The Sign at Six Read online

  CHAPTER III

  THE MOVING FINGER WRITES

  The condition of affairs in the Atlas Building lasted long enough to carrythe matter up to the experts in the employ of the companies; that is tosay, until about three o'clock the following morning. Then, withoutreason, and all at once, the whole building from top to bottom was a blazeof incandescent light.

  One of the men, stepping to the nearest telephone, unhooked the receiver.To his ear came the low busy hum of a live wire. Somebody touched a bellbutton, and the head janitor, running joyfully, two steps at a time, fromhis lair, cried out that his bell had rung.

  The little group of workmen and experts nodded in a competent andsatisfied manner, and began leisurely to pack their tools as though at thesuccessful completion of a long and difficult job.

  But every man jack of them knew perfectly well that the electricalapparatus of the building was now in exactly the same condition as it hadbeen the evening before. No repair work had followed a futileinvestigation.

  As the group moved toward the outer air, the head repair man quietlydropped behind. Surreptitiously he applied the slender cords of his pocketammeter to the zinc and carbon of the dead batteries concerning whosefreshness he and his assistant had argued. The delicate needle leapedforward, quivered like a snake's tongue, and hovered over a number.

  "Fifteen," read the repair man; and then, after a moment: "Hell!"

  The daily business, therefore, opened normally. The elevators shot fromfloor to floor; the telephones rang; the call-bells buzzed, and all waswell. At six o'clock came the scrub-woman; at half past seven the officeboys; at eight the clerks; a little later some of the heads; and preciselyat nine Malachi McCarthy, as was his invariable habit.

  As the bulky form of the political boss pushed around the leaves of therevolving door, the elevator starter glanced at his watch. This was not todetermine if McCarthy was on time, but to see if the watch was right.

  McCarthy had recovered his good humor. He threw a joke at the negropolishing the brass, and paused genially to exchange a word with theelevator starter.

  "Worked until about three o'clock," the latter answered a question. "Gotit fixed all right. No, they didn't say what was the matter. Something todo with the wires, I suppose."

  "Most like," agreed McCarthy.

  At this moment an elevator dropped from above and came to rest, like aswift bird alighting. The doors parted to let out a young man wearing thecap of the United Wireless.

  "Good morning, Mr. McCarthy," this young man remarked in passing. "Aren'tgoing into the sign-painting business, are you?" He laughed.

  "What ye givin' us, Mike?" demanded McCarthy.

  The young man wheeled to include the elevator starter in the joke.

  "Air was full of dope most of last night from some merry little jesterworking a toy, home-made. He just kept repeating the same thing--somethingabout 'McCarthy, at six o'clock you shall have a sign given unto you. Itworks,' over and over all night. Some new advertising dodge, I reckon.Didn't know but you were the McCarthy and were getting a present from someadmiring constituent."

  He threw back his head and laughed, but McCarthy's ready anger rose.

  "Where did the stuff come from?"

  "Out of the fresh air," replied the operator. "From most anywhere insidethe zone of communication."

  "Couldn't you tell who sent it?"

  "No way. It wasn't signed. Come from quite a distance, though."

  "How can you tell that?"

  "You can tell by the way it sounds. Say, they ought to be a law aboutthese amatoors cluttering up the air this way. Sometimes I got to pick myown dope out of a dozen or fifteen messages all ticking away in myheadpiece at once."

  "I know the crazy slob what sent 'em, all right, all right," growledMcCarthy. "He's nutty for fair."

  "Well, if he's nutty, I wish you'd hurry his little trip to Matteawan,"complained the operator, turning away.

  The boss went to his office, where he established himself behind histable-top desk. There all day he conducted a leisurely business ofmysterious import, sitting where the cool autumn breeze from the riverbrought its refreshment. His desk top held no papers; the writingmaterials lay undisturbed. Sometimes the office contained half a dozenpeople. Sometimes it was quite empty, and McCarthy sat drumming his bluntfingers on the window-sill, chewing a cigar, and gazing out over the cityhe owned.

  There were two other, inner, offices to McCarthy's establishment, in whichsat a private secretary and an office boy. Occasionally McCarthy, withsome especial visitor, retired to one of these for a more confidentialconversation. The secretary seemed always very busy; the office boy wasoften in the street. At noon McCarthy took lunch at a small round table inthe cafe below. When he reappeared at the elevator shaft, the elevatorstarter again verified his watch. Malachi McCarthy had but the one virtueof accuracy, and that had to do with matters of time. At five minutes ofsix he reached for his hat; at three minutes of six he boarded theelevator.

