The Invisible Man (11 page)

He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage, a bandage
properly tied but quite empty. He would have advanced to grasp it,
but a touch arrested him, and a voice speaking quite close to him.

"Kemp!" said the Voice.

"Eh?" said Kemp, with his mouth open.

"Keep your nerve," said the Voice. "I'm an Invisible Man."

Kemp made no answer for a space, simply stared at the bandage.
"Invisible Man," he said.

"I am an Invisible Man," repeated the Voice.

The story he had been active to ridicule only that morning rushed
through Kemp's brain. He does not appear to have been either very
much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment.
Realisation came later.

"I thought it was all a lie," he said. The thought uppermost in his
mind was the reiterated arguments of the morning. "Have you a
bandage on?" he asked.

"Yes," said the Invisible Man.

"Oh!" said Kemp, and then roused himself. "I say!" he said. "But
this is nonsense. It's some trick." He stepped forward suddenly,
and his hand, extended towards the bandage, met invisible fingers.

He recoiled at the touch and his colour changed.

"Keep steady, Kemp, for God's sake! I want help badly. Stop!"

The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it.

"Kemp!" cried the Voice. "Kemp! Keep steady!" and the grip
tightened.

A frantic desire to free himself took possession of Kemp. The hand
of the bandaged arm gripped his shoulder, and he was suddenly
tripped and flung backwards upon the bed. He opened his mouth to
shout, and the corner of the sheet was thrust between his teeth.
The Invisible Man had him down grimly, but his arms were free and
he struck and tried to kick savagely.

"Listen to reason, will you?" said the Invisible Man, sticking to
him in spite of a pounding in the ribs. "By Heaven! you'll madden
me in a minute!

"Lie still, you fool!" bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp's ear.

Kemp struggled for another moment and then lay still.

"If you shout, I'll smash your face," said the Invisible Man,
relieving his mouth.

"I'm an Invisible Man. It's no foolishness, and no magic. I really
am an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don't want to hurt
you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic, I must. Don't you
remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College?"

"Let me get up," said Kemp. "I'll stop where I am. And let me sit
quiet for a minute."

He sat up and felt his neck.

"I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself
invisible. I am just an ordinary man—a man you have known—made
invisible."

"Griffin?" said Kemp.

"Griffin," answered the Voice. A younger student than you were,
almost an albino, six feet high, and broad, with a pink and white
face and red eyes, who won the medal for chemistry."

"I am confused," said Kemp. "My brain is rioting. What has this to
do with Griffin?"

"I
am
Griffin."

Kemp thought. "It's horrible," he said. "But what devilry must
happen to make a man invisible?"

"It's no devilry. It's a process, sane and intelligible enough—"

"It's horrible!" said Kemp. "How on earth—?"

"It's horrible enough. But I'm wounded and in pain, and tired ...
Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food
and drink, and let me sit down here."

Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a
basket chair dragged across the floor and come to rest near the bed.
It creaked, and the seat was depressed the quarter of an inch or so.
He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. "This beats ghosts," he
said, and laughed stupidly.

"That's better. Thank Heaven, you're getting sensible!"

"Or silly," said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes.

"Give me some whiskey. I'm near dead."

"It didn't feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you?
There
! all right. Whiskey? Here. Where shall I give it to you?"

The chair creaked and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He
let go by an effort; his instinct was all against it. It came to
rest poised twenty inches above the front edge of the seat of the
chair. He stared at it in infinite perplexity. "This is—this
must be—hypnotism. You have suggested you are invisible."

"Nonsense," said the Voice.

"It's frantic."

"Listen to me."

"I demonstrated conclusively this morning," began Kemp, "that
invisibility—"

"Never mind what you've demonstrated!—I'm starving," said the
Voice, "and the night is chilly to a man without clothes."

"Food?" said Kemp.

The tumbler of whiskey tilted itself. "Yes," said the Invisible Man
rapping it down. "Have you a dressing-gown?"

