CHAPTER XX
AT THE HOUSE IN GREAT PORTLAND STREET
For a moment Kemp sat in silence, staring at the back of theheadless figure at the window. Then he started, struck by a thought,rose, took the Invisible Man's arm, and turned him away from theoutlook.
"You are tired," he said, "and while I sit, you walk about. Havemy chair."
He placed himself between Griffin and the nearest window.
For a space Griffin sat silent, and then he resumed abruptly:
"I had left the Chesilstowe cottage already," he said, "when thathappened. It was last December. I had taken a room in London, alarge unfurnished room in a big ill-managed lodging-house in a slumnear Great Portland Street. The room was soon full of the appliancesI had bought with his money; the work was going on steadily,successfully, drawing near an end. I was like a man emerging from athicket, and suddenly coming on some unmeaning tragedy. I went tobury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lifta finger to save his character. I remember the funeral, the cheaphearse, the scant ceremony, the windy frost-bitten hillside, and theold college friend of his who read the service over him--a shabby,black, bent old man with a snivelling cold.
"I remember walking back to the empty house, through the place thathad once been a village and was now patched and tinkered by thejerry builders into the ugly likeness of a town. Every way theroads ran out at last into the desecrated fields and ended inrubble heaps and rank wet weeds. I remember myself as a gaunt blackfigure, going along the slippery, shiny pavement, and the strangesense of detachment I felt from the squalid respectability, thesordid commercialism of the place.
"I did not feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me to bethe victim of his own foolish sentimentality. The current cantrequired my attendance at his funeral, but it was really not myaffair.
"But going along the High Street, my old life came back to mefor a space, for I met the girl I had known ten years since.Our eyes met.
"Something moved me to turn back and talk to her. She was a veryordinary person.
"It was all like a dream, that visit to the old places. I did notfeel then that I was lonely, that I had come out from the worldinto a desolate place. I appreciated my loss of sympathy, but I putit down to the general inanity of things. Re-entering my roomseemed like the recovery of reality. There were the things I knewand loved. There stood the apparatus, the experiments arranged andwaiting. And now there was scarcely a difficulty left, beyond theplanning of details.
"I will tell you, Kemp, sooner or later, all the complicatedprocesses. We need not go into that now. For the most part, savingcertain gaps I chose to remember, they are written in cypher inthose books that tramp has hidden. We must hunt him down. We mustget those books again. But the essential phase was to place thetransparent object whose refractive index was to be lowered betweentwo radiating centres of a sort of ethereal vibration, of which Iwill tell you more fully later. No, not those Roentgen vibrations--Idon't know that these others of mine have been described. Yetthey are obvious enough. I needed two little dynamos, and these Iworked with a cheap gas engine. My first experiment was with a bitof white wool fabric. It was the strangest thing in the world tosee it in the flicker of the flashes soft and white, and then towatch it fade like a wreath of smoke and vanish.
"I could scarcely believe I had done it. I put my hand into theemptiness, and there was the thing as solid as ever. I felt itawkwardly, and threw it on the floor. I had a little troublefinding it again.
"And then came a curious experience. I heard a miaow behind me, andturning, saw a lean white cat, very dirty, on the cistern coveroutside the window. A thought came into my head. 'Everything readyfor you,' I said, and went to the window, opened it, and calledsoftly. She came in, purring--the poor beast was starving--andI gave her some milk. All my food was in a cupboard in thecorner of the room. After that she went smelling round the room,evidently with the idea of making herself at home. The invisiblerag upset her a bit; you should have seen her spit at it! But Imade her comfortable on the pillow of my truckle-bed. And I gaveher butter to get her to wash."
"And you processed her?"
"I processed her. But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp! Andthe process failed."
"Failed!"
"In two particulars. These were the claws and the pigment stuff,what is it?--at the back of the eye in a cat. You know?"
"_Tapetum_."
