Kemp read a strange missive, written in pencil on a greasy
sheet of paper.
“You have been amazingly energetic and clever,” this letter
ran, “though what you stand to gain by it I cannot imagine. You are
against me. For a whole day you have chased me; you have tried to rob me
of a night’s rest. But I have had food in spite of you, I have slept in
spite of you, and the game is only beginning. The game is only
beginning. There is nothing for it, but to start the Terror. This
announces the first day of the Terror. Port Burdock is no longer under the
Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and the rest of them; it is under me the
Terror! This is day one of year one of the new epoch the Epoch of the
Invisible Man. I am Invisible Man the First. To begin with the rule
will be easy.
The first day there will be one execution for the sake of
example a man named Kemp. Death starts for him to-day. He may lock
himself away, hide himself away, get guards about him, put on armour if he
likes Death, the unseen Death, is coming. Let him take precautions; it
will impress my people. Death starts from the pillar box by midday.
The letter will fall in as the postman comes along, then off! The game
begins. Death starts. Help him not, my people, lest Death fall upon
you also. To-day Kemp is to die.”
Kemp read this letter twice, “It’s no hoax,” he said.
“That’s his voice! And he means it.”
He turned the folded sheet over and saw on the addressed
side of it the postmark Hintondean, and the prosaic detail “2d. to pay.”
He got up slowly, leaving his lunch unfinished the letter
had come by the one o’clock post and went into his study. He rang for
his housekeeper, and told her to go round the house at once, examine all the
fastenings of the windows, and close all the shutters. He closed the
shutters of his study himself. From a locked drawer in his bedroom he
took a little revolver, examined it carefully, and put it into the pocket of
his lounge jacket. He wrote a number of brief notes, one to Colonel Adye,
gave them to his servant to take, with explicit instructions as to her way of
leaving the house. “There is no danger,” he said, and added a mental
reservation, “to you.” He remained meditative for a space after doing
this, and then returned to his cooling lunch.
He ate with gaps of thought. Finally he struck the
table sharply. “We will have him!” he said; “and I am the bait. He
will come too far.”
He went up to the belvedere, carefully shutting every door
after him. “It’s a game,” he said, “an odd game but the chances are all
for me, Mr. Griffin, in spite of your invisibility. Griffin contra
mundum ... with a vengeance.”
He stood at the window staring at the hot hillside.
“He must get food every day and I don’t envy him. Did he really sleep
last night? Out in the open somewhere secure from collisions. I
wish we could get some good cold wet weather instead of the heat.
“He may be watching me now.”
He went close to the window. Something rapped smartly
against the brickwork over the frame, and made him start violently back.
“I’m getting nervous,” said Kemp. But it was five
minutes before he went to the window again. “It must have been a
sparrow,” he said.
Presently he heard the front-door bell ringing, and hurried
downstairs. He unbolted and unlocked the door, examined the chain, put it
up, and opened cautiously without showing himself. A familiar voice
hailed him. It was Adye.
“Your servant’s been assaulted, Kemp,” he said round the
door.
“What!” exclaimed Kemp.
“Had that note of yours taken away from her. He’s
close about here. Let me in.”
Kemp released the chain, and Adye entered through as narrow
an opening as possible. He stood in the hall, looking with infinite
relief at Kemp refastening the door. “Note was snatched out of her
hand. Scared her horribly. She’s down at the station. Hysterics.
He’s close here. What was it about?”
Kemp swore.
“What a fool I was,” said Kemp. “I might have
known. It’s not an hour’s walk from Hintondean. Already?”
“What’s up?” said Adye.
“Look here!” said Kemp, and led the way into his
study. He handed Adye the Invisible Man’s letter. Adye read it and
whistled softly. “And you ?” said Adye.
“Proposed a trap like a fool,” said Kemp, “and sent my
proposal out by a maid servant. To him.”
Adye followed Kemp’s profanity.
“He’ll clear out,” said Adye.
“Not he,” said Kemp.
A resounding smash of glass came from upstairs. Adye
had a silvery glimpse of a little revolver half out of Kemp’s pocket.
“It’s a window, upstairs!” said Kemp, and led the way up. There came a
second smash while they were still on the staircase. When they reached
the study they found two of the three windows smashed, half the room littered
with splintered glass, and one big flint lying on the writing table. The
two men stopped in the doorway, contemplating the wreckage. Kemp swore
again, and as he did so the third window went with a snap like a pistol, hung
starred for a moment, and collapsed in jagged, shivering triangles into the
room.
“What’s this for?” said Adye.
“It’s a beginning,” said Kemp.
“There’s no way of climbing up here?”
“Not for a cat,” said Kemp.
“No shutters?”
“Not here. All the downstairs rooms Hullo!”
Smash, and then whack of boards hit hard came from
downstairs. “Confound him!” said Kemp. “That must be yes it’s one
of the bedrooms. He’s going to do all the house. But he’s a
fool. The shutters are up, and the glass will fall outside. He’ll
cut his feet.”
