CHAPTER XIII.
MR. MARVEL DISCUSSES HIS RESIGNATION.
When the dusk was gathering and Iping was just beginning to peep timorously forth again upon the shattered wreckage of its Bank Holiday, a short, thick-set man in a shabby silk hat was marching painfully through the twilight behind the beechwoods on the road to Bramblehurst. He carried three books bound together by some sort of ornamental elastic ligature, and a bundle wrapped in a blue table-cloth. His rubicund face expressed consternation and fatigue; he appeared to be in a spasmodic sort of hurry. He was accompanied by a voice other than his own, and ever and again he winced under the touch of unseen hands.
"If you give me the slip again," said the Voice, "if you attempt to give me the slip again--"
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "That shoulder"s a ma.s.s of bruises as it is."
"On my honour," said the Voice, "I will kill you."
"I didn"t try to give you the slip," said Marvel, in a voice that was not far remote from tears. "I swear I didn"t. I didn"t know the blessed turning, that was all! How the devil was I to know the blessed turning? As it is, I"ve been knocked about--"
"You"ll get knocked about a great deal more if you don"t mind," said the Voice, and Mr. Marvel abruptly became silent. He blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were eloquent of despair.
"It"s bad enough to let these floundering yokels explode my little secret, without your cutting off with my books. It"s lucky for some of them they cut and ran when they did! Here am I ... No one knew I was invisible! And now what am I to do?"
"What am I to do?" asked Marvel, sotto voce.
"It"s all about. It will be in the papers! Everybody will be looking for me; everyone on their guard--" The Voice broke off into vivid curses and ceased.
The despair of Mr. Marvel"s face deepened, and his pace slackened.
"Go on!" said the Voice.
Mr. Marvel"s face a.s.sumed a greyish tint between the ruddier patches.
"Don"t drop those books, stupid," said the Voice, sharply--overtaking him.
"The fact is," said the Voice, "I shall have to make use of you.... You"re a poor tool, but I must."
"I"m a miserable tool," said Marvel.
"You are," said the Voice.
"I"m the worst possible tool you could have," said Marvel.
"I"m not strong," he said after a discouraging silence.
"I"m not over strong," he repeated.
"No?"
"And my heart"s weak. That little business--I pulled it through, of course--but bless you! I could have dropped."
"Well?"
"I haven"t the nerve and strength for the sort of thing you want."
"I"ll stimulate you."
"I wish you wouldn"t. I wouldn"t like to mess up your plans, you know. But I might--out of sheer funk and misery."
"You"d better not," said the Voice, with quiet emphasis.
"I wish I was dead," said Marvel.
"It ain"t justice," he said; "you must admit.... It seems to me I"ve a perfect right--"
"Get on!" said the Voice.
Mr. Marvel mended his pace, and for a time they went in silence again.
"It"s devilish hard," said Mr. Marvel.
This was quite ineffectual. He tried another tack.
"What do I make by it?" he began again in a tone of unendurable wrong.
"Oh! shut up!" said the Voice, with sudden amazing vigour. "I"ll see to you all right. You do what you"re told. You"ll do it all right. You"re a fool and all that, but you"ll do--"
"I tell you, sir, I"m not the man for it. Respectfully--but it is so--"
"If you don"t shut up I shall twist your wrist again," said the Invisible Man. "I want to think."
Presently two oblongs of yellow light appeared through the trees, and the square tower of a church loomed through the gloaming. "I shall keep my hand on your shoulder," said the Voice, "all through the village. Go straight through and try no foolery. It will be the worse for you if you do."
"I know that," sighed Mr. Marvel, "I know all that."
The unhappy-looking figure in the obsolete silk hat pa.s.sed up the street of the little village with his burdens, and vanished into the gathering darkness beyond the lights of the windows.
CHAPTER XIV.
AT PORT STOWE.
Ten o"clock the next morning found Mr. Marvel, unshaven, dirty, and travel-stained, sitting with the books beside him and his hands deep in his pockets, looking very weary, nervous, and uncomfortable, and inflating his cheeks at infrequent intervals, on the bench outside a little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe. Beside him were the books, but now they were tied with string. The bundle had been abandoned in the pine-woods beyond Bramblehurst, in accordance with a change in the plans of the Invisible Man. Mr. Marvel sat on the bench, and although no one took the slightest notice of him, his agitation remained at fever heat. His hands would go ever and again to his various pockets with a curious nervous fumbling.
When he had been sitting for the best part of an hour, however, an elderly mariner, carrying a newspaper, came out of the inn and sat down beside him. "Pleasant day," said the mariner.
Mr. Marvel glanced about him with something very like terror. "Very," he said.
"Just seasonable weather for the time of year," said the mariner, taking no denial.
"Quite," said Mr. Marvel.
The mariner produced a toothpick, and (saving his regard) was engrossed thereby for some minutes. His eyes meanwhile were at liberty to examine Mr. Marvel"s dusty figure, and the books beside him. As he had approached Mr. Marvel he had heard a sound like the dropping of coins into a pocket. He was struck by the contrast of Mr. Marvel"s appearance with this suggestion of opulence. Thence his mind wandered back again to a topic that had taken a curiously firm hold of his imagination.
