The Invisible Man Part 2

A burglary and possessed furniture.

Included in this episode:
Chapter 4 Mr Cuss Interviews the Stranger
Chapter 5 The Burglary at the Vicarage
Chapter 6 The Furniture that went Mad

Author: H.G. Wells

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Solo Book Club. We are reading The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. This is part two. Um, part one, we met a mysterious man who is constantly covered up. He kind of lets it slip once or twice. People are questioning what they see. My theory the covered up guy is the invisible man, but yet to be determined. So at the end of our last episode, the stranger he received his boxes and his things that he brought with him, and he was throwing potions all around. Very similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in terms of the science included. Anyway, let's get started on part two with chapter four, Mr. Cuss Interviews the Stranger. I have told the circumstances of the stranger's arrival in Ipping with a certain fullness of detail, in order that the curious impression he created may be understood by the reader. But excepting two odd incidents, the circumstances of his stay until the extraordinary day of the club festival may be passed over cursorily. There were a number of skirmishes with Mrs. Hall on matters of domestic discipline, but in every case until late in April when the first signs of penury began. Pennory, penory, penory. Okay, so that word is pronounced penury and it's basically like being extremely poor. When the first signs of penury began, he overrode her by the easy expedent of an extra payment. Hall did not like him, and whenever he did, he talked of the advisability of getting rid of him. But he showed his dislike chiefly by concealing it ostentatiously, and avoiding his visit as much as possible. Wait till the summer, said Mrs. Hall sagely, when the artists are beginning to come, then we'll see. He may be a bit overbearing, but Bill's settled punctual is Bill's settled punctual, whatever you like to say. I can understand that, they've got money coming in, why would you tell it to go away? The stranger did not go to church and indeed made no difference between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He worked as Mrs. Hawthorne very fitfully. Some days he would come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise late, pace his room, fretting audibly for hours together, smoke, sleep in the armchair by the fire. Communication with the world beyond the village he had none. His temper continued very uncertain. For the most part, his manner was that of a man suffering under almost unendurable provocation. And once or twice things were snapped, torn, crushed, or broken in spasmodic gusts of violence. He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily upon him. But though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously, she could make neither head nor tail of what she heard. This is very interesting. We have this stranger who is living seemingly with no end date in this, I don't know, was it was essentially an uh a bed and breakfast. And he's chatting to himself, he's kind of taken over an entire room, doing his potions and his experiments, and he's just constantly talking to clearly stressed and anxious about something. But Mrs. Hall, the landlady, just has absolutely no clue what he's going on about. He's clearly in his own little world. He rarely went abroad by day, but at twilight he would go out muffled up enormously, whether the weather were cold or not, and he chose the loneliest paths and those most overshadowed by trees and banks. His goggling spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under the penthouse of his hat came with a disagreeable suddenness out of the darkness upon one or two homegrowing labourers. And Teddy Henfree, tumbling out of the scarlet coat one night at half past nine, was scared shamefully by the stranger's skull-like head. He was walking hat in hand, lit by the sudden light of the opened indoor. Such children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of bogies, and it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked him or the reverse, but there was certainly a vivid enough dislike on either side. It was inevitable that a person of so remarkable an appearance and bearing should form a frequent topic in such a village as Ipping. Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. Mrs. Hall was sensitive on the point. When questioned, she explained very carefully that he was an experimental investigator, going gingerly over the syllables as one who dreads pitfalls. When asked what an experimental investigator was, she would say with a touch of superiority that most educated people knew that, and would then explain that he discovered things. Her visitor had had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face and hands, and being of a sensitive disposition, he was averse to any public notice of that. Oh that's kind of sweet, she's like defending him to the village. And and kind of making up reasons as to why he's always covered, as to what he does every day. I think that's quite sweet. Out of her hearing, there was a view largely entertained that he was a criminal, trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This idea sprang from the brain of Mr Teddy Henfrey. Good lord, here we go. No crime of any magnitude dating from the middle or end of February was known to have occurred. Elaborated in the imagination of Mr. Gould, the probationary assistant in the national school, this theory took the form that the stranger was an anarchist in disguise, preparing explosives, and he resolved to undertake such detective operations as his time