The Invisible Man (9 page)

"I'm a
miserable
tool," said Marvel.

"You are," said the Voice.

"I'm the worst possible tool you could have," said Marvel.

"I'm not strong," he said after a discouraging silence.

"I'm not over strong," he repeated.

"No?"

"And my heart's weak. That little business—I pulled it through,
of course—but bless you! I could have dropped."

"Well?"

"I haven't the nerve and strength for the sort of thing you want."

"
I'll
stimulate you."

"I wish you wouldn't. I wouldn't like to mess up your plans, you
know. But I might—out of sheer funk and misery."

"You'd better not," said the Voice, with quiet emphasis.

"I wish I was dead," said Marvel.

"It ain't justice," he said; "you must admit.... It seems to me I've
a perfect right—"

"
Get
on!" said the Voice.

Mr. Marvel mended his pace, and for a time they went in silence
again.

"It's devilish hard," said Mr. Marvel.

This was quite ineffectual. He tried another tack.

"What do I make by it?" he began again in a tone of unendurable
wrong.

"Oh!
shut up
!" said the Voice, with sudden amazing vigour. "I'll
see to you all right. You do what you're told. You'll do it all
right. You're a fool and all that, but you'll do—"

"I tell you, sir, I'm not the man for it. Respectfully—but
it
is
so—"

"If you don't shut up I shall twist your wrist again," said the
Invisible Man. "I want to think."

Presently two oblongs of yellow light appeared through the trees,
and the square tower of a church loomed through the gloaming. "I
shall keep my hand on your shoulder," said the Voice, "all through
the village. Go straight through and try no foolery. It will be the
worse for you if you do."

"I know that," sighed Mr. Marvel, "I know all that."

The unhappy-looking figure in the obsolete silk hat passed up the
street of the little village with his burdens, and vanished into
the gathering darkness beyond the lights of the windows.

Ten o'clock the next morning found Mr. Marvel, unshaven, dirty, and
travel-stained, sitting with the books beside him and his hands deep
in his pockets, looking very weary, nervous, and uncomfortable, and
inflating his cheeks at infrequent intervals, on the bench outside
a little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe. Beside him were the
books, but now they were tied with string. The bundle had been
abandoned in the pine-woods beyond Bramblehurst, in accordance with
a change in the plans of the Invisible Man. Mr. Marvel sat on the
bench, and although no one took the slightest notice of him, his
agitation remained at fever heat. His hands would go ever and again
to his various pockets with a curious nervous fumbling.

When he had been sitting for the best part of an hour, however, an
elderly mariner, carrying a newspaper, came out of the inn and sat
down beside him. "Pleasant day," said the mariner.

Mr. Marvel glanced about him with something very like terror.
"Very," he said.

"Just seasonable weather for the time of year," said the mariner,
taking no denial.

"Quite," said Mr. Marvel.

The mariner produced a toothpick, and (saving his regard) was
engrossed thereby for some minutes. His eyes meanwhile were at
liberty to examine Mr. Marvel's dusty figure, and the books beside
him. As he had approached Mr. Marvel he had heard a sound like the
dropping of coins into a pocket. He was struck by the contrast of
Mr. Marvel's appearance with this suggestion of opulence. Thence
his mind wandered back again to a topic that had taken a curiously
firm hold of his imagination.

"Books?" he said suddenly, noisily finishing with the toothpick.

Mr. Marvel started and looked at them. "Oh, yes," he said. "Yes,
they're books."

"There's some extra-ordinary things in books," said the mariner.

"I believe you," said Mr. Marvel.

"And some extra-ordinary things out of 'em," said the mariner.

"True likewise," said Mr. Marvel. He eyed his interlocutor, and
then glanced about him.

"There's some extra-ordinary things in newspapers, for example,"
said the mariner.

"There are."

"In
this
newspaper," said the mariner.

"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel.

"There's a story," said the mariner, fixing Mr. Marvel with an eye
that was firm and deliberate; "there's a story about an Invisible
Man, for instance."

Mr. Marvel pulled his mouth askew and scratched his cheek and felt
his ears glowing. "What will they be writing next?" he asked
faintly. "Ostria, or America?"

"Neither," said the mariner. "
Here
."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, starting.

"When I say
here
," said the mariner, to Mr. Marvel's intense
relief, "I don't of course mean here in this place, I mean
hereabouts."

"An Invisible Man!" said Mr. Marvel. "And what's
he
been up to?"

"Everything," said the mariner, controlling Marvel with his eye,
and then amplifying, "every—blessed—thing."

"I ain't seen a paper these four days," said Marvel.

"Iping's the place he started at," said the mariner.

"In-
deed
!" said Mr. Marvel.

"He started there. And where he came from, nobody don't seem to
know. Here it is: 'Pe-culiar Story from Iping.' And it says in this
paper that the evidence is extra-ordinary strong—extra-ordinary."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.

"But then, it's an extra-ordinary story. There is a clergyman and a
medical gent witnesses—saw 'im all right and proper—or leastways
didn't see 'im. He was staying, it says, at the 'Coach an' Horses,'
and no one don't seem to have been aware of his misfortune, it says,
aware of his misfortune, until in an Altercation in the inn, it
says, his bandages on his head was torn off. It was then ob-served
that his head was invisible. Attempts were At Once made to secure
him, but casting off his garments, it says, he succeeded in
escaping, but not until after a desperate struggle, in which he
had inflicted serious injuries, it says, on our worthy and able
constable, Mr. J. A. Jaffers. Pretty straight story, eh? Names and
everything."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, looking nervously about him, trying to
count the money in his pockets by his unaided sense of touch, and
full of a strange and novel idea. "It sounds most astonishing."

"Don't it? Extra-ordinary,
I
call it. Never heard tell of Invisible
Men before, I haven't, but nowadays one hears such a lot of
extra-ordinary things—that—"

"That all he did?" asked Marvel, trying to seem at his ease.

"It's enough, ain't it?" said the mariner.

"Didn't go Back by any chance?" asked Marvel. "Just escaped and
that's all, eh?"

"All!" said the mariner. "Why!—ain't it enough?"

"Quite enough," said Marvel.

"I should think it was enough," said the mariner. "I should think
it was enough."

"He didn't have any pals—it don't say he had any pals, does it?"
asked Mr. Marvel, anxious.

"Ain't one of a sort enough for you?" asked the mariner. "No, thank
Heaven, as one might say, he didn't."

He nodded his head slowly. "It makes me regular uncomfortable,
the bare thought of that chap running about the country! He is at
present At Large, and from certain evidence it is supposed that he
has—taken—
took
, I suppose they mean—the road to Port Stowe. You
see we're right
in
it! None of your American wonders, this time.
And just think of the things he might do! Where'd you be, if he took
a drop over and above, and had a fancy to go for you? Suppose he
wants to rob—who can prevent him? He can trespass, he can burgle,
he could walk through a cordon of policemen as easy as me or you
could give the slip to a blind man! Easier! For these here blind
chaps hear uncommon sharp, I'm told. And wherever there was liquor
he fancied—"

"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 a-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? Eh?"

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 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.

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.