The Invisible Man

They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had found the housekeeping reserve of gold—two pounds ten in half-sovereigns altogether. At that sound Mr. Bunting was nerved to abrupt action.[1] 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.

Yet their conviction that they had that very moment heard somebody moving in the room had amounted to a certainty. For half a minute perhaps they stood gasping, 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 the poker. Then Mrs. Bunting scrutinised the waste-paper basket, and Mr. Bunting opened the coal-scuttle. Then they came to a stop, and stood with eyes interrogating one another.

"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—"[2]

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 the sound of bolts being hastily shot back.[3]

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 was 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 bringing 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.[4]

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.

"Of all the extraordinary affairs," began the vicar for the twentieth time.

"My dear," said Mrs. Bunting, "there's Susie coming down. Just wait here until she has gone into the kitchen, and then slip upstairs."

Chapter VI The Furniture That Went Mad

Now it happened that in the early hours of Whit Monday, before Millie was hunted out for the day,[1] 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[2] of their beer.

They had hardly entered the cellar when Mrs. Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of sarsaparilla[3] 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 as he came downstairs, he noticed that the bolts on 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 Henfrey. He distinctly remembered holding the candle while Mrs. Hall shot these bolts overnight. At the sight he stopped, gaping; then, with the bottle still in his hands, went upstairs again. He rapped at 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 queerer, even to 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 depth of the cellar, and with that rapid telescoping of the syllables[4] and interrogative cocking up of the final words to a high note, by which the West Sussex villager is wont to indicate a brisk impatience. "Gearge! You gart whad a wand?"[5]

At that he turned and hurried down to her.

"Janny," he said over the rail of the cellar steps, " 'tas the truth what Henfrey sez. 'E's not in uz room, 'e en't.[6] And the front door's onbolted."

At first Mrs. Hall did not understand, and so soon as she did she resolved to see the empty room for herself. Hall, still holding the bottle, went first. "If 'e en't there," he said, "'is close are. And what's 'e doin' 'ithout 'is close, than? 'Tas a most curius basness."[7]