IV

Time ran on, and Mr. Twiss was a busy man. The old house by the Stour

began to vanish from his memory amongst the mists and the veils of

rain which so often enshrouded it. Even the enigma of Captain

Brayton's death was ceasing to perplex him, when the whole affair was

revived in the most startling fashion. A labourer, making a short cut

to his work one summer morning, passed through the grounds of

Cranfield's closed and shuttered house. His way led him round the back

of the building, and as he came to that corner where the great brick

buttresses kept the house from slipping down into the river, he saw

below him, at the edge of the water, a man sleeping. The man's back

was turned towards him; he was lying half upon his side, half upon his

face. The labourer, wondering who it was, went down to the river-bank,

and the first thing he noticed was a revolver lying upon the grass,

its black barrel and handle shining in the morning sunlight. The

labourer turned the sleeper over on his back. There was some blood

upon the left breast of his waistcoat. The sleeper was dead, and from

the rigidity of the body had been dead for some hours. The labourer

ran back to the village with the astounding news that he had found Mr.

Cranfield shot through the heart at the back of his own empty house.

People at first jumped naturally to the belief that murder had been

done. The more judicious, however, shook their heads. Not a door nor a

window was open in the house. When the locks were forced, it was seen

that the dust lay deep on floor and chair and table, and nowhere was

there any mark of a hand or a foot. Outside the house, too, in the

long neglected grass, there were but two sets of footsteps visible,

one set leading round the house--the marks made by the labourer on his

way to his work--the other set leading directly to the spot where

Archie Cranfield's body was found lying. Rumours, each contradicting

the other, flew from cottage to cottage, and the men gathered about

the police-station and in the street waiting for the next. In an hour

or two, however, the mystery was at an end. It leaked out that upon

Archie Cranfield's body a paper had been discovered, signed in his

hand and by his name, with these words:

"I have shot myself with the same revolver with which I murdered

Captain Brayton."

The statement created some stir when it was read out in the

billiard-room, where the coroner held his inquest. But the coroner who

presided now was the man who had held the court when Captain Brayton

had been shot. He was quite clear in his recollection of that case.

"Mr. Cranfield's alibi on that occasion," he said, "was

incontrovertible. Mr. Cranfield was with two friends in this very room

when Captain Brayton shot himself in his bedroom. There can be no

doubt of that." And under his direction the jury returned a verdict of

"Suicide while of unsound mind."

Mr. Twiss attended the inquest and the funeral. But though he welcomed

the verdict, at the bottom of his mind he was uneasy. He remembered

vividly that extraordinary moment when he had seen Cranfield creep

into the billiard-room, lift the little clock in its case of satinwood

high above his head, and dash it down upon the hearth in a wild gust

of fury. He recollected how the fury had given way to despair--if it

were despair and not remorse. He saw again Archie Cranfield dropping

into the chair, holding his head and rocking his body in a paroxysm of

sobs. The sound of his wailing rang horribly once more in the ears of

Mr. Twiss. He was not satisfied.

"What should take Cranfield back to that deserted house, there to end

his life, if not remorse," he asked himself--"remorse for some evil

done there"?

Over that question for some days he shook his head, finding it waiting

for him at his fireside and lurking for him at the corner of the

roads, as he took his daily walk between Hampstead and his office. It

began to poison his life, a life of sane and customary ways, with

eerie suggestions. There was an oppression upon his heart of which he

could not rid it. On the outskirts of his pleasant world dim horrors

loomed; he seemed to walk upon a frail crust, fearful of what lay

beneath. The sly smile, the furtive triumph, the apparent

consciousness of secret power--did they point to some corruption of

the soul in Cranfield, of which none knew but he himself?

"At all events, he paid for it," Mr. Twiss would insist, and from that

reflection drew, after all, but little comfort. The riddle began even

to invade his business hours, and take a seat within his private

office, silently clamouring for his attention. So that it was with a

veritable relief that he heard one morning from his clerk that a man

called Humphreys wished particularly to see him.

"Show him in," cried Mr. Twiss, and for his own ear he added: "Now I

shall know."

Humphreys entered the room with a letter in his hand. He laid the

letter on the office table. Mr. Twiss saw at a glance that it was

addressed in Archie Cranfield's hand. He flung himself upon it and

snatched it up. It was sealed by Cranfield's seal. It was addressed to

himself, with a note upon the left-hand corner of the envelope:

"To be delivered after my death."

Mr. Twiss turned sternly to the man.

"Why did you not bring it before?"

"Mr. Cranfield told me to wait a month," Humphreys replied.

Mr. Twiss took a turn across the room with the letter in his hand.

"Then you knew," he cried, "that your master meant to kill himself?

You knew, and remained silent?"

