Clock Without Hands Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mr. Greenlove worked with this pestle? And who had used it before him?... The pestle was old, old and indestructible. Malone wondered if it wasn't a relic from Indian times. Ancient as it was, how long would it still last? The stone mocked Malone.
    He shivered. It was as though a draft had chilled him, although he noticed that the cigar smoke was undisturbed. As he thought of the old Judge a mood of elegy softened his fear. He remembered Johnny Clane and the old days at Sereno. He was no stranger—many a time he had been a guest at Sereno during the hunting season—and once he had even spent the night there. He had slept in a big four-poster bed with Johnny and at five in the morning they had gone down to the kitchen, and he still remembered the smell of fish roe and hot biscuits and the wet-dog smell as they breakfasted before the hunt. Yes, many a time he had hunted with Johnny Clane and had been invited to Sereno, and he was there the Sunday before the Christmas Johnny died. And Miss Missy would sometimes go there, although it was mainly a hunting place for boys and men. And the Judge, when he shot badly, which was nearly all the time, would complain that there was so much sky and so few birds. Always there was a mystery about Sereno even in those days—but was it the mystery of luxury that a boy born poor will always feel? As Malone remembered the old days and thought of the Judge now—in his wisdom and fame and inconsolable grief—his heart sang with love as grave and somber as the organ music in the church.
    As he stared at the pestle his eyes were brilliant with fever and fear and, transfixed, he did not notice that from the basement underneath the store there was a knocking sound. Before this spring he had always held to a basic rhythm about life and death—the Bible rhythm of the three-score years and ten. But now he dwelt on the inexplicable deaths. He thought of children, exact and delicate as jewels in their white satin coffins. And that pretty singing teacher who swallowed a bone at a fish fry and died within the hour. And Johnny Clane, and the Milan boys who died during the first war and the last. And how many others? How? Why? He was aware of the knocking sound in the basement. It was a rat—last week a rat had overturned a bottle of asafetida and for days the stench was so terrible that his porter refused to work in the basement. There was no rhythm in death—only the rhythm of the rat, and the stench of corruption. And the pretty singing teacher, the blond young flesh of Johnny Clane—the jewel-like children—all ended in the liquefying corpse and coffin stench. He looked at the pestle with a sick surprise for only the stone remained.
    There was a footstep on the threshold and Malone was so suddenly unnerved that he dropped the pestle. The blue-eyed nigger stood before him, holding in his hand something that glinted in the sun. Again he stared into those blazing eyes and again he felt that look of eerie understanding and sensed that those eyes knew that he was soon to die.
    "I found this just outside the door," the nigger said.
    Malone's vision was dimmed by shock and for a moment he thought it was the paper knife of Dr. Hayden—then he saw it was a bunch of keys on a silver ring.
    "They're not mine," Malone said.
    "I noticed Judge Clane and his boy was here. Maybe they're theirs." The nigger dropped the keys on the table. Then he picked up the pestle and handed it to Malone.
    "Much obliged," he said. "I'll inquire about the keys."
    The boy went away and Malone watched him jay-walk across the street. He was cold with loathing and hatred.
    As he sat holding the pestle there was in him enough composure to wonder at those alien emotions that had veered so violently in his once mild heart. He was split between love and hatred—but what he loved and what he hated was unclear. For the first time he
knew
that death was near him. But the terror that choked him was not caused by the knowledge of his own