"It's an instrument," rejoined Gregg, leaning over the side of the car. "Evidently it has some sort of effect upon the fundamental processes of the human organism. That's clear, to me. Probably it replaces some of the ordinary functions and alters others. One gets a sort of glimmer—of an immense speeding up of the entire organism, and the brain of man developing new senses and powers of apprehension. They would have all sorts of second sights and subsidiary senses. They would feel their way about in a larger universe, creep into all sorts of niches and corners unknown to us, because of their different construction."
"Yes, yes, I can follow all that," said Allingham, biting his moustache, "but let's talk sense."
"In a matter like this," put in Gregg, "sense is at a premium. What we have to do is to consult our intuitions."
Allingham frowned. His intuitions, nowadays, were few and far between.
"When you get to my age, Gregg, you'll have something else to do besides consult your intuitions. The fact is, youwantall thesewonderful things to happen. You have a flair for the unexpected, like all children and adolescents. But I tell you, the Clockwork man is a myth, and I think you ought to respect my opinion."
"Even if he's a myth," interrupted Gregg, "he is still worth investigating. What annoys me is your positive antagonism to the idea that he might be possible. You seem to want to go out of your way to prove me in the wrong. I may add, that once a man has ceased to believe in the impossible he is damned."
Allingham shot a look of veiled anger at the other, and prepared to re-enter the car.
"Well, you prove yourself in the right," he muttered, "and then I'll apologise. I'm going to let the Clockwork man drop. I've got other things to think about. And I don't mind telling you that if the Clockwork man turns out to be all that you claim for him, I shall still wish him at the other end of the earth."
"Which is probably where he is now," remarked Gregg, with a slight bantering note in his voice.
"Well, let him stop there," growled Allingham, restarting the car with a vicious jerk, "let someone else bother their heads about him. I don't want him. I tell you I don't care a brass farthing about the future ofthe human race. I'm quite content to take the good and bad in life, and I want it to go on in the same damned old way."
Gregg beat his fist into his open palm. "But that's just what has happened," he exclaimed, "they've found a way of keeping on just the same. That explains the Clarkson business. If the clock is what I think it is, that precisely is its function."
Allingham shouted out some impatient rejoinder, but it was drowned in the rising roar of the engine as they sped along the road.
II
So the argument had waged since the telling of Tom Driver's story. Gregg's chief difficulty was to get Allingham to see that there really might be something in this theory of a world in which merely trivial things had become permanent, whilst the cosmos itself, the hitherto unchanging outer environment of man's existence, might have opened up in many new directions. Man might have tired of waiting for a so long heralded eternity, and made one out of his own material tools. The Clockwork man, now crystallised in Gregg's mind as an unforgetable figure, seemed to him to stand for a sort of rigidity of personal being as opposed to the fickleness of mereflesh and blood; but the world in which he lived probably had widely different laws, if indeed it had humanly comprehensible laws at all.
The clock, perhaps, was the index of a new and enlarged order of things. Man had altered the very shape of the universe in order to be able to pursue his aims without frustration. That was an old dream of Gregg's. Time and Space were the obstacles to man's aspirations, and therefore he had invented this cunning device, which would adjust his faculties to some mightier rhythm of universal forces. It was a logical step forward in the path of material progress.
That was Gregg's dimly conceived theory about the mystery, although, of course, he read into the interpretation a good deal of his own speculations. His imagination seized upon the clock as the possible symbol of a new counterpoint in human affairs. In his mind he saw man growing through the ages, until at last, by the aid of this mechanism, he was able to roll back the skies and reveal the vast other worlds that lay beyond, the unthinkable mysteries that lurked between the stars, all that had been sealed up in the limited brain of man since creation. From that extreme postulate it would be necessary to work backward, until some reasonable hypothesis could be found to explain the workingof the clock mechanism. That difficulty, even, might be overcome if only an opportunity occurred to examine this strange being from the future, or if he could be prevailed upon to explain matters himself.
As the car sped swiftly along, Gregg sat back with folded arms and gazed upwards at the now crystalline skies, wondering, as he had never wondered before, about that incomprehensible immensity which for centuries of successive generations man had silently respected. No authoritative voice had ever claimed to penetrate that supreme mystery. Priests had evoked the gods from that starry depth, poets had sung of the swinging hemispheres, scientists had traced comets and knew the quality of each solar earth; but still that vast arch spanned all the movements of crawling mankind, and closed him in like a basin placed over a colony of ants.
True, it was an illusion, and man had always known that. For generations he had known that the universe contained more than his limited faculties could perceive. And beauty. There had always been the consoling fact of beauty, lulling the race of man to content, while every now and again a great mind arose and made one more effort to sweep aside the bejewelled splendour that hung between man and his final destiny—to know.
And yet, a slight alteration in man's perceptive organs and that wide blue shell might shatter and disclose a thousand new forms, like fantastic cities shaped in the clouds at sunset. Physiologists claimed that the addition of a single lobe to the human brain might mean that man would know the future as well as the past. What if that miracle had been performed? By such means man might have come to know not only the future, but other dimensions as yet unnamed or merely sketched out by the mathematician in brief, arbitrary terms.
Until that time came, man's deepest speculations about ultimate reality brought him no nearer to the truth than the child worrying himself to sleep over the problem of what happened before God made the universe. Man remained, in that sense, as innocent as a child, from birth to death. Until the actual structure of the cells in his brain suffered a change man could not actually know.
Einstein could say that we were probably wrong in our basic conceptions. But could he say how we were to get right? The Clockwork man might be the beginning.
And then, when that change had been wrought, that physical reconstruction, what else might follow in its train? The Truth at last, an end to all suffering and pain, a solutionof the problems of civilisation, such as overpopulation and land distribution, the beginning of human sovereignty in the universe.
But Gregg had the sense to admit to himself that his generalisation was no more than a faint aurora hovering around the rumoured dawn of the future. It was necessary, in the first place, to posit an imperfect thinking apparatus. After all, the Clockwork man was still a mystery to be solved, and even if he failed to justify a single theory born of merely human conjecture, there still remained the exhilarating task of finding out what actually he was and how he had come to earth.
III
Leaving Gregg at his rooms in the upper part of the town, the Doctor drove slowly along the High Street in the direction of his own house. Everything was quiet now, and there was no sign of further disturbance, no indication that a miracle had taken place in the prosaic town of Great Wymering. The Doctor noted the fact with quiet satisfaction; it helped him to simmer down, and it was necessary, for the sake of his digestion, that he should feel soothed and comforted.
