“Knocked him on the head?” exclaimed Kemp.

“Yes—­stunned him—­as he was going downstairs.  Hit him from behind with a stool that stood on the landing.  He went downstairs like a bag of old boots.”

“But—­I say!  The common conventions of humanity—­”

“Are all very well for common people.  But the point was, Kemp, that I had to get out of that house in a disguise without his seeing me.  I couldn’t think of any other way of doing it.  And then I gagged him with a Louis Quatorze vest and tied him up in a sheet.”

“Tied him up in a sheet!”

“Made a sort of bag of it.  It was rather a good idea to keep the idiot scared and quiet, and a devilish hard thing to get out of—­head away from the string.  My dear Kemp, it’s no good your sitting glaring as though I was a murderer.  It had to be done.  He had his revolver.  If once he saw me he would be able to describe me—­”

“But still,” said Kemp, “in England—­to-day.  And the man was in his own house, and you were—­well, robbing.”

“Robbing!  Confound it!  You’ll call me a thief next!  Surely, Kemp, you’re not fool enough to dance on the old strings.  Can’t you see my position?”

“And his too,” said Kemp.

The Invisible Man stood up sharply.  “What do you mean to say?”

Kemp’s face grew a trifle hard.  He was about to speak and checked himself.  “I suppose, after all,” he said with a sudden change of manner, “the thing had to be done.  You were in a fix.  But still—­”

“Of course I was in a fix—­an infernal fix.  And he made me wild too—­hunting me about the house, fooling about with his revolver, locking and unlocking doors.  He was simply exasperating.  You don’t blame me, do you?  You don’t blame me?”

“I never blame anyone,” said Kemp.  “It’s quite out of fashion.  What did you do next?”

“I was hungry.  Downstairs I found a loaf and some rank cheese—­more than sufficient to satisfy my hunger.  I took some brandy and water, and then went up past my impromptu bag—­he was lying quite still—­to the room containing the old clothes.  This looked out upon the street, two lace curtains brown with dirt guarding the window.  I went and peered out through their interstices.  Outside the day was bright—­by contrast with the brown shadows of the dismal house in which I found myself, dazzlingly bright.  A brisk traffic was going by, fruit carts, a hansom, a four-wheeler with a pile of boxes, a fishmonger’s cart.  I turned with spots of colour swimming before my eyes to the shadowy fixtures behind me.  My excitement was giving place to a clear apprehension of my position again.  The room was full of a faint scent of benzoline, used, I suppose, in cleaning the garments.

“I began a systematic search of the place.  I should judge the hunchback had been alone in the house for some time.  He was a curious person.  Everything that could possibly be of service to me I collected in the clothes storeroom, and then I made a deliberate selection.  I found a handbag I thought a suitable possession, and some powder, rouge, and sticking-plaster.