Till the Clock Stops by John Joy Bell (latest novels to read .TXT) 📕

was shut noiselessly. Christopher's hand fell clenched on the green box. His pallid lips moved.

"Traitors, hypocrites, money maniacs! Verily, they shall have their reward!" He reopened the box, took out all the five trays, and gazed awhile at the massed brilliance. And his smile was exceeding grim.



CHAPTER II

Within a few minutes the servant returned.

"The gentlemen have gone, sir, and Monsoor Guidet is ready," he said, then looked hard at his master.

The master appeared to rouse himself. "Tell Guidet to go ahead. He'll require your assistance, I expect. Stay!" He pointed to the diamonds. "Put them in the box, Caw."

The man restored the glittering trays to their places with as much emotion as if they had contained samples of bird-seed. When he had let down the lid--

"Your pardon, Mr. Craig, but won't you allow me to ring for Dr. Handyside now?"

"Confound you, Caw, do what you're told!"

"Very good, sir," said Caw sadly, moving off.

"And look here, Caw; if I'm crusty, you know why. And I shan't be bullying you for long. That's all."

Caw bowed his head and went out. On the landing he threw up his hands. "My God!" he said under his breath, "can nothing be done to save him?" For here was a man who loved his master better than himself. One wonders if Caw had ever forgot for an hour in all those twenty years that Christopher Craig had lifted him from the gutter and given him the chance which the world seemed to have denied him.

Shortly afterwards he entered the room with Monsieur Guidet. The two moved slowly, cautiously, for between them they carried a heavy and seemingly fragile object.

"Go ahead," said Christopher, "and let me know when it is finished." He closed his eyes.

Nearly an hour passed before he opened them in response to his servant's voice.

"Monsieur has now finished, sir."

He sat up at once. From a drawer he took a large stout envelope already addressed and sealed with wax.

"Caw, get on your cycle and take this to the post. Have it registered. And put a chair for Monsieur Guidet--there--no, nearer--that's right. Order a cab to take Monsieur to the steamer. He and I will have a chat till you return.... Monsieur, come and sit down."

As Caw left the room the Frenchman turned from his completed handiwork to accept his patron's invitation. He was a dapper, stout little man, merry of eye, despite the fact that a couple of months ago he and his family had been in bitter poverty. He smiled very happily as he took the chair beside the writing table. He was about to receive the balance of his account, amounting, according to agreement, to two hundred pounds.

The work done was embodied in the clock and case which now filled, fitting to a nicety, the niche in the back wall. Outwardly there was nothing very unusual about the clock itself. A gilt box enclosing the mechanism and carrying the plain white face, the hands at twelve, occupied the topmost third of the case, which was of thick plate-glass bound and backed with gilt metal. There was no apparent means of opening the case. From what one could see, however, the workmanship was perfect, exquisite. The compensating pendulum alone was ornamented--with a conventional sun in diamonds, and one could imagine the effect when it swung in brilliant light. At present it was at rest, held up to the right wall of the case by a loop of fine silk passed through a minute hole in the glass, brought round to the front, and secured to a tiny nail at the edge of the niche; a snip--the thread withdrawn--and the clock would start on the work it had been designed to perform. The only really odd things about the whole affair were that the lowest third of the case was filled with a liquid, thickish and emerald green and possessing a curious iridescence, and that just beneath the niche was fixed a strip of ebony tilted upwards and bearing in distinct opal lettering the word:

DANGEROUS

"Well, monsieur," said Christopher Craig, opening cheque-book, "I suppose I can trust your clock to perform all that we bargained for. You will give me your word for that?"

"Mr. Craik, I give you my word of honour that the clock will go for one year and one day; that he will stop on the day appointed, within two hours, on the one side or the other, of the hour he was to start at; that he will make alarum forty-eight precise hours before he stop; that he will strike only at noon and at midnight; and that, when the end arrive, he will--"

"Thank you, monsieur."

"But more! I give you more than my word; the credit of the work is so much to me. I beg to take only one-half of the money now--the other half when you have seen with your own eyes--"

"Enough. I am in your hands, Monsieur Guidet, for the clock shall not be started until I am gone."

"Gone?" The little man looked blank.

"Your clock is there to carry out the wishes of a dead man."

"Ah!" Guidet understood at last. All the happiness vanished from his face. He regarded this man, who had chosen him from a number of applicants responding to an advertisement, as his benefactor, his saviour. "But not soon, not soon!" he cried with emotion.

Christopher was touched. The little man seemed to care, though their acquaintance was not three months old. Still, they had met almost daily in the room assigned to Guidet for his work, and the patron had taken an interest in the man as well as his genius.