Still, if Gregg's conjectures were anywhere near the mark, in a very few hours it would beknown all over England that the jaws of the future had opened and disclosed this monstrosity to the eyes of the present. There would be a great stir of excitement; the newspapers would be full of the event. Indeed, the whole course of the world might be altered as a result of this astounding revelation.
He would be dragged into the affair. In spite of himself, he would be obliged to go into some sort of witness box and declare that from the first he had thought the Clockwork man phenomenal, when, as a matter of fact, he had merely thought him a nuisance. But, as one of those who had first seen the strange figure on the hill, and as a medical man, he would be expected to make an intelligent statement. One had to be consistent about such things.
And the real truth was that he had no desire to interest himself in the matter. It disturbed his mental equilibrium, and threatened the validity of that carefully considered world of assumptions which enabled him to make light, easy jests at its inconsistencies and incongruities.
Besides, it was distressing to discover that, in middle life, he was no longer in the vanguard of human hopes and fears; but a miserable backslider, dating back to the time when thought and serious living had becometoo difficult for comfort. Regarded in this way, nothing could ever compensate for the wasted years, the ideals extinguished, the rich hopes bargained for cheap doubts—unless, indeed, it was the reflection that such was the common lot of mankind. The comfortable old world rolled on from generation to generation, and nothing extraordinary happened to startle people out of their complacent preoccupation with passions, desires and ambitions. Miracles were supposed to have happened at certain stages in world-history, but they were immediately obliterated by a mass of controversial comment, or hushed up by those whose axes were ground in a world that could be relied upon to go on repeating itself.
A comfortable world! Of course, there were malcontents. When the shoe pinched, anybody would cry out for fire from heaven. But if a plebiscite were to be taken, it would be found that an overwhelming majority would be in favour of a world without miracles. If, for example, it could be demonstrated that this Clockwork man was a being in many ways superior to the rest of mankind, he would be hounded out of existence by a jealous and conservative humanity.
But the Clockwork man was not. He never had been, and, indeed, God forbid he ever should be.
With that reflection illuminating his mind, the Doctor ran his car into the garage, and with some return of his usual debonair manner, with something of that abiding confidence in a solid earth which is a necessary prelude to the marshalling of digestive juices, opened the front door of his house.
IV
Mrs. Masters was standing in the sitting room awaiting him. The Doctor strode in without stopping to remove his hat or place his gloves aside, a peculiar mannerism of his upon which Mrs. Masters was wont occasionally to admonish him; for the good lady was not slow to give banter for banter when the opportunity arose, and she objected to these relics of the Doctor's earlier bohemian ways. But for the moment her mood seemed to be rather one of blandishment.
"A young lady called to see you this evening," she announced, smilingly.
The Doctor removed his hat as though in honour of the mere mention of his visitor. "Did you give her my love?" was his light rejoinder, hat still poised at an elegant angle.
"Indeed, no," retorted Mrs. Masters, "it wouldn't be my place to give such messages. Not as though she weren't inquisitive enough—with asking questions about this and that. As though it were any business of 'ers 'ow you choose to arrange your house'old."
"On the contrary, I am flattered," said the Doctor, inwardly chafing at this new example of Lilian's originality. "But tell me, Mrs. Masters, am I not becoming more successful with the ladies?" As he spoke, he flicked with his gloves the reflection of himself in the mirror.
"You don't need to be reminded of that fact, I'm sure," sighed Mrs. Masters, "life sits lightly enough on you. I fear, too lightly. If I might venture to say so, a man in your position ought to take life more seriously."
"My patients would disagree with you."
"Ah, well, I grant you that. They say you cure more with your tongue than with your physic."
"I certainly value my wit more than my prescriptions," laughingly agreed the Doctor, "But, tell me, what was the lady's impression of mymenagé? And that reminds me, you have not told me her name yet. Did she carry a red parasol, or was it a white one?"
"I'm sure I never noticed," frowned Mrs. Masters, "such things don't interest me. But her name was Miss Lilian Payne—"
The Doctor interrupted with a guffah. "Come, Mrs. Masters, we need not beat aboutthe bush. I rather fancy you are aware of our relationship. Did you find her agreeable?"
"Pretty middling," said Mrs. Masters, reluctantly, "although at first I was put out by her manners. Such airs these modern young women give themselves. But she got round me in the end with her pretty ways, and I found myself taking 'er all round the 'ouse, which of course I ought not to 'ave done without your permission."
"Tell me," said the Doctor, without moving a muscle in his face, "was she satisfied with her tour of my premises?"
"There now!" exclaimed Mrs. Masters, hastily arranging an antimacassar on the back of a chair, "I won't tell you that, because, of course, I don't know."
She retreated towards the door.
"But did she leave any message?" enquired the Doctor, fixing her with his eye-glass.
"Botheration!" ejaculated Mrs. Masters, in aggrieved tones, "now you've asked me and I've got to tell you. I wanted to keep it back. Oh, I do hope you're not going to be disappointed. I'm sure she didn't really mean it."
"What did she say," demanded the Doctor, irritably.
"She says to me, she says, 'Tell him there's nothing doing.'"
There was a pause. Mrs. Masters drew inher lip and folded her arms stiffly. The Doctor stared hard at her for a moment, and almost betrayed himself. Then he threw back his head and laughed with the air of a man to whom all issues of life, great and small, had become the object of a graduated hilarity. "Then upon some other lady will fall the supreme honour," he observed.
"You mean—" began Mrs. Masters, and then eyed him with the meaning expression of a woman scenting danger or happiness for some other woman. "That young lady is not suited to you, at all events," she continued, shaking her head.
"Evidently not," replied the Doctor, carelessly, "but it is not of the slightest importance. As I have said, the honour—"
"Ah," broke in Mrs. Masters, "there's only one woman for you, and you have yet to find her."
"There's only one woman for me, and that is the woman who will marry me. Nay, don't lecture me, Mrs. Masters. I perceive the admonishment leaping to your eye. I am determined to approach this question of matrimony in the spirit of levity which you admit is my good or evil genius. Life is a comedy, and in order to shine in it one must assume therôleof the buffoon who rollicks through the scenes, poking fun at those sober-minded folk upon whose earnestness the very comedy depends. I will marry in jest and repent in laughter."
"Incorrigible man," said Mrs. Masters. But the Doctor had turned his back upon her, unwilling to reveal the sudden change in his features. Even as he spoke those light words, there came to him the reflection that he did not really mean them, and his pose seemed to crumble to dust. He had lived up to these nothings for years, but now he knew that they were nothings. As though to crown the irritations of a trying day, there came to him the conviction that his whole life had been an affair of studied gestures, of meticulous gesticulations.
