He went to the staircase head and stood listening uneasily. He armed himself with his bedroom poker, and went to examine the interior fastenings of the ground-floor windows again. Everything was safe and quiet. He returned to the belvedere. Adye lay motionless over the edge of the gravel just as he had fallen. Coming along the road by the villas were the housemaid and two policemen.
Everything was deadly still. The three people seemed very slow in approaching.
He wondered what his antagonist was doing.
He started. There was a smash from below. He hesitated and went downstairs again. Suddenly the house resounded with heavy blows and the splintering of wood. He heard a smash and the destructive clang of the iron fastenings of the shutters. He turned the key and opened the kitchen door. As he did so, the shutters, split and splintering, came flying inward. He stood aghast.
The window frame, save for one cross bar, was still intact, but only little teeth of glass remained in the frame. The shutters had been driven in with an axe, and now the axe was descending in sweeping blows upon the window frame and the iron bars defending it. Then suddenly it leapt aside and vanished. He saw the revolver lying on the path outside, and then the little weapon sprang into the air. He dodged back. The revolver cracked just too late, and a splinter from the edge of the closing door flashed over his head. He slammed and locked the door, and as he stood outside he heard Griffin shouting and laughing. Then the blows of the axe, with their splitting and smashing accompaniments, were resumed.
Kemp stood in the passage trying to think. In a moment the Invisible Man would be in the kitchen. This door would not keep him a moment, and then--A ringing came at the front door again. It would be the policemen. He ran into the hall, put up the chain, and drew the bolts. He made the girl speak before he dropped the chain, and the three people blundered into the house in a heap, and Kemp slammed the door again.
"The Invisible Man!" said Kemp. "He has a revolver, with two shots--left.
He's killed Adye. Shot him anyhow. Didn't you see him on the lawn? He's lying there.""Who?" said one of the policemen.
"Adye," said Kemp.
"We came round the back way," said the girl.
"What's that smashing?" asked one of the policemen.
"He's in the kitchen--or will be. He has found an axe--"Suddenly the house was full of the Invisible Man's resounding blows on the kitchen door. The girl stared towards the kitchen, shuddered, and retreated into the dining-room. Kemp tried to explain in broken sentences.
They heard the kitchen door give.
"This way," cried Kemp, starting into activity, and bundled the policemen into the dining-room doorway.
"Poker," said Kemp, and rushed to the fender. He handed a poker to each policeman. He suddenly flung himself backward.
"Whup!" said one policeman, ducked, and caught the axe on his poker.
The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable Sidney Cooper.
The second policeman brought his poker down on the little weapon, as one might knock down a wasp, and sent it rattling to the floor.
At the first clash the girl screamed, stood screaming for a moment by the fireplace, and then ran to open the shutters--possibly with an idea of escaping by the shattered window.
The axe receded into the passage, and fell to a position about two feet from the ground. They could hear the Invisible Man breathing. "Stand away, you two," he said. "I want that man Kemp.""We want you," said the first policeman, ****** a quick step forward and wiping with his poker at the Voice. The Invisible Man must have started back. He blundered into the umbrella stand. Then, as the policeman staggered with the swing of the blow he had aimed, the Invisible Man countered with the axe, the helmet crumpled like paper, and the blow sent the man spinning to the floor at the head of the kitchen stairs. But the second policeman, aiming behind the axe with his poker, hit something soft that snapped.
There was a sharp exclamation of pain and the axe fell to the ground. The policeman wiped again at vacancy and hit nothing; he put his foot on the axe, and struck again. Then he stood, poker clubbed, listening intent for the slightest movement.
He heard the dining-room window open, and a quick rush of feet within.
His companion rolled over and sat up with the blood running down between his eye and ear. "Where is he?" asked the man on the floor.
"Don't know. I've hit him. He's standing somewhere in the hall. Unless he's slipped past you. Doctor Kemp--sir."Pause.
"Doctor Kemp," cried the policeman again.
The second policeman struggled to his feet. He stood up. Suddenly the faint pad of bare feet on the kitchen stairs could be heard. "Yap!" cried the first policeman and incontinently flung his poker. It smashed a little gas bracket.
He made as if he would pursue the Invisible Man downstairs. Then he thought better of it and stepped into the dining-room.
"Doctor Kemp," he began, and stopped short--"Doctor Kemp's in here," he said, as his companion looked over his shoulder.
The dining-room window was wide open, and neither housemaid nor Kemp was to be seen.
The second policeman's opinion of Kemp was terse and vivid.
