It was not in the dresser. She went into Delia’s clothes closet.
The scent Delia used was strong, and it mingled disagreeably with the chemical odor of mothproofing and the cedar lining of the walls. Delia’s perfume had no name. It had been created exclusively for her by a British Colonial manufacturer, a business associate of Roger Priam’s, after a two-week visit to the Priam house years before. Each Christmas thereafter Delia received a quart bottle of it from Bermuda. It was made from the essence of the passionflower. Laurel had once suggested sweetly to Delia that she name it Prophetic, but Delia had seemed not to think that very funny.
It was not in the closet. Laurel came out and shut the door, inhaling.
Had she been wrong after all? Maybe it was an illusion, built on the substructure of her loathing for Delia and that single, startling look on Delia’s face as Ellery had held up the green wallet.
But suppose it wasn’t an illusion. Then the fact that it wasn’t where she would ordinarily have kept such a thing might be significant. Because Delia had hurried out of Roger’s den immediately. She might have gone directly upstairs to her bedroom, taken it from among the others, and stowed it away where it was unlikely to be found. By Muggs, for instance.
Where might Delia have hidden it? All Laurel wanted was to see it, to verify its existence...
It was not in the brassbound teak chest at the foot of the bed. Laurel took everything out and then put everything back.
After conquering three temptations to give it up and go home and crawl into bed and pull the bedclothes of oblivion over her head, Laurel found it. It was in the clothes closet after all. But not, Laurel felt, in an honest place. It was wedged in the dolman sleeve of one of Delia’s winter coats, a luxurious white duvetyn, which in turn was encased in a trans-parent plastic bag. Innocent and clever. Only a detective, Laurel thought, would have found it. Or another woman.
Laurel felt no triumph, just a shooting pain, like the entry of a hypodermic needle; and then a hardening of everything.
She had been right. She had seen Delia carrying one. Weeks before.