She felt suddenly that she'd been wrong about his not suspecting she'd gone all the way to the bottom. He'd be sure to suspect a little, when it went flying about the office that she'd been seen emerging from the pit. He'd hardly dismiss it with a shrug, even though he'd have no way of knowing for sure she'd succumbed to an irresistible impulse ... to overturn a big, flat stone.
She came to a sudden, perhaps not completely wise decision. She wouldn't go to the office at all this morning. She'd go straight back home and decide what to do about the gun in the privacy of her own apartment.
Let Eaton think what he wished, let all the others gossip about her. Compared to what she'd just discovered it had about as much importance as a microscopic hair on the leg of a gnat. She could plead illness, a sudden attack of migraine. It was a good enough excuse.
Better to return home at once with the gun and come to as completely wise a decision as she was capable of. If she decided to go to the police, there was nothing to be lost by waiting until noon.
It was strange, it never ceased to amaze Ruth Porges, how much familiar surroundings, a chair you sat in daily, a painting on the wall that had become as well-known to you as the face and even the shared thoughts of an old friend, a potted palm you'd watch grow and watered dutifully for years—just how much such objects helped you to think clearly when you were in a tormented frame of mind.
She'd made her decision now and she felt no remorse, no sense of guilt at all. She was probably a very unusual person in some respects, but she had long since ceased to reproach herself because she felt compelled at times to behave in an unusual way.
She'd hid the gun where she didn't think it would be found easily, if the police should suspect anything—they still kept dropping in at the office—and called unexpectedly within the next few hours to question her about her descent into the excavation and her sudden decision to take the day off. As soon as it became dark she'd take a taxi to the East River on the upper East Side, get out a few blocks from the esplanade that overlooked the most turbulent part of the river, walk calmly through the beautiful park that ended in an ascending terrace, and make sure that all of the nearby benches were unoccupied. Then she'd move quickly to the iron railing and toss the gun as far out into the river as she could.
Did they ever drag the East River for a murder weapon? Could they, with any real hope of finding it? She didn't know for sure, but she rather suspected they couldn't.
And how would anyone ever know, or even remotely suspect, where she'd tossed the gun? They'd have to drag the Hudson also and the bay all the way to Staten Island, because you could drop a gun from a ferry too.