I have described the circumstances of the stranger's arrival in Iping in considerable detail, in order that the curious impression he created may be understood by the reader. But except for two strange incidents, the circumstances of his stay until the extraordinary day of the Club Festival may be passed over very superficially. There were a number of arguments with Mrs. Hall on matters of domestic discipline, but in every case until late in April, when the first signs of penury began, he came out the winner by the easy method of an extra payment. Hall did not like him, and whenever he dared he talked of the advisability of asking him to leave; but he showed his dislike principally by hiding it ostentatiously, and avoiding his visitor as much as possible. "Wait till the summer," said Mrs. Hall, wisely, "when the artists begin to come. Then we'll see. He may be a bit arrogant, but bills paid punctuallly are bills paid punctually, whatever you say."
The stranger did not go to church, and in fact made no difference between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in dress. He worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very irregularly. Some days he would come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would get up late, walk up and down his room, worrying audibly for hours together, smoke, sleep in the armchair by the fire. Communication with the world beyond the village he had none. His temper continued to be very uunpredictable; for the most part his manner was that of a man suffering under almost unbearable provocation, and once or twice things were snapped, torn, crushed, or broken in spasmodic explosions of violence. 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 couldn't make head or tail of what she heard.
He rarely went out by daylight, but at nightfall he would go out wrapped up enormously, whether the weather were cold or not, and he chose the loneliest paths and those most overshadowed by trees and banks. His extraordinary glasses and terrible bandaged face under the shadow of his hat, came with a disagreeable unexpectedness out of the darkness upon one or two home-going workers; and Teddy Henfrey, falling out of the Scarlet Coat pub one night at half-past nine, was scared embarassingly by the stranger's skull-like head (he was walking hat in hand) lit by the sudden light of the opened door. Those children that saw him at nightfall dreamt of monsters, and it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked him, or the reverse - but there was certainly a vivid enough dislike on either side.
It was inevitable that a person of so remarkable an appearance and behaviour should form a frequent topic in such a village as Iping. Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. Mrs. Hall was sensitive on the point. When interrogated, she explained very carefully that he was an "experimental investigator," slowly pronouncing the syllables to avoid making a mistake. When asked what an experimental investigator was, she would say with a touch of superiority that most educated people knew that, and would then explain that he "discovered things." Her visitor had had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face and hands; and being of a sensitive nature, he didn't like it being noticed in public.
Out of her hearing there was a general opinion that he was a criminal trying to escape from justice by covering himself up to hide himself completely from the eye of the police. This idea came from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. No crime of any importance was known to have occurred since the middle or end of February. Elaborated in the imagination of Mr. Gould, the temporary assistant in the National School, this theory took the form that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing explosives, and he decided to carry out such detective operations as his time permitted. These consisted mostly in looking very hard at the stranger whenever they met, or in asking people who had never seen the stranger trick questions about him. But he detected nothing.
Another line of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either accepted the piebald view or some modification of it; as, for instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to say that "if he wanted to show himself at fairs he'd make his fortune in no time," and being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of covering everything straight away.
Between these main groups there were the doubters and undecided. Sussex people have few superstitions, and it was only after the events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was first whispered in the village. Even then it was only believed among the women.
But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping on the whole agreed in disliking him. His irritability, though it might have been comprehensible to an urban office-worker, was an amazing thing to these quiet Sussex villagers. The furious gesticulations they saw now and then, the unstoppable pace after nightfall that brought him upon them round quiet corners, the inhuman blocking of all the attempts at conversation, the taste for semi-darkness that meant the closing of doors, the pulling down of blinds, the extinction of candles and lamps - who could agree with such things? They moved to one side as he passed down the village, and when he had gone by, young humorists would put their coat-collars up and pull down their hats, and walk nervously after him in imitation of his behaviour. There was a song popular at that time called the "Bogey Man"; Miss Statchell sang it at the schoolroom concert (in aid of the church lamps), and from then on whenever one or two of the villagers were together and the stranger appeared, a line or two of this tune was whistled. Also little children would call "Bogey Man!" after him, and run away nervously ecstatic.
