The Ivory Snuff Box

These thoughts passed through his mind as he lay with closed eyes, his face quivering under the dazzling light which fell upon it. Its intensity was, he thought, greater, if anything, than it had been before, and the irritating effect upon his eyes more pronounced. He did not open his eyes at all, on this occasion, for fear even a momentary exposure would increase their sensitiveness.

Slowly the day passed. He concluded that it was afternoon, when he heard far off a bell striking the hour of two, although it might equally well have been two o'clock in the morning, for all he could tell. There was a faint hum of conversation in the laboratory above him, which convinced him that it was still day.

Presently his ear, acutely sensitive to the slightest noise which might disturb the stillness about him, became aware of a faint sound of music, which seemed to come to him from a long distance off. It was a popular French march, and from a certain quality of the notes he concluded that it was being played upon a phonograph. The strains of the music distracted him, took his mind from the things about him, and as he listened to it, it seemed that the effort of keeping his eyes tightly closed grew sensibly less, the blinding pressure of the unwavering light cone upon his face appreciably easier to bear. He knew that this was but a momentary relief, but he welcomed it eagerly. Lying in this terrifying silence, under the cruel glare of light, had become frightful – he wondered if, after all, his nerves, his mind, could long stand the strain.

The music stopped suddenly. He found himself eagerly hoping that there would be more. In a few moments it began again, and he was listening to the familiar strains of The Rosary. He had always liked the song – Grace, too, had been fond of it. He wondered if she could be playing to him, trying to soothe his fast-shattering nerves with music. It pleased him to think that it might be so, although he had no reason to suppose that Grace knew of the torture to which Dr. Hartmann was subjecting him.

After a time, the final strains of The Rosary died away, to be followed by a German march, played by some military band. This, too, he was glad to hear, although he found himself thinking that he preferred The Rosary. As if in answer to his thoughts, it began again – he found himself repeating the words to himself mechanically, and thinking of Grace.

The music continued for long over an hour. Duvall noted with surprise that while there were many other selections, The Rosary was played almost every other time. So often, in fact, did its strains break the stillness, that he became annoyed – in his nervous state this constant repetition of the song worried him. After a time he shuddered when he heard it, hoping that each time would be the last. No one but an imbecile, he muttered to himself, could enjoy playing a piece over and over in that aimless fashion. When at last the impromptu concert had ceased, and the silence about him was once more unbroken, he found himself puzzling in vain over the matter, as though it had become of vast importance to him.

After the music ceased, he realized how much it had helped him to endure the two or more hours which had elapsed since Hartmann left him. His real tortures were only just beginning. The constant blaze of light on his face, the ceaseless effort to keep his eyes closed, to turn his head away, in spite of the bonds which prevented it, once more almost frenzied him. He fell to wondering whether Hartmann had been in earnest, when he told him of the qualities of the violet rays. Could they in any way affect his mind? The mere thought stimulated his imagination to such an extent that already he was convinced that his senses were wandering – that his mind was becoming sluggish and dull.

As hour after hour passed, this thought became almost a certainty. His head began again to ache terribly, his eyes seemed to swim in pools of liquid fire. Bright flashes of light darted through his brain, and at times it seemed almost on fire. The pain which the constant effort to turn his head caused, was becoming more acute as each minute passed – he felt constantly on the point of screaming out in terror – begging for release – agreeing to do anything they asked of him. Then with a mighty effort of the will he would calm himself, and closing his eyes tightly once more, determine to endure until the end.

After an interminable period, the sound of the music once more fell upon his troubled brain. This time the strains sounded more distinct and clear. Three times in rapid succession The Rosary was played, then sudden silence. He waited in vain for more – dreading the recurrence of the song, yet expecting it, as one expects the continuance of any oft-repeated sound. There was nothing further, however, and once more the silence became like the darkness about him, a grim and positive thing.

Hours later, when his brain reeled endlessly in a blazing redness, and his tortured eyes seemed bursting from their sockets, the cone of violet light vanished as though some silent hand had brushed it aside, and in the reaction he fainted.

He awoke again to find himself lying on the floor, with Hartmann bending over him, feeling his pulse. In a fit of rage, he struck out with his clenched hand, and missing, scrambled to his feet. The room was faintly lit by the single electric globe, and he saw Mayer and Dr. Hartmann confronting him, the latter with a revolver in his hand. Once more he realized the futility of resistance, and sank against a packing box, his hand covering his burning eyes.

The latter appeared to be no longer in his former state of sardonic good nature. "Are you ready to tell us what you have done with the box?" he snarled.

Duvall made no reply, and this angered the doctor still further. "I'll give you an hour to think the matter over," he said, furiously. "And if you don't come to terms by that time, you shall stay under the influence of the light until you do." He turned toward the door, followed by Mayer, and in a moment they had left the room.

