KISMET AND THE BABY ORCHID,
by Frank Lovell Nelson
In looking over my rather meager notes, I often find it difficult to select among the countless cases in which I have been associated with Carlton Clarke the one that will best make a story. At the time of which this story deals, his fame as an untangler of mysteries had gone far and wide and our Oak Street quarters often presented a regular procession of clients as early and as late as Clarke was willing to receive them. Sometimes it was some single note of tragedy, some heart story laid bare, a missing son or daughter to be found, a business conspiracy to untangle and thwart, a confession to be wrung from some suspect. More often it was the subtle reading of human character and the human mind which showed Clarke in what direction to po
