The Greatest Science Fiction Novels & Stories by H. G. Wells. Герберт Уэллс

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СКАЧАТЬ right,” said the mariner. “He has.”

      All this time Mr. Marvel had been glancing about him intently, listening for faint footfalls, trying to detect imperceptible movements. He seemed on the point of some great resolution. He coughed behind his hand.

      He looked about him again, listened, bent towards the mariner, and lowered his voice: “The fact of it is — I happen — to know just a thing or two about this Invisible Man. From private sources.”

      “Oh!” said the mariner, interested. “You?”

      “Yes,” said Mr. Marvel. “Me.”

      “Indeed!” said the mariner. “And may I ask — “

      “You’ll be astonished,” said Mr. Marvel behind his hand. “It’s tremenjous.”

      “Indeed!” said the mariner.

      “The fact is,” began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a confidential undertone. Suddenly his expression changed marvellously. “Ow!” he said. He rose stiffly in his seat. His face was eloquent of physical suffering. “Wow!” he said.

      “What’s up?” said the mariner, concerned.

      “Toothache,” said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear. He caught hold of his books. “I must be getting on, I think,” he said. He edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor. “But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!” protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself. “Hoax,” said a Voice. “It’s a hoax,” said Mr. Marvel.

      “But it’s in the paper,” said the mariner.

      “Hoax all the same,” said Marvel. “I know the chap that started the lie. There ain’t no Invisible Man whatsoever — Blimey.”

      “But how ‘bout this paper? D’you mean to say —?”

      “Not a word of it,” said Marvel, stoutly.

      The mariner stared, paper in hand. Mr. Marvel jerkily faced about. “Wait a bit,” said the mariner, rising and speaking slowly, “D’you mean to say —?”

      “I do,” said Mr. Marvel.

      “Then why did you let me go on and tell you all this blarsted stuff, then? What d’yer mean by letting a man make a fool of himself like that for? Eh?”

      Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks. The mariner was suddenly very red indeed; he clenched his hands. “I been talking here this ten minutes,” he said; “and you, you little pot-bellied, leathery-faced son of an old boot, couldn’t have the elementary manners — “

      “Don’t you come bandying words with me,” said Mr. Marvel.

      “Bandying words! I’m a jolly good mind — “

      “Come up,” said a Voice, and Mr. Marvel was suddenly whirled about and started marching off in a curious spasmodic manner. “You’d better move on,” said the mariner. “Who’s moving on?” said Mr. Marvel. He was receding obliquely with a curious hurrying gait, with occasional violent jerks forward. Some way along the road he began a muttered monologue, protests and recriminations.

      “Silly devil!” said the mariner, legs wide apart, elbows akimbo, watching the receding figure. “I’ll show you, you silly ass — hoaxing me! It’s here — on the paper!”

      Mr. Marvel retorted incoherently and, receding, was hidden by a bend in the road, but the mariner still stood magnificent in the midst of the way, until the approach of a butcher’s cart dislodged him. Then he turned himself towards Port Stowe. “Full of extraordinary asses,” he said softly to himself. “Just to take me down a bit — that was his silly game — It’s on the paper!”

      And there was another extraordinary thing he was presently to hear, that had happened quite close to him. And that was a vision of a “fist full of money” (no less) travelling without visible agency, along by the wall at the corner of St. Michael’s Lane. A brother mariner had seen this wonderful sight that very morning. He had snatched at the money forthwith and had been knocked headlong, and when he had got to his feet the butterfly money had vanished. Our mariner was in the mood to believe anything, he declared, but that was a bit too stiff. Afterwards, however, he began to think things over.

      The story of the flying money was true. And all about that neighbourhood, even from the august London and Country Banking Company, from the tills of shops and inns — doors standing that sunny weather entirely open — money had been quietly and dexterously making off that day in handfuls and rouleaux, floating quietly along by walls and shady places, dodging quickly from the approaching eyes of men. And it had, though no man had traced it, invariably ended its mysterious flight in the pocket of that agitated gentleman in the obsolete silk hat, sitting outside the little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe.

      It was ten days after — and indeed only when the Burdock story was already old — that the mariner collated these facts and began to understand how near he had been to the wonderful Invisible Man.

      CHAPTER XV

       THE MAN WHO WAS RUNNING

       Table of Contents

      In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little room, with three windows — north, west, and south — and bookshelves covered with books and scientific publications, and a broad writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of reagents. Dr. Kemp’s solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was still bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down. Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think of it.

      And his eye, presently wandering from his work, caught the sunset blazing at the back of the hill that is over against his own. For a minute perhaps he sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich golden colour above the crest, and then his attention was attracted by the little figure of a man, inky black, running over the hill-brow towards him. He was a shortish little man, and he wore a high hat, and he was running so fast that his legs verily twinkled.

      “Another of those fools,” said Dr. Kemp. “Like that ass who ran into me this morning round a corner, with the ”Visible Man acoming, sir!’ I can’t imagine what possess people. One might think we were in the thirteenth century.”

      He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky hillside, and the dark little figure tearing down it. “He seems in a confounded hurry,” said Dr. Kemp, “but he doesn’t seem to be getting on. If his pockets were full of lead, he couldn’t run heavier.”

      “Spurted, sir,” said Dr. Kemp.

      In another moment the higher of the villas that had clambered up the hill from Burdock had occulted the running figure. He was visible again for a moment, and again, and then again, three times between the three detached houses that came next, and then the terrace hid him.

      “Asses!” СКАЧАТЬ