V
Over an unsatisfactory meal he tried to think things out, conscious all the time that he was missing gastronomical opportunities through sheer inattention.
Of course, Lilian's impression of hismenagéwould have been unsatisfactory, even though he had escorted her over the house himself; but it was highly significant that she should have preferred to come alone. Holding advanced opinions about the simplification of the house, and of the woman's duties therein,she would regard his establishment as unwieldy, overcrowded, old-fashioned, even musty. It would represent to her unnecessary responsibilities, labour without reward, meaningless ostentation. The Doctor's own tastes lay in the direction of massive, ornate furniture, rich carpets and hangings, a multiplicity of ornaments. He liked a house filled to the brim with expensive things. He was a born collector and accumulator of odds and ends, of things that had become necessary to his varying moods. He was proud of his house, with its seventeen rooms, including two magnificent reception rooms, four spare bedrooms in a state of constant readiness, like fire-stations, for old friends who always said they were coming and never did; its elaborate kitchen arrangements and servants' quarters. Then there were cosy little rooms which a woman of taste would be able to decorate according to her whim, workrooms, snuggeries, halls and landings. There was much in the place that ought to appeal to a woman with right instincts.
Was Lilian going to destroy their happiness for the sake of these modern heresies? Surely she would not throw him over now; and yet her message left that impression. Nowadays women were so led by their sensibilities. Lilian's hypersensitive nature might revolt atthe prospect of living with him in the surroundings of his own choice.
He would look such a fool if the match did not come off. He had made so many sacrifices for her sake, sacrifices that were undignified, but necessary in a country town where every detail of daily life speedily becomes common knowledge. That was why he would appear so ridiculous if the marriage did not take place. It had been necessary, in the first place, to establish himself in the particular clique favoured by Lilian's parents, and although this manœuvre had involved a further lapse from his already partly disestablished principles, and an almost palpable insincerity, the Doctor had adopted it without much scruple. He had resigned his position as Vicar's churchwarden at the rather eucharistic parish church, and become a mere worshipper in a back pew at the Baptist chapel; for Lilian's father favoured the humble religion of self-made men. He had subscribed to the local temperance society, and contributed medical articles to the local paper on the harmful effects of alcohol and the training of midwives. In the winter evenings he gave lantern lectures on "The Wonders of Science." He organised a P.S.A., delivered addresses to Young Men Only, and generally did all he could to advance the Baptist cause, which, inGreat Wymering, stood not only for simplicity of religious belief, but also for the simplification of daily life aided by scientific knowledge and common sense. All that had been necessary in order to become legitimately intimate with the Payne family; for they enjoyed the most aggravating good health, and the Doctor had grown tired of awaiting an opportunity to dispense anti-toxins in exchange for tea.
But the class to which the Paynes belonged were not really humble. They were urban in origin, and the semi-aristocratic tradition of Great Wymering was opposed to them. They had come down from the London suburbs in response to advertisements of factory sites, and their enterprise had been amazing. Within a few years Great Wymering had ceased to be a pleasing country town, with historic associations dating back to the first Roman occupation; it was merely known to travellers on the South-Eastern and Chatham railway as the place where Payne's Dog Biscuits were manufactured.
The Doctor, in establishing himself in the right quarter, had forgotten to allow for the fact that the force that had lifted the Paynes out of their urban obscurity had descended to their daughter. Lilian had been expensively educated, and although the Doctor denied itto himself a hundred times a week, there was no evading the fact that an acute brain slumbered behind her rather immobile beauty. True, the fruits of her learning languished a little in Great Wymering, and that beyond a slight permanent frown and a disposition to argue about modern problems, she betrayed no revolt against the narrowness of her existence, but appeared, graceful and willowy, at garden parties or whist drives. It was the development of her mind that the Doctor feared, especially as, all unconsciously at first, he had acted as its chief stimulant. During their talks together he had spoken too many a true word in jest; and his witticisms had revealed to Lilian a whole world about which to think and theorise.
He glanced up at her photograph on the mantelpiece. If there was a flaw in the composition of her fair, Saxon beauty, it was that the mouth was a little too large and opened rather too easily, disclosing teeth that were not as regular as they should be. But nature's blunder often sets the seal on man's choice, and to the Doctor this trifling fault gave warmth and vivacity to a face that might easily have been cold and impassive, especially as her eyes were steel blue and she had no great art in the use of them. Her voice, too, often startled the listener by its occasional note thatsuggested an excitability of temperament barely under control.
In vain the Doctor tried to throw off his heavy reflections and assume the air of gaiety usual to him when drinking his coffee and thinking of Lilian. Such an oppression could hardly be ascribed to the malady of love. It was not Romeo's "heavy lightness, serious vanity." It was a deep perplexity, a grave foreboding that something had gone hideously wrong with him, something that he was unable to diagnose. It could not be that he was growing old. As a medical man he knew his age to an artery. And yet, in spite of his physical culture and rather deliberate chastity, he felt suddenly that he was not a fit companion for this young girl with her resilient mind. He had always been fastidious about morals, without being exactly moral, but there was something within him that he did not care to contemplate. It almost seemed as though the sins of the mind were more deadly than those of the flesh, for the latter expressed themselves in action and re-action, while the former remained in the mind, there to poison and corrupt the very source of all activity.
What was it then—this feeling of a fixation of himself—of a slowing down of his faculties? Was it some strange new malady of the modern world, a state of mind as yet notcrystallised by the poet or thinker? It was difficult to get a clear image to express his condition; yet that was his need. There was no phrase or word in his memory that could symbolise his feeling.
And then there was the Clockwork man—something else to think about, to be wondered at.
At this point in the Doctor's reflections the door opened suddenly and Mrs. Masters ushered in the Curate, very dishevelled and obviously in need of immediate medical attention. His collar was all awry, and the look upon his face was that of a man who has looked long and fixedly at some object utterly frightful and could not rid himself of the image. "I've had a shock," he began, trying pathetically to smile recognition. "Sorry disturb you—meal time—" He sank into a saddle-bag chair and waved limp arms expressively. "There was a man—" he got out.
The Doctor wiped his mouth and produced a stethoscope. His manner became soothingly professional. He murmured sympathetic phrases and pulled a chair closer to his patient.
"There was a man," continued the Curate, in ancient-mariner-like tones, "at the Templars' Hall. I thought he was the conjurer, but he wasn't—at least, I don't think so. He did things—impossible things—"
"What sort of things," enquired the Doctor, slowly, as he listened to the Curate's heart. "You must make an effort to steady yourself."
"He—he made things appear," gasped the Curate, with a great effort, "out of nowhere—positively."
