Rex came early the next morning to hear what had happened. I told him that I had slept remarkably well with the orchid in a vase on the night table beside my bed, that toward morning I had had a confused dream in which Lucia with tears streaming from her eyes stood in front of a curious iron-studded door and shook her head, warning me that I must not go inside.

  Neither of us could make anything of it. Then Rex asked, “Did you check up on O’Malley and Lucia?”

  “Mrs. Trent had never heard of him, but finally after I kept pressing her she did remember Lucia speaking of an unusual-looking man she had met at a party, who had raved about her looks. Lucia had been a little excited by his fulsome admiration and rather wondered why he hadn’t made any effort to date her. It was the day after that she disappeared.” I reeled off the information I had gathered.

  “It could be O’Malley. I had all the other girls’ families approached, with no results except that one father remembered his daughter telling him practically the same thing you’ve just reported, only he recalled the man’s name. It was O’Malley. It’s the first definite link we’ve had, but where it will lead to I’ve no idea. I can’t see my way clear.” Rex drew his brows together.

  “Do you suppose Lucia’s still alive?” I asked.

  “Can’t be, if your theory’s right and her spirit is imprisoned in the flower.”

  “The dolls were.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. This whole thing’s a labyrinth through which I can’t find my way,” Rex groaned. “The only clue I’ve got is in your hands, and it’s dynamite. Still I have to use it. If you’re willing—”

  “I’ll do anything,” I said, little dreaming what was in his mind.

  “There’s danger, a very real danger, but I’ll be around. I hate even to ask you, but seventeen girls have disappeared. It may be we can save them, or if not, others—” He broke off abruptly, then went on. “There’s only one way to go about it. Could you bear to be nice to O’Malley?”

  “Nice to O’Malley?” That was the last thing I had expected.

  “Yes, lead him on. He’s in love with you. Why, if he really is connected with these disappearances, you haven’t been spirited away I can’t fathom. Perhaps, like Eastern potentates, he keeps a harem for his pleasure, but looks on you as the Ranee that must be really won according to Hoyle, or something like that. There’s only one way to find out, as I see it. Lead him on, humor him until he gives himself away or we find a path through the labyrinth.”

  “You mean let him kiss me?” I gasped. “I’m afraid. Suppose there isn’t a flower to save me.”

  “Wear the orchid. Somehow I feel that with it you’re safe, and I’ll be right on the job. Tell him you don’t like me but I’m hard to shake. I’ll have my men on constantly covering us.” Rex was more serious than I had ever seen him.

  “He’ll read my thoughts,” I protested, remembering only too well the feelings I had experienced while Splondowski played.

  “You must make your mind a blank so he can’t get inside it. Will you do it, Louise—for humanity?”

  “I’ll do it—for you.” I said fiercely. I knew how much Rex wanted to succeed with this particular assignment and what it would mean to his future if he did.

  Four days passed with no sign from O’Malley, and on the fifth day a new sensation struck the city—another girl vanished, the eighteenth, Helen Ferguson. Again there was no trace of any kind. She had left her house to do some shopping. The whole thing was inexplicable.

  Rex investigated at once, but found nothing. “It’s incredible that no passerby noticed anything,” he told me, “and to make matters worse it gives O’Malley a clean bill of health, so far as I can see. He wasn’t off his place. I’ve had it watched. Nothing unusual happened on the estate. The men I’ve got posted all around reported.”

  “No one went in?” I asked.

  “Nothing passed the gates but his own Ford delivery truck, which went to market and returned full of provisions. It goes every other day. He has a retinue of servants and evidently buys largely.”

  “What was Helen Ferguson like?”

  “Beautiful—auburn hair, greenish eyes, and a lovely complexion—noted for her skin, which was like a pale pink rose petal.”

  “I’m glad I’m not beautiful,” I said, and shuddered.

  “You are to me. I love your sweet little face.” Rex leaned over and kissed me to emphasize his point, and we forgot the problems for the time being.