  "Runs all right to-day, Sam," he remarked genially to the boy whom he hadhalf throttled the evening before.

  He stood for a moment in the entrance of the building, enjoying the sightof the crowds hurrying to their cars, the elevated, the subway, and theferries. The clang and roar of the city pleased his senses, as a vesselvibrates to its master tone. McCarthy was feeling largely paternal as hestepped toward the corner, for to a great extent the destinies of thesepeople were in his hands.

  "Easy marks!" was his philanthropic expression of this sentiment.

  At the corner he stopped for a car. He glanced up at the clock of theMetropolitan tower. The bronze hand pointed to the stroke of six. As helooked, the first note of the quarter chimes rang out. The car swung thecorner and headed down the street. McCarthy stepped forward. The sweetchimes ceased their fourfold phrasing, and the great bell began its spacedand solemn booming.

  _One!--Two!--Three!--Four!--Five!--Six!_ McCarthy counted. At therecollection of a crazy message from the Unknown, he smiled. He steppedforward to hold up his hand at the car. Somewhat to his surprise the carhad already stopped some twenty feet away.

  McCarthy picked his way to the car.

  "Wonder you wouldn't stop at a crossing," he growled, swinging aboard.

  "Juice give out," explained the motorman.

  McCarthy clambered aboard and sat down in a comfortably filled car. Up anddown the perspective of the street could be seen other cars, also stalled.Ten minutes slipped by; then Malachi McCarthy grew impatient. With amuttered growl he rose, elbowed his way through the strap-hangers, andstepped to the street. A row of idle taxicabs stood in front of the AtlasBuilding. Into the first of these bounced McCarthy, throwing his addressto the expectant chauffeur.

  The man hopped down from his box, threw on the coil switch and ran to thefront. He turned the engine over the compression, but no explosionfollowed. He repeated the effort a dozen times. Then, grasping thestarting handle with a firmer grip, he "whirled" the engine--withoutresult.

  "What's the matter? Can't you make her go?" demanded McCarthy, thrustinghis head from the door.

  "Will you please listen, sir, and see if you hear a buzz when I turn herover?" requested the chauffeur.

  "I don't hear nothing," was the verdict.

  "I'm sorry, but you'll have to take another cab," then said the man. "Mycoil's gone back on me."

  McCarthy impatiently descended, entered the next taxi in line, andrepeated the same experience. By now the other chauffeurs, noticing thepredicament of their brethren, were anxiously and perspiringly at work.Not an engine answered the call of the road! A passing truck driver,grinning from ear to ear, drove slowly down the line, dealing out theancient jests rescued for the occasion from an oblivion to which theperfection of the automobile had consigned them.

  McCarthy added his mite; he was beginning to feel himself the victim of aseries of nagging impertinences, which he resented after his kind.

  "If," said he, "your company would put out something on th
e street besidesa bunch of retired grist-mills with clock dials hitched on to them, youmight be able to give the public some service. I've got lots of time.Don't hurry through your afternoon exercise on my account. Just buy alawn-mower and a chatelaine watch apiece--you'd do just as well."

  By now every man had his battery box open, McCarthy left them, puzzlingover the singular failure of the electrical apparatus, which is thenervous system of the modern automobile.

  He turned into Fifth Avenue. An astonishing sight met his eyes.

  The old days had returned. The center of the long roadway, down whichordinarily a long file of the purring monsters of gasoline creep and dash,shouldering aside the few hansoms and victorias remaining from a bygoneage, now showed but a swinging slashing trot of horses.

  Hansoms, hacks, broughams; up-raised whips, whirling in signal; the spatspat of horses' hoofs; all the obsolescent vehicles that ordinarily dozein hope along the stands of the side streets; it was a gay sight of thepast raised again for the moment to reality by the same mysterious blightthat had shadowed the Atlas Building the night before.

  Along the curbs, where they had been handpushed under direction from thetraffic squad, stood an unbroken line of automobiles. And the hood of eachwas raised for the eager tinkering of its chauffeur. Past them streamedthe horses, and the faces of their drivers were illumined by broad grins.

  McCarthy looked about him for a hansom. There was none unengaged. In fact,the boss soon determined that many others, like himself, were waiting fora chance at the first vacant one. Reluctantly he made up his mind to walk.He glanced up at the tower of the Metropolitan Building; then stared inastonishment. The hands of the great dial were still perpendicular--thehour indicated was still six o'clock!