"No, sir, I did not know," Humphreys replied firmly. "Mr. Cranfield

gave me the letter, saying that he had a long railway journey in front

of him. He was smiling when he gave it me. I can remember the words

with which he gave it: 'They offer you an insurance ticket at the

booking-office, when they sell you your travelling ticket, so there is

always, I suppose, a little risk. And it is of the utmost importance

to me that, in the event of my death, this should reach Mr. Twiss.' He

spoke so lightly that I could not have guessed what was on his mind,

nor, do I think, sir, could you."

Mr. Twiss dismissed the man and summoned his clerk. "I shall not be in

to anyone this afternoon," he said. He broke the seal and drew some

closely written sheets of note-paper from the envelope. He spread the

sheets in front of him with a trembling hand.

"Heaven knows in what spirit and with what knowledge I shall rise from

my reading," he thought; and looking out of his pleasant window upon

the barges swinging down the river on the tide, he was in half a mind

to fling the sheets of paper into the fire. "But I shall be plagued

with that question all my life," he added, and he bent his head over

his desk and read.

V

"My dear Friend,--I am writing down for you the facts. I am not

offering any explanation, for I have none to give. You will probably

rise up, after reading this letter, quite incredulous, and with the

conviction in your mind that you have been reading the extravagancies

of a madman. And I wish with all my heart that you could be right. But

you are not. I have come to the end to-day. I am writing the last

words I ever shall write, and therefore I am not likely to write a

lie.

"You will remember the little manor-house on the borders of Essex, for

you were always opposed to my purchase of it. You were like the

British jury, my friend. Your conclusion was sound, but your reason

for it very far from the mark. You disliked it for its isolation and

the melancholy of its dripping trees, and I know not what other

town-bred reasonings. I will give you a more solid cause. Picture to

yourself the billiard-room and how it was furnished when I first took

the house--the raised settee against the wall, the deep leather chairs

by the fire, the high fender, and on the mantelshelf--what?--a little

old-fashioned clock in a case of satinwood. You probably never noticed

it. I did from the first evenings which I passed in the house. For I

spent those evenings alone, smoking my pipe by the fire. It had a

queer trick. For a while it would tick almost imperceptibly, and then,

without reason, quite suddenly, the noise would become loud and

hollow, as though the pendulum in its swing struck against the wooden

case. To anyone sitting alone for hours in the room, as I did, this

tick had the queerest effect. The clock almost became endowed with

human qualities. At one time it seemed to wish to attract one's

attention, at another time to avoid it. For more than once, disturbed

by the louder knocking, I rose and moved the clock. At once the

knocking would cease, to begin again when I had settled afresh to my

book, in a kind of tentative, secret way, as though it would accustom

my ears to the sound, and so pass unnoticed. And often it did so pass,

until one knock louder and more insistent than the rest would drag me

in annoyance on to my feet once more. In a week, however, I got used

to it, and then followed the strange incident which set in motion that

chain of events of which tomorrow will see the end.

"It happened that a couple of my neighbours were calling on me. One of

them you have met--Admiral Palkin, a prolix old gentleman, with a

habit of saying nothing at remarkable length. The other was a Mr.

Stiles, a country gentleman who had a thought of putting up for

that division of the county. I led these two gentlemen into the

billiard-room, and composed myself to listen while the admiral

monologued. But the clock seemed to me to tick louder than ever,

until, with one sharp and almost metallic thump, the sound ceased

altogether. At exactly the same moment. Admiral Palkin stopped dead in

the middle of a sentence. It was nothing of any consequence that he

was saying, but I remember the words at which he stopped. 'I have

often----' he said, and then he broke off, not with any abrupt start,

or for any lack of words, but just as if he had completed all that he

had meant to say. I looked at him across the fireplace, but his face

wore its usual expression of complacent calm. He was in no way put

out. Nor did it seem that any new train of thought had flashed into

his mind and diverted it. I turned my eyes from him to Mr. Stiles. Mr.

Stiles seemed actually to be unaware that the admiral had stopped

talking at all. Admiral Palkin, you will remember, was a person of

consequence in the district, and Mr. Stiles, who would subsequently

need his vote and influence and motorcar, had thought fit to assume an

air of great deference. From the beginning he had leaned towards the

admiral, his elbow upon his knee, his chin propped upon his hand, and

his head now and again nodding a thoughtful assent to the admiral's

nothings. In this attitude he still remained, not surprised, not even

patiently waiting for the renewal of wisdom, but simply attentive.

"Nor did I move, for I was amused. The two men looked just like a

couple of wax figures in Madame Tussaud's, fixed in a stiff attitude

and condemned so to remain until the building should take fire and the

wax run. I sat watching them for minutes, and still neither moved nor

spoke. I never saw in my life a couple of people so entirely

ridiculous. I tried hard to keep my countenance--for to laugh at these

great little men in my own house would not only be bad manners, but

would certainly do for me in the neighbourhood--but I could not help

it. I began to smile, and the smile became a laugh. Yet not a muscle

on the faces of my visitors changed. Not a frown overshadowed the

admiral's complacency; not a glance diverted the admiring eyes of Mr.

