Mrs. Pierce returned in a few moments, and affably enough she asked me to accompany her to Miss Lloyd's room.
I did so, and after entering devoted my whole attention to the bunch of yellow roses, which in a glass vase stood on the window seat. Although somewhat wilted, they were still beautiful, and without the slightest doubt were the kind of rose from which the two tell-tale petals had fallen.
Acting upon a sudden thought, I counted them. There were nine, each one seemingly with its full complement of petals, though of this I could not be perfectly certain.
“Now, Mrs.—Pierce,” I said, turning to her with an air of authority which was becoming difficult to maintain, “where are the roses which Miss Lloyd admits having pinned to her gown?”
“Mercy! I don't know,” exclaimed Mrs. Pierce, looking bewildered. “I suppose she threw them away.”
“I suppose she did,” I returned; “would she not be likely to throw them in the waste basket?”
“She might,” returned Mrs. Pierce, turning toward an ornate affair of wicker-work and pink ribbons.
Sure enough, in the basket, among a few scraps of paper, were two exceedingly withered yellow roses. I picked them out and examined them, but in their present state it was impossible to tell whether they had lost any petals or not, so I threw them back in the basket.
Mrs. Pierce seemed to care nothing for evidence or deduction in the matter, but began to lament the carelessness of the chambermaid who had not emptied the waste basket the day before.
But I secretly blessed the delinquent servant, and began pondering on this new development of the rose question. The nine roses in the vase and the two in the basket made but eleven, and the florist had told me that he had sent a dozen. Where was the twelfth?