After speaking with the hotel manager and a couple of other local merchants, Susan was convinced she’d done all she could for the store’s promotion. She stopped back at the museum just as Rima Fredericks was leaving for the day.
“Which way are you going?” Susan asked. “I’ll walk with you.”
“I live quite close-by, but we can walk up to the falls again if you wish.”
“Fine.”
The Englishwoman set a good pace, and the usual ten-minute walk to the lower falls was completed in less than that. “You haven’t seen the good view from farther up,” she told Susan. “The central falls is only fifteen minutes higher and quite impressive.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“It was to Moriarty, but all the ledges have these metal railings. They’re quite safe.”
“They weren’t safe enough for Bruni Zandt.”
Rima Fredericks turned sharply to stare at her. “What do you mean? Do the police believe she was killed here?”
All around them the roar of the falls filled the air, making talking difficult. A spray of water dampened their clothes as the wind shifted. “You know she was killed here, Miss Fredericks.”
“We’re getting wet,” she told Susan. “We’d better go back.”
“You were often in the workroom at the Sherlock Shoppe. It was easy for you to distract that girl Eva and slip the ear into the parcel of deerstalkers.”
“You think I did that?”
“I’m sure of it. You commented earlier on what a shock it must have been for Emmy to open the parcel and find an ear lying on top of the deerstalkers. I doubt if the police supplied the detail that it was on top of the caps rather than under them. You knew it because that’s where you placed the ear.”
“Why would I—?” She had edged closer to Susan, perhaps to hear better above the roar, but the result was to force her closer to the railing over the falls.
“Don’t!” Susan shouted, pushing back, struggling. The wet rocks beneath her feet were slippery and slimy. Her face hit the railing.
They wrestled there, locked in each other’s arms, just as Holmes and Moriarty might have struggled more than a century earlier. Susan felt herself slip, her right foot going over the edge, as she clung desperately to the railing. Then suddenly Captain Altdorf was there, yanking the Fredericks woman away, hauling Susan back from the brink. “Thank God!” she gasped. “She’s the one. She sent the ear!”
Emmy Spring met her at Kennedy Airport the following afternoon. “What’s the bruise?” she asked, horrified at the sight of Susan’s face.
“It’s a long story. I was wrestling at the edge of Reichenbach Falls, trying to be Sherlock Holmes.”
“It’s a wonder you weren’t killed!”
They went down to the baggage claim while Susan waited for her suitcase to appear. “At least I found out who put the ear in that parcel, and where it came from.”
“Tell me!”
“Wait till we get this bag to the car.”
“Are you going home or to the store?”
“To the store, briefly. I’ve been up forever, but I guess I can last for a few more hours.”
Once in the car Emmy deluged her with questions about the trip. “So who sent that ear?”
“Rima Fredericks, the Englishwoman who works at the Sherlock Holmes Museum. She phoned you the other day.”
“But whose ear was it and why did she send it?”
“It belonged to a young woman named Bruni Zandt who worked in the Sherlock Shoppe.”
“I don’t believe I met her.”
“I think you did, just once—when you killed her, Emmy.”
As Sergeant Mulligan told her later, accusing someone of murder while she was driving a car out of Kennedy Airport wasn’t the wisest thing Susan ever did. It was lucky that they only ended up off the road in a ditch, with Emmy Spring sobbing out the whole story that Susan had already figured out.
She’d been standing in Bernard Wor’s upstairs office, examining that box of ice axes while he stepped out for a moment. Looking down through the windows at the workroom, she noticed a young woman employee make her way to the safe beneath the table at the far end of the room. She was furtive about it, glancing over her shoulder to make certain the workroom remained empty. But as she unlocked the safe and removed a thick white envelope from it, she never thought to look up at Wor’s office windows. Emmy didn’t even know the young woman, but she realized she was witnessing a crime. She didn’t wait for Wor to return. She ran down the steps after the fleeing woman, still clutching an ice axe in her hand.
