A black ruler gagged him, the ends lashed
behind his neck, the blood upon it caked to bronze in the
gaslight. And in front of him, ticking like a sledge-hammer,
its only hand upon the stroke of twelve, stood a simple,
old-fashioned, grandfather's clock--but not for half an instant
longer--only until my guide could hurl himself upon it and send
the whole thing crashing into the corner. An ear-splitting
report accompanied the crash, a white cloud lifted from the
fallen clock, and I saw a revolver smoking in a vice screwed
below the dial, an arrangement of wires sprouting from the dial
itself, and the single hand at once at its zenith and in contact
with these.
"Tumble to it, Bunny?"
He was alive; these were his first words; the Italian had the
blood-caked ruler in his hand, and with his knife was reaching
up to cut the thongs that lashed the hands. He was not tall
enough, I seized him and lifted him up, then fell to work with
my own knife upon the straps. And Raffles smiled faintly upon
us through his blood-stains.
"I want you to tumble to it," he whispered; "the neatest thing
in revenge I ever knew, and another minute would have fixed it.
I've been waiting for it twelve hours, watching the clock
round, death at the end of the lap! Electric connection. Simple
enough. Hour-hand only--O Lord!"
We had cut the last strap. He could not stand. We supported him
between us to a horsehair sofa, for the room was furnished, and
I begged him not to speak, while his one-eyed deliverer was at
the door before Raffles recalled him with a sharp word in
Italian.
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