Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man + аудиоприложение Уэллс Герберт

Chapter I

The Strange Man’s Arrival

The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose. He walked into the “Coach and Horses” more dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. “A fire,” he cried, “in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!” He followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour. Then a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table.

Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare him a meal. A guest at Iping in the wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, and she was resolved to show herself worthy of her good fortune. She carried the cloth, plates, and glasses into the parlour and began to lay them. Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his back to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the yard. He seemed to be lost in thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled his shoulders dripped upon her carpet.

“Can I take your hat and coat, sir?” she said, “and give them a good dry in the kitchen?”

“No,” he said without turning.

She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her question.

He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder.

“I prefer to keep them on,” he said with em, and she noticed that he wore big blue spectacles, and had a bush side-whisker that completely hid his cheeks and face.

“Very well, sir,” she said. “As you like. Soon the room will be warmer.”

He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall laid the rest of the table things and went out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like a man of stone, hiding his face and ears completely. She put down the eggs and bacon, and called rather than said to him, “Your lunch is served, sir.”

“Thank you,” he said at the same time, and did not stir until she was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table with a certain eager quickness.

As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin.

“Oh,” she said. “I forgot the mustard!”

Then she filled the mustard pot, and carried it into the parlour.

She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved quickly, so that she noticed a white object disappearing behind the table. It seemed he was picking something from the floor. She put down the mustard pot on the table, and then she noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair in front of the fire. She went to these things resolutely.

“I suppose I may have them to dry now,” she said.

“Leave the hat,” said her visitor, in a muffled voice, and turning she saw he had raised his head and was sitting and looking at her.

For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak.

He held a white cloth-it was a serviette he had brought with him-over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws were completely hidden. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright, pink. He wore a dark-brown velvet jacket with a high, black collar turned up about his neck. The thick black hair gave him the strangest appearance. This muffled and bandaged head was very strange.

He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his inscrutable blue glasses.

“Leave the hat,” he said, speaking very distinctly through the white cloth.

She placed the hat on the chair again by the fire.

“I didn’t know, sir,” she began, “that-” and she stopped embarrassed.

“Thank you,” he said drily.

“I’ll have them nicely dried, sir, at once,” she said, and carried his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head and blue goggles again as she was going out of the door; but his napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise and perplexity.

The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette, and resumed his meal. He walked across the room and pulled the curtain down. This done, he returned to the table and his meal.

“The poor soul has had an accident or an operation or something,” said Mrs. Hall. “And the glasses!”

She hung his muffler on a hanger.

“And holding that handkerchief over his mouth all the time. Talking through it!.. Perhaps his mouth was hurt too-maybe.”

When Mrs. Hall came to the stranger again, her idea that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident, was confirmed. He was smoking a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened the silk muffler he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to put the mouthpiece to his lips. He sat in the corner and spoke now, having eaten and drunk, with less aggressive brevity than before.

“I have some luggage,” he said, “at Bramblehurst station,” and he asked her how he could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head. “Tomorrow?” he said. “There is no speedier delivery?” and seemed quite disappointed when she answered, “No.”

“Will you get me some matches?” said the visitor. “My pipe is out.”

Mrs. Hall gasped at him for a moment and went for the matches.

“Thanks,” he said concisely, as she put them down, and turned his shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again.

The visitor remained in the parlour until four o’clock. The most part he was quite still during that time; it would seem he sat in the growing darkness smoking in the firelight-perhaps dozing.

But he was audible pacing the room. He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as he sat down again.

Chapter II

Mr. Teddy Henfrey’s First Impressions

At four o’clock, Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, came into the bar.

“Oh, Mrs. Hall,” said he, “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. Henfrey,” said she, “I’d be glad if you have a look at the old clock in the parlour.”

And leading the way, she went across to the parlour door and rapped and entered.

