The Diamond Cross Mystery | Page 2

them again--he passed his hand before his face as if cobwebs had drifted there--he touched his ears, which seemed not a part of himself.
"Tick-tick! Tick-tick! Tick-tick!"
The sound seemed to grow louder. It was not her heart!
"Hello! Come here, somebody! Amelia! what's the matter? Sallie! Sallie Page! Wake up! Hello, somebody! She's dead! Killed! There's been a murder! I must get the police!"
James Darcy started to cross the room to reach and fling open the front door leading to the street, that he might call the alarm to others than the deaf cook, who had not yet come downstairs. Mrs. Darcy's maid had gone away the previous evening, and was not expected in until noon. It was too early for any of the jewelry clerks to report. Yet Darcy felt he must have some one with him.
To cross the store to reach the door meant stepping over the body--the grotesquely twisted body, with the white, upturned face and the little spot of red, near where the silver comb had fallen from the silvered hair. And so Darcy changed his mind--he ran to the side door, fumbled with the lock, flung back the portal, and then rushed out in the rain and drizzle, the fog streaming after mm as he parted the mist like long, white streamers of ribbon, such as they suspend at the door for the very young or the aged.
"Hello! Hello!" shouted Darcy into the silent rain and mist of the early morning street, now deserted save for himself.
The glistening asphalt, the gleaming trolley rails, the dark and damp buildings seemed to echo back his words.
"Hello! Hello!"
"Police!" voiced James Darcy. "There's been a murder!"
"A murder!" echoed the mist.
There was silence after this, and Darcy looked up and down the street. Not a person--not a vehicle--was in sight. No one looked from the stores or houses on either side or across from the jewelry shop.
Then a rattling milk wagon swung around the corner. It was followed by another.
"Hello! Hello! there--you!" called Darcy hoarsely.
"What's the matter?" asked the first man, as he swung down from his vehicle with a wire carrier filled with bottles in his hand.
"Somebody's been hurt--killed--a relative of mine! I want to tell the police. It's in that jewelry store," and he pointed back toward it, for he had run down the street a little way.
"Oh, I see! Darcy's! She's killed you say?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Accident?"
"I don't know. Looks to me more like murder!"
The milkman whistled, set his collection of bottles back in his wagon, and hurried with Darcy toward the store. The other man, bringing his rattling vehicle to a stop, followed.
"Where is she?" whispered Casey, as soon as he reached the side of his business rival, Tremlain.
"On the floor--right in the middle--between the showcases," answered Darcy, and he, too, whispered. It seemed the right thing to do. "There--see her!"
He pointed a trembling finger.
"Lord! Her head's smashed!" exclaimed Casey. "Look at the blood!"
"I--I don't want to look at it," murmured Darcy, faintly.
"Hark!" cautioned Tremlain. "What's that noise?"
They all listened--they all heard it.
"It's a watch ticking," answered Darcy. "First I thought it was her heart beating--it sounded so. But it's only a watch."
"Maybe so," assented Casey. "We'd better make sure before we telephone for the police. She may only have fallen and cut her head."
"You--you go and see," suggested Tremlain. "I--I don't like to go near her--I never could bear the sight of dead folks--not even my own father. You look!"
Casey hesitated a moment, and then stepped closer to the body. He leaned over it and put the backs of his hard fingers on the white, wrinkled and shrunken cheeks. They were cold and wax-like to his touch.
"She's dead," he whispered softly. "Better get the police right away."
"Murdered?" asked Tremlain, who had remained beside Darcy near the showcase where the silver gleamed.
"I don't know. Her head's cut bad, though there's not so much blood as I thought at first. We mustn't touch the body--that's the law. Got to leave it until the coroner sees it. Where's the telephone?"
"Right back here," answered Darcy eagerly. "Police headquarters number is--"
"I know it," interrupted Casey. "I had to call 'em up once when I had a horse stole. I'll get 'em. What's that watch ticking?" he asked, pausing. "Oh, it's in her hand!" and the other two looked and saw, clasped close in the palm of the woman lying huddled on the floor, a watch of uncommon design. It was ticking loudly.
"What makes it sound so plain?" asked Tremlain.
"Cause it's so quiet in here," answered Casey. "It'll be noisy enough later on, though! But it's so quiet--that's what makes the ticking of the watch sound so plain."
"It is quiet," observed Tremlain. "But in a jewelry store there's always a lot of clocks making a noise and--Say!" he suddenly cried, "there's not a clock