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of the bar was shut down and the bolt clicked, and then with a tremendous thud
the catch of the door snapped and the bar- parlour door burst open. They heard
Marvel squeal like a caught leveret, and forthwith they were clambering over
the bar to his rescue. The bearded man's revolver cracked and the
looking-glass at the back of the parlour started and came smashing and
tinkling down.
As the barman entered the room he saw Marvel, curiously crumpled up and
struggling against the door that led to the yard and kitchen. The door flew
open while the barman hesitated, and Marvel was dragged into the kitchen.
There was a scream and a clatter of pans. Marvel, head down, and lugging back
obstinately, was forced to the kitchen door, and the bolts were drawn.
Then the policeman, who had been trying to pass the barman, rushed in,
followed by one of the cabmen, gripped the wrist of the invisible hand that
collared Marvel, was hit in the face and went reeling back. The door opened,
and Marvel made a frantic effort to obtain a lodgment behind it. Then the
cabman collared something. "I got him," said the cabman. The barman's red
hands came clawing at the unseen. "Here he is!" said the barman.
Mr. Marvel, released, suddenly dropped to the ground and made an attempt to
crawl behind the legs of the fighting men. The struggle blundered round the
edge of the door. The voice of the Invisible Man was heard for the first time,
yelling out sharply, as the policeman trod on his foot. Then he cried out
passionately and his fists flew round like flails. The cabman suddenly whooped
and doubled up, kicked under the diaphragm. The door into the bar-parlour from
the kitchen slammed and covered Mr. Marvel's retreat. The men in the kitchen
found themselves clutching at and struggling with empty air.
"Where's he gone?" cried the man with the beard. "Out?"
"This way," said the policeman, stepping into the yard and stopping.
A piece of tile whizzed by his head and smashed among the crockery on the
kitchen table.
"I'll show him," shouted the man with the black beard, and suddenly a steel
barrel shone over the policeman's shoulder, and five bullets had followed one
another into the twilight whence the missile had come. As he fired, the man
with the beard moved his hand in a horizontal curve, so that his shots
radiated out into the narrow yard like spokes from a wheel.
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A silence followed. "Five cartridges," said the man with the black beard.
"That's the best of all. Four aces and the joker. Get a lantern, someone, and
come and feel about for his body."
Doctor Kemp's Visitor
Doctor Kemp had continued writing in his study until the shots aroused him.
Crack, crack, crack, they came one after the other.
"Hullo!" said Doctor Kemp, putting his pen into his mouth again and
listening. "Who's letting off revolvers in Burdock? What are the asses at
now?"
He went to the south window, threw it up, and leaning out stared down on the
network of windows, beaded gas-lamps and shops, with its black interstices of
roofs that made up the town at night. "Looks like a crowd down the hill," he
said, "by the Cricketers," and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered
over the town to far away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed,
a little illuminated faceted pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon in
its first quarter hung over the western hill, and the stars were clear and
almost tropically bright.
After five minutes, during which his mind had travelled into a remote
speculation of social conditions of the future, and lost itself at last over
the time dimension, Doctor Kemp roused himself with a sigh, pulled down the
window again, and returned to his writing- desk.
It must have been about an hour after this that the front-door bell rang. He
had been writing slackly, and with intervals of abstraction, since the shots.
He sat listening. He heard the servant answer the door, and waited for her
feet on the staircase, but she did not come. "Wonder what that was," said
Doctor Kemp.
He tried to resume his work, failed, got up, went downstairs from his study
to the landing, rang, and called over the balustrade to the housemaid as she
appeared in the hall below. "Was that a letter?" he asked.
"Only a runaway ring, sir," she answered.
"I'm restless to-night," he said to himself. He went back to his study, and
this time attacked his work resolutely. In a little while he was hard at work
again, and the only sounds in the room were the ticking of the clock and the
subdued shrillness of his quill, hurrying in the very centre of the circle of
light his lampshade threw on his table.
It was two o'clock before Doctor Kemp had finished his work for the night. He
rose, yawned, and went downstairs to bed. He had already removed his coat and
vest, when he noticed that he was thirsty. He took a candle and went down to
the dining-room in search of a syphon and whiskey.
Doctor Kemp's scientific pursuits have made him a very observant man, and as
he recrossed the hall, he noticed a dark spot on the linoleum near the mat at
the foot of the stairs. He went on upstairs, and then it suddenly occurred to
him to ask himself what the spot on the linoleum might be. Apparently some
subconscious element was at work. At any rate, he turned with his burden, went
back to the hall, put down the syphon and whiskey, and bending down, touched
the spot. Without any great surprise he found it had the stickiness and colour
of drying blood.
He took up his burden again, and returned upstairs, looking about him and
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trying to account for the blood-spot. On the landing he saw something and
stopped astonished. The door-handle of his own room was blood-stained.
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 down from his study, and that
consequently he had not touched the handle at all. He went straight into his
room, his face quite calm -- perhaps a trifle more resolute than usual. His
glance, wandering inquisitively, fell on the bed. On the counterpane was a
mess of blood, and the sheet had been torn. He had not noticed this before
because he had walked straight to the dressing-table. On the further side the
bedclothes were depressed as if someone had been recently sitting there.
Then he had an odd impression that he had heard a loud voice say, "Good
Heavens! -- Kemp!" But Dr. Kemp was no believer in Voices.
He stood staring at the tumbled sheets. Was that really a voice? He looked
about again, but noticed nothing further than the disordered and blood-stained
bed. Then he distinctly heard a movement across the room, near the wash-hand
stand. All men, however highly educated, retain some superstitious inklings.
The feeling that is called "eerie" came upon him. He closed the door of the
room, came forward to the dressing-table, and put down his burdens. Suddenly,
with a start, he perceived a coiled and blood-stained bandage of linen rag
hanging in mid-air, between him and the wash-hand stand.
He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage, a bandage properly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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