permitted. These consisted for the most part in looking very hard at the stranger whenever they met, or in asking people who had never seen the stranger leading questions about him, but he detected nothing. Jeez, I wonder why. Another school of opinion followed Mr. Farrenside and either accepted the piebald view or some modification of it, as for instance Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that if he chooses to show himself at fairs, he'd make his fortune in no time. Being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of accounting for everything straight away. I think that's pretty interesting that that the whole town, and there are several different groups, have different theories as to why he's always covered up, why he's there in the first place, why he's so weird and strange. And I guess that kind of happens all the time, right? Like if you don't have solid evidence or solid facts, your mind will run away with an idea and attempt to make sense of what is happening. Between these main groups, there were waverers and compromises. Sussex folk have few superstitions, and it was only after the events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was first whispered in the village. Even then, it was only credited among the women folk. But whatever they thought of him, people in Ipping on the whole agreed in disliking him. His irritability, though it might have been comprehensible to an urban brainworker, was an amazing thing to these quiet Sussex villagers. The frantic gesticulations they surprised now and then, the headlong pace after nightfall that swept him upon them around quiet corners, the inhuman bludgeoning of all the tentative advances of curiosity, the taste for twilight that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of blinds, the extinction of candles and lamps. Who could agree with such goings on? They drew aside as he passed down the village, and when he had cone by, young humorists would up with coat collars and down with hat brims and go pacing nervously after him in imitation of his occult bearing. There was a song popular at that time called The Bogee Man. Miss Satchel sang it at the schoolroom concert in aid of the church lamps, and thereafter, whenever one or two of the villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, a bar or so of this tune, more or less sharp or flat, was whistled in the midst of them. Also, belated little children would call Bogeyman after him and make off tremulously elated. Oh now they're just like teasing him and calling him names and I mean at the end of the day, he's just someone trying to get through the bloody day. Figure out whatever is making him so worked up. Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The bandages excited his professional interest. The report of the thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through April and May, he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger. And at last, towards Whitsuntide, he could stand it no longer. Whitsuntide? That must be some kind of European thing. Ah, I see. So Whitsuntide is basically the week or the weekend that includes Whit Sunday. So it's part of the um the Easter celebrations, is my understanding. Alright, so the GP has managed to come up with a reason to talk to him around Easter. And at last, towards Whitsuntide, he could stand it no longer and hit upon the subscription list for a village nurse as an excuse. He was surprised to find that Mr. Hall did not know his guest's name. He gave a name, said Mrs. Hall, an assertion which was quite unfounded, but I didn't rightly hear it. She thought it seemed so silly not to know the man's name. Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. It was a fairly audible imprecation from within. Pardon my intrusion, said Cuss, and then the door closed and cut Mrs. Hall off from the rest of the conversation. She could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then a cry of surprise, a stirring of feet, a chair flung aside, a bark of laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face white, his eyes staring over his shoulder. Good lordy, what has just happened? He left the door open behind him without looking at her, strode across the hall and went down the steps, and she heard his feet hurrying along the road. He carried his hat in his hand. She stood behind the door looking at the open door of the parlour. Then she heard the stranger laughing quietly, and then his footsteps came across the room. She could not see his face where she stood. The parlour door slammed, and the place was silent again. What has just happened? Like honestly, so Cus has gone into the room, he's spoken to the stranger for a couple minutes, and then he's just come out like pale as anything, and terrified by the sounds of it. I guess we'll find out at some point. Cuss went straight up the village to bunting the vicar. Am I mad? Cuss began abruptly as he entered the shabby little study. Do I look like an insane person? What's happened? said the vicar. And I say as well, putting the ammonite on the loose sheets of his forthcoming sermon. That chap at the inn well give me something to drink, said Cuss, and he sat down. When his nerves had been studied by a glass of cheap sherry, the only drink the good vicar had available, he told him of the interview he had just had. Went in, he gasped, and began to demand a subscription of that nurse fund. He'd stuck his hands in his pockets as I came in, and he sat up lumply in his chair. Sniffed. I told him I'd heard he took an interest in scientific things. He said yes, sniffed again. Kept on sniffing all the time, evidently recently caught an infernal cold. No wonder wrapped up like that. I developed the nurse idea