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The Invisible Man
Chapter 6. The Furniture That Went Mad
Early on Whit Monday, before Millie was sent out for the day, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall got up.
They went quietly down into the cellar.
Their business there was private, and it had something to do with the weight of their beer.
They had hardly entered the cellar when Mrs.
Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of sarsaparilla from their room.
Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of sarsaparilla from their room.
As she was the expert and main worker in this job, Hall very properly went upstairs for it.
On the landing he was surprised to see that the stranger's door was slightly open.
He went on into his own room and found the bottle as he had been told.
When he came back with the bottle, he saw the front door bolts had been pulled back.
He saw the door was only on the latch.
And with a sudden idea, he connected this with the stranger's room upstairs and the suggestions of Mr. Teddy Henfrey.
He clearly remembered holding the candle while Mrs. Hall shot these bolts the night before.
At the sight he stopped, staring, then with the bottle still in his hand went upstairs again.
He knocked at the stranger's door.
There was no answer, he knocked again, then pushed the door wide open and went in.
It was as he expected, the bed, and the room too, was empty.
Even his slow mind found this strange.
On the bedroom chair and along the bed rail were scattered the guest's clothes and bandages.
These were the only clothes he knew of.
His big slouch hat was even sitting cheerfully over the bed-post.
Hall stood there, he heard his wife's voice coming from the deep cellar.
Her words were short and fast, with a questioning high note at the end.
This is how a West Sussex villager shows quick impatience.
"George! What are you doing with that?"
At that he turned and hurried down to her.
"Janny," he said, over the rail of the cellar steps, "it's the truth what Henfrey says. He's not in his room, he isn't. And the front door's unbolted."
At first Mrs. Hall didn't understand, and as soon as she did she decided to see the empty room for herself.
Hall, still holding the bottle, went first.
"If he isn't there," he said, "his clothes are. And what's he doing without his clothes, then? It's a very strange business."
As they came up the cellar steps, both thought they heard the front door open and shut.
This was learned later, Seeing it closed and nothing there, neither said a word 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, thought that Hall was sneezing.
She threw open the door and stood looking at the room.
"Of all the strange things!" she said.
She heard a sniff close behind her head, 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 covers.
"Cold," she said.
"He's been up for an hour or more."
As she did so, a most unusual thing happened.
The bed-clothes gathered themselves together, jumped up suddenly into a sort of peak, and then jumped headlong over the bottom rail.
It was exactly as if a hand had grabbed them in the middle and thrown them aside.
Right after that, the stranger's hat hopped off the bed-post, flew in a circle through the air, and then dashed straight at Mrs. Hall's face.
The sponge from the washstand flew quickly.
Then the chair threw the stranger's coat and trousers aside.
It laughed dryly in a voice like the stranger's.
The chair turned its four legs toward Mrs. Hall, aimed at her, and charged.
She screamed and turned, and then the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and pushed her and Hall out of the room.
The door slammed hard and was locked.
The chair and bed seemed to be dancing in victory for a moment, and then suddenly everything was still.
Mrs. Hall was left almost fainting in Mr. Hall's arms on the landing.
Mr. Hall and Millie, who had been woken by her scream of fear, had great difficulty getting her downstairs.
They managed to give her something to make her better.
"It's spirits," said Mrs. Hall.
"I know it's spirits. I've read in papers about them. Tables and chairs jumping and dancing."
"Take a drop more, Janny," said Hall.
"It'll steady you."
"Lock him out," said Mrs. Hall.
"Don't let him come in again."
"I half guessed."
"I might have known."
"With those staring eyes and bandaged head, and never going to church on a Sunday."
"And all those bottles, more than it's right for anyone to have."
"He's put the spirits into the furniture."
"My good old furniture!"
"It was in that very chair my poor dear 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 are all upset."
They sent Millie across the street through the golden five o'clock sunshine to wake up Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith.
Mr. Hall's compliments and the furniture upstairs was behaving most strangely.
Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a clever man, was Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful.
He took quite a serious view of the case.
"I'm damned if that isn't witchcraft," was the view of Mr. Sandy Wadgers.
"You want horseshoes for such people as he."
He came round very concerned, walking slowly and rubbing his chin in thought.
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.
Across the way Huxter's apprentice came out and began taking down the shutters of the tobacco window.
He was called over to join the discussion.
Mr. Huxter naturally followed over in a few minutes.
The English genius for group decision-making showed itself, there was a lot of talk and no clear action.
"Let's have the facts first," insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers.
"Let's be sure we'd be acting perfectly right in breaking that door open."
"A door not broken is always open to breaking, but you can't unbreak a door once you've broken it."
The door of the room upstairs opened by itself.
It was sudden and wonderful, they looked up in amazement.
The stranger's covered figure came down the stairs.
His blue glass eyes stared more blackly and blankly than ever.
He came down stiffly and slowly, staring all the time, he walked across the passage staring, then stopped.
"Look there!" he said, and their eyes followed the direction of his gloved finger and saw a bottle of sarsaparilla near the cellar door.
Then he entered the parlour, and suddenly, quickly, angrily, slammed the door in their faces.
Not a word was spoken until the last sounds of the slam had died away, they stared at one another.
"Well, if that doesn't beat everything!" said Mr. Wadgers, and left the other thought 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 point.
At last he knocked, opened the door, and got as far as, "Excuse me, "
"Go to the devil!" said the stranger in a huge voice, and "Shut that door after you." So that short interview ended.