"Well, isn't that what conjurers are supposed to do?" observed the Doctor, blandly.
But the Curate shook his head. Fortunately, in his professional character there was no need for the Doctor to exhibit surprise. On the contrary, it was necessary, for his patient's sake, to exercise control. He leaned against the mantelpiece and listened attentively to the Curate's hurried account of his encounter with the Clockwork man, and shook his head gravely.
"Well, now," he prescribed, "complete rest for a few days, in a sitting posture. I'll give you something to quieten you down. Evidently you've had a shock."
"It's very hard," the Curate complained, "that my infirmity should have prevented me from seeing more. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak."
"Very likely," the Doctor suggested, "someone has played a trick upon you. Perhaps your own nerves are partly to blame. Men with highly strung nerves like you are very liable to—er—hallucinations."
"I wonder," said the Curate, grasping the edge of his chair, "I wonder, now, if Moses felt like this when he saw the burning bush."
"Ah, very likely," rejoined the Doctor, glad of the opportunity to enforce his analogy. "There's not the least doubt that many so-called miracles in the past had their origin in some pathological condition improperly understood at the time. Moses probably suffered from some sort of hysteria—a sort of hypnosis. Even in those days there was the problem of nervous breakdown."
His voice died away. The Curate was not actually shaking his head, but there was upon his features an expression of incredulity, the like of which the Doctor had not seen before upon a human face, for it was the incredulity of a man to whom all arguments against the incredible are in themselves unbelievable. It was a grotesque expression, and with it there went a pathetic fluttering of the Curate's eyelids, a twitching of his lips, a clasping of small white hands.
"I'm afraid your explanation won't hold water," he rejoined. "I can't bring myself not to believe in what I saw. You see, all my life I have been trying to believe in miracles, in manifestations. I have always said that if only we could bring ourselves to accept what is not obvious. My best sermons have been uponthat subject: of the desirability of getting ourselves into the receptive state. Sometimes the Vicar has objected. He seemed to think I was piling it on deliberately. But I assure you, Doctor Allingham, that I have always wanted to believe—and, in this case, it was only my infirmity and my unfortunate nervousness that led me to lose such an opportunity."
The Doctor drew himself up stiffly, and just perceptibly indicated the door. "I think you need a holiday," he remarked, "and a change from theological pursuits. And don't forget. Rest, for a few days, in a sitting posture."
"Thank you," the Curate beamed, "I'm afraid the Vicar will be very annoyed, but it can't be helped."
They were in the hall now, and the Doctor was holding the street door open.
"But ithappened," the Curate whispered. "It really didhappen—and we shall hear and see more. I only hope I shall be well enough to stand it. We are living in great days."
He hovered on the doorstep, rubbing his hands together and looking timidly up at the stars as though half expecting to see a sign. "It distressed me at first," he resumed, "because he was such an odd-looking person, and the whole experience was really on the humorous side. I wanted to laugh at him,and it made me feel so disgraceful. But I'm quite sure he was a manifestation of something, perhaps an apotheosis."
"Don't hurry home," warned the Doctor. "Take things quietly."
"Oh, yes, of course. The body is a frail instrument. One forgets that. So good of you. But the spirit endures. Good night."
He glided along the deserted High Street. The Doctor held the door ajar for a long while and watched that frail figure, nursing a tremendous conviction and hurrying along, in spite of instructions to the contrary.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CLOCKWORK MAN EXPLAINS HIMSELF
I
Latethat evening the Doctor returned from a confinement case, which had taken him to one of the outlying villages near Great Wymering. The engine was grinding and straining as the car slowly ascended a steep incline that led into the town; and the Doctor leaned forward in the seat, both hands gripping the wheel, and his eyes peering through the wind-screen at the stretch of well-lit road ahead of him.
He had almost reached the top of the hill, and was about to change his gear, when a figure loomed up out of the darkness and made straight for the car. The Doctor hastily jammed his brake down, but too late to avert a collision. There was a violent bump; and the next moment the car began running backwards down the hill, followed by the figure, who had apparently suffered no inconvenience from the contact.
Aware that his brakes were not strong enough to avert another disaster, the Doctor deftly turned the car sideways and ran backwards into the hedge. He leapt out into the road and approached the still moving figure.
"What the devil!"
The figure stopped with startling suddenness, but offered no explanation.
"What are you playing at?" the Doctor demanded, glancing at the crumpled bonnet of his car. "It's a wonder I didn't kill you."
And then, as he approached nearer to that impassive form, staring at him with eyes that glittered luridly in the darkness, he recognised something familiar about his appearance. At the same moment he realised that this singular individual had actually run into the car without apparently incurring the least harm. The reflection rendered the Doctor speechless for a few seconds; he could only stare confusedly at the Clockwork man. The latter remained static, as though, in his turn, trying to grasp the significance of what had happened.
It occurred to the Doctor that here was an opportunity to investigate certain matters.
"Look here," he broke out, after a collected pause, "once and for all, who are you?"
A question, sharply put, generally produced some kind of effect upon the Clockwork man. It seemed to release the mechanism in his brain that made coherent speech possible. But his reply was disconcerting.
"Who are you?" he demanded, after a preliminary click or two.
"I am a doctor," said Allingham, rather taken back, "a medical man. If you are hurt at all—"
An extra gleam of light shone in the other's eye, and he seemed to ponder deeply over this statement.
"Does that mean that you can mend people?" he enquired, at last.
"Why yes, I suppose it does," Allingham admitted, not knowing what else to say.
The Clockwork man sighed, a long, whistling sigh. "I wish you would mend me. I'm all wrong you know. Something has got out of place, I think. My clock won't work properly."
"Your clock," echoed the doctor.
"It's rather difficult to explain," the Clockwork man continued, "but so far as I remember, doctors were people who used to mend human beings before the days of the clock. Now they are called mechanics. But it amounts to the same thing."
"If you will come with me to my surgery," the Doctor suggested, with as much calmness as he could assume, "I'll do my best for you."
The Clockwork man bowed stiffly. "Thank you. Of course, I'm a little better than I was, but my ears still flap occasionally."
The Doctor scarcely heard this. He hadturned aside and stooped down in order to rewind the engine of his car. When he looked up again he beheld an extraordinary sight.
The Clockwork man was standing by his side, a comic expression of pity and misgiving animating his crude features. With one hand he was softly stroking the damaged bonnet of the car.
"Poor thing," he was saying, "It must be suffering dreadfully. Iamso sorry."
