any case, visible from the
front door of the cottage.

All five had seen their man enter; all had heard the banging door when
Sheffield knocked. No possible exit had been unwatched for a single
instant.

But the place was empty.

When the others, having searched painfully every inch of ground, joined
the inspector in the front room, Harborne, taking up the silk-lined
caped overcoat, observed something lying on the polished walnut beneath.

He uttered a hasty exclamation.

"Damn!" cried Duquesne at his elbow, characteristically saying the right
thing at the wrong time. "A white _odontoglossum crispum_, with crimson
spots!"

Across the table all exchanged glances.

"He is very handsome," sighed the little Frenchman.

"That is an extreme privilege," said his chief, shrugging composedly and
lighting a cigarette. "It is so interesting to the women, and they are
so useful. It was the women who restored your English Charles II.--but
they were his ruin in the end. It is a clue, this white orchid, that
inspires in me two solutions immediately."

M. Duquesne suffered, temporarily, from a slight catarrh, occasioned, no
doubt, by his wetting. But he lacked the courage to meet the drooping
eye of his chief.

They were some distance from Laurel Cottage when Harborne, who carried
the caped coat on his arm, exclaimed:

"By the way, who _has_ the orchid?"

No one had it.

"M. Duquesne," said Lemage calmly, "of all the stupid pigs you are the
more complete."

Sheffield ran back. Dawson had been left on duty outside the cottage.
The inspector passed him and climbed back through the broken window. He
looked on the table and searched, on hands and knees, about the floor.

"Dawson!"

"Sir?"

"You have heard or seen nothing suspicious since we left?"

Dawson, through the window, stared uncomprehendingly.

"Nothing, sir."

The white orchid was missing.

CHAPTER XIX

THREE LETTERS

Sheard did not remain many minutes in Downing Street that night. The
rooms were uncomfortably crowded and insupportably stuffy. A vague idea
which his common sense was impotent to combat successfully, that he
would see or hear from Severac Bablon amidst that political crush proved
to be fallacious--as common sense had argued. He wondered why his
extraordinary friend--for as a friend he had come to regard him--had
been unable to keep his appointment. He wondered when the promised news
would be communicated.

That one of the