Chapter XI

The Invisible Man is Coming

In the early evening Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the house on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant room, with three windows and bookshelves with books and scientific publications, and a writing-table, and under the window a microscope, some cultures, and bottles of reagents.

Dr. Kemp was a tall young man, with hair almost white, and the work he was doing would earn him, he hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society.

For a minute, perhaps, he sat looking out at the hill, and then his attention was attracted by the figure of a man, running over the hill towards him.

“Another of those fools,” said Dr. Kemp.

“Like that fool who ran into me this morning round a corner, with his ‘Invisible Man’s coming, sir!’ One might think we were in the thirteenth century.”

He got up, went to the window, and stared at the hillside and the figure running down it.

“Fools!” said Dr. Kemp, walking back to his writing-table.

Dr. Kemp continued writing in his study until he heard shots. Crack, crack, crack, they came one after the other.

“Who’s shooting in Burdock?” said Dr. Kemp listening.

He went to the window, and looked down. He saw a crowd by “The Cricketers”, and watched.

After five minutes, Dr. Kemp returned to his writing desk.

About an hour after this the front door bell rang. He heard the servant answer the door, and waited for her, but she did not come.

“What was that?” said Dr. Kemp.

He went downstairs from his study, and saw the servant. “Was that a letter?” he asked.

“There was nobody at the door, sir,” she answered.

Soon he was hard at work again, and he worked till two o’clock. He wanted a drink, so he took a candle and went down to the dining-room for whisky.

Dr. Kemp’s scientific investigations had made him a very observant man, and as he crossed the hall he noticed a dark spot on the floor. He put down the whisky, bent, and touched the spot. It felt like drying blood.

He returned upstairs looking about him and thinking of the blood spot. Upstairs he saw something, and stopped astonished. There was blood on the door-handle of his room.

He looked at his own hand. It was quite clean, and then he remembered that the door of his room had been open when he came from his study, and he had not touched the handle at all. He went straight into his room. There was blood on his bed, and the sheet had been torn. On the farther side the bedclothes were depressed as if someone had been sitting there.

Then he heard a low voice say, “Lord! – Kemp!” But Dr. Kemp did not believe in voices.

He stood staring at the blood on his sheets. Was that really a voice? He looked about again, but noticed nobody. Then he heard a movement across the room. He put down his whisky on the dressing-table. Suddenly, he saw a blood-stained bandage hanging in the air, near him. He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage – a tied bandage, but quite empty.

“Kemp!” said the Voice, quite close to him. “I am an Invisible Man.”

Kemp was not very much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment. He did not realise it was true. “I thought it was all a lie,” he said. “Have you a bandage on?”

“Yes,” said the Invisible Man.

“Oh!” said Kemp. “But this is nonsense. It’s some trick.” He wanted to touch the bandage, and his hand met invisible fingers. The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it.

“Keep steady, Kemp, for God’s sake! I want help badly. Stop! Kemp, keep steady!” cried the Voice.

Kemp opened his mouth to shout, and the corner of the sheet was put between his teeth. The Invisible Man pushed him down on the bed.

“Lie still, you fool!” said the Invisible Man in Kemp’s ear.

Chapter XII

Dr. Kemp’s Visitor

Kemp struggled for another moment, and then lay still.

“If you shout, I’ll smash your face,” said the Invisible Man. “I’m an Invisible Man. It is no trick and no magic. I am really an Invisible Man. And I want your help. Don’t you remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College. I have made myself invisible. I am just an ordinary man, a man you have known.”

“Griffin?” said Kemp.

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

Kemp thought. “It’s horrible,” he said.

“Yes, it’s horrible. But I’m wounded and in pain, and tired… Kemp, give me some food and drink.”

Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a chair dragged along the floor to the bed. The seat was depressed.

“Give me some whisky. I’m near dead.”

“It didn’t feel so. Where are you? Whisky … Where shall I give it you?”

Kemp felt the glass taken away from him. It hung in the air twenty inches above the chair.

He stared at it in amazement.

“This is – this must be – hypnotism. I demonstrated this morning,” began Kemp, “that invisibility is —”

“Never mind what you’ve demonstrated! I’m hungry,” said the Voice, “and the night is cold to a man without clothes.”

“Hungry?” said Kemp.

“Yes,” said the Invisible Man, drinking whisky. “Have you got a dressing-gown?”

Kemp walked to a wardrobe, and took out a dressing-gown. It was taken from him. It hung for a moment in the air, stood, and sat down in his chair.

