what none of us understands, M. Armand, is how he was
killed. Who or what killed him? How was that poison administered? Can
you suggest an explanation?"

He sat for a moment staring thoughtfully out of the window.

"It is a nice problem," he said, "a most interesting one. I will
think it over, Mr. Lester. Perhaps I may be able to make a
suggestion. I do not know. But, in any event, I shall see you again
Wednesday. If it is agreeable to you, we can meet at the house of Mr.
Vantine and exchange the cabinets."

"At what time?"

"I do not know with exactness. There may be some delay in getting the
cabinet from the ship. Perhaps it would be better if I called for
you?"

"Very well," I assented.

"Permit me to express again my apologies that such a mistake should
have been made by us. Really, we are most careful; but even we
sometimes suffer from careless servants. It desolates me to think
that I cannot offer these apologies to Mr. Vantine in person. Till
Wednesday, then, Mr. Lester."

"Till Wednesday," I echoed, and watched his erect and perfectly-garbed
figure until it vanished through the doorway. A fascinating
man, I told myself as I turned back to my desk, and one whom I
should like to know more intimately; a man with a hobby for the
mysteries of crime, with which I could fully sympathise; and I smiled
as I thought of the burning interest with which he had listened to
the story of the double tragedy. How naively he had confessed his
thought that he would have made a great detective--or a great
criminal; and here he was only a dealer in curios. Well, I had had
the same thought, more than once--and here was I, merely a
not-too-successful lawyer. Decidedly, M. Armand and myself had much
in common!

CHAPTER XVIII

I PART WITH THE BOULE CABINET

The coroner's inquest was held next day, and my surmise proved to be
correct. The police had discovered practically no new evidence; none,
certainly, which shed any light on the way in which Drouet and Philip
Vantine had met death. Each of the witnesses told his story much as I
have told it here, and it was evident that the jury was bewildered by
the seemingly inextricable tangle of circumstances.

To my relief, Drouet's identity was established without any help from
me. The bag which he had left on the pier had been opened at the
request of the police and a card-case found with his address on it.
Why he had sent in to Vantine a card not his own, and what his