"Yes, the _tapetum_. It didn't go. After I'd given the stuff tobleach the blood and done certain other things to her, I gave thebeast opium, and put her and the pillow she was sleeping on, on theapparatus. And after all the rest had faded and vanished, thereremained two little ghosts of her eyes."
"Odd!"
"I can't explain it. She was bandaged and clamped, of course--soI had her safe; but she woke while she was still misty, and miaoweddismally, and someone came knocking. It was an old woman fromdownstairs, who suspected me of vivisecting--a drink-sodden oldcreature, with only a white cat to care for in all the world. Iwhipped out some chloroform, applied it, and answered the door.'Did I hear a cat?' she asked. 'My cat?' 'Not here,' said I, verypolitely. She was a little doubtful and tried to peer past me intothe room; strange enough to her no doubt--bare walls, uncurtainedwindows, truckle-bed, with the gas engine vibrating, and theseethe of the radiant points, and that faint ghastly stinging ofchloroform in the air. She had to be satisfied at last and wentaway again."
"How long did it take?" asked Kemp.
"Three or four hours--the cat. The bones and sinews and the fatwere the last to go, and the tips of the coloured hairs. And, as Isay, the back part of the eye, tough, iridescent stuff it is,wouldn't go at all.
"It was night outside long before the business was over, and nothingwas to be seen but the dim eyes and the claws. I stopped the gasengine, felt for and stroked the beast, which was still insensible,and then, being tired, left it sleeping on the invisible pillow andwent to bed. I found it hard to sleep. I lay awake thinking weakaimless stuff, going over the experiment over and over again, ordreaming feverishly of things growing misty and vanishing about me,until everything, the ground I stood on, vanished, and so I came tothat sickly falling nightmare one gets. About two, the cat beganmiaowing about the room. I tried to hush it by talking to it, andthen I decided to turn it out. I remember the shock I had whenstriking a light--there were just the round eyes shining green--andnothing round them. I would have given it milk, but I hadn't any. Itwouldn't be quiet, it just sat down and miaowed at the door. I triedto catch it, with an idea of putting it out of the window, but itwouldn't be caught, it vanished. Then it began miaowing in differentparts of the room. At last I opened the window and made a bustle. Isuppose it went out at last. I never saw any more of it.
"Then--Heaven knows why--I fell thinking of my father's funeralagain, and the dismal windy hillside, until the day had come. Ifound sleeping was hopeless, and, locking my door after me,wandered out into the morning streets."
"You don't mean to say there's an invisible cat at large!" saidKemp.
"If it hasn't been killed," said the Invisible Man. "Why not?"
"Why not?" said Kemp. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
"It's very probably been killed," said the Invisible Man. "Itwas alive four days after, I know, and down a grating in GreatTitchfield Street; because I saw a crowd round the place, tryingto see whence the miaowing came."
He was silent for the best part of a minute. Then he resumedabruptly:
"I remember that morning before the change very vividly. I must havegone up Great Portland Street. I remember the barracks in AlbanyStreet, and the horse soldiers coming out, and at last I found thesummit of Primrose Hill. It was a sunny day in January--one of thosesunny, frosty days that came before the snow this year. My wearybrain tried to formulate the position, to plot out a plan of action.
"I was surprised to find, now that my prize was within my grasp, howinconclusive its attainment seemed. As a matter of fact I was workedout; the intense stress
of nearly four years' continuous work leftme incapable of any strength of feeling. I was apathetic, and Itried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries,the passion of discovery that had enabled me to compass even thedownfall of my father's grey hairs. Nothing seemed to matter. I sawpretty clearly this was a transient mood, due to overwork and wantof sleep, and that either by drugs or rest it would be possible torecover my energies.
"All I could think clearly was that the thing had to be carriedthrough; the fixed idea still ruled me. And soon, for the money Ihad was almost exhausted. I looked about me at the hillside, withchildren playing and girls watching them, and tried to think of allthe fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world.After a time I crawled home, took some food and a strong dose ofstrychnine, and went to sleep in my clothes on my unmade bed.Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out ofa man."
