Read the chapter
The Invisible Man
Chapter 13. 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.
Marvel, unshaven, dirty, and travel-stained, sitting with the books beside him and his hands deep in his pockets.
He looked very tired, nervous, and uncomfortable.
He was inflating his cheeks at odd times on the bench outside a little inn on the edge of Port Stowe.
Beside him were the books, but now they were tied with string.
The bundle had been left in the pine-woods beyond Bramblehurst, because the Invisible Man had changed his plans.
Mr. Marvel sat on the bench, and although no one took any notice of him, he was still very upset.
His hands kept going to his pockets again and again with a strange, nervous feeling.
When he had been sitting for almost an hour, an old sailor came out of the inn carrying a newspaper.
He sat down beside him on the old wooden bench, looking him over.
"Nice day," said the sailor.
Mr. Marvel looked around with something like fear.
"Very," he said.
"Just the right weather for this time of year," said the sailor, not taking no for an answer.
"Quite," said Mr. Marvel.
The sailor took out a toothpick and was busy with it for a few minutes.
Meanwhile his eyes were free to look at Mr. Marvel's dusty figure and the books beside him.
As he had come near Mr. Marvel, he had heard a sound like coins dropping into a pocket.
He was surprised by the difference between Mr. Marvel's appearance and this sign of wealth.
Then his mind went back to a topic that had taken a strong hold of his imagination.
"Books?" he said suddenly, finishing with the toothpick noisily.
Mr. Marvel jumped and looked at them.
"Oh, yes," he said.
"Yes, they're books."
"There are some very strange things in books," said the sailor.
"I believe you," said Mr. Marvel.
"And some strange things out of them," said the sailor.
"True as well," said Mr. Marvel.
He looked at the sailor, and then looked around.
"There are some strange things in newspapers, for example," said the sailor.
"There are."
"In this newspaper," said the sailor.
"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel.
"There's a story," said the sailor, looking at Mr. Marvel with a firm and steady eye.
"There's a story about an Invisible Man, for instance."
Mr. Marvel twisted his mouth and scratched his cheek.
He felt his ears getting hot.
"What will they write next?" he asked weakly.
"Austria, or America?"
"Neither," said the sailor.
"Here."
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, jumping.
"When I say here," said the sailor, and Mr. Marvel felt very relieved.
"I don't mean here in this place, of course. I mean around here."
"An Invisible Man!" said Mr. Marvel.
"And what has he been doing?"
"Everything," said the sailor, keeping his eye on Marvel, and then adding, "every blessed thing."
"I haven't seen a paper for four days," said Marvel.
"Iping is the place where he started," said the sailor.
"Indeed!" said Mr. Marvel.
"He started there."
"And nobody seems to know where he came from."
"Here it's, 'Peculiar Story from Iping.' And it says in this paper that the evidence is very strong, very strong."
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.
"But then, it's a strange story."
"There's a clergyman and a doctor as witnesses."
"They saw him all right, or rather they didn't see him."
"He was staying at the 'Coach and Horses,' it says."
"Nobody knew about his problem until a fight in the inn."
"His bandages were torn off his head during the fight."
"Then it was seen that his head was invisible."
"People tried to catch him at once,"
"But he took off his clothes, it says,"
"And he got away, but only after a hard fight."
"In that fight he badly hurt our good and able policeman, Mr. J. A. Jaffers, pretty clear story, names and everything, isn't it"?
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, looking around nervously.
He tried to count the money in his pockets by touch alone, and he was full of a strange new idea.
"It sounds very surprising."
"Doesn't it? Very strange, I call it. I've never heard of Invisible Men before, but nowadays you hear so many strange things that."
"Is that all he did?" asked Marvel, trying to look calm.
"It's enough, isn't it?" said the sailor.
"He didn't go back, by any chance?" asked Marvel.
"He just escaped and that's all, eh?"
"All!" said the sailor.
"Why! Isn't it enough?"
"Quite enough," said Marvel.
"I think it was enough," said the sailor.
"I think it was enough."
"He didn't have any friends. It doesn't say he had any friends, does it?" asked Marvel, worried.
"Isn't one of his kind enough for you?" asked the sailor.
"No, thank Heaven, as you might say, he didn't."
He nodded his head slowly, looking very worried as he thought about it.
"It makes me very uncomfortable, just thinking about that man running around the country!"
"He's now free, and from some evidence people think he has taken the road to Port Stowe."