Duvall, in his pain and distress, realized that something would have to be done at once, within the next hour, in fact, or he would be obliged to give up. Physical torture he could stand, but to lie here silently, under that cruel radiance, and realize that his brain was slowly giving way, he felt he could not endure.

Yet what was there that he could do? The walls of the room, of solid brick, he could not hope to penetrate. The door, of iron, a dozen men could not break through. He forced his shoulder against it, and laughed bitterly as he realized that with all his strength he could not even cause it to give the fraction of an inch. He determined to get the snuff box – to examine it – reckless of his fear of being observed. In a moment he had snatched the opera hat from the corner, torn out the lining, and held the box in his hand.

He paused for a moment, listening intently. Everything about him was still. There were no sounds from the laboratory above. He remembered now that he had not heard Hartmann and his companion ascend the iron stairway. Doubtless they had returned to the main building by means of the lower corridor.

In a moment he had hung the torn opera hat over the knob of the door, to prevent anyone from observing him through the keyhole, and going directly beneath the bracket which held the electric globe, proceeded to examine the box carefully.

The first thought that came to his mind, filled him with a strange feeling of hope. He had no more than glanced at the top of the box when he saw what he had previously failed to observe, that the circle of pearls upon its top formed a rosary, which was completed by the ivory cross in the center. The Rosary! Why had this song been so persistently and continuously played? Was it for him, some message, indeed, intended to show him a way out of his difficulties? Yet if so, to what did it lead? There was a rosary upon the top of the box, it is true, but what of it? Absently he began to count the pearls, hardly realizing what he was doing. One of them, he noted, the one at the very top of the cross, was larger than the others, and he started here, slowly counting around the circumference of the box. His eyes pained him frightfully and twice he lost count and had to begin all over again, but on the third attempt he discovered that the pearls numbered twenty-six. Even yet, the significance of this fact did not occur to him – he began to count the pearls again, mechanically.

Then suddenly, in a flash, the thing came to him. Twenty-six pearls – twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Evidently the box, in some way, formed a cipher, a secret alphabet, which might be used in correspondence, or in the preparation of important documents, yet how – how?

With repressed eagerness he held the box more closely to the light, searching its surface for some further clue. At once he noticed the arrangement of the concentric circles of letters which made up the Latin prayer. The words were so written that each letter stood opposite a pearl, and reading inward from each pearl, there was a row of letters six deep reaching almost to the center of the box. Clearly here were six different ciphers, that is, six circles of twenty-six letters each, any one of which might constitute a working cipher. It was only necessary to call the big pearl at the top "A," and here were six different letters opposite it, any one of which, in a system of cipher writing, might be used as the letter A.

Duvall, however, knew enough about ciphers to know that such an arrangement constituted no cipher at all, in other words, that ciphers so simple, so readily solved, as this, would never be employed in any case where absolute secrecy was imperative. He felt that there was something more to the matter than he had so far discovered.

Suddenly he saw that, just beyond each pearl, was engraved on the ivory rim of the box a number – starting with the large pearl at the top as number one, the circle of numbers ran around the edge of the box until it returned to its starting point, at number twenty-six. In his efforts to see these numbers, which were very small, he gripped the box tightly in his hands to hold it the more steadily toward the rather dim light. In doing so, he suddenly became aware of the fact that the rim or edge of the box, containing the numbers and the circle of pearls, was movable. It fitted so cunningly into the top of the box, that the joint appeared not as a crack or perceptible space, but merely as a fine thin line, apparently a part of the engraving on its surface. Holding the lower part of the box firmly in his left hand, he turned the rim of the top slowly about. At once the purpose of this became apparent. Not only had each pearl, representing a letter of the alphabet, six corresponding values from rim to center, in any one position, but by turning the rim around, twenty-six such positions could be secured, making a total of one hundred and fifty-six different alphabets from which a person desiring to use a cipher might choose.

Again, however, Duvall was conscious of a feeling of disappointment. One hundred and fifty-six different ciphers were no better than a single one, if only one were used. Evidently he had not yet reached the solution of the problem. In employing such a system of ciphers, some combination, precisely similar to the combinations used on the locks of safes, would have to be used. It was absolutely necessary, in order to insure safety, to use not one cipher, but a large number, changing the arrangement of the letters with each line written – even with each word, in order to defy solution. Yet such an arrangement being purely arbitrary, could not well be trusted to memory, for, once forgotten, the translation of the document written, even by the writer himself, would be absolutely impossible. It occurred to him that as there were six different concentric lines of lettering, each constituting in itself a complete cipher, the obvious way to use the box would be to place the pearls in a given position, write six words, using a different alphabet for each word, and then shift the ring of pearls to a new position, and repeat the operation. This, of course, could be done indefinitely, although half a dozen changes would be sufficient to insure a cipher that would absolutely defy solution. Where, however, was the key? That, after all, was the important matter; without it, the snuff box would be as useless to Monsieur de Grissac as it would be to his enemies themselves.

