The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance Read online

  CHAPTER III

  THE THOUSAND AND ONE BOTTLES

  So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginningof the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Ipingvillage. Next day his luggage arrived through the slush--and veryremarkable luggage it was. There were a couple of trunks indeed,such as a rational man might need, but in addition there werea box of books--big, fat books, of which some were just in anincomprehensible handwriting--and a dozen or more crates, boxes,and cases, containing objects packed in straw, as it seemed toHall, tugging with a casual curiosity at the straw--glass bottles.The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came outimpatiently to meet Fearenside's cart, while Hall was having a wordor so of gossip preparatory to helping bring them in. Out he came,not noticing Fearenside's dog, who was sniffing in a _dilettante_spirit at Hall's legs. "Come along with those boxes," he said."I've been waiting long enough."

  And he came down the steps towards the tail of the cart as if tolay hands on the smaller crate.

  No sooner had Fearenside's dog caught sight of him, however, thanit began to bristle and growl savagely, and when he rushed down thesteps it gave an undecided hop, and then sprang straight at hishand. "Whup!" cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero withdogs, and Fearenside howled, "Lie down!" and snatched his whip.

  They saw the dog's teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw thedog execute a flanking jump and get home on the stranger's leg, andheard the rip of his trousering. Then the finer end of Fearenside'swhip reached his property, and the dog, yelping with dismay,retreated under the wheels of the waggon. It was all the business ofa swift half-minute. No one spoke, everyone shouted. The strangerglanced swiftly at his torn glove and at his leg, made as if hewould stoop to the latter, then turned and rushed swiftly up thesteps into the inn. They heard him go headlong across the passageand up the uncarpeted stairs to his bedroom.

  "You brute, you!" said Fearenside, climbing off the waggon with hiswhip in his hand, while the dog watched him through the wheel."Come here," said Fearenside--"You'd better."

  Hall had stood gaping. "He wuz bit," said Hall. "I'd better go andsee to en," and he trotted after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall inthe passage. "Carrier's darg," he said "bit en."

  He went straight upstairs, and the stranger's door being ajar, hepushed it open and was entering without any ceremony, being of anaturally sympathetic turn of mind.

  The blind was down and the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a mostsingular thing, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, anda face of three huge indeterminate spots on white, very like theface of a pale pansy. Then he was struck violently in the chest,hurled back, and the door slammed in his face and locked. It was sorapid that it gave him no time to observe. A waving of indecipherableshapes, a blow, and a concussion. There he stood on the dark littlelanding, wondering what it might be that he had seen.

  A couple of minutes after, he rejoined the little group that hadformed outside the "Coach and Horses." There was Fearenside tellingabout it all over again for the second time; there was Mrs. Hallsaying his dog didn't have no business to bite her guests; therewas Huxter, the general dealer from over the road, interrogative;and Sandy Wadgers from the forge, judicial; besides women andchildren, all of them saying fatuities: "Wouldn't let en bite_me_, I knows"; "'Tasn't right _have_ such dargs"; "Whad _'e_ bite'n for, then?" and so forth.

  Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps and listening, found itincredible that he had seen anything so very remarkable happenupstairs. Besides, his vocabulary was altogether too limited toexpress his impressions.

  "He don't want no help, he says," he said in answer to his wife'sinquiry. "We'd better be a-takin' of his luggage in."

  "He ought to have it cauterised at once," said Mr. Huxter;"especially if it's at all inflamed."

  "I'd shoot en, that's what I'd do," said a lady in the group.

  Suddenly the dog began growling again.

  "Come along," cried an angry voice in the doorway, and there stoodthe muffled stranger with his collar turned up, and his hat-brimbent down. "The sooner you get those things in the better I'll bepleased." It is stated by an anonymous bystander that his trousersand gloves had been changed.

  "Was you hurt, sir?" said Fearenside. "I'm rare sorry the darg--"

  "Not a bit," said the stranger. "Never broke the skin. Hurry upwith those things."

  He then swore to himself, so Mr. Hall asserts.

  Directly the first crate was, in accordance with his directions,carried into the parlour, the stranger flung himself upon it withextraordinary eagerness, and began to unpack it, scattering thestraw with an utter disregard of Mrs. Hall's carpet. And from it hebegan to produce bottles--little fat bottles containing powders,small and slender bottles containing coloured and white fluids,fluted blue bottles labeled Poison, bottles with round bodies andslender necks, large green-glass bottles, large white-glass bottles,bottles with glass stoppers and frosted labels, bottles with finecorks, bottles with bungs, bottles with wooden caps, wine bottles,salad-oil bottles--putting them in rows on the chiffonnier, on themantel, on the table under the window, round the floor, on thebookshelf--everywhere. The chemist's shop in Bramblehurst could notboast half so many. Quite a sight it was. Crate after crate yieldedbottles, until all six were empty and the table high with straw; theonly things that came out of these crates besides the bottles werea number of test-tubes and a carefully packed balance.

  And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to thewindow and set to work, not troubling in the least about the litterof straw, the fire which had gone out, the box of books outside,nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs.

  When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already soabsorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles intotest-tubes, that he did not hear her until she had swept away thebulk of the straw and put the tray on the table, with some littleemphasis perhaps, seeing the state that the floor was in. Then hehalf turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But shesaw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table,and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarilyhollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and facedher. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when heanticipated her.

  "I wish you wouldn't come in without knocking," he said in the toneof abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him.

  "I knocked, but seemingly--"

  "Perhaps you did. But in my investigations--my really very urgentand necessary investigations--the slightest disturbance, the jarof a door--I must ask you--"

  "Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you're like that, youknow. Any time."

  "A very good idea," said the stranger.

  "This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark--"

  "Don't. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill." And hemumbled at her--words suspiciously like curses.

  He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottlein one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quitealarmed. But she was a resolute woman. "In which case, I shouldlike to know, sir, what you consider--"

  "A shilling--put down a shilling. Surely a shilling's enough?"

  "So be it," said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginningto spread it over the table. "If you're satisfied, of course--"

  He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her.

  All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Halltestifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was aconcussion and a sound of bottles ringing together as though thetable had been hit, and the smash of a bottle flung violently down,and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing "something wasthe matter," she went to the door and listened, not caring toknock.

  "I can't go on," he was raving. "I _can't_ go on. Three hundredthousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! Allmy life it may take me! ... Patience! Patience indeed! ... Fool!fool
!"

  There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs.Hall had very reluctantly to leave the rest of his soliloquy.When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faintcrepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle.It was all over; the stranger had resumed work.

  When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of theroom under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had beencarelessly wiped. She called attention to it.

  "Put it down in the bill," snapped her visitor. "For God's sakedon't worry me. If there's damage done, put it down in the bill,"and he went on ticking a list in the exercise book before him.

  "I'll tell you something," said Fearenside, mysteriously. It waslate in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop ofIping Hanger.

  "Well?" said Teddy Henfrey.

  "This chap you're speaking of, what my dog bit. Well--he's black.Leastways, his legs are. I seed through the tear of his trousersand the tear of his glove. You'd have expected a sort of pinky toshow, wouldn't you? Well--there wasn't none. Just blackness. Itell you, he's as black as my hat."

  "My sakes!" said Henfrey. "It's a rummy case altogether. Why, hisnose is as pink as paint!"

  "That's true," said Fearenside. "I knows that. And I tell 'ee whatI'm thinking. That marn's a piebald, Teddy. Black here and whitethere--in patches. And he's ashamed of it. He's a kind of half-breed,and the colour's come off patchy instead of mixing. I've heard ofsuch things before. And it's the common way with horses, as any onecan see."