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." Dick
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