hand curtain
where the wool of the carpet was rubbed.

Roses--attar of roses! Where had he heard of attar of roses combined
with--with what? And again the two wires would not touch--but they were
throwing a spark across the gap.

Yes, it was Caldegard--Caldegard had said something--something of a foul
man and a rotten stink. It was some story he'd been telling that first
night at dinner.

Then a glitter in the carpet. Half-hidden--trodden in amongst the
roughened wool, he found it--a morsel of bright steel--the needle of a
hypodermic syringe. Who had spoken lately of a morphinomaniac that
carried his syringe always with him?

Why, Caldegard, Caldegard!

"Melhuish?--Melford?--Meldrum?--Melcher?-_Melchard!_ By God, the swine
that stank!"

And he remembered how he had upset the silver candlestick, setting fire
to the shades, to cover the girl's discomfort, and the smile she had
paid him with. Then it was this particular murder from which the thief
had shrunk.

Melchard, the chemist, had guessed at the direction of Caldegard's
research. Discharged at a moment when his hope of mastering a valuable
secret was at its height, he had found means to track Caldegard's
movements, and even, it seemed, to discover the hiding-place of the
perfected drug and its formula.

"Agent--or, p'r'aps, a leading member of the Dope Gang Caldegard hinted
at. He lays his plans to grab the stuff and the formula. Just as he gets
his fingers on it, up pops the only being on earth he'd give a damn
about knifing. Twenty years' clink if he leaves her to talk. Takes her
with him--hell's blight on him! Wouldn't have been dosing himself on a
game like this. Used the syringe on her."

To find Melchard was to find Amaryllis. The first thing to do,
therefore, was to find Melchard's address, and the first man to ask was
Caldegard. If Caldegard could not give it to him, it meant a long hunt
with the police. Anyway, he must begin with Caldegard.

He crossed to the telephone, lifted the receiver, and, hearing no
tinkle, blew into the transmitter with the receiver at his ear. Hearing
nothing, he hung it up with a curse.

Sitting at Randal's desk, he wrote rapidly the following note:

"Got the money. Enclose key. Melchard's the man we want. Get his
address. 'Phone cut outside. Wire me address P.D.Q.--DICK."

Through the window he went to his car in the drive.

"Martin," he said, "get out Sir Randal's car and take this note to him.
Go to