Having delivered herself of a small cardboard box, and a few grumbling
comments upon the indecent hours and ways of circus performers, she
withdrew, and Arithelli proceeded to cut the string and remove the lid.
"I can't see what it is in this light," she said; "Emile, may I have
the candle a little nearer? Flowers? No one sends me flowers now.
But these are--"
Her voice broke and stopped. Emile, who had been on the alert from the
moment of the landlady's entrance, sprang up and pulled the girl to one
side. A mysterious parcel at that hour of the night, too late for any
post. One might have guessed what it meant.
"What is it?" he asked sharply. The answer was an incoherent one, and
he could see that she was paralysed with terror.
The opening of the box had revealed a sinister-looking bouquet of
artificial black roses tied with blood-red ribbons.
In Barcelona there are many strange and ingenious ways of conveying
death by explosives. A clock, a painted casket which might contain
bon-bons; a coffee-pot, a _casserole_--any apparently harmless and
common utensil.
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