I think I have never seen so sudden a change of expression take place in the face of any man.  Even in that imperfect light I saw him blanch.  I saw a hard glitter come into his eyes.  He spoke, evenly, but hoarsely: 

“Put those things down——­there, on the table; anywhere.”

I obeyed him without demur; for something in his manner had chilled me with foreboding.

“You did not break that stalk?”

“No.  I found it as you see it.”

“Have you smelled the petals?”

I shook my head.  Thereupon, having his eyes fixed upon me with the strangest expression in their gray depths, Nayland Smith said a singular thing.

“Pronounce, slowly, the words Sakya Muni,’” he directed.

I stared at him, scarce crediting my senses; but——­

“I mean it!” he rapped.  “Do as I tell you.”

“Sakya Muni,” I said, in ever increasing wonder.

Smith laughed unmirthfully.

“Go into the bathroom and thoroughly wash your hands,” was his next order.  “Renew the water at least three times.”  As I turned to fulfill his instructions, for I doubted no longer his deadly earnestness:  “Beeton!” he called.

Beeton, very white-faced and shaky, came out from the bedroom as I entered the bathroom, and whist I proceeded carefully to cleanse my hands I heard Smith interrogating him.

“Have any flowers been brought into the room today, Beeton?”

“Flowers, sir?  Certainly not.  Nothing has ever been brought in here but what I have brought myself.”

“You are certain of that?”

“Positive.”

“Who brought up the meals, then?”

“If you’ll look into my room here, sir, you’ll see that I have enough tinned and bottled stuff to last us for weeks.  Sir Gregory sent me out to buy it on the day we arrived.  No one else had left or entered these rooms until you came to-night.”

I returned to find Nayland Smith standing tugging at the lobe of his left ear in evident perplexity.  He turned to me.

“I find my hands over full,” he said.  “Will you oblige me by telephoning for Inspector Weymouth?  Also, I should be glad if you would ask M. Samarkan, the manager, to see me here immediately.”

As I was about to quit the room—­

“Not a word of our suspicions to M. Samarkan,” he added; “not a word about the brass box.”

I was far along the corridor ere I remembered that which, remembered earlier, had saved me the journey.  There was a telephone in every suite.  However, I was not indisposed to avail myself of an opportunity for a few moments’ undisturbed reflection, and, avoiding the lift, I descended by the broad, marble staircase.

To what strange adventure were we committed?  What did the brass coffer contain which Sir Gregory had guarded night and day?  Something associated in some way with Tibet, something which he believed to be “the key of India” and which had brought in its train, presumably, the sinister “man with a limp.”