The Thousand and One Bottles

 

Next day his luggage arrived – and very remarkable luggage it was.

There were a couple of trunks, such as any man might have, but there was also a box of books – big, fat books – and a lot of boxes with glass bottles. The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, and gloves came out to meet Fearenside’s cart, not noticing Fearenside’s dog.

When the dog saw him, it sprang straight at his hand.

Fearenside cried, “Lie down!”

They saw the dog’s teeth slip the hand, and bite the stranger’s leg. It all happened in half a minute. No one spoke, every one shouted. The stranger looked swiftly at his torn glove and trousers, then turned and rushed into the inn.

They heard him go to his room.

Hall was also there staring. “He was bitten,” said Hall. “I’d better go and see.” And he went after the stranger.

He met Mrs. Hall in the inn.

“Fearenside’s dog,” he said, “bit him.”

He went straight to the stranger’s door, pushed it open, and entered without any ceremony.

The blind was down and the room dark. He saw a most unusual thing, a handless arm, and a face of three huge spots on white. Then he was struck violently, thrown back, the door closed in his face, and locked. He stood in the dark passage, wondering what he had seen. After a couple of minutes he came out of the “Coach and Horses.” Fearenside was telling some people about it all over again; there was Mrs. Hall saying his dog didn’t have any business to bite her guests. There were also some women and children, all of them saying: “I wouldn’t let it bite me”; “It isn’t right to have such dogs”; “What did it bite him for?” and so on.

Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps, couldn’t believe what he had seen. Besides, his vocabulary was too small for his impressions.

“He doesn’t want any help, he says,” he said in answer to his wife’s questions. “We’d better take his luggage in.”

“The sooner you get those things in, the better,” cried an angry voice from the inn, and there stood the muffled stranger on the steps.

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

“Not a bit,” said the stranger. “Didn’t break the skin. Hurry up with my luggage.”

When the first box was carried into his room, the stranger began to unpack it, and from it he began to take out bottles – little fat bottles containing powders, small bottles containing coloured and white fluids, blue bottles, wine bottles – putting them on the table under the window, round the floor, on the bookshelf – everywhere. The chemist’s shop in Bramblehurst did not have half so many.

As soon as the boxes were unpacked, the stranger started work, not troubling about the box of books outside, or other luggage. 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 until she had put his dinner on the table.

“ I wish you wouldn’t come in [11] without knocking,” he said, with abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him.

“I knocked, but –”

“Perhaps you did. But in my investigations – my really very urgent and necessary investigations – I mustn’t be disturbed … I must ask you –”

“Certainly, sir. You can lock the door any time.”

“A very good idea,” said the stranger.

He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive, bottle in one hand and test tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. She laid the table. He turned and sat down with his back to her.

All the afternoon he worked with the door locked, for the most part in silence. But once there was a sound of bottles ringing together, as though the table had been hit. Fearing something was the matter, Mrs. Hall went to the door and listened.

“I can’t go on,” he was shouting; “I can’t go on! Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! It may take me all my life!… Patience! Fool! fool!”

Then the room was silent. The stranger was at work again.

 

Chapter IV

Mr. Cuss Meets the Stranger

 

The stranger stayed quietly in Iping until April.

Hall did not like him, and whenever he talked of getting rid of him, Mrs. Hall said “Wait till the summer, when the artists begin to come. Then we’ll see. He may be unpleasant, but pays regularly.”

The stranger did not go to church, he worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, from time to time. Some days he got up early and worked all day. On others he got up late, smoked, or slept in the arm‑chair by the fire. He had no communication with the world. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew, but though Mrs. Hall listened near the door she could make neither head nor tail of what she heard [12].

He rarely went out by day, but in the evening he went out muffled up in any weather, and he chose the loneliest places. His spectacles and bandaged face frightened villagers.

It was natural that a person of such an unusual appearance and behaviour was much talked about in Iping. People were curious about his occupation. When asked, Mrs. Hall explained very carefully that he was a scientist, and then said that he “discovered things.” Her visitor had had an accident, she said, which changed the colour of his face and hands, and he was ashamed of it and avoided public attention.

There was also a view that he was a criminal trying to escape from the police. This idea first came to Mr. Teddy Henfrey, but no one knew of a crime from the middle or end of February. Another theory was that the stranger was a terrorist in disguise, preparing explosions. Yet another view was that the stranger a lunatic. But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping disliked him. His irritability made him no friends there.

Cuss, the village doctor, was very curious. The bandages excited his professional interest; the thousand‑and‑one bottles were also of interest to him. He looked for an excuse to visit the stranger, and at last he called on him to collect money for a village nurse. He was surprised that Mr. Hall did not know his guest’s name.

Cuss knocked on the door and entered, and then the door closed and Mrs. Hall couldn’t hear their conversation.

She could hear their voices for the next ten minutes, then a cry of surprise, a chair falling, laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face white. He left the inn without looking at her. Then she heard the stranger laughing quietly, the door closed, and all was silent again.

Cuss went straight to Bunting, the vicar.

