“Eight and a half minutes?” Andrea said. “What did he say he was doing all that time?”
“Looking out the window, first of all, for some sign of a phantom killer. Harding’s claim is that window was open and Granger was shot through the window from outside; he says Sampson and the housekeeper must have been mistaken about where the shot came from. The rest of the time he was supposedly ministering to his uncle and didn’t stop to open the door until the old man had died.”
“But you think he spent that time hiding the gun somewhere in the room?”
“I know that’s what he was doing,” Jerry said. “His story is implausible and he’d had arguments with his uncle before, always over money and sometimes to the point of violence. He’s guilty as sin — I’m sure of it!”
“Couldn’t he have just thrown the gun out the window?”
“No. We searched the grounds; we’d have found the gun if it had been out there.”
“Well, maybe he climbed out the window, took it away somewhere, and hid it.”
“No chance,” Jerry said. “Remember the rain we had last night? There’s a flower bed outside the study window and the ground there was muddy from the rain; nobody could have walked through it without leaving footprints. And it’s too wide to jump over from the window sill. No, the gun is in that room. He managed to hide it somewhere during those eight and one-half minutes. His uncle’s stereo unit was playing, fairly loud, and if he made any noise the music covered it — Sampson and the housekeeper didn’t hear anything unusual.”
“Didn’t one of them go outdoors to look in through the study window?”
“Sampson did, yes. But Harding had drawn the drapes. In case the phantom killer came back, he said.”
“What’s the study like?” Andrea asked.
“Big room with a heavy masculine motif: hunting prints, a stag’s head, a wall full of books, overstuffed leather furniture, a walk-in fireplace—”
“I guess you looked up the fireplace chimney,” Andrea said.
He gave her a wry smile. “First thing. Nothing but soot.”
“What else was in the room?”
“A desk that we went over from top to bottom. And model airplanes, a clipper ship-in-a-bottle, a miniature train layout — all kinds of model stuff scattered around.”
“Oh?”
“Evidently Granger built models in his spare time, as a hobby. There was also a small workbench along one wall.”
“I see.”
“The only other thing in there was the stereo unit — radio, record player, tape deck. I thought Harding might have hidden the gun inside one of the speakers, but no soap.”
Andrea was sitting very still, pondering. So still that Jerry frowned at her and then said, “What’s the matter?”
“I just had an idea. Tell me, was there any strong glue on the workbench?”
“Glue?”
“Yes. The kind where you only need a few drops to make a bond and it dries instantly.”
“I guess there was, sure. Why?”
“How about a glass cutter?”
“I suppose so. Andrea, what are you getting at?”
“I think I know what Harding was doing for those eight and a half minutes,” she said. “And I think I know just where he hid the gun.”
Jerry sat up straight. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. Come on, I want to show you something.” She led him out through the kitchen, onto the rear porch. “See that terrarium?”
“What about it?”
“Well, it’s a big glass jar with a small opening at one end, right? Like a bottle. There’s nothing in it now except soil seeds, but pretty soon there’ll be flowers and plants growing inside and people who don’t know anything about terrariums will look at it and say, ‘Now how in the world did you get those plants through that little opening?’ It doesn’t occur to them that you didn’t put plants in there; you put seeds and they grew into plants.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with Harding—”
“But there’s also a way to build a bottle terrarium using fullgrown plants,” she went on, “that almost never occurs to anybody. All you have to do is slice off the bottom of the container with a glass cutter; then, when you’ve finished making your garden arrangement inside, you just glue the bottom back on. That’s what some professional florists do. You can also heat the glass afterward, to smooth out the line so nobody can tell it’s been cut, but that isn’t really necessary. Hardly anyone looks that close.”
A light was beginning to dawn in Jerry’s eyes. “Like we didn’t look close enough at a certain item in Granger’s study.”
“The ship-in-a-bottle,” Andrea said, nodding. “I’ll bet you that’s where Harding put the gun — inside the ship that’s inside the bottle.”
“No bet,” Jerry said. “If you’re right, I’ll buy you the fanciest steak dinner in town.”
He hurried inside, no longer looking like Columbo, and telephoned police headquarters. When he was through talking he told Andrea that they would have word within an hour. And they did — exactly fifty-six minutes had passed when the telephone rang. Jerry took it, listened, then grinned.
“You were right,” he said when he’d hung up. “The bottom of the bottle had been cut and glued back, the ship inside had been hollowed out, and the missing gun was inside the ship. We overlooked it because we automatically assumed nobody could put a gun through a bottle neck that small. It never occurred to us that Harding didn’t have to put it through the neck to get it inside.”
Andrea smiled. “The terrarium principle,” she said.
“I guess that’s a pretty good name for it. Come on, get your coat; we’ll go have that steak dinner right now.”
“With champagne, maybe?”
“Sweetheart,” he said, “with a whole magnum.”
87
Doctor’s Orders
John F. Suter
This pain, the pain is everywhere. No, not everywhere, but I throb in the places where there is no real pain. And now it is only an ache and an exhaustion, but it seems as if there is no time, no space, nothing but this. But I am a little stronger than I was. So little. But I am stronger. I have to get well. I intend to get well. I will get well.
“Mr. Shaw, I think she’ll come out of it all right. As you know, it was either your wife or the baby, for a while. But she’s improved, I assure you. Of course, there will always be that weakness which we can’t correct.”
“I understand. Just to have her well again is all I care about.”
I had better open my eyes. Jeff isn’t here. I can’t sense him. But I can stand the white room now. I no longer have a wish to die. Even though he didn’t live. I could grieve and grieve and grieve, and I wanted to when Jeff first told me. But there is no strength in that sort of grief. I will get well.
“You did tell her that the baby died?”
“Yes, doctor. It was hard for her to take at first. Very hard. Then I told her that it had been a boy. That pleased her, in spite of — of what happened.”
There. The world is back. So much sunshine in the room. So many flowers. I wonder if Jeff—
“Did you tell her that the child is already buried?”
“Not yet. If you’re sure that she’s stronger, I’ll tell her today.”
“You don’t think she’ll hold it against you for going ahead with the funeral, Mr. Shaw?”
“Jessie is very level-headed. Doctor. She’ll understand that we couldn’t wait. And — if you don’t think it’s out of style to say so — we love each other.”