“What makes it sound so plain?” asked Tremlain.

“Cause it’s so quiet in here,” answered Casey.  “It’ll be noisy enough later on, though!  But it’s so quiet—­that’s what makes the ticking of the watch sound so plain.”

“It is quiet,” observed Tremlain.  “But in a jewelry store there’s always a lot of clocks making a noise and—­Say!” he suddenly cried, “there’s not a clock in this place ticking—­notice that?  Not a clock ticking!  They’ve all stopped!”

“You’re right!” exclaimed Casey.  “The watch is the only thing going in the whole place!”

The milkmen looked quickly at Darcy.

“Yes, the clocks have all stopped,” he said, wetting his lips with his tongue.  “I didn’t notice it before, though I did hear the watch in her hand ticking—­I thought it was her heart beating—­I guess I said that before—­I don’t know what I am saying.  This has upset me frightfully.”

“I should think it would,” agreed Casey.  “Funny thing about the clocks all stopping, though.  S’pose they all ran down at once?”

“They couldn’t,” Darcy answered, “I wound the regulator only yesterday,” and he pointed to the tall timepiece in the show window—­the solemn-ticking clock by which many passersby set their watches.  “The other clocks—­”

“And they’ve all stopped at different times!” added Tremlain.  “That’s funny, too.”

If anything could be funny in that place of death, this fact might be.  And it was a fact.  Of the many clocks in the store not one was ticking, and all pointed to different hours.  The big regulator indicated 10:22; a chronometer in a showcase was five hours and some minutes ahead of that.  The clock over Darcy’s work table noted the hour of 7:56.  Some cheaper clocks, alarms among them, on the shelves, which were usually going, showed various hours.

They had all stopped.  Only the watch in the dead woman’s hand was ticking, and that showed approximately the right time—­a little after six o’clock.

“Well, we’ve got to get the police,” said Casey.  “Then I’ve got to travel on—­customers waiting for me.”

“You—­you won’t leave me here alone—­will you?” asked Darcy.

“Isn’t there any one else in the house?” asked Tremlain, for the living-rooms were above the jewelry store—­a substantial brown stone building of the style of three decades ago.

“Only Sallie Page, the cook.  She’s deaf, and she’ll be more of a nuisance than a help.  Mrs. Darcy’s maid won’t be in until noon.  I don’t want to be left—­”

“Oh, you won’t be alone long,” observed Casey.  “The police will be here as soon as we send ’em word.  And here’s a crowd outside already.”

There was one—­made up of men and boys with, here and there, a factory girl on her way to work.  They had seen the two milk wagons in front of the jewelry store—­the store which, though most of the more valuable pieces were in the safe—­still showed in the gleaming windows much that caught the eye of the passerby.  Some one sensed the unusual.  Some one stopped—­then another.  Some one had caught sight, on peering into the store, of the prostrate figure with that blotch of red in the white hair.