Read the chapter
The Invisible Man
Chapter 4. MR. CUSS INTERVIEWS THE STRANGER
I've told the story of the stranger's arrival in Iping with a lot of detail, so the reader can understand the strange impression he made.
But except for two odd incidents, the story of his stay until the unusual day of the club festival can be told very quickly.
There were a number of small fights with Mrs. Hall about house rules.
Until late April, he won each one by paying extra.
Then the first signs of money problems began.
Hall didn't like him, and whenever he dared, he talked about the good idea of getting rid of him.
But he showed his dislike mostly by hiding it in a showy way, and by avoiding his visitor as much as possible.
"Wait till the summer," said Mrs. Hall wisely.
"When the artists start to come."
"Then we'll see."
"He may be a bit bossy, but bills paid on time are bills paid on time, whatever you'd like to say."
The stranger didn't go to church, and indeed made no difference between Sunday and the other days, even in his clothes.
He worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very unevenly.
Some days he'd come down early and be busy all the time.
On others he'd get up late, walk around his room, complaining loudly for hours together, smoke, sleep in the armchair by the fire.
He had no communication with the world beyond the village, his mood continued very uncertain.
For the most part his manner was that of a man suffering under almost too great anger.
Once or twice things were snapped, torn, crushed, or broken in sudden bursts of violence.
He seemed under a constant irritation of the greatest strength.
He often talked to himself in a low voice, but Mrs. Hall listened and could not understand a word.
He rarely went out by daylight.
But at twilight, he'd go out wrapped up invisibly, whether the weather was cold or not.
He chose the loneliest paths, those most covered by trees and banks.
His big glasses and terrible bandaged face appeared suddenly from the darkness.
They startled one or two home-going workers.
Teddy Henfrey left the "Scarlet Coat" at half-past nine one night.
He was badly scared by the stranger's skull-like head.
The stranger walked hat in hand, lit by the sudden light of the opened inn door.
Such children as saw him at nightfall dreamed of monsters.
And it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked him, or the opposite.
But there was certainly a strong enough dislike on both sides.
It was unavoidable that a person of such a strange appearance and manner should become a frequent topic in such a village as Iping.
Opinion was greatly divided about his work.
Mrs. Hall was sensitive on the point.
When asked, she explained very carefully that he was an "experimental investigator," saying the syllables carefully like one who fears mistakes.
When asked what an experimental investigator was, she'd say proudly that most people already knew, and explain that he 'discovers things.
Her visitor had had an accident, she said.
It changed the color of his face and hands for a time, and he did not want any public notice.
Out of her hearing, many people believed he was a criminal trying to escape from justice.
They said he wrapped himself up to hide completely from the police.
This idea came from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey.
No crime of any importance from the middle or end of February was known to have happened.
Mr. Gould, the assistant teacher in the National School, imagined the theory in more detail.
He decided the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing explosives.
He resolved to do detective work as his time allowed.
This mostly meant staring at the stranger when they met, or asking people who had never seen him leading questions.
But he looked at him closely and still found nothing at all.
Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either accepted the spotted view or some change of it.
Silas Durgan was heard to say that the stranger would make his fortune at fairs.
Being a religious thinker, he compared the stranger to the man with the one talent.
Yet another view explained the whole matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless madman.
That had the advantage of explaining everything right away.
Between these main groups there were doubters and compromisers, 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 believed among the women.
But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping, on the whole, agreed in disliking him.
His irritability, though it might have been understandable to a city brain-worker, was an amazing thing to these quiet Sussex villagers.
They saw wild hand movements now and then.
After nightfall, a fast pace swept him around quiet corners.
He rejected all attempts at curiosity.
He had a taste for twilight, leading to closed doors, pulled-down blinds, and extinguished candles and lamps.
Who could agree with such behavior?
They moved aside as he passed down the village.
When he had gone by, young jokers pulled up their coat-collars.
They pulled down their hat-brims and walked nervously after him.
