The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance
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 possesses 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