Chapter II: Part 2

To Frobisher's _petit diner_ the same evening of that eventful day ostensibly to meet the Shan of Koordstan, Lefroy came large and flamboyant, with a vivid riband across his dazzling expanse of shirt and a jewelled collar under his tie. There was an extra gloss on his black moustache, his swagger was a little more pronounced than usual. He looked like what he was--a strong man weighed down by not too many scruples.

There were less than a dozen men altogether, a couple of well-known members of the Travellers', a popular K.C., and a keen, hatchet-faced judge with a quiet manner and a marvellous faculty for telling dialect stories. The inevitable politician and fashionable doctor completed the party. As Lefroy and his secretary entered the drawing-room most of the men were admiring a portfolio of Morland's drawings that Frobisher had picked up lately.

Hafid stepped noiselessly across the floor with a telegram on a salver. Frobisher read it without the slightest sign of annoyance.

"The Shan is not coming," he said. "Koordstan is indisposed."

"So I gathered when I called professionally this afternoon," Dr. Brownsmith said dryly.

"Champagne," Frobisher laughed whole-heartedly. "All right, Sir James. I won't question you too far. So white is not going to mate in three moves this evening, Lefroy?"

Lefroy shrugged his shoulders carelessly. The Shan of Koordstan was safe for the present. He had seen to that. Manfred had dropped quietly into a chair with just the suggestion of pain on his face. A smooth-voiced butler announced that dinner was served.

"Where does Frobisher get his servants from, Jessop?" Sir James Brownsmith asked the judge, as the two strolled across the hall together. "Now there's a model of a butler for you. His voice has a flavour of old, nutty sherry about it. By Jove, what are those flowers?"

There were flowers everywhere, mostly arranged by Frobisher himself. In the centre was a rough handful of green twigs bound together with a silver cord, and the whole surmounted by a coil of the pinky-white orchid with its fringe of trembling red moths.

"Orchids," said the politician. "Something fresh, Frobisher? What do you call it?"

"The specimen is not named at present," Lefroy said meaningly.

Frobisher glanced at the speaker and smiled.

"Lefroy is quite right," he said. "The specimen lacks a name. It came in the first place from Koordstan, and there were three spines of the original plant. It is a freak, there never was anything like it before, and there will probably never be one like it again. That self-same orchid was very near to being the price of a kingdom once upon a time."

"Only it is unfortunately impossible to tell the story," Lefroy remarked.

Once again Frobisher glanced at the speaker and smiled. Most of the guests by this time were busy over their soup. They were not the class of men to waste valuable sentiment over flowers. It was only Frobisher who glanced from time to time lovingly at the Cardinal Moth. Manfred seemed to avoid it altogether. He sat at the table eating nothing and obviously out of sorts with his food.

"I've a bilious headache, Sir Clement," he explained. "The mere sight of food and smell of cooking makes me sick to the soul. Would you mind if I sat in the drawing-room in the dark for a little time? I am confident that the attack will pass off presently."

"Anything you please, my dear fellow," Frobisher cried hospitably. "A strong cup of tea! A glass of champagne and a dry biscuit? No? If you ring the bell Hafid will attend to you."

Hafid salaamed as he dexterously caught a meaning glance from Frobisher. Lefroy brutally proclaimed aloud that a good dinner was utterly wasted upon Manfred. Brownsmith with his mouth full of aspic was understood to say something anent the virtues of bromide. So the dinner proceeded with pink lakes of light on the table, the flowers and the cut glass and quaint silver. And there were blossoms, blossoms everywhere, thousands of them. Frobisher might have been a great scoundrel--that he was a man of exquisite taste was beyond question. The elaborate dinner dragged smoothly along, two hours passed, a silver chime proclaimed eleven o'clock.

The cloth was drawn at length, as the host's whim was, the decanters and glittering glass stood on a brown glistening lake of polished oak, with here and there a dash of fruit to give a more vivid touch of colour. Hafid handed round a silver cigarette-box, a cedar cigar cabinette on wheels was pushed along the table. Over the shaded electric lights a blue wrack of smoke hung. The silver chime struck twelve.

"Hafid; you have made Mr. Manfred comfortable?" Frobisher asked.

Hafid replied that he had done all that a man could do. Mr. Manfred was reclining in the dark near an open window. All the other servants but himself had retired. The butler had seen that everything necessary was laid out in the smoking-room.

"Always send the servants to bed as soon as possible," Frobisher explained. "What with the spread of modern journalism, I find it necessary. You never know nowadays how far one's butler is interested in the same stock that you are deeply dipped in. And a long-eared footman has changed the course of diplomacy before now."

"If everybody pursued the same policy, George," Baron Jessop murmured, "I and my learned friends of the Bench would have more or less of a sinecure."

"And Lord Saltaur, yonder would not have lost a beautiful wife," Lefroy said loudly.

A sudden hush seemed to smite the table. Lord Saltaur whitened to his lips under his tan; his long, lean hands gripped the edge of the table passionately. His own domestic scandal had been so new, so painful, that the whole party stood aghast at the brutality of the insult.

"Frobisher," Saltaur said, hoarsely. "It is not pleasant to be insulted by a blackguard----"

"What was that word?" Lefroy asked quite sweetly. "My hearing may be a trifle deficient, but I fancied his lordship said something about a blackguard."

