Within a few minutes the servant returned.
"The gentlemen have gone, sir, and Monsoor Guidet is ready," he said,
then looked hard at his master.
The master appeared to rouse himself. "Tell Guidet to go ahead. He'll
require your assistance, I expect. Stay!" He pointed to the diamonds.
"Put them in the box, Caw."
The man restored the glittering trays to their places with as much
emotion as if they had contained samples of bird-seed. When he had let
down the lid--
"Your pardon, Mr. Craig, but won't you allow me to ring for Dr.
Handyside now?"
"Confound you, Caw, do what you're told!"
"Very good, sir," said Caw sadly, moving off.
"And look here, Caw; if I'm crusty, you know why. And I shan't be
bullying you for long. That's all."
Caw bowed his head and went out. On the landing he threw up his hands.
"My God!" he said under his breath, "can nothing be done to save him?"
For here was a man who loved his master better than himself. One wonders
if Caw had ever forgot for an hour in all those twenty years that
Christopher Craig had lifted him from the gutter and given him the chance
which the world seemed to have denied him.
Shortly afterwards he entered the room with Monsieur Guidet. The two
moved slowly, cautiously, for between them they carried a heavy and
seemingly fragile object.
"Go ahead," said Christopher, "and let me know when it is finished." He
closed his eyes.
Nearly an hour passed before he opened them in response to his
servant's voice.
"Monsieur has now finished, sir."
He sat up at once. From a drawer he took a large stout envelope already
addressed and sealed with wax.
"Caw, get on your cycle and take this to the post. Have it registered.
And put a chair for Monsieur Guidet--there--no, nearer--that's right.
Order a cab to take Monsieur to the steamer. He and I will have a chat
till you return.... Monsieur, come and sit down."
As Caw left the room the Frenchman turned from his completed handiwork to
accept his patron's invitation. He was a dapper, stout little man, merry
of eye, despite the fact that a couple of months ago he and his family
had been in bitter poverty. He smiled very happily as he took the chair
beside the writing table. He was about to receive the balance of his
account, amounting, according to agreement, to two hundred pounds.
The work done was embodied in the clock and case which now filled,
fitting to a nicety, the niche in the back wall. Outwardly there was
nothing very unusual about the clock itself. A gilt box enclosing the
mechanism and carrying the plain white face, the hands at twelve,
occupied the topmost third of the case, which was of thick plate-glass
bound and backed with gilt metal. There was no apparent means of opening
the case. From what one could see, however, the workmanship was perfect,
exquisite. The compensating pendulum alone was ornamented--with a
conventional sun in diamonds, and one could imagine the effect when it
swung in brilliant light. At present it was at rest, held up to the right
wall of the case by a loop of fine silk passed through a minute hole in
the glass, brought round to the front, and secured to a tiny nail at the
edge of the niche; a snip--the thread withdrawn--and the clock would
start on the work it had been designed to perform. The only really odd
things about the whole affair were that the lowest third of the case was
filled with a liquid, thickish and emerald green and possessing a curious
iridescence, and that just beneath the niche was fixed a strip of ebony
tilted upwards and bearing in distinct opal lettering the word:
DANGEROUS
"Well, monsieur," said Christopher Craig, opening cheque-book, "I suppose
I can trust your clock to perform all that we bargained for. You will
give me your word for that?"
"Mr. Craik, I give you my word of honour that the clock will go for one
year and one day; that he will stop on the day appointed, within two
hours, on the one side or the other, of the hour he was to start at; that
he will make alarum forty-eight precise hours before he stop; that he
will strike only at noon and at midnight; and that, when the end arrive,
he will--"
"Thank you, monsieur."
"But more! I give you more than my word; the credit of the work is so
much to me. I beg to take only one-half of the money now--the other half
when you have seen with your own eyes--"
"Enough. I am in your hands, Monsieur Guidet, for the clock shall not be
started until I am gone."
"Gone?" The little man looked blank.
"Your clock is there to carry out the wishes of a dead man."
"Ah!" Guidet understood at last. All the happiness vanished from his
face. He regarded this man, who had chosen him from a number of
applicants responding to an advertisement, as his benefactor, his
saviour. "But not soon, not soon!" he cried with emotion.
Christopher was touched. The little man seemed to care, though their
acquaintance was not three months old. Still, they had met almost daily
in the room assigned to Guidet for his work, and the patron had taken an
interest in the man as well as his genius.
"I cannot tell how soon, my friend," he said, "but we need not talk of
it. Now tell me, Guidet, how much do I owe you?"
Guidet wiped his eyes. "One hundred and thirty pounds," he murmured, "and
I give you a thousand thanks, Mr. Craik."
"A hundred and thirty--that is the balance due on the clock itself?"
inquired Christopher, filling in the date.
The other looked puzzled. "On everything, Mr. Craik."
"Don't you charge for your time?"
Guidet smiled and spread his hands. "Ah, you are not so unwell when you
can make the jokes! Two hundred pounds was the price, and I have received
seventy of it and the grandest, best holiday--"
"Your wife and children have had no holiday," said Christopher,
continuing his writing.
"They have been happy that I am no longer a failure. They shall have a
little holiday now, my best of friends, and then I take the small share
in the business I told you about. Oh, it is all well with us, all rosy as
a--a rose! But you!" His voice trailed off in a sigh.
"I am only sorry I shall not be your first customer, Guidet." Christopher
blotted the cheque and handed it across the table. "So you must oblige me
by accepting instead what I have written there."
The little man read the words--the figures--and gulped. Then his arms
went out as if to embrace the man who sat smiling so very wearily. "It is
too much--too much!" he cried, almost weeping. "You are rich, but
why--why do you give me five hundred pounds?"
"Perhaps," said Christopher sadly, "that you may remember me kindly." His
hand, now shaky, went up to check the other's flow of gratitude. "I'm
afraid I must ask you to go now. I must rest--you understand?"
Guidet rose. "So long as we live," he said solemnly, "my family and I
will not forget. And if it would give you longer life, Mr. Craik, I swear
I would put this"--he held up the cheque--"into the fire."
"I thank you," said Christopher gravely, and just then Caw came in. "And
now farewell."