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The Invisible Man
Chapter 2. MR. TEDDY HENFREY'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS
At four o'clock, it was fairly dark.
Mrs. Hall was getting up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he'd like some tea.
Then Teddy Henfrey, the clock-repair man, came into the bar.
"My goodness! Mrs. Hall," he said, "but this is terrible weather for thin boots!" The snow outside was falling faster.
Mrs. Hall agreed, and then noticed he had his bag with him.
"Now you're here, Mr. Teddy,"
She said, "I'd be glad if you'd give the old clock in the parlour a bit of a look."
"It's going and it strikes well and strong, but the hour-hand will only point at six".
And leading the way, she went across to the parlour door and knocked and entered.
As she opened the door, her visitor sat in the armchair by the fire, dozing, his bandaged head to one side.
The only light in the room was the red glow from the fire.
It lit his eyes like warning railway lights, but left his downcast face in darkness.
Small bits of daylight came in through the open door.
Everything was red, shadowy, and unclear to her, even more so because she had just been lighting the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled.
For a second, it seemed to her that the man had an enormous mouth.
It was wide open, huge and unbelievable, swallowing the whole lower part of his face.
It was the feeling of a moment, the white-covered head, the huge staring eyes, and this big yawn below it.
Then he moved, jumped up in his chair, put up his hand.
She opened the door wide, so that the room was lighter.
And she saw him more clearly, with the scarf held up to his face just as she had seen him hold the napkin before.
The shadows, she thought, had tricked her.
"Would you mind, sir, this man coming to look at the clock, sir?" she said, recovering from the short shock.
"Look at the clock?" he said, staring around in a sleepy way, and speaking over his hand, and then, getting more fully awake, "certainly."
Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched himself.
Then the light came, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was faced by this bandaged person.
He was, he says, "surprised."
"Good afternoon," said the stranger, looking at him, as Mr. Henfrey says, with a strong sense of the dark glasses, "like a lobster."
"I hope," said Mr. Henfrey, "that I'm not bothering you."
"Not at all," said the stranger.
"Though, I understand," he said turning to Mrs. Hall, "that this room is really to be mine for my own private use."
"I thought, sir," said Mrs. Hall, "you'd prefer the clock, "
"Certainly," said the stranger, "certainly, but, as a rule, I like to be alone and not disturbed."
"But I'm really glad to have the clock fixed," he said, seeing a certain hesitation in Mr. Henfrey's manner.
"Very glad." Mr. Henfrey had meant to say sorry and leave, but this reassurance stopped him.
The stranger turned around with his back to the fireplace and put his hands behind his back.
"And soon," he said, "when the clock-mending is over, I think I should like to have some tea. But not until the clock-mending is over."
Mrs. Hall was about to leave the room.
She didn't make any friendly talk this time.
She didn't want to be ignored in front of Mr. Henfrey.
Then her visitor asked if she had made arrangements about his boxes at Bramblehurst.
She told him she had mentioned the matter to the postman, and that the carrier could bring them over tomorrow.
"You're sure that's the earliest?" he said.
She was sure, with a clear coldness.
"I should explain," he added, "what I was really too cold and tired to do before, that I'm a scientific researcher."
"Indeed, sir," said Mrs. Hall, very impressed.
"And my luggage contains equipment and tools."
"Very useful things indeed they're, sir," said Mrs. Hall.
"And I'm very naturally eager to get on with my work."
"Of course, sir."
"My reason for coming to Iping,"
"He continued speaking in a careful way."
"I wished to be alone and not be disturbed in my work, and an accident must be private".
"I thought so," said Mrs. Hall to herself.
", requires a certain privacy."
"My eyes, are sometimes so weak and painful that I have to shut myself up in the dark for hours together."
"Lock myself up."
"Sometimes, now and then."
"Not now, certainly."
At such times the smallest disturbance, the entry of a stranger, is a great annoyance to me, it is best that people understand this.
"Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Hall.
"And if I might be so bold as to ask, "
"That I think, is all," said the stranger, with that quiet, firm way of ending a conversation that he could use when he wanted.
Mrs. Hall kept her question and sympathy for a better time.
