The Puzzle Box

The loud shriek of shattering glass filled the old mansion as a crowbar lunged through the window. The star-lit specks of glass shards sprinkled across the marbled floor, leaving a faint echo in the abandoned ballroom.

“Quite! You idiot!” Landry hissed through his teeth. “You are going to wake up the whole bloody neighborhood!”

“The only thing that will wake them up is your voice yellin’ at me!” Eddie hissed back. “Keep quiet till we get in the house.”

Landry huffed beside the barren bushes next to the mansion window. He signaled to Eddie to get up and through the window before cupping his hands over his mouth to warm them up. Eddie dropped the rusted crowbar on the other side of the broken window. He hoisted his body upon the window sill and tried to throw his dangling leg over the edge. “Help me, will ya?” He said exasperatedly. Landry shook his cold and numb hands out before getting behind Eddie and boosting him up through the window.

“What do you see in there? Help me get up now.” Landry asked after Eddie was on the other side. He looked around in the vaulted ballroom filled with furnishings that were covered with cotton sheets that have turned grey with dust. The chandeliers in the ballroom hung like specters and danced in the breeze that howled through the halls of the mansion. Eddie lent Landry a hand as he came through the broken window.

“Let’s get to the good loot. I bet this place is loaded with all kinds of prizes.” Eddie said as he picked up his crowbar. They walked through the ballroom into the adjacent room — another vaulted room that was filled with standing tables and lined with chairs with elaborate stitching and the finest woodworking. Covered round tables followed the middle of the long corridor. “Pretty snazzy place, eh?” Eddie whispered as they walked. “You would think they would have a guard or somethin’ here to keep all this safe.”

“They come back every year,” Landry said. “So they probably figure that they don’t need anyone watching the place if they’ll be back in a few months.” Eddie twisted a grin on his face as he examined a covered table. He swiped his palm across the face of the table and was greeted with a plume of dust that rose and fell slowly.

“I don’t think this place is visited every few months. This dust has been sitting for years.” Eddie said as he wiped his dirtied glove on his corduroy pants.

“Whatcha’ want from me? Let’s just find some jewels and get out of here, ok?” Landry threw up his hands in response. They continued through the long corridor to two large doors. The mansion was a labyrinth of corridors and parlors. They were each as ornate as the room before but seemed indistinguishable from each other with covered furnishings. The two thieves wormed their way from room to room, peeking under every drawer and desk they came across to find something of value. They came to a winding wooden staircase that led up upstairs.

“Maybe there is something better up there?” Eddie said. “This floor has been a bust.” Landry nodded his head and warmed his hands with his breath as they ascended the grand wooden staircase. Once they reached the top of the stairs, they continued their search in each room, only to be greeted by a familiar scene of what they saw on the first floor. They uncovered a grand room that mirrored the size of the ballroom with tall, towering rows of books that lined the perimeter of the room. The floor itself was broken up with bookshelves that created a kind of maze from one hall to the next. A cluster of wooden desks sat in the center of the room. The desks were covered with the same sheet they had seen countless times before, except for one of the desks which sat a small wooden box.

“Ey, lookey here,” Eddie said. “Think we found something?” He picked up the wooden box and brought it to the moonlight cast through the library windows. The box wasn’t ornate or elaborate but instead looked to be composed of several different pieces of wood all slotted together. “What the bloody ‘ell is this thing?”

Landry came close to examine the box in Eddie’s hands. “Just open it up and see what is inside.”

Eddie shrugged. He fumbled with the top of the box to try and open it, but it didn’t seem to budge. In fact, Eddie wasn’t even sure that what he was trying to open was the top. He tossed the box over and over again, pulling and pushing on each side to try to open it up.

“This bloody thing won’t open!” He grunted as he struggled with the box.

“Let’s just smash it open and see what is inside, ya idiot!” Landry said while reaching for the box and the crowbar in Eddie's hand. He was resisted as Eddie withdrew the box into his jacket and stepped away.

“We can’t smash the thing open! It’ll break whatever valuable is innit.” Eddie barked. He took the box from his jacket and examined it again. “I think it’s a puzzle box.”

