Chapter 27: The Siege Of Kemp's House

Kemp read a strange missive, written in pencil on a greasy sheet of paper.

“You have been amazingly energetic and clever,” this letter ran, “though what you stand to gain by it I cannot imagine. You are against me. For a whole day you have chased me; you have tried to rob me of a night’s rest. But I have had food in spite of you, I have slept in spite of you, and the game is only beginning. The game is only beginning. There is nothing for it, but to start the Terror. This announces the first day of the Terror. Port Burdock is no longer under the Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and the rest of them; it is under me--the Terror! This is day one of year one of the new epoch--the Epoch of the Invisible Man. I am Invisible Man the First. To begin with the rule will be easy. The first day there will be one execution for the sake of example--a man named Kemp. Death starts for him to-day. He may lock himself away, hide himself away, get guards about him, put on armour if he likes--Death, the unseen Death, is coming. Let him take precautions; it will impress my people. Death starts from the pillar box by midday. The letter will fall in as the postman comes along, then off! The game begins. Death starts. Help him not, my people, lest Death fall upon you also. To-day Kemp is to die.”

Kemp read this letter twice, “It’s no hoax,” he said. “That’s his voice! And he means it.”

He turned the folded sheet over and saw on the addressed side of it the postmark Hintondean, and the prosaic detail “2d. to pay.”

He got up slowly, leaving his lunch unfinished--the letter had come by the one o’clock post--and went into his study. He rang for his housekeeper, and told her to go round the house at once, examine all the fastenings of the windows, and close all the shutters. He closed the shutters of his study himself. From a locked drawer in his bedroom he took a little revolver, examined it carefully, and put it into the pocket of his lounge jacket. He wrote a number of brief notes, one to Colonel Adye, gave them to his servant to take, with explicit instructions as to her way of leaving the house. “There is no danger,” he said, and added a mental reservation, “to you.” He remained meditative for a space after doing this, and then returned to his cooling lunch.

He ate with gaps of thought. Finally he struck the table sharply. “We will have him!” he said; “and I am the bait. He will come too far.”

He went up to the belvedere, carefully shutting every door after him. “It’s a game,” he said, “an odd game--but the chances are all for me, Mr. Griffin, in spite of your invisibility. Griffin contra mundum ... with a vengeance.”

He stood at the window staring at the hot hillside. “He must get food every day--and I don’t envy him. Did he really sleep last night? Out in the open somewhere--secure from collisions. I wish we could get some good cold wet weather instead of the heat.

“He may be watching me now.”

He went close to the window. Something rapped smartly against the brickwork over the frame, and made him start violently back.

“I’m getting nervous,” said Kemp. But it was five minutes before he went to the window again. “It must have been a sparrow,” he said.

Presently he heard the front-door bell ringing, and hurried downstairs. He unbolted and unlocked the door, examined the chain, put it up, and opened cautiously without showing himself. A familiar voice hailed him. It was Adye.

“Your servant’s been assaulted, Kemp,” he said round the door.

“What!” exclaimed Kemp.

“Had that note of yours taken away from her. He’s close about here. Let me in.”

Kemp released the chain, and Adye entered through as narrow an opening as possible. He stood in the hall, looking with infinite relief at Kemp refastening the door. “Note was snatched out of her hand. Scared her horribly. She’s down at the station. Hysterics. He’s close here. What was it about?”

Kemp swore.

“What a fool I was,” said Kemp. “I might have known. It’s not an hour’s walk from Hintondean. Already?”

“What’s up?” said Adye.

“Look here!” said Kemp, and led the way into his study. He handed Adye the Invisible Man’s letter. Adye read it and whistled softly. “And you--?” said Adye.

“Proposed a trap--like a fool,” said Kemp, “and sent my proposal out by a maid servant. To him.”

Adye followed Kemp’s profanity.

“He’ll clear out,” said Adye.

“Not he,” said Kemp.

A resounding smash of glass came from upstairs. Adye had a silvery glimpse of a little revolver half out of Kemp’s pocket. “It’s a window, upstairs!” said Kemp, and led the way up. There came a second smash while they were still on the staircase. When they reached the study they found two of the three windows smashed, half the room littered with splintered glass, and one big flint lying on the writing table. The two men stopped in the doorway, contemplating the wreckage. Kemp swore again, and as he did so the third window went with a snap like a pistol, hung starred for a moment, and collapsed in jagged, shivering triangles into the room.

“What’s this for?” said Adye.

“It’s a beginning,” said Kemp.

“There’s no way of climbing up here?”

“Not for a cat,” said Kemp.

“No shutters?”

“Not here. All the downstairs rooms--Hullo!”

Smash, and then whack of boards hit hard came from downstairs. “Confound him!” said Kemp. “That must be--yes--it’s one of the bedrooms. He’s going to do all the house. But he’s a fool. The shutters are up, and the glass will fall outside. He’ll cut his feet.”

Another window proclaimed its destruction. The two men stood on the landing perplexed. “I have it!” said Adye. “Let me have a stick or something, and I’ll go down to the station and get the bloodhounds put on. That ought to settle him! They’re hard by--not ten minutes--”

Another window went the way of its fellows.

“You haven’t a revolver?” asked Adye.

Kemp’s hand went to his pocket. Then he hesitated. “I haven’t one--at least to spare.”

“I’ll bring it back,” said Adye, “you’ll be safe here.”

Kemp, ashamed of his momentary lapse from truthfulness, handed him the weapon.

“Now for the door,” said Adye.

As they stood hesitating in the hall, they heard one of the first-floor bedroom windows crack and clash. Kemp went to the door and began to slip the bolts as silently as possible. His face was a little paler than usual. “You must step straight out,” said Kemp. In another moment Adye was on the doorstep and the bolts were dropping back into the staples. He hesitated for a moment, feeling more comfortable with his back against the door. Then he marched, upright and square, down the steps. He crossed the lawn and approached the gate. A little breeze seemed to ripple over the grass. Something moved near him. “Stop a bit,” said a Voice, and Adye stopped dead and his hand tightened on the revolver.

“Well?” said Adye, white and grim, and every nerve tense.

“Oblige me by going back to the house,” said the Voice, as tense and grim as Adye’s.

“Sorry,” said Adye a little hoarsely, and moistened his lips with his tongue. The Voice was on his left front, he thought. Suppose he were to take his luck with a shot?

“What are you going for?” said the Voice, and there was a quick movement of the two, and a flash of sunlight from the open lip of Adye’s pocket.

Adye desisted and thought. “Where I go,” he said slowly, “is my own business.” The words were still on his lips, when an arm came round his neck, his back felt a knee, and he was sprawling backward. He drew clumsily and fired absurdly, and in another moment he was struck in the mouth and the revolver wrested from his grip. He made a vain clutch at a slippery limb, tried to struggle up and fell back. “Damn!” said Adye. The Voice laughed. “I’d kill you now if it wasn’t the waste of a bullet,” it said. He saw the revolver in mid-air, six feet off, covering him.

“Well?” said Adye, sitting up.

“Get up,” said the Voice.

Adye stood up.

“Attention,” said the Voice, and then fiercely, “Don’t try any games. Remember I can see your face if you can’t see mine. You’ve got to go back to the house.”

“He won’t let me in,” said Adye.

“That’s a pity,” said the Invisible Man. “I’ve got no quarrel with you.”