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[Illustration: Helen]
THE SIGN AT SIX
By Stewart Edward White
With four illustrations by M. Leone Bracker
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE OWNER OF NEW YORK
II THE SHADOW OF MYSTERY
III THE MOVING FINGER WRITES
IV DARKNESS AND PANIC
V A SCIENTIST IN PINK SILK
VI THE WRATH TO COME
VII A WORLD OF GHOSTS
VIII PERCY DARROW'S THEORY
IX THE GREAT SILENCE
X THE LIFTING OF THE SPELL
XI THIRTY SECONDS MORE
XII THE UNKNOWN
XIII DARROW'S CHALLENGE
XIV THE FEAR OF DANGER
XV THE MASTER SPEAKS AGAIN
XVI THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT
XVII DRAWING THE NET
XVIII CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED
XIX PERCY KEEPS VIGIL
XX THE PLAGUE OF COLD
XXI IN THE FACE OF ETERNITY
XXII THE MAN NEXT DOOR
XXIII HOW IT ALL WAS
XXIV WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD
CHAPTER I
THE OWNER OF NEW YORK
Percy Darrow, a young man of scientific training, indolent manners,
effeminate appearance, hidden energy, and absolute courage, lounged
through the doors of the Atlas Building. Since his rescue from the
volcanic island that had witnessed the piratical murder of his old
employer, Doctor Schermerhorn, the spectacular dissolution of the
murderers, and his own imprisonment in a cave beneath the very roar of an
eruption, he had been nursing his shattered nerves back to their normal
strength. Now he felt that at last he was able to go to work again.
Therefore, he was about to approach a man of influence among practical
scientists, from whom he hoped further occupation.
As the express elevator shot upward, he passed a long slender hand across
his eyes. The rapid motion confused him still. The car stopped, and the
metallic gates clanged open. Darrow obediently stepped forth. Only when
the elevator had disappeared did his upward glance bring to him the
knowledge that he had disembarked one floor too soon.
Darrow's eye fell on a lettered sign outside the nearest door. He smiled a
slow red-lipped smile beneath his small silky mustache, drooped his black
eyelashes in a flicker of reminiscence, hesitated a moment, then stepped
languidly forward and opened the door. The sign indicated the headquarters
of the very modest commissionership behind which McCarthy chose to work.
McCarthy, quite simply, at that time owned New York.
As Darrow entered, McCarthy hung up the telephone receiver with a smash,
and sat glaring at the instrument. After a moment he turned his small
bright eyes toward the newcomer.
"Hello, Perc," he growled. "Didn't see you. Say, I'm so mad my skin
cracks. Just now some measly little shrimp called me up from a public
booth. What ye suppose he wanted, now? Oh, nothin'! Just told me in so
many words for me to pack up my little trunk and sail for Europe and never
come back! That's all! He give me until Sunday, too." McCarthy barked out
a short laugh, and reached for the cigar box, which he held out to Darrow.
Percy shook his head. "What's the occasion?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Just bughouse, I guess."
"So he wants you to go to Europe?"
"Wants me? Orders me! Says I got to." McCarthy laughed. "Lovely thought!"
He puffed out a cloud of smoke.
"Says if I don't obey orders he'll send me a 'sign' to convince me!" went
on the boss. "He's got a mean voice. He ought to have a tag hung on him
and get carried to the morgue. He give me the shivers, like a dead man. I
never hear such a unholy thing outside a graveyard at midnight!"
Percy Darrow was surveying him with leisurely amusement, a slight smile
playing over his narrow dark face.
"Talking to get back your nerve," he surmised cheerfully to the usually
taciturn boss. "I'd like to know what it was got you going so; it isn't
much your style."
"Well, you got yours with you," growled McCarthy, shifting for the first
time from his solid attitude of the bulldog at bay.
"His 'sign' he promised is apt to be a bomb," observed Darrow.
"He's nutty, all right," McCarthy agreed, "but when he said that, he was
doing the tall religious. He's got a bug that way."
"Your affair," said Darrow. "Just the same, I'd have an outer office."
"Outer office--rot!" said the boss. "An outer office just gets cluttered
up with people waiting. Here they've got to say it right out in
meeting--if I want 'em to. What's the good word, Perc? What can I do for
you?"
Darrow smiled. "You know very well, my fat friend, that the only reason
you like me at all is that I'm the one and only man who comes into this
office who doesn't want one single thing of you."
"I suppose that's it," agreed McCarthy. The telephone rang. He snatched
down the receiver, listened a moment, and thrust forward his heavy jowl.
"Not on your life!" he growled in answer to some question. While he was
still occupied with the receiver, Percy Darrow nodded and sauntered out.