in hand and locking door +after door and pocketing the keys. When I realised what he was up to +I had a fit of rage--I could hardly control myself sufficiently to +watch my opportunity. By this time I knew he was alone in the house, +and so I made no more ado, but knocked him on the head." + +"Knocked him on the head?" exclaimed Kemp. + +"Yes--stunned him--as he was going downstairs. Hit him from +behind with a stool that stood on the landing. He went downstairs +like a bag of old boots." + +"But--I say! The common conventions of humanity--" + +"Are all very well for common people. But the point was, Kemp, that +I had to get out of that house in a disguise without his seeing me. +I couldn't think of any other way of doing it. And then I gagged +him with a Louis Quatorze vest and tied him up in a sheet." + +"Tied him up in a sheet!" + +"Made a sort of bag of it. It was rather a good idea to keep the +idiot scared and quiet, and a devilish hard thing to get out +of--head away from the string. My dear Kemp, it's no good your +sitting glaring as though I was a murderer. It had to be done. He +had his revolver. If once he saw me he would be able to describe +me--" + +"But still," said Kemp, "in England--to-day. And the man was in +his own house, and you were--well, robbing." + +"Robbing! Confound it! You'll call me a thief next! Surely, Kemp, +you're not fool enough to dance on the old strings. Can't you see +my position?" + +"And his too," said Kemp. + +The Invisible Man stood up sharply. "What do you mean to say?" + +Kemp's face grew a trifle hard. He was about to speak and checked +himself. "I suppose, after all," he said with a sudden change of +manner, "the thing had to be done. You were in a fix. But still--" + +"Of course I was in a fix--an infernal fix. And he made me wild +too--hunting me about the house, fooling about with his revolver, +locking and unlocking doors. He was simply exasperating. You don't +blame me, do you? You don't blame me?" + +"I never blame anyone," said Kemp. "It's quite out of fashion. What +did you do next?" + +"I was hungry. Downstairs I found a loaf and some rank cheese--more +than sufficient to satisfy my hunger. I took some brandy and +water, and then went up past my impromptu bag--he was lying quite +still--to the room containing the old clothes. This looked out +upon the street, two lace curtains brown with dirt guarding the +window. I went and peered out through their interstices. Outside +the day was bright--by contrast with the brown shadows of the +dismal house in which I found myself, dazzlingly bright. A brisk +traffic was going by, fruit carts, a hansom, a four-wheeler with a +pile of boxes, a fishmonger's cart. I turned with spots of colour +swimming before my eyes to the shadowy fixtures behind me. My +excitement was giving place to a clear apprehension of my position +again. The room was full of a faint scent of benzoline, used, I +suppose, in cleaning the garments. + +"I began a systematic search of the place. I should judge the +hunchback had been alone in the house for some time. He was a +curious person. Everything that could possibly be of service to me +I collected in the clothes storeroom, and then I made a deliberate +selection. I found a handbag I thought a suitable possession, and +some powder, rouge, and sticking-plaster. + +"I had thought of painting and powdering my face and all that +there was to show of me, in order to render myself visible, but +the disadvantage of this lay in the fact that I should require +turpentine and other appliances and a considerable amount of time +before I could vanish again. Finally I chose a mask of the better +type, slightly grotesque but not more so than many human beings, +dark glasses, greyish whiskers, and a wig. I could find no +underclothing, but that I could buy subsequently, and for the time I +swathed myself in calico dominoes and some white cashmere scarfs. I +could find no socks, but the hunchback's boots were rather a loose +fit and sufficed. In a desk in the shop were three sovereigns and +about thirty shillings' worth of silver, and in a locked cupboard I +burst in the inner room were eight pounds in gold. I could go forth +into the world again, equipped. + +"Then came a curious hesitation. Was my appearance really +credible? I tried myself with a little bedroom looking-glass, +inspecting myself from every point of view to discover any +forgotten chink, but it all seemed sound. I was grotesque to the +theatrical pitch, a stage miser, but I was certainly not a physical +impossibility. Gathering confidence, I took my looking-glass down +into the shop, pulled down the shop blinds, and surveyed myself +from every point of view with the help of the cheval glass in the +corner. + +"I spent some minutes screwing up my courage and then unlocked the +shop door and marched out into the street, leaving the little man +to get out of his sheet again when he liked. In five minutes a +dozen turnings intervened between me and the costumier's shop. No +one appeared to notice me very pointedly. My last difficulty seemed +overcome." + +He stopped again. + +"And you troubled no more about the hunchback?" said Kemp. + +"No," said the Invisible Man. "Nor have I heard what became of him. +I suppose he untied himself or kicked himself out. The knots were +pretty tight." + +He became silent and went to the window and stared out. + +"What happened when you went out into the Strand?" + +"Oh!--disillusionment again. I thought my troubles were over. +Practically I thought I had impunity to do whatever I chose, +everything--save to give away my secret. So I thought. Whatever I +did, whatever the consequences might be, was nothing to me. I had +merely to fling aside my garments and vanish. No person could hold +me. I could take my money where I found it. I decided to treat +myself to a sumptuous feast, and then put up at a good hotel, and +accumulate a new outfit of property. I felt amazingly confident; +it's not particularly pleasant recalling that I was an ass. I went +into a place and was already ordering lunch, when it occurred to me +that I could not eat unless I exposed my invisible face. I finished +ordering the lunch, told the man I should be back in ten minutes, +and went out exasperated. I don't know if you have ever been +disappointed in your appetite." + +"Not quite so badly," said Kemp, "but I can imagine it." + +"I could have smashed the silly devils. At last, faint with the +desire for tasteful food, I went into another place and demanded a +private room. 'I am disfigured,' I said. 'Badly.' They looked at +me curiously, but of course it was not their affair--and so at +last I got my lunch. It was not particularly well served, but it +sufficed; and when I had had it, I sat over a cigar, trying to plan +my line of action. And outside a snowstorm was beginning. + +"The more I thought it over, Kemp, the more I realised what a +helpless absurdity an Invisible Man was--in a cold and dirty +climate and a crowded civilised city. Before I made this mad +experiment I had dreamt of a thousand advantages. That afternoon +it seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things +a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible +to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they +are got. Ambition--what is the good of pride of place when you +cannot appear there? What is the good of the love of woman when +her name must needs be Delilah? I have no taste for politics, for +the blackguardisms of fame, for philanthropy, for sport. What was +I to do? And for this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed +and bandaged caricature of a man!" + +He paused, and his attitude suggested a roving glance at the +window. + +"But how did you get to Iping?" said Kemp, anxious to keep his +guest busy talking. + +"I went there to work. I had one hope. It was a half idea! I have +it still. It is a