Footprints Without Feet Supplementary Reader Chapter 5 Footprints Without Feet

The fresh muddy imprints of a pair of bare feet surprised the two boys.

The explanation behind the mystery was that the bewildered boys had been following a scientist who had just discovered how to make the human body transparent.

The name of the scientist was Griffin. He had carried out a series of experiments to prove that the human body could become invisible.

He swallowed certain rare drugs to make his body as transparent as a sheet of glass. The body also remained as solid as glass.

Griffin had set out fire in his landlord's house to take revenge from him. To get away without being seen he had to remove his clothes. He became a homeless wanderer who was without clothes and without money. So, he became quite invisible.

He had chosen the bad time of the year because it was mid winter in London. It became hard for him to wander without clothes. 

 Griffin decided to slip into a big London store instead of walking about the streets to protect himself from cold air.

Griffin enjoyed the pleasure of clothing and feeding himself without thinking about the expenditure. He broke open boxes and wrappers and fitted himself out with warm clothes. He became a fully dressed and visible person. Then, he went into the kitchen of the restaurant and there he found cold meat and coffee. After the meal, he relished the taste of sweets and wine. Finally, he settled down to sleep on a pile of quilts.

Griffin couldn't manage to wake up before the assisstants of the store arrived. When a couple of them approached him, he panicked and began to run. They chased him. He was able to escape only by quickly taking off his newlyfound clothes.

To protect himself from the chill January air, Griffin decided to try the stock of a theatrical company in the hope of finding not only clothes but also something that would hide the empty space above his shoulders. Shivering with cold he hurried to Drury Lane, the centre of the theatre world.

Griffin found a suitable shop and got into it. He wore bandages round his forehead, dark glasses, false nose, big bushy side-whiskers, and a large hat. He ruthlessly attacked the shopkeeper from behind to escape without being noticed. He robbed him of all the money he could find.

Griffin took a train to the village of Iping to get away from the crowded London. He booked two rooms at a local inn to enjoy his solitude.

Griffin had no desire to talk to anyone. He told her that he wanted to come to Iping for a solitude. He didn't wish to be disturbed in his work. In addition, his face had been affected by an accident.

Mrs Hall was prepared to excuse her guests strange habits and irritable temper because she was satisfied that her guest was an eccentric scientist. Moreover, Griffin had already paid her in advance.

One day, very early in the morning, a clergyman and his wife were awakened by the noises in the study. While creeping downstairs, they heard the chink of money being taken from the clergyman’s desk. When the clergyman flung open the door, he found that the room was empty. They didn't find anybody. Yet the desk had been opened and the housekeeping money was missing. 

Later that morning,the landlord and his wife found the door of the scientist's room wide open.They couldn't miss the opportunity of investigating his room. They found that the bedclothes were cold, which showed that the scientist had already woken up. In addition to that, the clothes and bandages that he always wore were lying about the room. While Mrs hall was searching the room, she heard a sniff close to her ear. A moment later the hat on the bedpost leapt up and dashed itself into her face. Then the bedroom chair sprung into the air and charged straight at her legs foremost. Pushing them both out of the room, it slammed and locked the door after them.

Mrs. Hall anticipated that the stranger scientist had somehow caused the spirits to enter into her furniture. As Mrs hall's poor mother used to sit in that chair, she thought that her spirit had risen up against her now. While the neighbours thought that the trouble was caused by witchcraft. 

The neighbours felt that the trouble was caused due to witchcraft.

They suspected that the strange scientist had a hand in it certainly. Their suspicion grew even stronger when he suddenly produced some ready cash, though he had admitted not long before that he had no money.

The village constable was secretly sent for the investigation.

Mrs Hall couldn't wait for the constable. She went to the scientist to investigate about the incident that happened that day. She asked him about the way that made him come out of an empty room and enter a locked room. She told him that she wanted to know what he had been doing to her chair upstairs.

Griffin was always short-tempered. He said furiously that he would show what or who he was. Suddenly, he threw off bandages, whiskers, spectacles, and even nose. It took him only a minute to do this. The people in the bar were horrified to see at a headless man.

The constable, Mr Jaffers was quite surprised to find that he had to arrest a man without a head. But, Mr Jaffers never gave up so easily. To him, if a magistrate’s warrant ordered a person’s arrest, then that person had to be arrested, with or without his head.  
He tried to get hold of a man who was becoming more and more invisible as he threw off one garment after another. When Griffin had taken off all his clothes, the constable found himself struggling with someone he could not see at all. The constable was knocked unconscious in the end.