Works of Charles Dickens - Charles Dickens [4728]
Obenreizer listened for a moment, and started back from the door.
"I know!" he exclaimed. "I heard of this when I was apprenticed here at the watchmaker's. Perrin Brothers have finished their famous clock-lock at last--and you have got it?"
"Bravo!" said Maitre Voigt. "The clock-lock it is! There, my son! There you have one more of what the good people of this town call, 'Daddy Voigt's follies.' With all my heart! Let those laugh who win. No thief can steal _my_ keys. No burglar can pick _my_ lock. No power on earth, short of a battering-ram or a barrel of gunpowder, can move that door, till my little sentinel inside--my worthy friend who goes 'Tick, Tick,' as I tell him--says, 'Open!' The big door obeys the little Tick, Tick, and the little Tick, Tick, obeys _me_. That!" cried Daddy Voigt, snapping his fingers, "for all the thieves in Christendom!"
"May I see it in action?" asked Obenreizer. "Pardon my curiosity, dear sir! You know that I was once a tolerable worker in the clock trade."
"Certainly you shall see it in action," said Maitre Voigt. "What is the time now? One minute to eight. Watch, and in one minute you will see the door open of itself."
In one minute, smoothly and slowly and silently, as if invisible hands had set it free, the heavy door opened inward, and disclosed a dark chamber beyond. On three sides, shelves filled the walls, from floor to ceiling. Arranged on the shelves, were rows upon rows of boxes made in the pretty inlaid woodwork of Switzerland, and bearing inscribed on their fronts (for the most part in fanciful coloured letters) the names of the notary's clients.
Maitre Voigt lighted a taper, and led the way into the room.
"You shall see the clock," he said proudly. "I possess the greatest curiosity in Europe. It is only a privileged few whose eyes can look at it. I give the privilege to your good father's son--you shall be one of the favoured few who enter the room with me. See! here it is, on the right-hand wall at the side of the door."
"An ordinary clock," exclaimed Obenreizer. "No! Not an ordinary clock. It has only one hand."
"Aha!" said Maitre Voigt. "Not an ordinary clock, my friend. No, no. That one hand goes round the dial. As I put it, so it regulates the hour at which the door shall open. See! The hand points to eight. At eight the door opened, as you saw for yourself."
"Does it open more than once in the four-and-twenty hours?" asked Obenreizer.
"More than once?" repeated the notary, with great scorn. "You don't know my good friend, Tick-Tick! He will open the door as often as I ask him. All he wants is his directions, and he gets them here. Look below the dial. Here is a half-circle of steel let into the wall, and here is a hand (called the regulator) that travels round it, just as _my_ hand chooses. Notice, if you please, that there are figures to guide me on the half-circle of steel. Figure I. means: Open once in the four-and- twenty hours. Figure II. means: Open twice; and so on to the end. I set the regulator every morning, after I have read my letters, and when I know what my day's work is to be. Would you like to see me set it now? What is to-day? Wednesday. Good! This is the day of our rifle-club; there is little business to do; I grant a half-holiday. No work here to- day, after three o'clock. Let us first put away this portfolio of municipal papers. There! No need to trouble Tick-Tick to open the door until eight to-morrow. Good! I leave the dial-hand at eight; I put back the regulator to I.; I close the door; and closed the door remains, past all opening by anybody, till to-morrow morning at eight."
Obenreizer's quickness instantly saw the means by which he might make the clock-lock betray its master's confidence, and place its master's papers at his disposal.
"Stop, sir!" he cried, at the moment when the notary was closing the door. "Don't I see something moving among the boxes--on