Текст книги "Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man + аудиоприложение"

Chapter IV
Mr. Cuss Interviews the Stranger

I have told the circumstances of the stranger’s arrival in Iping, in order that the curious impression he created may be understood by the reader. Hall did not like him, and he talked of getting rid of him; but he avoided his visitor as much as possible.

“Wait till the summer,” said Mrs. Hall sagely, “when the artists will come. Then we’ll see.”

The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise late, smoke, and sleep in the armchair by the fire. His temper was very uncertain. He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily, but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could not understand what she heard.

He rarely went out by daylight, but at twilight he would went out invisibly, whether the weather were cold or not, and he chose the loneliest paths. His spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under his hat frightened labourers. Children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of devils, and it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked him.

It was inevitable that a person of so remarkable an appearance should form a frequent topic in such a village as Iping. Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. When questioned, Mrs. Hall explained very carefully that he was an “experimental investigator.” When asked what her investigator did, she would say with superiority that most educated people knew such things as that, and would thus explain that he “discovered things.” Her visitor had had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face and hands.

But some people said that he was a criminal trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This idea sprang from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. Mr. Gould, the teacher, said that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing explosives.

Another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of explaining everything.

But whatever the people in Iping thought of him, they, on the whole, agreed in disliking him. His irritability was an amazing thing to these quiet villagers. The frantic gesticulations, the headlong pace after nightfall, the taste for twilight that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of curtains, the extinction of candles and lamps-who could agree with that? When he passed down the village, young humourists would up with coat-collars and go pacing nervously after him. There was a song popular at that time called “The Bogey Man”. So whenever some villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, this tune was whistled in the midst of them. Also little children would call “Bogey Man!” after him.

Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through April and May he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger, and at last, went to the “Coach and Horses”. He was surprised to find that Mrs. Hall did not know his guest’s name.

“He gave his name,” said Mrs. Hall, “but I didn’t rightly hear it.”

She was ashamed.

Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. “Pardon my intrusion,” said Cuss, and then the door closed.

Mrs. Hall could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then a cry of surprise, a chair flung aside, a laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face white, his eyes huge. He left the door open behind him, and without looking at her strode across the hall and went down the steps, and she heard his feet hurrying along the road. He carried his hat in his hand. She stood behind the door, looking at the open door of the parlour. Then she heard the strange laughing, and then footsteps came across the room. She could not see his face where she stood. The parlour door slammed, and the place was silent again.

Cuss went straight up the village to Bunting the vicar.

“Am I mad?” Cuss began abruptly, as he entered the shabby little study. “Do I look like an insane person?”

“What’s happened?” said the vicar.

“That chap at the inn-”

“Well?”

“Give me something to drink,” said Cuss, and he sat down. Then told the vicar of the interview he had just had.

“I went in,” he gasped, “he had his hands in his pockets as I came in, and he sat down in his chair. I told him I’d heard he took an interest in science. He said yes. Then he sniffed. I kept my eyes open. Bottles-chemicals-everywhere. Balance, test-tubes, and a smell of evening primrose. I asked him if he was researching. He said he was. A long research? ‘A damnable long research,’ said he. ‘Oh,’ said I. He had been given a prescription, most valuable prescription-what for he wouldn’t say. Was it medical? ‘Damn you! That’s none of your business!’ I apologised. He read the prescription. Five ingredients. He put it down and turned his head. Draught of air from window lifted the paper. He was working in a room with an open fireplace. I saw a flicker, and there was the prescription burning and lifting chimney ward. He rushed towards it just as it whisked up the chimney. So! He lifted his arm. And that time…”

“Well?”

“No hand-just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, there’s something odd in that. What the devil keeps that sleeve up and open, if there’s nothing in it? There was nothing in it, I tell you. Nothing, absolutely nothing! I could see right down it to the elbow, and there was a glimmer of light shining through a tear of the cloth. ‘Good God!’ I said. Then he stopped. Stared at me with those black glasses of his, and then at his sleeve.”

“Well?”

“That’s all. He never said a word; just glared, and put his sleeve back in his pocket quickly. ‘How the devil,’ said I, ‘can you move an empty sleeve like that?’ ‘Empty sleeve?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘an empty sleeve.’ ‘It’s an empty sleeve, is it? You saw it was an empty sleeve?’ He stood up right away. I stood up too. He came towards me in three very slow steps, and stood quite close. ‘You said it was an empty sleeve?’ he said. ‘Certainly,’ I said. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket again, and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. ‘Well?’ said I, clearing my throat, ‘there’s nothing in it.’ I could see right down it. He extended it straight towards me, slowly, slowly-just like that-until the cuff was six inches from my face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that! And then-”

“Well?”