Kemp made some exclamation in an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe
and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. "This do?" he asked. It was
taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid-air, fluttered
weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in
his chair. "Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort," said the
Unseen, curtly. "And food."

"Anything. But this is the insanest thing I ever was in, in my
life!"

He turned out his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs
to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and
bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest.
"Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air,
with a sound of gnawing.

"Invisible!" said Kemp, and sat down on a bedroom chair.

"I always like to get something about me before I eat," said the
Invisible Man, with a full mouth, eating greedily. "Queer fancy!"

"I suppose that wrist is all right," said Kemp.

"Trust me," said the Invisible Man.

"Of all the strange and wonderful—"

"Exactly. But it's odd I should blunder into
your
house to get my
bandaging. My first stroke of luck! Anyhow I meant to sleep in this
house to-night. You must stand that! It's a filthy nuisance, my
blood showing, isn't it? Quite a clot over there. Gets visible as
it coagulates, I see. It's only the living tissue I've changed, and
only for as long as I'm alive.... I've been in the house three hours."

"But how's it done?" began Kemp, in a tone of exasperation.
"Confound it! The whole business—it's unreasonable from
beginning to end."

"Quite reasonable," said the Invisible Man. "Perfectly reasonable."

He reached over and secured the whiskey bottle. Kemp stared at the
devouring dressing gown. A ray of candle-light penetrating a torn
patch in the right shoulder, made a triangle of light under the
left ribs. "What were the shots?" he asked. "How did the shooting
begin?"

"There was a real fool of a man—a sort of confederate of
mine—curse him!—who tried to steal my money.
Has
done so."

"Is
he
invisible too?"

"No."

"Well?"

"Can't I have some more to eat before I tell you all that? I'm
hungry—in pain. And you want me to tell stories!"

Kemp got up. "
You
didn't do any shooting?" he asked.

"Not me," said his visitor. "Some fool I'd never seen fired at
random. A lot of them got scared. They all got scared at me. Curse
them!—I say—I want more to eat than this, Kemp."

"I'll see what there is to eat downstairs," said Kemp. "Not much,
I'm afraid."

After he had done eating, and he made a heavy meal, the Invisible
Man demanded a cigar. He bit the end savagely before Kemp could
find a knife, and cursed when the outer leaf loosened. It was
strange to see him smoking; his mouth, and throat, pharynx and
nares, became visible as a sort of whirling smoke cast.

"This blessed gift of smoking!" he said, and puffed vigorously.
"I'm lucky to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy
tumbling on you just now! I'm in a devilish scrape—I've been mad,
I think. The things I have been through! But we will do things yet.
Let me tell you—"

He helped himself to more whiskey and soda. Kemp got up, looked
about him, and fetched a glass from his spare room. "It's wild—but
I suppose I may drink."

"You haven't changed much, Kemp, these dozen years. You fair men
don't. Cool and methodical—after the first collapse. I must tell
you. We will work together!"

"But how was it all done?" said Kemp, "and how did you get like
this?"

"For God's sake, let me smoke in peace for a little while! And then
I will begin to tell you."

But the story was not told that night. The Invisible Man's wrist
was growing painful; he was feverish, exhausted, and his mind came
round to brood upon his chase down the hill and the struggle about
the inn. He spoke in fragments of Marvel, he smoked faster, his
voice grew angry. Kemp tried to gather what he could.

"He was afraid of me, I could see that he was afraid of me," said
the Invisible Man many times over. "He meant to give me the slip—he
was always casting about! What a fool I was!"

"The cur!

"I should have killed him!"

"Where did you get the money?" asked Kemp, abruptly.

The Invisible Man was silent for a space. "I can't tell you
to-night," he said.

He groaned suddenly and leant forward, supporting his invisible
head on invisible hands. "Kemp," he said, "I've had no sleep for
near three days, except a couple of dozes of an hour or so. I
must sleep soon."