Her visitor, she saw as she opened the door, was seated in the armchair before the fire, with his bandaged head drooping on one side. The only light in the room was the red glow from the fire-which lit his eyes like adverse railway signals, but left his face in darkness. She had lit the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled. But for a second it seemed to her that the man she looked at had an enormous mouth wide open-a vast and incredible mouth. It was the sensation of a moment: the white-bound head, the monstrous eyes, and this huge mouth below it. Then he stirred, started up in his chair. She opened the door wide, so that the room was lighter, and she saw him more clearly. The shadows, she thought, had tricked her.

“Would you mind, sir? This man is going to look at the clock,” she said, recovering from the momentary shock.

“Look at the clock?” he said, staring round in a drowsy manner, and then, getting more fully awake, “certainly.”

Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched himself. Then Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was confronted by this bandaged person.

“Good afternoon,” said the stranger, regarding him-as Mr. Henfrey says-”like a lobster.”

“I hope,” said Mr. Henfrey, “I won’t disturb 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 undisturbed. But I’m really glad to have the clock,” he said, seeing a certain hesitation in Mr. Henfrey’s manner. “Very glad.”

Mr. Henfrey had intended to apologise and withdraw, but this anticipation reassured him. The stranger turned round with his back to the fireplace and put his hands behind his back.

Mrs. Hall was about to leave the room, when her visitor asked her if she had made any arrangements about his boxes at Bramblehurst. She told him she had mentioned the matter to the postman, and that the carrier could bring them tomorrow.

“You are certain that is the earliest?” he said.

She was certain.

“I should explain,” he added, “what I was really too cold and fatigued to do it before, that I am an experimental investigator.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Hall.

“And my baggage contains apparatus and appliances.”

“Very useful things indeed they are, sir,” said Mrs. Hall.

“And I’m very anxious to get on with my inquiries.”

“Of course, sir.”

“My reason for coming to Iping,” he proceeded, “was a desire for solitude. I do not wish to be disturbed in my work. In addition to my work, an accident-”

“I thought so,” said Mrs. Hall to herself.

“-necessitates a retirement. My eyes are sometimes so weak and painful that I have to shut myself up in the dark for hours. Lock myself up. Sometimes. Not at present, certainly. So the stranger in the room is a source of excruciating annoyance to me-these things should be understood.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Hall. “And may I ask-”

“I think, that is all,” said the stranger.

After Mrs. Hall had left the room, he remained standing in front of the fire, glaring at the clock-mending. Mr. Henfrey wanted to delay his departure and perhaps fall into conversation with the stranger. But the stranger stood perfectly silent and still. So still, it got on Henfrey’s nerves. He felt alone in the room and looked up, and there, grey and dim, was the bandaged head. It was so uncanny to Henfrey that for a minute they remained staring blankly at one another. One must say something. Should he remark that the weather was very cold for the time of year?

“The weather-” Henfrey began.

“Why don’t you finish and go?” said the rigid figure, evidently in a state of painfully suppressed rage. “All you’ve got to do is to fix the clock.”

“Certainly, sir-one minute more,” and Mr. Henfrey finished and went.

But he went feeling excessively annoyed.

“Damn it!” said Mr. Henfrey to himself, going through the thawing snow; “seems like the police is wanting him.”

At the corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the stranger’s hostess at the “Coach and Horses.”

“How do you do, Teddy?” he said, passing.

“You got a strange man at home!” said Teddy.

“What’s that?” Hall asked.

“Strange looking customer stopping at the ‘Coach and Horses,’” said Teddy.

And he gave Hall a vivid description of his grotesque guest.

“I’d like to see a man’s face if I had him stopping in my place,” said Henfrey. “But women are very trustful. He’s taken your room and he hasn’t even given his name, Hall.”

“You don’t say so!” said Hall, who was a man of sluggish apprehension.

“Yes,” said Teddy. “For a week. Whatever he is, you can’t get rid of him under the week. And he’s got a lot of luggage, so he says. Let’s hope it won’t be stones in boxes, Hall.”

Henfrey left Hall vaguely suspicious.

“I suppose I must see about this,” said Hall.

Instead of “seeing about it,” however, Hall on his return was severely scorned by his wife, and his mild inquiries were answered snappishly.

