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 frequent 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 pinewoods 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 a 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 Alteration 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, eigh? 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
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 to 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 agoing 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 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.