Allingham paused in the turning of the handle and stared, aghast, at his companion. There was no mistaking the significance of the remark, and it had been spoken in tones of strange tenderness. Rapidly there swept across the Doctor's mind a sensation of complete conviction. If there was any further proof required of the truth of Gregg's conjecture, surely it was expressed in this apparently insane and yet obviously sincere solicitude on the part of the Clockwork man for an inanimate machine? He recognised in the mechanism before him a member of his own species!
The thing was at once preposterous and rational, and the Doctor almost yielded to a desire to laugh hysterically. Then, with a final jerk of the handle, he started the engine and opened the door of the car for the Clockwork man to enter. The latter, after making several absurd attempts to mount the step in theordinary manner, stumbled and fell head foremost into the interior. The Doctor followed, and picking up the prostrate figure, placed him in a sitting posture upon the seat. He was extraordinarily light, and there was something about the feel of his body that sent a thrill of apprehension down the Doctor's spine. He was thoroughly frightened by now, and the manner in which his companion took everything for granted only increased his alarm.
"I know one thing," the Clockwork man remarked, as the car began to move, "I'm devilish hungry."
II
That the Clockwork man was likely to prove a source of embarrassment to him in more ways than one was demonstrated to the Doctor almost as soon as they entered the house. Mrs. Masters, who was laying the supper, regarded the visitor with a slight huffiness. He obtruded upon her vision as an extra meal for which she was not prepared. And the Doctor's manner was not reassuring. He seemed, for the time being, to lack that urbanity which usually enabled him to smooth over the awkward situations in life. It was unfortunate, perhaps, that he should have allowed Mrs. Masters to develop an attitude of distrust, but he wasnervous, and that was sufficient to put the good lady on her guard.
"Lay an extra place, will you, Mrs. Masters," the Doctor had requested as they entered the room.
"I'm afraid you'll 'ave to make do," was the sharp rejoinder, for there was not much on the table, and the Doctor favoured a light supper. "There's watercress," she added, defensively.
"Care for watercress?" enquired the Doctor, trying hard to glance casually at his guest.
The Clockwork man stared blankly at his interrogator. "Watercress," he remarked, "is not much in my line. Something solid, if you have it, and as much as possible. I feel a trifle faint."
He sat down rather hurriedly, on the couch, and the Doctor scanned him anxiously for symptoms. But there were none of an alarming character. He had not removed his borrowed hat and wig.
"Bring up anything you can find," the Doctor whispered in Mrs. Masters' ear, "my friend has had rather a long journey. Anything you can find. Surely we have things in tins."
His further suggestions were drowned by an enormous hyæna-like yawn coming from the direction of the couch. It was followed by another, even more prodigious. The roomfairly vibrated with the Clockwork man's uncouth expression of omnivorous appetite.
"Bless us!" Mrs. Masters could not help saying. "Manners!"
"Is there anything you particularly fancy?" enquired the Doctor.
"Eggs," announced the figure on the couch. "Large quantities of eggs—infinite eggs."
"See what you can do in the matter of eggs,'' urged the Doctor, and Mrs. Masters departed, with the light of expedition in her eye, for to feed a hungry man, even one whom she regarded with suspicion, was part of her religion.
"I'm afraid I put you to great inconvenience," murmured the visitor, still yawning and rolling about on the couch. "The fact is, I ought to be able toproducethings—but that part of me seems to have gone wrong again. I did make a start—but it was only a flash in the pan. So sorry if I'm a nuisance."
"Not at all," said the Doctor, endeavouring without much success to treat his guest as an ordinary being, "I am to blame. I ought to have realised that you would require nourishment. But, of course, I am still in the dark—"
He paused abruptly, aware that certain peculiar changes were taking place in the physiognomy of the Clockwork man. His strange organism seemed to be undergoing a series of exceedingly swift and complicatedphysical and chemical processes. His complexion changed colour rapidly, passing from its usual pallor to a deep greenish hue, and then to a hectic flush. Concurrent with this, there was a puzzling movement of the corpuscles and cells just beneath the skin.
The Doctor was scarcely as yet in the mind to study these phenomena accurately. At the back of his mind there was the thought of Mrs. Masters returning with the supper. He tried to resume ordinary speech, but the Clockwork man seemed abstracted, and the unfamiliarity of his appearance increased every second. It seemed to the Doctor that he had remembered a little dimple on the middle of the Clockwork man's chin, but now he couldn't see the dimple. It was covered with something brownish and delicate, something that was rapidly spreading until it became almost obvious.
"You see," exclaimed the Doctor, making a violent effort to ignore his own perceptions, "it's all so unexpected. I'm afraid I shan't be able to render you much assistance until I know the actual facts, and even then—"
He gripped the back of a chair. It was no longer possible for him to deceive himself about the mysterious appearance on the Clockwork man's chin. He was growing a beard—swiftly and visibly. Already some of the hairs had reached to his collar.
"Ibegyour pardon," said the Clockwork man, suddenly becoming conscious of the hirsute development. "Irregular growth—most inconvenient—it's due to my condition—I'm all to pieces, you know—things happen spontaneously." He appeared to be struggling hard to reverse some process within himself, but the beard continued to grow.
The Doctor found his voice again. "Great heavens," he burst out, in a hysterical shout. "Stop it. Youmuststop it—I simply can't stand it."
He had visions of a room full of golden brown beard. It was the most appalling thing he had ever witnessed, and there was no trickery about it. The beard had actually grown before his eyes, and it had now reached to the second button of the Clockwork man's waistcoat. And, at any moment, Mrs. Masters might return!
Suddenly, with a violent effort involving two sharp flappings of his ears, the Clockwork man mastered his difficulty. He appeared to set in action some swift depilatory process. The beard vanished as if by magic. The doctor collapsed into a chair.
"You mustn't do anything like that again," he muttered hoarsely. "You—must—let—me—know—when—you—feel it—coming on."
In spite of his agitation, it occurred to himthat he must be prepared for worse shocks than this. It was no use giving way to panic. Incredible as had been the cricketing performance, the magical flight, and now this ridiculously sudden growth of beard, there were indications about the Clockwork man that pointed to still further abnormalities. The Doctor braced himself up to face the worst; he had no theory at all with which to explain these staggering manifestations, and it seemed more than likely that the ghastly serio-comic figure seated on the couch would presently offer some explanation of his own.
A few moments later Mrs. Masters entered the room bearing a tray with the promised meal. True to her instinct, the good soul must have searched the remotest corners of her pantry in order to provide what she evidently regarded as but an apology of a repast. Little did she know for what Brobdingnagian appetite she was catering! At the sight of the six gleaming white eggs in their cups, the guest made a movement expressive of the direction of his desire, if not of very sanguine hope of their fulfilment. Besides eggs, there were several piles of sandwiches, bread and butter, and assorted cakes.