“Something-exactly like a finger and thumb it felt-nipped my nose!”

Bunting began to laugh.

“There wasn’t anything there!” said Cuss. “It’s all very well for you to laugh, but I tell you I was so startled, I hit his cuff hard, and turned around, and ran out of the room.”

Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic.

“When I hit his cuff,” said Cuss, “I tell you, it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there wasn’t an arm! There wasn’t the ghost of an arm!”

Mr. Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss.

“It’s a most remarkable story,” he said.

He looked very wise and grave indeed.

“It’s really,” said Mr. Bunting, “a most remarkable story.”

Chapter V
The Burglary at the Vicarage

The facts of the burglary at the vicarage came to us chiefly through the stories of the vicar and his wife. It occurred in the morning. Mrs. Bunting woke up suddenly in the stillness that comes before the dawn, with the strong impression that the door of their bedroom had opened and closed. She did not arouse her husband, but sat up in bed listening. She then distinctly heard the bare feet coming out of the dressing-room and walking along the passage towards the staircase. As soon as she felt assured of this, she aroused Mr. Bunting as quietly as possible. He put on his spectacles, her dressing-gown and his slippers, and went out to listen. He heard quite distinctly a noise at his study downstairs, and then a sneeze.

At that he returned to his bedroom, armed himself with the poker, and descended the staircase as noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out, too.

The hour was about four. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall. Everything was still except the faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting’s tread, and the slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the crack of the door he could see the desk and the open drawer and a candle burning on the desk. But the robber he could not see. He stood there in the hall undecided what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her face white and intent, crept slowly downstairs after him. One thing kept Mr. Bunting’s courage; the persuasion that this burglar was a resident in the village.

They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had found the gold-two pounds ten in half sovereigns altogether. At that sound Mr. Bunting, gripping the poker firmly, rushed into the room, closely followed by Mrs. Bunting.

“Surrender!” cried Mr. Bunting fiercely, and then stooped amazed. Apparently the room was empty.

Yet their conviction that they had, that very moment, heard somebody moving in the room had been certain. For half a minute, perhaps, they stood gaping, then Mrs. Bunting went across the room and looked behind the screen, while Mr. Bunting peered under the desk. Then Mrs. Bunting turned back the window-curtains, and Mr. Bunting looked up the chimney and probed it with the poker. Then Mrs. Bunting scrutinised the waste-paper basket and Mr. Bunting opened the lid of the coal-scuttle. Then they stopped and stood with eyes interrogating each other.

“I could have sworn-” said Mr. Bunting. “The candle! Who lit the candle?”

“The drawer!” said Mrs. Bunting. “And the money’s gone!”

She went hastily to the doorway.

There was a sneeze in the passage. They rushed out, and as they did so the kitchen door slammed.

“Bring the candle,” said Mr. Bunting.

As he opened the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that the back door was just opening, and the faint light displayed the garden beyond. He is certain that nobody went out of the door. It opened, stood open for a moment, and then closed with a slam. As it did so, the candle Mrs. Bunting was carrying from the study flickered and flared. It was a minute or more before they entered the kitchen.

The place was empty. They examined the kitchen, pantry, and scullery thoroughly, and at last went down into the cellar. There was not a soul to be found in the house.

Chapter VI
The Furniture That Went Mad

On Whit Monday Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both rose and went noiselessly down into the cellar. Suddenly Mrs. Hall remembered that she had forgotten a bottle of medicine from their sleeping-room. Mr. Hall went upstairs for it.

On the landing he was surprised to see that the stranger’s door was ajar. He went on into his own room and found the bottle as he had been directed.

But returning with the bottle, he noticed that the bolts of the front door had not been shot, that the door was in fact simply on the latch. He distinctly remembered holding the candle while Mrs. Hall shot these bolts overnight. He stopped, gaping, then, with the bottle still in his hands, went upstairs again. He rapped at the stranger’s door. There was no answer. He rapped again; then pushed the door wide open and entered.

It was as he expected. The bed, the room also, was empty. On the bedroom chair and along the bed were scattered the garments and the bandages of their guest. As Hall stood there he heard his wife’s voice coming out of the depth of the cellar.

“George! Have you got the bottle?”

At that he turned and hurried down to her.

“Janny,” he said, “Henfrey told the truth. He is not in the room. And the front door is open.”

At first Mrs. Hall did not understand. Hall, still holding the bottle said, “He is not here, but his clothes are. And what is he doing without them? This is very strange.”

