Section 6

=
THE UNVEILING OF THE STRANGER 67
Hall, who was picked up in a state of collapse. There was a confusion, and the incredible evidence of a vociferous eye-witness. “O Bogie.” “ 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. 1 don’t mean no manner of speaking, I mean Marn ’ithout a *Ed!” “ Narnsense! °tis some conjuring trick.” “ Fetched off *is wrappings, *e did”
In its struggles to see in through the open door the crowd formed itself into a struggling 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 his 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 ’d ‘tall. 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 found 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,
‘a a - iu 7 * ee
68 * THE INVISIBLE MAN
f
~ 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 darned 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 Jaffer’s 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
THE UNVEILING OF THE STRANGER 69
or four bottles from the chiffonier and shot a web of pungency into the air of the room.
* T'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 secmtst 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 realisation of the incongruity of the whole business. * Darm 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 some- thing 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 some- thing 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? ”
70 THE INVISIBLE MAN —
The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hang- ing loosely upon its unseen supports, stood up, arms akimbo.
Several other of the men folk 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 nek
“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
Tm after ain’t no invisibility, it’s burglary. There’s a house been broke into, and money took.”
66 Well? 38
** And circumstances certainly point—
** Stuff and nonsense! ” said the Invisible Mak
** T hope so, sir. But I’ve got my instructions ——” _ “ Well,” said the stranger, “ I'll come. TIl come. But no handcuffs.”
“It’s the regular thing,” said Jaffers.
** No handcufis,” stipulated the stranger.
* Pardon me,” said Jaffers.
Abruptly the figure sat down, and before any one could realise what 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 the waistcoat, it struggled, and the shirt slipped out of it and left it limp and empty in his hand. “ Hold him! ” said Jaffers loudly. “ Once he gets the things off——”
* Hold him!” cried everyone, and there was a
See yee Ee
THE UNVEILING OF THE STRANGER 71
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 off 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 drew 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 on the nose, reopened the door and led the rout. The others, following incontinently, were jammed fora 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 some- thing that intervened between him and Huxter in the mélée, 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.
92 ss PHE INVISIBLE MAN
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 round and fell heavily undermost with his head on the gravel. Only then did his fingers relax.
There were excited cried 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 and knees upward bent, at the foot of the steps of the inn.
8 In Transit
ol Baa eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that Gibbins, 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 contined 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. Gibbins 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.
73
Ne RSs eee
9 Mr. Thomas Marvel
yon 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 Adder- dean, 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 con- templating a pair of lace-up boots. They were the soundest boots he had come across for a long time, but too large for him, whereas those he had had were, in dry weather, a very comfortable fit, but too thin soled for damp. Mr. Thomas Marvel hated roomy boots, 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 boots in a graceful group on the turf, and looked at them,
74
_ MR, THOMAS MARVEL : "5 And seeing them there among the grass and spring- ing 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!” ae
“ H’m,” said the Voice.
6 Fve: worn worse—in fact, I’ve worn none. But norle so owdacious ugly—if you'll allow the ex- pression. 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 county, try as I would, but them. Look at ’em!~ And a good county for boots, too, in a general way. But it’s just my promiscuous luck. I’ve got my boots in this county ten years or more. And then they. treat you like this.”
“It’s a beast of a county,” said the Voice, “ and pigs for people.”
** Ain’t it?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel. “ Lord! But them boots! It beats it.” Me
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 turned his head over his shoulder to the left, and there also were neither legs nor boots. He was irradiated by the dawn of a great amazement. — ** Where are yer?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel over
76 THE INVISIBLE MAN
_ his shoulder, and coming on all fours. He.saw.a stretch of empty down, 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. Thoiad 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.
MR. THOMAS: MARVEL — Nay
** 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.
* ?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 imagina-
tion? *”
“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 aa 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 fall at his feet with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to dodge. Whizz it came, and ricocheted from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas Marvel jumped
RS
}
8 THE INVISIBLE MAN
a foot, and howled aloud. Then he started to run, tripped over an unseen obstacle, and camé head over heels into a sitting position.
* Now,” said the Voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in the air above the aime tt 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.”