  Two more days went by, and it was practically a week since I had seen O’Malley, and the orchid was still as fresh as when he had given it to me. I wore it constantly, and kept it in water at night near my bed. But it gave no more signs of being anything but a flower; there were no whisperings, no assents or denials when I addressed questions to it, and I began to think there never had been.

  On the morning of the eighth day I received a note. It was written on green paper with green ink. In one corner was engraved an orchid, and below it:

  ORCHID HOUSE

  RIVERDALE

  NEW YORK

  It was the type of paper a luxury-loving woman would have, but it was Angus O’Malley who had written the note:

  Come to see my orchids Wednesday at four. I am asking Muriel and some others. Bring the good Mr. Stanton if you wish. I shall expect you—and my answer.

  Angus O’Malley

  That was all. There was no beginning.

  I phoned Rex. He was delighted.

  “So much easier than I thought!” he crowed. “In a crowd you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  If he had only known! But he didn’t.

  All the way up to Riverdale we laughed and joked and planned our future. It was only when we drew up before the great iron grille gates of Orchid House that I began to be afraid and the flower on my shoulder trembled as though it too echoed the wild beating of my heart.

  “It’s like a prison,” I said, as the gates clanged shut behind us.

  Rex was silent as we drove up the long wooded road.

  “He must own acres,” he remarked at last.

  Just then the house came within our range of vision. It was like a feudal castle—one of the German ones out of a fairy tale. From any of the four towers Rapunzel might have let down her golden hair—or the fairy Melusine woven her spells.

  “Don’t worry,” Rex’s steady and cheerful voice broke into my thoughts, “I’ll be right beside you; I’m armed, and I’ve men all around the outside.”

  I touched his hand, where it rested on the wheel. Then I assumed the bored air we had agreed upon. It was a good thing I did so, for when we drove under the porte-cochere and stopped it was Angus O’Malley who opened the car door for us. He greeted Rex with exaggerated courtesy. He kissed my hand lingeringly before he guided us into the house.

  When we passed through the doors we went back centuries into medieval England, to a great room that was vaguely familiar.

  “The Hall of Elthaue,” our host said. “I had it copied; only I have heat and electricity.”

  There were about forty people in the hall, most of whom I knew. O’Malley was a charming host. He gave us tea—an utterly commonplace tea—and then took us all over the house and the conservatories, which were full of the most beautiful orchids I have ever seen. None of them, however, was like the yellow one I wore.

  “Where is the plant this came from?” I asked him.

  For a second he hesitated, then pointed to a moss-like ball with no bloom upon it. Somehow I felt he lied, but I could not dispute him.

  When we returned to the house after our tour of the conservatories I looked for Rex. Muriel had him in one corner. Someone came up to O’Malley and engaged him in a long discussion. I decided to slip off by myself and explore a little, for I had noticed that O’Malley had not taken us into one of the towers, although he had meticulously shown us everything else—even his own sleeping quarters, which were in one of the towers but completely modern and fantastic with mirrored walls.

  I made my way to where I thought the entrance of the tower would be, judging by the others I had seen. A tapestry covered the wall where the door should have been. I pulled it back and stepped inside to the circular room all the other towers had had, looked up at the same stone stairway, but in the tower halfway up the stairs barring the ascent was a door—a curious iron-studded door—the same door I had seen in my dreams!

  “Are you Pandora or Bluebeard’s wife?” O’Malley’s voice was in my ear. He was standing right behind me. I swung around, deciding quickly that this was an emergency that called for the truth.

  “I noticed you didn’t show us one tower, and I confess to curiosity.” I actually managed to be coy.

  “These are my private rooms. Someday I will show them to you. But now, little white bird, you must tell me, is it love or hate?” His eyes searched mine.

  I followed Rex’s instructions. I made my mind a blank before I answered. Then I said shyly, “I wouldn’t want you to hate me.”

