The third door was locked, but the rusty key from the first cupboard opened it. Inside, there was but one object—a small wooden box, banded round with a piece of tape, the two edges of which were fastened together by a seal. Rosamond's flagging interest rallied instantly at this discovery. She described the box to her husband, and asked if he thought she was justified in breaking the seal.
"Can you see any thing written on the cover?" he inquired.
Rosamond carried the box to the window, blew the dust off the top of it, and read, on a parchment label nailed to the cover: "Papers. John Arthur Treverton. 1760."
"I think you may take the responsibility of breaking the seal," said Leonard. "If those papers had been of any family importance, they could scarcely have been left forgotten in an old book-case by your father and his executors."
Rosamond broke the seal, then looked up doubtfully at her husband before she opened the box. "It seems a mere waste of time to look into this," she said. "How can a box that has not been opened since seventeen hundred and sixty help us to discover the mystery of Mrs. Jazeph and the Myrtle Room?"
"But do we know that it has not been opened since then?" said Leonard. "Might not the tape and seal have been put round it by any body at some more recent period of time? You can judge best, because you can see if there is any inscription on the tape, or any signs to form an opinion by upon the seal."
"The seal is a blank, Lenny, except that it has a flower like a forget-me-not in the middle. I can see no mark of a pen on either side of the tape. Any body in the world might have opened the box before me," she continued, forcing up the lid easily with her hands, "for the lock is no protection to it. The wood of the cover is so rotten that I have pulled the staple out, and left it sticking by itself in the lock below."
On examination the box proved to be full of papers. At the top of the uppermost packet were written these words: "Election expenses. I won by four votes. Price fifty pounds each. J. A. Treverton." The next layer of papers had no inscription. Rosamond opened them, and read on the first leaf—"Birthday Ode. Respectfully addressed to the Mæcenas of modern times in his poetic retirement at Porthgenna." Below this production appeared a collection of old bills, old notes of invitation, old doctor's prescriptions, and old leaves of betting-books, tied together with a piece of whip-cord. Last of all, there lay on the bottom of the box one thin leaf of paper, the visible side of which presented a perfect blank. Rosamond took it up, turned it to look at the other side, and saw some faint ink-lines crossing each other in various directions, and having letters of the alphabet attached to them in certain places. She had made her husband acquainted with the contents of all the other papers, as a matter of course; and when she had described this last paper to him, he explained to her that the lines and letters represented a mathematical problem.
"The book-case tells us nothing," said Rosamond, slowly putting the papers back in the box. "Shall we try the writing-table by the fire-place, next?"
"What does it look like, Rosamond?"