Finally I looked up at Mr. Hawkins. If I had been angry before, I was
raging now. He had made a fool of me again.
"You knew perfectly well that wasn't my blanket!" I accused him.
"My dear madame, that's what I've been trying to tell you all along,"
he pointed out reasonably. He took the blanket from my numb hands, and
they drove off, leaving me in a shower of sand.
When I got back to the motel I went again into the cabin Mr. Hawkins
had occupied and looked about thoughtfully. Where could that blanket be?
It must be on the bed, smoothed out under the spread with the other
blanket. I peeked under the spread, but the extra blanket wasn't there.
Nevertheless, I felt that it must be secreted about the bed somewhere;
there absolutly wasn't any place else in the cabin it could be!
I gazed at the bed for a while, and then, moved by some unaccountable
impulse, I lifted one side of the mattress and peered under it. There,
between the mattress and the box springs, was the blanket. .
I pulled it out, smoothed the bedspread, and put the blanket neatly at
the foot of the bed. I left, making a mental note that the cabin was
ready to rent.
After I went back into our own cabin and told Grant ruefully what had
happened, I noticed the little package Mr. Hawkins had given me, still
on the desk by the telephone where I had put it before going to the
wedding. I picked it up warily.
"I wonder what is his idea of a gift," I mused. "'A little token of his
regard for me.' Is it more likely to be a baby rattlesnake, or a tear
gas bomb?"
"Open it and see," Grant suggested, brushing back his brown hair with
his thin fingers.
I tore the wrappings off the package gingerly, perched on the edge of
my chair ready to throw the whole thing away quickly if necessary. I
held a small, innocuous-looking box in my hand. Slowly, carefully, I
opened the box.
Inside was the silver figure of a nude man, about four inches high,
standing on tiptoe with his arms upraised. On the tips of his fingers
was a balloon, with which he was, apparently, supposed to be playing.
"H'm," I said, "Rather immodest, and I don't know what it's for--an
ornament, maybe--but I guess I didn't have to be so nervous about
opening it."
Grant, with his quick perception, had figured out exactly what the
thing was for before I had even completely made up my mind that it was
harmless.
"It's an atomizer," he said. "The balloon is the bulb. It smells like
there's perfume in it right now. Squeeze the bulb and see."