Missing from Home

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 303, 23 December 1939, Page 7 (Supplement)

Missing from Home

By--Peter Fabrizius

TOBY GREGOKY was reading by the fireside when his wife came rushing in. "Tobyl I can't find my cigarette case!" she cried excitedly. Uncle Paul, who happened to have dropped in, gave a sharp exclamation of horror, but Toby calmly asked: "The gold one I gave you for our first wedding anniversary?" "It must be sea relied for everywhere!" cried Uncle Paxil. "We had better make out an advertisement of the loss, and notify the police, too; it may have been stolen." Toby laid down the book he had been reading, settled back comfortably in his armchair, lit his pipe with all circumstance and deliberation, blew a large, round puff up to the ceiling and then ; Rave utterar.ee. "Let us think it all out logically," lie pronounced. Uncle Paul, who took all matters relating to property extremely seriously, grew quite red with annoyance. "What do you mean, think it all out logically? Meanwhile the thief will have pawned or sold the cigarette case and blued the money." Gabrielle glanced at the book her husband had just laid aside. She smiled very attractively with the. help of two deep dimples, and tapped her smooth wliite forehead. "Toby is reading a detective story.. Now I see! Haven't you ever noticed, Uncle Paul, that he always adopts the part of the hero of the book he happens to be reading? That's why I'm careful to stow Dostoievsky away out of sight, because his novels always make Tony morbid and helpless; he takes to fussing about his health and I have to spend half my time putting cold compresses on his forehead. "What I like best is when he reads a love story. Then he says such pretty things to me. Just the other day, for instance, he said my smile was like the sun breaking through the clouds!" "D'you call that a compliment?" grunted Uncle Paul. "What he meant was that when you don't smile you look like a thunder cloud." "Do stop your chatter," interrupted Toby severely. "It would be far more uso if you told me when you last used your cigarette case." "After lunch. When you had gone back to»the office I took it out and had a cigarette." "What time was that?" "About half-past two." Toby made a few notes, while Uncle Paul snorted with annoyance at the waste of time and drummed irritably with his fingers on his waistcoat.

Gabriclle folded lier hands meekly, prepared to answer her husband's questions as if she were indulging the innocent fancies of a child. "Where did you go next?" "To the hairdresser's." "How long were you there ?* • "Till half-past three." "Did you smoke there?" "No. You know I never smoke except just after meals." Toby scribbled another note, cogitated silently for a while, then, with a sudden resolute movement, he took his pipe out of his mouth and readied for the telephone. "Is that Duval? Excuse me for troubling j'ou so late, but my wife was in your shop early this afternoon and she can't find her cigarette case. A gold one. Did she by any chance leave it in your shop? No? You would have been quite sure to find it at closing time? Yes, I suppose so, really. Well, many thanks." "Now he thinks he is .1 detectiveinspector at least," jeered Uncle Paul; but Toby took no notifce. "And then where did you go?" "To my dressmaker's. And that took about an hour, too." "Did you go by bus!"

"No, I had plenty of time, so I walked." "Aha!" A telephone call to the dressmaker evoked an assurance that no cigarette case had been left behind with her. The same result was obtained by telephoning the milliner, the chemist where Gabrielle had bought some scent, and the manicurist. But ToTjys face kept its confident expression. "Then it was 6.30 when you left the manicurist? Where did you go next?" "I looked in on Susie. Oh, she told me all about meeting the Maharajah of Sinliabad. Her cousin has a collejje friend who—" But Toby waved his hand impatiently. "That can wait," he protested. "And if Susie were telling you one of her long, thrilling yarns, I'm sure you must have smoked." "N°—oh, yes, we did, though. But it was Susie's cigarettes we smoked." Susie was then called up, with the same negative result. Toby only knitted his brows over the sheet of paper he had covered with a scrawl of notes. "Very well," he announced. "I have established that you didn't leave the cigarette case anywhere when you were out. It can't have been stolen, because your bag has a safety catch, and besides, you didn't travel by any public conveyance, which is the best place for pickpockets. The people in the shops you went to are all honest people whom we have known for ages. So there is

only one possible deduction —that yoa didn't take the case with you at all." "Stuff and growled Uncle Paul. "To begin with—" "You didn't take the cigarette case with you," repeated Toby, emphatically. "So it must be in the house." "But I've hunted for it simply everywhere," Gabrielle assured him. "Not systematically enough," said her husband, sternly. "Xow let's think. Tha last time you had it was just after luncli. Then you dressed to go out. I know from experience that you almost always forget your gloves and have to go back for them at the last minute. I wouldn't mind betting that you put the cigaretjte case into the drawer when you took your gloves out." Uncle Paul laughed scornfully, but Toby had already gone into the bedroom, whence he reappeared in two seconds, with a shout of triumph and the cigarette case. "Was it really in my glove drawer I" "Of course it was!" Gabrielle hugged her husband enthusiastically and hurried out to trumpet forth the praises of the hero to all and. sundry. "Uncle Paul," said Toby beaming, "I really am the happiest man in tho world." "Because of this ■ blessed cigaretto case?" a Toby nodded. "But it was nothing but the purest fluke," protested his uncle, crossly. "A perfectly incalculable bit of luck. The thing could easily have been stolen. Gabrielle might have dropped it in the street. She might have left it on a shop counter, and a customer coining in after her might have picked it up and pocketed it. "And, even supposing it were in the house, it might have been absolutely anj-where—not necessarily among her gloves. Why the devil should Gabrielle pop her cigarette case into the drawer where she keeps her gloves ? Why not the drawer where she keeps her stockings—or her hats—or her handkerchiefs? Why? Just answer me that! Can you give me a single logical reason why the case should be in the glove drawer and nowhere else." "X can," replied Toby simply, cause I put it there myself." "You did?" exploded Uncle Paul, and from his expression one would have been safe in deducing that, if the scene had taken place in a railway carriage, he would certainly have pulled the communication cord. b Yes," answered Toby, unmoved. "That is to say, I had it in my pocket all along and only pretended to get it out of the drawer. You see, Uncle Paul, Gabrielle is a very attractive woman, and lately she has taken to coming home rather late, saying she has been°at the hairdressers, or choosing a hat, or calling on a friend or some such thing. Nowadays, a husband mustn't spy on his wife, mustn't put his foot down, mustn't even question her. "But husbands have a way of bein<* jealous just the same. So I smuzpled the cigarette case away. It was the best pretext I conld think of for checking up Gabrielle'a movements and finding Out how she really spends her afternoons."