As they came up the cellar steps they both heard the front door open and shut, but seeing it closed, they did not say a word to each other. Mrs. Hall ran upstairs. Someone sneezed on the staircase. Hall, following six steps behind, thought that he heard her sneeze. She, going on first, was under the impression that Hall was sneezing. She flung open the door and stood regarding the room.

She heard a sniff close behind her head, and turning, was surprised to see Hall a dozen feet off on the topmost stair. But in another moment he was beside her. She bent forward and put her hand on the pillow and then on the clothes.

“Cold,” she said. “He’s out for an hour or more.”

As she did so, a most extraordinary thing happened. The bed-clothes gathered themselves together, leapt up suddenly and then jumped over the bed. Immediately after, the stranger’s hat hopped off its place, and then dashed straight at Mrs. Hall’s face. Then swiftly came the sponge from the washstand; and then the chair, flinging the stranger’s coat and trousers carelessly aside, and laughing drily in a voice singularly like the stranger’s, turned itself up at Mrs. Hall. She screamed, and then the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and impelled her and Hall out of the room. The door slammed violently and was locked. The chair and bed seemed to be executing a dance of triumph, and then abruptly everything was still.

Mrs. Hall was in a dead faint. Mr. Hall got her downstairs.

“These are spirits,” said Mrs. Hall. “I know these are spirits. I’ve read in papers about them. Tables and chairs are leaping and dancing…”

“Take some medicine, Janny,” said Hall.

“Lock the door,” said Mrs. Hall. “Don’t let him come in again. I guessed-I might have known. With such big eyes and bandaged head… He has never gone to church on Sunday. And all those bottles. He’s put the spirits into the furniture… My good old furniture! In that chair my poor dear mother used to sit when I was a little girl. And it rose up against me now!”

“Just a drop more, Janny,” said Hall. “Your nerves are all upset.”

They sent Millie, the servant, across the street to rouse up Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith. Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a very clever man, Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful.

“This is witchcraft,” was the view of Mr. Sandy Wadgers.

They wanted him to lead the way upstairs to the room, but he preferred to talk in the passage. There was a great deal of talk and no decisive action.

“Let’s have the facts first,” insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers. “Let’s be sure we’d be acting perfectly right.”

And suddenly and most wonderfully the door of the room upstairs opened of its own accord, and as they looked up in amazement, they saw descending the stairs the muffled figure of the stranger staring with those unreasonably large blue glass eyes of his. He came down slowly, staring all the time; he walked across the passage, then stopped.

“Look there!” he said, and their eyes followed the direction of his gloved finger and saw a bottle by the cellar door. Then he entered the parlour, and suddenly, swiftly, viciously, slammed the door.

Not a word was spoken until the last echoes of the slam had died away. They stared at one another.

“Well, I’d go in and ask him about it,” said Wadgers to Mr. Hall. “I’d demand an explanation.”

The landlady’s husband rapped, opened the door, and began, “Excuse me-”

“Go to the devil!” said the stranger in a tremendous voice, “Shut that door after you.”

So that brief interview terminated.

Chapter VII
The Unveiling of the Stranger

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 curtains down, the door shut.

Thrice he rang his bell, the third time furiously and continuously, but no one answered him.

“I’ll teach him a lesson, ‘go to the devil’ indeed!” said Mrs. Hall. Presently came a rumour of the burglary at the vicarage. No one dared to go upstairs. How the stranger occupied himself is unknown.

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 group of scared but curious people increased.

It was the finest of all possible Mondays. And inside, in the darkness of the parlour, 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 outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace lay the fragments of smashed bottles, and a pungent twang of chlorine tainted the air.

About noon he suddenly opened his door and stood glaring fixedly at the three or four people in the bar. “Mrs. Hall,” he said. Somebody went and called for Mrs. Hall.

Mrs. Hall appeared after an interval. Mr. Hall was out. She came holding a little tray with a 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 any remittances.”

The stranger swore briefly but vividly.

“And I’d thank you kindly, sir, if you’d keep your swearing to yourself, sir,” said Mrs. Hall.

The stranger stood looking like an angry diving-helmet.

“Look here, my good woman-” he began.

“Don’t call me ‘good woman’,” said Mrs. Hall.

“I’ve told you my remittance hasn’t come.”

“Remittance indeed!” said Mrs. Hall.

“In my pocket-”

“You told me three days ago that you hadn’t anything but a sovereign.”

“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 doesn’t understand, and what everybody is very anxious to understand. What have you been doing with my chair? How was your room empty, and how did you get in again? The people in this house usually come in by the doors-that’s the rule of the house, and you didn’t. How do you come in? And I want to know-”

Suddenly the stranger raised his gloved hands, 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 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 everyone in the bar gasped. He took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers and bandages.