"Well, have my room—have this room."

"But how can I sleep? If I sleep—he will get away. Ugh! What
does it matter?"

"What's the shot wound?" asked Kemp, abruptly.

"Nothing—scratch and blood. Oh, God! How I want sleep!"

"Why not?"

The Invisible Man appeared to be regarding Kemp. "Because I've a
particular objection to being caught by my fellow-men," he said
slowly.

Kemp started.

"Fool that I am!" said the Invisible Man, striking the table
smartly. "I've put the idea into your head."

Exhausted and wounded as the Invisible Man was, he refused to accept
Kemp's word that his freedom should be respected. He examined the
two windows of the bedroom, drew up the blinds and opened the
sashes, to confirm Kemp's statement that a retreat by them would be
possible. Outside the night was very quiet and still, and the new
moon was setting over the down. Then he examined the keys of the
bedroom and the two dressing-room doors, to satisfy himself that
these also could be made an assurance of freedom. Finally he
expressed himself satisfied. He stood on the hearth rug and Kemp
heard the sound of a yawn.

"I'm sorry," said the Invisible Man, "if I cannot tell you all that
I have done to-night. But I am worn out. It's grotesque, no doubt.
It's horrible! But believe me, Kemp, in spite of your arguments of
this morning, it is quite a possible thing. I have made a discovery.
I meant to keep it to myself. I can't. I must have a partner. And
you.... We can do such things ... But to-morrow. Now, Kemp, I feel
as though I must sleep or perish."

Kemp stood in the middle of the room staring at the headless garment.
"I suppose I must leave you," he said. "It's—incredible. Three
things happening like this, overturning all my preconceptions—would
make me insane. But it's real! Is there anything more that I can
get you?"

"Only bid me good-night," said Griffin.

"Good-night," said Kemp, and shook an invisible hand. He walked
sideways to the door. Suddenly the dressing-gown walked quickly
towards him. "Understand me!" said the dressing-gown. "No attempts
to hamper me, or capture me! Or—"

Kemp's face changed a little. "I thought I gave you my word," he
said.

Kemp closed the door softly behind him, and the key was turned upon
him forthwith. Then, as he stood with an expression of passive
amazement on his face, the rapid feet came to the door of the
dressing-room and that too was locked. Kemp slapped his brow with
his hand. "Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad—or have I?"

He laughed, and put his hand to the locked door. "Barred out of my
own bedroom, by a flagrant absurdity!" he said.

He walked to the head of the staircase, turned, and stared at the
locked doors. "It's fact," he said. He put his fingers to his
slightly bruised neck. "Undeniable fact!

"But—"

He shook his head hopelessly, turned, and went downstairs.

He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the
room, ejaculating. Now and then he would argue with himself.

"Invisible!" he said.

"Is there such a thing as an invisible animal? ... In the sea, yes.
Thousands—millions. All the larvae, all the little nauplii and
tornarias, all the microscopic things, the jelly-fish. In the sea
there are more things invisible than visible! I never thought of
that before. And in the ponds too! All those little pond-life
things—specks of colourless translucent jelly! But in air? No!

"It can't be.

"But after all—why not?

"If a man was made of glass he would still be visible."

His meditation became profound. The bulk of three cigars had passed
into the invisible or diffused as a white ash over the carpet before
he spoke again. Then it was merely an exclamation. He turned aside,
walked out of the room, and went into his little consulting-room and
lit the gas there. It was a little room, because Dr. Kemp did not
live by practice, and in it were the day's newspapers. The morning's
paper lay carelessly opened and thrown aside. He caught it up,
turned it over, and read the account of a "Strange Story from Iping"
that the mariner at Port Stowe had spelt over so painfully to Mr.
Marvel. Kemp read it swiftly.

"Wrapped up!" said Kemp. "Disguised! Hiding it! 'No one seems to
have been aware of his misfortune.' What the devil
is
his game?"