“You women don’t know everything,” said Mr. Hall, resolved to ascertain more about the personality of his guest at the earliest possible opportunity. And after the stranger had gone to bed, which he did about half-past nine, Mr. Hall went very aggressively into the parlour and looked very hard at his wife’s furniture, just to show that the stranger wasn’t master there. Then he instructed Mrs. Hall to look very closely at the stranger’s luggage when it came next day.

“Mind your own business, Hall,” said Mrs. Hall, “and I’ll mind mine.”

She subdued her terrors and went to sleep.

Chapter III

The Thousand and One Bottles

So it was that on the ninth day of February, at the beginning of the thaw, this stranger appeared in Iping. Next day the strange man’s luggage arrived-and very remarkable luggage it was. There were a couple of trunks indeed, but in addition there were a box of books-big, fat books-and a dozen or more crates, boxes, and cases, containing objects packed in straw, as it seemed to Hall, glass bottles.

The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came out impatiently to meet the cart.

“Come along with those boxes,” he said. “I’ve been waiting long enough.”

Fearenside’s dog caught sight of him, and began to bristle and growl savagely, and when he rushed down the steps it sprang straight at his hand.

“Whup!” cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero with dogs, and Fearenside howled, “Lie down!” and snatched his whip.

They saw the dog’s teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, and heard the rip of the stranger’s trousers. Then the dog retreated under the wheels of the waggon. It was all the business of some seconds. No one spoke, everyone shouted. The stranger glanced swiftly at his torn glove and at his leg, then turned and rushed swiftly up the steps into the inn. They heard him go to his bedroom.

Mr. Hall met Mrs. Hall in the passage.

“Carrier’s dog,” he said, “bit the stranger.”

He went straight upstairs, and the stranger’s door being ajar, he pushed it open and was entering without any ceremony.

The curtain was down and the room dim. He noticed something strange, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and a face of three huge indeterminate spots on white. Then he was struck violently in the chest, hurled back, and the door slammed and locked. It was so rapid that it gave him no time to observe. He was wondering what it might be that he had seen.

A couple of minutes after, he rejoined the little group that had formed outside the “Coach and Horses.” There was Fearenside telling about it all over again for the second time; there was Mrs. Hall saying his dog didn’t have the right to bite her guests; besides women and children, all of them saying fatuities.

Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps and listening, found it incredible that he had seen anything so very remarkable happen upstairs. Besides, his vocabulary was too limited to express his impressions.

“He doesn’t want to get help, he says,” he said in answer to his wife’s inquiry.

“I’d shoot the dog, that’s what I’d do,” said a lady in the group.

Suddenly the dog began growling again.

“Come along!” cried an angry voice in the doorway, and there stood the muffled stranger with his collar turned up. “The sooner you get those things in the better!”

His trousers and gloves had been changed.

“Were you hurt, sir?” said Fearenside. “I’m sorry the dog-”

“Not a bit,” said the stranger. “Never mind. Hurry up with those things.”

He then swore to himself, so Mr. Hall asserts.

The first crate was carried into the parlour, and the stranger began to unpack it, scattering the straw on Mrs. Hall’s carpet. And from it he began to take bottles-little fat bottles containing powders, small and slender bottles containing coloured and white fluids, fluted blue bottles labeled “Poison”, bottles with round bodies and slender necks, large green-glass bottles, large white-glass bottles, bottles with corks, bottles with bungs, bottles with wooden caps, wine bottles, salad-oil bottles-putting them in rows on the chiffonnier, on the mantel, on the table under the window, round the floor, on the bookshelf-everywhere. Quite a sight it was! Crate after crate yielded bottles. Besides the bottles were test-tubes and a carefully packed balance.

And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to the window and set to work, not troubling about the box of books outside, nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs.

When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already so absorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles into test-tubes, that he did not hear her. Then he half turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But she saw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table, and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarily hollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and faced her. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when he anticipated her.

“I wish you wouldn’t come in without knocking,” he said in the tone of abnormal exasperation.

