The Haunted Bell

The Haunted Bell
Jacques Futrelle

I
It was a thing, trivial enough, yet so strangely mystifying in its happening that the mind hesitated to accept it as an actual occurrence despite the indisputable evidence of the sense of hearing. As the seconds ticked on, Franklin Phillips was not at all certain that it had happened, and gradually the doubt began to assume the proportions of a conviction. Then, because his keenly-attuned brain did not readily explain it, the matter was dismissed as an impossibility. Certainly it had not happened. Mr. Phillips smiled a little. Of course, it was--it must be--a trick of his nerves.
But, even as the impossibility of the thing grew upon him, the musical clang still echoed vaguely in his memory, and his eyes were still fixed inquiringly on the Japanese gong whence it had come. The gong was of the usual type--six bronze discs, or inverted bowls, of graduated sizes, suspended one above the other, with the largest at the top, and quaintly colored with the deep, florid tones of Japan's ancient decorative art. It hung motionless at the end of a silken cord which dropped down sheerly from the ceiling over a corner of his desk. It was certainly harmless enough in appearance, yet--yet--
As he looked the bell sounded again. It was a clear, rich, vibrant note--a boom which belched forth suddenly as if of its own volition, quavered full-toned, then diminished until it was only a lingering sense of sound. Mr. Phillips started to his feet with an exclamation.
Now, in the money-marts of the world, Franklin Phillips was regarded as a living refutation of all theories as to the physical disasters consequent upon a long pursuit of the strenuous life--a human antithesis of nerves. He breathed fourteen times to the minute and his heart-beat was always within a fraction of seventy-one. This was true whether there were millions at stake in a capricious market or whether he ordered a cigar. In this calm lay the strength which had enabled him to reach his fiftieth year in perfect mental and physical condition.
Back of this utter normality was a placid, inquiring mind; so now, deliberately, he took a pencil and tapped the bells of the gong one after another, beginning at the bottom. The shrill note of the first told him instantly that was not the one which had sounded; nor was the second, nor the third. At the fourth he hesitated and struck a second time. Then he tapped the fifth. That was it. The gong trembled and swayed slightly from the blow, light as it was, and twice again he struck it. Then he was convinced.
For several minutes he stood staring, staring blankly. What had caused the bell to ring? His manner was calm, cold, quiet, inquisitive--indomitable common-sense inspired the query.
"I guess it was nerves," he said after a moment. "But I was looking at it, and--"
Nerves as a possibility were suddenly brushed ruthlessly aside, and he systematically sought some tangible explanation of the affair. Had a flying insect struck the bell? No. He was positive, because he had been looking directly at it when it sounded the second time. He would have seen an insect. Had something dropped from the ceiling? No. He would have seen that, too. With alert, searching eyes he surveyed the small room. It was his own personal den--a sort of office in his home. He was alone now; the door closed; everything appeared as usual.
Perhaps a window! The one facing east was open to the lightly stirring air of the first warm evening of spring. The wind had disturbed the gong! He jumped at the thought as an inspiration. It faded when he saw the window-curtains hanging down limply; the movement of the air was too light to disturb even these. Perhaps something had been tossed through the window! The absurdity of that conjecture was proven instantly. There was a screen in the window of so fine a mesh that hardly more than a grain of sand could pass through it. And this screen was intact.
With bewilderment in his face Mr. Phillips sat down again. Then recurred to him one indisputable fact which precluded the possibility of all those things he had considered. There had been absolutely no movement--that is, perceptible movement--of the gong when the bell sounded. Yet the tone was loud, as if a violent blow had been struck. He remembered that, when he tapped the bell sharply with his pencil, it swayed and trembled visibly, but the pencil was so light that the tone sounded far away and faint. To convince himself he touched the bell again, ever so lightly. It swayed.
"Well, of all the extraordinary things I ever heard of!" he remarked.
After a while he lighted a cigar, and for the first time in his life his hand