The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 114

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THE HAUNTED BELL.

I.

It was a thing, trivial enough, yet so strangely mystifying in its happening that the mind hesitated to accept it as an actual occurrence despite the indisputable evidence of the sense of hearing. As the seconds ticked on, Franklin Phillips was not at all certain that it had happened, and gradually the doubt began to a.s.sume the proportions of a conviction. Then, because his keenly-attuned brain did not readily explain it, the matter was dismissed as an impossibility. Certainly it had not happened. Mr. Phillips smiled a little. Of course, it was-it must be-a trick of his nerves.

But, even as the impossibility of the thing grew upon him, the musical clang still echoed vaguely in his memory, and his eyes were still fixed inquiringly on the j.a.panese gong whence it had come. The gong was of the usual type-six bronze discs, or inverted bowls, of graduated sizes, suspended one above the other, with the largest at the top, and quaintly colored with the deep, florid tones of j.a.pan's ancient decorative art. It hung motionless at the end of a silken cord which dropped down sheerly from the ceiling over a corner of his desk. It was certainly harmless enough in appearance, yet-yet--

As he looked the bell sounded again. It was a clear, rich, vibrant note-a boom which belched forth suddenly as if of its own volition, quavered full-toned, then diminished until it was only a lingering sense of sound. Mr. Phillips started to his feet with an exclamation.

Now, in the money-marts of the world, Franklin Phillips was regarded as a living refutation of all theories as to the physical disasters consequent upon a long pursuit of the strenuous life-a human ant.i.thesis of nerves. He breathed fourteen times to the minute and his heart-beat was always within a fraction of seventy-one. This was true whether there were millions at stake in a capricious market or whether he ordered a cigar. In this calm lay the strength which had enabled him to reach his fiftieth year in perfect mental and physical condition.

Back of this utter normality was a placid, inquiring mind; so now, deliberately, he took a pencil and tapped the bells of the gong one after another, beginning at the bottom. The shrill note of the first told him instantly that was not the one which had sounded; nor was the second, nor the third. At the fourth he hesitated and struck a second time. Then he tapped the fifth. That was it. The gong trembled and swayed slightly from the blow, light as it was, and twice again he struck it. Then he was convinced.

For several minutes he stood staring, staring blankly. What had caused the bell to ring? His manner was calm, cold, quiet, inquisitive-indomitable common-sense inspired the query.

"I guess it was nerves," he said after a moment. "But I was looking at it, and--"

Nerves as a possibility were suddenly brushed ruthlessly aside, and he systematically sought some tangible explanation of the affair. Had a flying insect struck the bell? No. He was positive, because he had been looking directly at it when it sounded the second time. He would have seen an insect. Had something dropped from the ceiling? No. He would have seen that, too. With alert, searching eyes he surveyed the small room. It was his own personal den-a sort of office in his home. He was alone now; the door closed; everything appeared as usual.

Perhaps a window! The one facing east was open to the lightly stirring air of the first warm evening of spring. The wind had disturbed the gong! He jumped at the thought as an inspiration. It faded when he saw the window-curtains hanging down limply; the movement of the air was too light to disturb even these. Perhaps something had been tossed through the window! The absurdity of that conjecture was proven instantly. There was a screen in the window of so fine a mesh that hardly more than a grain of sand could pa.s.s through it. And this screen was intact.

With bewilderment in his face Mr. Phillips sat down again. Then recurred to him one indisputable fact which precluded the possibility of all those things he had considered. There had been absolutely no movement-that is, perceptible movement-of the gong when the bell sounded. Yet the tone was loud, as if a violent blow had been struck. He remembered that, when he tapped the bell sharply with his pencil, it swayed and trembled visibly, but the pencil was so light that the tone sounded far away and faint. To convince himself he touched the bell again, ever so lightly. It swayed.

"Well, of all the extraordinary things I ever heard of!" he remarked.

After a while he lighted a cigar, and for the first time in his life his hand shook. The sight brought a faint expression of amused surprise to his lips; then he snapped his fingers impatiently and settled back in his chair. It was a struggle to bring his mind around to material things; it insisted on wandering, and wove fantastic, grotesque conjectures in the drifting tobacco smoke. But at last common-sense triumphed under the sedative influence of an excellent cigar, and the incident of the bell floated off into nothingness. Business affairs-urgent, real, tangible business affairs-focused his attention.