Mrs. Masters had scarcely murmured her apologies for the best she could do at such short notice, and retired, than the Clockworkman set to with an avidity that appalled and disgusted the Doctor. The six eggs were cracked and swallowed in as many seconds. The rest of the food disappeared in a series of jerks, accompanied by intense vibration of the jaws; the whole process of swallowing resembling the pulsations of the cylinders of a petrol engine. So rapid were the vibrations, that the whole of the lower part of the Clockwork man's face was only visible as a multiplicity of blurred outlines.
The commotion subsided as abruptly as it had begun, and the Doctor enquired, with as much grace as his outraged instincts would allow, whether he could offer him any more.
"I have still," said the Clockwork man, locating his feeling by placing a hand sharply against his stomach, "an emptiness here."
"Dear me," muttered the Doctor, "you find us rather short at present. I must think of something." He went on talking, as though to gain time. "It's quite obvious, of course, that you need more than an average person. I ought to have realised. There would be exaggerated metabolism—naturally, to sustain exaggerated function. But, of course, the—er—motive force behind this extraordinary efficiency of yours is still a mystery to me. Am I right in assuming that there is a sort of mechanism?"
"It makes everything go faster," observed the Clockwork man, "and more accurately."
"Quite," murmured the Doctor. He was leaning forward now, with his elbows resting on the table and his head on one side. "I can see that. There are certain things about you that strike one as being obvious. But what beats me at present is how—and where—" he looked, figuratively speaking, at the inside of the Clockwork man, "I mean, in what part of your anatomy the—er—motive force is situated."
"The functioning principle," said the Clockwork man, "is distributed throughout, but the clock—" His words ran on incoherently for a few moments and ended in an abrupt explosion that nearly lifted him out of his seat. "Beg pardon—what I mean to say is that the clock—wallabaloo—wum—wum—"
"I am prepared to take that for granted," put in the Doctor, coughing slightly.
"You must understand," resumed the Clockwork man, making a rather painful effort to fold his arms and look natural, "you must understand—click—click—that it is difficult for me to carry on conversation in this manner. Not only are my speech centres rather disordered—G-r-r-r-r-r-r—but I am not really accustomed to expressing my thoughtsin this way (here there was a loud spinning noise, like a sewing machine, and rising to a rapid crescendo). My brain is—so—constituted that action—except in a multiform world—is bound to be somewhat spasmodic—Pfft—Pfft—Pfft. In fact—Pfft—it is only—Pfft—because I am in such a hope—hope—hopeless condition that I am able to converse with you at all."
"I see," said Allingham, slowly, "it is because you are, so to speak, temporarily incapacitated, that you are able to come down to the level of our world."
"It's an extra—ordinary world," exclaimed the other, with a sudden vehemence that seemed to bring about a spasm of coherency. "I can't get used to it. Everything is so elementary and restricted. I wouldn't have thought it possible that even in the twentieth century things would have been so backward. I always thought that this age was supposed to be the beginning. History says the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were full of stir and enquiry. The mind of man was awakening. But it is strange how little has been done. I see no signs of the great movement. Why, you have not yet grasped the importance of the machines."
"We have automobiles and flying machines," interrupted Allingham, weakly.
"And you treat them like slaves," retorted the Clockwork man. "That fact was revealed to me by your callous behaviour towards your motor car. It was not until man began to respect the machines that his real history begun. What ideas have you about the relation of man to the outer cosmos?"
"We have a theory of relativity," Allingham ventured.
"Einstein!" The Clockwork man's features altered just perceptibly to an expression of faint surprise. "Is he already born?"
"He is beginning to be understood. And some attempt is being made to popularise his theory. But I don't know that I altogether agree."
The Doctor hesitated, aware of the uselessness of dissension upon such a subject where his companion was concerned. Another idea came into his head. "What sort of a world is yours? To look at, I mean. How does it appear to the eye and touch?"
"It is amultiformworld," replied the Clockwork man (he had managed to fold his arms now, and apart from a certain stiffness his attitude was fairly normal). "Now, your world has a certain definite shape. That is what puzzles me so. There is one of everything. One sky, and one floor. Everything is fixed and stable. At least, so it appears tome. And then you have objects placed about in certain positions, trees, houses,lamp-posts—and they never alter their positions. It reminds me of the scenery they used in the old theatres. Now, in my world everything is constantly moving, and there is not one of everything, but always there are a great many of each thing. The universe has no definite shape at all. The sky does not look, like yours does, simply a sort of inverted bowl. It is a shapeless void. But what strikes me so forcibly about your world is that everything appears to be leading somewhere, and you expect always to come to the end of things. But in my world everything goes on for ever."
"But the streets and houses?" hazarded Allingham, "aren't they like ours?"
The Clockwork man shook his head. "We have houses, but they are not full of things like yours are, and we don'tlivein them. They are simply places where we go when we take ourselves to pieces or overhaul ourselves. They are—" his mouth opened very wide, "the nearest approach to fixed objects that we have, and we regard them as jumping-off places for successive excursions into various dimensions. Streets are of course unnecessary, since the only object of a street is to lead from one place to another, and we do that sort of thing in other ways. Again, our houses arenot placed together in the absurd fashion of yours. They are anywhere and everywhere, and nowhere and nowhen. For instance, I live in the day before yesterday and my friend in the day after to-morrow."
"I begin to grasp what you mean," said Allingham, digging his chin into his hands, "as an idea, that is. It seems to me that, to borrow the words of Shakespeare, I have long dreamed of such a kind of man as you. But now that you are before me, in the—er—flesh, I find myself unable to accept you."
The unfortunate Doctor was trying hard to substitute a genuine interest in the Clockwork man for a feeling of panic, but he was not very successful. "You seem to me," he added, rather lamely, "so very theoretical."
And then he remembered the sudden growth of beard, and decided that it was useless to pursue that last thin thread of suspicion in his mind. For several seconds he said nothing at all, and the Clockwork man seemed to take advantage of the pause in order to wind himself up to a new pitch of coherency.
"It would be ridiculous," he began, after several thoracic bifurcations, "for me to explain myself more fully to you. Unless you had a clock you couldn't possibly understand. But I hope I have made it clear that my world is a multiform world. It has a thousandmanifestations as compared to one of yours. It is a world of many dimensions, and every dimension is crowded with people and things. Only they don't get in each other's way, like you do, because there are always other dimensions at hand."