Cuss, the doctor, was devoured by curiosity. The bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the thousand and one bottles his jealous respect. All through April and May he wished for an opportunity of talking to the stranger; and at last, he could stand it no longer, and though of the subscription-list for a village nurse as an excuse. He was surprised to find that Mr. Hall did not know his guest's name. "He gave a name," said Mrs. Hall - which was quite untrue - "but I didn't hear it well." She thought it seemed so silly not to know the man's name.
Cuss knocked at the lounge door and entered. There was a fairly audible swearing from within. "Pardon my intrusion," said Cuss, and then the door closed and cut Mrs. Hall off from the rest of the conversation.
She could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then a shout of surprise, a moving of feet, a chair thrown to one side, a bark of laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face white, his eyes staring over his shoulder. He left the door open behind him, and without looking at her walked quickly 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 lounge. Then she heard the stranger laughing quietly, and then his footsteps came across the room. She could not see his face where she stood. The lounge 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 untidy little study. "Do I look like an insane person?"
"What's happened?" said the vicar, putting the paper-weight on the loose sheets of his sermon.
"That man at the inn - "
"Well?"
"Give me something to drink," said Cuss, and he sat down.
When his nerves had been calmed by a glass of cheap sherry - the only drink the good vicar had available - he told him of the interview he had just had. "I went in," he breathed, "and began to ask for a subscription for that Nurse Fund. He put his hands in his pockets when I came in, and he sat down in his chair. He sniffed. I told him I'd heard he took an interest in scientific things. He said yes. He sniffed again. He kept on sniffing all the time; evidently he recently caught a bad cold. Not surprising, wrapped up like that! I continued explaining the nurse idea, and all the time kept my eyes open. Bottles - chemicals - everywhere. Balance, test-tubes in stands, and a smell of - flowers. Would he subscribe? He said he'd think about it. I asked him, directly, was he researching. He said he was. A long research? He got quite angry. 'A damnable long research,' said he, exploding, so to speak. 'Oh,' said I. And out came the problem. The man was just on the boil, and my question boiled him over. He had been given a prescription, very valuable prescription - what for he wouldn't say. Was it medical? 'Damn you! What are you looking for?' I apologised. Dignified sniff and cough. He started again. He'd read it. Five ingredients. He had put it down; had turned his head. The breeze through the window lifted the paper. Swish, rustle. He was working in a room with an open fireplace, he said. He saw a little flame, and there was the prescription burning and going up the chimney. He had rushed towards it just as it went up chimney. So! Just at that point, to illustrate his story, he took out his arm."
"Well?"
"No hand - just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, that's a deformity! Has a wooden arm, I suppose, and has taken it off. Then, I thought, there's something strange about 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 down it, right down to the elbow. I could see right down it to the elbow, and there was a bit of light shining through a hole in 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 stared angrily, and put his sleeve back in his pocket quickly. 'I was saying,' he said, 'that there was the prescription burning, wasn't I?' Interrogative cough. 'How the devil,' I said, 'can you move an empty sleeve like that?' 'Empty sleeve?' 'Yes,' I said, 'an empty sleeve.'
"'It's an empty sleeve, is it? You saw it was an empty sleeve?' He stood up. I stood up too. He came towards me in three very slow steps, and stood quite close. Sniffed venomously. I didn't move, though that bandaged head of his, and those glasses, are enough to make any one nervous, coming quietly up to you.
"'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 was going to show it to me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. It seemed an age. 'Well?' I said, coughing, 'there's nothing in it.' I had to say something. I was beginning to feel frightened. 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. Starnge thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that! And then - "
"Well?"
"Something - exactly like a finger and thumb it felt - pinched my nose."
Bunting began to laugh.
"There wasn't anything there!" said Cuss, his voice going up into a shout at the "there." "It's all very well for you to laugh, but I tell you I was so surprised, I hit his sleeve hard, and turned round, and ran out of the room - I left him - "
Cuss stopped. There was no doubting the sincerity of his panic. He turned round in a helpless way and took a second glass of the excellent vicar's very inferior sherry. "When I hit his sleeve," 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 incredible story," he said. He looked very wise and serious indeed. "It's really," said Mr. Bunting with judicial emphasis, "a most incredible story."