by Craig Rice
And the clocks.
What time was it?
She had to know now!
There was the big clock that stood in the hall—
She ran into the hall, reaching for the light switch as she sped past it, on past her door, past the empty guest room, past the head of the stairs, to where the old clock stood half in darkness.
Three o’clock.
It wasn’t possible, it wasn’t true. The old clock in the hall had never stopped since it had been placed there, years before. It couldn’t have stopped. It hadn’t happened. It wasn’t possible.
She stood for a moment, listening.
The dull, woodenish ticking of the old clock, deep-toned and steady, that she had known all her life—she listened for it while waves of hysteria rose to her throat and were choked back again.
Not a sound.
There wasn’t a sound from the old clock. The old carved hands were still—the little hand on the three, the big hand on the twelve.
As panic flooded over her, she started to scream, stopped herself. Aunt Alex mustn’t be wakened. Aunt Alex mustn’t know that Glen was out. Aunt Alex mustn’t know, mustn’t ever know that she, Holly Inglehart, had been frightened into hysteria by the stopping of clocks.
And then again in the deathlike silence of the old house, she heard it again, distantly yet distinctly, that steady, relentless, persistent ringing.
Somewhere in the old house an alarm clock was ringing.
Nellie—It came from Nellie and Parkins’ room.
She ran, as quietly as she could, up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the third floor, to the room Nellie and Parkins shared. As she ran, she turned on light after light, flooding the old house with a radiant blaze. There it was, the door to their room, there would be Nellie, and safety from the terrors that had followed her up the stairs.
And as she reached the door, the ringing stopped—
She knocked, waited, knocked again.
No one answered.
Nellie must be there. Nellie slept lightly. Nellie must answer—
She knocked again, louder.
Then she saw that the door was slightly ajar.
She pushed it open, slowly, hesitantly. A shaft of light from the hall fell across the empty bed, the smooth, neat, empty bed, the bed that had not been slept in.
Nellie was gone, Parkins was gone. The bed—
The clock—
There was a cheap alarm clock on the dresser, a painted clock with a strident, off-pitch ring and harsh, clamorous tick.
But it was not ticking now.
She knew what she would see even before she looked, the black painted hands pointing, the big hand to the twelve, the little hand to the three.
The cheap alarm clock stopped at three.
But it wasn’t possible. She had heard it ringing, even while she stood outside the door.
She looked at it closely. The alarm was turned on, the alarm hand was set for six.
It hadn’t been that clock she had heard ringing!
Forgetting her terror for the moment, she searched the room.
There was no other clock. Only the one that had stopped at three.
Yet in that instant the ringing began again, the same ringing-remorseless, persistent, continual. But again it came from the distance.
It came from Aunt Alex’s room.
Aunt Alex would not be gone. Aunt Alex had not left her room for fifteen years, not since paralysis had bound her to a chair. Aunt Alex would know why an alarm clock would be ringing in her room.
She raced down the narrow stairs, through the wide corridor, past the old clock, past the wide staircase, along the hall to Aunt Alex’s room, turning on light after light all along the way.
As she reached the door, the ringing stopped. But there was another thing.
The door to Aunt Alex’s room was wide open. Aunt Alex, who should have been in bed hours ago (but what time was it?), sat in her chair by the window, facing the door. She sat there without moving, without speaking, her eyes glittering with a strange, unearthly light as the lamp in the hall reflected on them, glittering greenly, like a cat’s eyes.
Holly stood in the doorway an instant, clinging to the door. The old woman didn’t move. Slowly the girl crept up to her.
The window was open, a freezing wind from the ice-covered lake swept through the room.
Aunt Alex, sitting in front of that open window—
Forgetting her fear, the girl rushed to the old woman, felt of her hand.
It was cold, terribly cold, and hard, like ice.
Aunt Alex hadn’t known the window was open. Aunt Alex was dead, dead and frozen as stiff as the icicles that hung over the window.