  Joy leapt into his face for the moment, transfiguring it from a Brenda mask into something closer to humanity.

  “Then it is love!” He caught my hand.

  I held him off a little. “Perhaps, but you must be patient with me for a little. This has all been so quick. I am attracted to you, but I need time. You”—I hesitated, then rushed on—“you frighten me sometimes. You are not like other men.”

  I had struck the right note. His colossal ego was touched.

  “You have spoken more of a truth than you know. See, I will be gentle. I will be kind.” He took me in his arms tenderly and caressed me as though I had been a child. “In your arms I will forget that I am a lonely god.”

  He kissed me then, and I did not resist, though the small, still voice of the flower was again whispering, “Send him away,” over and over in my ear.

  Eventually he let me go. “We will announce our engagement immediately. I want to watch the good Mr. Stanton’s face.” Nero at the circus turning his great emerald for all to see.

  Rex—the mention of his name brought him before my eyes and for one second made me forget the guard I was keeping on my mind. Only one second, but it was enough.

  “So!” O’Malley’s lips drew back from his teeth in a bestial snarl. “So it’s the good Mr. Stanton you love and you are tricking me for his sake!” With unerring precision he hit the nail directly on the head. “So—you wanted to find out my secrets. Well, you shall.”

  He caught me by the wrist and dragged me toward the stairs. I screamed, but the sound died in my throat as he struck me on the side of the head with terrific force. He caught me as I fell, and then I knew nothing more.

  When I came to, my head ached terribly and for a second I didn’t know what had happened. Then I remembered and looked about for O’Malley. To my great relief I found that I was alone.

  My dress was gone. I was wrapped in a lovely blue satin kimono, and I was lying on a long couch that took up one side of a barren, cell-like room. There was no other furniture. The walls were of stone and there was no window. High up in the ceiling, which must have been at least twenty feet away, were a few round holes which evidently afforded ventilation. There was a carved wooden door, which I tried although I knew it would be locked. I was a prisoner. I could scream and yell, but no one would hear. But of course Rex would rescue me. I pinned all my hopes to that, and didn’t even let myself think how impossible it would be.

  Two more things I noticed. The yellow orchid I had worn was lying crushed to a pulp on the floor, as though it had been stamped upon, and there were little crimson spots all over that looked like blood. To take my eyes from it I looked at my wristwatch. Seven-fifteen. It must have been nearly six when I had started exploring, so I had been here in this prison for over an hour. Surely I must be missed. Surely Rex—My thoughts died away in agonized fear.

  I waited for what seemed an eternity but was actually only twenty minutes. Then I heard the sound of a bolt being shot back. A second later the heavy door swung upward and Angus O’Malley stood on the threshold.

  He was dressed in a long Chinese robe that made him look more exotic than ever.

  “Mr. O’Malley—” I began.

  He held up his hand. “You little fool. Did you think you could fight me? That I who know the secrets of Cagliostro, of Nicodemus—yes, even of Merlin himself—could be deceived by a girl? Your friends have gone. The good Mr. Stanton has gone. I told them you were taken ill and asked me to send you home. I actually sent a car with a girl in it through the gates. Later that car will be discovered a complete wreck; the girl dressed in your clothes will be found dead, her face mutilated beyond recognition. No one will look for you after that.”

  With a sickening sensation I listened to him. All hope died away, for even Rex would accept such overwhelming evidence.

  “What are you going to do with me?” I faltered. My lips were dry.

  He looked at me and smiled, and there was more menace in that smile than in any words he had ever uttered.

  “First I am going to show you my orchids—the rare ones,” he said slowly.

  An unholy light shone in his eyes as his fingers locked around my wrist like iron bands. He half led me, half pulled me through the door out into a hall, then up the stone stairway to another iron-studded door. I contemplated screaming, but quickly realized how futile that would be.

  “You are wise,” he said, reading my thoughts easily. “No one could hear. This tower is soundproof, and only I know the secret of the door below.”

