Find the Clock

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  Notman was busy running his eyes over the hastily typed transcript of Flandrau’s tentative testimony, the giver of which now sat morose and silent, not even glancing at the new arrivals. Corrigan ventured a word in the direction of Hunter and Farley, who were mopping off their faces.

  “Have any trouble getting across to the Jarndyce vault, boys?” he asked.

  “None,” said Hunter, stowing away his handkerchief. “As soon as we told old man Payne of Whitman, Payne & Company who manage the Jarndyce estate, what was in the wind, he telephoned orders at once to McFee, superintendent of Greenwood Cemetery, and we got entrance into the vault. Funny thing, though,” added Hunter, “the superintendent says that two separate attempts have been made to enter that vault. The first, Tuesday night, was successful, but appears to have been only a tour of exploration by some one. The second one, occurring around three this morning, was on a bigger scale. One of the gravediggers who had drunk a little too much moonshine fell asleep in the cemetery last night, and woke up in the early hours to find two men fooling about the door of the Jarndyce vault, a hundred feet away from him. It was too dark for them to possibly hit him if they shot; so he set up a loud hullabaloo for the copper on the beat.

  “The result was they had to flee. They got over the south fence and vaulted into a small runabout that they had waiting there, and off they sped. Gravedigger got the superintendent, and examining the place together they found a long steel lever and a couple of hack saws. All I’m wondering is whether the reporters on any of the other sheets could be at the bottom of this last attempt?”

  Darrell, across the room, smiled, and at the same time interpolated a remark.

  “Perhaps yours truly wasn’t a mile away on that first exploratory attempt, but understand I’m not saying anything. As to this second attempt — no reporter pulled that.” His face grew serious.

  Notman looked up from the typewritten sheets he had been examining. He spoke in the direction of the man with the cauliflowered ear.

  “Well, Duke, what have you got to say? Say it quick and make it snappy. And remember — whatever you say goes down on the stenographers’ notebooks. Don’t pretend you didn’t know there was something crooked going on in this affair.”

  The ex-labor slugger laughed a raucous laugh.

  “That’s up to you folks to prove. Doc over there sent for me in Cleveland and told me he had a private patient who was a dope-head, and whose old man wanted him kept locked up by force for a few months to cure him. So I come on. That’s all I got to say.”

  Notman snorted.

  “Rats on that defense. We’ll send you over the road, Duke, as accessory to kidnaping and abduction. Don’t tell me Mr. Jarndyce here ever once even asked for a jolt of morph. You knew something crooked was going on and you were out to get that three hundred bucks.” He turned to the girl. “How about you, my girl?”

  The dark-eyed girl turned her liquid Italian orbs upon the detective inspector.

  “It wasn’t money we wanted, sir. They — they are after my Duke — the word has gone out from the Sicilian colony in Cleveland to cover every Italian section in America — to knife him on sight. We were in danger ourselves. When the letter came from the doctor to my Duke it was a godsend, sir, for we had no money and no place to hide. And when it said to bring on a woman to cook and keep house, Duke brought me. I am his wife.”

  Notman snorted again.

  “Well, you’ll go over the road with him, for no jury on earth will sanction keeping a man, even a patient, locked up without an order from the county court. We have regulation State institutions for treating morhpinism.” He glanced inquiringly out of the corner of his eye at the stenographers. “I guess that’s all for you two.”

  It was at this junction that Crosby reëntered the room. In his hands he held a slip of paper typewritten, evidently, after he had finished telephoning in the city room. He was in time to hear Notman’s last words, addressed to the Italian girl. He crossed the room, and putting one foot on his swivel chair spoke in the direction of John Cooper Jarndyce.

  “Mr. Jarndyce, I’m going to ask you a rather unusual favor. A reporter on the Call here was the sole and only means of unraveling this case, and had it not been for Mr. Darrell — in other words had it not been for the Call — you would have languished in that place where you were for many more weeks waiting for this band to complete its one-hundred-thousand-dollar swindle. Not only that, when you did finally secure your liberty, the band would have been scattered to the four directions of the compass and your two hundred and sixty-three thousand dollar estate would have been shy by one hundred thousand dollars. Now a complication which had been confronting the Call suddenly takes a turn in a direction which promises a solution. In consideration of the facts I have just outlined, will you, as a special favor to the Call, agree to withdraw all prosecution and testimony against this misguided Duke Murphy and Berta Martori Murphy here?”

