Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. Mrs. Hall was

sensitive on the point. When questioned, she explained very

carefully that he was an "experimental investigator," going

gingerly over the syllables as one who dreads pitfalls. When asked

what an experimental investigator was, she would say with a touch

of superiority that most educated people knew such things as that,

and would thus explain that he "discovered things." Her visitor had

had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face

and hands, and being of a sensitive disposition, he was averse to

any public notice of the fact.

Out of her hearing there was a view largely entertained that he was

a criminal trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so

as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This

idea sprang from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. No crime of any

magnitude dating from the middle or end of February was known to

have occurred. Elaborated in the imagination of Mr. Gould, the

probationary assistant in the National School, this theory took the

form that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing

explosives, and he resolved to undertake such detective operations

as his time permitted. These consisted for the most part in looking

very hard at the stranger whenever they met, or in asking people

who had never seen the stranger, leading questions about him. But

he detected nothing.

Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either

The Invisible Man