Frobisher interfered as in duty bound. As a matter of fact he was enjoying the situation. Lefroy had drunk deeply, but then he had seen Lefroy's amazing prowess in that direction too many times for any fears as to his ultimate equilibrium. No, Lefroy was playing some deep game. As yet only the first card had been laid upon the table.

"I think that the apology lies with you, Count," Frobisher said tentatively.

"A mere jest," Lefroy said, airily. "A _jeu d'esprit_. Lord Saltaur's wife."

"You hound!" Saltaur cried passionately. "Whatever I have been, you might leave the name of a pure woman out of your filthy conversation. If you don't apologise at once, I'll thrust your words down your throat for you."

A contemptuous reply came from Lefroy. There was a flash of crystal and a glass shattered on the Count's dark face, leaving a star-shaped wound on his cheek. A moment later and he and Saltaur were struggling together like wild animals. Frobisher had so far forgotten himself as to lean back in his chair as if this were a mere exhibition got up for his entertainment.

"Is this part of the evening's amusement, Sir Clement?" the judge asked coldly.

Frobisher realised his responsibilities with a sigh for his interrupted pleasure. His civilisation was the thinnest possible veneer, a shoddy thing like Tottenham Court Road furniture.

"Come, you chaps must drop it," he cried. "I can't have you fighting over my Smyrna carpet. Saltaur, you shall have your apology. Lefroy, do you hear me?"

Strong arms interfered, and the two men were dragged apart. Lefroy's teeth glistened in a ghastly grin; there was a speck of blood on his white shirt front. Saltaur's laboured breathing could be heard all over the room.

"I take you all to witness that it was no seeking of mine," he cried. "I was foully insulted. In a few days all the world will know that I have been made the victim of a discharged servant's perjury. Frobisher, I am still waiting for my apology."

Lefroy paused and passed his handkerchief across his face. He seemed to have wiped the leering expression from it. He looked a perfect picture of puzzled bewilderment.

"What have I done?" he asked. "What on earth have I said?"

"Beautiful," Frobisher murmured. "Artistic to a fault. What is he driving at?"

Baron Jessop explained clearly and judiciously. He was glad to have an opportunity of doing so. Viewing the thing dispassionately, he was bound to say that Count Lefroy had been guilty of a grave breach of good taste. But he was quite sure that under the circumstances----

"On my honour, I haven't the slightest recollection of it," Lefroy cried. "If there is one lady of my acquaintance I honour and respect it is Lady ---- the charming woman whom Lord Saltaur calls his wife. A sudden fit of mental aberration, my lord. An old wound in the head followed by a spell in the sunshine. This is the third time the thing has happened. The last time in Serbia nearly cost me my life. My dear Saltaur, I am sorry from the bottom of my heart."

"Funniest case I ever heard of," the puzzled Saltaur murmured. "All the same, I'm deuced sorry I threw that wine glass at you."

"Oh, so you chucked a wine glass at me! Laid my cheek open, too. Well, I should have done exactly the same thing under the same circumstances. From this night I touch nothing stronger than claret. If I'd stuck to that, this wouldn't have happened."

The good-humoured Saltaur muttered something in reply, the threads of the dropped conversation were taken up again. Hafid, who had watched the sudden quarrel with Oriental indifference, had gone off to the conservatory for hot water to bathe Lefroy's damaged face. There was just a lull for a moment in the conversation, a sudden silence, and then the smash of a crystal vessel on a tiled floor and a strangled cry of terror from Hafid. He came headlong into the room, his eyes starting, his whole frame quivering with an ungovernable terror.

"Mr. Manfred," he yelled. "Lying on the floor in the conservatory, dead. Take it and burn it, and destroy it. Take it and burn it, and destroy it. Take it----"

Frobisher pounced upon the wailing speaker and clutched him by the throat. As the first hoarse words came from Hafid the rest of the party had rushed headlong into the orchid-house. Frobisher shook his servant like a reed is shaken by a storm.

"Silence, you fool!" he whispered. "You didn't kill the man, and I didn't kill the man. If he is dead he has not been murdered. And it is no fault of yours."

"Allah knows better," Hafid muttered, sulkily. "You didn't kill him, and I didn't kill him, but he is dead, and Allah will punish the guilty. Take it and burn it, and----"

"Idiot! Son of a pig, be silent. And mind, you are to know nothing. You went to get the hot water from the orchid-house and saw Mr. Manfred lying there. As soon as you did so you rushed in to tell us. Now come along."

The limp body of Manfred had been partly raised, and his head rested on Sir James Brownsmith's knee. The others stood waiting for the verdict.

"The fellow is dead," the great doctor said. "Murdered, I should say, undoubtedly. He has been strangled by a coarse cloth twisted about his throat--precisely the same way as that poor fellow was murdered at Streatham the night before last."

A solemn silence fell upon the group. Hafid stood behind, his lips moving in silent speech:

"Take it and burn it, and destroy it. Take it and burn it, and destroy it, for there is blood upon it now and ever."

The drama was none the less moving because of its decorous silence. The great surgeon knelt on the white marble floor of the orchid-house with Manfred's head on his knee. Though Sir James Brownsmith's hand was quite steady, his face was white as his own hair, or the face of the dead man staring dumbly up to the tangle of ropes and blossoms overhead. There the Cardinal Moth was dancing and quivering as if exulting over the crime. A long trail of it had broken away, and one tiny cloud of blossom danced near the surgeon's ear, as if trying to tell him the tragedy and its story.

