He called up the office and left word for Crosby that he was out on a promising Chinatown lead. He boarded a Lincoln Avenue car and a little later entered a small jewelry store on tree-clad Center Street, where the car swung west from Lincoln Park to go out diagonally across the city. A young fellow with blonde hair and high cheek bones, in his shirt sleeves, the sleeves protected by black silk armlets, his eyes holding the usual black magnifying glass, was sitting at a glass bench working over an infinitesimally small piece of watch mechanism. A score of clocks of various kinds over on the wall ticked away in unison. The youthful proprietor, magnifying glass still in eye, rose and came over to the counter. Then as he removed the jeweler’s glass and surveyed his customer, his mouth fell open in pleased surprise.
“Jeff Darrell!” he ejaculated. “For the love of Mike — Darrell — how are you?”
“Fine and dandy, Hjalmer Lindholm,” replied the newspaper man. “Seems like a long time, Hjalmer, since you and I lay in that two-bed ward in the Presbyterian hospital with our little old appendixes taken out, eh?”
Hjalmer Lindholm reached out a slim hand over the counter and shook that of the reporter. “Why have you never dropped in, Jeff?” he asked. “Why, man, don’t you know they say two-bed ward patients always make friendships that last for life? And I’ve been wondering how you’ve been. I read your stuff in the Call always.”
Darrell laughed. “But you won’t much longer, Hjalmer. They’ve got a new pet from the Pacific coast on the paper. From now on I write his stuff for him — so you’ll find me under the great name of Marvin. Feldock.” He paused. “But, Hjalmer, I apologize abjectedly for never getting in to see you. I simply haven’t had a call that’s swung me around Center Street here, that’s about all. There’s my excuse in a nutshell. However, I’ve dropped in now off a trip up north to hire you to do a little bit of clock repairing for me.”
“Hire me?” said Lindholm. “Hire me? I should say not, Jeff. I’ll give you a new clock if needs be — but hire me? Not so you can notice it.”
Darrell unwrapped the clock. He spoke in slightly lower tones.
“Hjalmer, here’s what appears to be just an ordinary alarm clock. So far as I know it may be. It’s connected with a story that’s seething on the fire here in Chicago — which story you will probably read under the honorable name of Marvin Feldock. So much for that. There’s a possibility, however, Hjalmer, that inside the cylindrical case of this clock there’s a document — or a card — or maybe a tissue-paper ball conveying a message of some sort — very likely the location of something highly valuable. Possibly there’s a jewel in it for all I know — a diamond as big as a hen’s egg. If it is, it’s wired to the mechanism, for the thing doesn’t rattle. There may likewise be nothing such as I’ve described for the simple reason that there’s a mix-up of clocks in this case I’m telling you about, and I may very likely have the wrong clock. At any rate, Hjalmer, not being blessed with one of those fancy pocketknives fitted with screw drivers as small and sharp as a razor tip and wrenches with diameters measured in millimeters, I’ve dropped off here to ask you if you’ll take the blamed thing apart — at least enough so we can see if anything’s concealed there. And whatever we find, old man, is just between the two of us. There’s a crooked game going on in Chi, and I’m right on the edge of it trying to find a knot hole in the fence.”
Hjalmer Lindholm threw open the swinging wooden gate at the end of his counter.
“Step inside, Jeff. Take that chair over next to my bench. We’ll hop to it right away.”
Darrell entered, while Lindholm took possession of the clock. The reporter took up a seat at the end of the glass workbench, and Lindholm dropped down on his high stool, turning on an extra-high-power bulb which focused down upon him. He put on his celluloid eye-shade, and shoving away some work which lay in front of him, drew out a very fine screw driver and a tiny wrench with a miniature hexagon as an aperture. Screw by screw, and bolt head by bolt head, he separated the outer casing of the clock from its mechanism within, and tapping it clear around with the handle of his screw driver suddenly withdrew the cylindrical casing entirely. The mechanism, stood exposed like a skeleton, ticking away in its nudity.
