Find the Clock

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  But Darrell, although he lay there quiet, lay there now with a terrific determination in his being. It had come to him in a saving flash of memory — and he thanked his stars for it — how the safety-razor blade he had taken down town to match and which he had failed day after day to attend to, still reposed in the right-hand pocket of his coat. Thought with Darrell was followed by direct action. It proved a simple thing to work his bound hands under him to that side of his body, and still simpler to find through the cloth of his coat the outlines of that blade. He sawed it back and forth and in a trice felt the cool, keen steel emerging from the cloth into his handicapped fingers.

  F. B. O. Photoplay Series. “Fighting Blood.”

  FAILURE FACED THE MAN WHO HAD NEVER KNOWN DEFEAT.

  The man with the electric drill took a brief glance back of him at this point. His glance evidently satisfied him that all was well, for he fell to again, this time bearing harder against the drill. Now the humming was punctuated by sharp, clicking noises, the drill having apparently entered an intricate field of tumblers and springs, and he proceeded with savage pressure to demolish completely the internal mechanism. That he was after the alarm clock which had been obtained from Jacob Schimski’s store there was no longer any doubt in Darrell’s mind. And that he was almost upon that mysterious article was evidenced by his removal of the drill and his peering through the round hole he had made.

  It was now or never, Darrell knew. The last raucous rattling of the drill proclaimed that no longer did any mechanism hold fast the door. A turn or two, a widening of the hole, and the round door would swing loosely on its hinges. Furiously, as the masked man peered in at the round hole he had made, Darrell sawed away with the fingers of one hand at the cords which bound his two wrists, and bit by bit he felt them giving, felt them at last completely relinquish themselves. He had no time to rub his wrists, to quicken the circulation. In a trice he was sitting erect — he saw the girl’s glance of bewilderment from the davenport as he did so — and with two powerful cuts of the sharp razor edge his feet were free.

  He rose silently, speedily, first to all fours, then erect. For one moment he hesitated whether to leap for that unsuspecting figure upon the library table instead of for the velvet bag, and it seemed to him that to determine that one point alone he held in those two or three seconds a full jury trial which dragged out for weeks. But the verdict of his mental faculties was to adhere to his original plan — to refrain from trying to cover the full width of the room and leap upon the back of that human figure which stood so temptingly oblivious to what was transpiring — to cover the shorter distance instead and achieve the velvet bag.

  Darrell’s rush, however, was far from silent. In three great pounding strides he leaped for the velvet bag, clicked it open and like a flash held in his hand a glistening weapon. He was master of the situation. “Hands up,” he said. “Up with ‘em.”

  But a sudden feeling as of chill water trickled slowly down his spine. Even before he had completed the words, he realized with a sickening feeling at the pit of his stomach that he was trapped — that he had made the wrong one of the two possible moves. For gripped in his hand was merely one of those flimsy glass revolvers, shaped and molded exactly like a real weapon, covered with bright silver plating, yet withal light as a feather.

  What happened after his demand happened like a flash. At the first sound of his footsteps, the silk-hooded figure, standing at the wall safe, which was now open revealing a bright nickeled alarm clock within, spun completely around. Even as he did so his hand shot to his coat pocket, and almost a hundredth of a second later, it seemed, a shot barked out and the pseudo-weapon in Darrell’s hand flew into a thousand bits of glass. Indeed, it all happened so quickly that the Call reporter was scarcely able to realize that all he held in his hand was a curved stub that once had been the handle of the glass trinket.

  But that single shot brought him back to earth in desperate earnest. With a catching of the breath, he sprang in two gigantic leaps across the intervening space between the davenport and the mahogany table. He heard the weapon bark again; he saw it spurt red flame, and he felt a stinging streak of pain along the side of his neck as he flung himself like a football player around the serge-covered limbs which stood on a level with his waist.

