It also happened that Bill Converse read in Popular Gardening an article about Venerian plants in general and the tree-of-Eden in particular. Enough of these plants had now been grown by the Northern Regional Research Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture at Peoria, Illinois, to allow some conclusions about them. Converse, who glanced more and more through his own windows towards the Vanderhoffs' house, said nothing about this, not even to his gardening friends Devore and Vanderhoff.
The day of the Converse party, Penelope Vanderhoff telephoned Mrs. Converse, saying: "Mary? I'm so sorry, but I can't come to your party this afternoon."
"Oh," said Mary Converse, "isn't that too bad?"
"My sitter has stood me up, and Carl's away, so I have to stay home," Penny explained. '
"Aren't they old enough to be left?"
"Well, Dan is eight and Eleanor six, but if you leave them alone they fight, scream, chase each other, break windows, upset furniture, and make a shambles of the place. I can't imagine why — I've always let them do as they pleased, like it says in the book — but that's how it is. So I'll have to pass it up ..."
The conversation then became interminably feminine. When Mary Converse told her husband, he said: "Oh. Too bad. I'll take her some of the fruit."
"It'll be all right if that's all you do over there," said Mary Converse.
"Damn it!" shouted Converse. "I don't see why I put up with your groundless suspicions ..."
The refreshments at the Converse party consisted of martinis and tree-of-Eden fruits. The guests picked the fruits directly from the tree, from which Converse had removed the fence. The fruits looked like plums, but proved to be without pits. They gave out a delicious, enticing smell that had the guests drooling by the time they received their portions. The taste caused gasps, cries, closed eyes, and other stigmata of ecstasy.
The tree now towered twelve feet tall, while the pitcher-like organ in front was as large as a laundry hamper. The lid of the organ had come loose from the rest, except for a hingelike connection in the back. The edges of the lid curled up a little, so one could look down into the empty body of the pitcher.
The spray of slender stems bore hundreds of fruits. Any lesser number would have been quickly consumed. The guests hardly bothered with their cocktails in their rush to gorge themselves on Venerian fruits. When the lower branches of the fan had been stripped, Bill Converse, his face red from martinis, lugged a step-ladder from his garage and climbed it to hand down more fruit.
Converse did not eat any himself. When a lull in the demand allowed him, he took a small paper bag from his pocket, unfolded it, and dropped a dozen of the fruits into it. Then he quietly came down from the ladder and walked away from the party towards the Vanderhoff house.
There he rang the doorbell. Penelope came. Converse said: "Here's some fruit, Penny."
"Oh, thank you," she said. "Won't you come in?"
"Sure. Maybe you'd like to put those on a plate and eat 'em now."
Penelope got out a plate, dumped the fruits out on it, and ate one. "My, these are delicious. I never tasted anything like them. Won't you have one?"
"Thanks," said Converse, "but I've had all I can hold."
Back at the Converse party, guests stuffed with fruit were sitting and standing about lethargically, wiping the juice of the fruits off their hands and sipping martinis. The only fruits yet uneaten were a few on the highest parts of the tree, which could not be reached by the stepladder.
Two men walked slowly up the walk, peering about. One was lean and hatchet-faced; the other short and stout with thick-lensed glasses. While all the male guests were in sport shirts, the newcomers wore coats. The shorter one said:
"There's the house, and that's one of the plants."
The two drifted quietly up to the crowd around the tree-of-
Eden. The taller asked Mr. Zanziger: "Excuse me, but which is Mr. Converse?"
Zanziger answered: "Bill isn't here just now. He went over to the Vanderhoff house."
"Are Mr. Vanderhoff or Mr. Devore here?"
"Mr. Vanderhoff isn't, but I think Mr. Devore — yeah, that's him." Zanziger pointed to the square-jawed gray-haired figure with the pipe. Mary Converse said:
"I'm Mrs. Converse. What can I do for you?"
The hatchet-faced man said: "I have here a warrant for your husband's arrest. Also for Mr. Vanderhoff and Mr. Devore. Here are my credentials ..."
The man produced the badge of a United States deputy marshal, and added: "My name is Jacobson, and this is H. Breckenridge Bing of the Department of Agriculture. Where —"
Devore stepped up, saying: "Did somebody say I was wanted?"
"I'm sorry to say you are," said Jacobson, producing more papers from his inside coat pocket. "Here's the warrant for your arrest on the charge of buying articles whose importation is forbidden by the Plant Import Control Act of 1963, as amended 1989. Now if —"
"Why, I don't know what you're talking about," said Devore with an exaggerated expression of innocent astonishment.
"Ahem," said the short stout man. "He means that Amphorius tentatius" (Bing indicated the tree-of-Eden) "as well as several specimens of Faucifrons mordax and Cantodumus mimicus. Our investigations show —"
Devore broke in. "Are you the H. Breckenridge Bing who wrote in the Botanical Gazette on the reclassification of the Pteridophyta in the light of recent paleobotanical evidence?"
"Why — uh — yes."
Devore shook the man's hand. "That was a swell piece, but I never thought I'd be arrested by the author."
"Well — er — I assure you I would have preferred not to be a party to your arrest, but they sent me along to identify the contraband plants."
Jacobson said: "If you'll show me where Mr. Converse and Mr. Vanderhoff are, I'll run you down to the Federal Building in my car, and you'll be out on bail in a few minutes."
"What will they do to Mr. Converse and the others?" asked Mary Converse.
"Probably just a fine," said Jacobson.
"Oh," said Mary Converse in a disappointed tone.
The deputy marshal continued: "It partly depends on whether they're co-operative witnesses in the prosecution of Grant Oakley, who sold them the seeds. He's the one we'll really throw the book at. He's under arrest now."
"My brother in jail!" cried Mrs. Hort, but nobody heeded her.
Devore asked: "I suppose the Department of Agriculture will send a truck around to gather up our Venerian plants?"
Bing's mild eyes blinked behind their spectacles. "That's right. It's bad enough to bring in an exotic plant from some place on earth when its properties aren't fully known, and a hundred times more risky to bring in one from another planet. You never know what might happen. It — uh — might spread all over, like the prickly-pear cactus in Australia. Or it might have a disease that would get loose and wipe out the wheat crop."
"Oh," said Devore. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Come on, Breck," said Jacobson. "Show me the Vanderhoff house."
A guest named Dietz, who had had several martinis too many, muttered: "Don't worry, you beautiful plant, we won't let these guys take you away from us."
H. Breckenridge Bing did not seem to hear. He continued: "Now this Amphorius, for instance, has a strange property. I suppose you know that the biochemistry of the higher Venerian organisms turned out to be almost the same as that of terrestrial vertebrates?"
Devore nodded vigorously; the other hearers in more tentative fashion.