The flowers appeared overnight between Saturday and Sunday. By the time the first early-morning tram passed through Caldecott Square at 5:47 AM, eight municipal planters were filled with meadowsweet and wood anemone — species native to the Ashwater Valley, planted in neat rows with fresh compost and a level of horticultural precision that the Parks Department describes as “professional.”

Pinned to the fountain railing with a brass tack was a note, written in neat block capitals on cream card:

THE CITY NEEDS MORE FLOWERS AND FEWER COMMITTEES.

It is the second note. The first, discovered after the third planting on the seventh of April, read: “More foxgloves please.” Someone, it appears, has taken their own advice.

Nora Quinlan, superintendent of the Bobington Parks Department, arrived at the square at 8:15 AM on Sunday. She examined the planters, the note, and the compost — which she identified as a high-quality ericaceous blend not used by her department.

“Whoever is doing this,” Quinlan said, “has better equipment and better compost than we do. I am choosing to be professionally baffled.”

She was asked whether the Parks Department intended to remove the flowers.

“The flowers are healthy, appropriate to the season, and correctly planted,” she said. “They also look rather good. I see no horticultural reason to remove them.”

She paused.

“I see no horticultural reason to have planted them at midnight, either, but here we are.”

The Midnight Gardener — a name coined by this newspaper after the third planting — has now made four overnight visits to Caldecott Square since late March. The pattern: cornflowers on the twenty-fourth of March, wild violets on the first of April, primroses and foxgloves on the seventh of April, and now meadowsweet and wood anemone on the twelfth. All species are native wildflowers. All plantings have been executed in the early hours. Nobody has been caught.

Sergeant Arthur Kemp of the Municipal Constabulary’s night patrol unit is the closest thing to an eyewitness the investigation has produced. Kemp, who walks the Midtown circuit between midnight and 6 AM, passed through Caldecott Square twice on Saturday night.

“At half-past one, the planters were empty,” Kemp said. “At quarter-past three, they were full. Whoever it is, they’re quick. And they’re quiet. I didn’t hear a wheelbarrow, and I can hear a wheelbarrow.”

The night watchman at the Municipal Chamber — whose windows overlook the square — reported seeing a figure with a wheelbarrow at approximately 2:15 AM during the third planting. He did not see the figure during the fourth.

“Either they’ve changed their timing,” Kemp said, “or they’ve got a faster wheelbarrow.”

The Municipal Constabulary confirmed that no complaint has been filed and no criminal offence has been committed. Planting flowers in municipal planters without authorisation is, at most, a minor civil infraction under the Parks and Open Spaces Ordinance of 1953. The maximum penalty is five florins.

Quinlan was asked whether the Parks Department would file a complaint.

“I will not,” she said, “be filing a complaint against someone who is doing my job better than I am.”

At the fountain in Caldecott Square on Monday morning, the note had been removed — but someone had pinned a second note in its place, in different handwriting:

THANK YOU.