“Some powerful chemical, doubtless,” he reflected, recollecting that the note had been a trifle damp when he drew it from the envelope; and with this suggestion, he scraped together a little pinch of the dust to taste and smell of it. The tests confirmed his opinion. There was a faint, pungent odor to the particles, which, although familiar, he could not exactly place; and one of them, applied to his tongue, produced a slight burning sensation. The paper undoubtedly had been treated with some solution, which, in drying, reduced it to shreds. He carefully transferred what remained of it to an envelope, in order to have his conclusions verified and the exact nature of the solvent determined by expert analysis; but he really needed no such corroboration. He was fully satisfied that the demolition of the message must have been effected in the way he assumed. With so much settled, though, he seemed in no way relieved. Indeed, the frown of perplexity on his forehead grew deeper, and, seated there before his desk, he fell into a brown study. Why, he thought, should Schilder have gone to so much trouble to get rid of this note, when he could so easily have supported his denial of writing it by the simple expedient of using another machine? As he himself had said to Grail, it would be quite a job, without other clews, to trace, among all the hundreds of machines in a city like Brantford, the particular one on which a specific communication was written. “No,” the adjutant said aloud, fishing from his pocket the half-smoked cigarette he had found at the threshold of the foundry office, and, surveying it with a decisive nod, “I can’t be so far off the track. This new complication simply means that the trail is a bit more involved than I thought. However”--he shrugged his shoulders with returning resentment--“that is something for the bunch of wiseacres down the row to work out. I’m done with the whole business.” And once more he drew a sheet of paper toward him to indite his resignation.