"Looks like more violets, Joe."
"Better see what's in it."
Joe Cardona opened the package. He brought out the inevitable bunch of violets. The banter turned to laughs. Cardona made no comment.
He fingered the stems of the flowers, and calmly thrust the bouquet into a glass of water that chanced to be on the window sill.
This action brought more raillery. It also gave Cardona a chance to examine the writing on the metal disk that he had plucked from the flowers:
Long Island Thomas Telford Immediately
Repeating the name to himself, Cardona dropped the disk into his pocket, and looked up the name of Thomas Telford in the phone book. He found it. He called the number. There was no answer. Summoning a squad of men, Cardona lost no time. Two police cars were speeding toward Thomas Telford's Long Island home. The cars were filled with detectives who wondered if their leader had experienced an attack of sunstroke.
The first car pulled up at Telford's bungalow. Cardona clambered out and dashed into the house, with three men at his heels. In the lighted room they found the body of Martin Slade!
Murder!
The detectives were amazed. How had Cardona received the tip? Through a bunch of violets? The ridicule that had attended those ludicrous bouquets of flowers was now a thing of the past. Cardona was reading the paper that lay on the desk beside the dead man. Its paragraphs were brief and to the point. They told much that Martin Slade had done.