Frank Gruber - The Talking Clock

“I might be able to break it.”

Johnny winced. “You’d break my wrist first. This isn’t one of your trick chains, with a soft-metal link.”

“I know, but Partridge didn’t leave the key. Unless we can find a hacksaw…”

“We haven’t got the time. It’s dark and Jim’s got a fifteen minute start on us. He’s rolling out to Hillcrest right now.”

Sam groaned. “What’d you have to tell him for?”

“What else could I do? The… the killer was already out there. He’d got the money and he wouldn’t have hung around afterwards to count it. Partridge was my only chance. He may get there in time to stop him. Come on…”

“Where to?”

“Hillcrest,” snapped Johnny, tugging at Sam’s wrist. “We’ve got to get out there.”

“How can we — with our hands like this?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll have to try it.”

Linked together, they descended the stairs to the first floor. They discovered that the front door was locked, but it held them less than thirty seconds. Sam kicked it down.

They burst upon the sidewalk and then Johnny exclaimed: “Their bus is still here!”

So it was; Partridge had evidently come up in his own car and gone off in it again. Johnny pushed Sam toward the car, “Get in. You’re on the left, you’ll have to drive.”

He twisted open the door with his free hand and shoved Sam toward the seat. Sam slid in and Johnny followed.

“The key’s gone!” Sam exclaimed.

Johnny groaned. “We’ve got to go up for it.”

They did. Mickey was regaining consciousness by that time and Sam tapped him on the head again. Charlie was still out and in his vest pocket, Johnny found the car key. Sam, kneeling beside him, utilized the time in gathering up some of the poker money that had been on the floor. Then they raced downstairs again.

A minute later, the motor roared into life. “I don’t know how this is going to work out, Johnny,” Sam said.

“It’ll work. It’s got to. I’ll watch with you and shift gears whenever it’s necessary. Head for the highway. We’ll risk a U turn here; it’s only a half block.”

They shifted into gear, made the U turn and scooted to the express highway, a half block away, driving the wrong way down the one-way street.

It was early evening and the space underneath the elevated highway was deserted, except for the few policemen who were stationed by the docks to guard the Normandie and the Queen Elizabeth.

At 57th Street they turned to the ramp and climbed up to the highway. It was straight driving then and the temptation to let out the car was strong, but they couldn’t risk it because of the numerous motorcycle policemen who patrolled the highway. To be stopped was to be lost. The handcuffs would be enough to have them taken immediately to the closest precinct house. They could explain there, yes, but it would be too late, then.

They kept the car down to forty-two miles an hour, up to the tool bridge crossing the Harlem River. During the moment’s pause they dropped their locked hands out of sight, while Sam reached out with his free left hand and paid the dime toll.

Once over the bridge, they increased their speed to forty-five miles an hour and when they reached Saw Mill River Parkway they went up to forty-eight, reasonably safe.

They merely held their own. They knew even as they drove at the controlled speed that Jim Partridge would be traveling as fast — with a twenty-minute start.

At Cross County Parkway they turned right, bounced over the construction work that was going on and then climbed the graded hill to Central Avenue. They left the parkway there and increased their speed on Central Avenue to fifty miles.

Ten minutes later they roared through the village of Hillcrest and began climbing the hill to Twelve O’Clock House. Halfway up, Johnny said:

“We’d better walk from here. Pull over to the curb.”

It was a tricky stop for the steep hill, but they managed it, by putting on the emergency brake and leaving the stalled motor in low gear. They scrambled out of the car and plunged up the hill, partly lighted by widely separated street lights.

At last, then, they stood at the gate of Twelve O’Clock House. It was wide open and ahead lights blazed in the house. On the veranda, too.

“Be damned!” muttered Johnny. “They seem to have a party going on up there.”

They walked up Six O’Clock Drive and as they approached Johnny recognized Eric Quisenberry on the veranda. With him were Ellen and Diana Rusk. And Nicholas Bos!

Johnny signaled Sam to stop a dozen feet from the veranda, out of range of the bright lights, so the handcuffs that bound them together would not be noticed by those on the veranda.

“Evening, folks,” he said. “Are we late for the party?”

“Ha!” cried Nicholas Bos. “You have dare come here? Is fine. You are man I have wanting to see. That clock you sell me…”

“The Talking Clock, Mr. Bos?”

Diana Rusk said quickly, “Mr. Bos insists I take back the clock. He claims… that it doesn’t talk.”

“Oh,” said Johnny. “Is that all? Shucks, for a dollar you can get a little phonograph record made tomorrow that’ll say anything he wants it to say.”

“No!” cried Nicholas Bos. “You are t’ief, Mr. Fletcher. The big scoundrel. You don’t telling me clock no good when you make me buy today…”

“I didn’t make you buy it, Bos,” Johnny said, curtly. “You’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off for days trying to buy that clock. You offered up to seventy-five thousand for it. Miss Rusk took forty thousand…”

“It is not same clock, without talking,” protested Bos. “You knowing, too, you scoundrel!”

Johnny cleared his throat, noisily. “I wonder if you’d mind going into the house? I have a revelation to make. Something that will interest all of you, I’m sure.”

He shot a covert look to the right, down Three O’Clock Lane. Was that a moving shadow there by the shrubbery, near the fence?

“Why can’t you say what you’ve got to say right here?” asked Eric Quisenberry. “Since we’re all to hear it?…”

Sam Cragg suddenly nudged Johnny. “He’s down there!” he whispered hoarsely.

Johnny said loudly, “The light’s better in the house. I want to show—”

Down Three O’Clock Lane, a gun exploded. A man yelled and feet pounded on earth, on macadam, then grassy earth once more. Johnny leaped to the left, was almost knocked off his feet, as Sam failed to move with him, then tried again. The second time Sam ran with him.

The people on the veranda all sprang to their feet, began chattering. Johnny ran as he had never run before, and was sent stumbling once as Sam could not keep up with him.

Orange flame split the darkness and a gun roared again. To the left now. In full stride, Johnny wheeled and pulled Sam back the way they had come.

“He’ll be going around the house!” he panted. “We’ll head him off.”

He had a glimpse of frightened faces on the veranda as they tore past, then they were rushing down Nine O’Clock Walk. From the distance, behind the house, the gun banged a third time.

Halfway down Nine O’Clock, Johnny saw the shadow coming toward them. He jerked Sam to a halt and the big fellow lost his footing and pulled Johnny to the ground with him.

They scrambled about for a moment, came to their feet just as a running figure hurtled down upon them. Sam jerked his arm to the right… and the fleeing man crashed into their outstretched arms locked together with the handcuffs.

It was a violent impact. The whiplash of it brought Johnny and Sam together with a thud… but it locked the other man in the trap.