"That I can follow," said the Doctor, wrinkling his brows, "that seems to me fairly clear. I can just grasp that, as the hypothesis of another sort of world. But what I don't understand, what I can't begin to understand, is how you work, how this mechanism which you talk about functions."
He delivered this last sentence rather in the manner of an ultimatum, and the Clockwork man seemed to brood over it for a few seconds. He was apparently puzzled by the question, and hard mechanical lines appeared upon his forehead and began slowly chasing one another out of existence. It reminded the Doctor of Venetian blinds being pulled up and down very rapidly.
"Well," the reply was shot out at last, "how doyouwork?" The repartee of the Clockwork man was none the less effective for being suspended, as it were, for a second or two before delivery.
The doctor gasped slightly and released his hold upon a mustard pot. He came up to the rebound with a new suggestion.
"Now, that's a good idea. We might arrive at something by comparison. I never thought of that." He grasped the mustard pot again and tried to arrange certain matters in his mind. "It's a little difficult to know where to begin," he temporised.
"Begin at the end, if you like," suggested the Clockwork man, affably. "It's all the same to me. First and last, upside or inside, front or back—it all conveys the same idea to me."
"We are creatures of action," hazarded the Doctor, with the air of a man embarking upon a long mental voyage, "we act from certain motives. There is a principle known as Cause and Effect. Everything is related. Every action has its equal and opposite re-action. Nobody can do anything, or even think anything, without producing some change, however slight, in the general flow of things. Every movement that we make, almost every thought that passes through our minds, starts another ripple upon the surface of time, upon this endless stream of cause and effect."
"Ah," interrupted the Clockwork man, placing a finger to the side of his nose, "I begin to understand. You work upon a different principle, or rather an antiquated principle. You see, all that has been solvednow. The clock works all that out in advance. It calculates ahead of our conscious selves. No doubt we still go through the same processes,sub-consciously, all such processes that relate to Cause and Effect. But we, that is, ourselves, are the resultant of such calculations, and the only actions we are conscious of are those which are expressed asconsequents."
Allingham passed a hand across his forehead. "It all seems so feasible," he remarked, "once you grasp the mechanism. But what I don't understand—"
Here, however, the discussion came to an abrupt conclusion, for something was happening to the Clockwork man.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE CLOCK
I
Atfirst it seemed to the Doctor that his companion was about to explain matters further. There was still something vaguely communicative about his manner, and a kind of noise issued from his rapidly moving jaws.
But it was not a human noise. It began with a succession of deep-toned growls and grunts, and ended abruptly in a distinct bark.
"Hydrophobia," flashed through the Doctor's mind, but he dismissed the idea immediately. He had lit a cigarette in order to soothe his nerves. He was trying so hard to rationalise the whole proceeding, to fit the Clockwork man into some remotely possible order of things; but it was a difficult process, for no sooner had he grouped certain ideas in his head than some fresh manifestation took place which rendered all previous theories futile. At the present moment, for instance, it was obvious that some new kind of structural alteration was taking place in the Clockwork man's physiognomy. The phenomenon couldhardly be classed in the same category as the sudden growth of beard, although there were points in common. Hair was again visible, this time spread all over the rounded face and on the jaw; the nose was receding and flattening out; the eyes were dwindling in size, and the expression in them changed into a dull stare. The bark was repeated and followed by an angry rumbling.
The Doctor dropped his cigarette on the plate before him and grasped the edges of the table. His eyes were riveted upon that ghastly spectacle of transmutation.
"Oh, God," he cried out, at last, and shivering from head to foot. "Are you doing these things on purpose to frighten me, or can't you,can'tyou help it? Do you think I don't believe you? Do you think I can keep on deceiving myself? I tell you I'm ready to believe anything—I capitulate—I only ask you to let me down lightly. I'm only human, and human nerves weren't made to stand this."
"G-R-R-R-r-r-r-r-r," growled the Clockwork man. "WOW—WOW—can't help it—WOUGH—WOUGH—most regrettable—wow—wow—atavism—tendency to return—remote species—moment's notice—family failing—darwinism—better in a moment—something gone wrong with the controls.There—that'sdone it. Phew!"
His face suddenly cleared, and all trace of the canine resemblance vanished as if by magic. He got up and took two or three jerk-like strides up and down the room. "Must keep going—when I feel like this—either food or violent stimulus—otherwise the confounded thing runs down—and there you are."
He paused and confronted Allingham, who had risen from his chair and was still trembling.
"How can I help it?" implored the Clockwork man, in despair. "They made me like this. I don't want to alarm you—but, you know, it alarmsmesometimes. You can't imagine how trying it is to feel that at any moment you might change into something else—some horrible tree-climbing ancestor. The thing ought not to happen, but it's always possible. They should have thought of that when they made the clock."
"It mustn't happen," said the Doctor, recovering slightly, "that's the flat fact. If it's food you require, then food you shall have."
It had suddenly flashed across his fevered mind that downstairs in the surgery there lay a collection of tinned foods and patent medicines, samples that had been sent for him to test. Rather than risk a further manifestation of collapse on the part of the Clockwork-man, he would sacrifice these.
II
He was only just in time. On the way down the stairs that led to the basement surgery the Clockwork man began to flap his ears violently, and it was then that the Doctor noticed for the first time this circumstance that had so puzzled Arthur Withers. But the faculty seemed, in comparison with other exhibitions, a mere trifle, a sort of mannerism that one might expect from a being so strangely constituted.
Pushing his companion into the surgery, the Doctor commenced opening tins for all he was worth. The process calmed him, and he had time to think a little. For half an hour he opened tins, and passed them over to the Clockwork man, without noticing very much what the latter did with them. Then he went on to bottles containing patent foods, phosphates, hypophosphates, glycero-hypophosphates, all the phosphates in fact, combined with malt or other substances, which might be considered almost necessary as an auxiliary diet for the Clockwork man.
At least, the latter seemed grateful to receive whatever was given to him, and his general manner became decidedly more possible. There seemed less chance now of a drasticrelapse. The Doctor had locked the door of the surgery. It would be embarrassing to be discovered in such circumstances, and Mrs. Masters might faint with horror at the sight of the empty tins and bottles and the gorging visitor. It was symptomatic of the Doctor's frame of mind that even now the one thing he dreaded more than anything else was the intrusion of a curious world into this monstrous proceeding. He had been forced into accepting the evidence of his own eyes, but there still remained in him a strong desire to hush up the affair, to protect the world at large from so fierce a shock to its established ideas.