Outside it was almost dark—the first week in April—and still chillingly cold. Perhaps sensing she was being followed, Bruni Zandt ran up toward the falls. Emmy caught up with her at the first overlook. They struggled, Bruni pushed her, and Emmy swung the ice axe with all her might. It took off Bruni’s left ear with a horrible spurt of blood. Terrified by what she had done, Emmy grabbed the wounded woman’s purse and shoved her over the railing to the falls.
She claimed she still planned to report it to the police, but when she opened the envelope and saw a small fortune in Italian lira she changed her mind. The deed was done. She could not bring this unknown woman back to life. The money had not been hers, and it had already been stolen from Bernard Wor. It was as much Emmy’s as anyone’s. That was the story she told Susan by the side of the road as they waited for the police, and that was the story she would tell the Swiss courts later when they extradited her and tried her for murder.
“How did you ever tumble to such a thing?” Sergeant Mulligan asked Susan the following morning, as she made her statement in his office downtown.
“First it was the ear. I asked myself why it had been sent. Was it a tasteless publicity stunt suggested by Doyle’s story ‘The Cardboard Box’? I doubted it, because there were two ears in that story. Why not two ears here, if that was the sender’s purpose? Obtained from a medical school, two would be as easy as one. No, the ear was sent for a different reason entirely. It was sent as an act of blackmail, undeniable proof that a dark deed had been witnessed. The parcel of deerstalker caps was addressed not to the store, nor to me, remember, but to Emmy Spring, who’d been over there just a month earlier.”
At first Mulligan needed convincing. “You need more than that to tie her to the killing. Was she over there at the right time?”
“At exactly the right time. Even before her confession and the statement from Rima Fredericks, I could place her in Wor’s upper office, with a perfect view of the safe, on the day of the robbery. She brought back with her a letter of agreement, signed by Wor on April fifth. I arrived here on May fourth, the Holmes anniversary, and the following day Wor told me the embezzlement occurred exactly one month earlier—April fifth, the very date Emmy got his signature on the letter. He discussed all business matters in his office and certainly the letter would have been signed there. Add to that the presence of those ice axes as a possible weapon—”
“You mentioned a missing scimitar from the Holmes sitting room.”
“A scimitar would have made a cleaner cut, not the hacked-off wound you reported to me. The pointed ice axe seemed a much more likely weapon. And is there any evidence that Emmy Spring might have smuggled that stolen money back into this country? In a way, there is. She just moved into a larger apartment, which in New York almost certainly means a more expensive apartment.” She took a deep breath. “I placed her at the scene, with an available weapon, and evidence of a recent improvement in her finances. We had the human ear addressed to her, and the highly emotional reaction it brought. When it turned out the ear came from a woman killed a month ago, I just couldn’t overlook the possibility of Emmy’s involvement. When I learned the Fredericks woman sometimes visited the Sherlock Shoppe workroom, it seemed likely she saw the crime and was blackmailing Emmy, sending the ear as proof of what she knew. She might even have demanded the money when she phoned Emmy about the possible cancellation. She’d been abov
e Emmy and Bruni Zandt on one of the ledges that evening and saw the whole thing. She retrieved the severed ear after Emmy fled the scene and kept it in her freezer.”
“Where did this money come from in the first place?”
Susan shrugged. “Somewhere in Italy. Perhaps it was Italian Mafia money, on its roundabout way to a Swiss numbered account.”
Sergeant Mulligan smiled. “Sherlock Holmes would have been proud of you.”
“I thought of him when I was struggling on that ledge. But I knew I wouldn’t die because he didn’t, did he?”
AN ABUNDANCE OF AIRBAGS
The first thing Susan Holt saw as her rented car topped the rise in the area south of Des Moines was a field of huge multicolored balloons swaying gently in the afternoon breeze. Somehow she hadn’t expected
so many, even though she knew it was ballooning country, with the National Balloon Museum not far away. At the car rental place they’d thought she was bound for the Madison County covered bridges like most of the other summer tourists in the area. “Warren County is right here,” the perky attendant had pointed out on the map, “but are you sure it’s not Madison County you want?”
