The clock struck three.
The next instant he walked boldly up to the clock and bent his ear to
it. No, he could hear nothing. It had stopped. He glared steadily at the
hands for two minutes by his own watch; they did not move.
In the back of his head, in the small of his back, in his legs, little
tracts of his epidermis tickled momentarily. He wiped his face, and
walked boldly away from the clock to the portiere, which he lifted with
one arm. Then he threw the light of his lamp direct on the dial, and
glared at it again, fearful lest it should have taken advantage of his
departure to resume its measuring of eternity.
Could a clock go for four months? A clock could be made that would go
for four months. But this was not a freak-clock. It was a large Louis
Seize pendule, and he knew it to be genuine of his own knowledge; he had
bought it.
He dropped the portiere between himself and the clock, and stood in the
inner hall. He had had as much of the drawing-room as was good for his
nerves.
The inner hall was oblong in shape, and measured about twelve feet at
its greatest width. In front of him, as he stood with his back to the
drawing-room, was a closed door, which he knew led into the principal
bedroom of the flat.
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