flush rising
under his sallow skin. That is the only time I have ever seen any sign
of emotion on his impassive face.

"I apologize, Mr. Wynn," he said stiffly. "I ought not to have
insinuated that you were afraid to undertake this commission. Your past
record has proved you the very reverse of a coward! And, I assure you, I
had no intention of sneering at poor Carson or of decrying his work. But
from information in my possession I know that he exceeded his
instructions; that he ceased to be a mere observer of the vivid drama of
Russian life, and became an actor in it, with the result, poor chap,
that he has paid for his indiscretion with his life!"

"How do you know all this?" I demanded. "How do you know--"

"That he was not in search of 'copy,' but in pursuit of his private
ends, when he deliberately placed himself in peril? Well, I do know it;
and that is all I choose to say on this point. I warned him at the
outset,--as I need not have warned you,--that he must exercise infinite
tact and discretion in his relations with the police, and the
bureaucracy which the police represent; and also with the people,--the
democracy. That he must, in fact, maintain a strictly impartial and
impersonal attitude and view-point. Well, that's just what he failed to
do. He became involved with some secret society; you know as well as I
do--better, perhaps--that Russia is honeycombed with 'em. Probably in
the first instance he was actuated by curiosity; but I have reason to
believe that his connection with this society was a purely personal
affair. There was a woman in it, of course. I can't tell you just how he
came to fall foul of his new associates, for I don't know. Perhaps they
imagined he knew too much. Anyhow, he was found, as I have said, stabbed
to the heart. There is no clue to the assassin, except that in Carson's
clenched hand was found an artificial flower,--a red geranium, which--"

I started upright, clutching the arms of my chair. A red geranium! The
bit of stuff dangling from Cassavetti's pass-key; the hieroglyphic on
the portrait, the flower Anne had given to Cassavetti, and to which he
seemed to attach so much significance. All red geraniums. What did they
mean?

"The police declare it to be the symbol of a formidable secret
organization which they have hitherto failed to crush; one that has
ramifications throughout the world," Southbourne continued. "Why, man,
what's wrong with you?" he added hastily.

I supp