“I knocked, but seemingly-”

“Perhaps you did. But in my investigations-my really very urgent and necessary investigations-the slightest disturbance, the jar of a door-I must ask you-”

“Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you’re like that, you know. Any time.”

“A very good idea,” said the stranger.

“This straw, sir, if I might remark-”

“Don’t. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill.”

And he mumbled at her-words suspiciously like curses.

He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. But she was a resolute woman.

“In which case, I should like to know, sir, what you consider-”

“A shilling-put down a shilling. Surely a shilling is enough?”

“So be it,” said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning to spread it over the table.

He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her.

All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a smash of a bottle and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. She went to the door and listened.

“I can’t go on,” he was raving. “I can’t go on. Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! Cheated! All my life it may take me!.. Patience! Patience indeed!.. Fool! fool!”

There was a noise in the bar, and Mrs. Hall had very reluctantly to leave. When she returned the room was silent again. It was all over; the stranger had resumed work.

When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the room under the mirror, and a golden stain that had been carelessly wiped. She drew attention to it.

“Put it down in the bill,” snapped her visitor. “For God’s sake don’t worry me. If there’s damage done, put it down in the bill!”

“I’ll tell you something,” said Fearenside, mysteriously. It was late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop.

“Well?” said Teddy Henfrey.

“This chap you’re speaking of, what my dog bit. Well-he’s black. Leastways, his legs are. I saw through the tear of his trousers and the tear of his glove. Well-there wasn’t none. Just blackness. I tell you, he’s as black as my hat.”

“Oh God!” said Henfrey. “But his nose is pink!”

“That’s true,” said Fearenside. “I know that. And I tell you what I think. That man is piebald, Teddy. Black here and white there-in patches. And he’s ashamed of it. I’ve heard of such things before. And it’s the common way with horses, as any one can see.”

Chapter IV

Mr. Cuss Interviews the Stranger

I have told the circumstances of the stranger’s arrival in Iping, in order that the curious impression he created may be understood by the reader. Hall did not like him, and he talked of getting rid of him; but he avoided his visitor as much as possible.

“Wait till the summer,” said Mrs. Hall sagely, “when the artists will come. Then we’ll see.”

The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise late, smoke, and sleep in the armchair by the fire. His temper was very uncertain. He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily, but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could not understand what she heard.

He rarely went out by daylight, but at twilight he would went out invisibly, whether the weather were cold or not, and he chose the loneliest paths. His spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under his hat frightened labourers. Children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of devils, and it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked him.

It was inevitable that a person of so remarkable an appearance should form a frequent topic in such a village as Iping. Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. When questioned, Mrs. Hall explained very carefully that he was an “experimental investigator.” When asked what her investigator did, she would say with superiority that most educated people knew such things as that, and would thus explain that he “discovered things.” Her visitor had had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face and hands.

But some people said that he was a criminal trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This idea sprang from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. Mr. Gould, the teacher, said that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing explosives.

Another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of explaining everything.

But whatever the people in Iping thought of him, they, on the whole, agreed in disliking him. His irritability was an amazing thing to these quiet villagers. The frantic gesticulations, the headlong pace after nightfall, the taste for twilight that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of curtains, the extinction of candles and lamps-who could agree with that? When he passed down the village, young humourists would up with coat-collars and go pacing nervously after him. There was a song popular at that time called “The Bogey Man”. So whenever some villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, this tune was whistled in the midst of them. Also little children would call “Bogey Man!” after him.

Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through April and May he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger, and at last, went to the “Coach and Horses”. He was surprised to find that Mrs. Hall did not know his guest’s name.

“He gave his name,” said Mrs. Hall, “but I didn’t rightly hear it.”

She was ashamed.

Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. “Pardon my intrusion,” said Cuss, and then the door closed.

Mrs. Hall could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then a cry of surprise, a chair flung aside, a laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face white, his eyes huge. He left the door open behind him, and without looking at her strode 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 parlour. Then she heard the strange laughing, and then footsteps came across the room. She could not see his face where she stood. The parlour door slammed, and the place was silent again.

Cuss went straight up the village to Bunting the vicar.