full blown idea now. A way of getting back! Of +restoring what I have done. When I choose. When I have done all I +mean to do invisibly. And that is what I chiefly want to talk to +you about now." + +"You went straight to Iping?" + +"Yes. I had simply to get my three volumes of memoranda and my +cheque-book, my luggage and underclothing, order a quantity of +chemicals to work out this idea of mine--I will show you the +calculations as soon as I get my books--and then I started. Jove! +I remember the snowstorm now, and the accursed bother it was to +keep the snow from damping my pasteboard nose." + +"At the end," said Kemp, "the day before yesterday, when they found +you out, you rather--to judge by the papers--" + +"I did. Rather. Did I kill that fool of a constable?" + +"No," said Kemp. "He's expected to recover." + +"That's his luck, then. I clean lost my temper, the fools! Why +couldn't they leave me alone? And that grocer lout?" + +"There are no deaths expected," said Kemp. + +"I don't know about that tramp of mine," said the Invisible Man, +with an unpleasant laugh. + +"By Heaven, Kemp, you don't know what rage is! ... To have worked +for years, to have planned and plotted, and then to get some +fumbling purblind idiot messing across your course! ... Every +conceivable sort of silly creature that has ever been created has +been sent to cross me. + +"If I have much more of it, I shall go wild--I shall start +mowing 'em. + +"As it is, they've made things a thousand times more difficult." + +"No doubt it's exasperating," said Kemp, drily. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE PLAN THAT FAILED + + +"But now," said Kemp, with a side glance out of the window, "what +are we to do?" + +He moved nearer his guest as he spoke in such a manner as to +prevent the possibility of a sudden glimpse of the three men who +were advancing up the hill road--with an intolerable slowness, as +it seemed to Kemp. + +"What were you planning to do when you were heading for Port +Burdock? Had you any plan?" + +"I was going to clear out of the country. But I have altered that +plan rather since seeing you. I thought it would be wise, now the +weather is hot and invisibility possible, to make for the South. +Especially as my secret was known, and everyone would be on the +lookout for a masked and muffled man. You have a line of steamers +from here to France. My idea was to get aboard one and run the +risks of the passage. Thence I could go by train into Spain, or else +get to Algiers. It would not be difficult. There a man might always +be invisible--and yet live. And do things. I was using that tramp +as a money box and luggage carrier, until I decided how to get my +books and things sent over to meet me." + +"That's clear." + +"And then the filthy brute must needs try and rob me! He _has_ hidden +my books, Kemp. Hidden my books! If I can lay my hands on him!" + +"Best plan to get the books out of him first." + +"But where is he? Do you know?" + +"He's in the town police station, locked up, by his own request, in +the strongest cell in the place." + +"Cur!" said the Invisible Man. + +"But that hangs up your plans a little." + +"We must get those books; those books are vital." + +"Certainly," said Kemp, a little nervously, wondering if he heard +footsteps outside. "Certainly we must get those books. But that +won't be difficult, if he doesn't know they're for you." + +"No," said the Invisible Man, and thought. + +Kemp tried to think of something to keep the talk going, but the +Invisible Man resumed of his own accord. + +"Blundering into your house, Kemp," he said, "changes all my plans. +For you are a man that can understand. In spite of all that has +happened, in spite of this publicity, of the loss of my books, of +what I have suffered, there still remain great possibilities, huge +possibilities--" + +"You have told no one I am here?" he asked abruptly. + +Kemp hesitated. "That was implied," he said. + +"No one?" insisted Griffin. + +"Not a soul." + +"Ah! Now--" The Invisible Man stood up, and sticking his arms akimbo +began to pace the study. + +"I made a mistake, Kemp, a huge mistake, in carrying this thing +through alone. I have wasted strength, time, opportunities. Alone--it +is wonderful how little a man can do alone! To rob a little, +to hurt a little, and there is the end. + +"What I want, Kemp, is a goal-keeper, a helper, and a hiding-place, +an arrangement whereby I can sleep and eat and rest in peace, and +unsuspected. I must have a confederate. With a confederate, with +food and rest--a thousand things are possible. + +"Hitherto I have gone on vague lines. We have to consider all that +invisibility means, all that it does not mean. It means little +advantage for eavesdropping and so forth--one makes sounds. It's +of little help--a little help perhaps--in housebreaking and so +forth. Once you've caught me you could easily imprison me. But on +the other hand I am hard to catch. This invisibility, in fact, is +only good in two cases: It's useful in getting away, it's useful in +approaching. It's particularly useful, therefore, in killing. I can +walk round a man, whatever weapon he has, choose my point, strike +as I like. Dodge as I like. Escape as I like." + +Kemp's hand went to his moustache. Was that a movement +downstairs? + +"And it is killing we must do, Kemp." + +"It is killing we must do," repeated Kemp. "I'm listening to your +plan, Griffin, but I'm not agreeing, mind. _Why_ killing?" + +"Not wanton killing, but a judicious slaying. The point is, they +know there is an Invisible Man--as well as we know there is an +Invisible Man. And that Invisible Man, Kemp, must now establish a +Reign of Terror. Yes; no doubt it's startling. But I mean it. A +Reign of Terror. He must take some town like your Burdock and +terrify and dominate it. He must issue his orders. He can do that +in a thousand ways--scraps of paper thrust under doors would +suffice. And all who disobey his orders he must kill, and kill +all who would defend them." + +"Humph!" said Kemp, no longer listening to Griffin but to the sound +of his front door opening and closing. + +"It seems to me, Griffin," he said, to cover his wandering +attention, "that your confederate would be in a difficult +position." + +"No one would know he was a confederate," said the Invisible Man, +eagerly. And then suddenly, "Hush! What's that downstairs?" + +"Nothing," said Kemp, and suddenly began to speak loud and fast. +"I don't agree to this, Griffin," he said. "Understand me, I don't +agree to this. Why dream of playing a game against the race? How +can you hope to gain happiness? Don't be a lone wolf. Publish +your results; take the world--take the nation at least--into your +confidence. Think what you might do with a million helpers--" + +The Invisible Man interrupted--arm extended. "There are +footsteps coming upstairs," he said in a low voice. + +"Nonsense," said Kemp. + +"Let me see," said the Invisible Man, and advanced, arm extended, +to the door. + +And then things happened very swiftly. Kemp hesitated for a second +and then moved to intercept him. The Invisible Man started and stood +still. "Traitor!" cried the Voice, and suddenly the dressing-gown +opened, and sitting down the Unseen began to disrobe. Kemp made +three swift steps to the door, and forthwith the Invisible Man--his +legs had vanished--sprang to his feet with a shout. Kemp flung the +door open. + +As it opened, there came a sound of hurrying feet downstairs and +voices. + +With a quick movement Kemp thrust the Invisible Man back, sprang +aside, and slammed the door. The key was outside and ready. In +another moment Griffin would have been alone in the belvedere +study, a prisoner. Save for one little thing. The key had been +slipped in hastily that morning. As Kemp slammed the door it fell +noisily upon the carpet. + +Kemp's face became white. He tried to grip the door