ding that sunny
weather entirely open--money had been quietly and dexterously making
off that day in handfuls and rouleaux, floating quietly along by
walls and shady places, dodging quickly from the approaching eyes of
men. And it had, though no man had traced it, invariably ended its
mysterious flight in the pocket of that agitated gentleman in the
obsolete silk hat, sitting outside the little inn on the outskirts
of Port Stowe.

It was ten days after--and indeed only when the Burdock story was
already old--that the mariner collated these facts and began to
understand how near he had been to the wonderful Invisible Man.

CHAPTER XV

THE MAN WHO WAS RUNNING

In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the
belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little
room, with three windows--north, west, and south--and bookshelves
covered with books and scientific publications, and a broad
writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass
slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of
reagents. Dr. Kemp's solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was still
bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there
was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down.
Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a
moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he
hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think
of it.

And his eye, presently wandering from his work, caught the sunset
blazing at the back of the hill that is over against his own. For a
minute perhaps he sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich golden
colour above the crest, and then his attention was attracted by the
little figure of a man, inky black, running over the hill-brow
towards him. He was a shortish little man, and he wore a high hat,
and he was running so fast that his legs verily twinkled.

"Another of those fools," said Dr. Kemp. "Like that ass who ran
into me this morning round a corner, with the ''Visible Man
a-coming, sir!' I can't imagine what possess people. One might
think we were in the thirteenth century."

He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky hillside, and
the dark little figure tearing down it. "He seems in a confounded
hurry," said Dr. Kemp, "but he doesn't seem to be getting on. If
his pockets were full of lead, he couldn't run heavier."

"Spurted, sir," said Dr. Kemp.

In a