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Updated: May 6, 2025
The cushions were ivory and peacock-blue. The chairs, the writing-table, the couch, the bookcases, were pure Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Vellum-bound books filled the cases Doggie was very particular about his bindings. Delicate water-colours alone adorned the walls. On his neatly arranged writing-table lay an ivory set inkstand, pen-tray, blotter and calendar.
The other hand was on the table, fingering idly the various objects that strewed it. There were an inkstand, a pen-tray, a seal, a blotting-book or portfolio, and many other odds and ends. This blotting-book, with the same listless, aimless action, Mrs. Wilders presently turned to, and turned over the leaves one by one.
The Cardinal sat in a high-backed chair at a magnificent polished writing-table, on which stood a crucifix having the sacred figure carved apparently from a single gigantic amethyst; the inkstand, pen-tray, and sand-boxes were also gilt, and made a glittering show in the bright sunshine that poured through the open window.
At my own writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer.
They fit in underneath the pen-tray, and might remain undiscovered for a hundred years unless you had the superhuman wit to divine the purpose of the brass nail. The drawers contain diamonds, probably, or some closely folded document making you the heir to a vast estate. As a matter of fact, I don't know what they contained; the surprise of the drawers themselves was enough for me.
These, in the aggregate, appeared to the superficial eye to account for all that remained of the cubic contents of the structure; but the supreme mystery and charm of the affair was that they did not! No; there was an esoteric secret still in reserve; and for years it remained a secret to me. The bottle-sockets and pen-tray did not reach down to the level of the long drawer by nearly an inch.
Yet, as he put the pen back in the pen-tray and, laying the last page of manuscript face downwards upon the blotting-paper passed his hand over it, he was less sensible of exultation than of a pathetic emptiness. The book had come to be so much part of him that he felt a nasty wrench when he thus finally rid himself of it.
In the pen-tray lay a sort of brass nail, as long as your little finger, and blunt at the end. Now take the sand-bottle from its hole. In one corner of the bottom thereof you will see a minute aperture, just big enough to admit the seemingly useless brass nail. Stick it in and press hard. Nothing less than the fronts of two minute drawers.
Next he took a new copying-pencil from the pen-tray on his bureau and stripping the wood away with his knife, dropped the blue lead into the vinegar and water. This lead he carefully dissolved with the help of a glass pestle. "There! It's ready," he said. "I, too," added Fairbairn. He lifted out of the developing dish a wet sheet of writing paper which was absolutely blank.
She had extended her clenched hand in speaking and now struck it violently on the desk. The silver blotter, the candlesticks, the pen-tray and ink-stand leaped in their places and the ink, splashing up, spattered her white silk robe. "There now," said Mrs. Talcott, eyeing her impassively, "you've gone and spoiled your nice dress." "Damn the dress!" said Madame von Marwitz.
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