Over and around Lindholm inspected the nickeled case; over and under, back and forth, he inspected the work, looking for the concealed card, the tissue-paper ball, the jewel which Darrell had hazarded might be in it. But, as even Darrell himself could see, there was absolutely nothing of the kind within it. And the newspaper man wished devoutly that he could know the real reason why. He had paid one hundred dollars for the wrong clock of the two, or had the woman, Mrs. Schimski, lied and tricked him with still a third clock? Much depended upon the correct answer to that conundrum.
At last Lindholm looked up.
“Sorry, old man, but nothing concealed here. You can see for yourself, though.”
“Put it together again, Hjalmer,” Darrell directed with a sigh. “I haven’t found the knot hole in the fence yet.”
Within ten minutes Lindholm had restored the mechanism to the case, and had replaced every one of the tiny nuts and screws which held the thing together. Then he wrapped it back in the newspaper in which Darrell had brought it and tied it with a ball of string which he took from under the counter. Through its wrappings it proceeded to tick imperturbably, prosaically.
Darrell took it under his arm and rose. “I’m mighty obliged, Hjalmer,” he said, “and some day later I hope to have the pleasure of telling you more about this story — when I learn more about it myself!”
“Well, I’ll be glad to hear it, Jeff,” said the slim young watchmaker, “but I’ll be gladder still to have some of your company. Drop in and see a fellow, at any rate.”
After parting with the Norwegian youth in whose company he had spent three long weeks in twin hospital beds just a few feet separated, their operations but twenty-four hours apart, Darrell again climbed aboard a car and resumed his journey which had been interrupted by his visit to the other’s shop.
A startling possibility had occurred to him, and he was bound for a startling destination. Far out he rode — as far as Greenwood cemetery, whose sharp-pointed marble shafts and green hillocks reflected in solitude the afternoon sunlight back of the sharp-spiked iron fence which hemmed them in. He went straight to a small green cottage which stood almost directly across from the huge cement posts which marked the main and only gate of the cemetery. Around it was a white picket fence; its windows held flower-boxes blooming with fragrant blossoms.
A woman answered the door. “Is Mr. Patrick McFee, the superintendent in?” he asked.
“He’s just come in,” the woman replied. “Step into his office here.” She ushered Darrell into a tiny room fitted up as an office. A moment later a man entered the room and surveyed Darrell. His face was the quizzical face of an Irishman, with the Celtic sadness in it. His roly-poly head was bald on top; he was short and stocky in stature. His suit was a coarse gray tweed, and a gold watch chain spread across his pudgy stomach.
“Darrell, me boy,” he said, the rich Irish brogue sounding in nearly every word he spoke, “and what brings ye here of all places? Nothing serious, I hope.” He closed the door, and dropped down in his swivel chair.
“McFee,” began Darrell, “I’ve come here to-day to ask one of the biggest favors I’ve ever asked a man.” He leaned forward. “McFee, there’s a strange game going on in Chicago — a swindling game the nature of which I’m not able to explain for the simple reason that I don’t know it myself. I’ve come to you to ask you to arrange to let me have a look at the body of one John Cooper Jarndyce, who was interred here according to the newspaper notices on March 9th to be exact. I haven’t a paper nor the sign of an authority to do this, and if I obtained such a thing the entire procedure would be tipped off to those most actively concerned. It may even be that there is nothing wrong connected with this interment — it wouldn’t be the first time in my newspaper career that I’ve got my threads
crossed. But I have no way of knowing one way or the other.”
McFee scratched his head, gazing sadly at Darrell as one gazes at some one who has asked the impossible.
“Ye say, Darrell, that ye have no authority — no written order from anyone?”
Darrell nodded his head. McFee shook his own.
