The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
"After making all that commotion the thing might at least come open." I
banged the box viciously against the corner of the table. I felt that I
would almost rather that an explosion should take place than that nothing
should occur. One does not care to be disturbed from one's sound slumber
in the small hours of the morning for a trifle.
"I've half a mind to get a hammer, and try, as they say in the cookery
books, another way."
Unfortunately I had promised Pugh to abstain from using force. I might
have shivered the box open with my hammer, and then explained that it had
fallen, or got trod upon, or sat upon, or something, and so got shattered,
only I was afraid that Pugh would not believe me. The man is himself such
an untruthful man that he is in a chronic state of suspicion about the
truthfulness of others.
"Well, if you're not going to blow up, or open, or something, I'll say
good night."
I gave the box a final rap with my knuckles and a final shake, replaced it
on the table, put out the gas, and returned to bed.
I was just sinking again into slumber, when that box began again. It was
true that Pugh had purchased the puzzle, but it was evident that the whole
enjoyment of the purchase was destined to be mine. It was useless to think
of sleep while that performance was going on. I sat up in bed once more.
"It strikes me that the puzzle consists in finding out how it is possible
to go to sleep with Pugh's purchase in your bedroom. This is far better
than the old-fashioned prescription of cats on the tiles."
It struck me the noise was distinctly louder than before; this applied
both to the tick, tick, tick, and the screeching.
"Possibly," I told myself, as I relighted the gas, "the explosion is to
come off this time."
I turned to look at the box. There could be no doubt about it; the noise
was louder. And, if I could trust my eyes, the box was moving--giving a
series of little jumps. This might have been an optical delusion, but it
seemed to me that at each tick the box gave a little bound. During the
screeches--which sounded more like the cries of an animal in an agony of
pain even than before--if it did not tilt itself first on one end, and
then on another, I shall never be willing to trust the evidence of my own
eyes again. And surely the box had increased in size; I could have sworn
not only that it had increased, but that it was increasing, even as I
stood there looking on. It had grown, and still was growing, both broader,
and longer, and deeper. Pugh, of course, would have attributed it to
supernatural agency; there never was a man with such a nose for a ghost. I
could picture him occupying my position, shivering in his nightshirt, as
he beheld that miracle taking place before his eyes. The solution which at
once suggested itself to me--and which would _never_ have suggested itself
to Pugh!--was that the box was fashioned, as it were, in layers, and that
the ingenious mechanism it contained was forcing the sides at once both
upward and outward. I took it in my hand. I could feel something striking
against the bottom of the box, like the tap, tap, tapping of a tiny
hammer.
"This is a pretty puzzle of Pugh's. He would say that that is the tapping
of a deathwatch. For my part I have not much faith in deathwatches, _et
hoc genus omne_, but it certainly is a curious tapping; I wonder what is
going to happen next?"
Apparently nothing, except a continuation of those mysterious sounds. That
the box had increased in size I had, and have, no doubt whatever. I should
say that it had increased a good inch in every direction, at least half an
inch while I had been looking on. But while I stood looking its growth was
suddenly and perceptibly stayed; it ceased to move. Only the noise
continued.
"I wonder how long it will be before anything worth happening does happen!
I suppose something is going to happen; there can't be all this to-do for
nothing. If it is anything in the infernal machine line, and there is
going to be an explosion, I might as well be here to see it. I think I'll
have a pipe."
I put on my dressing-gown. I lit my pipe. I sat and stared at the box. I
dare say I sat there for quite twenty minutes when, as before, without any
sort of warning, the sound was stilled. Its sudden cessation rather
startled me.
"Has the mechanism again hung fire? Or, this time, is the explosion
coming off?" It did not come off; nothing came off. "Isn't the box even
going to open?"
It did not open. There was simply silence all at once, and that was all. I
sat there in expectation for some moments longer. But I sat for nothing. I
rose. I took the box in my hand. I shook it.
"This puzzle _is_ a puzzle." I held the box first to one ear, then to the
other. I gave it several sharp raps with my knuckles. There was not an
answering sound, not even the sort of reverberation which Pugh and I had
noticed at first. It seemed hollower than ever. It was as though the soul
of the box was dead. "I suppose if I put you down, and extinguish the gas
and return to bed, in about half an hour or so, just as I am dropping off
to sleep, the performance will be recommenced. Perhaps the third time will
be lucky."
But I was mistaken--there was no third time. When I returned to bed that
time I returned to sleep, and I was allowed to sleep; there was no
continuation of the performance, at least so far as I know. For no sooner
was I once more between the sheets than I was seized with an irresistible
drowsiness, a drowsiness which so mastered me that I--I imagine it must
have been instantly--sank into slumber which lasted till long after day
had dawned. Whether or not any more mysterious sounds issued from the
bowels of Pugh's puzzle is more than I can tell. If they did, they did not
succeed in rousing me.
And yet, when at last I did awake, I had a sort of consciousness that my
waking had been caused by something strange. What it was I could not
surmise. My own impression was that I had been awakened by the touch of a
person's hand. But that impression must have been a mistaken one, because,
as I could easily see by looking round the room, there was no one in the
room to touch me.