For many minutes Duvall puzzled over the matter, unable to reach any satisfactory conclusion. Then he began to think of the song which had so clearly been repeated, over and over, as a message to him from outside. The words of the refrain began to run aimlessly through his mind, his eyes upon the box. Suddenly he realized that the word cross, in its repetitions, its position as the final word of the song, must have a definite meaning. Before his eyes he saw the cross, so delicately carved as to project scarcely an eighth of an inch above the thin and fragile ivory surface. Instinctively he began to push at it, pressing it this way and that, to discover, if possible, any spring or other means whereby it might be made to turn or lift up. As he did so, his fingers unconsciously pressed upon the large pearl at the top. In a moment the upper surface of the cross slid to one side, disclosing a tiny shallow cavity beneath it, some quarter of an inch in either direction, and no deeper than the thickness of a piece of cardboard. Within this lay a bit of tissue paper, tightly folded.

Duvall drew it carefully out and examined it. Upon it were written six numbers: 12-16-2-8-20-4. There was nothing else upon the paper, but Duvall realized that he held in his hand the key of the cipher.

At once Monsieur de Grissac's agitation, the servant Noël's death, Hartmann's persecution of him, became clear. Evidently there were documents, somewhere, of some nature, which this cipher made intelligible and which, without it, were proof against all attempts to read them. What were these documents? Were they in Hartmann's hands? These questions, he knew, could not be answered now.

Immediately the question rose in his mind: What should he do next? By destroying the tiny slip of paper, he could render the snuff box valueless. Without the key, no one could use it with success. But, the key once destroyed, how could Monsieur de Grissac himself read the documents, for the preparing of which it had been utilized? Possibly, if Hartmann had such documents, they were but copies, obtained through the corruption of some clerk, while the originals remained in De Grissac's possession. For these reasons he dared not destroy the cipher, at least until all other means of escape had been exhausted. Then he realized, in a flash, that if he proposed to utilize the return of the snuff box as a means of obtaining his freedom, he could not hope to do so, if the key was removed. Doubtless Hartmann knew of its existence. In some way he had learned, possibly through the murdered man Noël, that the box contained such a key, and would examine it, and satisfy himself that it had not been removed, before he would allow him to leave the place. This would inevitably result in his being searched, and the key, concealed about his person, found. He stood in an agony of doubt, wondering which alternative he should take.

His reflections were rudely disturbed by the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside the door. In a moment he had replaced the tiny bit of paper in the recess beneath the cross, slid the latter back into place, and thrust the box beneath a mass of straw which lay on top of the packing case against which he had been leaning. Then he turned toward the door and had barely time to hurl the opera hat into a dark corner, when the door opened, and Hartmann appeared on the threshold.

CHAPTER XIX

It was not until early in the afternoon that Grace was able to accomplish anything toward carrying out the instructions which young Lablanche had given her with respect to the phonograph. On her return to Dr. Hartmann's from her expedition to Brussels, she went at once to her room, and locked the record which Lablanche had given her in her trunk. There was nothing to be done now, until after luncheon.

When the meal was over, she asked one of the attendants, who seemed to be a sort of housekeeper, or head nurse, if there would be any objection to her taking the phonograph, which was a small and rather cheap affair, to her room. She wished to amuse herself, she explained, playing over some of the records.

The woman regarded her curiously for a moment, but as there seemed nothing out of the way in the request, she assented, with the caution, however, that she should not use the instrument except during the day. "Some of our patients are very nervous," she explained. "It might annoy them, if they were sleeping. Of course, if there are any complaints, you will not continue."

Grace got one of the nurses to carry the instrument to her room, and selected several records from those which she found in a cabinet on which it stood. There were several American records – she took all of these, and some others selected at random.

She did not play The Rosary at once, but made use of one of the other records. The horn of the instrument she directed toward the open window. When she had finished the first air, and adjusted her own record upon the plate of the machine, she felt afraid that it might at once be recognized as strange and new, but apparently no one paid any attention to it.

She continued her playing as long as she dared without running the risk of attracting undue attention. When at last she stopped, she felt as though she never wanted to hear the strains of The Rosary again.

After dinner, she determined to disregard the suggestion of the housekeeper to confine her playing to the daytime, and moving the machine somewhat nearer the window, played the song over three times in rapid succession. She had just begun to rewind the clockwork for a fourth time when there was a loud knocking at the door, and Dr. Hartmann entered hastily in response to her rather frightened "Come in."