“What’sa puzzle box?” Landry scratched his head.

“It’s a box with a secret way of openin’ it. It’s to keep safe whatever’s in the box.” Eddie examining the box intently. “There must be something really valuable innit if it’s so hard to open up.”

“Lemme look at it!” Landry said as he lunged across to grab the box.

“Get your grubby hands off it!” Eddie moved back and hid the box behind his body in one hand as he held the crowbar in the other. “You ain’t gonna figure it out, ya bleetin’ idiot! What’s in here is mine. I found it first.”

“That ain’t the deal Eddie! I got you in here so we could split what we found! Who says you get the box anyway?” Landry yelled as he jabbed his finger into Eddie’s shoulder.

Eddie scowled back. “I found the thing, so ya got no claim to it!” He clenched the box within his left hand. Landry lunged for the box and without hesitation, Eddie swung the crowbar in his right hand and landed a heavy blow to Landry’s left shoulder. He fell to the ground and howled in pain.

“What did you do that for?!” He barked as he rolled on the ground and soothed his shoulder. Landry struggled to his feet and twisted his shoulder in relief.

“Ya ain’t gettin’ this box, Landry! Back off before I hurt you real good!” Eddie warned. He clenched the crowbar harder in his right hand and began to wag it in preparation for another strike. Landry jumped at Eddie and knocked him on the floor with the box still tightly gripped in his hand. The two thieves wrestled on the ground as Eddie fought to keep his grip on the box that Landry desperately tried to pry away. In a moment of desperation, Eddie grabbed the crowbar he had dropped and swung it across Landry’s head. A deafening crack silenced their struggle as Laundry fell motionless to the ground. Eddie scurried away from the growing pool of crimson blood that grew from Landry’s head. All that could be heard in the mansion was the frantic footsteps of Eddie as he ran through room after room to escape. The ghostly image of his fellow thief laying on the ground haunted his pursuit. The only thing to take Eddie’s mind off what he had just done was the firm grip he had on the wooden box under his arm as he ran.

It took the police over a month to find Landry’s body in the abandoned mansion. He wasn’t reported missing — until one of the servants in the mansion uncovered the body when preparing for guests again. Eddie read about it in the national newspaper while he was on a train. Despite running away to another town and going by a different name, Eddie still looked over his shoulder when walking in the streets and would pull his wool cap over his head when walking by the police. He didn’t think anyone knew he killed Landry, but he also didn’t want to risk being spotted. Most importantly, Eddie didn’t want anyone else to know about the puzzle box. When he saw the story in the newspaper, he felt relief that not a single mention of the box was in the article. He was more fearful that someone had seen it was missing and believed that is what would land him in jail more than the murder.

Eddie picked up a few odd jobs in a different city. He kept his head down and didn’t talk to anybody. He stuck to the same routine every day — work, then he would head home, light up a cigarette and pour himself a drink and sit with the box on the kitchen table and try to open it.

It took him about 2 months to discover a moveable block that shifted the exterior of the box but would get lost again trying to find out what to do next. He would stay up late into the night trying to open the box, but could never find out how to get it opened. In a fit of frustration, Eddie threw the box in a trunk and locked it away. He wanted to be away from it, but wouldn’t be able to get any sleep because of it. He would lie in bed, watching shadows dance on the ceiling of his small apartment, and be reminded of the shadows cast through the window of the mansion library and the blood pooled around Landry’s body. When Eddie did fall asleep, he would be jolted awake by the sound of his crowbar cracking Landry’s skull. Even while awake, that sound would echo within his mind until daybreak came. Eddie lost weight. His eyes sunk into his face as bags formed like weights on his face. His hands would tremble during the day at work and whenever he took long drags from a cigarette when laying in bed at night.

