The maid approached her young mistress and touched her lightly on the shoulder. "You'll be late, unless--" she began.
And then something about the unresisting, impassive figure frightened her. She shook the girl sharply and called her name many times. Finally with an effort she raised the shapely head. What she saw in the upturned face wrung scream after scream from her lips, now suddenly ashen, and turning she staggered toward the door with unutterable horror in her widely distended eyes. She clutched at the door frame to steady herself, screamed again, and fell forward, fainting. There they found them: Miss Edna Burdock dead with hideously distorted face,-a face upon which was written some awful agony,-and the rose still clasped so fiercely in her hand that the thorns had pierced the palm; her little dog Tatters dead beside her; and the maid, Goodwin, unconscious. For half an hour two servants worked over the maid; but when at last she opened her eyes she only screamed and babbled incoherently. There were no marks on Miss Burdock's body save the prick of thorns in her left hand-nothing that would indicate the manner of death; nor was there the slightest thing to explain the death of the dog.
"The police are not at all certain that Miss Burdock's death was due to anything more mysterious than heart failure," Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, was explaining. "In that event, of course--"
"In that event, of course," interrupted Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen-The Thinking Machine-crabbedly, "their theory must be that the pet dog died at the same time of the same disease?"
"That seems to be about the way they look at it, although there are several curious features," the reporter went on; "for instance, the expression on her face." He shuddered a little. "I saw her. It was awful. The dog too. There was not a mark or scratch on the dog-not even the prick of a thorn like that in the girl's palm, therefore heart failure seems to be the only thing that will cover the case, unless--"
"Fidldesticks!" exclaimed the irritable little scientist. "Persons who die of heart failure don't show suffering in their faces, and little dogs don't have heart failure. What did the autopsy show?"
"Nothing illuminating," responded the reporter. "There was no trace of poison in Miss Burdock's system; a blood test showed her blood to be about normal, and yet she was dead. There was a peculiar constriction of the heart, and the same thing was true of the dog. The medical examiner's report brought out these facts; but there was no poison-they were just dead."
"When did this happen, Mr. Hatch?"
"Yesterday afternoon, Monday."
"You tell me the maid found the body. Has she said anything about noticing any odor when she entered the room?"
"Not a word; but there are curious things--"
"In a minute, Mr. Hatch," interrupted The Thinking Machine impatiently. "Were the windows open?"
"Yes," replied the reporter. "She was sitting at her desk, between two open windows."
The man of science dropped back in his chair, and for a long time sat silent with the perpetually squinting eyes turned upward, and slender white fingers pressed tip to tip. Hatch lighted a cigarette, smoked it, and threw the butt away before he spoke.
"There are peaches in the market, I think, Mr. Hatch," said the scientist at last. "When you go out, buy one, cut the meat off, crush the kernel, take it to the maid, and ask her to smell it. Ask her if she noticed yesterday any odor similar to that when she entered the room and was near the girl's body."
Hatch absorbed the instructions wonderingly, then ventured a remark. "I presume you are thinking of poison. Isn't there a chance that despite the normal condition of her blood some sort of poison was introduced into her system-I mean that the thorns of the rose might have been poisoned, for instance."
"You say there was no scratch or thorn prick on the dog?" asked The Thinking Machine in answer.
"No mark of any sort."
"And the dog is dead. That answers your question, Mr. Hatch." He relapsed into silence.
"Poison on the thorns could not have killed both of them, because only the woman's hand showed the marks?" Hatch asked.
"Precisely," was the reply. "Unless we allow for coincidence, and that has never been reduced to a scientific law, we must say that both the woman and the dog died of the same cause. When we know that, we prove that the thorn prick had nothing to do with the woman's death. Two and two make four, Mr. Hatch, not sometimes but all the time. And so what have we left?"
"I don't see that we have anything left," remarked Hatch frankly. "If there is no outward cause, how can we--"
"The mere fact that there is no apparent cause, or outward cause, as you term it, makes the manner of death of both the woman and the dog perfectly plain," declared The Thinking Machine belligerently. "There is no mystery about that at all-it's obvious. Our problem is not what killed her, but who killed her."
