The Ivory Snuff Box by Frederic Arnold Kummer (online e reader .txt) 📕

His words, his brutal manner, brought the tears to her eyes. She realized that she had but to say a few words, to save Richard from she knew not what fate, yet equally she knew that she could not say them—that he would not want her to say them. In her agitation she took a handkerchief from her dress and pressed it to her eyes.

The man Mayer had been regarding her in silence throughout the whole scene. Suddenly he stepped forward and snatched the handkerchief from her hand. His quick eyes had detected a monogram in one corner of the bit of cambric, and with an air of triumph he held it beneath the light, examining it closely.

Hartmann came to him. "What is it, Mayer?" he asked, eagerly.

His assistant extended the handkerchief to him. Grace realized with a sinking heart that it was one of several she had herself embroidered during the weeks preceding her marriage. With what pride, she reflected, she had worked over the G and D, lovingly intertwined in one corner. "His wife!" she heard Hartmann cry, with a harsh laugh. "That explains everything. That was why he did not leave Brussels at once—he was waiting for her—he would not go without her." He turned to Grace with a new expression on his face. "So you are his wife, eh? Very well. Now we shall see whether or not you will tell me what I want to know. Your husband is confined in the room below us. This"—he indicated the small black box with wires attached—"is a device which I have constructed for producing certain light rays—light rays which have a marvelous power, both for curing, and producing disease. Look!" He held his powerful hand before her eyes. "This is what they did to me, before I discovered how to control them." She saw, stretching across the back of his hand and wrist, a broad red patch, like the scar remaining after a burn. "Now come here." He seized her by the wrist and dragged her toward the apparatus at the center of the room. "Look—in there." He indicated a short brass tube which rose from the center of the box, resembling the eyepiece of a microscope. "Look!"

Grace bent over and applied her eye to the brass tube, then shrank back with an exclamation of horror. "Richard!" she screamed, then turned on Hartmann with the fury of a tigress. "Let him go—let him go—I say, or I will—" She realized her helplessness—the futility of her threats, and fell into the chair in a paroxysm of sobbing. Through the brass tube, and the powerful lens which focused the light rays upon the space below, she had seen Richard's face, white and drawn, within a disk of blinding light, and apparently so near to her that she could have reached out and touched it. In her momentary glance, she noted his reddened eyes, the tears which coursed from beneath their lids, the agony which distorted his countenance.

"Now will you tell me what I ask?" cried Hartmann, triumphantly.

Still she made no reply. Her heart was breaking, her suffering at the knowledge of his suffering made her faint and weak, but even now she could not bring herself to break the trust which Monsieur Lefevre had placed in her. She sat huddled up in the chair, shaking from head to foot with sobs.

Hartmann saw that her resistance was as yet unbroken. "Take her arm, Mayer," he called out, as he seized her by one wrist. "Come along now. We'll see if a closer view will have any effect." He snatched up a broad leather strap from a shelf along the wall, then, with Mayer's assistance, half-led, half dragged her to the iron stairway in the corner. In a few moments they had paused before the door of the room where the detective lay confined. Hartmann threw it open and pushed Grace inside, while he and Mayer followed, closing the door behind them.

For a moment Grace was dazzled by the brightness of the light cone, and the darkness of the remainder of the room. Then seeing Richard lying helpless on the floor before her, she threw herself to her knees, put her arms about his neck, and covered his face with kisses. "My darling—my poor boy!" she cried, as she bent over him, her shoulders shutting off from his tortured face the blinding rays of the light. "What have they done to you?"

Grace had remained upon her knees beside the prostrate figure of her husband but a moment, when she was torn away by Hartmann and his assistant, and before she realized their intention, the former had slipped about her waist the broad leather strap he had brought from the room above, and was busy securing it to an iron staple fixed in the wall at one side of the room. Then he stood back and surveyed the scene with a smile of satisfaction.

"You see, Mayer," he observed, grimly, "my purpose. The wife sees the husband's suffering. If he refuses to speak, she will speak. One or the other will tell us what we want to know, of that you may be sure. Let us leave them to talk matters over." He and his man at once left the room, and in a few moments Grace heard their footsteps upon the floor of the laboratory above.

"Richard," she cried, softly, "are you suffering very much?"

"Never mind, dear," he said, trying vainly to turn his head so that he might see her. "What has happened—why have they brought you here?"

She told him her story, brokenly, with many sobs. "I could not help it, Richard," she moaned. "I did my best. I could not help their finding out everything."

"I know it, dear. You have done all you could. Is there any news from outside?"

"None. They told me to play the phonograph to send you a message. Did you hear it?"

"Yes, I heard, and understood."

"Understood? Then you know something—you have some hope?"

"I do not know. It may be, although I cannot see what to do now. I dare not tell you more than that—these scoundrels are undoubtedly listening in the room above."