“Am I mad?” Cuss began abruptly, as he entered the shabby little study. “Do I look like an insane person?”

“What’s happened?” said the vicar.

“That chap at the inn-”

“Well?”

“Give me something to drink,” said Cuss, and he sat down. Then told the vicar of the interview he had just had.

“I went in,” he gasped, “he had his hands in his pockets as I came in, and he sat down in his chair. I told him I’d heard he took an interest in science. He said yes. Then he sniffed. I kept my eyes open. Bottles-chemicals-everywhere. Balance, test-tubes, and a smell of evening primrose. I asked him if he was researching. He said he was. A long research? ‘A damnable long research,’ said he. ‘Oh,’ said I. He had been given a prescription, most valuable prescription-what for he wouldn’t say. Was it medical? ‘Damn you! That’s none of your business!’ I apologised. He read the prescription. Five ingredients. He put it down and turned his head. Draught of air from window lifted the paper. He was working in a room with an open fireplace. I saw a flicker, and there was the prescription burning and lifting chimney ward. He rushed towards it just as it whisked up the chimney. So! He lifted his arm. And that time…”

“Well?”

“No hand-just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, there’s something odd in that. What the devil keeps that sleeve up and open, if there’s nothing in it? There was nothing in it, I tell you. Nothing, absolutely nothing! I could see right down it to the elbow, and there was a glimmer of light shining through a tear of the cloth. ‘Good God!’ I said. Then he stopped. Stared at me with those black glasses 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. ‘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. ‘You said it was an empty sleeve?’ he said. ‘Certainly,’ I said. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket again, and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. ‘Well?’ said I, clearing my throat, ‘there’s nothing in it.’ I could see right down it. He extended it straight towards me, slowly, slowly-just like that-until the cuff was six inches from my face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that! And then-”

“Well?”

“Something-exactly like a finger and thumb it felt-nipped my nose!”

Bunting began to laugh.

“There wasn’t anything there!” said Cuss. “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.”

Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic.

“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 grave indeed.

“It’s really,” said Mr. Bunting, “a most remarkable story.”

Chapter V

The Burglary at the Vicarage

The facts of the burglary at the vicarage came to us chiefly through the stories of the vicar and his wife. It occurred in the morning. Mrs. Bunting woke up suddenly in the stillness that comes before the dawn, with the strong impression that the door of their bedroom had opened and closed. She did not arouse her husband, but sat up in bed listening. She then distinctly heard the bare feet coming out of the dressing-room and walking along the passage towards the staircase. As soon as she felt assured of this, she aroused Mr. Bunting as quietly as possible. He put on his spectacles, her dressing-gown and his slippers, and went out to listen. He heard quite distinctly a noise at his study downstairs, and then a sneeze.

At that he returned to his bedroom, armed himself with the poker, and descended the staircase as noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out, too.

The hour was about four. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall. Everything was still except the faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting’s tread, and the slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the crack of the door he could see the desk and the open drawer and a candle burning on the desk. But the robber he could not see. He stood there in the hall undecided what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her face white and intent, crept slowly downstairs after him. One thing kept Mr. Bunting’s courage; the persuasion that this burglar was a resident in the village.

They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had found the gold-two pounds ten in half sovereigns altogether. At that sound Mr. Bunting, gripping the poker firmly, rushed into the room, closely followed by Mrs. Bunting.

“Surrender!” cried Mr. Bunting fiercely, and then stooped amazed. Apparently the room was empty.

Yet their conviction that they had, that very moment, heard somebody moving in the room had been certain. For half a minute, perhaps, they stood gaping, then Mrs. Bunting went across the room and looked behind the screen, while Mr. Bunting 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 lid of the coal-scuttle. Then they stopped and stood with eyes interrogating each other.

“I could have sworn-” said Mr. Bunting. “The candle! Who lit the candle?”

“The drawer!” said Mrs. Bunting. “And the money’s gone!”

She went hastily to the doorway.

There was a sneeze in the passage. They rushed out, and as they did so the kitchen door slammed.

“Bring the candle,” said Mr. Bunting.