‘Darrell, my boy, I could no more do that — I would lose me job. Ye don’t know what ye ask. Ye — ”
He rose from his chair and riffled through the card index in the drawer bearing the letter J. He stopped and surveyed a card, then slowly put it back. “March 9th is correct. As for the body ye refer to, ‘tis interred in the family vault of the Jarndyces, safe and fast behind a great bronze padlock whose key is kept in the offices of Whitman, Payne & Company, the Jarndyce family lawyers in the First National Bank Building. Darrell, I couldn’t get you a look into it if I wanted to.”
Darrell bit his under lip with concern. The time had come in this investigation of his to have a look at the body of John Cooper Jarndyce. Other leads in the strange clock story were being blocked on him, one by one. He turned his gaze directly on the Irishman.
“McFee, I’m the last person in the world to ask a favor from some one for whom I’ve ever done one. But I’m afraid the time has come now when I’ve got to do it. McFee, do you remember that day when I suppressed what would have been one of the biggest stories of the day — the time your only son got involved with that Henchly woman — and I had dug up every last detail of it? You know as I know that a newspaper man who suppresses a story is a renegade to his paper — to his employers — to the public. Yet I did just that same thing that day, and with few regrets, for I realized that here was the thousandth case where a boy had become involved in the strands of a net that was too complex for him. I went back to the paper empty handed. I had nothing to report, nothing to write up. The reason was that in your brain, my brain, the boy’s, and the Henchly woman’s, that story was locked forever. McFee, for that thing which I did for you I ask you to-day to arrange some way — any way — to fix matters so that I can have a look at the body of this John Cooper Jarndyce.”
McFee rose from his chair in his perturbation and paced up and down the narrow office. He mopped from his forehead great drops of sweat, and at last he fell back into his swivel chair.
“Darrell, me boy, ye hardly know what ye ask, yet ‘tis I that knows what ye did for Pat McFee that horrible night. ‘Tis not an Irishman forgets a friend, Darrell, and I will fix it that ye can see the body ye speak of, if I have your word of honor that never, so long as ye live, will ye tell a livin’ soul that Pat McFee helped or aided ye in any way.”
“On my sacred word of honor,” agreed Darrell. “I swear to it that your name will never be mentioned.”
McFee sat back, chewing moodily on his lips. “Then will I help ye with whatever story ye are workin’ on, but if it comes about that ye must spill any information, don’t forget the promise ye’ve just made to Pat McFee.” He leaned forward. “The body ye speak of is, as I told ye, in the Jarndyce family vault, down near the southwest corner of the cemetery. ‘Tis a vault that’s wan of the finest; it has room for over a score of caskets. Its big hand-carved stone door is fastened with a great ornamental bronze padlock bearin’ the figger of the Grim Reaper. But we have no chance, I will tell ye now, of gettin’ the key to this padlock. To do that it has been provided that the doctor’s certificate of death and the burial certificate of a Jarndyce must be presented down town at the legal firm of Whitman, Payne & Company, who hold the wan key. The man who constructed the vault, now dead, arranged to give space in it to all his immediate descendants. So if it’s secrecy ye must maintain, me boy, ‘tis the shaft of this great padlock we will have to saw.” McFee heaved a heavy, dolorous sigh. “Ye will meet me to-night late. We will do the job together. I will do all in me power to aid ye to have your look at this body — I suppose ye’ll want to take a flash light of it as well — and then heaven help me, for I will not sleep for a month. ‘Tis a crime punishable by a jail sentence, Darrell. Me job I would lose immediately were I found out And remember, me boy, I will have to report next day — by evenin’ at least — that the lock has been sawn — and after that there will be no chances of any further looks.”
“One look at it — one photograph — is all that I will need,” said Darrell. He thrust out his hand. “Thank you, Pat McFee. I’ll call our debt squared to the last penny after to-night — and you’ll owe me nothing for the rest of my life. Where will we meet?”
“Come to the back of the house here. Go ‘round to me little woodshed. Come at about nine o’clock. No — better, ten o’clock. There’s no moon to-night, heaven be praised. I’ll have the hacksaw an’ several blades. Bring no wan, boy. Remember, no wan.”
