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Gonzalo said, "Or The furious decision in Dallas.' "
Atwood said, "Please, I haven't finished the story. I was at the
reading of the will. I was asked to be. Also present were several of
the distant relatives who hadn't visited poor Lyon. There were
cousins and a young grand-niece. Lyon wasn't a really rich man,
but he left bequests to each of them, and one to an old servant, and
one to his school. I came last. I received ten thousand dollars which
had been placed in a safe-deposit box for me and for which I would
be given the key on request.
"When the will was read and done with, I asked the lawyer for
the key to the safe-deposit box. There is no use denying that I can
find perfectly good use for ten thousand dollars. The lawyer said
that I must apply to the bank in which the box was to be found. If I
failed to do so in one year from that date, the bequest was revoked
and was to be otherwise disposed of.
"Naturally, I asked where the bank was located and the lawyer
said that except for the fact that it was located somewhere in the
United States he could not say. He had no further information
except for one envelope which he had been instructed to hand to
me and which he hoped would be useful. He had one other
envelope for himself which was to be opened at the end of one year
if I had not, by then, claimed the money.
"I accepted my envelope and found inside only the words I had
heard from my friend's dying lips. 'The curious omission in Alice.' .
. . And that's where the matter now stands."
Trumbull said, "You mean you haven't got your ten thousand
dollars?"
"I mean I haven't located the bank. Six months have passed
and I have six months more."
Gonzalo said, "The phrase might be an anagram. Maybe if you
rearrange the letters you will get the name of the bank."
Atwood shrugged. "It's a possibility I've thought of. I can't
remember Sanders ever playing anagrams, but I've tried that sort
of thing. I haven't come up with anything hopeful."
Drake, who blew his nose again and looked as though he had no
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patience at the moment with careful reasoning, said, "Why don't
you just go into every bank in White Plains and ask if there is a key
to a safe-deposit box put away in your name?"
Avalon shook his head. "Scarcely playing the game, Jim," he
said severely.
"Ten thousand dollars is no game," said Gonzalo.
Atwood said, "I admit that I would feel as though I were
cheating if 1 simply tried to solve it by hit-or-miss, but I must also
admit that I cheated. I tried the banks in several neighboring
communities as well as in White Plains. I drew a blank. I'm not
surprised at that, though. It's unlikely he would place it near home.
He had the whole country to choose from."
"Did he make any trips out of town the last year of his life-
during the time he started talking will to you?" asked Halsted.
"I don't think so," said Atwood. "But then he wouldn't have to.
His lawyer could attend to that part."
"Well," said Trumbull, "let's try it this way. You've had six
months to think about it. What conclusions have you come to?"
"Nothing on the message itself," said Atwood, "but I knew my
friend well. He once told me that the best way to hide something
was to make use of modern technology. Any document, any record,
any set of directions could be converted into microfilm, and a tiny
piece of material on which that was recorded could be hidden
anywhere and never be uncovered by anything but blind luck. I
suppose that the message tells me where to find the microfilm."
Rubin shrugged. "That only switches the focus of the problem.
Instead of having the message tell us the location of the bank, it
tells us the location of the microfilm. That still leaves us with the
curious omission."
"I don't think it's quite the same," said Atwood thoughtfully.
"The bank may be thousands of miles away, but the piece of
microfilm, or just an ordinary piece of very thin paper, for all I
know, might be close at hand. But no matter how close at hand, it
might as well be a thousand miles away." He sighed. "Poor Lyon
will win this game, too, I'm afraid."
Trumbull said, "If we tackled the problem for you, and
managed to solve it, Mr. Atwood, would you feel you had been
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cheating?"
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Atwood, "but I would accept the ten
thousand gladly just the same."
Halsted said curiously, "Have you got some idea as to the
moaning of the message, Tom?"
"No," said Trumbull, "but if, as Mr. Atwood says, we're
looking for a tiny message in a nearby and accessible place, and if
we assumed that Mr. Sanders played fair, then maybe we could
carry through some eliminations. . . . To whom did he leave his own
house, Mr. Atwood?" "To a cousin, who has since sold it." "What
was done to the contents? Surely Sanders had books, games of all
sorts, furniture." "Most of it was sold at auction." "Did anything
go to you?"
"The cousin was kind enough to offer me whatever I wanted of
such material as was not intrinsically valuable. I didn't take
anything. I am not the collecting type myself."
"Would your old friend have known this of you?" "Oh, yes."
Atwood stirred resdessly. "Gentlemen, I have had six months to
think of this. I realize that Sanders would not have hidden the fihn
in his own house since he left it to someone else and knew I would
have no opportunity to search it. He had ample opportunity to hide
it in my house, which he visited as often as I visited his, and it is in
my house that I think it exists."
Trumbull said, "Not necessarily. He might have felt certain that
there would be some favorite books, some certain memento, you
would have asked for."
"No," said Atwood. "How could he be certain I would? He
would have left such an item to me in his will."
"That would give it away," said Avalon. "Are you sure he
never hinted that you ought to take something? Or that he didn't
give you something casually?"
"No," said Atwood, smiling. "You have no idea how unlike
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