“What hours, Tress, what hours! Why, my dear Tress, I’ve breakfasted, read the papers and my letters, come 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
