"Got down! Got down! Why, my dear sir, it is twelve feet by nine, and parts of it are so delicate that a rude shake would ruin them. Got down! Why it is shafted to the wall. All my power comes through the wall, from the chimney. When it is shifted no one will be able to stir bolt or nut but me. _I_ must do it, sir. No other man living knows anything about it. No other man could understand it. Fancy anyone but myself touching it! Why he might do more harm in an hour than I could put right in a year, ay, in three years. Well, my time is up. Good night, gentlemen."
He scrambled off his high stool and was quickly out of the bar. It was now five minutes to twelve o'clock right time.
He crossed Welbeck Street and opening the private door of Forbes's in Chetwynd Street went in, closing the door after him.
As he came out John Timmons emerged from the public bar of the Hanover, and turned into Welbeck Place. He went on until he came opposite the window of the clock-room. Here he stood still, thrust his hands deep down in his trousers' pockets, and leaning his back against the wall, prepared to watch with his own eyes the winding of the clock.
In less than five minutes the window of the top room, which had been dark, gradually grew illumined until the light came full through the transparent oiled muslin curtain. Timmons could see for all practical purposes as plainly as through glass.
"There Leigh is, anyway," thought Timmons, "working away at his lever. Can it be he was doing the same thing at this hour last night? Nonsense. He was walking away from this place with me at this hour last night as sure as I am here now. But what did he say himself to-day? I shouldn't mind Stamer, for he is a fool. But the landlord and Stamer say the same thing, and Leigh himself said it too this day. I must be going mad.
"There, he is turning round now and nodding to the men in the bar. They said he did the same last night, and, as I live, there's the clock we were under striking the quarter past again! I must be going mad. I begin to think last night must have been all a dream with me. I don't think he's all right. I don't believe in witchcraft, but I do believe in devilry, and there's something wrong here. I'll watch this out anyway. I must bring him to book over it. I'll tell him straight what I know--that is if I know anything and am not going mad----"
Whurr--whizz!
"Why what's that over head?"
Timmons looked up, but saw nothing.