"A ghastly business," the judge murmured. "How did the murderer get in here?"

"How did he get out?" Frobisher suggested. "There is no exit from here at all. All the servants have been in bed long ago, and the front door is generally secured, at least the latch is always down."

"But what brought poor Manfred in here?" Saltaur asked. "I understood from Hafid that he was lying down in the drawing-room. Oh, Hafid! Wake up, man!"

"Take it and burn it, and destroy it," Hafid said mechanically.

Frobisher shook him savagely, shook the dreamy horror off him like a garment. He was sorry, he said, but he could tell the excellent company nothing. A quarter of an hour before and Mr. Manfred had appeared to be asleep on the drawing-room sofa. Hafid had asked him if he needed anything, and he had made no reply.

"Very strange," Sir James murmured, still diagnosing the cruel stranded pattern about the dead man's throat. "Perhaps Count Lefroy--where is the Count?"

"He went back into the dining-room," said Saltaur.

Frobisher brought his teeth together with a click. For the moment he had quite forgotten Count Lefroy. He passed from the library and into the dining-room. Lefroy stood by the great shining table close against the fluttering pyramid of red moths, a thin-bladed knife in his hands.

"And what might you be doing?" Frobisher asked softly.

Lefroy smiled somewhat bitterly. He was perfectly self-possessed with the grip of the man who knows how to hold himself in hand. And he smiled none the less easily because there was murder raging in his heart.

"I am cutting my nails," he said.

"Oh, I'll cut your claws for you!" Frobisher said. "Don't do that, what will your manicure artist say? And a social superiority (feminine) tells me that you have the finest hand of any man in London. You are unhinged, my dear Count. This little affair----"

"This cold-blooded murder you mean. Oh, you scoundrel!"

Lefroy had dropped the mask for a moment. There was contempt, loathing, horror in the last few words. Frobisher, counting the nodding swarm of crimson moths, merely smiled.

"Twenty-seven, thirty-one, thirty-nine," he said. "You haven't stolen any of my flowers yet. Not a bad idea of yours to purloin a cluster, and send it to our tin Solomon yonder, as an earnest of good intentions later on. And why do you call me scoundrel?"

"You are the most infernal villain that ever breathed."

"Well, perhaps I am. It is very good of you to admit my superior claims, dear Lefroy. But I am getting old, and you may live to take my place some day. Why----"

"Why did you kill Manfred?"

"My dear fellow, I didn't kill Manfred. You think he has been murdered in the ordinary sense of the word. Manfred has not been murdered, and nobody will ever be hanged for the crime. That you may take my word for. It is the vengeance of the Crimson Moth, death by visitation of God; call it what you will. And it might have been yourself."

Frobisher's whole manner had changed, his eyes were gleaming evilly as he hissed the last words warningly in Lefroy's ear. The latter changed colour slightly.

"I don't understand what you mean," he stammered.

"And yet you are not usually slow at understanding. I repeat that it might have been yourself. If you had attempted the raid of the Cardinal Moth, instead of Manfred, you would have been lying at the present moment with your head on Brownsmith's knees, and the mark of the beast about your throat."

"And if I tell those fellows yonder what you say?"

"You are at liberty to say anything you please. But you are not going to say anything, my dear Lefroy; you are too fine a player for that. You are going to wait patiently for your next innings. Come back to the others. And perhaps I had better lock this door."

Lefroy, like a wise man, accepted the inevitable. But the rest of the party were no longer in the orchid-house. They had carried the dead man to the back dining-room, where they had laid him out on a couch. Frobisher rang up the nearest police-station on the telephone with the request that an inspector should be sent for at once.

"By gad, this is a dreadful thing, don't you know!" Saltaur said with a shudder. "Fancy that poor fellow being murdered whilst we were wrangling in the dining-room. I suppose there is no doubt that it is murder, doctor?"

"Not the shadow of a doubt about it," Sir James replied. "Poor Manfred must have been admiring the flowers when the assassin stepped behind him and threw that coarse cloth over his head. A knee could be inserted on his spine, and the head forced backwards. The cloth must have been twisted with tremendous force. It is quite a novel kind of murder for England."

"Oh, then you have heard of something of the same kind before?" Frobisher asked.

"In India, frequently. I had a chance to examine more than one victim of Thugee, yonder. You remember what a scourge Thugism used to be in India some years ago. A Thug killed Manfred, I have not the slightest doubt about it."

"But there are no Thugs in England," the judge protested.

"My dear fellow, I have had an unfortunate demonstration to the contrary. And this crime is not necessarily the work of a native. Thugee is not dead in India yet, and some white scoundrel might have learnt the trick. Your own servant, Hafid----"

"A robust bluebottle would make a formidable antagonist for Hafid," Frobisher interrupted. "Hafid, somebody is ringing the bell. If it's a policeman, ask him in."

Inspector Townsend came in, small, quiet, soft of manner, and undoubtedly dressed in Bond Street. He listened gravely to all that Frobisher and Brownsmith had to say, and then he asked permission to view the body, and subsequently examine the premises.

A close search of the house only served to deepen the mystery. All the servants slept on the top floor, and that part of the house was bolted off every night after the domestic staff had retired. This was a whim of Sir Clement's, a whim likely to increase his unpopularity in case of fire, but at present that was a secondary consideration. There was no exit from the orchid-house, no windows had been left open, and despite the fact that there were guests in the house, the front-door latch had been dropped quite early in the evening. A rigid cross-examination of Hafid led to no satisfactory result. The man was almost congealed with terror and shock, but it was quite obvious that he knew nothing whatever about the mystery.