There was something on the stiff pale silk that covered Aunt Alex’s withered old breast. Two gaping holes, not large, but terribly dark, and beside them what looked like a handle. She grasped it for one horrified moment, saw that it was a handle, the handle of a knife, protruding from the pale silk.
The room whirled around, she felt herself sinking into some unknown darkness, the darkness that had oppressed her in the dream. But as consciousness fled from her in a rushing stream, one last thing struck into her mind.
The clock.
The clock. Aunt Alex’s little French clock in its little bell glass. The little wheel above the clock that had always whirled back and forth, all day long and all night long. It was not whirling now.
The fragile, gilded hands stood at three o’clock.
She saw it, marked it in her mind, caught at it with a last dissolving remnant of consciousness as she sank back into the welcoming darkness.
Chapter 2
The February wind, blowing around the unprotected platform, was damp and raw. Jake Justus, pacing back and forth on the snow-tracked boards, lifted his harassed mind from his personal troubles long enough to reflect that he had never seen quite so desolate a place. No, not in a lifetime spotted with desolate places. And this, he thought critically, in what was supposed to be a classy suburb, too.
He looked longingly toward the little enclosed waiting room.
The blond young man, Dick Dayton, pacing beside him, nodded.
“Might as well go inside. I’d rather die from suffocation than from the cold.”
Jake stamped out a cigarette and the two men went into the dingy waiting room. They were an odd contrast. Dayton was slender, with a thinly handsome face, dressed immaculately in what the well-dressed man would be wearing six months later. There was a deepish wrinkle between his eyebrows, worn there by twelve years of trouping across the country with third-rate, second-rate, and finally first-rate dance bands. Now, his own dance band. Dick Dayton and his Boys.
His companion was a tall, rangy man, big-boned and lean, with an indolent slouch. Under an untidy thatch of red hair was an angular, friendly face with watchful eyes and a square jaw. There were wrinkles on his face, too; more than a few had been worn there by his job of press-agenting and managing Dick Dayton.
He looked disconsolately around the little waiting room. It was a forlorn room, smelling of damp wood, sweat, and cheap antiseptic. The benches were painted a dismal brown, the NO SMOKING sign was flyspecked and yellow.
“She’s damned late,” said Jake Justus, looking at his watch.
Dick nodded, looking out through the steamy window. A snow-packed road led away from the station; beyond it were brown, barren trees and the faint outlines of houses. A noisy little train halted abruptly at the station, disgorged a fat man in a green overcoat, a minister, and a pair of round-faced, giggling school-girls. Then it rattled away toward Chicago. Jake stared after it longingly.
“Of course,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s none of my business. But I’d say this was a hell of a day to be late.”
Dick scowled deeply. “It isn’t her fault. If she’s late, it’s because of something she can’t help. That’s what worries me.”
Jake looked at his watch again, hoping he had made a mistake. He hadn�
�t. It was ten o’clock. They had been waiting on the station platform since long before nine. He hated to think how long it had been since he had been out of bed before nine in the morning. Why couldn’t people pick a reasonable hour to elope?
“Of course,” he repeated, “you haven’t told me all the details yet. But I say she’s late, and I say the hell with it.”
There was no answer.
“Well,” said Jake Justus after a pause, “I only hope that she hasn’t run out on you. After getting us out of bed before dawn. Besides,” he added thoughtfully, “we’ll miss the afternoon papers.”
“Sure,” Dick told him coldly. “This is just a publicity stunt to you. But it’s something more to me.”
Jake Justus grinned. “The dream of a lifetime come true, said Dick Dayton, America’s idol, as he introduced his beautiful heiress bride to interviewers after a dramatic elopement—”
“Shut up,” said Dick Dayton tersely.
“The headlines,” said Jake soulfully, “will be something lovely—Angry Aunt pursues Dick and Bride.”
“I’m going to get out of this place,” Dick said sharply.
Jake followed him through the door. “Provided,” he finished, “that she hasn’t run out on you.”
