This is the seventh and last of the Department of Patterns stories, the sixth to feature Papa Grand as Director. The young policeman Mascaux is assigned to investigate a series of attacks on journalists. Each has received a gift of a basket of apples and roses containing an incendiary bomb disguised as an apple which explodes in the middle of the night. Papa Grand suggests that Mascaux looks for somebody with the name Dorothea, and eventually explains why.
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine #263, October, 1965.
Reprinted in Ellery Queen's Anthology, Spring /Summer 1981.
Included in the collection The Minerva Club and other stories, USA, Crippen and Landru, 2009.