"There will be an inquest to-morrow at twelve, Sir Clement," Townsend said. "It will probably be a mere formal affair at which you gentlemen will be present. Good night, sirs."

"We had better follow the inspector's example," Lefroy cried. "Good night, Frobisher."

"My dear fellow, I wish you a cordial adieu," Frobisher cried. "And I can only regret that our pleasant evening has had so tragic a termination. Townsend, you have locked up the back dining-room and taken the key? Good! I want no extra responsibility."

The big hall-door closed behind the last of them. Frobisher took Hafid firmly by the collar and led him into the orchid-house.

"Now, you rascal," he asked, "what on earth do you mean by it?"

"Take it and destroy it, and burn it," Hafid wailed, with a wriggling of his body. He seemed to be trying to shake off something loathsome. "Oh, master, what is to become of us?"

"You grovelling, superstitious fool," Frobisher said lightly. "Nothing will become of us. Nobody knows anything, nobody will ever know anything as long as you remain silent. We haven't murdered anybody!"

"Allah looking down from Paradise knows better than that, master!"

"Well, he is not likely to be called in as a witness," Frobisher muttered grimly. "I tell you nothing has happened that the law can take the least cognisance of. Mind you, I didn't know that things would go quite so far. When I rang up the curtain it was comedy I looked for, not tragedy. Take the key and go into the dining-room. Remove those orchids and burn them, taking care that you destroy thirty-nine of the red flowers. Then you can go to bed."

Hafid recoiled with unutterable loathing on his face.

"I couldn't do it," he whispered. "I couldn't touch one of those accursed blossoms. Beat me, torture me, turn me into the street to starve, but don't ask me to do that, master. I dare not."

He cowered abjectly at Frobisher's feet. With good-humoured contempt the latter kicked him aside. "Go to bed," he said. "You are a greater coward than even I imagined. Put the lights out, and I'll go to bed also."

The lights were carefully put out, except in the smoking-room, where Frobisher sat pondering over the strange events of the evening. He was not in the least put out or alarmed or distressed; on the contrary, he looked like a man who had been considerably pleased with an interesting entertainment. For Manfred he felt neither sorrow nor sympathy.

He did not look fearfully round the room as if half expecting to see the shadow of Manfred's assassin creeping upon him. But he smiled in his own peculiar fashion as the door opened and a white-robed figure came in. It was Angela with her fine hair about her shoulders and a look of horror in her eyes.

"So you've found out all about it," Sir Clement said. "I'm sorry, because it will spoil your rest. How did you come to make the discovery?"

"I had just come in," Angela explained. "I let myself in with my latchkey. I did not come near you because I could hear that you were entertaining company, so I went straight to bed. Then I heard Hafid's cry, and I came to the head of the stairs where I could hear everything."

"You mean to say that you stood there and listened?"

"I couldn't help it. So far as I could judge there was an assassin in the house. Just for the moment I was far too frightened to move. That raving madman might have come for me next."

"Well, you can make your mind quite easy on that score. As you know, the whole house has been most thoroughly searched from top to bottom, and there is nobody here but the servants and ourselves now. If I were you I should keep out of it. Go to bed."

Sir Clement barked out the last few words, but Angela did not move.

"There will be an inquest, of course?" she asked.

"Oh, Lord, yes! The papers will reek of it, and half the reporters in London will look upon the place as a kind of public-house for the next week. Take my advice and keep out of it. You know nothing and you want to continue to know nothing, so to speak."

"But I am afraid that I know a great deal," Angela said slowly. "When I came in I was going into the conservatory to place a flower that I had given me to-night. It is a flower that I am likely to be interested in another time. And there I saw a strange man walking swiftly the same way. From his air and manner he was obviously doing wrong. My idea was to follow and stop him. And when I reached the conservatory, to my intense surprise, he was nowhere to be seen."

Frobisher bent down to fill his pipe. There was an evil, diabolical grin, so malignant, and yet so gleeful, as to render the face almost inhuman.

"It may be of importance later on," he said. "Meanwhile, I should keep the information to myself. Now go to bed and lock your door. I'm going to finish my pipe in my dressing-room."

Frobisher snapped out the lights, leaving the house in darkness. For once in her life Angela did lock her door. She could not sleep; she had no desire for bed and yet her eyes were heavy and tired. She pulled up the blind and opened the window; out beyond, the garden was flooded with moonlight. As Angela stood there she seemed to see a figure creeping from one bush to another.

"It is my fancy," she told herself. "I could imagine anything to-night. And yet I could have been certain that I saw the figure of a man."

Angela paused; it was no fancy. A man crept over the grass and looked up at the window as if he were doing something strictly on the lines of conventionality. To her amazement Angela saw that the intruder was in evening dress, and that it was Harold Denvers.

"Harold," she whispered. "Whatever are you doing there?"

"I came on the chance," was the reply. "I have heard strange things to-night, and there is something that I must know at once. I was going to try and rouse you with some pebbles. Dare you go down to the garden-room window and let me in? Darling, it is a matter of life or death, or I would not ask."