“She hasn’t.”
“All right, she hasn’t. But where is she?”
The young orchestra leader frowned anxiously. “If she was going to get here at all, she’d be here now. She’s nearly two hours late.”
“Nearly, hell. She is.”
“Something’s happened to her, Jake. Something’s gone wrong.”
“I suppose Angry Aunt has locked her in her room on bread and water. Don’t be a dope. This isn’t 1880.”
“You don’t know her aunt,” said Dick with feeling. “She is 1880. And she isn’t normal. She might do anything.”
“Are you trying to tell me that your girl’s aunt is a screwball?”
“I am telling you,” Dick said.
Jake shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I’m not going to take up permanent residence here waiting for her. This is the damnedest elopement I ever heard of.”
“How was I to know she’d be late?”
“Are you sure you told her the right day?”
“Jake, something’s happened to her.”
“Are you sure you’re in the right town?”
“Go to hell.”
“These north-shore suburbs all look alike. I remember once I had a date with a girl in Wilmette. Her name was Clara—” Jake made an appreciative noise with his lips.
“You old Turk,” said Dick admiringly.
Jake sighed. “I wish I had a drink.”
The orchestra leader lit a cigarette, snapped the match into a pile of soiled snow, and strode suddenly toward the end of the platform. Jake swung his long legs after him.
“Come on, Jake. I’m going after her.”
“On foot?”
“Do you see any horses?”
“Have they heard of taxis out here? Is this place too refined to have a main drag?”
Dick pointed ahead, past the row of weather-worn trees. Jake sighed deeply.
Just at that moment a taxicab appeared suddenly at the end of the street. They waved and whistled furiously. It slid across the pavement, turned halfway around, narrowly missed a tree, and shivered to a stop in front of them.
“Slippery today,” the driver said. His face was pale.
They climbed in, banged the door.
“1216 Maple Drive.”
The driver looked at them curiously. “You fellas lawyers?”
“No,” Jake told him, “but I used to think—”
“Reporters, maybe?”
“Not now,” Jake began, “but I used to—”
“If it’s any of your business,” Dick said furiously, “I’m an orchestra leader and this is my manager. Anything else you’d like to know?”
The driver grinned. “They don’t want no orchestras at that address,” he said cheerfully, and drove off.
Jake looked thoughtful. “I don’t suppose you’ve thought of what you’re going to say when you get there. Because if you haven’t, I’ve an idea you’re going to look awfully silly.”
“I’m going to get Holly and get out of there.”
“Just like that,” Jake said.
“I’ve got a right to. I’m going to walk right in the door and ask for Holly, and if anybody tries to stop me—”
“Fighting again,” Jake mused. “I wonder what the jail is like out here.”
“There won’t be any fighting.”
“It would be easier,” Jake told him reflectively, “to pretend you’re the Realsilk Hosiery man, but this isn’t my elopement and I won’t give advice. Just the same, I don’t like the setup.”
“Why?”
“Well, your girl didn’t show up, did she? And the cab driver seemed uncommonly familiar with the address. Of course,” he added, “it may be nothing worse than a fire or an explosion—”
“Quit it.”
They were driving down a desolate street, edged with leafless trees. Beyond the sidewalks stretched wide lawns, snow-buried gardens. The houses were large, most of them old and elaborate, all of them set far back from the road.
The cab took a corner sideways, skidded back and forth on the ice, missed a parked car by inches, and stopped in front of a pair of massive iron gate-posts.
“Here y’are,” said the driver amiably. “Too bad you didn’t bring your or-chestra with you.” But Dick was already halfway across the sidewalk.
Jake gave the driver a handful of change. “And now, my garrulous Jehu,” he began, “if you’ll be so good as to tell us what’s going on out here—”
The driver shook his head, grinning. “Go on in. You’ll find out.”
Jake muttered an objectionable word after the departing cab, shrugged his shoulders, and hurried after Dick.
