And even as I did, the most curious thing happened, because momentarily, even as I reached the metal door, which was slick with moisture, the sky seemed to go black over my head, blotting out the glass panes of the roof completely, and as I looked down at something which seemed to stay my hand on the door, I saw something which had been holding me, something green and thin and strong and shaped very much like a human hand, pull back away from my arm, with a motion very much like the pulling of taffy.
And then the door was open, and I was in the world again.
But not free of that place. There was an investigation, of course, and the policeman who came insisted that I come with him. This was the following day, for I had fallen into a deep sleep from which I didn't wake until late into the night. While asleep strange dreams had assaulted me, with pale purple, delicate flowers caressing me as a lover's fingers might; and, just before waking, there was another caress, this one harsher and more lasting, which made me cry out and awaken.
A Detective Molson had taken my call, just before he was slated to go off duty; and, once I had convinced him that I was not a crank, and that, indeed, a man was missing, he made me promise to meet him at the glass house in the morning and then hung up.
The day was cloudier than the previous one had been. For some reason this made the greenhouse, perched on its grassy hill, less ominous-looking. Perhaps the presence of the policeman's car parked next to it also added to its ordinariness.
Molson, on seeing me approach by foot, got out of his car and waited for me. He proved to be a tall, angular man with a sallow face and thinning, blond-gray hair: he looked as though he had gotten little sleep the previous night, or any night for quite some time.
I thought he would shake my hand but he didn't. I knew he was studying me with his deep-set, tired eyes.
'You say you work just down the hill?' He flicked a finger in the direction of the Angerton Institute, the low, wide, rectangular brick building that, despite its squatness, and its location in a valley, managed to dominate the landscape.
'Yes, I do,' I answered noncommittally.
His eyes rested laconically on the Institute.
'Grow flowers there, do you?'
'Study them, actually. It's an Agronomical Research Center. We make organic plant hybrids and such.'
His tired eyes showed mild interest.
'Like cloning carrots?'
I looked for a flicker of smile on his pale face but found none.
'No, detective,' I explained, 'we don't clone anything. We haven't even bothered to try. Actually, we're dedicated to cross breeding within the various species of violets. There are five hundred of them, you know— species, that is—and we've been combining the better traits of the hardier varieties and seeking to—'
His grunt of disinterest cut me off, and now he indicated the greenhouse with a slight movement of his head.
'So the conservatory here is full of violets?'
'Yes.'
'Let's have a look, then.'
He made a movement toward the metal door, and I froze.
With his hand on the door he turned to regard me, and again I saw a flicker of interest on his features.
'You coming, Mr...' He checked his notebook: '...Corman?'
''I...'
For a moment I couldn't move, thinking of that slim green hand on my arm, but then the immediate image of the policeman, his curiosity aroused, supplanted it and I nodded.
'Of course.'
I entered behind him, and moved aside as he insisted on closing the door behind me.
'Wouldn't want to let the hot air out, would we?' he said, mildly.
'I suppose not.'
It was stifling in the glass house—worse than it had been the day before. And now a sickly-sweet odor topped the other aromas of fecundity—an odor that hadn't been present yesterday.
Molson had detected it, too.
'Smells like human death, Mr. Corman,' he said, moving off toward the tangle of flowers in the back of the building.
Hands trembling, I followed.
But we found nothing. There was not the slightest trace of Lonnigan—not his body, not his clothing or his watch. I stood by while Detective Molson acted like a policeman, poking here and there and looking for whatever he expected to find, but in the end Molson stood up slowly, turned his wan, unreadable face to me and said, 'Are you sure you saw Lonnigan disappear in here, Mr. Corman?'
'Yes, I did,' I said.
'Did you actually see him come to bodily harm?'
'No, I didn't. As I told you on the phone last night, I heard him scream—'
'You heard him scream? That's all? You saw no body, no weapon, no assailant?'
'As I told you—'
'Mr. Corman, I was very tired last night. I worked two shifts back to back, and then I went home to an empty apartment because my wife left me three weeks ago. All I remember you telling me last night was that you were sure that this man...' he consulted his notebook, '...Lonnigan, is dead.'
There was annoyance in his tired eyes now.
'Can you tell me for sure that this fellow is dead, Mr. Corman?'
'I suppose not,' I said.
He closed his notebook, and, shaking his head and stepping around me, moved toward the door at the far end of the building.
'There's really nothing else I can do now, Mr. Corman,' he said, not turning around to speak to me. He opened the door, brushing aside the tangle of stems that seemed to have grown up suddenly near the knob, and walked outside.
He called back, 'Telephone me in forty eight hours if he doesn't show up, and we'll file a missing persons report.'
Then, yawning once, he folded his lanky body into his car and drove away.
I stood for a moment in the middle of the hothouse, shaking with fear, watching that small tangle of stems which Detective Molson had pushed aside twist and turn upon itself, before I bolted for the door and into the comforting gray air outside.
'Tell me this again?' Marsha Reed said sternly. Compared to Administrator Reed, my interview with Detective Molson had been a pleasure.
Behind her neat wide desk, she sat prim and straight, her white lab coat, always worn, as starched and pressed as if she had put it on just before my knock on her office door. She was a small woman who nevertheless loomed large, and her dark brown eyes, magnified behind overlarge glasses, were as filled with quiet fire as Molson's had been with tiredness.
I repeated to her what had happened with Lonnigan, and with the policeman.
'And this Detective Molson was allowed into the nursery, without my permission?' Reed said.
I noticed that her small hands, with their small fingers and short-trimmed nails, had not moved an inch from their place on her blotter, where they rested folded in front of her.
'This happened yesterday, after hours. And I thought it best to call the police last night. As you know, I don't have your home phone number. .
There was a tinge of red on her cheeks.
'Mr. Corman, what you did was inexcusable. And I won't excuse it. At the next board meeting, which is tomorrow, I will recommend that you be either suspended or expelled from Angerton Institute.'
