THE CLOCK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23037, 14 May 1938, Page 14 (Supplement)

THE CLOCK

LIFE was good, it lay before him a shining road; ahd yet 1 they had found young Dr. Whipple, at twilight, slumped over his consultation desk, shot by his own hand. And now he lay here in his bed dying. "But why, why?" That was what John Matthes was thinking, over and over, fingering his stethoscope, staring down at the face of the man who had been his pupil and friend. For it, was not liko George Whipplo to do this thing. Beneath all his bantering charm was ambition —for wealth, for social distinction, for medical prestige. And he had been well on his way. Only yesterday the papers had announced his engagement to Amelie Reed, who was beautiful and rich and fitted to speed him to hi.s goal. And now Amelie Heed must be told. Sho was away for the week-end and John Matthes must call her. Ho did, and it tore at his heart, for he knew the voice of agony when he heard it. "But you can save him," sho cried frantically. "Why, you are tho best doctor in New York!" He winced at that, at her blind faith in him. "You will bo hero at nine?" ho asked gravely. "I believe he will last till then." She trusted him so implicitly and he could hold out only that feehle hope. His face grew dim and his head thrust forward belligerently.

"He must live until Miss Heed arrives in the morning," he told tho nurse. "Adrenalin will do it." He had adrenalin in his bag and gave the hypodermic injections himself, watching the fluttering pulse, feeling it, as the hours passed, not stronger hut holding its own. At two o'clock ho saw that ho had only threo doses left. It occurred to him that there must bo pome in Dr. Whipple's office and ho started to ask tho nurse to find it. Ho looked up at her, for almost the first time, and saw then how white she was.

"Taking it hard," he thought, "and •why not? After all, she's been Whipple's office mj,rse from the start." And she had been the one who had 'found him; had heard the shot from the examination room, off the office, and had rushed in to find him dying at his desk. Most women would have gone into hysterics; but hore she was, sticking to her post, efficient and capable. "Nerve," he thought, and, admiring it, Btill was a little chilled. "You must be all in," he said aloud. "Hadn't you better go to bed and let mo call another nurse?" Her voice sounded harsh almost grating. "I'd rather stay," she said. He observed her; she was reaching the end of her rope, but she did not know it. He thought a moment; he could order her to bed, hut ho saw how it was with her, realised that she had been Whipple's right hand and that it was her right to be with him to the end. "Very well," he said quietly, not arguing, "if you feel. sure you can stand it." "I can stand it," she said.

He gave the three o'clock hypodermic without asking her to go into the office to find more. "Putting it on a bit thick to have her go back in there." was his thought. Instead, he stepped out of the room, past the policeman at the door, and telephoned his own assistant. "Send over adrenalin ampoules bv a messenger." he told him. "And will you come up here around eight? I'm operating at nine, of course." "A messenger will be here presently," he told the elevator man. "Leave the package he brings in the hall." He went back into the bedroom, glad he had not sent Miss Goss back into that grisly office. He himself had shivered at entering it. had kept his eyes resolutely away from the desk, only to find them observing the examination room while he talked. He was tired, and he was growing old, and ho was grieved. He wanted never to enter Whipple's office again: Never again to see the desk, and the table in the other

room, and the pair of rubber gloves lying in the basin of antiseptic. He went over and' felt Whipple's pulse and found it had not changed. "He will be alive when she comes," ho said to the nurse, who did not answer, but sat, a figure of stone, beside the bed with her finders on the fluttering, feeble pulse. Wearily Dr. Matthes sat back in a deep chair. Nothing to do but to wait and to wonder, because it was his habit of mind to wonder, how Whipple had como to do this thing. The room was perfectly still except for the ticking of the old mahogany clock on the mantel. It grew loud, that ticking, marking off the moments of a man's life.

"It's Sunday night," said Miss Goss, and her words seemed to drop like stones into the silence. "That clock will probably stop some time to-morrow. The doctor wound it every Sunday night." Matthes said nothing, for there was nothing to say, and the clock that was to step to-morrow ticked on. It had looked down on George Whipple since childhood and in effect it seemed to mount guard over him now. Matthes leaned back against the chair. He must have a few hours' rest if that was possible. "Three operations to do to-morrow morning," he thought, and as though she read his mind Miss Goss spoke: "Aren't you operating; as usual to-morrow, Dr. Matthes?" And,

when ho wearily nodded yes, she went on: "Then why don't you lio down on the living room couch I" I can give -the stimulant and will call you it necessarv."