“I’ll be alone, don’t fear,” Darrell assured the perturbed superintendent.
He did not skirt Chicago’s West Side, thus reaching the Bradbury by a shorter route, but instead went clear back again to the Loop, reaching it at four in the afternoon. The busy canyons between the giant skyscrapers were now filled with the shadows of late afternoon, and only the tops of the tall buildings of stone and steel were gilded with the rays of the sun, low in the west. He wondered vaguely as he made his way directly along LaSalle Street what she, who went by the name of Rita Thorne was now thinking about his long absence. Had she, concluded by this time, he pondered grimly, that he had absconded with the money with which she had intrusted him?
In one of the tall buildings which clustered about LaSalle and Monroe he ascended in an elevator. On an upper floor full of clerks and typists, he displayed his reporter’s badge to a man at a desk and asked several questions. The man went away and returned a few minutes later, and Darrell, shifting the clock from one arm to the other, wended his way back again to the street.
Again he repeated his performance in a building across the street, and again as before made his way back to terra firma. The third time, on the top floor of a very tall building with beautiful white-tiled corridors on every floor, he was in consultation for a much longer time than before with a benevolent looking gentleman of the old-fashioned variety with gray-white sideburns. At length he emerged again, and his face was now a bit solemn and thoughtful as he boarded a car that would at last bear him back to Independence Boulevard and the apartment of the girl with the great luminous dark eyes and white skin.
The Negro maid opened the door when he rang the bell, and he was ushered in. Rita Thorne — at least she who for some reason called herself Rita Thorne — still lay on the davenport where he had left her that morning, her bound ankle now resting on a small cushion, her eyes turned idly to the one window with its view marred by the unsightly telegraph pole. She looked eagerly — inquiringly — in his direction as he entered the room, and then her eyes riveted themselves upon the newspapr bundle which he carried under his arm. He dropped into a chair close by. The Negro girl vanished into the kitchen.
“Well, Miss Thorne, I dare say you concluded long ago that I had vanished with your money, but I assure you such isn’t the case. I’ve been quite on the job but I took the liberty of attending to some other work while running about the city. For that reason I’ve been somewhat delayed. At any rate here I am — but with a more or less doubtful report. I have a clock here — I am not able to say the clock, however. It is ostensibly one of the two clocks involved in this matter of which I know nothing. To secure it I paid one hundred dollars. I trust this isn’t too much. I did, you see, just what you instructed me to do — used my own judgment and your money!”
“That is perfectly all right,” she hastened to say. “Your judgment is better than mine would have been I am sure.”
He proceeded to unwrap the clock, and talked as he did so. He told her briefly of his trip to Grady Court and the manner in which circumstances had checkmated him there. This disposed of, he went on to his visit to and his transaction with Mrs. Schimski, but he carefully refrained — at least for the present — to m
ake any mention of his trip to the freight office after leaving the Schimski store and the amazing revelation which he had come upon there. Then he handed her the simple little alarm clock, which ticked confidingly away in the stillness of the room.
“But I greatly fear, Miss Thorne,” he finished, “that I may have been the means of having spent one hundred dollars of your money uselessly. There is a possibility that Mrs. Jacob Schimski lied to me, and knowing nothing whatever about this affair I was not able to check her up. But granting that she spoke the truth, I have a hunch — call it a newspaper man’s hunch, if you will — that the clock which is really wanted is the one we did not get, that which was in the possession of Daddy Rees of Grady Court.” He did not take the trouble to explain that his so-called newspaper man’s hunch was founded on very definite data, his visit to Hjalmer Lindholm the watchmaker. “I am sorry,” he concluded, “if I have been unlucky.”
The girl on the davenport held up the clock and gave it but the briefest of cursory glances. Then she turned to him and smiled, a warm, radiating smile.
“But you have been very successful, Mr. Darrell. No longer need we concern ourselves with the clock on Grady Court, nor spend any more money. You have completed the mission which you were kind enough to undertake, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is the clock that is required!”
Find the Clock Page 9