  John Cooper Jarndyce drew a reflective puff on his cigarette. “Well — I confess I don’t quite get you. But I reckon I owe the Call a mighty big debt — and when I think of existing in that musty rat hole for seven or eight more weeks — well, that’s enough. You win. I’ll agree gladly to withdraw the prosecution on those two.”

  Crosby turned to Duke Murphy, then instead fastened his gaze on Berta Martori Murphy.

  “Mrs. Murphy, I have in my hands a slip of paper constituting a transfer to W. G. Brayton of Chicago of one and one-half shares of Chicago Morning Call stock, which has a par value of one hundred and fifty dollars and which has accrued dividends of two thousand six hundred dollars. This tiny item of stock belonged to your father, Gregorio Martori, who left this country back in 1895. On consideration that both you and your husband sign this transfer, Mr. W. G. Brayton, the chief stockholder in the Call, will pay over to you the par value and the accrued dividends, and will exact from Mr. Jarndyce here the agreement he has just given not to prosecute you in this case. What is your answer?”

  The girl stared unbelievingly. The man next to her nodded vehemently.

  “For God’s sake, Berta, sign it. We’ll be free and rollin’ in coin as well.”

  “I’ll — I’ll gladly sign it,” she said. “I — I did not dream that my father who died when I was small left anything.” She took the paper from Crosby’s fingers, and with the fountain pen which he held out to her, amid the most tense silence, signed in a round childish hand. Duke Murphy, in his obvious anxiety to placate the forces which he had antagonized, seized the pen from her hand and roughly appended his own signature. Crosby blotted the transfer and placed it in his breast pocket. He turned to John Cooper Jarndyce.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce. Any debt you owe to the Call you can count settled.”

  Notman, with an odd, screwed-up look on his face, uttered a comment.

  “I suppose,” he said sourly, “you’ll be withdrawing prosecution on the whole bunch of ‘em in another ten minutes, Mr. Jarndyce.”

  But a hard look came into the bearded face of the young man.

  “No, I’ll not,” he declared decisively. “This girl, the one or two times I came in contact with her, was kind to me. This man treated me halfway decently — only he and the Negro used force to keep me where I was. I owe the Call a big favor, you know, and I’m willing to pay up.”

  Notman was surveying the big Negro in the corner.

  “All right. Let’s make speed. Come on out here, Joe, and let the light shine on that ebony carcass of yours. What have you got to say about this affair? Speak up — or I’m going to send you up for life and hang you in the bargain!”

  The big Negro, his powerful muscles shining, shambled forward to a point directly beneath the cluster of incandescents. There he stood sheepishly.

  “Ah don’ know nuffin’ much ‘bout — ’bout all dis,” he stammered. “Dey — dey done tol’ me dis young man was a crazy gemmum w’at get bettah in a few months if’n he be kep’ quiet and in de dahk. De doctah — he always been mah
fren’ — he always treat me right — well when de doctah done tell me how Ah got to keep dis young gemmum fas’ an’ tight, an’ not let de gemmun’s fren’s fin’ him — Ah jes’ do mah bes’. Da’s all Ah knows.”

  “Humph,” Notman snorted, while the stenographers’ pencils flew over their notebooks. “See here, Joe, how long you been getting those little white powders from this man here?” He inclined his head toward Doctor Flandrau.

  But at this point, the questioning suddenly taking a trend which had little to do with the Call’s interest in affairs, Crosby beckoned Darrell toward the door. Together they went out, Darrell curious. Crosby drew him to one side of the city room.

  “Darrell,” he began, “I want to tell you that this is a big night for the Call in more ways than one — and for the first time you are going to view the Call and your chief antipathy, Marvin Feldock, from the eyes of a different person than that of a reporter.”