  A terrific shove, and before the revolver had its third chance to spit forth death, the man in the black silk bag had somersaulted almost like a professional acrobat across Darrell’s rounded back to the floor, from which he bounded like a rubber ball and closed in on the Call reporter.

  The struggle that followed was a silent, desperate one, a struggle between two bodies which surged and pulled and tore back and forth across the room, sobbing, panting, breathing heavily, Darrell’s left arm around his antagonist’s neck, his right hand grasping the muzzle of that dangerous looking gun.

  And thus it continued. Once the silk-hooded intruder succeeded in breaking the reporter’s grip, yet even before he accomplished it, Darrell clutched at the bosom of the other’s flannel shirt. As it tore open, the white buttons of his shirt and undershirt flying in all directions over the room, there was exposed a strange sight: on the hairy, white, powerful chest was tattooed a gorgeous black eagle, with wings outspread, bearing on its supercilious head the royal helmet of the Prussian Guards.

  And thus it was that Darrell knew at last that he was face to face with Carl von Tresseler, the Blonde Beast of Bremen.

  At the sight of that hateful insignia — an insignia which woke in Darrell’s heart memories of insults and brutality — all the pent-up hatred of his being sprang to his defense. He cut and tore and fought like a demon. He turned into a battling fury. But the silent man who struggled with him was strong as a lion; he was no neophyte in combating tactics such as these. It was plain he was trying to wrench his gun free, and twice Darrell lost his grip on the muzzle of that weapon only to regain it by a quick snatch which won the hold almost by a hair’s breadth. When this had happened the second time, Darrell changed his tactics.

  Panting desperately for breath, he played for a backward trip. And he won it by a vicious hooking of his left limb around the ankles of his opponent. The two men, Darrell on top, went down like a load of iron, the very chandelier with its bulbs swinging from the shock of the impact. But only for the space of a second did Darrell’s triumph last. He was overturned in an instant and the Blonde Beast was on top, struggling, trying, endeavoring ferociously with all his might and main to bring the muzzle of that weapon in line with the head of the man beneath him.

  And the man beneath him, winded, exhausted by his struggle with the efficient product of the German Turn-Gemeinde system, still retained his grip on that slender tube which once directed his way meant nothing else than death.

  Several heart-breaking attempts Darrell made to upset his antagonist. But they proved useless now. for he had used up his strength against a more cunning player in the game. And he realized it only too well.

  In an agony of dismay, much as in the manner of a man who is drowning, Darrell saw that blue-steel revolver, the muzzle of which his finger clutched desperately, come with each vicious jerk of its owner’s wrist closer to his body. The muscles of his own wrist drew like steel as the muzzle slowly began to tilt to an angle where it would snuff out his life with a single shot. But the muscles of that wrist were no longer able to combat the muscles of that other wrist which manipulated the gun.

  He realized it with sinking heart. And, pinned to the floor, he knew also that all chances were past now to unseat the bunch of wire and sinews whom he had thrown, and with his flagging energies he saw now that by that backward trip he himself had precipitated the situation that was about to end his existence. Darrell had no illusions. Once that muzzle stood in line with his eyes, his head, his mouth, his neck, a spurt of flame — and Jeffrey Darrell of the Call would be no more.

  He continued struggling, but to less and less avail. He felt his grasp weakening, diminishing. He felt the furious tugs, t
he vicious jerks at the revolver, as its owner made one or two passing attempts to free it entirely from Darrell’s fingers instead of forcing it slowly against the strength which still prevented it from completing its work.

  And then, as though in a peculiar delirious dream, Darrell saw something happen which showed him if only he could hold on — hold on — somehow — some way — maybe the tide of affairs would turn.