handle with +both hands. For a moment he stood lugging. Then the door gave six +inches. But he got it closed again. The second time it was jerked a +foot wide, and the dressing-gown came wedging itself into the +opening. His throat was gripped by invisible fingers, and he left +his hold on the handle to defend himself. He was forced back, +tripped and pitched heavily into the corner of the landing. The +empty dressing-gown was flung on the top of him. + +Halfway up the staircase was Colonel Adye, the recipient of Kemp's +letter, the chief of the Burdock police. He was staring aghast at +the sudden appearance of Kemp, followed by the extraordinary sight +of clothing tossing empty in the air. He saw Kemp felled, and +struggling to his feet. He saw him rush forward, and go down again, +felled like an ox. + +Then suddenly he was struck violently. By nothing! A vast weight, +it seemed, leapt upon him, and he was hurled headlong down the +staircase, with a grip on his throat and a knee in his groin. An +invisible foot trod on his back, a ghostly patter passed downstairs, +he heard the two police officers in the hall shout and run, and the +front door of the house slammed violently. + +He rolled over and sat up staring. He saw, staggering down the +staircase, Kemp, dusty and disheveled, one side of his face white +from a blow, his lip bleeding, and a pink dressing-gown and some +underclothing held in his arms. + +"My God!" cried Kemp, "the game's up! He's gone!" + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE HUNTING OF THE INVISIBLE MAN + + +For a space Kemp was too inarticulate to make Adye understand the +swift things that had just happened. They stood on the landing, +Kemp speaking swiftly, the grotesque swathings of Griffin still on +his arm. But presently Adye began to grasp something of the +situation. + +"He is mad," said Kemp; "inhuman. He is pure selfishness. He thinks +of nothing but his own advantage, his own safety. I have listened +to such a story this morning of brutal self-seeking.... He has wounded +men. He will kill them unless we can prevent him. He will create a +panic. Nothing can stop him. He is going out now--furious!" + +"He must be caught," said Adye. "That is certain." + +"But how?" cried Kemp, and suddenly became full of ideas. "You must +begin at once. You must set every available man to work; you must +prevent his leaving this district. Once he gets away, he may go +through the countryside as he wills, killing and maiming. He dreams +of a reign of terror! A reign of terror, I tell you. You must set a +watch on trains and roads and shipping. The garrison must help. You +must wire for help. The only thing that may keep him here is the +thought of recovering some books of notes he counts of value. I will +tell you of that! There is a man in your police station--Marvel." + +"I know," said Adye, "I know. Those books--yes. But the tramp...." + +"Says he hasn't them. But he thinks the tramp has. And you must +prevent him from eating or sleeping; day and night the country must +be astir for him. Food must be locked up and secured, all food, so +that he will have to break his way to it. The houses everywhere must +be barred against him. Heaven send us cold nights and rain! The +whole country-side must begin hunting and keep hunting. I tell you, +Adye, he is a danger, a disaster; unless he is pinned and secured, +it is frightful to think of the things that may happen." + +"What else can we do?" said Adye. "I must go down at once and begin +organising. But why not come? Yes--you come too! Come, and we +must hold a sort of council of war--get Hopps to help--and the +railway managers. By Jove! it's urgent. Come along--tell me as we +go. What else is there we can do? Put that stuff down." + +In another moment Adye was leading the way downstairs. They found +the front door open and the policemen standing outside staring at +empty air. "He's got away, sir," said one. + +"We must go to the central station at once," said Adye. "One of you +go on down and get a cab to come up and meet us--quickly. And +now, Kemp, what else?" + +"Dogs," said Kemp. "Get dogs. They don't see him, but they wind +him. Get dogs." + +"Good," said Adye. "It's not generally known, but the prison +officials over at Halstead know a man with bloodhounds. Dogs. What +else?" + +"Bear in mind," said Kemp, "his food shows. After eating, his food +shows until it is assimilated. So that he has to hide after eating. +You must keep on beating. Every thicket, every quiet corner. And +put all weapons--all implements that might be weapons, away. He +can't carry such things for long. And what he can snatch up and +strike men with must be hidden away." + +"Good again," said Adye. "We shall have him yet!" + +"And on the roads," said Kemp, and hesitated. + +"Yes?" said Adye. + +"Powdered glass," said Kemp. "It's cruel, I know. But think of what +he may do!" + +Adye drew the air in sharply between his teeth. "It's +unsportsmanlike. I don't know. But I'll have powdered glass got +ready. If he goes too far...." + +"The man's become inhuman, I tell you," said Kemp. "I am as sure he +will establish a reign of terror--so soon as he has got over the +emotions of this escape--as I am sure I am talking to you. Our +only chance is to be ahead. He has cut himself off from his kind. +His blood be upon his own head." + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE WICKSTEED MURDER + + +The Invisible Man seems to have rushed out of Kemp's house in a +state of blind fury. A little child playing near Kemp's gateway was +violently caught up and thrown aside, so that its ankle was broken, +and thereafter for some hours the Invisible Man passed out of human +perceptions. No one knows where he went nor what he did. But one +can imagine him hurrying through the hot June forenoon, up the +hill and on to the open downland behind Port Burdock, raging and +despairing at his intolerable fate, and sheltering at last, heated +and weary, amid the thickets of Hintondean, to piece together again +his shattered schemes against his species. That seems to most +probable refuge for him, for there it was he re-asserted himself in +a grimly tragical manner about two in the afternoon. + +One wonders what his state of mind may have been during that time, +and what plans he devised. No doubt he was almost ecstatically +exasperated by Kemp's treachery, and though we may be able to +understand the motives that led to that deceit, we may still +imagine and even sympathise a little with the fury the attempted +surprise must have occasioned. Perhaps something of the stunned +astonishment of his Oxford Street experiences may have returned to +him, for he had evidently counted on Kemp's co-operation in his +brutal dream of a terrorised world. At any rate he vanished from +human ken about midday, and no living witness can tell what he did +until about half-past two. It was a fortunate thing, perhaps, for +humanity, but for him it was a fatal inaction. + +During that time a growing multitude of men scattered over the +countryside were busy. In the morning he had still been simply a +legend, a terror; in the afternoon, by virtue chiefly of Kemp's +drily worded proclamation, he was presented as a tangible +antagonist, to be wounded, captured, or overcome, and the +countryside began organising itself with inconceivable rapidity. +By two o'clock even he might still have removed himself out of +the district by getting aboard a train, but after two that became +impossible. Every passenger train along the lines on a great +parallelogram between Southampton, Manchester, Brighton and Horsham, +travelled with locked doors, and the goods traffic was almost +entirely suspended. And in a great circle of twenty miles round Port +Burdock, men armed with guns and bludgeons were presently setting +out in groups of three and four, with dogs, to beat the roads and +fields. + +Mounted