and all the while kept my eyes open. Bottles, chemicals everywhere, balance, test tubes in stands, and a smell of evening primrose. Would he subscribe? Said he'd consider it. Asked him point blank, was he researching? Said he was. A long research, got quite cross. A damnable long research, said he, blowing the cork out, so to speak. Oh, said I, and out came the grievance. The man was just on the boil, and my question boiled him over. He had been given a prescription, most valuable prescription. What for, he wouldn't say, wasn't medical. Damn you, what are you fishing after? I apologize. Dignified sniff and cough. He resumed. He'd read it. Five ingredients. Put it down, turned his head. Draft of air from window lift of the paper. Swish, rustle. He was working in a room with an open fireplace, he said. Saw a flicker, and there was the prescription burning and lifting chimney wood. Rushed towards it just as it whisked up chimney. So just at that point, to illustrate this story, out came his arm. My God, GP talks fast. Well, no hand, just an empty sleeve. Lord, I thought that's a deformity. Got a cork arm, I suppose, and it and has it taken off. Then I thought, there's something odd in that. What the devil keeps that sleeve up and open if there's nothing in it? There was nothing in it, I tell you. Nothing down it, right down to the joint. I could see right down to the elbow and there was a glimmer of light shining through a tear of the cloth. Good god, I said. Then he stopped, stared at me with those black goggles of his, and then at his sleeve. Well? That's all. He never said a word, just glared and put his sleeve back in his pocket quickly. I was saying, said he, that there was a prescription burning, wasn't I? Interrogative cough. How the devil, said I, can you move an empty sleeve like that? Empty sleeve? Yes, said I, an empty sleeve. It's an empty sleeve, is it? You saw it was an empty sleeve? He stood up right away. I stood up too. He came towards me in three very slow steps, and stood quite close, sniffed venomously. Okay, I don't know how you sniff venomously. I didn't flinch, though I hanged if that bandaged knob of his and those blinkers weren't enough to unnerve anyone coming quietly up to you. You said it was an empty sleeve, he said. Certainly, I said, at staring and saying nothing a bare faced man, unspectacled start scratch. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket again and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it, seemed an age. Well, said I, clearing my throat, there's nothing in it. Had to say something. I was beginning to feel frightened. I could see right down it. He extended it straight towards me. Slowly, slowly, just like that, till the cuff was six inches from my face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that, and then well something exactly like a finger and thumb it felt nipped my nose. Bunting began to laugh. There wasn't anything there, said Cuss, his voice running up to a shriek at the there. It's all very well for you to laugh, but I tell you I was so startled. I hit his cuff hand and turned round and cut out of the room. I left him. Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic. He turned round in a helpless way, took a second glass of the excellent vicar's very inferior sherry. When I hit his cuff, said Cuss, I tell you it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there wasn't an arm. There wasn't the ghost of an arm. Mr Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss. It's a most remarkable story, he said. He looked very wise and grave indeed. It's really, said Mr Bunting with judicial emphasis, a most remarkable story. This is very interesting. So basically, I mean it's pretty clear that the stranger's the invisible man, right? His sleeve is empty by sight, but he can touch things with his invisible hand. He's clearly invisible. Alright, chapter five. The burglary at the Vicarage. The facts of the burglary at the Vicarage come to us chiefly through the medium of the Vicar and his wife. It occurred in the small hours of Whit Monday, Easter Monday. The day devoted in Ipping to the club festivities. Mrs. Bunting, it seems, woke up suddenly in the stillness that comes before the dawn, with a strong impression that the door of their bedroom had opened and closed. She did not arouse her husband at first, but sat up in bed listening. She then distinctly heard the pad pad pad of bare feet coming out of the adjoining dressing room and walking along the passage towards the staircase. As soon as she felt assured of this, she aroused the reverend, Mr Bunting, as quietly as possible. He did not strike a light, but putting on his spectacles, her dressing gown, and his bar slippers, he went out on the landing to listen. He heard quite distinctly a fumbling going on at his slutty desk downstairs, and then a violent sneeze. Okay, well clearly there's someone else in the house. There's a sneeze. Could it be the invisible man? At that he returned to his bedroom, armed himself with the most obvious weapon, the poker, and descended the staircase as noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out on the landing. The hour was about four, and the ultimate darkness of the night was past. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall, but the study doorway yawned impenetrably black. Everything was still, except the faint creaking of the stairs under Mr Bunting's tread, and the slight movements in the study. Then something snapped. The drawer was opened and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with yellow light. Mr Bunting was now in the hall, and through the crack of the door he could see the desk and the drawer open and a candle burning on the desk, but the robber he could not see. He stood there in the hall, undecided what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her face white and intent, crept slowly downstairs after him. One thing kept up Mr. Bunting's courage, the persuasion that this burglar was a resident in the village. They heard the chink of money and realized that the robber had found the housekeeping reserve of gold. Two pounds ten and a half sovereigns altogether. At that sound, Mr. Bunting was nerved to abrupt action. Gripping the poker firmly, he rushed into the room, closely followed by Mrs. Bunting. Surrender cried Mr Bunting fiercely, and then stopped amazed. Apparently the room was perfectly empty. Or is it? There's clearly an invisible man in there. Yet their conviction that they had at that very moment heard somebody moving in the room was amounted to a certainty. For half a minute perhaps they stood gaping. Then Mrs. Bunting went across the room and looked behind the screen, while Mr Bunting, by a kindred impulse, peered under the desk. Then Mrs. Bunting turned back the window curtains, and Mr Bunting looked up the chimney and probed it with a poker. Then Mrs. Bunting scrutinized the waste paper basket, and Mr Bunting opened the lid of the coal scuttle. Then they came to a stop and stood with eyes interrogating each other. I could have sworn, said Mr Bunting. The candle, said Mr Bunting. Who lit the candle? The drawer, said Mrs. Bunting, and the money's gone. She went hastily to the doorway. Of all the extraordinary occurrences. There was a violent sneeze in the passage. They rushed out, and as they did so the kitchen door slammed. Bring the candle, said Mr Bunting, and led the way. They both heard a sound of bolts being hastily shot back. As he opened the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that the back door was just opening, and the faint light of early dawn displayed the dark masses of the garden beyond. He is certain that nothing went out of the door. It opened, stood open for a moment, and then closed with a slam. As it did so, the candle Mrs. Bunting was carrying from the study flickered and flared. It was a minute or more before they entered the kitchen. The place was empty. They refastened the back door, examined the kitchen, pantry, and scullery thoroughly, and at last went down into the cellar. There was not a soul to be found in the house, search as they would. Daylight found the vicar and his wife, a quaintly costumed little couple, still marvelling about on their own ground floor by the unnecessary light of a guttering candle. I mean, okay, I think there's two possibilities here. One, there's an invisible man walking around. Two, they have a ghost with a cold. Both equally viable in my opinion. Alrighty. Chapter 6. The furniture that went mad. Now it happened that in the early hours of Whit Monday, before Millie was hunted out for the day, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both rose and went noiselessly down into the cellar. Their business there was of a private nature and had something to do with the specific gravity of their beer. They had hardly entered the cellar when Mrs. Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of Sarsa Perilla from their joint room. As she was The expert and principal operator in this affair, Hall very properly went upstairs for it. On the landing, he was surprised to see that the stranger's door was ajar. He went on into his own room and found the bottle as he had been directed. But returning with the bottle, he noticed that the bolts of the front door had been shot back, that the door was in fact simply on the latch. And with a flash of inspiration, he connected this with the stranger's room upstairs and the suggestions of Mr. Teddy Henfree. He distinctly remembered holding the candle while Mrs. Hall shot those bolts overnight. At the sight he stopped, gaping, then with the bottle still in hand went upstairs again. He rapped on the stranger's door. There was no answer. He rapped again, then pushed the door wide open and entered. It was as he expected. The bed, the room also, was empty, and what was stranger, even in his heavy intelligence on the bedroom chair and along the rail of the bed were scattered the garments, the only garments so far as he knew, and the bandages of their guest. His big slouch hat even was cocked jauntily over the bedpost. As Hall stood there, he heard his wife's voice coming out of the depths of the cellar, with that rapid telescoping of the syllables and interrogative cocking up of the final words to a final note, by which the West Sussex villager is wont to indicate a brisk impatience. Judge ye got what I want? At that he turned and hurried down to her. Janny, he said, over the rail of the cellar steps, 'Tas the truth what Henfrey says. He's not in his room he ain't, and the front door's unbolted. At first Mrs Hall did not understand, and as soon as she did she resolved to see the empty room for herself. Hall, still holding the bottle, went first. If he ain't there, he said, his clothes are, and what's he doing without his clothes then? Tas a most curious business. As they came up the cellar steps, they both, it was afterwards ascertained, fancied they heard the front door open and shut, but seeing it closed and nothing there, neither said a word to the other about it at the time. Mrs. Hall passed her husband in the passage and ran on first upstairs. Someone sneezed on the staircase. Hall, following six steps behind, thought that he heard her sneeze. She, going on first, was under the impression that Hall was sneezing. She flung open the door and stood regarding the room. Of all the curious, she said. She heard a sniff close behind her head as it seemed, and