Angela slipped down the stairs noiselessly, and opened the window.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*A BIT OF THE ROPE.*

Sir James Brownsmith thought that on the whole he would walk home from Piccadilly to Harley Street. The chauffeur touched his hat, and the car moved on. The eminent surgeon had ample food for reflection; it seemed to him that he was on the verge of a great discovery. Somebody accosted him two or three times before he came back to earth again.

"That you, Townsend?" he asked, abruptly. "You want to speak to me? Certainly. Only as I am rather tired to-night if you will cut it as short as possible, I shall be glad."

"I am afraid I can't, Sir James," Inspector Townsend replied. "Indeed I was going to suggest that I walked as far as your house and had a chat over matters."

Sir James shrugged his shoulders, and Harley Street was reached almost in silence. In the small consulting-room the surgeon switched on a brilliant light and handed over cigars and whisky and soda.

"Now go on," he said. "It's all about to-night's business, I suppose?"

"Precisely, sir. You've helped us a good many times with your wonderful scientific knowledge, and I dare say you will again. This Piccadilly mystery is a queer business altogether. Do you feel quite sure that the poor fellow was really murdered, after all?"

Brownsmith looked fixedly at the speaker. He had considerable respect for Townsend, whose intellect was decidedly above the usual Scotland Yard level. Townsend was a man of imagination and a master of theory. He went beyond motive and a cast of a footmark--he was no rule-of-thumb workman.

"On the face of it I should say there can be no possible doubt," said Sir James.

"Murdered by strangulation, sir? The same as that man at Streatham. As you have made a careful examination of both bodies you ought to know?"

"Is there any form of murder unknown to me, Townsend?" Sir James asked. "Is there any trick of the assassin's trade that I have not mastered?"

"Oh, I admit your special knowledge, sir! But it's a trick of mine to be always planning new crimes. I could give you three ways of committing murder that are absolutely original. And I've got a theory about this business that I don't care to disclose yet. Still, we can discuss the matter up to a certain point. Both those men were destroyed--or lost their lives--in the same way."

"Both strangled, in fact. It's the Indian Thug dodge. But you know all about that, Townsend?"

"We'll admit for the moment that both victims have been destroyed by Thugee. But isn't it rather strange that both bodies were found in close juxtaposition to valuable orchids? We know, of course, that Sir Clement's orchids are almost priceless. The Streatham witness, Silverthorne, says that a very rare orchid was recently placed in the Lennox conservatory. Now, isn't it fair to argue that both murdered men lost their lives in pursuit of those orchids?"

Sir James nodded thoughtfully. He had forgotten the Cardinal Moth for the moment.

"I see you have pushed your investigations a long way in this direction," he said. "This being so, have you ascertained for a fact that the Lennox nursery really contained nothing out of the common in the way of Orchidacae? You know what I mean."

"Quite so, sir. That I have not been able to ascertain because the proprietor of the Lennox nursery has no special knowledge of his trade. His great line is cheap ferns for the London market. But he says a gentleman whom he could easily recognise left him an orchid to look after--a poor dried-up stick it seemed to be--with instructions to keep it in a house not too warm, where it might remain at a small rent till wanted."

"Oh, indeed! You are interesting me, Townsend. Pray go on."

"Well, Sir James, I wanted to see the flowers after the murder, not that I expected it to lead to anything at that time. Seeing what has happened this evening, it becomes more interesting. Would you believe it, sir, that the flower in question was gone?"

"You mean that it had been stolen? Really, Townsend, we seem to be on the track of something important."

"Yes, Sir James, the flower had gone. Now, what I want to know is this--has Sir Clement Frobisher added anything special to his collection lately?"

Sir James shot an admiring glance at his questioner. Seeing that he was working almost entirely in the dark, Townsend had developed his theory with amazing cleverness.

"It's a treat to work with you," the great surgeon said. "As a matter of fact, Sir Clement had got hold of something that struck me as absolutely unique. It's a flower called the Cardinal Moth. A flower on a flower, so to speak; a large cluster of whitey-pink blossoms with little red blooms hovering over like a cloud of scarlet moths. Sir Clement is very pleased about it."

"From what you say I gather that he has not had it long, sir?"

"Oh, I should say quite recently! But you are not going to tell me that you suspect Frobisher?"

"At present, I don't suspect anybody, though Sir Clement is an unmitigated rascal who would not stop at any crime to serve his own ends. I don't go so far as to say that he had a hand in the business, but I do say that he could tell us exactly how the tragedy took place."

Sir James shot an admiring glance in the direction of the speaker. Frobisher's elfish interest in the crime, and his amazing _sang-froid_ under the circumstances, had struck the surgeon unpleasantly. Townsend looked reflectively into the mahogany depths of his whisky and soda.

"It's one thing to know that, and quite another to make a man like Sir Clement speak," he said. "I am more or less with you, sir, over the Thugee business, but was the crime committed with a rope? I shall not be surprised to find that it was done with a bramble, something like honeysuckle or the like. But at the same time as you seemed so certain about the rope, why----"

Townsend waved his hand significantly. Sir James rose and unlocked a safe from which he produced an envelope with some fibrous brown strands in it. These he placed under a powerful microscope.

"Now, these I took from the throat of the poor fellow who was killed at Streatham," he explained. "I was rather bored by the case when you called me in first, and even up to the time I gave my evidence at the inquest. After the inquest was over I examined the body over again, and I confess that my interest increased as I proceeded. After what you have just told me I am completely fascinated. I made a most careful examination of the dead man's neck once, and had discovered that he had died of strangulation, and bit by bit I collected these. They are fibres of the rope with which the crime was done."