It was broad daylight. I looked at my watch; it was nearly eleven o'clock.
I am a pretty late sleeper as a rule, but I do not usually sleep as late
as that. That scoundrel Bob would let me sleep all day without thinking it
necessary to call me. I was just about to spring out of bed with the
intention of ringing the bell so that I might give Bob a piece of my mind
for allowing me to sleep so late, when my glance fell on the
dressing-table on which, the night before, I had placed Pugh's puzzle. It
had gone!
Its absence so took me by surprise that I ran to the table. It _had_ gone.
But it had not gone far; it had gone to pieces! There were the pieces
lying where the box had been. The puzzle had solved itself. The box was
open, open with a vengeance, one might say. Like that unfortunate Humpty
Dumpty, who, so the chroniclers tell us, sat on a wall, surely "all the
king's horses and all the king's men" never could put Pugh's puzzle
together again!
The marquetry had resolved itself into its component parts. How those
parts had ever been joined was a mystery. They had been laid upon no
foundation, as is the case with ordinary inlaid work. The several pieces
of wood were not only of different shapes and sizes, but they were as thin
as the thinnest veneer; yet the box had been formed by simply joining them
together. The man who made that box must have been possessed of ingenuity
worthy of a better cause.
I perceived how the puzzle had been worked. The box had contained an
arrangement of springs, which, on being released, had expanded themselves
in different directions until their mere expansion had rent the box to
pieces. There were the springs, lying amid the ruin they had caused.
There was something else amid that ruin besides those springs; there was a
small piece of writing paper. I took it up. On the reverse side of it was
written in a minute, crabbed hand: "A Present For You." What was a present
for me? I looked, and, not for the first time since I had caught sight of
Pugh's precious puzzle, could scarcely believe my eyes.
There, poised between two upright wires, the bent ends of which held it
aloft in the air, was either a piece of glass or--a crystal. The scrap of
writing paper had exactly covered it. I understood what it was, when Pugh
and I had tapped with the hammer, had caused the answering taps to proceed
from within. Our taps caused the wires to oscillate, and in these
oscillations the crystal, which they held suspended, had touched the side
of the box.
I looked again at the piece of paper. "A Present For You." Was _this_ the
present--this crystal? I regarded it intently.
"It _can't_ be a diamond."
The idea was ridiculous, absurd. No man in his senses would place a
diamond inside a twopenny-halfpenny puzzle box. The thing was as big as a
walnut! And yet--I am a pretty good judge of precious stones--if it was
not an uncut diamond it was the best imitation I had seen. I took it up. I
examined it closely. The more closely I examined it, the more my wonder
grew.
"It _is_ a diamond!"
And yet the idea was too preposterous for credence. Who would present a
diamond as big as a walnut with a trumpery puzzle? Besides, all the
diamonds which the world contains of that size are almost as well known as
the Koh-i-noor.
"If it is a diamond, it is worth--it is worth--Heaven only knows what it
isn't worth if it's a diamond."
I regarded it through a strong pocket lens. As I did so I could not
restrain an exclamation.
"The world to a China orange, it _is_ a diamond!"
The words had scarcely escaped my lips than there came a tapping at the
door.
"Come in!" I cried, supposing it was Bob. It was not Bob, it was Pugh.
Instinctively I put the lens and the crystal behind my back. At sight of
me in my nightshirt Pugh began to shake his head.
"What hours, Tress, what hours! Why, my dear Tress, I've breakfasted, read
the papers and my letters, came all the way from my house here, and you're
not up!"
"Don't I look as though I were up?"
"Ah, Tress! Tress!" He approached the dressing-table. His eye fell upon
the ruins. "What's this?"
"That's the solution to the puzzle."
"Have you--have you solved it fairly, Tress?"
"It has solved itself. Our handling, and tapping, and hammering must have
freed the springs which the box contained, and during the night, while I
slept, they have caused it to come open."
"While you slept? Dear me! How strange! And--what are these?"
He had discovered the two upright wires on which the crystal had been
poised.
"I suppose they're part of the puzzle."
"And was there anything in the box? What's this?" He picked up the scrap
of paper; I had left it on the table. He read what was written on it: "'A
Present For You.' What's it mean? Tress, was this in the box?"
"It was."
"What's it mean about a present? Was there anything in the box besides?"
"Pugh, if you will leave the room I shall be able to dress; I am not in
the habit of receiving quite such early calls, or I should have been
prepared to receive you. If you will wait in the next room, I will be with
you as soon as I'm dressed. There is a little subject in connection with
the box which I wish to discuss with you."
"A subject in connection with the box? What is the subject?"
"I will tell you, Pugh, when I have performed my toilet."
"Why can't you tell me now?"
"Do you propose, then, that I should stand here shivering in my shirt
while you are prosing at your ease? Thank you; I am obliged, but I
decline. May I ask you once more, Pugh, to wait for me in the adjoining
apartment?"