The Haunted Bell | Page 6

for that gong in your room?" she inquired.
Mr. Phillips started a little. That particular object had enchained his
attention for the last dozen hours, awake and asleep.
"Why?" he asked.
"You know I told you I bought it of a curio dealer," Mrs. Phillips
explained. "His name is Johann Wagner, and he offers me five hundred
dollars if I will sell it back to him. I presume he has found it is more
valuable than he imagined, and the five hundred dollars would make a
comfortable addition to my charity fund."
Mr. Phillips was deeply thoughtful. Johann Wagner! What was this
new twist? Why had Wagner denied all knowledge of the gong to him?
Having denied, why should he now make an attempt to buy it back? In
seeking answers to these questions he was silent.
"Well, dear?" inquired his wife after a pause. "You didn't answer me."
"No, don't sell the gong," he exclaimed abruptly. "Don't sell it at any
price. I--I want it. I'll give you a cheque for your charity."
There was something of uneasiness in her devoted eyes. Some strange,
subtle, indefinable air which she could not fathom was in his manner.
With a little sigh which breathed her unrest she finished her breakfast.
On the following morning still another letter came from Johann
Wagner. It was an appeal--an impassioned appeal--hurriedly scrawled
and almost incoherent in form. He must have the gong! He would give
five thousand dollars for it. Mrs. Phillips was frankly bewildered at the
letter, and turned it over to her husband. He read it through twice with
grimly-set teeth.

"No," he exclaimed violently; "it sha'n't be sold for any price!" Then his
voice dropped as he recollected himself. "No, my dear," he continued,
"it shall not be sold. It was a present from you to me. I want it,
but"--and he smiled whimsically--"if he keeps raising the price it will
add a great deal to your charity fund, won't it?"
Twice again within thirty-six hours Mr. Phillips heard the bell
ring--once on one occasion and four on the other. And now visibly,
tangibly, a great change was upon him. The healthy glow went from his
face. There was a constant twitching of his hands; a continual,
impatient snapping of his fingers. His eyes lost their steady gaze. They
roved aimlessly, and one's impression always was that he was listening.
The strength of the master spirit was being slowly destroyed, eaten up
by a hideous gnawing thing of which he seemed hopelessly obsessed.
But he took no one into his confidence; it was his own private affair to
work out to the end.
This condition was upon him at a time when the activity of the
speculative centres of the world was abnormal, and when every faculty
was needed in the great financial schemes of which he was the centre.
He, in person, held the strings which guided millions. The importance
of his business affairs was so insistently and relentlessly thrust upon
him that he was compelled to meet them. But the effort was a desperate
one, and that night late, when a city slept around him, the bell sounded
twice.
When he reached his downtown office next day an enormous amount of
detail work lay before him, and he attacked it with a feverish exaltation
which followed upon days and nights of restlessness. He had been at
his desk only a few minutes when his private telephone clattered. With
an exclamation he arose; comprehending, he sat down again.
Half-a-dozen times within the hour the bell rang, and each time he was
startled. Finally he arose in a passion, tore the desk-telephone from its
connecting wires and flung it into the waste-basket. Deliberately he
walked around to the side of his desk and, with a well-directed kick,
smashed the battery-box. His secretary regarded him in amazement.

"Mr. Camp," directed the financier sharply, "please instruct the office
operator not to ring another telephone-bell in this office--ever."
The secretary went out and he sat down to work again. Late that
afternoon he called on his family physician, Doctor Perdue, a robust
individual of whom it was said that his laugh cured more patients than
his medicine. Be that as it may, he was a successful man, high in his
profession. Doctor Perdue looked up with frank interest as he entered.
"Hello, Phillips!" was his greeting. "What can I do for you?"
"Nerves," was the laconic answer.
"I thought it would come to that," remarked the physician, and he
shook his head sagely. "Too much work, too much worry and too many
cigars; and besides, you're not so young as you once were."
"It isn't work or cigars," Phillips replied impatiently. "It's worry--worry
because of some peculiar circumstances which--which--"
He paused with a certain childish feeling of