Townsend nodded so far as Sir James had proved his case.

"Have you done as much with the poor fellow at Sir Clement's residence?" he asked.

"No, but I shall do so in the morning. This is a curious sort of stuff, Townsend, and certainly not made in England. It is not rope or cord in our commercial sense of the word, but a strong Manilla twist of native fibre. Thus we are going to introduce a foreign element into the solution."

Townsend smiled as he produced a little packet from his pocket and laid it on the table.

"You are building up my theory for me, wonderfully, sir," he said. "I also have something of the same sort here, only I have more than you seem to have collected. Here is the same sort of fibre from Mr. Manfred's collar-stud, so that he must have been strangled over his collar, which means a powerful pressure. I didn't think it possible for human hands to put a pressure like that, but there it is."

"My word, we've got a powerful assassin to look for!" Sir James exclaimed. "Like you, I should not have deemed it possible. Did you find all that on Manfred's collar-stud?"

"Not all of it, sir. The collar-stud was bent up as if it had been a bit of tinfoil. But I found the bulk of this under the dead man's finger-nails. They are long nails, and doubtless in the agony of strangulation they clutched frantically at the cord. I am quite sure that you will find this fibre to be identical with that which you took from the neck of the Streatham victim."

"And this caretaker you speak of. Is he a respectable man? Silverthorne you said his name was, I fancy."

"That's the man, sir. He has been in his present employ for one-and-twenty years, a hard-working, saving man, with a big family. Oh, I should take his word for most things that he told me!"

Sir James revolved the problem slowly in his mind, as he inhaled his cigarette smoke. If the Lennox nursery had been deliberately made the centre of a puzzling murder mystery, it was quite sure that neither the nursery proprietor nor his man knew anything whatever about it. And yet it had been necessary, for some reason, that a glass-house should play an important part, for both murders had taken place under glass, and both suggested that the orchid was at the bottom of it. Again, Townsend was not the kind of man to make reckless statements, and when he boldly averred that Sir Clement Frobisher could tell all about it if he liked, he had assuredly some very strong evidence to go upon. A great deal depended upon the analysis of the red, liquid stain on the fibre taken by Townsend from the body of Manfred.

"If these little bits of stuff could speak what tales they could tell," Sir James said, as he carefully locked up both packets of fibre. I'll get up an hour earlier in the morning and have a dig at these, Townsend. And meanwhile as my days are busy ones, and it's past one o clock, I shall have to get you to finish your drink and give me your room instead of your company.

Townsend took the hint and his hat and retired. But though Sir James had expressed his intention of retiring almost immediately, he stretched out his hand for another cigarette and lighted it thoughtfully. Was it possible, he wondered, if Sir Clement Frobisher really could solve the mystery? And had he anything to do with it? Not directly, Sir James felt sure; Frobisher was not that kind of man. He was much more likely to get the thing done for him. He was secretive, too, over the Cardinal Moth; he had behaved so queerly over that business of Count Lefroy and his insult of Frobisher's guest. Brownsmith pitched his cigarette into the grate, and switched off the electric light impatiently.

"Why should I worry my head about it?" he muttered. "I'll go to bed."

*CHAPTER VII.*

*A GRIP OF STEEL.*

Sir Clement had not gone to bed yet. He sat over a final pipe in his dressing-room, the fumes of the acrid tobacco lingered everywhere. The owner of the house leant back, his eyes half closed, and the smile on his face suggestive of one who is recalling some exquisite comedy. A shocking tragedy had been enacted almost under his very eyes, and yet from Frobisher's attitude the thing had pleased him, he was not in the least disturbed.

He began to kick off his clothing slowly, the filthy clay pipe between his lips. He touched a bell, and Hafid slid into the room. There was terror in his eyes enough and to spare. He might have been a detected murderer in the presence of his accuser. He trembled, his lips were twitching piteously, there was something about him of the rabbit trying to escape.

"Well, mooncalf," Frobisher said with bitter raillery. "Well, my paralytic pearl of idiots. Why do you stand there as if somebody was tickling your midriff with a bowie knife?"

"Take it and burn it, and destroy it," Hafid muttered. The man was silly with terror. "Take it and burn it, and destroy it."

"Oh, Lord, was there ever such a fool since the world began?" Frobisher cried. "If you make that remark again I'll jamb your head against the wall till your teeth chatter."

"Take it and burn it, and destroy it," Hafid went on mechanically. "Master, I can't help it. My tongue does not seem able to say anything else. Let me go, send me away. I'm not longer to be trusted. I shall run wild into the night with my story."

"Yes, and I shall run wild with my story in the day-time, and where will you be then, my blusterer? What's the matter with the man? Has anybody been murdered?"

"No," Hafid said slowly, as if the words were being dragged out of him. "At least, the law could not say so. No, master, nobody has been murdered."

"Then what are you making all this silly fuss about? Nobody has been murdered but an inquisitive thief who has accidentally met with his death. Other inquisitive thieves are likely to meet with the same fate. Past master amongst congenial idiots, go to bed."

Frobisher shouted the command backed up by a sounding smack on the side of Hafid's head. He went off without sense or feeling; indeed, he was hardly conscious of the blow. Frobisher sat there smiling, sucking at the marrow of his pipe, and slowly preparing for bed. His alertness and attention never relaxed a moment, his quick ears lost nothing.