  The girl on the davenport who, during the fight, had raised her head and gazed in silent, wide-eyed terror, suddenly rolled halfway from her position so that her bound limbs reached the floor. Swaying from side to side she rose to a standing position in which the left of her closely bound feet bore the weight of her entire body. With her mouth tightly gagged, with her hands tied behind her, it seemed to Darrell, on his back on the floor, that she stood in indecision for hours and hours. But in reality it was but five or six seconds. Long as it was, he tightened his weakening grip on the revolver with one last effort, and watched as though mesmerized the sight of which the figure astride him was quite ignorant.

  Her great velvet eyes fell on the beautiful Gubbio plate in its place on the mantel across the room. Hopping, swaying dizzily at every step, she crossed the intervening space. Rubbing the tight band of sheeting which covered her mouth against the sharp edge of the mantel, it suddenly fell loosely around her neck. She rid herself instantly of the wad of cotton cloth in her mouth. With an odd, sidewise motion she inclined her head. When she turned from the mantel, Darrell, as in a dream, saw that the Gubbio was held tightly by its edge in her keen, white teeth.

  He continued struggling; he tightened his clench. But too late. That demoniac muzzle turned slowly as though by a fateful, pitiless, micrometer screw, nearer, nearer, nearer in line with his eyes, and his soul went sick within him. He closed his eyes — then opened them. And in that brief space of time he saw that the girl, the Gubbio still held in her teeth, stood swaying at back of the man who sat astride him working quite coolly to dispatch him.

  What happened then happened in the twinkling of an eye. Throwing back her head, plate high in air, she snapped her head forward with a quick motion. Crack! The sound that broke the silence of the room as the Gubbio struck the unprotected cranium of the man atop Darrell seemed like a rifle shot, and the antique piece of china shivered into a thousand bits, its fragments raining in every direction.

  The impact of the heavy piece of pottery, shattering so completely, as it did, “must have been terrific; it was proven an instant later by the grunt of its victim, by the sudden weakening of his hold on his revolver, followed by his entire relinquishment of the weapon, by his dazed rise to his feet, the pressing of his hands to his head, his slight swaying from side to side. With one dazed look about the room and at his empty hands, he staggered to the window like a drunken man, shoved out the screen with a violent kick of his foot, poised on the sill and leaped across the space to the telegraph pole which stood four feet from it, and, clutching wildly at the iron spikes, caught them and rapidly dropped a spike at a time from sight. And he was gone before Darrell had clambered to his own feet! Gone before the Call reporter had even time to invert the weapon.

  He rushed to the window and peered down into the narrow alley, littered with papers. Only a black bag lay at the foot of the telegraph pole — that and no more.

  And suddenly the tense silence was broken by the girl’s sobs, deep, pathetic, convulsive, the signs of the snapping of a nervous system which had lived through an ordeal under which most of her sex would have completely crumpled.

  Utterly forgetful of the fact that her wrists were still bound, that she was powerless, he crossed the space between them and took her in his arms. She lay passive against his breast.

  “Iris Shaftsbury,” he said softly in her ear, “forgive me if you can, for all that I said to you this morning. A girl as brave and quick and courageous as you, if you were guilty of the crime I accused you of, would not have saved the life of the one man who could send her to the penitentiary. I don’t know what the inside story of this case is, dear girl, but I know I love you — I love you. I want you for my wife even if I never know the explanation. Can you forgive an over-officious newspaper reporter? Say that you can.”

  In the twinkling of an eye he had severed the whiplike cord which bound her wrists and ankles, and was rubbing them, chafing them back to life. She suddenly placed her hands on his shoulders, and looked into his eyes — eyes which were full of solicitude for her only.

  “Jeffrey Darrell, all you have done in this case is what any other man would have done. And you have been far more considerate than a thousand others would have been. But I — I — ” She looked away shyly — then frankly at him. One of her hands caressed his cheek. “And as for that inside story, I do not know it all — only a part of it. But whatever I know of it, you shall have whenever you are ready. First, liberate poor Snowwhite. Some one is rapping on the door of the apartment. Give them some explanation — any explanation for the present — and send them away. And then,” looking up wistfully at him, “must you leave me to pursue that man?”

