The stranger went into the little
parlour of the Coach and Horses about half-past five in the morning,
and there he remained until near midday, the blinds down, the door
shut, and none, after Hall's repulse, venturing near him.
All that time he must have fasted.
Thrice he rang his bell, the third time furiously and continuously,
but no one answered him. "Him and his 'go to the devil'
indeed!" said Mrs. Hall. Presently came an imperfect rumour of
the burglary at the vicarage, and two and two were put together.
Hall, assisted by Wadgers, went off to find Mr. Shuckleforth, the
magistrate, and take his advice. No one ventured upstairs. How the
stranger occupied himself is unknown. Now and then he would stride
violently up and down, and twice came an outburst of curses, a
tearing of paper, and a violent smashing of bottles.
The little group of scared but
curious people increased. Mrs. Huxter came over; some gay young
fellows resplendent in black ready- made jackets and piqu paper
ties, for it was Whit-Monday, joined the group with confused
interrogations. Young Archie Harker distinguished himself by going
up the yard and trying to peep under the window-blinds. He could see
nothing, but gave reason for supposing that he did, and others of
the Iping youth presently joined him.
It was the finest of all possible
Whit-Mondays, and down the village street stood a row of nearly a
dozen booths and a shooting gallery, and on the grass by the forge
were three yellow and chocolate waggons and some picturesque
strangers of both sexes putting up a cocoanut shy. The gentlemen
wore blue jerseys, the ladies white aprons and quite fashionable
hats with heavy plumes. Wodger of the Purple Fawn and Mr. Jaggers
the cobbler, who also sold second-hand ordinary bicycles, were
stretching a string of union-jacks and royal ensigns (which had
originally celebrated the Jubilee) across the road...
And inside, in the artificial
darkness of the parlour, into which only one thin jet of sunlight
penetrated, the stranger, hungry we must suppose, and fearful,
hidden in his uncomfortable hot wrappings, pored through his dark
glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty little bottles, and
occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible if invisible,
outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace lay the
fragments of half a dozen smashed bottles, and a pungent tang of
chlorine tainted the air. So much we know from what was heard at the
time and from what was subsequently seen in the room.
About noon he suddenly opened his
parlour door and stood glaring fixedly at the three or four people
in the bar. "Mrs. Hall," he said. Somebody went sheepishly
and called for Mrs. Hall.
Mrs. Hall appeared after an interval,
a little short of breath, but all the fiercer for that. Hall was
still out. She had deliberated over the scene, and she came holding
a little tray with an unsettled bill upon it. "Is it your bill
you're wanting, sir?" she said.
"Why wasn't my breakfast laid?
Why haven't you prepared my meals and answered my bell? Do you think
I live without eating?"
"Why isn't my bill paid?"
said Mrs. Hall. "That's what I want to know."
"I told you three days ago I was
awaiting a remittance--"
"I told you two days ago I
wasn't going to await no remittances. You can't grumble if your
breakfast waits a bit, if my bill's been waiting these five days,
can you?"
The stranger swore briefly but
vividly.
"Nar, nar!" from the bar.
"And I'd thank you kindly, sir,
if you'd keep your swearing to yourself, sir," said Mrs. Hall.
The stranger stood looking more like
an angry diving-helmet than ever. It was universally felt in the bar
that Mrs. Hall had the better of him. His next words showed as much.
"Look here, my good
woman--" he began.
"Don't good woman me," said
Mrs. Hall.
"I've told you my remittance
hasn't come--"
"Remittance indeed!" said
Mrs. Hall.
"Still, I daresay in my
pocket--"
"You told me two days ago that
you hadn't anything but a sovereign's worth of silver upon
you--"
"Well, I've found some
more--"
"'Ul-lo!" from the bar.
"I wonder where you found
it!" said Mrs. Hall.
That seemed to annoy the stranger
very much. He stamped his foot. "What do you mean?" he
said.
