The Haunted Bell | Page 5

up suddenly to find his host staring at him in
perturbed amazement.
"Why did you do that?" Mr. Phillips blurted uneasily.
"Pardon me, but you wouldn't understand if I told you," replied the
Japanese with calm, inscrutable face. "May I examine it, please?" And
he indicated the silent and motionless gong.
"Certainly," replied the financier wonderingly.
Mr. Matsumi, with a certain eagerness which was not lost upon the
American, approached the gong and touched the bells lightly, one after
another, evidently to get the tone. Then he stooped and examined them
carefully--top and bottom. Inside the largest bell--that at the top--he
found something which interested him. After a close scrutiny he again
straightened up, and in his slant eyes was an expression which Mr.
Phillips would have liked to interpret.
"I presume you have seen it before?" he ventured.
"No, never," was the reply.
"But you recognized it!"
Mr. Matsumi merely shrugged his shoulders.
"And what made you do that?" By "that" Mr. Phillips referred to Mr.
Matsumi's strange act when he first saw the bell.
Again the Japanese shrugged his shoulders. An exquisite, innate
courtesy which belonged to him was apparently forgotten now in

contemplation of the gong. The financier gnawed at his mustache. He
was beginning to feel nervous--the nervousness he had felt previously,
and his imagination ran riot.
"You have not had the gong long?" remarked Mr. Matsumi after a
pause.
"Three or four months."
"Have you ever noticed anything peculiar about it?"
Mr. Phillips stared at him frankly.
"Well, rather!" he said at last, in a tone which was perfectly convincing.
"It rings, you mean--the fifth bell?"
Mr. Phillips nodded. There was a tense eagerness in the manner of the
Japanese.
"You have never heard the bell ring eleven times?"
Mr. Phillips shook his head. Mr. Matsumi drew a long breath--whether
it was relief the other couldn't say. There was silence. Mr. Matsumi
closed and unclosed his small hands several times.
"Pardon me for mentioning the matter under such circumstances," he
said at last, in a tone which suggested that he feared giving offence,
"but would you be willing to part with the gong?"
Mr. Phillips regarded him keenly. He was seeking in the other's manner
some inkling to a solution of a mystery which each moment seemed
more hopelessly beyond him.
"I shouldn't care to part with it," he replied casually. "It was given to
me by my wife."
"Then no offer I might make would be considered?"

"No, certainly not," replied Mr. Phillips tartly. There was a pause. "This
gong has interested me immensely. I should like to know its history.
Perhaps you can enlighten me?"
With the imperturbability of his race, Mr. Matsumi declined to give any
information. But, with a graceful return of his former exquisite courtesy,
he sought more definite knowledge for himself.
"I will not ask you to part with the gong," he said, "but perhaps you can
inform me where your wife bought it?" He paused for a moment.
"Perhaps it would be possible to get another like it?"
"I happen to know there isn't another," replied Mr. Phillips. "It came
from a little curio shop in Cranston Street, kept by a German named
Johann Wagner."
And that was all. This incident passed as the other had, the net result
being only further to stimulate Mr. Phillips' curiosity. It seemed a futile
curiosity, yet it was ever present, despite the fact that the gong still
hung silent.
On the next evening, a balmy, ideal night of spring, Mr. Phillips had
occasion to go into the small room. This was just before dinner was
announced. It was rather close there, so he opened the east window to a
grateful breeze, and placed the screen in position, after which he
stooped to pull out a drawer of his desk. Then came again the quick,
clangorous boom of the bell--One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six!
Seven!
At the first stroke he straightened up; at the second he leaned forward
toward the gong with his eyes riveted to the fifth disc. As it continued
to ring he grimly held on to jangling nerves and looked for the cause.
Beneath the bells, on top, all around them he sought. There was nothing!
nothing! The sounds simply burst out, one after another, as if from a
heavy blow, yet the bell did not move. For the seventh time it struck,
and then with white, ghastly face and chilled, stiff limbs Mr. Phillips
rushed out of the room. A dew of perspiration grew in the palms of his
quavering hands.

It was a night of little rest and strange dreams for him. At breakfast on
the following morning Mrs. Phillips poured his coffee and then glanced
through the mail which had been placed beside her.
"Do you particularly care