* * * *
Mr. Matsumi straightened up suddenly to find his host staring at him in perturbed amazement.
“Why did you do that?” Mr. Phillips blurted uneasily.
“Pardon me, but you wouldn’t understand if I told you,” replied the Japanese with calm, inscrutable face. “May I examine it, please?” And he indicated the silent and motionless gong.
“Certainly,” replied the financier wonderingly.
Mr. Matsumi, with a certain eagerness which was not lost upon the American, approached the gong and touched the bells lightly, one after another, evidently to get the tone. Then he stooped and examined them carefully—top and bottom. Inside the largest bell—that at the top—he found something which interested him. After a close scrutiny he again straightened up, and in his slant eyes was an expression which Mr. Phillips would have liked to interpret.
“I presume you have seen it before?” he ventured.
“No, never,” was the reply.
“But you recognized it!”
Mr. Matsumi merely shrugged his shoulders.
“And what made you do that?” By “that” Mr. Phillips referred to Mr. Matsumi’s strange act when he first saw the bell.
Again the Japanese shrugged his shoulders. An exquisite, innate courtesy which belonged to him was apparently forgotten now in contemplation of the gong. The financier gnawed at his mustache. He was beginning to feel nervous—the nervousness he had felt previously, and his imagination ran riot.
“You have not had the gong long?” remarked Mr. Matsumi after a pause.
“Three or four months.”
“Have you ever noticed anything peculiar about it?”
Mr. Phillips stared at him frankly.
“Well, rather!” he said at last, in a tone which was perfectly convincing.
“It rings, you mean—the fifth bell?”
Mr. Phillips nodded. There was a tense eagerness in the manner of the Japanese.
“You have never heard the bell ring eleven times?”
Mr. Phillips shook his head. Mr. Matsumi drew a long breath—whether it was relief the other couldn’t say. There was silence. Mr. Matsumi closed and unclosed his small hands several times.
“Pardon me for mentioning the matter under such circumstances,” he said at last, in a tone which suggested that he feared giving offence, “but would you be willing to part with the gong?”
Mr. Phillips regarded him keenly. He was seeking in the other’s manner some inkling to a solution of a mystery which each moment seemed more hopelessly beyond him.
“I shouldn’t care to part with it,” he replied casually. “It was given to me by my wife.”
“Then no offer I might make would be considered?”
“No, certainly not,” replied Mr. Phillips tartly. There was a pause. “This gong has interested me immensely. I should like to know its history. Perhaps you can enlighten me?”
With the imperturbability of his race, Mr. Matsumi declined to give any information. But, with a graceful return of his former exquisite courtesy, he sought more definite knowledge for himself.
“I will not ask you to part with the gong,” he said, “but perhaps you can inform me where your wife bought it?” He paused for a moment. “Perhaps it would be possible to get another like it?”
“I happen to know there isn’t another,” replied Mr. Phillips. “It came from a little curio shop in Cranston Street, kept by a German named Johann Wagner.”
And that was all. This incident passed as the other had, the net result being only further to stimulate Mr. Phillips’ curiosity. It seemed a futile curiosity, yet it was ever present, despite the fact that the gong still hung silent.
On the next evening, a balmy, ideal night of spring, Mr. Phillips had occasion to go into the small room. This was just before dinner was announced. It was rather close there, so he opened the east window to a grateful breeze, and placed the screen in position, after which he stooped to pull out a drawer of his desk. Then came again the quick, clangorous boom of the bell—One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven!
At the first stroke he straightened up; at the second he leaned forward toward the gong with his eyes riveted to the fifth disc. As it continued to ring he grimly held on to jangling nerves and looked for the cause. Beneath the bells, on top, all around them he sought. There was nothing! nothing! The sounds simply burst out, one after another, as if from a heavy blow, yet the bell did not move. For the seventh time it struck, and then with white, ghastly face and chilled, stiff limbs Mr. Phillips rushed out of the room. A dew of perspiration grew in the palms of his quavering hands.
It was a night of little rest and strange dreams for him. At breakfast on the following morning Mrs. Phillips poured his coffee and then glanced through the mail which had been placed beside her.
“Do you particularly care for that gong in your room?” she inquired.
Mr. Phillips started a little. That particular object had enchained his attention for the last dozen hours, awake and asleep.
“Why?” he asked.
“You know I told you I bought it of a curio dealer,” Mrs. Phillips explained. “His name is Johann Wagner, and he offers me five hundred dollars if I will sell it back to him. I presume he has found it is more valuable than he imagined, and the five hundred dollars would make a comfortable addition to my charity fund.”
Mr. Phillips was deeply thoughtful. Johann Wagner! What was this new twist? Why had Wagner denied all knowledge of the gong to him? Having denied, why should he now make an attempt to buy it back? In seeking answers to these questions he was silent.
“Well, dear?” inquired his wife after a pause. “You didn’t answer me.”
“No, don’t sell the gong,” he exclaimed abruptly. “Don’t sell it at any price. I—I want it. I’ll give you a cheque for your charity.”
There was something of uneasiness in her devoted eyes. Some strange, subtle, indefinable air which she could not fathom was in his manner. With a little sigh which breathed her unrest she finished her breakfast.
On the following morning still another letter came from Johann Wagner. It was an appeal—an impassioned appeal—hurriedly scrawled and almost incoherent in form. He must have the gong! He would give five thousand dollars for it. Mrs. Phillips was frankly bewildered at the letter, and turned it over to her husband. He read it through twice with grimly-set teeth.
“No,” he exclaimed violently; “it sha’n’t be sold for any price!” Then his voice dropped as he recollected himself. “No, my dear,” he continued, “it shall not be sold. It was a present from you to me. I want it, but”—and he smiled whimsically—“if he keeps raising the price it will add a great deal to your charity fund, won’t it?”
Twice again within thirty-six hours Mr. Phillips heard the bell ring—once on one occasion and four on the other. And now visibly, tangibly, a great change was upon him. The healthy glow went from his face. There was a constant twitching of his hands; a continual, impatient snapping of his fingers. His eyes lost their steady gaze. They roved aimlessly, and one’s impression always was that he was listening. The strength of the master spirit was being slowly destroyed, eaten up by a hideous gnawing thing of which he seemed hopelessly obsessed. But he took no one into his confidence; it was his own private affair to work out to the end.
This condition was upon him at a time when the activity of the speculative centres of the world was abnormal, and when every faculty was needed