The hoarse voice had sunk to a whisper, the sightless eyes rolled, the thin fingers crooked as if dragging down an unseen foe to destruction. As suddenly Ralph changed his mood and laughed noiselessly. "Let us not prophesy," he said. "What did you think of the episode?" "I don't know what to think about it." "Then you have no theory to offer?" "No, uncle. I am in the dark. That is where the keen edge of the terror comes in. I should say it was the flowers. As the atmosphere of the room grew warmer, as the heat from the lamps drew out the fragrance of the blooms, the perfume seemed to become overpowering. The perfume riveted attention, arrested the senses, and gradually sense and feeling appeared to go altogether." "Perfectly right, Geoffrey. Still, there is nothing very wonderful about it. Lucretia Borgia used the same means to despatch her victims. A poisoned bouquet was a favorite weapon of hers, you remember." "But the poison there was conveyed through the palms of the hands. Why do we never hear of that sort of poison nowadays?" Ralph smiled as he refilled his pipe. "I've got some of it myself," he said, "or at least Tchigorsky has. It is poor, inartistic stuff, compared to some of the poisons known to Tchigorsky and myself. There are Eastern poisons unknown to science; toxicology little dreams of the drugs that Tchigorsky and your poor uncle wot of. "You are right. Those flowers were impregnated with the deadly drug that comes out with warmth. It comes as quickly as a breath of wind and does its work and vanishes almost immediately, leaving no trace behind. Another minute and the whole family of Ravenspur had been no more. There would have been a fearful sensation: doctors would have discoursed learnedly--and vaguely--and there would have been an end to the matter. Not a soul in England would have had the remotest idea of the source of the tragedy. Look here." From under his coat Ralph produced a single white carnation. "That was on the table to-night," he said. "Take it in your hands. Smell it. Do you recognize anything beyond the legitimate perfume?" Geoffrey held the perfect bloom to his nostrils. He could detect nothing further. "It seems to me to be as innocent as beautiful," he said. "So it is, so it is--at present. Give it me back again. See, I have here a little white, dull powder. In it is the one-thousandth part of a grain of the deadly drug. I dust the powder on the carnation, thus. The natural moisture in the leaves absorbs it and the flower presents a normal aspect. Smell it." "I smell nothing at all," said Geoffrey. "Not yet. Hold it to the lamp for ten seconds." Geoffrey did so. At the end of the brief space he placed it to his nostrils as Ralph suggested. Immediately a drowsy feeling came over him, a desire for sleep, a desire to be at rest in body and mind, in heart and pulses. Indeed, it seemed to him as if his heart had stopped already.