turning was surprised to see Hall a dozen feet off on the topmost stair. But in another moment he was beside her. She bent forward and put her hand on the pillow and then under the clothes. Cold, she said. He's been up this hour or more. As she did so, a most extraordinary thing happened. The bedclothes gathered themselves together, leapt up suddenly into a sort of peak, and then jumped headlong over the bottom rail. It was exactly as if a hand had clutched them in the centre and flung them aside. Immediately after, the stranger's hat hopped off the bedpost and described a whirling flight in the air through the better part of a circle, and then dashed straight at Mrs. Hall's face. Then as swiftly came the sponge from the washstand, and then the chair, flinging the stranger's coat, trousers carelessly aside, and laughing dryly in a voice singly like the stranger's, turned itself up on its four legs at Mrs. Hall, seemed to take aim at her for a moment and charged at her. She screamed and turned, and then the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and impelled her and Hall out of the room. The door slammed violently and was locked. The chair and bed seemed to be executing a dance of triumph for a moment, and then abruptly everything was still. Mrs. Hall was left almost in a fainting condition in Mr Hall's arms on the landing. It was with the greatest difficulty that Mr Hall and Millie, who had been roused by her scream of alarm, succeeded in getting her downstairs and applying the restoratives customary in these cases. Customary in these cases yeah, because this happens all the time. Furniture taking on a mind of their own. Tas spirits, said Mrs. Hall. I know Tas spirits. I've read in papers ofin. Tables and chairs leaping and dancing. Take a drop more, Jenny, said Hall. Two steady ye. Lock him out, said Mrs. Hall. Don't let him come in again, I half guess I might a known. With them goggling eyes and bandaged head and never going to church of a Sunday, and all they bottles, more in it's right for anyone to have. He's put the spirits into the furniture, my good old furniture. 'Twas in that very chair my poor did mother used to sit when I was a little girl, to think it should rise up against me now. Just a drop more, Janny, said Hall, your nerves is all upset. They sent Millie across the streets through the golden five o'clock sunshine to rouse up Mr Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith. Mr Hall's compliments and the furniture upstairs was behaving most extraordinary. Would Mr Wadgers come round? He was annoying man, was Mr Wadgers, and very resourceful. He took quite a grave view of the case. I'm damned if that ain't witchcraft, was the view of Mr Sandy Wadgers. You want horseshoes for such gentry as he. Oh, I get at horseshoes because you put the horseshoe above the door and like keeps the evil away. Yeah, that is resourceful. He came round greatly concerned. They wanted him to lead the way upstairs to the room, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry. He preferred to talk in the passage. Over the way, Huckster's apprentice came out and began taking down the shutters of the tobacco window. He was called over to join the discussion. Mr Huckster naturally followed in the course of a few minutes. The Anglo Saxon genius for parliamentary government asserted itself. There was a great deal of talk and no decisive action. Let's have the facts first, insisted Mr Sandy Wadgers. Let's be sure we'd be acting perfectly right in bustin' that there door open. A door unbust is always open to bustin', but ye can't unbust a door once you've busted in. Okay? And suddenly and most wonderfully the door of the room upstairs opened of its own accord. As they looked up in amazement, they saw descending the stairs the muffled figure of the stranger staring more blackly and blankly than ever with those unreasonably large blue glass eyes of his. He came down stiffly and slowly, staring all the time. He walked across the passage staring, then stopped. Look here, he said, and their eyes followed the direction of his gloved finger and saw a bottle of sasaparilla hard by the cellar door. Then he entered the parlour and suddenly, swiftly, viciously, slammed the door in their faces. Not a word was spoken until the last echoes of the slam had died away. They stared at one another. Well, if that don't lick everything, said Mr Wadgers, and left the alternative unsaid. I'd go in and ask him about it, said Wadgers to Mr Hall. I'd demand an explanation. It took some time to bring the landlady's husband up to that pitch. At last he rapped, opened the door, and got as far as Excuse me. Go to the devil, said the stranger in a tremendous voice, and shut that door after you. So that brief interview terminated. Okay, so it's like a lot has happened, but then nothing has happened. Um that's the end of chapter six, so I think we might leave it there for today. But how interesting. I mean we now know the stranger is almost certainly the invisible man. He's playing tricks on people. I mean, I guess we don't really know his intentions and why he's doing these things, but he seems to be enjoying playing tricks on people like like the doctor. Like he seemed to quite enjoy seeing his reaction to an invisible arm. I I wonder what the purpose of breaking into the vicarage was, though. Like what what was that for? Was that just to get the money? Was that for something else? I wonder if that will come out later. And then also we kind of had to scare the halls out of his room with possessed furniture in order to get back in. So an interesting couple chapters, I'd say, and it seems like it's kind of leading up to something. So next week, listen out for part three. See you then.