"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 Orchidacæ? 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——"