"I cannot tell how soon, my friend," he said, "but we need not talk of it. Now tell me, Guidet, how much do I owe you?"

Guidet wiped his eyes. "One hundred and thirty pounds," he murmured, "and I give you a thousand thanks, Mr. Craik."

"A hundred and thirty--that is the balance due on the clock itself?" inquired Christopher, filling in the date.

The other looked puzzled. "On everything, Mr. Craik."

"Don't you charge for your time?"

Guidet smiled and spread his hands. "Ah, you are not so unwell when you can make the jokes! Two hundred pounds was the price, and I have received seventy of it and the grandest, best holiday--"

"Your wife and children have had no holiday," said Christopher, continuing his writing.

"They have been happy that I am no longer a failure. They shall have a little holiday now, my best of friends, and then I take the small share in the business I told you about. Oh, it is all well with us, all rosy as a--a rose! But you!" His voice trailed off in a sigh.

"I am only sorry I shall not be your first customer, Guidet." Christopher blotted the cheque and handed it across the table. "So you must oblige me by accepting instead what I have written there."

The little man read the words--the figures--and gulped. Then his arms went out as if to embrace the man who sat smiling so very wearily. "It is too much--too much!" he cried, almost weeping. "You are rich, but why--why do you give me five hundred pounds?"

"Perhaps," said Christopher sadly, "that you may remember me kindly." His hand, now shaky, went up to check the other's flow of gratitude. "I'm afraid I must ask you to go now. I must rest--you understand?"

Guidet rose. "So long as we live," he said solemnly, "my family and I will not forget. And if it would give you longer life, Mr. Craik, I swear I would put this"--he held up the cheque--"into the fire."

"I thank you," said Christopher gravely, and just then Caw came in. "And now farewell."



CHAPTER III

It was dusky in the room when Caw brought tea to his master. Fitful gleams from the fire touched the latter's face, which had grown haggard. The Green Box was open again.

"Never mind the lights for the present," he said, as the servant's hand went to the switch. "Give me a cup of tea--nothing more--and sit down." He pointed to the chair recently occupied by the Frenchman. "I have something to say to you, Caw."

As he placed the tea on the table Caw winced slightly. "Mr. Craig," he said imploringly, "won't you have the doctor now?"

"Sit down," said Christopher a trifle irritably, "and pay attention to what I am about to say. Dr. Handyside," he proceeded, "cannot help me, and you can. In the first place, you have already given me your word to remain in my service for a year and a day after I am gone from here--in other words, until the clock stops."

"Yes, sir," said Caw in a low voice.

"And it is perfectly clear to you how and when you are to set the clock going?"

"By carefully cutting and removing the thread at the first hour of twelve following your--oh, sir, need you talk about it now?"

Christopher took a sip and set the cup down with a little clatter. "And in the event of my nephew, Mr. Alan Craig, returning within the year, you will serve him also as you would me, giving him all assistance and information in your power."

"Yes, sir."

"I have recommended you to him in a letter left with Mr. Harvie, the lawyer in Glasgow, to whom you registered the packet this afternoon. Mr. Harvie is acquainted with certain of my affairs, but not by any means all. It is not necessary that he should know all that you know or will know. I am leaving much to your discretion, Caw. You will find your instructions in this envelope.... Among other things, it is not my wish that you should live alone in this house, and until my nephew returns I have arranged that you shall have quarters in Dr. Handyside's house, and I do not doubt that you will make yourself useful there, helping him with his car and so on. If expedient, you may trust the doctor, but do not trouble him without grave cause. The passage will remain available, and you will make inspections of this house at intervals."

He paused for a moment, took another sip, and resumed. "Things may happen in this house, Caw; but you are not to think of that as more than a mere possibility, nor are you to consider yourself tied to the place. As a matter of fact, I would as soon have certain things happen as not, and, short of murder itself, I count on your avoiding or preventing any police interference. By the way, your own future is provided for."

Caw made an attempt to speak, but his master proceeded--

"There are two men whom it seems necessary to warn you against--the two who were here to-day."

"Sir," said Caw with sudden strength and warmth of voice, "I have long wished I might warn you against Mr. Bullard. Only a sort of instinct, sir, on my part, but I never could trust that man. As for Lancaster--"

"Your instinct was right. Lancaster is chiefly a fool, but Bullard is utterly rotten. You remember my younger brother, Caw?"

"Yes, sir"--rather awkwardly.

"Those two, particularly Bullard, brought him to ruin. They cheated him--legitimately of course! Mr. Alan is ignorant of the tragedy surrounding the end of his father--his mother, too--and I hope he may remain so."

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