"Books?" he said suddenly, noisily finishing with the toothpick.
Mr. Marvel started and looked at them. "Oh, yes," he said. "Yes, they"re books."
"There"s some extra-ordinary things in books," said the mariner.
"I believe you," said Mr. Marvel.
"And some extra-ordinary things out of "em," said the mariner.
"True likewise," said Mr. Marvel. He eyed his interlocutor, and then glanced about him.
"There"s some extra-ordinary things in newspapers, for example," said the mariner.
"There are."
"In this newspaper," said the mariner.
"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel.
"There"s a story," said the mariner, fixing Mr. Marvel with an eye that was firm and deliberate; "there"s a story about an Invisible Man, for instance."
Mr. Marvel pulled his mouth askew and scratched his cheek and felt his ears glowing. "What will they be writing next?" he asked faintly. "Ostria, or America?"
"Neither," said the mariner. "Here."
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, starting.
"When I say here," said the mariner, to Mr. Marvel"s intense relief, "I don"t of course mean here in this place, I mean hereabouts."
"An Invisible Man!" said Mr. Marvel. "And what"s he been up to?"
"Everything," said the mariner, controlling Marvel with his eye, and then amplifying, "every--blessed--thing."
"I ain"t seen a paper these four days," said Marvel.
"Iping"s the place he started at," said the mariner.
"In-deed!" said Mr. Marvel.
"He started there. And where he came from, n.o.body don"t seem to know. Here it is: "Pe-culiar Story from Iping." And it says in this paper that the evidence is extra-ordinary strong--extra-ordinary."
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.
"But then, it"s an extra-ordinary story. There is a clergyman and a medical gent witnesses--saw "im all right and proper--or leastways didn"t see "im. He was staying, it says, at the "Coach an" Horses," and no one don"t seem to have been aware of his misfortune, it says, aware of his misfortune, until in an Altercation in the inn, it says, his bandages on his head was torn off. It was then ob-served that his head was invisible. Attempts were At Once made to secure him, but casting off his garments, it says, he succeeded in escaping, but not until after a desperate struggle, in which he had inflicted serious injuries, it says, on our worthy and able constable, Mr. J. A. Jaffers. Pretty straight story, eh? Names and everything."
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, looking nervously about him, trying to count the money in his pockets by his unaided sense of touch, and full of a strange and novel idea. "It sounds most astonishing."
"Don"t it? Extra-ordinary, I call it. Never heard tell of Invisible Men before, I haven"t, but nowadays one hears such a lot of extra-ordinary things--that--"
"That all he did?" asked Marvel, trying to seem at his ease.
"It"s enough, ain"t it?" said the mariner.
"Didn"t go Back by any chance?" asked Marvel. "Just escaped and that"s all, eh?"
"All!" said the mariner. "Why!--ain"t it enough?"
"Quite enough," said Marvel.
"I should think it was enough," said the mariner. "I should think it was enough."
"He didn"t have any pals--it don"t say he had any pals, does it?" asked Mr. Marvel, anxious.
"Ain"t one of a sort enough for you?" asked the mariner. "No, thank Heaven, as one might say, he didn"t."
He nodded his head slowly. "It makes me regular uncomfortable, the bare thought of that chap running about the country! He is at present At Large, and from certain evidence it is supposed that he has--taken--took, I suppose they mean--the road to Port Stowe. You see we"re right in it! None of your American wonders, this time. And just think of the things he might do! Where"d you be, if he took a drop over and above, and had a fancy to go for you? Suppose he wants to rob--who can prevent him? He can trespa.s.s, he can burgle, he could walk through a cordon of policemen as easy as me or you could give the slip to a blind man! Easier! For these here blind chaps hear uncommon sharp, I"m told. And wherever there was liquor he fancied--"
"He"s got a tremenjous advantage, certainly," said Mr. Marvel. "And--well..."
"You"re right," said the mariner. "He has."
All this time Mr. Marvel had been glancing about him intently, listening for faint footfalls, trying to detect imperceptible movements. He seemed on the point of some great resolution. He coughed behind his hand.
He looked about him again, listened, bent towards the mariner, and lowered his voice: "The fact of it is--I happen--to know just a thing or two about this Invisible Man. From private sources."
"Oh!" said the mariner, interested. "You?"
"Yes," said Mr. Marvel. "Me."
"Indeed!" said the mariner. "And may I ask--"
"You"ll be astonished," said Mr. Marvel behind his hand. "It"s tremenjous."
"Indeed!" said the mariner.
"The fact is," began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a confidential undertone. Suddenly his expression changed marvellously. "Ow!" he said. He rose stiffly in his seat. His face was eloquent of physical suffering. "Wow!" he said.
"What"s up?" said the mariner, concerned.
"Toothache," said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear. He caught hold of his books. "I must be getting on, I think," he said. He edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor. "But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!" protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself. "Hoax," said a Voice. "It"s a hoax," said Mr. Marvel.