After Mrs. Hall had left the room, he remained standing in front of the fire, staring, so Mr. Henfrey puts it, at the clock-mending.
Mr. Henfrey took off the hands of the clock and the face.
He also took out the works.
He tried to work in a slow, quiet, and careful manner.
He worked with the lamp close to him.
The green shade threw bright light on his hands, on the frame and wheels, and left the rest shadowy.
When he looked up, colored spots swam in his eyes.
Curious, he had removed the works, a not needed act, to delay leaving and to start a talk with the stranger.
But the stranger stood there, completely silent and still.
So still, it got on Henfrey's nerves.
He felt alone in the room and looked up.
Grey, dim, was the bandaged head, huge blue glasses staring, with a mist of green spots floating in front of them.
It was so strange to Henfrey that for a minute they remained staring blankly at each other.
Then Henfrey looked down again, Very uncomfortable position!
One would like to say something.
Should he remark that the weather was very cold for the time of year?
He looked up as if to aim with that opening shot.
"The weather, " he began.
"Why don't you finish and go?" said the stiff figure, clearly in a state of painfully held-back anger.
"All you've got to do is to fix the hour-hand on its axle. You're just playing around, "
"Certainly, sir, one minute more. I missed, " and Mr. Henfrey finished and went.
But he went feeling very annoyed.
"Darn it!" said Mr. Henfrey to himself, walking heavily down the village through the melting snow, "a man must fix a clock sometimes, surely."
And again, "Can't a man look at you?. Ugly!"
And yet again, "Seemingly not. If the police were looking for you, you couldn't be more wrapped up and bandaged."
At Gleeson's corner, he saw Hall coming towards him.
Hall had recently married the stranger's hostess at the "Coach and Horses." He now drove the Iping carriage to Sidderbridge Junction when needed.
He was returning from that place.
Hall had clearly been "stopping a bit" at Sidderbridge, to judge by his driving.
"'Ow do, Teddy?" he said, passing.
"You've got a strange one up home!" said Teddy.
Hall stopped in a friendly way, smiling and putting his hand on Teddy's arm.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Strange-looking customer staying at the 'Coach and Horses,'" said Teddy.
"My goodness!"
And he went on to give Hall a clear description of his strange guest.
"Looks a bit like a disguise, doesn't it? I'd like to see a man's face if I had him staying in my place," said Henfrey.
"But women are that trusting, where strangers are concerned. He's taken your rooms and he hasn't even given a name, Hall."
"You don't say so!" said Hall, who was a man of slow understanding.
"Yes," said Teddy.
"By the week."
"Whatever he's, you can't get rid of him under the week."
"And he's got a lot of luggage coming tomorrow, so he says."
"Let's hope it won't be stones in boxes, Hall."
He told Hall how his aunt at Hastings had been cheated by a stranger with empty suitcases.
Altogether he left Hall vaguely suspicious.
"Get up, old girl," said Hall.
"I suppose I must see about this."
Teddy walked on his way with his mind much more relaxed.
Hall returned home late that night, feeling worried and thinking hard.
Instead of "seeing about it," his wife scolded him severely for spending so long in Sidderbridge.
She answered his quiet questions sharply.
Her answers didn't answer them at all.
But the seed of suspicion Teddy had planted grew in the mind of Mr. Hall in spite of these discouragements.
"You women don't know everything," said Mr. Hall, determined to find out more about the person of his guest at the earliest possible chance.
The stranger went to bed about half-past nine.
After that, Mr. Hall went into the parlour very aggressively.
He looked hard at his wife's furniture to show the stranger wasn't the boss.
He also examined a sheet of math calculations the stranger had left.
When going to bed for the night he told Mrs.
Hall to look very closely at the stranger's luggage when it came next day.
Hall to look very closely at the stranger's luggage when it came next day.
"You mind your own business, Hall," said Mrs. Hall, "and I'll mind mine."
She was all the more ready to snap at Hall because the stranger was without doubt an unusually strange sort of stranger.
And she was by no means sure about him in her own mind.
In the middle of the night she woke up dreaming of huge white heads like turnips.
They came after her at the end of endless necks and had huge black eyes.
But being a sensible woman, she controlled her fears and turned over and went to sleep again.