“Am I mad?” Cuss began at once, as he entered the vicar’s little study. “Do I look mad?”

“What’s happened?” said the vicar.

“That man at the inn –”

“Well?”

“I went in,” he said, “and began to ask for money for the nurse. I spoke of the nurse, and all time looked round. Bottles – chemicals – everywhere. Would he give the money? He said he’d consider it. I asked him if he was doing research. He said he was. A long research? He got very angry, a ‘damnable long research,’ said he. ‘Damn you! What do you want here?’ I apologised. Draught of air from window lifted a paper from the table. He was working in a room with an open fireplace. In a moment I saw the paper burning. The man rushed to the fire and stretched his arm. There was no hand. Just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, there’s something odd in that. What keeps that sleeve up and open if there’s nothing in it? There was nothing in it, I tell you. ‘Good God!’ I said. He stared at me, and then at his sleeve.”

“Well?”

“That’s all. He never said a word, just put his sleeve in his pocket. ‘How,’ said I, ‘can you move an empty sleeve like that?’ ‘You saw it was an empty sleeve?’ He came to me, and stood quite close. Then he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket again, and raised his arm towards me. ‘Well?’ said I; ‘there’s nothing in it.’ I could see right down it. And then something struck my nose.”

Bunting began to laugh.

“There wasn’t anything there!” said Cuss. “I was so surprised, I hit his sleeve, and it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there wasn’t an arm!”

Mr. Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss. “It’s a most remarkable story,” he said.

 

Chapter V

Strange Events in Iping

 

The facts of the burglary at the Vicarage were told by the vicar and his wife. It occurred at night late in April.

Mrs. Bunting woke up suddenly at night, with a strong impression that the door of their bedroom had opened and closed. She then heard the sound of bare feet walking along the passage. She woke up Mr. Bunting, who did not strike a light, but went out of the bedroom to listen. He heard some noise in his study downstairs, and then a sneeze.

He returned to his bedroom, took a poker, and went downstairs as noiselessly as possible. Everything was still, except some noise in the study. Then the study was lit by a candle. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the door he could see the desk, and a candle on it. But he could not see the burglar. He stood there in the hall not knowing what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her face white, went slowly downstairs after him.

They heard the chink of money, and realized that the burglar had found the gold – two pounds ten. Gripping the poker firmly, Mr. Bunting rushed into the room, followed by Mrs. Bunting.

The room was empty.

Yet they were certain they had heard somebody moving in the room. For half a minute they stood still, then Mrs. Bunting went across the room and looked under the desk, behind the curtains, and Mr. Bunting looked up the chimney.

“The candle!” said Mr. Bunting. “Who lit the candle?”

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

There was a sneeze in the passage. They rushed out, and heard the kitchen door close.

“Bring the candle!” said Mr. Bunting. As he opened the kitchen door, he saw the back door just opening, but nobody went out of the door.

It opened, stood open for a moment, and then closed. When they entered the kitchen it was empty. They examined all the house. There was nobody there.

 

* * *

 

That morning Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both got up early and went to the cellar. Their business there was of a secret nature, and had something to do with their beer.

When they entered the cellar, Mrs. Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of sarsaparilla [13]. Hall went upstairs for it.

He was surprised to see that the stranger’s door was ajar. He went to his own room and found the bottle.

But as he came downstairs, he noticed that the front door had been unbolted – that the door was, in fact, simply closed. When he saw this, he stopped, then, knocked on the stranger’s door. There was no answer. He knocked again; then opened the door and entered. The room was empty. And what was still odder, on the chair and the bed were all the clothes and the bandages of their guest. Even his big hat was there on the bed.

Hall turned and hurried down to his wife, down the cellar steps.

“He is not in the room. And the front door’s unbolted.”

Mrs. Hall decided to see the empty room for herself. As they came up the cellar steps, they both heard the front door open and shut.

She opened the door and stood looking round the room. She came up to the bed and put her hand on the pillow and then under the clothes.

“Cold,” she said. “He’s been up for an hour or more.”

As she did so a most extraordinary thing happened. The bed‑clothes gathered themselves together, and then jumped off the bed. It was as if a hand had taken and thrown them on the floor. Then the stranger’s hat jumped off the bed, and flew straight at Mrs. Hall’s face. Then the chair, laughing in a voice like the stranger’s, turned itself up and flew at Mrs. Hall. She screamed and turned, and then the chair legs pushed her and Hall out of the room. The door shut and was locked.

“These were spirits,” said Mrs. Hall. “I know these were spirits. I’ve read in papers of them. Tables and chairs flying and dancing … Don’t let him come in again. I should have guessed [14]… With his bandaged head, and never going to church on Sunday. And all the bottles – more than anyone needs. He’s put the spirits into the furniture … My good old furniture!”

Suddenly and most wonderfully the door of the guest room opened, and as they looked up in amazement, they saw the muffled figure of the stranger, staring at them. “Go to the devil!” shouted the stranger. Then he entered his room, and slammed the door in their faces.

 

Chapter VI