Nellie shook her head. 'They thought someone might have used a ladder, but there was no sign. The ground is so hard and dry with no rain—'
Eunice the maid appeared at the door. 'Telephone, mum.'
Nellie excused herself and left Jack and Gia alone in the room.
'A locked-room mystery,' he said. 'I feel like Sherlock Holmes.'
He got down on his knees and examined the carpet for specks of dirt, but found none. He looked under the bed; only a pair of slippers there.
'What are you doing?'
'Looking for clues. I'm supposed to be a detective, remember?”
'I don't think a woman's disappearance is anything to joke about,' Gia said, the frost returning to her words now that Nellie was out of earshot.
'I'm not joking, nor am I taking it lightly. But you've got to admit the whole thing has the air of a British drawing room mystery about it. I mean, either Aunt Grace had an extra alarm key made and ran off into the night in her nightie—a pink and frilly one, I'll bet—or she jumped off her little balcony here in that same nightie, or someone climbed up the wall, knocked her out, and carried her off without a sound. None of them seem too plausible.'
Gia appeared to be listening. That was something at least.
He went over to the dressing table and glanced at the dozens of perfume bottles there; some names were familiar, most not. He wandered into the private bathroom and was there confronted by another array of bottles: Metamucil, Phillips' Milk of Magnesia, Haley's M-O, Pericolace, Surfak, Ex-Lax and more. One bottle stood off to the side. Jack picked it up. It was clear glass, with a thick green fluid inside. The cap was the metal twist-off type, enameled white. All it needed was a Smirnoff label and it could have been an airline vodka bottle.
'Know what this is?'
'Ask Nellie.'
Jack screwed off the cap and sniffed. At least he was sure of one thing: it wasn't perfume. The smell was heavily herbal, and not particularly pleasant.
As Nellie returned, she appeared to be finding it increasingly difficult to hide her anxiety. 'That was the police. I rang up the detective in charge a while ago and he just told me that they have nothing new on Grace.'
Jack handed her the bottle.
'What's this?'
Nellie looked it over, momentarily puzzled, then her face brightened.
'Oh, yes. Grace picked this up Monday. I'm not sure where, but she said it was a new product being test- marketed, and this was a free sample.'
'But what's it for?'
'It's a physic.'
“Pardon?”
'A physic. A cathartic. A laxative. Grace was very concerned—obsessed, you might say—with regulating her bowels. She's had that sort of problem all her life.'
Jack took back the bottle. Something about an unlabeled bottle amid all the brand names intrigued him.
'May I keep this?'
'Certainly.”
He looked around awhile longer, for appearances more than anything else. He didn't have the faintest idea how he was going to begin looking for Grace Westphalen.
'Please remember to do two things,' he told Nellie as he started downstairs. 'Keep me informed of any leads the police turn up, and don't breathe a word of my involvement.'
'Very well. But where are you going to start?'
He smiled—reassuringly, he hoped. 'I've already started. I'll have to do some thinking and then start looking.'
He fingered the bottle in his pocket. Something about it...
They left Nellie on the second floor, standing and gazing into her sister's empty room. Vicky came running in from the kitchen as Jack reached the bottom step. She held an orange section in her outstretched hand.
'Do the orange mouth! Do the orange mouth!'
He laughed, delighted that she remembered. 'Sure!'
He shoved the section into his mouth and clamped his teeth behind the skin. Then he gave Vicky a big orange grin. She clapped and laughed.
'Isn't Jack funny, mom? Isn't he the
'He's a riot, Vicky.'
Jack pulled the orange slice from his mouth. 'Where's that doll you wanted to introduce me to?'
Vicky slapped the side of her head dramatically, 'Ms. Jelliroll! She's out back. I'll go—'
'Jack doesn't have time, honey,' Gia said from behind him.
