t Duvall had removed the lid, and plunged his finger into the box.
As he did so, he uttered an exclamation of utter astonishment and
disgust. The box contained nothing but rice powder.

CHAPTER IX

It would be difficult to describe the feelings of annoyance and chagrin
which swept over Richard Duvall as he tossed the box of Monsieur
Perrier's rice powder over the side of the vessel and watched it float
for a moment on the crest of a wave before being swept into the
darkness. He glanced for an instant at his companion, then turned away
as he saw the latter's stare of astonishment and dismay. He wanted to be
alone, to think out this matter for himself.

With a confusion of ideas racing through his brain he began to pace the
deck, trying to discover wherein his reasoning had been at fault. He
went back to the gruesome scene at the house of the Ambassador--the
murdered valet, with the grim seal of silence upon his lips. Whoever had
committed this murder had made away with the snuff box, of that he felt
certain. Upon what, then, did his suspicions of Seltz rest? The evidence
was slender--merely that the latter had had an appointment to meet the
murdered man that afternoon, and that a person answering Seltz's
description had inquired for the latter at the servants' entrance at
Monsieur de Grissac's that evening. Not very convincing, surely, yet
taken with Seltz's evident intention to leave London for Brussels that
night, certainly significant. Following then his original hypothesis,
that Seltz was the guilty man, and had the box in his possession, two
solutions of the matter only seemed possible. The first was, the man in
the saloon below, anticipating perhaps some attempt to search his
baggage, had deliberately provided himself, through Seltz, with a second
package, containing a box of rice powder only, which he had placed in
his satchel, in the belief that, if found, its innocent contents would
divert from him further suspicion. The careless way in which he had
thrown his satchel on the floor beside him, favored this theory. It
seemed, on sober thought, extremely unlikely that the bearer of so
valuable a piece of property would be so thoughtless as to place it
loosely in an unlocked handbag. Even now the real package might be
reposing safely in some secure inner pocket.

The other solution was equally probable. The purchase of the face powder
might have been quite innocent and _bona fide_. The man below might kno