They were imitating his mysterious manner.
There was a song popular at that time called "The Bogey Man." Miss Statchell sang it at the schoolroom concert.
The concert was in aid of the church lamps.
After that, whenever villagers gathered and the stranger appeared, they whistled a bar of this tune.
It was more or less sharp or flat.
Also, late little children would call "Bogey Man!" after him, and run away trembling with excitement.
Cuss, the local doctor, was eaten up by curiosity.
The bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous attention.
All through April and May, he wanted a chance to talk to the stranger.
At last, towards Whitsuntide, he couldn't stand it any longer.
He hit upon the subscription list for a village nurse as an excuse.
He was surprised to find that Mr. Hall didn't know his guest's name.
"He gave a name," said Mrs. Hall, an statement which was completely untrue.
"But I didn't rightly hear it." She thought it seemed so silly not to know the man's name.
Cuss knocked at the parlor door and entered.
There was a fairly loud curse from inside.
"Excuse my intrusion," said Cuss, and then the door closed and cut Mrs. Hall off from the rest of the conversation.
For the next ten minutes, she could hear the murmur of voices.
Then came a cry of surprise, a movement of feet, and a chair thrown aside.
A bark of laughter and quick steps to the door followed.
Cuss appeared, his face white, his eyes staring over his shoulder.
He left the door open behind him, and without looking at her, he walked 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 parlor.
Then she heard the stranger laughing quietly, and then his footsteps came across the room.
She couldn't see his face where she stood.
The parlor door slammed, and the place was silent again.
Cuss went straight up the village to Bunting the vicar.
"Am I mad?" Cuss began suddenly, as he entered the shabby little study.
"Do I look like an insane person?"
"What's happened?" said the vicar, putting the ammonite on the loose sheets of his upcoming sermon.
"That man at the inn, "
"Well?"
"Give me something to drink," said Cuss, and he sat down.
After a glass of cheap sherry to steady his nerves, he told Bunting about the interview he'd just had.
"I went in,"
He gasped, "I began to ask for a subscription for that Nurse Fund."
"He'd stuck his hands in his pockets as I came in, and he sat down heavily."
"Sniffed all the time, he had a terrible cold, no wonder wrapped up like that."
"I developed the nurse idea and looked round, bottles, chemicals, a balance, test-tubes, and a smell of evening primrose."
"I asked if he would subscribe and if he was researching, he said yes and became angry."
"He said the prescription with five ingredients flew up the chimney as he rushed, and then out came his arm".
"Well?"
No hand, just an empty sleeve, I thought, and I cried, "Lord!"
"He's got a fake arm, I suppose, and has taken it off, I thought, but then I saw something odd."
"I asked what keeps that sleeve up and open if there is nothing in it, for I could see right down to the elbow."
"And there was a glimmer of light shining through a tear in 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 the prescription burning, wasn't I?' Questioning 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 angrily.
I didn't flinch, though I'm hanged if that bandaged head of his, and those glasses, aren'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 barefaced man, without glasses, starts even.
Then he quietly pulled his sleeve from his pocket and raised his arm toward me as if to show it.
He did it very, very slowly.
I looked at it, it seemed an age.
'Well?' said I, clearing my throat, 'there's nothing in it.'
"I had to say something because I was beginning to feel frightened, and I could see right down it."
"He extended it straight towards me very slowly until the cuff was six inches from my face."
"It was a strange thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that, and then."
"Well?"
"Something, exactly like a finger and thumb it felt, pinched my nose."
Bunting began to laugh, he could not help it and shook his head.
"There wasn't anything there!" said Cuss, his voice rising into 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 hard, and turned around, and ran out of the room."
"I left him,"
Cuss stopped, there was no mistaking the truth of his panic.
He turned around in a helpless way and took a second glass of the excellent vicar's very poor 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 serious indeed.
"It's really," said Mr. Bunting with a judge's emphasis, "a most remarkable story."