policemen rode along the country lanes, stopping at every +cottage and warning the people to lock up their houses, and keep +indoors unless they were armed, and all the elementary schools had +broken up by three o'clock, and the children, scared and keeping +together in groups, were hurrying home. Kemp's proclamation--signed +indeed by Adye--was posted over almost the whole district by four or +five o'clock in the afternoon. It gave briefly but clearly all the +conditions of the struggle, the necessity of keeping the Invisible +Man from food and sleep, the necessity for incessant watchfulness +and for a prompt attention to any evidence of his movements. And +so swift and decided was the action of the authorities, so prompt +and universal was the belief in this strange being, that before +nightfall an area of several hundred square miles was in a stringent +state of siege. And before nightfall, too, a thrill of horror +went through the whole watching nervous countryside. Going from +whispering mouth to mouth, swift and certain over the length and +breadth of the country, passed the story of the murder of Mr. +Wicksteed. + +If our supposition that the Invisible Man's refuge was the +Hintondean thickets, then we must suppose that in the early +afternoon he sallied out again bent upon some project that involved +the use of a weapon. We cannot know what the project was, but the +evidence that he had the iron rod in hand before he met Wicksteed +is to me at least overwhelming. + +Of course we can know nothing of the details of that encounter. +It occurred on the edge of a gravel pit, not two hundred yards +from Lord Burdock's lodge gate. Everything points to a desperate +struggle--the trampled ground, the numerous wounds Mr. Wicksteed +received, his splintered walking-stick; but why the attack was made, +save in a murderous frenzy, it is impossible to imagine. Indeed the +theory of madness is almost unavoidable. Mr. Wicksteed was a man of +forty-five or forty-six, steward to Lord Burdock, of inoffensive +habits and appearance, the very last person in the world to provoke +such a terrible antagonist. Against him it would seem the Invisible +Man used an iron rod dragged from a broken piece of fence. He +stopped this quiet man, going quietly home to his midday meal, +attacked him, beat down his feeble defences, broke his arm, felled +him, and smashed his head to a jelly. + +Of course, he must have dragged this rod out of the fencing before +he met his victim--he must have been carrying it ready in his hand. +Only two details beyond what has already been stated seem to bear +on the matter. One is the circumstance that the gravel pit was not +in Mr. Wicksteed's direct path home, but nearly a couple of hundred +yards out of his way. The other is the assertion of a little girl +to the effect that, going to her afternoon school, she saw the +murdered man "trotting" in a peculiar manner across a field towards +the gravel pit. Her pantomime of his action suggests a man pursuing +something on the ground before him and striking at it ever and +again with his walking-stick. She was the last person to see him +alive. He passed out of her sight to his death, the struggle being +hidden from her only by a clump of beech trees and a slight +depression in the ground. + +Now this, to the present writer's mind at least, lifts the murder +out of the realm of the absolutely wanton. We may imagine that +Griffin had taken the rod as a weapon indeed, but without any +deliberate intention of using it in murder. Wicksteed may then have +come by and noticed this rod inexplicably moving through the air. +Without any thought of the Invisible Man--for Port Burdock is ten +miles away--he may have pursued it. It is quite conceivable that +he may not even have heard of the Invisible Man. One can then +imagine the Invisible Man making off--quietly in order to avoid +discovering his presence in the neighbourhood, and Wicksteed, +excited and curious, pursuing this unaccountably locomotive +object--finally striking at it. + +No doubt the Invisible Man could easily have distanced his +middle-aged pursuer under ordinary circumstances, but the position +in which Wicksteed's body was found suggests that he had the +ill luck to drive his quarry into a corner between a drift of +stinging nettles and the gravel pit. To those who appreciate the +extraordinary irascibility of the Invisible Man, the rest of the +encounter will be easy to imagine. + +But this is pure hypothesis. The only undeniable facts--for stories +of children are often unreliable--are the discovery of Wicksteed's +body, done to death, and of the blood-stained iron rod flung among +the nettles. The abandonment of the rod by Griffin, suggests that +in the emotional excitement of the affair, the purpose for which +he took it--if he had a purpose--was abandoned. He was certainly +an intensely egotistical and unfeeling man, but the sight of his +victim, his first victim, bloody and pitiful at his feet, may have +released some long pent fountain of remorse which for a time may +have flooded whatever scheme of action he had contrived. + +After the murder of Mr. Wicksteed, he would seem to have struck +across the country towards the downland. There is a story of a +voice heard about sunset by a couple of men in a field near Fern +Bottom. It was wailing and laughing, sobbing and groaning, and ever +and again it shouted. It must have been queer hearing. It drove up +across the middle of a clover field and died away towards the +hills. + +That afternoon the Invisible Man must have learnt something of +the rapid use Kemp had made of his confidences. He must have +found houses locked and secured; he may have loitered about +railway stations and prowled about inns, and no doubt he read the +proclamations and realised something of the nature of the campaign +against him. And as the evening advanced, the fields became dotted +here and there with groups of three or four men, and noisy with the +yelping of dogs. These men-hunters had particular instructions in +the case of an encounter as to the way they should support one +another. But he avoided them all. We may understand something of +his exasperation, and it could have been none the less because +he himself had supplied the information that was being used so +remorselessly against him. For that day at least he lost heart; for +nearly twenty-four hours, save when he turned on Wicksteed, he was +a hunted man. In the night, he must have eaten and slept; for in +the morning he was himself again, active, powerful, angry, and +malignant, prepared for his last great struggle against the world. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE SIEGE OF KEMP'S HOUSE + + +Kemp read a strange missive, written in pencil on a greasy sheet of +paper. + +"You have been amazingly energetic and clever," this letter ran, +"though what you stand to gain by it I cannot imagine. You are +against me. For a whole day you have chased me; you have tried to +rob me of a night's rest. But I have had food in spite of you, I +have slept in spite of you, and the game is only beginning. The +game is only beginning. There is nothing for it, but to start the +Terror. This announces the first day of the Terror. Port Burdock +is no longer under the Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and +the rest of them; it is under me--the Terror! This is day one of +year one of the new epoch--the Epoch of the Invisible Man. I am +Invisible Man the First. To begin with the rule will be easy. The +first day there will be one execution for the sake of example--a +man named Kemp. Death starts for him to-day. He may lock himself +away, hide himself away, get guards about him, put on armour +if he likes--Death, the unseen Death, is coming. Let him take +precautions; it will impress my people. Death starts from the +pillar box by midday. The letter will fall in as the