"Yes, that seems quite clear," the reporter admitted.
Minute after minute passed while the scientist sat staring upward. Finally he lowered his eyes to the face of the newspaper man. "Where did this red rose come from?" he demanded.
"I was going to tell you about that," responded Hatch. "It came from Lamperti's, a florist. The police are investigating it now. It seems, according to a statement of the manager of the shop, that on June 16 he received a special delivery letter from Washington with only a typewritten, unsigned slip of paper inclosed. This directed that one dozen red roses be sent to Miss Burdock, one at a time on specified days, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. They accepted the order,-there was no way to return the money anyway,-and so--"
He paused to gaze curiously into the eyes of The Thinking Machine. They were drawn down to mere slits of watery blue and some subtle change had altered the straight line of the lips.
"Well, well!" grumbled the scientist. "Go on!"
"As a rule the long box with the one rose was delivered at the house by one of the wagons of the company," the reporter continued; "but some days when the wagon was not going in that direction the box was sent by a messenger boy. This last rose went to her by messenger."
"And have all the roses been sent?"
"So the manager says."
"And where is the red rose-the one she had in her hand when found?"
"Detective Mallory has it in charge, I suppose," explained the reporter. "He has an idea that Miss Burdock was killed by poison on the thorns; so he stripped them off and sent them to a chemist to see if any trace of poison could be found. I presume he kept the flower and the box it came in."
"That's just like Mallory," commented the scientist testily. "Whenever the police want to keep a cat's teeth from falling out they cut off its tail. Now tell me something about Miss Burdock herself. Who was she? What was she? What were her circumstances?" He settled back in his chair for a categorical answer.
"She was the only daughter of Plympton Burdock; a man who is not wealthy, but who is well to do," answered Hatch. "She lived at home with her father, her mother, and a younger brother, a chap about eighteen or nineteen years old. She was something of a social favorite, although not yet quite twenty-one, and went about a great deal; so--"
"So naturally a great many men, some of whom admired her," The Thinking Machine finished for him. "Now who are the men? Tell me about her love affairs?"
"It hasn't appeared yet that there was a love affair, in the sense you mean. At least, if there was no one knew of it."
"Doesn't the maid Goodwin know?" insisted the scientist.
"She says she doesn't."
"But somebody sent the rose. The mere fact that she received the one rose a dozen times indicates that some one was interested in her. Therefore, who was it? Who?"
"That's what the police are trying to find out now."
The Thinking Machine arose suddenly, picked up his hat and planted it aggressively on his enormous yellow head. "I'm going to the florist's," he said. "You get the peach and see the maid Goodwin. Meet me at police headquarters in an hour."
It required ten minutes for The Thinking Machine to reach the florist's shop, and in five minutes more the manager was at liberty.
"All I want to know," the scientist explained, "is the day you sent the first rose of that dozen to Miss Burdock, and I should like to see your records of delivery. That is, when a package is delivered either by your wagon or by messenger you get a receipt for it? Yes. I should like to see those, please."
The manager obligingly consulted his records. "The letter with the inclosure was received on June 16," he explained as he ran his finger down the book. "It came in the morning mail. June 16 was Monday; therefore the first rose of the dozen was sent that afternoon, Monday."
"Are you absolutely certain of that?" demanded The Thinking Machine. "A-a person's life may depend on that record."
The manager stared at him in frank astonishment, then arose. "I can make sure," he said. He went to a cabinet and took out another book-a delivery receipt book, and fluttered the leaves through his fingers. At last he laid it before The Thinking Machine and indicated an entry with his finger. "There it is," he said. "Monday, June 16, at five-thirty in the afternoon. The book was signed by Edna Burdock in person. See."
The Thinking Machine squinted down at the entry for a minute or more in silence. "From that date forward one rose was sent every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday without a break until the dozen were delivered?" he asked at last.
"Yes; that was the direction. Run through the book on the dates it should have been sent and see, if you like."