  He glanced down at her thoughtfully.

  “The gentleman to whom you refer,” he said speculatively, “is already blocks away — and God knows in which direction of the compass. No, I think it’s up to me to remain for the present with you and that badly wanted clock.”

  CHAPTER XVI

  The Story of the Girl with Brown Eyes

  DARRELL rose quickly from the side of the girl, and crossing the room to the closet door threw it open. The inquiring rapping at the door continued. “Come out, Snowwhite,” he said quietly. The girl stared in silent terror, her eyes popping from her head. “He is gone. The trouble is all over.” And leaving her to absorb this information, he hurried to the door of the apartment and opened it. In the corridor stood a man in his suspenders and undershirt, a safety razor in his hand, one half of his face covered with lather, at his shoulder a woman in dressing gown and boudoir cap.

  “Was it here where the noise came from?” said he with the safety razor. “My wife and I thought we heard muffled shots.”

  “They weren’t very muffled on this side of the door,” said Darrell with an ingratiating smile. “Yes, this was the place from which you heard the shots. Had a little morning visit from a burglar. Scared him off — and everything from the poodle to the family silver is saved!”

  “Good for you,” said he with the razor vindictively. “Got a phone? Want me to call the police for you?”

  Darrell smiled once more. He raised his leather belt, displaying his shiny reporter’s badge. “I happen to be a reporter on the Call,” he said. “I’ll give the police all the details.”

  “Jumping Jehoshaphat!” said he with the lathered face, “no wonder the papers always have the news! Have their men right where the jobs happen.” He surveyed Darrell’s smiling face which evidently reassured him that everything was all right. Then he turned suddenly down the narrow corridor. “Come along, Mame. Hurry. I’ll bet your rings are lying right now on your dressing table in full sight.”

  And Darrell, closing the door, made his way back into the living room of the apartment.

  The first thing he saw was Snowwhite, tremblingly trying to pin a multicolored hat on her frizzled head, with black fingers that were all black thumbs.

  “I’ve just assured Snowwhite that all the trouble is over now, and that she should go out and take a walk in the sunshine,” said the girl on the davenport. Her own voice trembled a bit as she endeavored with her words to calm the badly shaken colored girl. “Stay out, Snowwhite, till you feel better. Just forget it all now. I’m not angry with you.”

  The colored girl, her hat at last affixed rather precariously to her head, lost no time in escaping from this perilous apartment into the bright — and safe — sunshine without. Whereupon Darrell, now alone with the being who had suddenly grown to mean everything in his life, sank down beside her on the edge of the davenport. “Now tell me first,” he
said, his hand stroking her slim white one, “just how this man obtained entrance — and the rest of it.”

  “Snowwhite and I were in the room here,” she said, a look of fear flashing for an instant over her big dark eyes. “She had just finished bathing my ankle, and had wrapped it up and laid the little cushion under it. We heard a timid knock at the door. Snowwhite answered it. I heard a half-stifled cry of terror from the colored girl, then the door closed and she backed into the room, a gun thrust almost into her stomach. The man who held it appeared a second later, and he was already shrouded in that black silk bag. He ordered me in that horrible, croaking voice of his to raise my hands — and you may rest assured I did so. He demanded the combination of the wall safe. I told him I had had it, but had accidentally altered it, and could not get access to the contents myself. He strode forward and slapped me a vicious blow across my mouth. He — ”

  “He is a cur of the most despicable type,” said Darrell fervently. “But go on, dear girl. What happened then?”

  “He again asked me whether I intended to give him the combination of the wall safe. Again I repeated the truth: that I could not because I had altered it. Then he asked me if the clock was in the safe — the clock I got from Rees of Grady Court.”

  “Ah!” interrupted Darrell. “All light dawns on me. So he found that he didn’t have the right clock after all. And he found also that — But I’ll explain this later. Go ahead.”