"It's the devil," said Kemp. "It's the palaeolithic in a bottle."
"I awoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable. You know?"
"I know the stuff."
"And there was someone rapping at the door. It was my landlordwith threats and inquiries, an old Polish Jew in a long grey coatand greasy slippers. I had been tormenting a cat in the night, hewas sure--the old woman's tongue had been busy. He insisted onknowing all about it. The laws in this country against vivisectionwere very severe--he might be liable. I denied the cat. Then thevibration of the little gas engine could be felt all over thehouse, he said. That was true, certainly. He edged round me intothe room, peering about over his German-silver spectacles, and asudden dread came into my mind that he might carry away somethingof my secret. I tried to keep between him and the concentratingapparatus I had arranged, and that only made him more curious. Whatwas I doing? Why was I always alone and secretive? Was it legal?Was it dangerous? I paid nothing but the usual rent. His had alwaysbeen a most respectable house--in a disreputable neighbourhood.Suddenly my temper gave way. I told him to get out. He began toprotest, to jabber of his right of entry. In a moment I had him bythe collar; something ripped, and he went spinning out into his ownpassage. I slammed and locked the door and sat down quivering.
"He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a time hewent away.
"But this brought matters to a crisis. I did not know what hewould do, nor even what he had the power to do. To move to freshapartments would have meant delay; altogether I had barely twentypounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank--and Icould not afford that. Vanish! It was irresistible. Then therewould be an inquiry, the sacking of my room.
"At the thought of the possibility of my work being exposed orinterrupted at its very climax, I became very angry and active. Ihurried out with my three books of notes, my cheque-book--the tramphas them now--and directed them from the nearest Post Office to ahouse of call for letters and parcels in Great Portland Street. Itried to go out noiselessly. Coming in, I found my landlord goingquietly upstairs; he had heard the door close, I suppose. You wouldhave laughed to see him jump aside on the landing as I came tearingafter him. He glared at me as I went by him, and I made the housequiver with the slamming of my door. I heard him come shuffling upto my floor, hesitate, and go down. I set to work upon mypreparations forthwith.
"It was all done that evening and night. While I was still sittingunder the sickly, drowsy influence of the drugs that decolouriseblood, there came a repeated knocking at the door. It ceased,footsteps went away and returned, and the knocking was resumed.There was an attempt to push something under the door--a bluepaper. Then in a fit of irritation I rose and went and flung thedoor wide open. 'Now then?' said I.
"It was my landlord, with a notice of ejectment or something. Heheld it out to me, saw something odd about my hands, I expect, andlifted his eyes to my face.
"For a moment he gaped. Then he gave a sort of inarticulate cry,dropped candle and writ together, and went blundering down the darkpassage to the stairs. I shut the door, locked it, and went to thelooking-glass. Then I understood his terror.... My face waswhite--like white stone.
"But it was all horrible. I had not expected the suffering. A nightof racking anguish, sickness and fainting. I set my teeth, though myskin was presently afire, all my body afire; but I lay there likegrim death. I understood now how it was the cat had howled until Ichloroformed it. Lucky it was I lived alone and untended in my room.There were times when I sobbed and groaned and talked. But I stuckto it.... I became insensible and woke languid in the darkness.
"The pain had passed. I thought I was killing myself and I did notcare. I shall never forget that dawn, and the strange horror ofseeing that my hands had become as clouded glass, and watching themgrow clearer and thinner as the day went by, until at last I couldsee the sickly disorder of my room through them, though I closed mytransparent eyelids. My limbs became glassy, the bones and arteriesfaded, vanished, and the little white nerves went last. I grittedmy teeth and stayed there to the end. At last only the dead tips ofthe fingernails remained, pallid and white, and the brown stain ofsome acid upon my fingers.
