“And what does that have to do with what we’re talking about?” she demanded impatiently.
I said, “He put the drink down below the table, holding it in between his knees while he turned the wrist watch around, looking at.it. A floor show was on, and the lights were dim. His right hand, holding the wrist watch, dropped below the table for a few seconds. After that he blew his nose a couple of times and whipped his handkerchief around rather promiscuously. Then he put the glass back on the table, and while he was doing that, put the wrist watch in the handkerchief. Then he handed the wrist watch back. Marilyn held a napkin to it. Then she moistened the napkin in a glass of water and moved it along her wrist just underneath the wrist watch.”
“Don’t bother me with all that stuff,” Bertha said. “What’s all that got to do with it? What do I care how many times he blew his nose? Just so he pays the money, he can blow his damn head off, for all I care. He—”
“You don’t get it,” I said. “The thing the girl did-putting water on her napkin and rubbing it along her wrist — that’s the significant thing.”
“Why?”
I said, “The wrist watch was sticky.”
“I don’t get you.”
I said, “You dip a wrist watch in a glass of gin and Coca-Cola, leave it in there for a minute or so, and then bring it out, wipe it off hastily with a handkerchief, and the watch is apt to be sticky — enough sugar in the Coca-Cola, you know.”
“And why the devil should anyone dip a wrist watch in a drink of gin and Coca-Cola?” Bertha asked.
“So that when the person who was wearing it was cross-examined about the exact time she heard the shot, she’d have to confess that a few days afterward she noticed her wrist watch was out of order, and she had to take it to a jeweler.”