“Here it is,” he said. “A Clock Screams at Midnight, by Albert Clock. Now we are making progress. Where is that message? Let me see — page number 3, word number 27. I will look for it. You, boy, write the words down as I proceed.”
He leafed through the book to page 3 and counted words.
“The word is ‘stand,’ ” he reported. “Now for the rest”
He worked rapidly. Jupiter wrote down each word as they found it.
Presently Hugenay came to the end of the torn message. “That’s all,” he said. “The rest of the message is gone. Read what we have.” Jupiter read the message aloud. “Stand in the middle of the room at one minute to midnight.Have two detectives and two reporters with you. Hold hands, making a circle,and keep absolutely silent for one minute. At midnight exactly — ”
He stopped. “That’s where the message ends, Mr. Hugenay.”
“A thousand thunders! It ends just before it tells us anything. At midnight exactly — what? What is supposed to happen? There’s no way to tell. That Bert Clock had a very clever mind. We can’t guess what he was thinking.”
He sighed. “There’s nothing for it,” he said. “We’ll just have to tear the room apart. Either the pictures are hidden in this room, or perhaps there’s a key to a storage vault hidden here. It would help if we knew what we were looking for but, as we don’t, we’ll make the best of it.”
“Wait, Mr. Hugenay!” Jupiter said. “Could the pictures be those pictures on the wall? I mean, could the real pictures have had new pictures painted over them?”
“No, no, I’m sure that’s not the case, but I’ll look.”
Hugenay took down the nearest picture and examined it closely. He scraped the paint at one corner with his penknife.
“No, just a worthless picture,” he said. “We’ll start by leafing through all the other books, to see if there is a concealed key. Then we’ll examine the walls and the bookcases for hidden cupboards or sliding panels.”
“Wait!” Jupiter pleaded. “I’ve had another idea, sir.”
“Another? Your mind hums like a top!” Hugenay exclaimed. “What is it this time?”
“I think I know of a way we might get the rest of the message in the book, sir.”
“Well, then let’s have it!”
“When people pick out words in a book to make a message,” Jupiter said, “they often put a pencil mark beneath the word to help them count down to it. If the message words in Mr. Clock’s book have pencil marks under them, we can find the rest of the message by looking through the book till we see more words marked with pencil.”
“Remarkable cogitation,” Hugenay said. “Let us check and see.” Quickly he looked through Mr. Clock’s book again.
“You’re right, boy! Each word of the message has a small pencil dot beneath it. Here — you look for the rest of the message.” Jupiter took the book and turned each page slowly, looking only for a tiny pencil dot. Presently he came to a word. He called it out and Hugenay wrote it down. It took quite a while to go through the book page by page, but Jupiter was interested in the job and did not pause. At last Jupiter could find no more marks. “Very well,” Hugenay said. “I’ll read the whole message. ‘Standin' the middle of the room at one minute to midnight. Have two detective sand two reporters with you. Hold hands, making a circle, and keep absolutely silent for one minute. At midnight exactly the alarm of the screaming clock which I sent you should go off. Have it set at full volume. Let the scream continue until my hiding place is uncovered’.” Mr. Hugenay looked at Jupiter. “What do you suppose it means?” he asked. Jupiter frowned. It was one of the strangest messages he had ever encountered. “It sounds to me,” he said, “as if the screaming clock will make some kind of mechanism work that will open a hidden panel, or something like that. Locks can be made that will open only at special sounds. Some will open only if the owner speaks to them. I think Mr. Clock’s scream must do something like that.”
“Exactly,” Hugenay agreed. “My own conclusion. A trick lock opened by a special sound.”
“Now,” Jupiter said, “if you have the clock, we can try it out. I don’t think that business about holding hands or waiting for midnight means anything. It’s just atmosphere.”
“There is, unfortunately, a difficulty,” Hugenay said slowly. “The clock no longer exists. I took it apart looking for a hidden message engraved inside it. It won’t scream any more.” He sighed. “I did not anticipate this. It is one of the few times I have been guilty of a grave error. But it can’t be helped. The clock is gone.”
“Then,” Jupiter said, “I don’t know what we can do.”
“There is a way,” Hugenay said. “It is crude and I detest crudeness, but this time it is necessary. My men will open up all the walls in this room, including those behind the bookcases. If there is a secret cupboard or other hiding place we will find it.
“Fred,” he said to one of his men. “Go out to the car and bring in the tools. We have work to do.”
20
Startling Developments
Mr. Clock’s library was a mess. It looked as if a bomb had exploded or a demolition squad had started to demolish the house. The latter was almost correct. Certainly Hugenay’s men had wrecked the room. They had attacked it with chisels, drills, axes and crowbars.
First they had removed all the books from the shelves, stacking them on the floor, and taken down the pictures and mirror. Then they had opened up the wails, methodically. They had examined every section of the room for an opening behind the wall. They had ripped down some of the bookshelves looking for a secret door, or a hidden closet. They had even attacked the ceiling until they found it was solid plaster.
All of their efforts had ended in failure. They hadn’t found anything remotely resembling a secret hiding place.
Hugenay looked angry as well as disappointed.
“Well,” he said. “We have failed. Bert Clock has hidden something so well I cannot find it. I would not have believed it possible.”
“Does that mean you can’t prove Harry’s father is innocent?” Jupiter asked.
“Not without finding the stolen pictures, boy,” Hugenay replied. “And as you can see, we have not found them. Unless you have some more ideas.”
Now Jupiter was pinching his lip. An idea was coming to him.
“Mr. Hugenay,” he said. “The clock is destroyed, but maybe the scream isn’t.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There’s a man, a Mr. Gerald Watson, who has a collection of tapes of all the radio shows Mr. Clock did in the series, A Scream at Midnight. Each of them starts with a scream. Maybe this particular scream is recorded on one of the tapes. If it is and we can borrow the tape and tape recorder from Mr. Watson, we don’t need the clock.”
“Call him at once. Time is important!”
Jupiter went out and called Mr. Watson. Mr. Watson was puzzled at first, but he quickly recognized the scream Jupiter described.
“I know the very one you mean, yes indeed. My goodness, that scream made Bert famous, in an old film twenty years ago. Of course I have it on a tape. I can put my hands right on it. I’ll be glad to lend you the tape and the recorder, but I insist, you must tell me later what this mystery is all about.”
Jupiter promised and said a man would be right over and hung up. Bob and Harry and Mrs. Smith came out of the kitchen to listen, and were startled when they saw the mess in the library.
“Golly, Jupe, you’ve really wrecked that room!” Bob said. “Did you find anything?”
“Not yet,” Jupiter admitted.
“Why, it looks as if you’re trying to tear the house down!” Mrs. Smith exclaimed. “I’d never have given you permission if I’d known you planned to do so much damage!”
“We are looking for evidence that will prove your husband innocent,” Mr. Hugenay told her. “Do you wish us to stop without finding it?”