  “Why — what do you mean?” asked the younger man.

  “Simply this. The Old Man has been moving heaven and earth to locate Berta Martori. That was the real reason he went to Italy. From Italy he followed the trail back to Cleveland, and there lost it because Berta and Duke made a quick and expeditious fade-out after their marriage and the unsheathing of knives in the Sicilian colony. Darrell, the Call has just missed passing into the hands of Reed Bardeen.”

  “Whew — you don’t mean it! Reed Bardeen, the millionaire anarchist?”

  “Yes — but it’s safe now. The Old Man with this transfer which I’ve just secured for him owns the Call beyond all danger from now on. I’ve just had him on the wire, and to say that he’s tickled stiff, Darrell, is putting it mildly. Now let’s finish this and get back into the festivities in there.

  “Darrell, I’m leaving here next week in order to publish a live little trade magazine which I’ve bought out at a low figure. The Call is going to require a new managing and city editor. The Old Man bids me to tell you that you’re appointed — and also to forget any peeves you’ve got against him. It means a big jump for you, my boy, and exactly double the salary you’re getting now. Congratulations. You earned it on this case.” He paused, glancing down at Darrell’s surprised and gratified eyes.

  “Now, my boy, I wonder how you feel about the trump card the Call has been holding in having the exclusive services of the best-known special writer on the Pacific coast — Marvin Feldock? Doesn’t it all look a bit different now that you survey it from the eyes of a managing editor?”

  Darrell laughed.

  “I admit I get a violent wrench in my viewpoint. But you’ll have to give me a few more minutes to adjust myself to the news.”

  “Good enough. Now let’s get back into my private office again. There’s a few more points yet to be — ”He stopped. Both he and Darrell looked up. At their side was Benny Taylor, and at his side was a vision of a girl dressed in a chic black silk suit, a tiny gold watch swung on a narrow black ribbon about her neck, a broad black satin hat with white pompom matching white silk gloves. The black-and-white striped silk bag which hung from one of her wrists, in conjunction with her curly black hair and big black eyes, made her appearance a strikingly charming chiaroscuro. Crosby’s eyes showed his admiration.

  “This is the girl in the case,” Darrell said smilingly, drawing her over to him. “Iris, this is Mr. Crosby. I see you’ve arrived all right. Well, we’ve landed part of the gang and we’re just getting confessions from them all. Now we’ll all go on back in.”

  “Telegram for you, too, Mr. Darrell,” piped up the wizen-faced boy. “Come while you was all in there, an’ I signed it.”

  Darrell ripped off the end of the yellow envelope, took a brief glance at its contents, and then proceeded to stuff it into his coat pocket together with the one which had come earlier in the evening. Then, Crosby leading the way, they all turned their footsteps toward the office in which news was being made as fast as stenographers’ pencils could traverse paper.

  A moment later they were entering the room, the men rising politely from their chairs as the girl, limping just a trifle on her right ankle, stepped inside with Crosby and Darrell and took up a seat which the latter pointed out to her next his own. Darrell smiled as he saw Benny Taylor, the ever-inquisitive phenomenon of the city room, slip quietly in with them and move over to an unobtrusive point near the window with a look on his freckled face which showed that he anticipated summary ejection.

  But Crosby had too many problems on his mind this night. Benny succeeded in joining the élite. Joe Bodwell was just stammering out one last answer to one of Notman’s brusque questions, and was now shuffling back to his position in the corner of the room, mopping off his black forehead with his sleeve.

  “Now,” said Notman, “we’ve heard all of the witnesses’ stories. I think the time has come to hear the principal in this case. Mr. Jarndyce, do you suppose you can make your story brief so that Mr. Crosby can get it into the Call to-night?”

  “I wish my imprisonment in that hole had been as brief as my story is going to be,” declared John Cooper Jarndyce, smiling warmly toward his girl cousin. “But here you are, gentlemen, in a nutshell and a half. The first I knew that I was the victim of a plot of some sort was the night that Bross tapped four times on my storeroom window and then entered the rear door of my basement with a key I had given him. I thought he wanted to tip me off to something concerning the funeral that had happened that day, but when I stepped out of that little retreat of mine, Bross, this fellow Murphy, and this big Negro fell on me like a troop of wild cats.