Stiles. And then the clock began to tick again, and, to my infinite

astonishment, at the very same moment the admiral continued.

"'--said to myself in my lighter moments---- And pray, sir, at what

are you laughing?'

"Mr. Stiles turned with an angry glance towards me. Admiral Palkin had

resumed his conversation, apparently unaware that there had been any

interval at all. My laughter, on the other hand, had extended beyond

the interval, had played an accompaniment to the words just spoken. I

made my excuses as well as I could, but I recognised that they were

deemed insufficient. The two gentlemen left my house with the coldest

farewells you can imagine.

"The same extraordinary incident was repeated with other visitors, but

I was on my guard against any injudicious merriment. Moreover, I had

no longer any desire to laugh. I was too perplexed. My visitors never

seemed to notice that there had been a lengthy interval or indeed any

interval at all, while I, for my part, hesitated to ask them what had

so completely hypnotised them.

"The next development took place when I was alone in the room. It was

five o'clock in the afternoon. I had been out shooting a covert close

to the house, and a few minutes after I had rung the bell, I

remembered that I had forgotten some instructions which I had meant to

give to the keeper. So I got up at once, thinking to catch him in the

gun-room before he went home. As I rose from my chair, the clock,

which had been ticking loudly--though, as I have said, it was rather a

hollow, booming sound, as though the pendulum struck the wood of the

case, than a mere ticking of the clock-work--ceased its noise with the

abruptness to which I was growing used. I went out of the room into

the hall, and I saw Humphreys with the tea-tray in his hands in the

hall. He was turned towards the billiard-room door, but to my

astonishment he was not moving. He was poised with one foot in the

air, as though he had been struck, as the saying is, with a step half

taken. You have seen, no doubt, instantaneous photographs of people in

the act of walking. Well, Humphreys was exactly like one of those

photographs. He had just the same stiff, ungainly look. I should have

spoken to him, but I was anxious to catch my keeper before he went

away. So I took no notice of him. I crossed the hall quickly and went

out by the front door, leaving it open. The gun-room was really a

small building of corrugated iron, standing apart at the back of the

house. I went to it and tried the door. It was locked. I called aloud:

'Martin! Martin!'

"But I received no answer. I ran round the house again, thinking that

he might just have started home, but I saw no signs of him. There were

some outhouses which it was his business to look after, and I visited

them, opening the door of each of them and calling him by name. Then I

went down the drive to the gate, thinking that I might perhaps catch a

glimpse of him upon the road, but again I was disappointed. I then

returned to the house, shut the front door, and there in the hall

still stood Humphreys in his ridiculous attitude with the tea-tray in

his hands. I passed him and went back into the billiard-room. He took

no notice of me whatever. I looked at the clock upon the mantelshelf,

and I saw that I had been away just fourteen minutes. For fourteen

minutes Humphreys had been standing on one leg in the hall. It seemed

as incredible as it was ludicrous. Yet there was the clock to bear me

out. I sat down on my chair with my hands trembling, my mind in a

maze. The strangest thought had come to me, and while I revolved it in

my mind, the clock resumed its ticking, the door opened, and Humphreys

appeared with the tea-tray in his hand.

"'You have been a long time, Humphreys,' I said, and the man looked at

me quickly. My voice was shaking with excitement, my face, no doubt,

had a disordered look.

"'I prepared the tea at once, sir,' he answered.

"'It is twenty minutes by the clock since I rang the bell,' I said.

"Humphreys placed the tea on a small table at my side and then looked

at the clock. An expression of surprise came over his face. He

compared it with the dial of his own watch.

"'The clock wants regulating, sir,' he said. 'I set it by the kitchen

clock this morning, and it has gained fourteen minutes.'

"I whipped my own watch out of my pocket and stared at it. Humphreys

was quite right; the clock upon the mantelshelf had gained fourteen

minutes upon all our watches. Yes, but it had gained those fourteen

minutes in a second, and that was the least part of the marvel. I

myself had had the benefit of those fourteen minutes. I had snatched

them, as it were, from Time itself. I had looked at my watch when I

rang the bell. It had marked five minutes to five. I had remained yet

another four minutes in the room before I had remembered my forgotten

instructions to the keeper. I had then gone out. I had visited the

gun-room and the outhouses, I had walked to the front gate, I had

returned. I had taken fourteen minutes over my search--I could not

have taken less--and here were the hands of my watch now still

pointing towards five, still short of the hour. Indeed, as I replaced

my watch in my pocket, the clock in the hall outside struck five.

"'As you passed through the hall, Humphreys, you saw no one, I

suppose?' I said.

