"So it is, so it is—at present. Give it me back again. See, I have here a little white, dull powder. In it is the one-thousandth part of a grain of the deadly drug. I dust the powder on the carnation, thus. The natural moisture in the leaves absorbs it and the flower presents a normal aspect. Smell it."
"I smell nothing at all," said Geoffrey.
"Not yet. Hold it to the lamp for ten seconds."
Geoffrey did so. At the end of the brief space he placed it to his nostrils as Ralph suggested. Immediately a drowsy feeling came over him, a desire for sleep, a desire to be at rest in body and mind, in heart and pulses. Indeed, it seemed to him as if his heart had stopped already.
Through a yellow scented mist he seemed to see his uncle and hear the latter's voice commanding him to drop the carnation. He could not have done it to save himself from destruction. Then the flower was plucked away.
"How long have I been asleep?" he asked, suddenly opening his eyes.
"You have been across the Styx and back in exactly fifty seconds," Ralph said gravely. "Now you see the effect of that stuff. Wonderfully artistic, isn't it?"
Geoffrey gazed at the flower with sickening horror. Ralph seemed to divine this, for he picked it up, sniffed it coolly and placed it in his button-hole.
"The evil effect has gone, believe me," he said. "The dose was very small, and I did not mix it with water, which makes a difference."
"Still, I don't follow," Geoffrey said. "We know those flowers were cut and arranged by Vera and Marion. It would have been impossible for any one to have entered the dining-room and replaced them with other white flowers. And for anybody to have had the time to impregnate them one by one—oh, it is impossible!"