CHAPTER XX

AT THE HOUSE IN GREAT PORTLAND STREET

For a moment Kemp sat in silence, staring at the back of the

headless figure at the window. Then he started, struck by a thought,

rose, took the Invisible Man's arm, and turned him away from the

outlook.

"You are tired," he said, "and while I sit, you walk about. Have

my chair."

He placed himself between Griffin and the nearest window.

For a space Griffin sat silent, and then he resumed abruptly:

"I had left the Chesilstowe cottage already," he said, "when that

happened. It was last December. I had taken a room in London, a

large unfurnished room in a big ill-managed lodging-house in a slum

near Great Portland Street. The room was soon full of the appliances

I had bought with his money; the work was going on steadily,

successfully, drawing near an end. I was like a man emerging from a

thicket, and suddenly coming on some unmeaning tragedy. I went to

bury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift

a finger to save his character. I remember the funeral, the cheap

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