Section 18

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 their splitting and smashing accompany 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 Kemnay slammed the door again.
* The Invisible Man!” said Kemp. “ He has a
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THE SIEGE OF KEMP’S HOUSE 205
iioives 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 round 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 and stepped into the dining-room. Kemp tried to explain in broken sentences. They heard the kitchen door give. _ “This way,” cried Kemp, bursting into activity, and bundled the policemen .into the dining-room doorway. ie Poker,” said Kemp, and rushed to the fender. _ He handed the poker he had carried to one 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 scream- ing 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
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position about two feet from the ground. They
206. | THE INVISIBLE MAN
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 move-— ment, 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, — Dr. Kemp—sir! ” . “Dr. 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 flung his poker. It smashed a little gas-bracket. 3 He made as if he would pursue the Invisible Man |
neither eaiimaid nor iis was to be seen. The second. scene s opinion of Kemp was
28 a Ng The Hunter Hunted
M* Heerxas, 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 majority who refused to believe in “ all this nonsense”? about an Invisible Man. His wife, however, as he was to be reminded subsequently, 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 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 dining-room window were flung open aa and the Dasa coxce in
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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 lup, 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 shrub- bery and stooping as he ran, like a man who evades observation. He vanished behind a laburnum, and appeared again clambering a fence that abutted on ithe opendown. 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 all 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 scurry- — ing feet. He himself ran to shut the french windows that opened on the veranda,’ and 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. _
“@I0 THE INVISIBLE MAN
Sh ** You can’t come in,” said Mr. Heelas, shoot 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 use- less, 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 wirdow—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 stair-case window he heard the side gate slam. Emerging into the hill road, Kemp naturally took the downward direction, and so it was that 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 tha 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 ther been a slower or more painful method of progressior than running. All the gaunt villas, sleeping in t
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THE HUNTER HUNTED - 21
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 look-out for an’ eventuality like this! The town was rising up now, the sea had dropped out of sight behind it, and people below were stirring. A tram was just arriving at the hill foot. Beyond that was the police station. Were those 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 grayel—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—astounded by the sight of his furious. haste—stood staring with the tram horses unhitched. Farther 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 nawvies, 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 sweet-stuff ‘shop, and then made for the mouth of an alley that
ai2 THE INVISIBLE MAN ran back into the main Hill Street again. Two or_ three little children were playing here, and shrieked and scattered running at his apparition, and forth- with, doors and windows opened, and excited mothers revealed their hearts. Out he shot into Hill Street once more, 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 someone. Kemp suddenly grasped the altered con- dition 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 pai from his assailant, and then the spade of the navvy came whirling through the air above him, struck something with a dull thud. He felt a drop of moisture on his face. The grip at his thn
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THE HUNTER HUNTED 213
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 a heavy breathing.
Then came a mighty effort, and the Invisible Man
taggered to his feet. Kemp clung to him in front ike a hound to a stag, and a dozen hands clutched and tore at the unseen. The tram conductor got the neck, and lugged him back. Down went the heap of struggling men again. There was, I am afraid, some savage kicking. Then uddenly a wild scream of “‘ Mercy, mercy!” that ied down swiftly to a sound like choking.
“ Get back, you fools!” cried the muffled voice of Kemp, and there was a vigorous shoving back f stalwart forms. “ He’s hurt, I tell you. Stand
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There was a brief struggle to clear a space, and
en the circle of eager faces saw the doctor kneeling,
s it seemed, fifteen inches in the air, and holding visible arms to the ground. Behind him a constable ipped invisible ankles.
“ Don’t you leave go of en! ” cried the big navvy, iding a bloodstained spade; “ he’s shamming.”
He’ s not shamming,” said the doctor, cautiously i his knee, “‘ and I’ll hold him.” His face was ised, and already turning red; he spoke thickly,
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all wet,” he said. And then, “Good Lord! ”
2I4 THE INVISISLE MAN MS
because of a bleeding lip. He released one hand, j and seemed to be feeling at the face. “ The mouth’s |
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 came to increase the pressure of the crowd. Men 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 aide ugh ¥ 4
An old woman, peering under the arm of the big _ mavvy, screamed sharply. “ Looky here! ” she said, © and thrust out a wrinkled finger. And looking where | she pointed, everyone saw, faint and transparent, as though 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.
“Hallo! ” cried the constable. “ Here’s his feet a-showing! ” f
And so, slowly, beginning at his hands and feet, and creeping slowly along his limbs to the vital centres of his body, that strange change to visible ~ _ fleshliness continued. It was like the slow spreading
of a poison. First came the little white veins tracing 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.
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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!” cried a man. “ For Gawd’s sake cover that face! ”
Some one brought a sheet from the “ Jolly ricketers,” and having covered him, they carried im into-the 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 wounded, betrayed and unpitied, that Griffin,
€ 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.
Bie peat panes cost es cl ty ay Aa ees =, MO a ee
THE EPILOGUE
So ends the story of the strange and evil experimen of the Invisible Man. And if you would learn mor of him you must go to a little inn near Port Stows and talk to the landlord. The sign of the inn is ar empty board save for a hat and boots, and the name is the title of this story. The landlord is a shor and corpulent little man with a nose of cylindrical protrusion, wiry hair, and a sporadic rosiness oj visage. Drink generously, and he will tell you generously of all the things that happened to hin after that time, and of how the lawyers tried t “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 tell *°em in my own words—barring one.” And if you want to cut off the flow of his reminisc- ences 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.” - 216