Pandora by Holly Hollander

straight Hollander ticket.”

He shook his finger at me. “You’d better mind your P’s and Q’s, young lady, or we’ll elect you. Think of the pickle you’d be in then.” Uncle Dee had been president of the Friends two or three times already, and always said he wouldn’t do it anymore.

“So how are they going, and how come it’s a coincidence to see me?”

“Quite nicely. One would think that holding this little affair each year as we do the springs would eventually run dry, but someone must be printing old books.” It was a regular joke of his, and he was the only one I ever heard laugh at it. “Look here: A.W. Sprague’s Log of the Cruise of the Schooner Julius Webb. Fifty dollars, and cheap at the price. And here’s one I found hardly a minute before you came in: Jim Gillet’s Six Years with the Texas Rangers. I’ve put it at sixteen fifty, and I’m going to buy it myself the moment the doors open.”

“I might beat you to it—I think I can run faster than you.”

His smile would have defrosted a freezer. “That’s right, you’re getting interested in police and crime books, aren’t you? Now here’s something you might enjoy that I know you can afford: Franke’s The Torture Doctor. It’s the history of the infamous Chicago murderer H.H. Holmes. No dust jacket, so I’ve marked it a dollar and a quarter; but you might look for a long time to find a copy, and in a year or two it should be worth ten dollars at least.”

He leaned across the table to pick up the book for me, and a piece of loose-leaf paper that had been dangling from his shirt pocket fell out.

“Oh, yes,” he said when he got it again, “this is for you, too. A very charming gentleman who said that he was a relation of yours was inquiring after you, not an hour ago. I honestly don’t think he realized at first that the school was closed for the summer—no doubt he saw the cars out front and thought a summer semester was in session. I overheard your name and had a little chat with him.”

I unfolded the note.

Dear Little Niece,

Remember what was said under the roses?

Wear one when you are free to see me.

Herbert Hollander III

How I Played Carmen to an Empty House

Well, what would you have done? Uncle Herbert was crazy, and I had this notion they wouldn’t keep somebody locked up so long when he acted as sane as Uncle Herbert did, unless they thought it might be an awfully bad idea to turn him loose. I didn’t want to be alone with him, but I didn’t want him mad at me either.

And anyhow, where was I supposed to get a rose? Out of the garden, right? Sure. Only there weren’t any rose bushes in our garden because it was practically all grass and evergreens, with some redbud trees and ornamental cherries. Besides if I did get a rose, when would I wear it? “Under the roses” meant sub rosa—Latin for “on the quiet”—unless I was even dumber than my teachers thought. Naturally Uncle Herbert wanted to keep things as quiet as he could, and that was as open as he’d dared to be about it in a note that a stranger might have read as soon as he was gone. If I wore a rose when there were people around, he might not like it, but if I wore it when I was alone, how could he see it?

In the end, I did two things—maybe smart and maybe not—as soon as we got the rest of the books unloaded and I could sneak away. Boutiques are the curse of Barton, but I found one, the Pink Pelican, that carried paper flowers. I bought a nice red rose, had them put it in a bag, and took it to a phone booth. Then I pulled Aladdin Blue’s card out of my wallet and called him up.

After we’d said hello and I’d explained who I was, I said, “That day we went out to Garden Meadow—you knew that my Uncle Herbert was going to bust out, right? That was why you were so interested in him.”

“I didn’t actually know it, Holly.” Blue has one of those voices that sound the same over a phone as they do faceto-face. “I’d been told it was probable, yes.”

“By your friend the judge?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“In the first place, because I had been told in confidence. And in the second, because it would only have worried you to no purpose. What could you have done, if I had? Told the director that your uncle should be watched more carefully? He would have asked you how you knew, and you would have been forced to tell him that you had been warned by a man you met on the train. How much weight would that have carried? He would have assured you that Garden Meadow was extremely secure, and that your uncle was watched quite carefully already.”

“I guess you’re right,” I admitted. “Is it? Secure, I mean?”

“As secure as such places usually are, I imagine, which is slightly less secure than a minimum-security prison. You must understand that out of one hundred psychotics, ninety-nine are dangerous only to themselves. The great risk places like Garden Meadow must guard against is suicide.”

“You know he’s escaped, too, because when I started talking about it you didn’t ask. Can that judge telephone?”

“I suspect he could, if he wanted to badly enough. But he didn’t tell me. I have a police radio, and when I’m working I find it more relaxing than music. The police have a code number to indicate a lost person, and their description fit your uncle quite well.”

“I didn’t think Garden Meadow would call the police.”

“They won’t shoot on sight, you understand. Just take him back.”