"Yes. I think it's a good idea, Freddy. And the perfume? Did Durwin or the Inspector tell you anything about the perfume. No, I can see by your blank stare that they didn't. Listen, Freddy, and store this knowledge in your blessed brain, my son. It is a clue, I am sure," and Halliday forthwith related to his attentive listener details concerning the strange perfume which had impregnated the clothes of the dead man. "And Sir Charles hated perfumes," he ended, emphatically; "he didn't even like Lillian or Mrs. Bolstreath to use them, and they obeyed him." "Curious," mused the journalist, and idly scribbling on his blotting-paper; he was back at his desk by this time. "What sort of scent is it?" "My dear chap, you ask me to describe the impossible," retorted Dan, with uplifted eyebrows. "How the deuce can I get the kind of smell into your head? It must be smelt to be understood. All I can say is that the perfume was rich and heavy, suggestive of drowsiness. Indeed, I used that word, and Tenson thought of some kind of chloroform used, perhaps, to stupefy the victim before killing him. But there was an odor about the mouth or nose." "On the handkerchief, perhaps?" suggested the reporter. "No. Tenson smelt the handkerchief." "Well, if this Mrs. Brown used this perfume, you and Miss Moon and Mrs. Bolstreath must have smelt it on her in the hall. I understand from Durwin that you all three saw the woman." "Yes. And Lillian, poor girl, persuaded her father to see the wretch. But we did not smell the perfume on the woman. Tenson or Durwin--I forget which--asked us the question." "Humph!" said Laurance, after a pause; "it may be a kind of trade-mark, like the fly business." He took a note. "I shall use this evidence in my letter to the public. I suppose, Dan, you would recognize the scent again?" "Oh, yes! I have a keen sense of smell, you know. But I don't expect I shall ever drop across this particular fragrance, Freddy." "There's always Monsieur Chance, you know," remarked Laurance, tapping his white teeth with a pencil. "Perhaps the gang use this scent so as to identify one another--in the dark it may be--like cats. How does that strike you?" "As purely theoretical," said Dan, with a shrug, and reached for another cigarette; "it's a case of perhaps, and perhaps not." Laurance assented. "But everything so far is theoretical in this case," he argued; "you have told me all you know?" "Every bit, even to my year of probation. Do you know Curberry?" "Yes. He was a slap-up barrister. A pity he got title and money, as he has left the Bar, and is a good man spoiled. Lucky chap all the same, as his uncle and cousin both died unexpectedly, to give him his chance of the House of Lords." "How did they die?" "Motor accident. Car went over a cliff. Only the chauffeur was saved, and he broke both legs. Do you know the present Lord Curberry?"