"Who's moving in the house?" he muttered. "I heard a door open softly. When people want to get about a house at dead of night it is a mistake to move softly. The action is suspicious, whereas if the thing were openly done, one doesn't trouble."

Frobisher snapped out the lights and stood in the doorway, rigid to attention. Presently the darkness seemed to rustle and breathe, there was a faint suggestion of air in motion, and then silence again. Frobisher grinned to himself as he slipped back into his room.

"Angela," he said softly; "I could detect that faint fragrance of her anywhere. Now what's she creeping about the house at this time for? If she isn't back again in a quarter of an hour I shall proceed to investigate. My cold and haughty Angela on assignation bent! Oh, oh!"

Angela slipped silently down the broad stairway, utterly unconscious of the fact that she had been discovered. She was usually self-contained enough, but her heart was beating a little faster than usual. In some vague way she could not disassociate this visit of Harold's from the tragedy of the earlier evening. And to a certain extent Harold was compromising her, a thing he would have hesitated to do unless the need had been very pressing. By instinct Angela found her way to the garden-room window, the well-oiled catch came back with a click, and Harold was in the room. They wanted no light, the moon was more than sufficient. Harold's face was pale and distressed in the softened rays of light.

"My dearest, I had to come," he whispered in extenuation. "It was my only chance. I could not possibly enter Sir Frobisher's house by legitimate means, and yet at the same time it is important that I should see certain things here. If I could only tell you everything!"

"Tell me all or as little as you like," Angela whispered. "I can trust you all the same."

"It is good to hear you say that, Angela. It was wrong of me to come, and yet there was no other way. Did you show Sir Clement those blossoms that I gave you?"

"My dear, there was no possible chance. I placed the spray in the conservatory, intending to give my guardian a pleasant surprise to-morrow, and then the tragedy happened. But of course you know nothing of that."

"Indeed I do, Angela. I know all about it. Jessop, the judge, who dined here to-night, came into the club full of it. Manfred, Count Lefroy's secretary, wasn't it?"

"The same man. I cannot understand it. Harold. There was a man in the conservatory, or rather there was a man going towards the conservatory, who had no business there. Anybody could see that from his manner. My idea was to place the spray there and to ask the intruder what he was doing. When I reached the conservatory the place was empty. Absolutely empty, and yet I had seen the man enter! There is no exit either. I went back to my room not knowing what to think. And shortly afterwards I heard Hafid cry out. From the top of the stairs I heard all that was going on. And the man who had been strangled in the conservatory was the very man I had seen."

Denvers said nothing for the moment. He was breathing hard and his face was pale with horror. Angela could feel his hand trembling as she laid her own upon it.

"I think you understand," she whispered. "I fancy that you know. Harold, tell me what all this strange mystery means."

"Not yet," Denvers replied. "You must wait. Nobody ever heard the like of it before. And so long as you are under the same roof as--but what am I talking about? But this much I may say: the whole horrible problem revolves round the Cardinal Moth."

"Round the flower that you gave me to-night, Harold! And that so innocent looking and beautiful."

"Well, there it is. I have been on the fringe of it for some time. Angela, you must give me back that spray of blossom, you must not mention it to Sir Clement at all. And now I must have a look into the conservatory, indeed I came on purpose."

"You came expecting to find something, a clue to the mystery there?"

"Well, yes, if you like to put it that way," Denvers murmured, avoiding Angela's eyes for the first time. "I had a plant of that Cardinal Moth which I deemed safely hidden in Streatham. Why I had to hide it I will tell you in due course. It had a great deal to do between myself and the Shan of Koordstan, with whom I hoped to do important business. I mentioned it to him and he showed me a paragraph in a paper which for the moment has scattered all my plans. As soon as I read that paragraph I felt certain that my Moth had been stolen, though it cost one life to get it. When I heard of the tragedy here to-night, I was absolutely sure as to my facts. Angela, my Moth is in the conservatory here, and Manfred lost his life trying to steal it for somebody else."

Angela listened with a vague feeling that she would wake presently and find it all a dream. A new horror had been added to the house in the last few minutes.

"Let us hope you are wrong," she said with a shudder. "Come and see at once. But what do you propose to do if you find that your suspicions are correct?"

Denvers hardly knew; he had had no time to think that part out. He reached out to find a switch for the light, but Angela's gentle hand detained him.

"The moon must suffice," she said. "Sir Clement has eyes like a hawk. What's that?"

A thud in the hall followed by an unmistakable cry of pain. It was only just for an instant, and then there was silence again. Angela drew her lover back into the shadow of the curtain.

"That was Sir Clement," she whispered. "Whether he has found me out, or has merely come down for something, I can't say. Probably he kicked against something in the dark. Harold!"

For Harold had darted out from the curtain and gripped something that looked like a shadow. As he dragged his burden forward the moon shone on the dull features of Hafid. Taken suddenly as he had been, he did not display the slightest traces of fear.

"My beautiful mistress is watched," he said smoothly. "I came to warn her. Sir Clement has gone up to his dressing-room for his slippers. He struck his illustrious toe against a marble table and----"

"Then follow him and lock him in," Harold said hurriedly. "Do that and you shall not be forgotten. Lock the dressing-room door whilst you are pretending to look for the slippers."