He was scowling fiercely, and took no pains to conceal the fact that he was angry. "Miss Ellicott," he growled, "we cannot possibly permit you to play the instrument any longer. It annoys the other patients. I am surprised that my housekeeper did not inform you so at once. Several have already complained. I shall have to take it back to the library." He gathered up the instrument and started toward the door, then seemed for a moment to regret his brusqueness. "You will pardon me, I know, but it is quite out of the question. Good-evening." In a moment he had gone.

Grace sat down and burst into tears. It was not the taking away of the phonograph which distressed her – she felt that if anything could be accomplished by its use, it had already been done – but the hopelessness of the whole situation.

Nearly eighteen hours had elapsed, since she had stolen, half-fainting, from the sight of Richard's white and agonized face. Even Lablanche's assurances that Hartmann would do her husband no serious injury, failed to comfort her. The whole affair of the phonograph seemed trivial and useless. What message could the words of this song give him – what in fact could they mean to anyone, except a message of hopeless love?

When the hour for going to bed had come, she threw herself, without undressing, on the bed, and lay sleepless, in the darkened room. The vision of Richard, as she had seen him, his face within the circle of light, the night before, tortured her incessantly. It seemed somehow so wrong, so cowardly of her, to lie here in comfort doing nothing to aid him who, in name at least, was united to her forever, and in love was more dear to her than her own soul. She could not sleep, and presently rose and sat at the window, her elbows resting upon the sill, gazing hungrily out at the little square brick building where she knew Richard lay confined.

The hours of the night dragged along on leaden feet. Once she heard the closing of a door, and the sound of footsteps echoing faintly upon the cement floor of the lower corridor. Within the laboratory all seemed dark. Evidently the doctor was not there. Then she heard, through her half-opened door, noises of persons walking in the lower hallway of the main building and after that the sharp closing of a door. She concluded that Hartmann had gone into his office.

The woman on duty in the hall sat in her chair, reading and yawning. After a time, Grace heard the faint ringing of her bell, and the woman, after consulting the indicator, began to descend the stairs with a surprised look upon her face. It seemed like a providential opportunity. She slipped quietly through the doorway and sped as swiftly as she could down the hall.

She reached the door opening into the corridor, without hearing or seeing anything to cause her alarm, and passed through it unseen. As she closed it behind her, she fancied she heard someone walking quickly along the corridor beneath. The passageway in which she stood was in reality nothing but a covered bridge, a few feet wide, built for the sole purpose of providing a means of passing to the laboratory from the second floor of the main building. Beneath it, a similar passageway connected the ground floors of the two buildings.

She realized that anyone in the corridor beneath her could readily hear her footsteps on the wooden floor above, and stood, hesitating, just inside the door, waiting until they should have passed. In a few moments, the sounds below ceased, and silence again reigned.

With great timidity and caution, she began to walk toward the laboratory door. In the center of the corridor, and half way down its length, a single electric lamp shed a dim light on her path. She realized that if, by chance, anyone should be within the darkened laboratory, they could readily see her approaching, and therefore assumed once more the manner and bearing of a person walking in their sleep. She had passed the light in the middle of the corridor, and was nearing the darkened laboratory door, when suddenly she heard a faint click, and almost at once the laboratory was brilliantly illuminated.

By the light which suddenly flashed upon her, she saw two figures standing in the open door of the laboratory, watching her intently. One of these figures was Dr. Hartmann, the other the tall blond man she had seen with him in the laboratory several nights before. But it was not the sudden appearance of the two watching figures which caused her heart to sink, and a cold perspiration to break out upon her forehead. The sudden rush of light upon the floor of the passageway had shown her something else – something far more strange and terrifying. As her gaze swept ahead, she saw that, for a space of some four or five feet, in front of the laboratory door, the wooden planking which constituted the floor of the passageway had been removed, and instead of the solid foot-way there yawned blackly an impassable opening, through which, in another moment, she would plunge headlong to the concrete floor of the corridor beneath.

The sight filled her with dismay. She realized at once why Hartmann and his companion stood there watching her – why the section of flooring had been removed. He had evidently become suspicious of her movements, the night before, and had laid this trap to test her. If she was in truth walking in her sleep, she would, she supposed, walk fearlessly into the yawning gap before – if her somnambulism was a sham, a trick, she would hesitate, and her fraud be discovered.

She did not know what to do, as step by step she approached that black and gaping hole. If she kept up her pretense, if she had sufficient courage to go ahead, of what would it avail Richard or Monsieur Lefevre, should she maintain her assumed character at the expense of a broken leg, or neck? On the other hand, to halt, to hold back, would be to destroy at once all chance of her being of any further service to her husband, and that, too, at a time when he most sorely needed her.

These considerations flashed through her brain with the speed of light itself. She had scarcely taken half a dozen steps before she found herself upon the brink of the opening, and realized that the next step, if she took it, might be her last.

Then she suddenly collapsed. The effort was too great – she sank helplessly upon the floor, her face buried in her arms, her whole body shaking with the force of her sobbing.