The major summoned his striker. “My compliments to Adjutant Grail, and ask him if he can make it convenient to come here at once to answer a few questions.” In less than five minutes the messenger was back with the astonishing reply: “The adjutant’s compliments, sir, and he wishes to know if you care to put your request in the form of an order. If not, sir, he does not care to discuss anything with the officers to-night.” The major grew red with indignation at the injury to his dignity, and the surgeon growled darkly that the answer bore out his suspicions. But Appleby was not a man of snapshot action, and he said, with an assumption of chilly dignity: “Very well; say to the adjutant, with my compliments, that I shall issue no orders to-night.” Then, turning to the officers, with a portentous shrug, he added: “We will await the developments of to-morrow.” CHAPTER IV. MYSTERIOUS ASHES. After sending his curt message to Major Appleby, Grail sat in the office at headquarters, whither he had betaken himself from the meeting, smoking fiercely, and glowering at a spot on the wall. He had set himself in defiance of the whole post, and he could not but feel that he was in the right. At any rate, he scorned to defend himself against the aspersions of a blunderer like Appleby, or an officious young ass like Hemingway; for, as it happened, he knew of the story set afloat by the mess manager, Colonel Vedant having detailed it to him jestingly during their hurried trip to the foundry. Grail had been prevented then from offering any explanation, owing to their arrival at Schilder’s office. Rather than make such an explanation now, he vowed he would be drawn and quartered, for he bitterly resented the attitude taken by his brother officers, their readiness--nay, almost eagerness--to believe the very worst of him. Grail loved his profession. More than once he had refused flattering offers to leave it for a career in civil life. But now, in his hot indignation, he declared that not another week should find him wearing the uniform and associating with such double-faced, intriguing cads. On the impulse of the moment, he stepped over to his desk, and, snatching up a pen, started to write out his resignation. But as he blotted the sheet before affixing his signature he paused, with an exclamation of annoyance, to find that the lines he had written were streaked with fine gray dust, which had fallen on the paper. A sort of gritty powder, it seemed to be, like the dust which rises from the handling of filed papers or documents. Without giving the matter second thought, Grail was about to tear up the blurred resignation and start to draft another one, when his attention was suddenly caught by a flake of the powder slightly larger than the others. It was a tiny shred of paper, but what especially aroused his interest was that it showed the trace of a lithographed letter “V” of the peculiar style and shading used as a heading by the Dolliver Foundry.