"That I wonder where you found
it," said Mrs. Hall. "And before I take any bills or get
any breakfasts, or do any such things whatsoever, you got to tell me
one or two things I don't understand, and what nobody don't
understand, and what everybody is very anxious to understand. I want
know what you been doing t' my chair upstairs, and I want know how
'tis your room was empty, and how you got in again. Them as stops in
this house comes in by the doors--that's the rule of the house, and
that you didn't do, and what I want know is how you did come in. And
I want know--"
Suddenly the stranger raised his
gloved hands clenched, stamped his foot, and said, "Stop!"
with such extraordinary violence that he silenced her instantly.
"You don't understand," he
said, "who I am or what I am. I'll show you. By Heaven! I'll
show you." Then he put his open palm over his face and withdrew
it. The centre of his face became a black cavity. "Here,"
he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs. Hall something which
she, staring at his metamorphosed face, accepted automatically.
Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and
staggered back. The nose--it was the stranger's nose! pink and
shining--rolled on the floor.
Then he removed his spectacles, and
every one in the bar gasped. He took off his hat, and with a violent
gesture tore at his whiskers and bandages. For a moment they
resisted him. A flash of horrible anticipation passed through the
bar. "Oh, my Gard!" said some one. Then off they came.
It was worse than anything. Mrs.
Hall, standing open-mouthed and horror-struck, shrieked at what she
saw, and made for the door of the house. Every one began to move.
They were prepared for scars, disfigurements, tangible horrors, but
nothing! The bandages and false hair flew across the passage into
the bar, making a hobbledehoy jump to avoid them. Every one tumbled
on every one else down the steps. For the man who stood there
shouting some incoherent explanation, was a solid gesticulating
figure up to the coat-collar of him, and then--nothingness, no
visible thing at all!
People down the village heard shouts
and shrieks, and looking up the street saw the Coach and Horses
violently firing out its humanity. They saw Mrs. Hall fall down and
Mr. Teddy Henfrey jump to avoid tumbling over her, and then they
heard the frightful screams of Millie, who, emerging suddenly from
the kitchen at the noise of the tumult, had come upon the headless
stranger from behind.
Forthwith every one all down the
street, the sweet-stuff seller, cocoanut shy proprietor and his
assistant, the swing man, little boys and girls, rustic dandies,
smart wenches, smocked elders and aproned gipsies, began running
towards the inn; and in a miraculously short space of time a crowd
of perhaps forty people, and rapidly increasing, swayed and hooted
and inquired and exclaimed and suggested, in front of Mrs. Hall's
establishment. Every one seemed eager to talk at once, and the
result was babel. A small group supported Mrs. Hall, who was picked
up in a state of collapse. There was a conference, and the
incredible evidence of a vociferous eyewitness. "O'Bogey!"
"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. I don't mean no manner of speaking, I mean
marn 'without a' ed!" "Narnsense! 'tas some conjuring
trick." "Fetched off 'is wrappin's, 'e did--"
In its struggles to see in through
the open door, the crowd formed itself into a straggling 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 uz 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 'ed 't all. 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 flung 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, 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 damned 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
Jaffers' 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, endeavoring to act on
instructions, receiving 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
Siddermorton carter coming to the rescue of law and order. At the
same moment down came three or four bottles from the chiffonier and
shot a web of pungency into the air of the room.
"I'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 strangest 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
started.
"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 something 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 something 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?"
The suit of clothes, now all
unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon its unseen supports, stood up,
arms akimbo.
Several other of the men folks had
now entered the room, so that it was closely crowded.
"Invisible, eigh?" 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?"
"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 I'm after ain't no invisibility--it's burglary. There's a house
been broken into and money took."
"Well?"
"And circumstances certainly
point--"
"Stuff and nonsense!" said
the Invisible Man.
"I hope so, sir; but I've got my
instructions."
"Well," said the stranger,
"I'll come. I'll come. But no handcuffs."
"It's the regular thing,"
said Jaffers.
"No handcuffs," 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
waist-coat; 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 they things off--!"
"Hold him!" cried every
one, and there was a 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 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 in the nose, reopened the door and led
the rout. The others, following incontinently, were jammed for a
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 something that intervened between him and Huxter
in the mle, 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.
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 cries 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. Halfway 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
upward and knees bent.
