The Martian War

CHAPTER FIVE


FOOTSTEPS IN THE CORRIDOR

That night, Wells retired to his small but comfortable guest room in the secret wing of the Institute. He was no longer a penniless student living with A.V. Jennings in austere rented rooms; now he was a distinguished visitor of T.H. Huxley, accorded the hospitality of the Crown.

Exhausted both physically and mentally from all he had seen, Wells sat at a small desk under the flickering gaslight glow. He sharpened one of his lead pencils, then got out a clean sheet of paper. His imagination was fired with images, ideas, speculations; he wanted to share them all with Jane, who loved to debate with him and imagine possibilities. What would she think of the grand schemes of the Imperial Institute? Though he’d been gone only a day, Wells had promised Jane a letter every night. He had so much to tell her that he didn’t know if he could get it all down on paper by dawn.

Though it was laughable to think she might be a German spy, he restrained himself from describing details of the Institute’s research. Still, he was good at speaking in broad generalities, a technique he had practiced in his Pall Mall articles, in order to seem like more of an expert than he actually was.

After he had jotted down only a few paragraphs, though, his thoughts turned toward Jane herself. Her face appeared before his imagination, and he smiled like a love-struck fool. Though she would have been much more interested to hear about the innovative scientific work, his letter quickly devolved into repeated and persistent declarations of how much he missed her. He told her that his guest room was large enough for two, and it seemed vast and empty without her.

He finished by filling the margins with amusing doodles of himself with a big frown on his face and hands clasping a clownishly large heart. Among his correspondents, Wells was famous for the imaginative cartoons that adorned his missives. He sealed the letter so it could be posted the following day.

Seeing that it was well past midnight, he turned down the gaslight and began to undress for bed. Before he could turn in, though, Wells heard noises from the other side of his door. A whisper, then a strange mixture of chuckles and moans, growing louder, quieter, then louder again.

Puzzled, he opened the door a crack and cocked his ear to listen. The eerie noises echoed up and down the shadowy corridors. He thought he heard the sound of bare feet slapping on the wooden floor.

Then, resoundingly clear, came cackling laughter that was either the giggling of a child or the raving of a lunatic. But as he stared up and down the hall, Wells saw nothing but the flickering gaslight from covered jets on the walls. None of the other doors were open; all the other guest scientists were asleep. He could discern no movement.

When he heard the rapid footsteps again, he whirled to his left, half expecting to see a ghost burdened with clanking chains like Jacob Marley from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Again, the corridor was empty.

The next noise was quite distinctly a startled indrawn breath. The footsteps stopped.

“Hullo?” Wells said in a quiet voice, not wanting to shout.

Accompanied by a faint chuckle, he heard running steps, bare feet receding toward the far end of the hall. Wells rubbed his eyes, but could see nothing.

Intrigued and determined to investigate this mystery, he stalked off in the direction of the footsteps. His stockinged feet were silent as he crept down the hall past closed doors. Wells followed the sounds into the wider corridors that led to darkened laboratories. Inside the enclosed research rooms he saw only low flames from gas jets on the walls. All of the labs appeared to be securely closed. Nothing moved inside the industrial bays.

He lost track of the footsteps and could hear no breathing except his own. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, but other than the hiss of gas jets, the night silence remained complete.

Perhaps he had dreamed up this hobgoblin, but he doubted it. Wells had a very vivid imagination, though it had always been at his beck and call. His wild fancies did not trick him with auditory hallucinations in the middle of the night. He was sure he had been wide awake.

He reached the end of the research wing, finding nothing. Putting his hands on his hips, he let out a long, frustrated sigh. After waiting a few more moments, he walked back toward his room, shaking his head.

When he rounded a corner that led back to his guest room, he was astonished to come upon a man standing entirely naked in the middle of the corridor. He recognized the eccentric chemist, Dr. Hawley Griffin. Yellowish-orange light from the gas lamps shone on his pallid skin.

As Wells stood speechless with surprise, the stark-naked man sprinted up to him like a foolish prankster. Before Wells could react, the grinning chemist playfully slapped him on the top of the head—then dashed off.

“You can’t see me! I’m invisible!” Griffin sprinted away, chuckling as if he had played a very clever practical joke.

“Here now, Dr. Griffin! Wait!”

Griffin kept running, his bare feet slapping on the waxed wooden floor. He called in a singsong voice, “I’m invisible, invisible! Ha ha!”

Wells brushed his hair back into place, indignant that the unclothed man would do such a silly thing. He trotted after the nude scientist, following him down the hall, but Griffin picked up speed.

Rounding a corner, Wells saw the naked man skid to a halt. Barrel-chested Dr. Cavor stood in the middle of the hall, beefy arms crossed over his chest. Cavor’s lower lip protruded from his square jaw in an expression of great disapproval. “Hawley Griffin, what on Earth are you doing?”

The naked man snickered as if concocting a devious plan. He bobbed back and forth, then tried to dart around the other scientist, but Cavor reached out and snatched Griffin’s arms.

The chemist squawked. “Stop! You can’t catch me. You can’t even see me.”

“You’re having delusions again, Hawley.”

“No, I’m invisible! How did you catch me? You can’t know where I am.”

“Yes, we can, Hawley.”

Breathless and panting, Wells arrived. “Dr. Cavor, what is he doing?”

The materials scientist just shook his head. Griffin turned around, his bristly hair glistening with sweat. He tried to break away again, but Cavor held the man’s wrist with all his strength. Wells helped to keep Griffin steady.

“It’s rather like The Emperor’s New Clothes, you know,” Cavor muttered.

The naked man finally stopped struggling. His shoulders slumped as he looked around in dismal disappointment. “You … you can really see me? Both of you?”

“Yes,” Wells and Cavor said in unison.

With a deep sigh, Griffin surrendered. “Then it must have worn off.”

“I’m sure it did. Come now, Mr. Wells and I will escort you back to your room. You’ve had enough excitement for tonight, and you need some sleep. Our symposium starts in two days, you know.”

“Yes, yes, and I must perfect my formula by that time!”

“Does he have a … smoking jacket or something?” Wells asked.

“Yes, but it’s invisible, too!” Griffin insisted as the two escorted him back to his room.