“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 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? Eigh?”
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
im
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 extra-ordinary thing he was presently to hear, that had happened quite close to him. And that was a vision of a “fistful of money” (no less) travelling without visible agency,
in
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
io
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,
ip
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.
XV
The Man Who Was Running
IN THE EARLY EVENING time Doctor Kemp was sitting in his study in the belvedere
iq
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,
ir
minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of reagents. Doctor 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. Doctor 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 Doctor Kemp. “Like that ass who ran into me this morning round a corner, with his ‘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 Doctor Kemp, “but he doesn’t seem to be getting on. If his pockets were full of lead, he couldn’t run heavier.
“Spurt sir,”
is
said Doctor Kemp.
In another moment the higher of the villas that had clambered up the hill from Burdock had occulted
it
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 the terrace hid him.
“Asses!” said Doctor 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
iu
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 half-way 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!”
XVI
In the Jolly Cricketers
THE JOLLY CRICKETERS
iv
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 anæmic cabman, while a black-bearded man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton,
iw
and conversed in American
1
with a policeman off duty.
“What’s the shouting about!” said the anæmic 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
ix
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
iy
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 anæmic 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,”
2
said the man with the beard. “I’m going to let off
iz
at his legs. Draw the bolts.”
“Not with that 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,
ja
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 started 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 lodg ment 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.