Then, suddenly, clamorously, with the insistent acclaim of a fire-alarm, the bell sounded-once! twice! thrice! Mr. Phillips leaped to his feet. The tones chilled him and stirred his phlegmatic heart to quicker action. He took a long, deep breath, and, with one glance around the little room, strode out into the hall. He paused there a moment, glanced at his watch-it was four minutes to nine-then went on to his wife's apartments.

Mrs. Phillips was reclining in a chair and listening with an amused smile to her son's recital of some commonplace college happening which chanced to be of interest to him. She was forty or forty-two, perhaps, and charming. Women never learn to be charming until they're forty; until then they are only pretty and amiable-sometimes. The son, Harvey Phillips, arose as his father entered. He was a stalwart young man of twenty, a prototype, as it were, of that hard-headed, masterful financier-Franklin Phillips.

"Why, Frank, I thought you were so absorbed in business that--" Mrs. Phillips began.

Mr. Phillips paused and looked blankly, unseeingly, as one suddenly aroused from sleep, at his wife and son-the two dearest of all earthly things to him. The son noted nothing unusual in his manner; the wife, with intuitive eyes, read some vague uneasiness.

"What is it?" she asked solicitously. "Has something gone wrong?"

Mr. Phillips laughed nervously and sat down near her.

"Nothing, nothing," he a.s.sured her. "I feel unaccountably nervous somehow, and I thought I should like to talk to you rather than-than--"

"Keep on going over and over those stupid figures?" she interrupted. "Thank you."

She leaned forward with a gesture of infinite grace and took his hand. He clenched it spasmodically to stop its absurd trembling and, with an effort all the greater because it was repressed so sternly, regained control of his panic-stricken nerves. Harvey Phillips excused himself and left the room.

"Harvey has just been explaining the mysteries of baseball to me," said Mrs. Phillips. "He's going to play on the Harvard team." Her husband stared at her without the slightest heed or comprehension of what she was saying.

"Can you tell me," he asked suddenly, "where you got that j.a.panese gong in my room?"

"Oh, that? I saw it in the window of a queer old curio shop I pa.s.s sometimes on my charity rounds. I looked at it two or three months ago and bought it. The place is in Cranston Street. It's kept by an old German-Wagner, I think his name is. Why?"

"It looks as if it might be very old, a hundred years perhaps," remarked Mr. Phillips.

"That's what I thought," responded his wife, "and the coloring is exquisite. I had never seen one exactly like it, so--"

"It doesn't happen to have any history, I suppose?" he interrupted.

"Not that I know of."

"Or any peculiar quality, or-or attribute out of the ordinary?'"

Mrs. Phillips shook her head.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she replied. "The only peculiar quality I noticed was the singular purity of the bells and the coloring."

Mr. Phillips coughed over his cigar.

"Yes, I noticed the bells myself," he explained lamely. "It just struck me that the thing was-was out of the ordinary, and I was a little curious about it." He was silent a moment. "It looks as if it might have been valuable once."

"I hardly think so," Mrs. Phillips responded. "I believe thirty dollars is what I paid for it-all that was asked."

That was all that was said about the matter at the time. But on the following morning an early visitor at Wagner's shop was Franklin Phillips. It was a typical place of its kind, half curio and half junk-store, with a coat of dust over all. There had been a crude attempt to enhance the appearance of the place by an artistic arrangement of several musty antique pieces, but, otherwise, it was a chaos of all things. An aged German met Mr. Phillips as he entered.

"Is this Mr. Wagner?" inquired the financier.

Extreme caution, amounting almost to suspicion, seemed to be a part of the old German's business regime, for he looked at his visitor from head to foot with keen eyes, then evaded the question.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want to know if this is Mr. Wagner," said Mr. Phillips tersely. "Is it, or is it not?"

The old man met his frank stare for a moment; then his cunning, faded eyes wavered and dropped.

"I am Johann Wagner," he said humbly. "What do you want?"

"Some time ago-two or three months-you sold a j.a.panese gong--" Mr. Phillips began.

"I never sold it!" interrupted Wagner vehemently. "I never had a j.a.panese gong in the place! I never sold it!"

"Of course you sold it," insisted Mr. Phillips. "A j.a.panese gong-do you understand? Six bells on a silken cord."

"I never had such a thing in my life-never had such a thing in my shop!" declared the German excitedly. "I never sold it, so help me! I never saw it!"

Curiosity and incredulity were in Mr. Phillips' eyes as he faced the old man.