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Updated: June 16, 2025
The compartment was a smoking one, and he and Dufrenne had it all to themselves. The little old Frenchman drew out a much-stained meerschaum pipe and began placidly to smoke it. His manner toward the detective was respectful, friendly indeed, yet he made no attempts at conversation, and seemed quite satisfied to sit and gaze out of the car window at the fields and villages as they swept by.
"I have been in the service of the Prefect for ten years," he remarked, "and I have learned that he wastes very little time upon unimportant things." He leaned out and spoke to the chauffeur, and in a moment the car halted before a dingy little shop, on the lower floor of an old and dilapidated-looking house. "Here is the place of Monsieur Dufrenne," he remarked significantly.
After a long time spent in debating the matter pro and con., Duvall threw himself into a chair close to the one which the man he was watching occupied, and pretended to sleep. Of Dufrenne he saw nothing. After perhaps an hour, the card game ceased, the players retired to their staterooms, or to near-by sofas, and a steward began to lower the lights.
Above all things, the delivery of the snuff box to Hartmann must be prevented. On that point the Prefect was emphatic." The young man turned into a cross street as he concluded and was swallowed up in the crowd. Dufrenne, after securing his room at the Hotel Metropole, sat down to wait. He did not have to wait long. The young man, Lablanche, joined him in a short time.
Monsieur Dufrenne, the proprietor, expects you, and will join you at once. Proceed without delay to London and report to Monsieur de Grissac, the French Ambassador. He has lost an ivory snuff box, which you must recover as quickly as possible. You will find money enclosed herewith. Monsieur Dufrenne you can trust in all things. God be with you. Lefevre."
He lit a cigar and began to pace the deck nervously, inspecting the few passengers who had elected to remain outside, before directing his steps to the saloon below. After some five minutes spent in a useless search, he observed a familiar figure approaching him from the direction of the companionway, and at once saw that it was Dufrenne.
Hence when he dispatched Richard Duvall, and Monsieur Dufrenne, the little curio dealer of the Rue de Richelieu, to London, and the former's wife and later on Lablanche to Brussels, he felt that he had done all that it was possible to do, to secure the recovery of Monsieur de Grissac's stolen snuff box.
After some trouble he managed, however, to locate Dufrenne, standing beside the rail in the shadow of one of the lifeboats. He went up to him and saw that his teeth were chattering with the cold.
He hoped that his friends outside Lablanche, Dufrenne, even Grace might be able to come to his assistance. If he could only know that the snuff box was safe in Monsieur Lefevre's hands, the rest did not matter much. These thoughts passed through his mind as he lay with closed eyes, his face quivering under the dazzling light which fell upon it.
"Don't open your mouth to a soul do you hear? If you do, you'll get yourself into a peck of trouble." The last thing they heard as they left the shop was the barber's howls of assent. At the corner Duvall signaled a passing cab. "Liverpool Street station, in a hurry," he cried. "Half a crown extra, if you make the boat train for Harwich." Dufrenne gazed at his companion in bewilderment.
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