"So that whatever can be done," continued my friend, "to carry out
your master's wishes, will be done now. Rely upon it. Go into your
room and lie down until we call you."

"Thank you, sir, and thank God you are here," said Beeton dazedly, and
with one hand raised to his head he went, obediently, to the smaller
bedroom and disappeared within.

"Now, Petrie," rapped Smith, glancing around the littered floor,
"since I am empowered to deal with this matter as I see fit, and since
you are a medical man, we can devote the next half-hour, at any rate,
to a strictly confidential inquiry into this most perplexing case. I
propose that you examine the body for any evidences that may assist
you determining the cause of death, whilst I make a few inquiries here."

I nodded, without speaking, and went into the bedroom. It contained not
one solitary item of the dead man's belongings, and in every way bore
out Beeton's statement that Sir Gregory had never inhabited it. I bent
over Hale, as he lay fully dressed upon the bed.

Saving the singularity of the symptom which had immediately preceded
death--viz., the paralysis of the muscles of articulation--I should
have felt disposed to ascribe his end to sheer inanition; and a
cursory examination brought to light nothing contradictory to that
view. Not being prepared to proceed further in the matter at the moment
I was about to rejoin Smith, whom I could hear rummaging about amongst
the litter of the outer room, when I made a curious discovery.

Lying in a fold of the disordered bed linen were a few petals of some