II

"What _is_ that noise?"

I lay in bed in that curious condition which is between sleep and waking.

When, at last, I _knew_ that I was awake, I asked myself what it was that

had woke me. Suddenly I became conscious that something was making itself

audible in the silence of the night. For some seconds I lay and listened.

Then I sat up in bed.

"What _is_ that noise?"

It was like the tick, tick of some large and unusually clear-toned clock.

It might have been a clock, had it not been that the sound was varied,

every half dozen ticks or so, by a sort of stifled screech, such as might

have been uttered by some small creature in an extremity of anguish. I got

out of bed; it was ridiculous to think of sleep during the continuation of

that uncanny shrieking. I struck a light. The sound seemed to come from

the neighborhood of my dressing-table. I went to the dressing-table, the

lighted match in my hand, and, as I did so, my eyes fell on Pugh's

mysterious box. That same instant there issued, from the bowels of the

box, a more uncomfortable screech than any I had previously heard. It took

me so completely by surprise that I let the match fall from my hand to the

floor. The room was in darkness. I stood, I will not say trembling,

listening--considering their volume--to the _eeriest_ shrieks I ever

heard. All at once they ceased. Then came the tick, tick, tick again. I

struck another match and lit the gas.

Pugh had left his puzzle box behind him. We had done all we could,

together, to solve the puzzle. He had left it behind to see what I could

do with it alone. So much had it engrossed my attention that I had even

brought it into my bedroom, in order that I might, before retiring to

rest, make a final attempt at the solution of the mystery. _Now_ what

possessed the thing?

As I stood, and looked, and listened, one thing began to be clear to me,

that some sort of machinery had been set in motion inside the box. How it

had been set in motion was another matter. But the box had been subjected

to so much handling, to such pressing and such hammering, that it was not

strange if, after all, Pugh or I had unconsciously hit upon the spring

which set the whole thing going. Possibly the mechanism had got so rusty

that it had refused to act at once. It had hung fire, and only after some

hours had something or other set the imprisoned motive power free.

But what about the screeching? Could there be some living creature

concealed within the box? Was I listening to the cries of some small

animal in agony? Momentary reflection suggested that the explanation of

the one thing was the explanation of the other. Rust!--there was the

mystery. The same rust which had prevented the mechanism from acting at

once was causing the screeching now. The uncanny sounds were caused by

nothing more nor less than the want of a drop or two of oil. Such an

explanation would not have satisfied Pugh, it satisfied me.

Picking up the box, I placed it to my ear.

"I wonder how long this little performance is going to continue. And what

is going to happen when it is good enough to cease? I hope"--an

uncomfortable thought occurred to me--"I hope Pugh hasn't picked up some

pleasant little novelty in the way of an infernal machine. It would be a

first-rate joke if he and I had been endeavoring to solve the puzzle of

how to set it going."

I don't mind owning that as this reflection crossed my mind I replaced

Pugh's puzzle on the dressing-table. The idea did not commend itself to me

at all. The box evidently contained some curious mechanism. It might be

more curious than comfortable. Possibly some agreeable little device in

clockwork. The tick, tick, tick suggested clockwork which had been planned

to go a certain time, and then--then, for all I knew, ignite an explosive,

and--blow up. It would be a charming solution to the puzzle if it were to

explode while I stood there, in my nightshirt, looking on. It is true that

the box weighed very little. Probably, as I have said, the whole affair

would not have turned the scale at a couple of ounces. But then its very

lightness might have been part of the ingenious inventor's little game.

There are explosives with which one can work a very satisfactory amount of

damage with considerably less than a couple of ounces.

While I was hesitating--I own it!--whether I had not better immerse Pugh's

puzzle in a can of water, or throw it out of the window, or call down Bob

with a request to at once remove it to his apartment, both the tick, tick,

tick, and the screeching ceased, and all within the box was still. If it

_was_ going to explode, it was now or never. Instinctively I moved in the

direction of the door.

I waited with a certain sense of anxiety. I waited in vain. Nothing

happened, not even a renewal of the sound.

"I wish Pugh had kept his precious puzzle at home. This sort of thing

tries one's nerves."

When I thought that I perceived that nothing seemed likely to happen, I

returned to the neighborhood of the table. I looked at the box askance. I

took it up gingerly. Something might go off at any moment for all I knew.