“This is the insanest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Kemp went downstairs to look for food. He came back with some cold cutlets and bread, and put them on a small table before his guest. A cutlet hung in the air with a sound of chewing.

“It was my good luck that I came to your house when I was looking for bandages. And it’s my bad luck that blood shows, isn’t it? Gets visible as it coagulates. I’ve changed only the living tissue, 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. “The whole business – it’s insane from beginning to end.”

“Quite sane,” said the Invisible Man; “perfectly sane.”

“How did the shooting begin?” he asked.

“There was a fool – a help of mine, curse him! – who has stolen my money. Moreover, he has stolen my diaries. We stopped at an inn in Port Stowe, a few miles from here. And he gave me the slip with my money and my diaries in the morning, before I got up.”

“Is he invisible, too?”

“No.”

“You didn’t do any shooting?” Kemp asked.

“Not me,” said his visitor. “Some fool I’d never seen.”

After he had done eating, the Invisible Man demanded a cigar. It was strange to see him smoking: his mouth and throat, and nose became visible as smoke filled them.

“I’m lucky to have met you, Kemp. You haven’t changed much. I must tell you. We will work together!”

“But how was it all done?” said Kemp.

“For God’s sake let me smoke, and then I will begin to tell you.”

But the story was not told that night. The Invisible Man’s hand was growing painful; he was too tired. He spoke of Marvel, his voice grew angry.

“He was afraid of me – I could see he was afraid of me,” said the Invisible Man many times. “He wanted to give me the slip from the very start! I was furious. I should have killed him – I haven’t slept for three days, except a couple of hours or so. I must sleep now.”

“Well, sleep in my room.”

“But how can I sleep? How I want to sleep!”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to be caught while I sleep,” he said slowly.

Kemp stared at him.

“What a fool I am!” said the Invisible Man.

“I’ve put the idea into your head.”

Chapter XIII

The Invisible Man Sleeps

“I’m sorry,” said the Invisible Man, “if I cannot tell you all what I have done to-night. I am tired. I have made a discovery. I wanted to keep it to myself. I can’t. I must have a partner. And you… We can do such things… But tomorrow.”

Kemp stood staring at the headless dressinggown.

“It’s incredible,” he said. “But it’s real!

Good-night,” said Kemp.

Suddenly the dressing-gown walked quickly towards him.

“No attempts to catch me! Or —” said the dressing-gown.

Kemp’s face changed a little. “I thought you called me a partner,” he said.

Kemp closed the door behind him, and the key was turned upon him. “Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad, or have I?” Kemp said. “Locked out of my own bedroom!” He shook his head hopelessly, and went downstairs to his consulting-room, and began walking to and fro.

“Invisible!” he said. “Is there such a thing as an invisible animal?… In the sea – yes. Thousands – millions! In the sea there are more things invisible than visible! I never thought of that before… And in the ponds too! All those little things in ponds – bits of colourless jelly!… But in air! No! It can’t be. But after all – why not?”

He took the morning paper, and read the account of a “Strange Story from Iping”.

“He wore a diguise!” said Kemp. “He was hiding! No one knew what had happened to him.”

He took the St. James’s Gazette, opened it, and read: “A Village in Sussex Goes Mad”.

“Lord!” said Kemp, reading an account of the events in Iping. “Ran through the streets striking right and left. Mr. Jaffers and Mr. Huxter in great pain – still unable to describe what they saw. Vicar in terror. Windows smashed.”

He dropped the paper and stared in front of him, then re-read the article.

“He’s not only invisible,” he said, “but he’s mad!”

He was too excited to sleep that night. In the morning he gave the servant instructions to lay breakfast for two in the study. The morning’s paper came with an account of remarkable events in Burdock. Kemp now knew what had happened at the “Jolly Cricketers”. It seems like rage growing to mania! What can he do! And he’s upstairs free as the air. “What ought I to do?” he said.

He wrote a note, and addressed it to “Colonel Adye, Burdock.”

The Invisible Man woke up as Kemp was doing this. He awoke in a bad temper, and Kemp heard a chair knocked over and a glass smashed.

Kemp hurried upstairs.

“What’s the matter?” asked Kemp, when the Invisible Man opened the door.

“Nothing,” was the answer.

“But the smash?”

“Fit of temper,” said the Invisible Man.

“You often have them.”

“I do.”

“All the facts are out about you,” said Kemp.

“All that happened in Iping and down the hill. The world knows of the invisible man. But no one knows you are here.”

The Invisible Man swore.

“The secret’s out. I don’t know what your plans are, but, of course, I’ll help you. There’s breakfast in the study,” said Kemp, speaking as easily as possible.