Months passed and the box remained unsolved and closed. Those months soon became years. Eddie would get a break from the box out of frustration, but it was never for long. It would be a week or so that the box remained hidden deep in the trunk in his apartment before he would go digging for it and try to open it one more time. Eventually, Eddie gave up trying to open the box and let it lie at the bottom of his old trunk and forgot about it for months at a time. He would then be reminded of the box and give it a look once over, but then put it back with no success of ever opening it. Years later, he got a promotion at a cannery and met a girl there. They married and had a son. The death of Landry became a ghosted memory in his old age. He never told anybody anything about what happened in the mansion that night and often forgot himself.

One day, Eddie’s son discovered the box in the trunk and asked him about it. “What’s inside?” he would ask. Eddie couldn’t answer. Like a wound reopened, it began to fester and infect Eddie’s mind once more. He was close to the end of his life but knew he couldn’t end his life without knowing the contents of that cursed wooden box. With a rekindled fire, Eddie sought to open it. He knew he needed help and that help would come from someone smarter than himself. He had written a letter about the box to one of the professors of enigmatology, a word that Eddie didn’t know exactly what it meant, but discovered the professor from a news article claiming he was the best code breaker in the world. The professor was very interested in the puzzle box and invited Eddie to visit him. Eddie packed the wooden box in a cotton handkerchief and took the train across the country to meet with the professor.

“You must be the one with the curious puzzle box?” The Professor said when greeting Eddie. He was a proud man with a fine wool jacket and a well-groomed beard. He stood tall next to Eddie, who had grown old and bent over with a crooked spine. His hands shook as he revealed the box from beneath his jacket.

The Professor took the box and examined it for a while in silence. “What a remarkable box! How did you ever come across it?” he remarked to Eddie.

“It’s a family heirloom. Not sure how I got it, but I have never been able to open it, as I said in my letter.” Eddie said. His voice rasped as he lied. It was odd to see the box in the hands of someone else. There was a part of him that wanted to grab the box back immediately, while another part of him wished the damned thing was burned to a crisp.

“That is remarkable, Mister! I have only seen a box like this in old photographs.” the Professor explained while investigating the exterior of the box.

“You have seen the box before?” Eddie was shocked.

“Oh yes, it’s a fairly common Victorian-era children’s toy. The box was often sold as a kind of game by fine woodworkers. Not many are left since they often were difficult to get together again and would rot over time. This one is in immaculate condition though!”

“What’s inside it?” Eddie responded. The Professor shrugged. “Do you know how to open it?” Eddie said with a quivered voice.

“I believe I can if you don’t mind?” the Professor responded.

Eddie tried to restrain his eagerness. He thought of what to do with the contents inside. All he managed was a nod to the Professor that started him off. The Professor turned the box over and over in his hands, twisting the container and flipping it over. The series of blocks shifted and turned very slightly until eventually one of the blocks became loose. “You see, you pull this last block out to find the contents within, and then reverse the puzzle again to lock it.” The professor said. “Do you want to open it yourself?”

Eddie eagerly nodded, but carefully took the box from the Professor’s hands. His hands quivered as he slowly removed the final block that also functioned as the opening for the box itself. He looked inside to find a small note written within the box.

“There is a note inside,” Eddie said to the professor. He unfolded the note to see a series of letters and words that were unintelligible to him. “It must be another message or a clue!” Eddie said with eagerness in his voice.

The professor moved close to Eddie to examine the note. He gave out a slight chuckle as he peered over Eddie’s shoulder to read it. “The letter is in French,” the professor said. “It looks to be instructions.”

“Instructions? Where does it say to go? Is this a clue to where a grand treasure is?!” Eddie said with wild and wide eyes.

The professor let out a bellied laugh. “To nowhere, Mister. There is no treasure and this is not that kind of instruction. It looks to be instructions to how to open the box itself.”

Eddie remains motionless as he registered what the professor had said.

The professor put on a big smile for Eddie. “I hope that I haven’t disappointed you, Mister. You have quite a wild imagination! It appears whoever owned this box thought it was important to keep the instructions with it, and hid it inside. It seems like a cruel joke. I do hope you didn’t go to too much trouble with this box.”

Eddie collapsed and folded onto the floor of the Professor’s office. He began to weep bitterly with his head on the floor and his hands over his head.