Bell's professional enthusiasm got the better of his curiosity for the moment. It was a nice psychological problem. Already Steel was impulsively busy in the conservatory pulling the pots down. It was a regretful thing to have to do, but everything had to be sacrificed, David shut his teeth grimly and proceeded with his task. "What on earth are you doing?" Bell asked, with a smile. "Pulling the place to pieces," David responded. "I daresay I shall feel pretty sick about it later on, but the thing has to be done. Cut those wires for me, and let those creepers down as tenderly as possible. We can't get to the little pots until we have moved the big ones." Bell coolly declined to do anything of the kind. He surveyed the two graceful banks of flowers there, the carefully trained creepers trailing so naturally and yet so artistically from the roof to the ground, and the sight pleased him. "My dear chap," he said, "I am not going to sit here and allow you to destroy the work of so many hours. There is not the slightest reason to disturb anything. Unless I am greatly mistaken, Van Sneck will lay his had upon the ring for us without so much as the sacrifice of a blossom." "I don't fancy so," Van Sneck replied. "I can't remember." "Well, you are going to," Bell said, cheerfully. "Did you ever hear of artificial memory?" "The sort of thing you get in law courts and political speeches?" David suggested. "All the same, if you have some patent way of getting at the facts I shall be only too glad to spare my poor flowers. Their training has been a labour of love with me." Bell smoked on quietly for some time. He toyed with the red blossoms which had so stimulated Van Sneck's recollection, then tossed a spray over to Van Sneck and suggested that the latter should put it in his button-hole. "So as to have the fragrance with you all the time," he said. Van Sneck obeyed quietly, remarking that the scent was very pungent. The Dutchman was restless and ill at ease; he seemed to be dissatisfied with himself--he had the air of a man who has set out with two or three extremely important matters of business and who has completely forgotten what one of them is. "You needn't distress yourself," David said, kindly. "I beg your pardon," Bell said, tartly. "He is to do that very same thing. Mental exercise never hurts anybody. Van Sneck is going to worry till he puzzles it out. Will you describe the ring to us?" The Dutchman complied at considerable length. He dwelt on the beauty of the workmanship and the exceeding fineness of the black pearls; he talked with the freedom and expression of the expert. Bell permitted him to ramble on about historic rings in general. But all the same he could see that Van Sneck was far from easy in his mind. Now and then a sudden gleam came into his eyes: memory played for the fragment of a second on a certain elusive chord and was gone. "Were you smoking the night you came here?" Bell asked, suddenly.