The surgery was a low-pitched apartment, and it was approached by patients from the outside by way of the area steps. One door communicated with the dark passage that led to the kitchen quarters, and the other opened directly upon the area. A double row of shelves, well stocked with bottles, occupied the centre of the room and divided it into two halves. Beneath the window stood the Doctor's neat bureau, and to the left of this was a low couch beside the wall. A shaded lamp on the desk was sufficient to light the room for ordinary purposes; but there was a gas burner near the further door, which had to be lit when the Doctor was engaged uponsome very close examination or had to perform a slight operation. Directly underneath this burner there stood an arm-chair of ample proportions, and it was here that the Clockwork man had seated himself at the beginning of his orgy.
The Doctor sat upon the couch, with his hands limply hanging between his knees. He was conscious of perspiration, but made no attempt to wipe his forehead. His heart was knocking hard against his ribs, and occasionally missing a beat. He noticed this fact also, but it caused him little concern. Now and again he looked swiftly at the Clockwork man and studied his extraordinary method of mastication, the rapid vibratory movement of the jaws, the apparent absence of any kind of voluntary effort.
Uppermost in the Doctor's mind was the reflection that he of all persons should have been selected by an undiscriminating providence to undergo this distressing and entirely unprecedented experience. It was an ironic commentary upon his reactionary views and his comfortable doctrine of common sense. He had been convinced in spite of himself, and the effort to resist conviction had strained his mental powers uncomfortably. He felt very strongly his inability to cope with the many problems that would be sure to arise inconnection with the Clockwork man. It was too much for one man's brain. There would have to be a convocation of all the cleverest men in Europe in order to investigate such an appalling revelation. He pictured himself in the act of introducing this genuine being from a future age, and the description he would have to give of all that had happened in connection with him. Even that prospect set his brain reeling. He would like to be able to shirk the issue. It was enough to have looked upon this archetype of the future; the problem now was to forget his existence.
But that would be impossible. The Clockwork man was the realisation of the future There was no evading that. The future. Man had evolved into this. He had succeeded somehow in adding to his normal powers some kind of mechanism that opened up vast possibilities of action in all sorts of dimensions. There must have been an enormous preparatory period before the thing became finally possible, generations of striving and failure and further experiment. But the indefatigable spirit of man had triumphed in the end. He had arisen at last superior to Time and Space, and taken his place in the centre of the universe. It was a fulfilment of all the prophecies of the great scientists since the discovery of evolution.
Such reflections flitted hazily through the Doctor's mind as he strove in vain to find a practical solution of the problem. What was the clock? He knew, from hearsay, that it was situated at the back of this strange being's head. Tom Driver had seen it, and described it in his clumsy fashion. Since that episode the Doctor had visualised something in the nature of an instrument affixed to the Clockwork man's head, and perhaps connected with his cerebral processes. Was it a kind of super-brain? Had there been found some means of lengthening the convolutions of the human brain, so that man's thought travelled further and so enabled him to arrive more swiftly at ultimate conclusions? That seemed suggestive. It must be that in some way the cerebral energy of man had been stored up, as electricity in a battery, and then released by mechanical processes.
At least, that was the vague conclusion that came into the Doctor's mind and stuck there. It was the only theory at all consonant with his own knowledge of human anatomy. All physiological action could be traced to the passage of nervous energy from one centre to another, and it was obvious that, in the case of the Clockwork man, such energy was subjected to enormous acceleration and probably distributed along specially prepared paths. Therewas nothing in the science of neuropathy to account for such disturbances and reactions. There were neural freaks—the Doctor had himself treated some remarkable cases of nervous disorder—but the behaviour of the Clockwork man could not be explained by any principle within human knowledge. Not the least puzzling circumstance about him was the fact that now and again his speech and manner made it impossible to accept the supposition or mechanical origin; whilst at other times his antics induced a positive conviction that he was really a sort of highly perfected toy.
Presently the Clockwork man got up and began walking up and down the room, in his slow, flat-footed manner.
"How do you feel now?" ventured the Doctor, arousing himself with an effort.
"Oh, so, so," sighed the other, "only so, so—I can't expect to feel myself, you know." He reached to the end of the room, and jerking himself round, started on the return journey. The Doctor arose slowly and remained standing. There was barely room for two people to walk up and down.
"Anything might happen," the Clockwork man continued, plaintively, "I feel as though I might slip again, you know—slip back another thousand years or so." He turned again. "I've got to get worse before I getbetter," he sighed, and then stopped to examine the rows of bottles arranged along the shelves.
"What are these?" he enquired.
"Medicines," said the Doctor, without enthusiasm.
"Do they help people to work?"
"H'm, yes—chemical action—tonics. People get run down, and I have to give them something to stimulate the system."
"I see," the Clockwork man nodded sagely. "But they wouldn't be any use to me. What I need is adjustment, regulation." He looked hard at the doctor, with a pathetic expression of enquiry. "My clock—" he began, and stopped abruptly.
They were facing one another now. The doctor swallowed hard several times, and he felt the blood tingling in his temples. The dreaded moment had come. He had got to see this strange instrument that distinguished the Clockwork man from ordinary mortals. There was no shrinking from the eerie experience. Underneath that borrowed hat and wig there was something—something utterly strange and outside the pale of human ingenuity. In the name of common humanity it was incumbent upon the Doctor to face the shock of this revelation, and yet he shrunk from it like a frightened child. He felt notrace of curiosity, no feverish anxiety to investigate this mystery of the future. His knees trembled violently. He did not want to see the clock. He would have given a hundred pounds to be spared the ordeal before him.
Slowly, with his customary stiffness of movement, the Clockwork man raised his arms upwards and removed the soft clerical hat. He held it aloft, as though uncertain what to do with it, and the Doctor took it from him with a shaking hand.
Next moment the wig came off, and there was disclosed to the Doctor's gaze a bald cranium.
Then the Clockwork man turned himself slowly round.
The Doctor shot out a hand and gripped the framework of the shelves. As his eyes rested upon the object that now confronted him, he swung slowly round until his body was partly supported by the shelves. His mouth opened wide and remained stretched to its limit.
At first, what he saw looked like another face, only it was round and polished. A second glance made it quite plain that instead of a back to the Clockwork man's head, there was a sort of glass dial, beneath which the doctor dimly made out myriads of indicators, tiny hands that moved round a circle markedwith inconceivably minute divisions. Some of the hands moved slowly, some only just visibly, whilst others spun round with such speed that they left only a blurred impression of a vibratant rotary movement. Besides the hands there were stops, queer-shaped knobs and diminutive buttons, each one marked with a small, neat number. Little metal flaps fluttered quickly and irregularly, like the indicators on a telephone switchboard. There was a faint throbbing and commotion, a suggestion of power at high pressure.