"Where were you, then, that you say 'in the room below?'" asked Lefevre suddenly.
"In the laboratory, on the second floor. My husband was confined in the basement. I said I would tell—for they were killing him. He cried out to me—forbidding me to do so. Then they took me away to the room above."
"And left your husband alone, with the snuff box in his possession?" demanded the Prefect, sternly.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"About—about ten minutes," she replied, wondering at his question.
"And you," exclaimed the Prefect, in a voice of fury, turning on Duvall, "were left alone in this room, with the snuff box in your possession, for ten minutes, at the end of which time you calmly turned it over to this fellow Hartmann. Mon Dieu! Why did you not destroy it—crush it under your heel—anything, to prevent our enemies from obtaining possession of it?" He looked at Duvall, his face working convulsively. "You—you are a—sacré bleu!—I cannot tell you what I think of you."
"Monsieur de Grissac," asked Duvall, his face white, "had I destroyed the box, or even only the key, could you have read these documents yourself?"
The Ambassador gazed at him, puzzled for a moment. "Certainly not, monsieur," he replied. "I could no more have solved the cipher than they could. It was for that reason that I was forced to carry the key about with me. But it would have been infinitely better, had the documents never again been read, than to have them read by our enemies."
Without making any reply, Duvall placed his hand in his pocket and drew out, between his thumb and forefinger, a tiny white pellet, no larger than the head of a match. "You are no doubt acquainted, Monsieur de Grissac," he said, coolly, "with your own handwriting."