“Balloons, not bridges,” Susan had insisted.
And here they were, spread out before her, their big colorful bags painted with basic stripes and elaborate designs, familiar corporate logos and rare mythological creatures. One was even a pretty good replica of the Montgolfiers’ classic design from 1783.
Susan had flown and driven here from Manhattan because Mayfield’s department store was planning a fall promotion built around the theme of ballooning—“Values Up, Prices Down”—and it was her job to organize and promote the event. They needed blown-up photographs, personal appearances by balloonists, and even, if possible, one of the more colorful balloons itself. She had written and spoken to a balloon enthusiast named Duncan Rowe, and this was the man she’d come to see.
She guessed there were more than twenty balloons in the open field, all inflated and ready to be released from their tethers. Along the far end of the field were two rows of parked cars and Susan pulled in beside the last one. A blond man in his twenties, wearing khaki pants and a Balloon Federation of America T-shirt, was standing by a white convertible with the top down. “You chasing?” he asked.
“Pardon me?”
“Are you a chase car for one of the balloons?” He smiled, showing perfect white teeth.
“No, I’m looking for Duncan Rowe.”
“You came to the right person. He’s my uncle.”
“Really?”
“Come on, I’ll introduce you. He’s right over here.”
“I’m Susan Holt, from New York. I’ve spoken to him on the phone.”
“Philip Rowe. Glad to meet you.”
She couldn’t help noticing his muscular arms and body as she followed him across the grass to a red-and-white-striped balloon. The girls in her office would have called him a hunk. The slender gray-haired man in the basket of the balloon had the same smile and she knew at once that this was Duncan Rowe, Philip’s uncle.
“We’ve talked so many times, I feel I know you,” she told him when Philip had introduced them.
Duncan Rowe’s smile widened. “You’re even more charming in person. May I call you Susan?”
“Certainly. And this is Daisy?”
Duncan Rowe chuckled. “My nephew tells me only eccentric old men name their balloons after women, but I think of her as a Daisy.” As he spoke he was feeding propane from one of the cylinders to the overhead burner coil that heated the air inside the bag. To Susan’s eyes, it seemed fully inflated already.
“I’d love to go up in one of these sometime,” she told him. “No time like the present! Hop aboard!”
“No, no—I’m not dressed for it,” she insisted, glancing down at the skirt she’d worn on the plane.
“I can probably find you a pair of jeans,” Philip volunteered.
“No. Another time.” The inflated balloons were beginning to bump each other as they prepared to ascend. “When can I speak with you about the Mayfield’s promotion?”
“It’s now or never,” he told her with a grin. “Come on! I need a passenger to balance the basket.”
“Your nephew—”
“He’s chasing in the car.”
Susan Holt sighed. He didn’t really need her, she knew, but if she was going to make friends with the man, this was the easiest way to do it. “All right, give me five minutes. I have a pair of slacks in my garment bag.”
“Five minutes, lads!” Duncan Rowe shouted to the ground crew as they tugged at the basket to hold it down. He turned down the fuel valve as she sprinted toward her car, feeling just a bit foolish.
She unzipped the garment bag, pulled the slacks from their hanger, and slouched down in the backseat while she pulled them on over her pantyhose. The wraparound skirt was quickly unsnapped and discarded. She was out of the car and on her way back in three minutes.
Philip Rowe handed her a yellow crash helmet. “Here—wear this.”
“Your uncle’s not wearing one.”
“He thinks he’s indestructible.”
She buckled the helmet under her chin and accepted Philip’s hand as he helped her into the woven wooden basket. Duncan Rowe immediately turned the fuel valve and the burner above their heads gave a deep-throated roar. The basket lurched as the ground crew relaxed their hold. “Have a good flight!” Philip shouted above the roar.