“Oh, my God!” said someone.

It was worse than anything. Mrs. Hall, standing open-mouthed and horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars, disfigurements, but nothing! The bandages and false hair flew across the passage into the bar. Everyone tumbled on everyone else down the steps. For the man who stood there 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. They saw Mrs. Hall fall down, and then they heard the frightful screams of Millie, who, going from the kitchen at the noise of the tumult, had come upon the headless stranger from behind.

After that everybody began to run towards the inn, and in a minute a crowd of perhaps forty people, swayed and hooted and inquired and exclaimed and suggested. Everyone seemed eager to talk at once. A small group supported Mrs. Hall, who was in a state of collapse. There was a conference:

“O Bogey!”

“What has he been doing, then?”

“Hasn’t he hurt the girl?”

“He has run at her with a knife, I believe.”

“A man without a head!”

“Nonsense! It’s just a trick.”

Trying to see in through the open door, the crowd formed itself into a straggling wedge.

“He stood for a moment, I heard the girl scream, and he turned. I saw her skirts, and he went after her. It didn’t take ten seconds. He came back with a knife in his hand. Not a moment ago. He went through that door. I tell you, he has no head! At all.”

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 Mr. Wadgers. They had come to arrest the stranger.

People shouted.

“With the head or without any head, it doesn’t matter,” said Jaffers, “I will arrest him, in any case.”

Mr. Hall 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 crust of bread in one gloved hand and a chunk of cheese in the other.

“That’s him!” said Hall.

“What the devil is this?” came an angry question from above the collar of the figure.

“You’re a rare man, indeed, mister,” said Mr. Jaffers. “But with the head or without any head, duty is duty!”

“Keep off!” said the figure, starting back.

Abruptly he whipped down the bread and cheese. Off came the stranger’s left glove and was slapped in Jaffers’ face. In another moment Jaffers had gripped him by the handless wrist and caught his invisible throat. They came down together.

“Get the feet,” said Jaffers.

Mr. Hall, endeavouring to act on instructions, received a kick in the ribs. Mr. Wadgers retreated towards the door, knife in hand, and so collided with Mr. Huxter and the carter coming to the rescue of law and order. At the same moment down came three or four bottles from the chiffonnier.

“I’ll surrender!” cried the stranger, and in another moment he stood up, a strange figure, headless and handless-for he had pulled off his gloves. “It’s no good,” he said.

It was a very strange thing to hear that voice coming as if out of empty space. Jaffers got up also and produced a pair of handcuffs. Then he stared.

“Darn it!” said Jaffers, “I can’t use them as I can see.”

“Why!” said Huxter, suddenly, “that’s not a man at all. It’s just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar. I could put my arm-”

He extended his hand, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation.

“I wish you’d keep your fingers out of my eye,” said the aerial voice. “The fact is, I’m all here-head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but I’m invisible.”

The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon its unseen supports, stood up.

Several men had entered the room, so that it was crowded.

“Invisible, eh?” said Huxter. “Who ever heard of that?”

“It’s strange, perhaps, but it’s not a crime. Why is the policeman here?”

“Ah! that’s a different matter,” said Jaffers. “I got an order and it’s all correct. Invisibility is not a crime, but the burglary is. A house was broken into and money was taken.”

“Well?”

“And circumstances certainly point-”

“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 happening, the slippers, socks, and trousers had been kicked off under the table. Then he sprang up again and flung off his coat.

“Stop that!” said Jaffers, suddenly realising what was happening. He gripped at the waistcoat; it struggled, and the shirt slipped out of it.

“Hold him!” said Jaffers, loudly. “Once he gets the things off-”

“Hold him!” cried everyone. A white shirt was now all that was visible of the stranger.

The shirt-sleeve sent Hall backward, and in another moment the garment was lifted up and the shirt hit the man’s head.

“Hold him!” said everybody. “Shut the door! Don’t let him get out! I got something! Here he is!”

Sandy Wadgers got a frightful blow in the nose. He opened the door. The hitting continued. Jaffers was struck under the jaw, and, turning, caught at something that intervened between him and Huxter.

“I got him!” shouted Jaffers, wrestling with purple face and swelling veins against his unseen enemy.

Then Jaffers cried in a strangled voice, and his fingers relaxed.

There were excited cries of “Hold him!” “Invisible!” and so forth, and a young fellow caught something and fell over the constable’s prostrate body. Across the road a woman screamed as something pushed her; a dog, kicked apparently, yelped and ran howling. The Invisible Man ran away. People stood amazed and gesticulating, and then came panic. But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees bent.