Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a very clever man, Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful.
“This is witchcraft,” was the view of Mr. Sandy Wadgers.
They wanted him to lead the way upstairs to the room, but he preferred to talk in the passage. There was a great deal of talk and no decisive action.
“Let’s have the facts first,” insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers. “Let’s be sure we’d be acting perfectly right.”
And suddenly and most wonderfully the door of the room upstairs opened of its own accord, and as they looked up in amazement, they saw descending the stairs the muffled figure of the stranger staring with those unreasonably large blue glass eyes of his. He came down slowly, staring all the time; he walked across the passage, then stopped.
“Look there!” he said, and their eyes followed the direction of his gloved finger and saw a bottle by the cellar door. Then he entered the parlour, and suddenly, swiftly, viciously, slammed the door.
Not a word was spoken until the last echoes of the slam had died away. They stared at one another.
“Well, I’d go in and ask him about it,” said Wadgers to Mr. Hall. “I’d demand an explanation.”
The landlady’s husband rapped, opened the door, and began, “Excuse me-”
“Go to the devil!” said the stranger in a tremendous voice, “Shut that door after you.”
So that brief interview terminated.
Chapter VII
The Unveiling of the Stranger
The stranger went into the little parlour of the “Coach and Horses” about half-past five in the morning, and there he remained until near midday, the curtains down, the door shut.
Thrice he rang his bell, the third time furiously and continuously, but no one answered him.
“I’ll teach him a lesson, ‘go to the devil’ indeed!” said Mrs. Hall. Presently came a rumour of the burglary at the vicarage. No one dared to go upstairs. How the stranger occupied himself is unknown.
He would stride violently up and down, and twice came an outburst of curses, a tearing of paper, and a violent smashing of bottles. The group of scared but curious people increased.
It was the finest of all possible Mondays. And inside, in the darkness of the parlour, the stranger, hungry we must suppose, and fearful, hidden in his uncomfortable hot wrappings, pored through his dark glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace lay the fragments of smashed bottles, and a pungent twang of chlorine tainted the air.
About noon he suddenly opened his door and stood glaring fixedly at the three or four people in the bar. “Mrs. Hall,” he said. Somebody went and called for Mrs. Hall.
Mrs. Hall appeared after an interval. Mr. Hall was out. She came holding a little tray with a bill upon it.
“Is it your bill you’re wanting, sir?” she said.
“Why wasn’t my breakfast laid? Why haven’t you prepared my meals and answered my bell? Do you think I live without eating?”
“Why isn’t my bill paid?” said Mrs. Hall. “That’s what I want to know.”
“I told you three days ago I was awaiting a remittance”.
“I told you two days ago I wasn’t going to await any remittances.”
The stranger swore briefly but vividly.
“And I’d thank you kindly, sir, if you’d keep your swearing to yourself, sir,” said Mrs. Hall.
The stranger stood looking like an angry diving-helmet.
“Look here, my good woman-” he began.
“Don’t call me ‘good woman’,” said Mrs. Hall.
“I’ve told you my remittance hasn’t come.”
“Remittance indeed!” said Mrs. Hall.
“In my pocket-”
“You told me three days ago that you hadn’t anything but a sovereign.”
“Well, I’ve found some more-”
“Ul-lo!” from the bar.
“I wonder where you found it,” said Mrs. Hall.
That seemed to annoy the stranger very much. He stamped his foot.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“That I wonder where you found it,” said Mrs. Hall. “And before I take any bills or get any breakfasts, or do any such things whatsoever, you got to tell me one or two things I don’t understand, and what nobody doesn’t understand, and what everybody is very anxious to understand. What have you been doing with my chair? How was your room empty, and how did you get in again? The people in this house usually come in by the doors-that’s the rule of the house, and you didn’t. How do you come in? And I want to know-”
Suddenly the stranger raised his gloved hands, stamped his foot, and said, “Stop!” with such extraordinary violence that he silenced her instantly.
“You don’t understand,” he said, “who I am or what I am. I’ll show you. By Heaven! I’ll show you.”
Then he put his open palm over his face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity.
“Here,” he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs. Hall something which she, staring at his face, accepted automatically. Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and staggered back. The nose-it was the stranger’s nose! pink and shining-rolled on the floor.
Then he removed his spectacles, and everyone in the bar gasped. He took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers and bandages.
“Oh, my God!” said someone.
It was worse than anything. Mrs. Hall, standing open-mouthed and horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars, disfigurements, but nothing! The bandages and false hair flew across the passage into the bar. Everyone tumbled on everyone else down the steps. For the man who stood there was a solid gesticulating figure up to the coat-collar of him, and then-nothingness, no visible thing at all!
People down the village heard shouts and shrieks. They saw Mrs. Hall fall down, and then they heard the frightful screams of Millie, who, going from the kitchen at the noise of the tumult, had come upon the headless stranger from behind.
After that everybody began to run towards the inn, and in a minute a crowd of perhaps forty people, swayed and hooted and inquired and exclaimed and suggested. Everyone seemed eager to talk at once. A small group supported Mrs. Hall, who was in a state of collapse. There was a conference:
“O Bogey!”
“What has he been doing, then?”
“Hasn’t