“How much does that airbag hold?” Susan shouted into Duncan Rowe’s ear as they rose quickly off the ground. Learning the mechanics of something had always been her method of calming fear.
“First off, young lady, they’re no longer called airbags. Those are found in automobiles these days. This is simply a bag, or more properly an envelope. Large ones can hold nearly a quarter-million cubic feet of air. This is only about half that size. As the air is heated it expands, and the up thrust lifts the balloon. I control it by means of vents near the top which can be opened and closed. Also, of course, more fuel will send us higher and less fuel will bring us down.”
Susan had overcome her initial fright and took time now to inspect the interior of the basket. It held cylinders of propane fuel for the burner in three of the corners, connected in series so they could be consumed one after the other. There was also a small fire extinguisher attached to the bottom of the thick gauge box containing an altimeter, compass, and other dials. Two straps to control the envelope flaps hung down from overhead. There were gauges on each of the fuel cylinders as well, and a dropline for help in landing.
“Hold on tight with both hands,” Rowe warned her as they rose past the treetops. “If we hit those you don’t want to be thrown out!”
“Is it a dangerous sport?”
“One of our people was killed last week,” he answered grimly. “Really?”
“A good friend named Bruce Manchester. He’d been ballooning for twenty years without a mishap. He went up alone and somewhere above the treetops he simply fell out. He was dead the instant he hit the ground.”
“Suicide?”
Duncan Rowe shook his head. “I can’t believe it. He was happily married, in perfect health. His insurance business was thriving.”
“A heart attack?”
“The autopsy showed nothing. And no injuries except those caused by the fall.”
They glided past the final treetop and she relaxed her grip on the basket. Rowe turned off the burner and they drifted along in silence, enjoying the panorama of the countryside. “How high are we?” she asked, gazing down at a dozen colorful balloons below them.
He consulted the altimeter. “Close to two thousand feet.” He flicked on a switch and the burner roared above her head, sending them higher. She was glad the helmet helped shield her hair from the heat. “We have to stay below the commercial air lanes but we can go up to five thousand feet in this area.” The wicker basket was four feet square and could probably have held two more passeng
ers. In her mind she pictured kids climbing over it at Mayfield’s. “Could we have this basket and balloon for our fall promotion at the store?”
“You mean inflated?”
“No, no—our ceilings aren’t high enough. But this basket is pretty neat and the deflated balloon could be draped above it.”
“Why my balloon?” He gestured below them, where the others seemed to play tag with a passing cloud. “Kevin Nova has a Pegasus graphic on his. Mine’s just stripes.”
“People can see Pegasus at their gas station. And the more elaborate designs don’t show up well when the balloon’s deflated. We could use blown-up photographs of them around the store, though.”
“What would you pay for all this?” he asked, cutting off the fuel again. “I have a contract in my car.”
He looked down over the side. “There’s Philip and his girl, following us in the chase car. Perhaps it’s time we took Daisy down.”
“How do you land this thing?”
“Downwind, using the burner and maneuvering vent. If I can’t land it without help I’ll deploy the dropline for Philip and Rita. Once on the ground the fuel system is shut off and the deflation port is opened to release the remaining hot air. The balloon collapses and we gather it into a long cylinder for packing into the envelope carry sack.”
While he spoke he’d decreased the amount of fuel to the burner and the balloon began losing altitude. Susan watched the needle on the altimeter as it sank below a thousand feet. “What are these other gauges?”
“The variometer measures the rate of climb and the pyrometer indicates the temperature of the air in our envelope. This one is a compass, of course.” The ground was coming up fast and she took a firm grip on the basket, bracing for the shock. The basket bumped once as it hit and then toppled over on its side. She was bounced around but climbed out gamely as Philip
and his girl came running up.
“Are you all right?” Duncan Rowe’s nephew asked. “I’ll survive.”
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