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Page 3
"Maybe so," assented Casey. "We'd better make sure before we telephone
for the police. She may only have fallen and cut her head."
"You--you go and see," suggested Tremlain. "I--I don't like to go near
her--I never could bear the sight of dead folks--not even my own
father. You look!"
Casey hesitated a moment, and then stepped closer to the body. He
leaned over it and put the backs of his hard fingers on the white,
wrinkled and shrunken cheeks. They were cold and wax-like to his touch.
"She's dead," he whispered softly. "Better get the police right away."
"Murdered?" asked Tremlain, who had remained beside Darcy near the
showcase where the silver gleamed.
"I don't know. Her head's cut bad, though there's not so much blood as
I thought at first. We mustn't touch the body--that's the law. Got to
leave it until the coroner sees it. Where's the telephone?"
"Right back here," answered Darcy eagerly. "Police headquarters number
is--"
"I know it," interrupted Casey. "I had to call 'em up once when I had
a horse stole. I'll get 'em. What's that watch ticking?" he asked,
pausing. "Oh, it's in her hand!" and the other two looked and saw,
clasped close in the palm of the woman lying huddled on the floor, a
watch of uncommon design. It was ticking loudly.
"What makes it sound so plain?" asked Tremlain.
"Cause it's so quiet in here," answered Casey. "It'll be noisy enough
later on, though! But it's so quiet--that's what makes the ticking of
the watch sound so plain."
"It is quiet," observed Tremlain. "But in a jewelry store there's
always a lot of clocks making a noise and--Say!" he suddenly cried,
"there's not a clock in this place ticking--notice that? Not a clock
ticking! They've all stopped!"
"You're right!" exclaimed Casey. "The watch is the only thing going in
the whole place!"
The milkmen looked quickly at Darcy.
"Yes, the clocks have all stopped," he said, wetting his lips with his
tongue. "I didn't notice it before, though I did hear the watch in her
hand ticking--I thought it was her heart beating--I guess I said that
before--I don't know what I am saying. This has upset me frightfully."
"I should think it would," agreed Casey. "Funny thing about the clocks
all stopping, though. S'pose they all ran down at once?"
"They couldn't," Darcy answered, "I wound the regulator only
yesterday," and he pointed to the tall timepiece in the show
window--the solemn-ticking clock by which many passersby set their
watches. "The other clocks--"
"And they've all stopped at different times!" added Tremlain. "That's
funny, too."
If anything could be funny in that place of death, this fact might be.
And it was a fact. Of the many clocks in the store not one was
ticking, and all pointed to different hours. The big regulator
indicated 10:22; a chronometer in a showcase was five hours and some
minutes ahead of that. The clock over Darcy's work table noted the
hour of 7:56. Some cheaper clocks, alarms among them, on the shelves,
which were usually going, showed various hours.
They had all stopped. Only the watch in the dead woman's hand was
ticking, and that showed approximately the right time--a little after
six o'clock.
"Well, we've got to get the police," said Casey. "Then I've got to
travel on--customers waiting for me."
"You--you won't leave me here alone--will you?" asked Darcy.
"Isn't there any one else in the house?" asked Tremlain, for the
living-rooms were above the jewelry store--a substantial brown stone
building of the style of three decades ago.
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