postman comes +along, then off! The game begins. Death starts. Help him not, my +people, lest Death fall upon you also. To-day Kemp is to die." + +Kemp read this letter twice, "It's no hoax," he said. "That's +his voice! And he means it." + +He turned the folded sheet over and saw on the addressed side of it +the postmark Hintondean, and the prosaic detail "2d. to pay." + +He got up slowly, leaving his lunch unfinished--the letter had +come by the one o'clock post--and went into his study. He rang +for his housekeeper, and told her to go round the house at once, +examine all the fastenings of the windows, and close all the +shutters. He closed the shutters of his study himself. From a +locked drawer in his bedroom he took a little revolver, examined it +carefully, and put it into the pocket of his lounge jacket. He +wrote a number of brief notes, one to Colonel Adye, gave them to +his servant to take, with explicit instructions as to her way of +leaving the house. "There is no danger," he said, and added a +mental reservation, "to you." He remained meditative for a space +after doing this, and then returned to his cooling lunch. + +He ate with gaps of thought. Finally he struck the table sharply. +"We will have him!" he said; "and I am the bait. He will come too +far." + +He went up to the belvedere, carefully shutting every door after +him. "It's a game," he said, "an odd game--but the chances are +all for me, Mr. Griffin, in spite of your invisibility. Griffin +contra mundum ... with a vengeance." + +He stood at the window staring at the hot hillside. "He must get +food every day--and I don't envy him. Did he really sleep last +night? Out in the open somewhere--secure from collisions. I wish +we could get some good cold wet weather instead of the heat. + +"He may be watching me now." + +He went close to the window. Something rapped smartly against the +brickwork over the frame, and made him start violently back. + +"I'm getting nervous," said Kemp. But it was five minutes before he +went to the window again. "It must have been a sparrow," he said. + +Presently he heard the front-door bell ringing, and hurried +downstairs. He unbolted and unlocked the door, examined the chain, +put it up, and opened cautiously without showing himself. A +familiar voice hailed him. It was Adye. + +"Your servant's been assaulted, Kemp," he said round the door. + +"What!" exclaimed Kemp. + +"Had that note of yours taken away from her. He's close about here. +Let me in." + +Kemp released the chain, and Adye entered through as narrow an +opening as possible. He stood in the hall, looking with infinite +relief at Kemp refastening the door. "Note was snatched out of her +hand. Scared her horribly. She's down at the station. Hysterics. +He's close here. What was it about?" + +Kemp swore. + +"What a fool I was," said Kemp. "I might have known. It's not an +hour's walk from Hintondean. Already?" + +"What's up?" said Adye. + +"Look here!" said Kemp, and led the way into his study. He handed +Adye the Invisible Man's letter. Adye read it and whistled softly. +"And you--?" said Adye. + +"Proposed a trap--like a fool," said Kemp, "and sent my proposal +out by a maid servant. To him." + +Adye followed Kemp's profanity. + +"He'll clear out," said Adye. + +"Not he," said Kemp. + +A resounding smash of glass came from upstairs. Adye had a silvery +glimpse of a little revolver half out of Kemp's pocket. "It's a +window, upstairs!" said Kemp, and led the way up. There came a +second smash while they were still on the staircase. When they +reached the study they found two of the three windows smashed, +half the room littered with splintered glass, and one big flint +lying on the writing table. The two men stopped in the doorway, +contemplating the wreckage. Kemp swore again, and as he did so the +third window went with a snap like a pistol, hung starred for a +moment, and collapsed in jagged, shivering triangles into the room. + +"What's this for?" said Adye. + +"It's a beginning," said Kemp. + +"There's no way of climbing up here?" + +"Not for a cat," said Kemp. + +"No shutters?" + +"Not here. All the downstairs rooms--Hullo!" + +Smash, and then whack of boards hit hard came from downstairs. +"Confound him!" said Kemp. "That must be--yes--it's one of the +bedrooms. He's going to do all the house. But he's a fool. The +shutters are up, and the glass will fall outside. He'll cut his +feet." + +Another window proclaimed its destruction. The two men stood on the +landing perplexed. "I have it!" said Adye. "Let me have a stick or +something, and I'll go down to the station and get the bloodhounds +put on. That ought to settle him! They're hard by--not ten +minutes--" + +Another window went the way of its fellows. + +"You haven't a revolver?" asked Adye. + +Kemp's hand went to his pocket. Then he hesitated. "I haven't +one--at least to spare." + +"I'll bring it back," said Adye, "you'll be safe here." + +Kemp, ashamed of his momentary lapse from truthfulness, handed him +the weapon. + +"Now for the door," said Adye. + +As they stood hesitating in the hall, they heard one of the +first-floor bedroom windows crack and clash. Kemp went to the door +and began to slip the bolts as silently as possible. His face was a +little paler than usual. "You must step straight out," said Kemp. In +another moment Adye was on the doorstep and the bolts were dropping +back into the staples. He hesitated for a moment, feeling more +comfortable with his back against the door. Then he marched, upright +and square, down the steps. He crossed the lawn and approached the +gate. A little breeze seemed to ripple over the grass. Something +moved near him. "Stop a bit," said a Voice, and Adye stopped dead +and his hand tightened on the revolver. + +"Well?" said Adye, white and grim, and every nerve tense. + +"Oblige me by going back to the house," said the Voice, as tense +and grim as Adye's. + +"Sorry," said Adye a little hoarsely, and moistened his lips with +his tongue. The Voice was on his left front, he thought. Suppose he +were to take his luck with a shot? + +"What are you going for?" said the Voice, and there was a quick +movement of the two, and a flash of sunlight from the open lip of +Adye's pocket. + +Adye desisted and thought. "Where I go," he said slowly, "is my own +business." The words were still on his lips, when an arm came round +his neck, his back felt a knee, and he was sprawling backward. He +drew clumsily and fired absurdly, and in another moment he was +struck in the mouth and the revolver wrested from his grip. He made +a vain clutch at a slippery limb, tried to struggle up and fell +back. "Damn!" said Adye. The Voice laughed. "I'd kill you now if it +wasn't the waste of a bullet," it said. He saw the revolver in +mid-air, six feet off, covering him. + +"Well?" said Adye, sitting up. + +"Get up," said the Voice. + +Adye stood up. + +"Attention," said the Voice, and then fiercely, "Don't try any +games. Remember I can see your face if you can't see mine. You've +got to go back to the house." + +"He won't let me in," said Adye. + +"That's a pity," said the Invisible Man. "I've got no quarrel with +you." + +Adye moistened his lips again. He glanced away from the barrel of +the revolver and saw the sea far off very blue and dark under the +midday sun, the smooth green down, the white cliff of the Head, and +the multitudinous town, and suddenly he knew that life was very +sweet. His eyes came back to this little metal thing hanging +between heaven and earth, six yards away. "What am I to do?" he +said sullenly. + +"What am _I_ to do?" asked the Invisible Man. "You will get help. The +only thing is for you to go back." + +"I will try. If he lets me in will you promise not to rush the +door?" + +"I've got no quarrel with you," said the Voice. + +Kemp had hurried upstairs after letting Adye out, and now crouching +among the broken glass and peering