Another window proclaimed its destruction. The two men
stood on the landing perplexed. “I have it!” said Adye. “Let me
have a stick or something, and I’ll go down to the station and get the
bloodhounds put on. That ought to settle him! They’re hard by not
ten minutes ”
Another window went the way of its fellows.
“You haven’t a revolver?” asked Adye.
Kemp’s hand went to his pocket. Then he hesitated.
“I haven’t one at least to spare.”
“I’ll bring it back,” said Adye, “you’ll be safe here.”
Kemp, ashamed of his momentary lapse from truthfulness,
handed him the weapon.
“Now for the door,” said Adye.
As they stood hesitating in the hall, they heard one of the
first-floor bedroom windows crack and clash. Kemp went to the door and
began to slip the bolts as silently as possible. His face was a little
paler than usual. “You must step straight out,” said Kemp. In
another moment Adye was on the doorstep and the bolts were dropping back into
the staples. He hesitated for a moment, feeling more comfortable with his
back against the door. Then he marched, upright and square, down the
steps. He crossed the lawn and approached the gate. A little breeze
seemed to ripple over the grass. Something moved near him. “Stop a
bit,” said a Voice, and Adye stopped dead and his hand tightened on the
revolver.
“Well?” said Adye, white and grim, and every nerve tense.
“Oblige me by going back to the house,” said the Voice, as
tense and grim as Adye’s.
“Sorry,” said Adye a little hoarsely, and moistened his lips
with his tongue. The Voice was on his left front, he thought.
Suppose he were to take his luck with a shot?
“What are you going for?” said the Voice, and there was a
quick movement of the two, and a flash of sunlight from the open lip of Adye’s
pocket.
Adye desisted and thought. “Where I go,” he said
slowly, “is my own business.” The words were still on his lips, when an
arm came round his neck, his back felt a knee, and he was sprawling
backward. He drew clumsily and fired absurdly, and in another moment he
was struck in the mouth and the revolver wrested from his grip. He made a
vain clutch at a slippery limb, tried to struggle up and fell back.
“Damn!” said Adye. The Voice laughed. “I’d kill you now if it
wasn’t the waste of a bullet,” it said. He saw the revolver in mid-air,
six feet off, covering him.
“Well?” said Adye, sitting up.
“Get up,” said the Voice.
Adye stood up.
“Attention,” said the Voice, and then fiercely, “Don’t try
any games. Remember I can see your face if you can’t see mine.
You’ve got to go back to the house.”
“He won’t let me in,” said Adye.
“That’s a pity,” said the Invisible Man. “I’ve got no
quarrel with you.”
Adye moistened his lips again. He glanced away from
the barrel of the revolver and saw the sea far off very blue and dark under the
midday sun, the smooth green down, the white cliff of the Head, and the
multitudinous town, and suddenly he knew that life was very sweet. His
eyes came back to this little metal thing hanging between heaven and earth, six
yards away. “What am I to do?” he said sullenly.
“What am I to do?” asked the Invisible Man.
“You will get help. The only thing is for you to go back.”
“I will try. If he lets me in will you promise not to
rush the door?”
“I’ve got no quarrel with you,” said the Voice.
Kemp had hurried upstairs after letting Adye out, and now
crouching among the broken glass and peering cautiously over the edge of the
study window sill, he saw Adye stand parleying with the Unseen. “Why
doesn’t he fire?” whispered Kemp to himself. Then the revolver moved a
little and the glint of the sunlight flashed in Kemp’s eyes. He shaded
his eyes and tried to see the source of the blinding beam.
“Surely!” he said, “Adye has given up the revolver.”
“Promise not to rush the door,” Adye was saying.
“Don’t push a winning game too far. Give a man a chance.”
“You go back to the house. I tell you flatly I will
not promise anything.”
Adye’s decision seemed suddenly made. He turned
towards the house, walking slowly with his hands behind him. Kemp watched
him puzzled. The revolver vanished, flashed again into sight, vanished
again, and became evident on a closer scrutiny as a little dark object following
Adye. Then things happened very quickly. Adye leapt backwards,
swung around, clutched at this little object, missed it, threw up his hands and
fell forward on his face, leaving a little puff of blue in the air. Kemp
did not hear the sound of the shot. Adye writhed, raised himself on one
arm, fell forward, and lay still.
For a space Kemp remained staring at the quiet carelessness
of Adye’s attitude. The afternoon was very hot and still, nothing seemed
stirring in all the world save a couple of yellow butterflies chasing each
other through the shrubbery between the house and the road gate. Adye lay
on the lawn near the gate. The blinds of all the villas down the
hill-road were drawn, but in one little green summer-house was a white figure,
apparently an old man asleep. Kemp scrutinised the surroundings of the
house for a glimpse of the revolver, but it had vanished. His eyes came
back to Adye. The game was opening well.