He considered that. It was logical, of course; no use his staying here. "There's a policeman outside the door," he said. "I'll tell him to call me at six. The adrenalin is 011 the mantel." But it was only a-quarter to six when the policeman called him, and it was too late then. Ainelie Reed . . .

well, it was too late for her. That did something to John Matthes. You could be a doctor and face death hundreds of times, but sometimes things got you. He left George Whipple and went over and leaned his arm 011 the mantel. Above his head was the clock and beside his elbow was the box labelled "Adrenalin." He stared at that box, at the medicine that had failed him. He couldn't quite understand how it had happened, so sure had he been that Whipple's heart could last until eight or nine. An obscure sense of guilt in having gone to rest filled him. Ho should, he felt, have stayed. Mechanically his hand reached out for the box and pressed it open, while his mind kept saying, "Why couldn't we have kept him going? Just for a little while longer?" Behind him Miss Goss was performing the last service she would ever do for George Whipple, but John Matthes did not hear her. His attention was

riveted on the box. After a while he spoke: "You gave the adrenalin at four and at fire, of course, Miss Goss?" "Yes, Dr. Matthes." "From this box?"

"Yes, from that box." Her tone said: "Of course, but what does it matter?" Then she seemed to hesitate. In the mirror above tho mantel, above the clock, he could see her straighten. "Why, is there anything wrong?" "Probably not," he said evenly. "I thought 1 had left only two here, but I may be mistaken. You see thore still are two in tho box." There was a long silence. "You must be mistaken," sho said at length. "I gave one at four and one at five. Exactly at those hours. ] can't remember anything about the four o'clock one except that the policeman outside got up and walked around, and at five—at five, exactly, after I had given the medication I wound the clock." .

"I see." Matthes looked up at the clock. Kept on looking at it, as if it were the onlv clock he had ever seen, as if something bad been revealed to him about clocks that ho had never thought of. And for the first time in his life he heard silence, a loud terrible silence, with a clock ticking like a heart-beat.

"Was it precisely five when you wound it?" he asked. "Strange for you to think of winding it —"

Short Story —(Copyright)

By TERESA HYDE PHILLIPS

"It was precisely five," she said, "and it wasn't strange." Her eyes wero appearing a little mad. ' You see," she said simply, us mad persons do, "I loved him. It seemed to mo everything couldn't stop. Something had to go 011 while he was still here." Ho turned and stared at her, at a woman who seemed no longer near the centre of lifo but somewhere far out on its chill periphery. And suddenly the whole thing fell into a pattern, piece by piece, like a truth that had been beating in upon him, like muftled hammering upon a distant door.

In all its clarity ho saw tho reason for tho woman's devotion to the young doctor. Matthes stood silently, pondering on tho amazing pattern that had taken place in his mind. Turning once more, ho surveyed the clock for a long moment, as if to make certain that his conclusions were not merely based >u the imaginings of his tired brain. Ho again glanced at the nurse as she continued her last sorvico for tho man dio professed to love. Outsido the sounds of the restless' police became more audible in the silent room. An air of tension crept into their inidst as Matthes continued his survey of her. His mind was now chaotic with thinking what was the best thing for him to do and how he was going to approach the cool calmness or George Whipple's nurse. Ono fact remained fixed to Matthes —this woman must have killed Whipple. Intentional or unintentional, was tho thing that puzzled him.

Her calm statement that she loved him left Matthes in a quandary. If she had expressed any other feeling but this for Whipple the pattern revolving in Matthes' mind would have fitted more smoothly. As if suddenly aware of his scrutiny for the first time, she stopped what she was doing and looked at John Matthes as ho stood leaning against the mantel upon which tho fateful clock was ticking regularly. Looking at her as she stood before him he suddenly came to a decision.

"So you loved him too much," he said, "to let another woman have him for life. You killed him, wearing those rubber gloves." Ho looked at her almost in pity, for he saw that she was bonumbed.

"She made her plans carefully," he thought. "But she didn't destroy the ampoules. How was she to guess that there were only two of them or that anyone would look in the box? And she's nervous, overwrought; no doubt, she couldn't think of everything." "You let him die," he said, "for you loved him too much to let another woman share his last hour."

Ho stepped aside, so that she could see the clock. "You wound it, of course," he said, "but you wound it soon after three, when I had left."

"No, it was five—" she began. And at his look sho stopped and stared at the clock. She did not speak. Nor did he. But, watching, her, he knew that she realised, at last, the full significance of that lie that needless lie which had conveyed so much to him, confirmed tho suspicion, growing apace in his mind.

They stood facing each other thus for a long minute as a look of uneasiness began to creep across her face. With the pattern now clearly defined in his mind Matthes suddenly came to a decision, that no one could wind the clock exactly at five, for at that time tb« hour hand was over the keyhole.