"I struggled up. At first I was as incapable as a swathedinfant--stepping with limbs I could not see. I was weak and veryhungry. I went and stared at nothing in my shaving-glass, at nothingsave where an attenuated pigment still remained behind the retina ofmy eyes, fainter than mist. I had to hang on to the table and pressmy forehead against the glass.
"It was only by a frantic effort of will that I dragged myself backto the apparatus and completed the process.
"I slept during the forenoon, pulling the sheet over my eyes to shutout the light, and about midday I was awakened again by a knocking.My strength had returned. I sat up and listened and heard awhispering. I sprang to my feet and as noiselessly as possible beganto detach the connections of my apparatus, and to distribute itabout the room, so as to destroy the suggestions of its arrangement.Presently the knocking was renewed and voices called, first mylandlord's, and then two others. To gain time I answered them. Theinvisible rag and pillow came to hand and I opened the window andpitched them out on to the cistern cover. As the window opened, aheavy crash came at the door. Someone had charged it with the ideaof smashing the lock. But the stout bolts I had screwed up somedays before stopped him. That startled me, made me angry. I beganto tremble and do things hurriedly.
"I tossed together some loose paper, straw, packing paper and soforth, in the middle of the room, and turned on the gas. Heavyblows began to rain upon the door. I could not find the matches. Ibeat my hands on the wall with rage. I turned down the gas again,stepped out of the window on the cistern cover, very softly loweredthe sash, and sat down, secure and invisible, but quivering withanger, to watch events. They split a panel, I saw, and in anothermoment they had broken away the staples of the bolts and stood inthe open doorway. It was the landlord and his two step-sons, sturdyyoung men of three or four and twenty. Behind them fluttered theold hag of a woman from downstairs.
"You may imagine their astonishment to find the room empty. One ofthe younger men rushed to the window at once, flung it up and staredout. His staring eyes and thick-lipped bearded face came a footfrom my face. I was half minded to hit his silly countenance, but Iarrested my doubled fist. He stared right through me. So did theothers as they joined him. The old man went and peered under thebed, and then they all made a rush for the cupboard. They had toargue about it at length in Yiddish and Cockney English. Theyconcluded I had not answered them, that their imagination haddeceived them. A feeling of extraordinary elation took the placeof my anger as I sat outside the window and watched these fourpeople--for the old lady came in, glancing suspiciously about herlike a cat, trying to understand the riddle of my behaviour.
"The old man, so far as I could understand his _patois_, agreed withthe old lady that I was a vivisectionist. The sons protested ingarbled English that I was an electrician, and appealed to thedynamos and radiators. They were all nervous about my arrival,although I found subsequently that they had bolted the front door.The old
lady peered into the cupboard and under the bed, and one ofthe young men pushed up the register and stared up the chimney. Oneof my fellow lodgers, a coster-monger who shared the opposite roomwith a butcher, appeared on the landing, and he was called in andtold incoherent things.
"It occurred to me that the radiators, if they fell into the handsof some acute well-educated person, would give me away too much,and watching my opportunity, I came into the room and tilted one ofthe little dynamos off its fellow on which it was standing, andsmashed both apparatus. Then, while they were trying to explain thesmash, I dodged out of the room and went softly downstairs.
"I went into one of the sitting-rooms and waited until they camedown, still speculating and argumentative, all a little disappointedat finding no 'horrors,' and all a little puzzled how they stoodlegally towards me. Then I slipped up again with a box of matches,fired my heap of paper and rubbish, put the chairs and beddingthereby, led the gas to the affair, by means of an india-rubbertube, and waving a farewell to the room left it for the last time."
"You fired the house!" exclaimed Kemp.
"Fired the house. It was the only way to cover my trail--and nodoubt it was insured. I slipped the bolts of the front door quietlyand went out into the street. I was invisible, and I was only justbeginning to realise the extraordinary advantage my invisibilitygave me. My head was already teeming with plans of all the wild andwonderful things I had now impunity to do."