The Mystery of the Screaming Clock - Arthur Robert. Страница 22

“Come, gentlemen,” Hugenay said and started calmly towards the door. Chief Reynolds scratched his head.

“Darned if I can think of anything to arrest them for!” he said, in frustration. “I guess we’ll have to let them go.”

Jupiter shook his head admiringly. Hugenay hadn’t got the pictures he had been after, but he was certainly making a clean getaway once again.

At the doorway, Hugenay paused. He looked back at Jupiter.

“It was a pleasure working with you, my boy,” he said. “I am only sorry we can’t work together professionally. With my training you would have a great future. Still, I am sure we will meet again some day.”

In a moment the outer door opened and closed and Hugenay and his men were gone. Chief Reynolds was still scratching his head.

“Well,” he said, “I think it’s time for some explanations. Jupiter, just what is this whole thing all about?”

Jupiter drew a deep breath.

“Well, Chief Reynolds, it all started with a screaming clock. You see — ”

And he talked for quite a long time.

21

Alfred Hitchcock Speaking

It is not necessary to relate all that Jupiter Jones told Chief Reynolds and the others However, you might be interested in a few details that emerged before the case was officially closed.

The stolen pictures which had caused Harry’s father’s arrest had been put under the linoleum by Mr. Clock himself, who was afraid the police might suspect him unless they had someone else to pin the guilt on. As soon as he safely could, Mr. Clock had then left the country and gone into hiding in South America. He wanted both to get away from further police attention and to escape from Carlos, Jerry and Mr. Jeeters, members of the gang that had stolen the pictures who were pressing him to resume activity again.

Mr. Clock had died of an illness in South America, as Hugenay had reported, so it was impossible to bring him to justice. As for Carlos, Jerry and Mr. Jeeters, they were taken into custody in the garage where they had been left handcuffed. They admitted their part in the burglary ring, and cleared Harry’s father of any guilt whatever. He was released from prison, and reunited with his family.

The trick that Bert Clock did in the old film, and which both Pete’s father and Mr. Watson remembered, was to shatter a mirror by screaming in front of it in high-pitched tones. The vibrations caused by certain sound waves can shatter thin glass, and this made a very dramatic scene in the film.

Mr. Clock had obtained a similar mirror later and hung it in his library. He used it as the hiding place for stolen pictures until they were sold. The five he could not sell he left there, as it was the safest hiding place he knew. His reasons for wanting the mirror can only be guessed. It is my belief that he enjoyed knowing he could shatter the glass with a scream any time he wanted to, and perhaps intended to do it some day to amaze a group of friends.

It was this trick Mr. Crenshaw had told Pete about, and which Pete thought Jupiter should know of. As Pete said, he had been unable to sleep and tried to telephone Jupiter, and finding both Jupiter and Bob unaccountably missing, had raised the alarm.

Jupiter was inclined to be annoyed at himself for not guessing that a large mirror could easily conceal several small pictures, but Bob and Pete pointed out to him that he had so brilliantly succeeded in other phases of the investigation that he could be pardoned for not realizing this final point.

In fact, when Jupiter turned on the tape-recorded scream for the first time, he noticed the mirror shiver slightly and guessed what was supposed to happen. By turning up the volume, he was able to shatter the mirror in a dramatic enough manner to satisfy even him.

One point remains. Why did Mr. Clock send the strange messages to three friends, and the screaming clock to the writer, Rex King, instead of just writing to the police? Mr. King himself supplied the answer, which I am sure is the correct one.

To use Mr. King’s own words, “Bert knew I was down on my luck and hadn’t had a job for a long time. Here in Hollywood publicity is very important. I needed something to get my name in the papers, where movie and television producers would see it and remember me.

“He dreamed up a scheme whereby I would find the missing pictures in a very dramatic fashion, which would be in all the newspapers. After all, if I hadn’t been in the hospital when the clock came, I could easily have contacted the others, solved the messages, and taken some reporters and detectives to witness me finding the pictures. It would have been a big story, and I’d have got plenty of publicity.

“Bert was a good friend, even if he was a thief, and the last thing he did was try to do me a favour, so I can’t think too badly of him. I’m only sorry it didn’t work out the way he planned, because I could use the publicity.”

You’ll be pleased to know, I’m sure, that the stories in the newspapers did carry Mr. King’s name, and that he got several jobs as a result.

As for The Three Investigators, they have put this case in their Closed file and are looking for a new one. I can only wonder what it will be!

ALFRED HITCHCOCK