cautiously over the edge of the +study window sill, he saw Adye stand parleying with the Unseen. +"Why doesn't he fire?" whispered Kemp to himself. Then the revolver +moved a little and the glint of the sunlight flashed in Kemp's +eyes. He shaded his eyes and tried to see the source of the +blinding beam. + +"Surely!" he said, "Adye has given up the revolver." + +"Promise not to rush the door," Adye was saying. "Don't push a +winning game too far. Give a man a chance." + +"You go back to the house. I tell you flatly I will not promise +anything." + +Adye's decision seemed suddenly made. He turned towards the house, +walking slowly with his hands behind him. Kemp watched him--puzzled. +The revolver vanished, flashed again into sight, vanished again, +and became evident on a closer scrutiny as a little dark object +following Adye. Then things happened very quickly. Adye leapt +backwards, swung around, clutched at this little object, missed it, +threw up his hands and fell forward on his face, leaving a little +puff of blue in the air. Kemp did not hear the sound of the shot. +Adye writhed, raised himself on one arm, fell forward, and lay +still. + +For a space Kemp remained staring at the quiet carelessness of +Adye's attitude. The afternoon was very hot and still, nothing +seemed stirring in all the world save a couple of yellow butterflies +chasing each other through the shrubbery between the house and the +road gate. Adye lay on the lawn near the gate. The blinds of all +the villas down the hill-road were drawn, but in one little green +summer-house was a white figure, apparently an old man asleep. Kemp +scrutinised the surroundings of the house for a glimpse of the +revolver, but it had vanished. His eyes came back to Adye. The game +was opening well. + +Then came a ringing and knocking at the front door, that grew at +last tumultuous, but pursuant to Kemp's instructions the servants +had locked themselves into their rooms. This was followed by a +silence. Kemp sat listening and then began peering cautiously out +of the three windows, one after another. He went to the staircase +head and stood listening uneasily. He armed himself with his +bedroom poker, and went to examine the interior fastenings of the +ground-floor windows again. Everything was safe and quiet. He +returned to the belvedere. Adye lay motionless over the edge of the +gravel just as he had fallen. Coming along the road by the villas +were the housemaid and two policemen. + +Everything was deadly still. The three people seemed very slow in +approaching. He wondered what his antagonist was doing. + +He started. There was a smash from below. He hesitated and went +downstairs again. Suddenly the house resounded with heavy blows and +the splintering of wood. He heard a smash and the destructive clang +of the iron fastenings of the shutters. He turned the key and +opened the kitchen door. As he did so, the shutters, split and +splintering, came flying inward. He stood aghast. The window frame, +save for one crossbar, was still intact, but only little teeth of +glass remained in the frame. The shutters had been driven in with +an axe, and now the axe was descending in sweeping blows upon the +window frame and the iron bars defending it. Then suddenly it leapt +aside and vanished. He saw the revolver lying on the path outside, +and then the little weapon sprang into the air. He dodged back. The +revolver cracked just too late, and a splinter from the edge of the +closing door flashed over his head. He slammed and locked the door, +and as he stood outside he heard Griffin shouting and laughing. +Then the blows of the axe with its splitting and smashing +consequences, were resumed. + +Kemp stood in the passage trying to think. In a moment the +Invisible Man would be in the kitchen. This door would not keep him +a moment, and then-- + +A ringing came at the front door again. It would be the policemen. +He ran into the hall, put up the chain, and drew the bolts. He made +the girl speak before he dropped the chain, and the three people +blundered into the house in a heap, and Kemp slammed the door +again. + +"The Invisible Man!" said Kemp. "He has a revolver, with two +shots--left. He's killed Adye. Shot him anyhow. Didn't you see him on +the lawn? He's lying there." + +"Who?" said one of the policemen. + +"Adye," said Kemp. + +"We came in the back way," said the girl. + +"What's that smashing?" asked one of the policemen. + +"He's in the kitchen--or will be. He has found an axe--" + +Suddenly the house was full of the Invisible Man's resounding +blows on the kitchen door. The girl stared towards the kitchen, +shuddered, and retreated into the dining-room. Kemp tried to +explain in broken sentences. They heard the kitchen door give. + +"This way," said Kemp, starting into activity, and bundled the +policemen into the dining-room doorway. + +"Poker," said Kemp, and rushed to the fender. He handed the poker +he had carried to the policeman and the dining-room one to the +other. He suddenly flung himself backward. + +"Whup!" said one policeman, ducked, and caught the axe on his poker. +The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable Sidney +Cooper. The second policeman brought his poker down on the little +weapon, as one might knock down a wasp, and sent it rattling to the +floor. + +At the first clash the girl screamed, stood screaming for a moment +by the fireplace, and then ran to open the shutters--possibly +with an idea of escaping by the shattered window. + +The axe receded into the passage, and fell to a position about two +feet from the ground. They could hear the Invisible Man breathing. +"Stand away, you two," he said. "I want that man Kemp." + +"We want you," said the first policeman, making a quick step +forward and wiping with his poker at the Voice. The Invisible Man +must have started back, and he blundered into the umbrella stand. + +Then, as the policeman staggered with the swing of the blow he had +aimed, the Invisible Man countered with the axe, the helmet crumpled +like paper, and the blow sent the man spinning to the floor at the +head of the kitchen stairs. But the second policeman, aiming behind +the axe with his poker, hit something soft that snapped. There was a +sharp exclamation of pain and then the axe fell to the ground. The +policeman wiped again at vacancy and hit nothing; he put his foot on +the axe, and struck again. Then he stood, poker clubbed, listening +intent for the slightest movement. + +He heard the dining-room window open, and a quick rush of feet +within. His companion rolled over and sat up, with the blood +running down between his eye and ear. "Where is he?" asked the man +on the floor. + +"Don't know. I've hit him. He's standing somewhere in the hall. +Unless he's slipped past you. Doctor Kemp--sir." + +Pause. + +"Doctor Kemp," cried the policeman again. + +The second policeman began struggling to his feet. He stood up. +Suddenly the faint pad of bare feet on the kitchen stairs could be +heard. "Yap!" cried the first policeman, and incontinently flung +his poker. It smashed a little gas bracket. + +He made as if he would pursue the Invisible Man downstairs. Then he +throught better of it and stepped into the dining-room. + +"Doctor Kemp--" he began, and stopped short. + +"Doctor Kemp's a hero," he said, as his companion looked over his +shoulder. + +The dining-room window was wide open, and neither housemaid nor +Kemp was to be seen. + +The second policeman's opinion of Kemp was terse and vivid. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE HUNTER HUNTED + + +Mr. Heelas, Mr. Kemp's nearest neighbour among the villa holders, +was asleep in his summer house when the siege of Kemp's house +began. Mr. Heelas was one of the sturdy minority who refused to +believe "in all this nonsense" about an Invisible Man. His wife, +however, as he was subsequently to be reminded, did. He insisted +upon walking about his garden just as if nothing was the matter, +and he went to sleep in the afternoon in accordance with the custom +of years. He slept through the smashing of the windows, and then +woke up suddenly with a curious persuasion of something wrong. He +looked across at Kemp's house, rubbed his eyes and looked again. +Then he put his feet to the ground, and sat listening. He said he +was damned, but still the strange thing was visible. The house +looked as though it had been deserted for weeks--after a violent +riot. Every window was broken, and every window, save those of the +belvedere study, was blinded by the internal shutters. + +"I could have sworn it was all right"--he looked at his watch--"twenty +minutes ago." + +He became aware of a measured concussion and the clash of glass, +far away in the distance. And then, as he sat open-mouthed, came a +still more wonderful thing. The shutters of the drawing-room window +were flung open violently, and the housemaid in her outdoor hat and +garments, appeared struggling in a frantic manner to throw up the +sash. Suddenly a man appeared beside her, helping her--Dr. Kemp! +In another moment the window was open, and the housemaid was +struggling out; she pitched forward and vanished among the shrubs. +Mr. Heelas stood up, exclaiming vaguely and vehemently at all these +wonderful things. He saw Kemp stand on the sill, spring from the +window, and reappear almost instantaneously running along a path in +the shrubbery and stooping as he ran, like a man who evades +observation. He vanished behind a laburnum, and appeared again +clambering over a fence that abutted on the open down. In a second +he had tumbled over and was running at a tremendous pace down the +slope towards Mr. Heelas. + +"Lord!" cried Mr. Heelas, struck with an idea; "it's that Invisible +Man brute! It's right, after all!" + +With Mr. Heelas to think things like that was to act, and his cook +watching him from the top window was amazed to see him come pelting +towards the house at a good nine miles an hour. There was a +slamming of doors, a ringing of bells, and the voice of Mr. Heelas +bellowing like a bull. "Shut the doors, shut the windows, shut +everything!--the Invisible Man is coming!" Instantly the house was +full of screams and directions, and scurrying feet. He ran himself +to shut the French windows that opened on the veranda; as he did so +Kemp's head and shoulders and knee appeared over the edge of the +garden fence. In another moment Kemp had ploughed through the +asparagus, and was running across the tennis lawn to the house. + +"You can't come in," said Mr. Heelas, shutting the bolts. "I'm very +sorry if he's after you, but you can't come in!" + +Kemp appeared with a face of terror close to the glass, rapping and +then shaking frantically at the French window. Then, seeing his +efforts were useless, he ran along the veranda, vaulted the end, +and went to hammer at the side door. Then he ran round by the side +gate to the front of the house, and so into the hill-road. And Mr. +Heelas staring from his window--a face of horror--had scarcely +witnessed Kemp vanish, ere the asparagus was being trampled this +way and that by feet unseen. At that Mr. Heelas fled precipitately +upstairs, and the rest of the chase is beyond his purview. But as +he passed the staircase window, he heard the side gate slam. + +Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward +direction, and so it was he came to run in his own person the very +race he had watched with such a critical eye from the belvedere +study only four days ago. He ran it well, for a man out of +training, and though his face was white and wet, his wits were cool +to the last. He ran with wide strides, and wherever a patch of +rough ground intervened, wherever there came a patch of raw flints, +or a bit of broken glass shone dazzling, he crossed it and left the +bare invisible feet that followed to take what line they would. + +For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill-road +was indescribably vast and desolate, and that the beginnings of the +town far below at the hill foot were strangely remote. Never had +there been a slower or more painful method of progression that +running. All the gaunt villas, sleeping in the afternoon sun, +looked locked and barred; no doubt they were locked and barred--by +his own orders. But at any rate they might have kept a lookout +for an eventuality like this! The town was rising up now, the sea +had dropped out of sight behind it, and people down below were +stirring. A tram was just arriving at the hill foot. Beyond that +was the police station. Was that footsteps he heard behind him? +Spurt. + +The people below were staring at him, one or two were running, and +his breath was beginning to saw in his throat. The tram was quite +near now, and the "Jolly Cricketers" was noisily barring its doors. +Beyond the tram were posts and heaps of gravel--the drainage +works. He had a transitory idea of jumping into the tram and +slamming the doors, and then he resolved to go for the police +station. In another moment he had passed the door of the "Jolly +Cricketers," and was in the blistering fag end of the street, with +human beings about him. The tram driver and his helper--arrested +by the sight of his furious haste--stood staring with the tram +horses unhitched. Further on the astonished features of navvies +appeared above the mounds of gravel. + +His pace broke a little, and then he heard the swift pad of his +pursuer, and leapt forward again. "The Invisible Man!" he cried to +the navvies, with a vague indicative gesture, and by an inspiration +leapt the excavation and placed a burly group between him and the +chase. Then abandoning the idea of the police station he turned +into a little side street, rushed by a greengrocer's cart, +hesitated for the tenth of a second at the door of a sweetstuff +shop, and then made for the mouth of an alley that ran back into +the main Hill Street again. Two or three little children were +playing here, and shrieked and scattered at his apparition, and +forthwith doors and windows opened and excited mothers revealed +their hearts. Out he shot into Hill Street again, three hundred +yards from the tram-line end, and immediately he became aware of a +tumultuous vociferation and running people. + +He glanced up the street towards the hill. Hardly a dozen yards off +ran a huge navvy, cursing in fragments and slashing viciously with +a spade, and hard behind him came the tram conductor with his fists +clenched. Up the street others followed these two, striking and +shouting. Down towards the town, men and women were running, and he +noticed clearly one man coming out of a shop-door with a stick in +his hand. "Spread out! Spread out!" cried some one. Kemp suddenly +grasped the altered condition of the chase. He stopped, and looked +round, panting. "He's close here!" he cried. "Form a line across--" + +He was hit hard under the ear, and went reeling, trying to face +round towards his unseen antagonist. He just managed to keep his +feet, and he struck a vain counter in the air. Then he was hit +again under the jaw, and sprawled headlong on the ground. In +another moment a knee compressed his diaphragm, and a couple of +eager hands gripped his throat, but the grip of one was weaker than +the other; he grasped the wrists, heard a cry of pain from his +assailant, and then the spade of the navvy came whirling through +the air above him, and struck something with a dull thud. He felt +a drop of moisture on his face. The grip at his throat suddenly +relaxed, and with a convulsive effort, Kemp loosed himself, grasped +a limp shoulder, and rolled uppermost. He gripped the unseen elbows +near the ground. "I've got him!" screamed Kemp. "Help! Help--hold! +He's down! Hold his feet!" + +In another second there was a simultaneous rush upon