The Invisible Man (7 page)

"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."

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.

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.