Dr. Cairn led the way into the library, switching on the reading-lamp upon the large table. His son stood just within the doorway, his arms folded and his chin upon his breast.
 
The doctor sat down at the table, watching the other.
 
Suddenly Robert spoke:
 
"Is it possible, sir, is it possible—" his voice was barely audible—"that her illness can in any way be due to the orchids?"
 
Dr. Cairn frowned thoughtfully.
 
"What do you mean, exactly?" he asked.
 
"Orchids are mysterious things. They come from places where there are strange and dreadful diseases. Is it not possible that they may convey—"
 
"Some sort of contagion?" concluded Dr. Cairn. "It is a point that I have seen raised, certainly. But nothing of the sort has ever been established. I have heard something, to-night, though, which—"
 
"What have you heard, sir?" asked his son eagerly, stepping forward to the table.
 
"Never mind at the moment, Rob; let me think."
 
He rested his elbow upon the table, and his chin in his hand. His professional instincts had told him that unless something could be done—something which the highest medical skill in London had thus far been unable to devise—Myra Duquesne had but four hours to live. Somewhere in his mind a memory lurked, evasive, taunting him. This wild suggestion of his son's, that the girl's illness might be due in some way to her contact with the orchids, was in part responsible for this confused memory, but it seemed to be associated, too, with the story of Crombie the gardener—and with Antony Ferrara. He felt that somewhere in the darkness surrounding him there was a speck of
[162]
light, if he could but turn in the right direction to see it. So, whilst Robert Cairn walked restlessly about the big room, the doctor sat with his chin resting in the palm of his hand, seeking to concentrate his mind upon that vague memory, which defied him, whilst the hand of the library clock crept from twelve towards one; whilst he knew that the faint life in Myra Duquesne was slowly ebbing away in response to some mysterious condition, utterly outside his experience.
 
Distant clocks chimed One! Three hours only!
 
Robert Cairn began to beat his fist into the palm of his left hand convulsively. Yet his father did not stir, but sat there, a black-shadowed wrinkle between his brows....
 
"By God!"
 
The doctor sprang to his feet, and with feverish haste began to fumble amongst a bunch of keys.
 
"What is it, sir! What is it?"
 
The doctor unlocked the drawer of the big table, and drew out a thick manuscript written in small and exquisitely neat characters. He placed it under the lamp, and rapidly began to turn the pages.
 
"It is hope, Rob!" he said with quiet self-possession.
 
Robert Cairn came round the table, and leant over his father's shoulder.
 
"Sir Michael Ferrara's writing!"
 
"His unpublished book, Rob. We were to have completed it, together, but death claimed him, and in view of the contents, I—perhaps superstitiously—decided to suppress it.... Ah!"
 
He placed the point of his finger upon a carefully drawn sketch, designed to illustrate the text. It was evidently a careful copy from the Ancient Egyptian. It represented a row of priestesses, each having her hair plaited in a thick queue, standing before a priest armed with a pair of scissors. In the centre of the drawing was an altar, upon which stood vases of flowers; and upon the right ranked a row of mummies, corresponding in number with the priestesses upon the left.
 
"By God!" repeated Dr. Cairn, "we were both wrong, we were both wrong!"
[163]
 
"What do you mean, sir? for Heaven's sake, what do you mean?"
 
"This drawing," replied Dr. Cairn, "was copied from the wall of a certain tomb—now reclosed. Since we knew that the tomb was that of one of the greatest wizards who ever lived in Egypt, we knew also that the inscription had some magical significance. We knew that the flowers represented here, were a species of the extinct sacred Lotus. All our researches did not avail us to discover for what purpose or by what means these flowers were cultivated. Nor could we determine the meaning of the cutting off,"—he ran his fingers over the sketch—"of the priestesses' hair by the high priest of the goddess—"
 
"What goddess, sir?"
 
"A goddess, Rob, of which Egyptology knows nothing!—a mystical religion the existence of which has been vaguely suspected by a living French savant ... but this is no time—"
 
Dr. Cairn closed the manuscript, replaced it and relocked the drawer. He glanced at the clock.
 
"A quarter past one," he said. "Come, Rob!"
 
Without hesitation, his son followed him from the house. The car was waiting, and shortly they were speeding through the deserted streets, back to the house where death in a strange guise was beckoning to Myra Duquesne. As the car started—
 
"Do you know," asked Dr. Cairn, "if Saunderson has bought any orchids—quite recently, I mean?"
 
"Yes," replied his son dully; "he bought a small parcel only a fortnight ago."
 
"A fortnight!" cried Dr. Cairn excitedly—"you are sure of that? You mean that the purchase was made since Ferrara—"
 
"Ceased to visit the house? Yes. Why!—it must have been the very day after!"
 
Dr. Cairn clearly was labouring under tremendous excitement.
 
"Where did he buy these orchids?" he asked, evenly.
 
"From someone who came to the house—someone he had never dealt with before."
[164]
 
The doctor, his hands resting up............