Trumbull said, "If we tackled the problem for you, and managed to solve it, Mr. Atwood, would you feel you had been cheating?"
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Atwood, "but I would accept the ten thousand gladly just the same."
Halsted said curiously, "Have you got some idea as to the moaning of the message, Tom?"
"No," said Trumbull, "but if, as Mr. Atwood says, we're looking for a tiny message in a nearby and accessible place, and if we assumed that Mr. Sanders played fair, then maybe we could carry through some eliminations… To whom did he leave his own house, Mr. Atwood?" "To a cousin, who has since sold it." "What was done to the contents? Surely Sanders had books, games of all sorts, furniture." "Most of it was sold at auction." "Did anything go to you?"
"The cousin was kind enough to offer me whatever I wanted of such material as was not intrinsically valuable. I didn't take anything. I am not the collecting type myself."
"Would your old friend have known this of you?" "Oh, yes." Atwood stirred resdessly. "Gentlemen, I have had six months to think of this. I realize that Sanders would not have hidden the fihn in his own house since he left it to someone else and knew I would have no opportunity to search it. He had ample opportunity to hide it in my house, which he visited as often as I visited his, and it is in my house that I think it exists."
Trumbull said, "Not necessarily. He might have felt certain that there would be some favorite books, some certain memento, you would have asked for."
"No," said Atwood. "How could he be certain I would? He would have left such an item to me in his will."
"That would give it away," said Avalon. "Are you sure he never hinted that you ought to take something? Or that he didn't give you something casually?"
"No," said Atwood, smiling. "You have no idea how unlike Sanders that would be… I tell you. I have thought that since he gave me a year to find it, he must have been pretty confident that it would stay in place for
that length of time. It wouldn't be likely to be part of something I might throw away, sell, or easily lose."
There was a murmur of agreement.
Atwood said, "He might very likely have pasted it over the molding of a wall, somewhere on the undersurface of a heavy piece of furniture, inside the refrigerator-you see what I mean."
"Have you looked?" said Gonzalo.
"Oh, yes," said Atwood. "This little game has kept me busy. I've spent considerable spare time going over moldings and under-surfaces and drawers and various insides. I've even spent time in the cellar and the attic."
"Obviously," said Trumbull, "you haven't found anything or we wouldn't be talking about it now."
"No, I haven't-but that doesn't mean anything. The thing I'm after might be so small as to be barely visible. Probably is. I could look right at it and miss it, unless I knew I was in the right place and was somehow prepared to see it, if you know what I mean."
"Which brings us back," said Avalon heavily, "to the message. If you understood it, you would know where to look and you would see it."
"Ah," said Atwood, "if I understood."
"Well, it seems to me," said Avalon, "that the key word is 'Alice.' Does that name have any personal significance to you? Is it the name of someone you both knew? Is it the name of Sanders' dead wife, for instance? The nickname of some object? Some private joke you shared?"
"No. No to all of that."
Avalon smiled, showing his even teeth beneath his neatly trimmed, ever so slightly graying mustache. "Then I would say that 'Alice' must refer to far and away the most famous Alice in the minds of men-Alice in Wonderland."
"Of course," said Atwood, in clear surprise. "That's what makes it a literary puzzle and that's why I turned to my nephew who teaches English literature. I assumed at the start it was a reference to the Lewis Carroll classic.
Sanders was an Alice enthusiast. He had a collection of various editions of the book, and he had reproductions of the Tenniel illustrations all over the house."
"You never told us that," said Avalon in hurt tones.
Atwood said, "Haven't I? I'm sorry. It's one of those things I know so well, I somehow expect everyone to know it."
"We might have expected it," said Trumbull, the corners of his mouth twisting down. "Alice involves herself with a deck of cards in the book."
"It always helps to have all pertinent information," said Avalon stiffly.
"Well, then," said Trumbull, "that brings us to the curious omission in Alice in Wonderland… And what curious omission is that? Have you any thoughts in that direction, Mr. Atwood?"
"No," said Atwood. "I read Alice as a child and have never returned to it-until the bequest, of course. I must admit I've never seen its charm."
"Good Lord," muttered Drake under his breath. Atwood heard him, for he turned his head sharply in Drake's direction. "I don't deny there may be charm for others but I have never seen the fun in word play. I'm not surprised Sanders enjoyed the book, though. His sense of humor was rather raucous and primitive. In any case, my dislike was compounded by my annoyance at having to detect an omission. I did not wish to have to study the book that closely. I hoped my nephew would help." "A teacher of literature!" said Rubin derisively. "Shut up, Manny," said Trumbull. "What did your nephew say, Mr. Atwood?"
"As it happens," said Atwood, "Mr. Rubin is right. My nephew was entirely at sea. He said there were a few passages in the original version of the story that Lewis Carroll had himself written in long hand that did not appear in the final published version. As it happens, an edition of the prepublished version is available now. I obtained a copy and checked through it. I found nothing that seemed significant to me."
Gonzalo said, "Listen! Where we go wrong, Henry always tells us, is in getting too damned complex. Why don't we look at the message? It says, 'The curious omission in Alice.' Maybe we don't have to look at the book. There is a curious omission in the message itself. The name of the book isn't Alice. It's Alice in Wonderland.
Avalon emerged from his wounded silence long enough to say, "It's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, if you wish to be accurate."
"All right," said Gonzalo, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Then we ought to concentrate on the rest of the title, which is omitted in the message… Isn't that right, Henry?"
Henry, standing quietly by the sideboard, said, "It is certainly an interesting point, Mr. Gonzalo."
"Interesting, hell," said Trumbull. "What's curious about it? It's an omission of convenience. Lots of people would say Alice."
Halsted said, "Quite apart from that, I don't see what Adventures in Wonderland would mean. It's no more helpful than the original message. Here's my idea. Alice in Wonderland-beg pardon, Jeff, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-contains verses, most of which are parodies of well-established poems of the day-"
"Poor ones," said Rubin.
"Beside the point," said Halsted. "They are not perfect parodies, however. Some verses are omitted. For instance, Alice recites a poem beginning 'How doth the little crocodile,' which is a parody of Isaac Watts's dreadful poem 'How doth 'the little busy bee,' though I don't think that's the actual title of the poem. Alice recites only two stanzas and I'm sure Watts's poem has at least four. Maybe the answer lies in the missing verses of the original."
"Is that a curious omission?" said Trumbull.
"I don't know. I don't remember the original version except for the first line, but it should be looked up… The other originals to the parodies should be studied, too."