"Richard, what is that light? What is it they mean to do to you? Dr. Hartmann showed me his hand—it was all scarred and burned. He said it came from that." She looked toward the glowing cone of light with bitter anger.

"I do not know—exactly. I am not sure. The agony of the thing is very great—it burns into my eyes—into my brain. Hartmann says it will produce insanity. I do not know whether this is true or not. I begin to feel that perhaps it may be—not that the light itself can produce it, but that inability to sleep, pain, nervous exhaustion, the constant glare and brilliance before my eyes—those things might cause a man to go insane, if they were kept up long enough."

"But—he—he will not dare to do that."

Duvall groaned, striving in vain to turn his head to one side. "He intends to keep me here, until I tell him where he can find the snuff box," he gasped.

"Richard!" Grace fairly screamed out his name. "Then you must tell—you must! You cannot let yourself go mad—not even for Monsieur Lefevre."

"I shall not tell—no matter what comes," he replied.

"Then I will. I refuse to let you suffer like this. I can't do it, I won't. If you do not speak, I shall. Oh, my God! Don't you see—I love you—I love you so—what do I care about this foolish snuff box? I want you—you—and I won't let them take you away from me."

"Grace, you shall not tell them."

"I will."

"I forbid it."

"I cannot help it, Richard. I am ready to disobey you—if I must, to save your life. Even if you turn from me—afterward—I cannot help it. I refuse to let them go ahead with this thing."

He groaned in desperation. "Please—please—my girl—listen to me. You must not speak. We must think of our duty to those who have trusted us. Wait, I implore you. Don't do this!"

"I will. I have a duty to you which is greater than my duty to them. Dr. Hartmann!" she screamed. "I will tell everything—everything." She collapsed against the wall and sobbed as though her heart would break.

In a few moments they heard Hartmann and Mayer descending the steps, and the door was thrown open.

"Ah, so you have come to your senses, have you?" the doctor cried. "Well, what have you to say?"

Grace raised her head. "If I tell you where the ivory snuff box is hidden," she said, "will you let my husband go?"

"Yes. Your husband, and yourself, and the rat we've just caught sneaking around outside. He's up in the laboratory now. You can all take yourselves off as quickly as you like, when once the snuff box is in my hands. Now speak."

"First, let my husband up."

Hartmann went to the wall, and switching off the violet rays, turned on the electric lamp, then nodded to Mayer. "Unbind him," he said.

Duvall staggered to his feet, half-blinded. As he did so, Hartmann turned to Grace. "Speak!" he commanded. "We are wasting time."

Before Grace could reply, Duvall turned to her.

"I forbid you," he cried. "If you do this thing, I will never see you again as long as I live. You are destroying my honor. I refuse to let you do it. Stop!"

The girl hesitated, and Hartmann swore a great oath. "Take her out of here, Mayer," he cried. "She'll never speak, as long as her husband is present to dissuade her. Up with her to the laboratory. She'll talk there, quick enough."

"No!" Duvall staggered toward her. "You shall not." His movements were slow and uncertain, due to the blinding pain in his eyes, and his stiffened, nerve-racked limbs. Hartmann pushed him aside angrily. "Be quiet," he growled. "Let the woman alone."

Meanwhile Hartmann's companion had torn away the strap which bound Grace to the wall and was leading her to the door. Her husband's efforts to detain her, weak and uncertain, were easily frustrated by Hartmann. In a few moments the door had swung shut upon the detective, and she was being led up the steps to the room above.

Here she fell into a chair, and looking about, saw huddled on a couch in the far corner of the room a little, bent old man, who sat with his white head bowed upon his breast, his hands tied behind his back. Hartmann went over to him and unfastened his bonds. "You will be happier in a moment, my friend," he laughed. "This lady is going to set you free."

Dufrenne—for it was he—sprang to his feet. "How?" he demanded. "How?" As he spoke, he crossed the room, his eyes gleaming, and faced Grace as she sat in the chair.

"Wait and see, old man," said Hartmann, roughly. "Stand aside, please." He pushed Dufrenne impatiently away. "Now, young woman, where is the ivory snuff box?"

Grace raised her head to reply, when the little old Frenchman turned to her, pale with anger. "No!" he shouted, starting forward. "You shall not do this thing. Would you be a traitor to France!"

Grace looked at him and shuddered. His face was quivering with emotion—his eyes burned with piercing brightness, he seemed about to spring at her, in his rage. In a moment Hartmann had turned on him. "Be quiet!" he roared. "I want no interference from you. Mayer!" He pointed a trembling forefinger at the old Frenchman. "Take this fellow away."

Mayer took Dufrenne by the arm and twisted it cruelly. "No nonsense, now!" he growled, thrusting the old man toward the couch upon which he had been sitting. "Hold your tongue, or it will be worse for you." Dufrenne resisted him as best he could,