  “Before I knew what had happened I was bound, blindfolded and gagged, thrust into a closed automobile in the back alley, and carried — God knows where. From the smoothness with which we rode, I’ve a hunch that it was Bross’ automobile hearse that I was traveling in. But I had no way of reckoning time nor distance. And let me tell you this, gentlemen: If any one of you ever gets bound, gagged, blindfolded, and thrust into a moving box like that, you’ll find that you’ll lose your time and distance perspective in a jiffy. Well, anyway, when I finally wound up in that musty little room where I’ve been some twelve or thirteen days, I hadn’t the least idea whether we had gone north, south, east, or west — whether I was in the Loop — or even in Chicago. My whereabouts were a riddle — and they’ve been a riddle to me till to-night when you people forced an entrance into that place. That’s almost the whole story — except for the message that I managed to get out.”

  “That message caused the death of the man who received it,” said Darrell in the direction of the speaker.

  “The devil you say!” John Cooper Jarndyce stared unbelievingly at him. He appeared staggered by he information. But he managed to go on.

  “Well, the little room in which they kept me was in pretty bad condition. The plaster of the wall that separated it from the room which this Murphy fellow had fixed up for himself was broken in a dozen places. At one place I could get down on my knees and rubber through. I noted that the fellow was always well dressed, pressed, and wearing sporty shirts — generally white ones with stiff cuffs. And one night shortly after they brought me there I saw him pin a Chinese laundry ticket on his wall. I surmised at once that he was taking his linen to some Chinese laundry in the city. It must have been last Friday night, according to my count of the days. He started to undress, rolled up his white shirt carelessly and flung it on the chair near the hole where I was watching. Then he left the room in his undershirt and I heard him lallygagging with the other two.

  “But I was busy in the meantime. With a piece of bent rusty wire I hooked his shirt through the hole in the wall, and with a stub of a pencil I had in my pocket wrote out a hasty message on my handkerchief and rolled it up in the shirt. It was absolutely the only thing I could do. There wasn’t a scrap of paper, and I grabbed the first thing to hand, my handkerchief. I had only a few minutes in which to work. Then I poked the shirt back so that it appeared as though it had merely fallen off the chair. It was a wil
d chance, but my only chance; so I took it while the taking was good.” He paused.

  “From the context of that note,” interpolated Darrell, “it appears that you thought your cousin Catherwood was at the bottom of this plot.”

  “Why, I knew he was at the bottom of it,” retorted John Cooper Jarndyce emphatically. “Wasn’t he the only one to profit in case I failed to reach my twenty-eighth birthday and get Uncle Jarndyce’s estate? I didn’t jimmy up the game for myself by trying to sick the police on the bunch. What chance had the police to locate me when I couldn’t even locate myself? And for all I knew, if ever the police started a nation-wide search for me, this gang might likely slip a knife between my ribs to cover up their tracks.

  “No, I put my energies on getting the clock. I had talked over the phone with my cousin Iris over there the night of my supposed death when I was alone in my bungalow, and learned that she was in Chicago for a month under the name of Rita Thorne at this flat on Independence Boulevard, on account of some legal trouble she was having about an Italian antique belonging to her father. So I now played simply to shoot a vital message through to her. I knew that once she got that alarm clock of uncle’s and locked it up in a safety vault, Catherwood was beaten to a frazzle. And I told her how to get it, and what to tell Catherwood after she did get it. I knew — ”

  “Whoa!” interrupted Crosby. “Not so fast, Mr. Jarndyce. I’m afraid you’re overlooking the fact that not one of us knows about that clock. Won’t you tell us what that has to do with the case?”

  CHAPTER XXV

  Surprises All Around

  AT the city editor’s words, John Cooper Jarndyce halted in his rapid explanation. Then he slowly nodded his head comprehendingly.