“There’s the clock,” said Manders, pointing to an ancient timepiece on the wall.
“No—in here! In this cupboard! I tell you I hear it ticking!”
“There are clock-work bombs—” Mrs. Parker cried out.
“You’re on, Eugenia,” said her son cordially. “Manders, clear the building instantly, and then open this cupboard! Snap into it!” They could all hear the ticking now, they were so quiet.
There was an instant when the tall young mountaineer seemed incapable of action, his rich coloring drained from his face, his piercing gaze dulled to a curious blankness: then he plunged for the door.
“Wait! Give me your keys!” Peter shouted, and Glen went after him calling.
“Luke! Luke! Give me the keys! We’ll get it out while you tell the hands! Wait, Luke!” She ran after him, down the hall, calling his name. Her voice came back to them, sharp, agonized.
Nancy Carey clasped her plumply pretty hands on her breast and her soft gaze was misted over. “Oh,” she breathed, “he is going to save the hands!”
“He is going to save himself!” Janice Jennings amended briskly. “Come on, Nancy!— Us for the Paul Revere!” She shepherded her swiftly to the door and out into the hall. “You go through those rooms and yell your head off! I’ll take this side! Beat it, dumb-bell!”
There were left then, in the dingy and unbeautiful office of the Altonia, only the President of the Federated Women’s Clubs of America and her trifling son, and the unseen thing which was ticking softly and swiftly behind the locked cupboard door, and in that tense moment they seemed to be taking each other’s measure.