  He pressed part of the iron decoration and the door swung open. He pulled me into a room that was very hot. It was full of laboratory apparatus. There were several long tables or benches, covered with sheets. He led me to the far end, where there was a particularly long table with a complicated series of tubes and retorts suspended above it. Most of the table was covered with heavy linen of a peculiar blue shade that was tent-like in appearance, but at one end free from the cover I could distinguish a girl’s head; beautiful auburn hair, a pale rose-leaf skin, and tortured brown eyes that looked into mine pleadingly.

  “Helen Ferguson!” I gasped.

  “Helen Ferguson,” O’Malley repeated and held up the blue linen on the side so that I could see under the tent-like arrangement.

  It was that moment I think my hair turned white; for growing from her lovely body was the dark mass of an orchid plant!

  I would have fainted, but O’Malley held me and forced me to listen by the sheer power of his will. “You alone are privileged to look at the miracle of the age. Only I can work such a miracle—a flower that lives, that absorbs the color, the beauty of whatever subject I select—a flower that I can talk to, that answers all my need for beauty, for love. Imagine wearing the beauty all men desire in my buttonhole. Truly in such moments I am a god.”

  “A god! You are a beast! That poor girl—is she alive?”

  “Of course. The plant thrives on her life. It absorbs her color, her brain, her very soul into itself, and then when it has exhausted all she has to give, it blooms, and lives as long as I can keep what is left of the body intact.”

  “Dear God, how she must suffer!” I turned my face away from those anguished brown eyes and the terrible growth in her breast.

  “Only so far as she knows her condition before the orchid absorbs her brain entirely. Of bodily suffering there is none. I sever the nerves when I implant the roots. I will explain—”

  “No! No! I can’t bear any more.”

  He laughed—an eerie macabre laugh that pierced my soul.

  “But you must. You wanted to see the plant from which the yellow orchid came; so look.”

  He dropped the blue linen back into place and swung me around until I faced another table, which he uncovered. There lay the body of my friend Lucia Trent, and it was horrible to see, for all the color had been drained from it. The shape, the features were still hers, but it was all shadowy—the hair that had been golden had the same pallor as her cheeks. She was like a vegetable from which the juice and pulp have been extracted.

  “It’s horrible!” I moaned. “Oh, Lucia, Lucia!”

  “So she was your friend! That explains why she did not do my bidding. Her love for you was stronger than my commands.”

  His face was concentrated fury. If there had been any life in that pale shadowy form he would have stamped it out—just as he had destroyed the orchid.

  “Take me away,” I pleaded, “before I go mad.”

  He shook his head. “No, you are to stay. You have cheated me of a flower—you must replace it—look.”

  He threw open a door. Behind it on shelves in glass vases were sixteen strange orchids of colorings and forms never seen before. O’Malley leaned toward them and they suddenly became animated with life. They swayed to meet him, touching his cheeks, his lips, his eyes—caressingly. It was obscene and terrible to behold, and all the while there was a strange whispering that was even more terrible.

  “They are my darlings—all I have asked from life until I met you—you who I thought would sit at my feet and learn wisdom, who would be my companion, sharer of my secrets, my mate”—he looked at me as though he were seeing me for the first time—“why, I cannot understand. Of course I knew you hadn’t the color for a flower, and something in you touched me so that for a little while I became a man, but now I have reverted to my godhead.”

  The man was a raving maniac!

  “I no longer desire you as a woman—and fortunately you will make a lovely orchid—a white orchid! See, in all my sixteen blossoms there is not a white one. I have never tried a young woman before with white hair.”

  I did not know my hair was white. I thought him crazier than ever, but I did comprehend the fate that awaited me. I had given up hope of rescue. Rex would believe me dead. I could not escape, but I must put off the terrible moment. I could at least keep him talking—perhaps dissuade him from the awful thing he contemplated, from which my whole being revolted.