A pair of great wrought-iron gates hung open. Beyond, a snow-covered drive, furrowed with the tracks of many cars, curved up to an immense and indescribably ugly house. It was a house of many angles, painted a dreary, mustardish brown, covered with porches, balconies, cupolas, little towers, and miscellaneous bits of ironwork. Jake wondered why anyone with money enough to own such a house would live in it.
“A wonderful spot for a murder,” he told himself, “particularly the murder of the architect.” With long, easy strides he caught up with Dick. “A lot of cars in the driveway.”
“I don’t like the looks of it,” Dick said, his face grim.
“Possibly all the relatives in the world, come to look you over.”
“Nobody knows about this, except you and Holly and me. Anyway, she hasn’t any relatives. Just her aunt and—no, I don’t like the looks of it.”
“Want to go back and try it by telephone?”
“No.”
“Maybe we should have kept that cab. We may get thrown out.”
“We don’t leave without Holly.” Dick’s face was pale in spite of the cold; the furrow between his eyes was deep.
“Dick, why don’t you duck away and let me handle this? At least let me smell out the ground.”
“No!” He rang the doorbell angrily.
After a long wait, a tall, thin woman opened the door and stared at them. Her sharp-featured face was pasty white, her black eyes seemed to look through them and beyond them.
“You can’t come in,” she said expressionlessly. “Go away.”
It was not encouraging.
But Jake had his foot in the door.
“I want to see Miss Inglehart,” Dick told the woman. “Miss Holly Inglehart.”
The woman looked at them dully. “Go away.”
“I’m sorry. But I must insist on seeing Miss Inglehart.” Dick had a sudden flash of inspiration. “I’ve brought my lawyer with me and—”
He glared at her. A puzzled frown grew on her face.
“Perhaps you’d better come in,” she said slowly. “Yes, you�
�d better come in.”
She closed the door firmly after them, stood staring a moment.
“I’ll call somebody,” she said at last and went away, leaving them in the hall.
“Well, we’re in, anyway,” Jake said hopefully.
Dick shivered. The big, high-ceilinged hall was cold and dismal and dark. He tried to imagine Holly living in this house, living in it all her life, and could not. The brocaded walls were a deep, angry red, the heavily carved and ornamented woodwork was black. A stained-glass window in the stair landing cast greenish, yellowish, bluish blotches on the carpeting. A bearded man stared at them crossly from a large oil painting. There was an uncomfortable atmosphere in the place, sullen, unfriendly, and very cold.
A paneled door opened suddenly at the end of the hall; a red-faced, stocky man walked toward them, scowling.
“What do you want to see her about?”
Dick took a long breath. “I’m afraid that’s my business.”
“Not now it ain’t,” the man said peevishly. “Anyway, you can’t see her.”
Jake laid a restraining hand on Dick’s arm. “Do you mind telling us if she’s here, Mr. Fleck?”
A surprised mouth popped open in the red face. “Jake Justus, for Krissake! How do you newspaper fellas get places so quick?” There was reluctant admiration in his voice.
Dick did not seem surprised that the man knew Jake Justus. He was long past being surprised when anyone knew Jake Justus. “Look here,” he began, “look here—”
Mr. Fleck shook his head soothingly. “You’ll have to wait. Maybe we’ll let you see her later.”
“But why—” Dick began.
“Because she’s under arrest,” Mr. Fleck told him patiently.
“Arrest?”
“Arrest,” repeated Mr. Fleck, even more patiently, as though he were speaking to an incredibly stupid child. “We’re questioning her right now.” He paused to scratch his nose vigorously. “Don’t you guys know what’s been going on out here?”
“We just got here,” Jake reminded him.
“Well, the gal murdered the old lady last night and—”
A cry rose to Dick’s lips—“Murdered!”
“Stabbed the old dame. Personally, I think she’s a little ratty. Anyway, you can’t see her yet.”
Dick took a step forward. “You’ll have to let me see her,” he said desperately “I have every right to see her.”