the struggle, +and a stranger coming into the road suddenly might have thought an +exceptionally savage game of Rugby football was in progress. And +there was no shouting after Kemp's cry--only a sound of blows +and feet and heavy breathing. + +Then came a mighty effort, and the Invisible Man threw off a couple +of his antagonists and rose to his knees. Kemp clung to him in +front like a hound to a stag, and a dozen hands gripped, clutched, +and tore at the Unseen. The tram conductor suddenly got the neck +and shoulders and lugged him back. + +Down went the heap of struggling men again and rolled over. There +was, I am afraid, some savage kicking. Then suddenly a wild scream +of "Mercy! Mercy!" that died down swiftly to a sound like choking. + +"Get back, you fools!" cried the muffled voice of Kemp, and there +was a vigorous shoving back of stalwart forms. "He's hurt, I tell +you. Stand back!" + +There was a brief struggle to clear a space, and then the circle of +eager faces saw the doctor kneeling, as it seemed, fifteen inches +in the air, and holding invisible arms to the ground. Behind him a +constable gripped invisible ankles. + +"Don't you leave go of en," cried the big navvy, holding a +blood-stained spade; "he's shamming." + +"He's not shamming," said the doctor, cautiously raising his knee; +"and I'll hold him." His face was bruised and already going red; he +spoke thickly because of a bleeding lip. He released one hand and +seemed to be feeling at the face. "The mouth's all wet," he said. +And then, "Good God!" + +He stood up abruptly and then knelt down on the ground by the side +of the thing unseen. There was a pushing and shuffling, a sound of +heavy feet as fresh people turned up to increase the pressure of +the crowd. People now were coming out of the houses. The doors of +the "Jolly Cricketers" stood suddenly wide open. Very little was said. + +Kemp felt about, his hand seeming to pass through empty air. "He's +not breathing," he said, and then, "I can't feel his heart. His +side--ugh!" + +Suddenly an old woman, peering under the arm of the big navvy, +screamed sharply. "Looky there!" she said, and thrust out a +wrinkled finger. + +And looking where she pointed, everyone saw, faint and transparent +as though it was made of glass, so that veins and arteries and +bones and nerves could be distinguished, the outline of a hand, a +hand limp and prone. It grew clouded and opaque even as they stared. + +"Hullo!" cried the constable. "Here's his feet a-showing!" + +And so, slowly, beginning at his hands and feet and creeping along +his limbs to the vital centres of his body, that strange change +continued. It was like the slow spreading of a poison. First came +the little white nerves, a hazy grey sketch of a limb, then the +glassy bones and intricate arteries, then the flesh and skin, first +a faint fogginess, and then growing rapidly dense and opaque. +Presently they could see his crushed chest and his shoulders, and +the dim outline of his drawn and battered features. + +When at last the crowd made way for Kemp to stand erect, there lay, +naked and pitiful on the ground, the bruised and broken body of a +young man about thirty. His hair and brow were white--not grey +with age, but white with the whiteness of albinism--and his eyes +were like garnets. His hands were clenched, his eyes wide open, and +his expression was one of anger and dismay. + +"Cover his face!" said a man. "For Gawd's sake, cover that face!" +and three little children, pushing forward through the crowd, were +suddenly twisted round and sent packing off again. + +Someone brought a sheet from the "Jolly Cricketers," and having +covered him, they carried him into that house. And there it was, on +a shabby bed in a tawdry, ill-lighted bedroom, surrounded by a crowd +of ignorant and excited people, broken and wounded, betrayed and +unpitied, that Griffin, the first of all men to make himself +invisible, Griffin, the most gifted physicist the world has ever +seen, ended in infinite disaster his strange and terrible career. + + + +THE EPILOGUE + + +So ends the story of the strange and evil experiments of the +Invisible Man. And if you would learn more of him you must go to a +little inn near Port Stowe and talk to the landlord. The sign of +the inn is an empty board save for a hat and boots, and the name is +the title of this story. The landlord is a short and corpulent +little man with a nose of cylindrical proportions, wiry hair, and a +sporadic rosiness of visage. Drink generously, and he will tell you +generously of all the things that happened to him after that time, +and of how the lawyers tried to do him out of the treasure found +upon him. + +"When they found they couldn't prove who's money was which, I'm +blessed," he says, "if they didn't try to make me out a blooming +treasure trove! Do I _look_ like a Treasure Trove? And then a +gentleman gave me a guinea a night to tell the story at the Empire +Music 'All--just to tell 'em in my own words--barring one." + +And if you want to cut off the flow of his reminiscences abruptly, +you can always do so by asking if there weren't three manuscript +books in the story. He admits there were and proceeds to explain, +with asseverations that everybody thinks _he_ has 'em! But bless you! +he hasn't. "The Invisible Man it was took 'em off to hide 'em when +I cut and ran for Port Stowe. It's that Mr. Kemp put people on with +the idea of _my_ having 'em." + +And then he subsides into a pensive state, watches you furtively, +bustles nervously with glasses, and presently leaves the bar. + +He is a bachelor man--his tastes were ever bachelor, and there +are no women folk in the house. Outwardly he buttons--it is +expected of him--but in his more vital privacies, in the matter +of braces for example, he still turns to string. He conducts his +house without enterprise, but with eminent decorum. His movements +are slow, and he is a great thinker. But he has a reputation for +wisdom and for a respectable parsimony in the village, and his +knowledge of the roads of the South of England would beat Cobbett. + +And on Sunday mornings, every Sunday morning, all the year round, +while he is closed to the outer world, and every night after ten, +he goes into his bar parlour, bearing a glass of gin faintly tinged +with water, and having placed this down, he locks the door and +examines the blinds, and even looks under the table. And then, +being satisfied of his solitude, he unlocks the cupboard and a box +in the cupboard and a drawer in that box, and produces three +volumes bound in brown leather, and places them solemnly in the +middle of the table. The covers are weather-worn and tinged with an +algal green--for once they sojourned in a ditch and some of the +pages have been washed blank by dirty water. The landlord sits down +in an armchair, fills a long clay pipe slowly--gloating over the +books the while. Then he pulls one towards him and opens it, and +begins to study it--turning over the leaves backwards and forwards. + +His brows are knit and his lips move painfully. "Hex, little two up +in the air, cross and a fiddle-de-dee. Lord! what a one he was for +intellect!" + +Presently he relaxes and leans back, and blinks through his smoke +across the room at things invisible to other eyes. "Full of +secrets," he says. "Wonderful secrets!" + +"Once I get the haul of them--Lord!" + +"I wouldn't do what _he_ did; I'd just--well!" He pulls at his +pipe. + +So he lapses into a dream, the undying wonderful dream of his life. +And though Kemp has fished unceasingly, no human being save the +landlord knows those books are there, with the subtle secret of +invisibility and a dozen other strange secrets written therein. +And none other will know of them until he dies. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invisible Man, by H.G. 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