"Humphreys raised his eyebrows with a look of perplexity. 'No, sir, I

saw no one,' he returned, 'but it seemed to me that the front door

banged. I think it must have been left open.'

"'Very likely,' said I. 'That will do,' and Humphreys went out of the

room.

"Imagine my feelings. Time is relative, it is a condition of our

senses, it is nothing more--that we know. But its relation to me was

different from its relation to others. The clock had given me fourteen

minutes, which it denied to all the world besides. Fourteen full

minutes for me, yet they passed for others in less than the fraction

of a second. And not once only had it made me this gift, but many

times. The admiral's pause, unnoticed by Mr. Stiles, was now explained

to me. He had not paused; he had gone straight on with his flow of

talk, and Mr. Stiles had gone straight on listening. But between two

of Admiral Palkin's words. Time had stood still for me. Similarly,

Humphreys had not poised himself upon one ridiculous leg in the hall.

He had taken a step in the usual way, but while his leg was raised,

fourteen minutes were given to me. I had walked through the hall, I

had walked back through the hall, yet Humphreys had not seen me. He

could not have seen me, for there had been no interval of time for him

to use his eyes. I had gone and come quicker than any flash, for even

a flash is appreciable as some fraction of a second.

"I asked you to imagine my feelings. Only with those which I first

experienced would you, from your sane and comfortable outlook upon

life, have any sympathy, for at the beginning I was shocked. I had

more than an inclination then to dash that clock upon the hearth and

deny myself its bizarre and unnatural gift. Would that I had done so!

But the inclination was passed, and was succeeded by an incredible

lightness of spirit. I had a gift which raised me above kings, which

fanned into a flame every spark of vanity within me. I had so much

more of time than any other man. I amused myself by making plans to

use it, and thereupon I suffered a disappointment. For there was so

little one could do in fourteen minutes, and the more I realised how

little there was which I could do in my own private special stretch of

time, the more I wanted to do, the more completely I wished to live in

it, the more I wished to pluck power and advantage from it. Thus I

began to look forward to the sudden cessation of the ticking of the

clock; I began to wait for it, to live for it, and when it came, I

could make no use of it. I gained fourteen minutes now and then, but I

lost more and more of the hours which I shared with other men. They

lost their salt for me. I became tortured with the waste of those

minutes of my own. I had the power; what I wanted now was to employ

it. The desire became an obsession occupying my thoughts, harassing my

dreams.

"I was in this mood when I passed Brayton and yourself one evening in

Pall Mall. I wrote to him that night, and I swear to you upon my

conscience that I had no thought in writing but to put an end to an

old disagreement, and re-establish, if possible, an old friendship. I

wrote in a sudden revulsion of feeling. The waste of my days was

brought home to me. I recognised that the great gift was no more than

a perpetual injury. I proposed to gather my acquaintances about me,

discard my ambition for some striking illustration of my power, and

take up once more the threads of customary life. Yet my determination

lasted no longer than the time it took me to write the letter and run

out with it to the post. I regretted its despatch even as I heard it

fall to the bottom of the pillar-box.

"Of my quarrel with Brayton I need not write at length. It sprang from

a rancorous jealousy. We had been friends and class-mates in the

beginning. But as step by step he rose just a little above me, the

friendship I had turned to gall and anger. I was never more than the

second, he always the first. Had I been fourth or fifth, I think I

should not have minded; but there was so little to separate us in

merit or advancement. Yet there was always that little, and I dreaded

the moment when he should take a bound and leave me far behind. The

jealousy grew to a real hatred, made still more bitter to me by the

knowledge that Brayton himself was unaware of it, and need not have

been troubled had he been aware.

"After I left the Army and lost sight of him, the flame burnt low. I

believed it was extinguished when I invited him to stay with me; but

he had not been an hour in the house when it blazed up within me. His

success, the confidence which it had given him, his easy friendliness

with strangers, the talk of him as a coming man, bit into my soul. The

very sound of his footstep sickened me. I was in this mood when the

clock began to boom louder and louder in the billiard-room. Chalmers

and Linfield were talking. I did not listen to them. My heart beat

louder and louder within my breast, keeping pace with the clock. I

knew that in a moment or two the sound would cease, and the doors of

my private kingdom would be open for me to pass through. I sat back in

my chair waiting while the devilish inspiration had birth and grew

strong. Here was the great chance to use the power I had--the only

chance which had ever come to me. Brayton was writing letters in his

room. The room was in a wing of the house. The sound of a shot would

not be heard. There would be an end of his success; there would be for

me such a triumphant use of my great privilege as I had never dreamed

of. The clock suddenly ceased. I slipped from the room and went

upstairs. I was quite leisurely. I had time. I was back in my chair

again before seven minutes had passed.

"Archie Cranfield."