It would be too much of a joke if Pugh's precious puzzle exploded in my

hand. I shook it doubtfully; nothing rattled. I held it to my ear. There

was not a sound. What had taken place? Had the clockwork run down, and was

the machine arranged with such a diabolical ingenuity that a certain,

interval was required, after the clockwork had run down, before an

explosion could occur? Or had rust caused the mechanism to again hang

fire?

"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?"

He moved toward the door. When he had taken a couple of steps, he halted.

"I--I hope, Tress, that you're--you're going to play no tricks on me?"

"Tricks on you! Is it likely that I am going to play tricks upon my oldest

friend?"

When he had gone--he vanished, it seemed to me, with a somewhat doubtful

visage--I took the crystal to the window. I drew the blind. I let the

sunshine fall on it. I examined it again, closely and minutely, with the

aid of my pocket lens. It _was_ a diamond; there could not be a doubt of

it. If, with my knowledge of stones, I was deceived, then I was deceived

as never man had been deceived before. My heart beat faster as I

recognized the fact that I was holding in my hand what was, in all

probability, a fortune for a man of moderate desires. Of course, Pugh knew

nothing of what I had discovered, and there was no reason why he should

know. Not the least! The only difficulty was that if I kept my own

counsel, and sold the stone and utilized the proceeds of the sale, I

should have to invent a story which would account for my sudden accession

to fortune. Pugh knows almost as much of my affairs as I do myself. That

is the worst of these old friends!

When I joined Pugh I found him dancing up and down the floor like a bear

upon hot plates. He scarcely allowed me to put my nose inside the door

before attacking me.

"Tress, give me what was in the box."

"My dear Pugh, how do you know that there was something in the box to give

you?"

"I know there was!"

"Indeed! If you know that there was something in the box, perhaps you will

tell me what that something was."

He eyed me doubtfully. Then, advancing, he laid upon my arm a hand which

positively trembled.

"Tress, you--you wouldn't play tricks on an old friend."

"You are right, Pugh, I wouldn't, though I believe there have been

occasions on which you have had doubts upon the subject. By the way, Pugh,

I believe that I am the oldest friend you have."

"I--I don't know about that. There's--there's Brasher."

"Brasher! Who's Brasher? You wouldn't compare my friendship to the

friendship of such a man as Brasher? Think of the tastes we have in

common, you and I. We're both collectors."

"Ye-es, we're both collectors."

"I make my interests yours, and you make your interests mine. Isn't that

so, Pugh?"

"Tress, what--what was in the box?"

"I will be frank with you, Pugh. If there had been something in the box,

would you have been willing to go halves with me in my discovery?"

"Go halves! In your discovery, Tress! Give me what is mine!"

"With pleasure, Pugh, if you will tell me what is yours."

"If--if you don't give me what was in the box I'll--I'll send for the

police."

"Do! Then I shall be able to hand to them what was in the box in order

that it may be restored to its proper owner."

"Its proper owner! I'm its proper owner!"

"Excuse me, but I don't understand how that can be; at least, until the

police have made inquiries. I should say that the proper owner was the

person from whom you purchased the box, or, more probably, the person from

whom he purchased it, and by whom, doubtless, it was sold in ignorance, or

by mistake. Thus, Pugh, if you will only send for the police, we shall

earn the gratitude of a person of whom we never heard in our lives--I for

discovering the contents of the box, and you for returning them."

As I said this, Pugh's face was a study. He gasped for breath. He actually

took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow.

"Tress, I--I don't think you need to use a tone like that to me. It isn't

friendly. What--what was in the box?"

"Let us understand each other, Pugh. If you don't hand over what was in

the box to the police, I go halves."

Pugh began to dance about the floor.

"What a fool I was to trust you with the box! I knew I couldn't trust

you." I said nothing. I turned and rang the bell. "What's that for?"

"That, my dear Pugh, is for breakfast, and, if you desire it, for the

police. You know, although you have breakfasted, I haven't. Perhaps while

I am breaking my fast, you would like to summon the representatives of law

and order." Bob came in. I ordered breakfast. Then I turned to Pugh. "Is

there anything you would like?"

"No, I--I've breakfasted."

"It wasn't of breakfast I was thinking. It was of--something else. Bob is

at your service, if, for instance, you wish to send him on an errand."

"No, I want nothing. Bob can go." Bob went. Directly he was gone, Pugh

turned to me. "You shall have half. What was in the box?"

"I shall have half?"

"You shall!"

"I don't think it is necessary that the terms of our little understanding

should be expressly embodied in black and white. I fancy that, under the

circumstance, I can trust you, Pugh. I believe that I am capable of seeing

that, in this matter, you don't do me. That was in the box."