"You could do me no greater service," Angela whispered sweetly.

Hafid hastened off as noiselessly as a cat. There was nothing short of murder that he would not have done for Angela. There was no light in Frobisher's dressing-room, by the aid of the moon he was fumbling for his slippers. He turned as Hafid entered.

"My master was moving and I heard him," Hafid said. "Is there anything that I can do?"

"Yes," Frobisher said crisply. "You can hunt round and find my confounded slippers. That fool of a man of mine never puts things in the same place twice."

Hafid came back presently with the missing articles. The key of the dressing-room was in his pocket, he slipped through the bedroom and locked that door also. Frobisher stood listening a minute or two with a queer, uneasy grin on his face. Evidently this little accident had not frightened the game away. He turned the handle softly, but with no effect. He shook the door passionately. Something seemed to have gone wrong with the lock. That Hafid should have dared to play such a trick never for one moment entered Frobisher's mind. With his well-trained philosophy Frobisher sat down and filled his pipe. What a woman had done safely once, she was certain to attempt again, he argued, perhaps try and attempt a better move. And there were other light nights before the moon had passed the full. Denvers stood listening, but no further sound came. The attempt must be made now or never.

"Show me the conservatory," he whispered. "There are long folding steps, of course? Then you can stay in the doorway till I have finished, My darling, I am truly sorry to expose you to all this, but----"

Angela led the way. It was fairly light in the great glass tank with its tangle of blooms, but as Denvers entered a great gush of steam shot up from the automatic pipe and filled the dome with vapour. Harold quickly drew the long steps to the centre and mounted. He disappeared in the mist and was quickly lost amongst the tangle of ropes and blossoms. He had to wait for the periodical cloud of vapour to pass away before he could make a searching examination. So far as Angela could see, nobody was in the roof at all, it was as if Denvers had disappeared, leaving no trace behind.

There was another gush of steam followed by a shower of falling blossoms, and a quick cry of pain from the dome. As Angela darted forward the cry of pain came again, there was a confused vision of a struggling figure, and then Denvers came staggering down the steps holding his right arm to his side, his face bedabbled with a moisture that was caused by something beyond the heated atmosphere.

"What has happened?" Angela asked hurriedly. "Have you had an accident with your arm?"

Denvers stood there gasping and reeling for a moment. The steam had all evaporated now, and there was nothing to be seen in the dome but a tangle of blossoms on their rigid cords. At Denvers' feet lay a spray of the Cardinal Moth. Despite his pain he placed it in his pocket.

"Look here," he said hoarsely. "This is witchcraft. Somebody grasped my arm, some unseen force clutched me. I managed to get away by sheer strength, but look here."

There was a ring of blood all round Denvers' wrist, the flesh had been cut almost to the bone. It seemed almost impossible for a human hand to grasp like that, but there it was. And up in the dome now there was nothing to be seen but the tangled masses of glorious blooms.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*THE WEAKER VESSEL.*

Like most men of his class, Frobisher had a perfect knowledge of the art of using others. To study their weakness was always the first stage of the game, and therefore in an early stage of their acquaintance the little baronet learnt the fact that Paul Lopez was criminally extravagant with his money. How Lopez got rid of it Frobisher neither knew nor cared, the weakness paid him, and there was an end of it.

Therefore Frobisher paid his henchman liberally. There was no generosity about it, nothing but policy. That was the secret of Lopez's life, and beyond that Frobisher never attempted to penetrate. Perhaps he knew that Lopez must not be pushed too far.

Paul Lopez had contented himself with the result of his labours for the day. He was a plain, simply-dressed man himself, and gave no suggestion of a liking for the luxuries and good things of this life. All the same, he was seated now at a most perfectly-appointed table, clad in most immaculate evening-dress, and looking across a table in the centre of which was a veritable bank of flowers. Two opal electric swans floated upon what was meant to resemble a miniature lake, and these gave the only light to the dinner-table.

The dining-room was small but exquisitely furnished, for Lopez had a pretty taste that way. There were no servants in the room now, for coffee had been served, and Lopez was leaning back with the air of one who has dined wisely and well.

On the other side of the table a girl sat. She was slight and fair, with a pretty, petulant face, the spoilt look not in the least detracting from her Greuze-like beauty. Her eyes were the eyes of a woman, and her expression that of a child. Lopez called her simply Cara--not even his most intimate acquaintances knew her other name--and she was popularly supposed to be the child of some dead and gone friend. No daughter had ever had more care and love bestowed upon her than Cara, she was the one soft spot in Lopez's life. Perhaps she cared for him in a way; perhaps she had come to regard him and all these luxuries as a matter of course; certain it was that Cara lacked nothing many times when Lopez had to go without.

There was a queer, half-ashamed look on his face now, as he pulled at his cigarette. Cara had been scolding him, and he looked like a detected schoolboy.

"You have been gambling again," she said, sharply. "Why do you do it? You would be a rich man by this time if you would only let those wretched cards alone. And you always lose. You are so headstrong and rash, you seem to lose your senses over the card-tables. And you distinctly promised to take me to Pau this year."

Lopez admitted the fact with a sigh. Nobody else under the sun would have dared to speak to him as Cara was doing at this moment. It never occurred to him to suggest that Cara might be doing something for a living. He had promised her a good time at Pau, instead of which he had been gambling, and had lost all his money.

"No trouble at all getting cash," he murmured.