realised the disadvantage. "The criminal is the creative artist;
the detective only the critic," he said with a sour smile, and
lifted his coffee cup to his lips slowly, and put it down very
quickly. He had put salt in it.

He looked at the vessel from which the silvery powder had
come; it was certainly a sugar-basin; as unmistakably meant for
sugar as a champagne-bottle for champagne. He wondered why they
should keep salt in it. He looked to see if there were any more
orthodox vessels. Yes; there were two salt-cellars quite full.
Perhaps there was some speciality in the condiment in the
salt-cellars. He tasted it; it was sugar. Then he looked round
at the restaurant with a refreshed air of interest, to see if
there were any other traces of that singular artistic taste which
puts the sugar in the salt-cellars and the salt in the sugar-basin.
Except for an odd splash of some dark fluid on one of the
white-papered walls, the whole place appeared neat, cheerful and
ordinary. He rang the bell for the waiter.

When that official hurried up, fuzzy-haired and somewhat
blear-eyed at that early hour, the detective (who was not without
an appreciation of the simpler forms of humour) asked him to taste
the sugar and see if it was up to the high reputation of the hotel.
The result was that the waiter yawned suddenly and woke up.

"Do you play this delicate joke on your customers every
morning?" inquired Valentin. "Does changing the salt and sugar
never pall on you as a jest?"

The waiter, when this irony grew clearer, stammeringly assured