“Perhaps.” Dr. Stone’s face had become intent. “I think I’ll walk into the village with Lady. You’d better stay here, Joe. I may be gone a long time.”
He was gone three hours. When he returned he was whistling softly.
Darkness came early out of the drab day. Joe placed a log in the fireplace, and Dr. Stone smoked quietly and toasted his legs in the warmth of the blaze. At seven o’clock there were footsteps on the porch and a knock on the door. Frederick Wingate walked in.
“Still thinking of ghosts, Doctor?” he asked humorously. The afternoon’s ill-temper had disappeared.
The face of the blind man was inscrutable. “Still thinking,” he admitted.
And then, for a time, the Farley house and the ghoulish beat of its unseen heart seemed forgotten, and Joe listened to sparkling talk of the days when Mr. Wingate had been a student in Paris and Vienna. Abruptly, in the middle of a sentence, the man stopped short.
“What time will Tucker be back tonight, Doctor?”
“Eight-thirty.”
The artist pulled back the sleeve of his coat and glanced at the heavy, elaborately-scrolled, silver wrist watch. “Eight-ten,” he said. And then, seeing Joe’s fascinated eyes upon the watch, he continued to hold up the bared wrist. “A curious trinket, Joe. I picked it up in Austria. Keeps time to the split second. But it has a curious trick. Do you hear it ticking?”
“No, sir.”