They told the hour, they called the faithful, they marked weddings and they marked burials. A bell was steady, like the sun and the tide. So when one kept still at midnight, the hour everyone expected to hear, it felt as if the world had paused.
Some said it meant a soul had slipped away before its time, too sudden for heaven to claim it. Others thought it meant the church itself had turned its head and refused to bear witness. Children were told to stay close on nights when a bell went quiet, for silence was a warning just as much as sound.
In a city so thick with fog and rumor, the absence of a toll could feel louder than the loudest clang. It was not just a missed strike of iron against bronze. It was a sign that something had gone wrong, and perhaps something unseen had reached out and touched the world.
“There’s one more detail,” Vicar Fenwick stated. “I cannot say if it bears on the death, but the sexton insists the bell gave no strike at midnight. He swears he was listening for it, and that it fell silent. A constable on his round reported the same. I should not trouble you with it, only they are both so certain, and it is a curious thing.”
Reginald found it suspicious indeed. In all his years he could not recall the bell falling silent without deliberate cause. Such things did not happen of their own accord; someone had to bring it about.
“What makes it stranger,” the vicar added, “is that the bell tolled again this morning without fault. The sexton tried it himself.”
A voice rang out from the doorway. “That’s right. It’s the devil’s work, that’s what it is.”
Reginald turned. An older man stood there with a ring of keys in his hand. His coat was misbuttoned, his gray hair uncombed. It was Mr. Griggs, the sexton.
“The bell sounded at eleven and again at one, but midnight passed in silence. Mark my words, it’s a curse,” Griggs declared.
WaryTales 
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