"You see, we're right in it, and there are no American wonders this time."
"And just think of the things he could do if he wanted."
"Where would you be if he had a drink too many and decided to come after you?"
"Suppose he wants to rob, who can stop him if he can go anywhere, steal, and reach any drink he wants"?
"He has a huge advantage, certainly," said Mr. Marvel.
"And. well."
"You're right," said the sailor.
"He does."
All this time Mr. Marvel had been looking around carefully, listening for soft footsteps, trying to notice any invisible movements.
He seemed ready to make a big decision, he coughed behind his hand.
He looked around again, listened, leaned toward the sailor, and lowered his voice.
"The truth is. I happen to know a thing or two about this Invisible Man. From private sources."
"Oh!" said the sailor, interested.
"You?"
"Yes," said Mr. Marvel.
"Me."
"Indeed!" said the sailor.
"And may I ask."
"You'll be surprised," said Mr. Marvel behind his hand.
"It's huge."
"Indeed!" said the sailor.
"The truth is," began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a quiet, secret voice.
Suddenly his expression changed completely, and he gave a quick cry of pain.
"Ow!" he said.
He stood up stiffly from his seat.
His face showed that he was in great pain.
"Wow!" he said.
"What's wrong?" asked the sailor, worried.
"Toothache," said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear.
He grabbed his books and held them close to his chest, then stood.
"I think I have to go," he said.
He moved in a strange way along the seat away from the sailor.
"But you were just going to tell me about this Invisible Man!" said the sailor.
Mr. Marvel seemed to think to himself.
"Hoax," said a Voice.
"It's a hoax," said Mr. Marvel.
"But it's in the paper," said the sailor.
"Still a hoax," said Marvel.
"I know the man who started the lie. There's no Invisible Man at all. Blimey."
"But what about this paper? Do you mean to say."
"Not a word of it," said Marvel firmly.
The sailor stared, paper in hand, Mr. Marvel turned around suddenly.
"Wait a minute," said the sailor, standing up and speaking slowly.
"Do you mean to say."
"I do," said Mr. Marvel.
Then why did you let me tell you this stuff? What do you mean by letting a man make a fool of himself? Eh?
Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks.
The sailor's face turned very red, he clenched his hands.
"I've been talking here for ten minutes," he said.
"And you, you little fat, leathery-faced son of an old boot, couldn't have the basic manners."
"Don't you start arguing with me," said Mr. Marvel.
"Arguing! I have a good mind."
"Come up," said a Voice, and Mr. Marvel was suddenly turned around and started walking off in a strange, jerky way.
"You'd better move on," said the sailor.
"Who's moving on?" said Mr. Marvel.
He was moving away sideways with a strange, hurried walk, with sudden hard jerks forward.
Some way along the road he began to talk to himself, complaining and arguing.
"Silly fool!" said the sailor, standing with his legs apart and his hands on his hips, watching the figure go away.
"I'll show you, you silly idiot, hoaxing me! It's here, in the paper!"
Mr. Marvel answered in a confused way, and as he went away, he was hidden by a bend in the road.
But the sailor still stood proudly in the middle of the road until a butcher's cart came and made him move.
Then he turned toward Port Stowe.
"Full of strange fools," he said softly to himself.
"Just to make me look stupid, that was his silly game. It's in the paper!"
And there was another strange thing he'd soon hear about, something that had happened very close to him.
That was a sight of a "fist full of money"
Traveling without anyone holding it, along by the wall at the corner of St. Michael's Lane.
Another sailor had seen this wonderful sight that very morning.
He had grabbed at the money at once and had been knocked to the ground.
When he got up, the butterfly money had disappeared.
Our sailor said he was ready to believe anything, but that was a bit too much.
Later, however, he began to think about it.
The story of the flying money was true.
All around that area, money had been quietly disappearing that day.
It came from the great London and Country Banking Company, and from shops and inns.
Their doors were open in the sunny weather.
Handfuls and rolls of money were taken cleverly.
It floated quietly along by walls and shady places, moving quickly away from people's eyes.
It had always ended its mysterious flight in the pocket of that worried gentleman.
He wore an old silk hat and sat outside the little inn on the edge of Port Stowe.
No one had ever followed it.
It was ten days later, and the Burdock story was already old.
Only then the sailor put the facts together and began to see how close he had been to the wonderful Invisible Man.