Richard Marsh

“ I understood what it was, which, when Pugh and I had tapped with the hammer, had caused the answering taps to proceed from within. Our taps had 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This diamond is worth a good deal more than a thousand pounds.’
‘Well, that only makes my case the stronger; I don’t believe that the maddest man that ever lived would throw away a diamond worth more than a thousand pounds with such utter wantonness as seems to have characterised the action of the original owner of the stone which I found in your ninepenny puzzle, Pugh.’
‘There have been some eccentric characters in the world, some very eccentric characters. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was more like a superior sort of travelling tinker’s grindstone than anything else. The man behind the counter put his foot upon the treadle. The wheel began to revolve. He brought the crystal into contact with the swiftly revolving wheel. There was a s—s—sh! And, in an instant, his hand was empty; the crystal had vanished into air.
‘Good Heavens!’ he gasped. I. never saw such a look of amazement on a human countenance before. ‘It’s splintered!’ ”

“ Pugh came into my room holding something wrapped in a piece of brown paper.
‘Tress, I have brought yon something on which you may exercise your ingenuity.’ He began, with exasperating deliberation, to untie the string which bound his parcel; he is one of those persons who would not cut a knot to save their lives. ”

“ You will either pay the whole fare, or else I will have one cab and you shall have another. It is a three-shilling cab fare from here to Hatton Garden. If you propose to share my cab, you will be so good as to hand over that three shillings before we start.’
He gasped, but he handed over the three shillings. There are few things I enjoy so much as getting money out of Pugh!
On the road to Hatton Garden we wrangled nearly all the way. I own that I feel a certain satisfaction in irritating Pugh, he is such an irritable man. He wanted to know what I thought we should get for the diamond. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You push it, or you press it, or something, and the whole affair flies open.’
‘Such was my own first conviction. I am not so sure of it now. I have pressed every separate piece of wood; I have tried to move each piece in every direction. ”

“ It would be a first-rate joke if he and I had been endeavouring 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. ”