Then came a ringing and knocking at the front door, that
grew at last tumultuous, but pursuant to Kemp’s instructions the servants had
locked themselves into their rooms. This was followed by a silence.
Kemp sat listening and then began peering cautiously out of the three windows,
one after another. He went to the staircase head and stood listening
uneasily. He armed himself with his bedroom poker, and went to examine
the interior fastenings of the ground-floor windows again. Everything was
safe and quiet. He returned to the belvedere. Adye lay motionless
over the edge of the gravel just as he had fallen. Coming along the road
by the villas were the housemaid and two policemen.
Everything was deadly still. The three people seemed
very slow in approaching. He wondered what his antagonist was doing.
He started. There was a smash from below. He
hesitated and went downstairs again. Suddenly the house resounded with
heavy blows and the splintering of wood. He heard a smash and the
destructive clang of the iron fastenings of the shutters. He turned the
key and opened the kitchen door. As he did so, the shutters, split and
splintering, came flying inward. He stood aghast. The window frame,
save for one crossbar, was still intact, but only little teeth of glass
remained in the frame. The shutters had been driven in with an axe, and
now the axe was descending in sweeping blows upon the window frame and the iron
bars defending it. Then suddenly it leapt aside and vanished. He
saw the revolver lying on the path outside, and then the little weapon sprang
into the air. He dodged back. The revolver cracked just too late,
and a splinter from the edge of the closing door flashed over his head.
He slammed and locked the door, and as he stood outside he heard Griffin
shouting and laughing. Then the blows of the axe with its splitting and
smashing consequences, were resumed.
Kemp stood in the passage trying to think. In a moment
the Invisible Man would be in the kitchen. This door would not keep him a
moment, and then
A ringing came at the front door again. It would be
the policemen. He ran into the hall, put up the chain, and drew the
bolts. He made the girl speak before he dropped the chain, and the three
people blundered into the house in a heap, and Kemp slammed the door again.
“The Invisible Man!” said Kemp. “He has a revolver,
with two shots left. He’s killed Adye. Shot him anyhow.
Didn’t you see him on the lawn? He’s lying there.”
“Who?” said one of the policemen.
“Adye,” said Kemp.
“We came in the back way,” said the girl.
“What’s that smashing?” asked one of the policemen.
“He’s in the kitchen or will be. He has found an axe ”
Suddenly the house was full of the Invisible Man’s
resounding blows on the kitchen door. The girl stared towards the
kitchen, shuddered, and retreated into the dining-room. Kemp tried to
explain in broken sentences. They heard the kitchen door give.
“This way,” said Kemp, starting into activity, and bundled
the policemen into the dining-room doorway.
“Poker,” said Kemp, and rushed to the fender. He
handed the poker he had carried to the policeman and the dining-room one to the
other. He suddenly flung himself backward.
“Whup!” said one policeman, ducked, and caught the axe on
his poker. The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable
Sidney Cooper. The second policeman brought his poker down on the little
weapon, as one might knock down a wasp, and sent it rattling to the floor.
At the first clash the girl screamed, stood screaming for a
moment by the fireplace, and then ran to open the shutters possibly with an
idea of escaping by the shattered window.
The axe receded into the passage, and fell to a position
about two feet from the ground. They could hear the Invisible Man
breathing. “Stand away, you two,” he said. “I want that man Kemp.”
“We want you,” said the first policeman, making a quick step
forward and wiping with his poker at the Voice. The Invisible Man must
have started back, and he blundered into the umbrella stand.
Then, as the policeman staggered with the swing of the blow
he had aimed, the Invisible Man countered with the axe, the helmet crumpled
like paper, and the blow sent the man spinning to the floor at the head of the
kitchen stairs. But the second policeman, aiming behind the axe with his
poker, hit something soft that snapped. There was a sharp exclamation of
pain and then the axe fell to the ground. The policeman wiped again at
vacancy and hit nothing; he put his foot on the axe, and struck again.
Then he stood, poker clubbed, listening intent for the slightest movement.
He heard the dining-room window open, and a quick rush of
feet within. His companion rolled over and sat up, with the blood running
down between his eye and ear. “Where is he?” asked the man on the floor.
“Don’t know. I’ve hit him. He’s standing
somewhere in the hall. Unless he’s slipped past you. Doctor Kemp sir.”
Pause.
“Doctor Kemp,” cried the policeman again.
The second policeman began struggling to his feet. He
stood up. Suddenly the faint pad of bare feet on the kitchen stairs could
be heard. “Yap!” cried the first policeman, and incontinently flung his
poker. It smashed a little gas bracket.
He made as if he would pursue the Invisible Man
downstairs. Then he thought better of it and stepped into the
dining-room.
“Doctor Kemp ” he began, and stopped short.
“Doctor Kemp’s a hero,” he said, as his companion looked
over his shoulder.
The dining-room window was wide open, and neither housemaid
nor Kemp was to be seen.
The second policeman’s opinion of Kemp was terse and vivid.
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