Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

“Hey,” Karla Frantzis said. “I called the hospital, they said you checked out. I need to talk to you... oh my God. You look awful. Are you okay?”

“No. I’m definitely not okay. My, ah,” I coughed. “My wife is dead. Tiffany was killed in an auto accident eighteen months ago.”

Karla stared at me, her eyes dark with concern. “I don’t understand.”

“When I woke up at the hospital, I asked my father-in-law if Tiff was all right. Scared the hell out of him. He thought I’d lost the few marbles I have left. When he asked me about it later I told him I knew she was dead. No big deal. I’ve said it a hundred times since the accident. But...” I swallowed. “Today was the first time I said it and knew it was true.”

“You’d better let me drive you home. You need to rest—”

“I’ve been resting. Hell, I’ve been sleepwalking for over a year. Hiding out in this place. I can’t do it anymore. Trane’s dead. Did you know?”

“I saw it happen,” she nodded. “It wasn’t your fault, Stu. He was trying to kill you.”

“Yeah, I guess he was. But I don’t understand why. I barely knew him.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Something about wanting his stuff back.”

“What stuff?”

“Methedrine, I guess. That’s the police theory, anyway.”

“But it was destroyed in the fire. He knew that. Why would he think you had it?”

“Maybe he didn’t. I mean — he didn’t say anything about meth. He said...” I closed my eyes, trying to focus. “He said he wanted the stuff from the house. All of it. But the meth was never in the house. We would have smelled it. Remember the stench outside the garage? Cooking up methedrine involves some nasty chemicals. Damn it, I should have recognized that smell.”

“We were looking for antiques, not dope. But if Trane didn’t want the meth, what was he after?”

“I don’t know. Nothing from that house was worth more than a few bucks.”

“I’m not so sure. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. After you got hurt I followed the ambulance to the hospital, hung around the waiting room.”

“Why?”

“Don’t be a jerk! I wanted to be sure you were all right. When they told me you were okay, I came back to my shop. But it felt odd. The door was still locked but... I think somebody broke in while I was away.”

“Why do you think so?”

“I’m a neat freak, Stu. I know where things belong. Everything in the place was disarranged, not trashed or anything, but definitely moved around. I think someone searched it.”

“Is anything missing?”

“That’s the odd thing. Only my ledger. The one with my notes from the execution sale at the Potter house.”

I chewed that over a moment, remembering cold, empty rooms, smashed furniture. And my dark dream of the hanged man.

“But we didn’t find anything of value in that house. Nothing. Unless it was something Trane sold the night before.”

“Like what?”

“It had to be something I bought because he came here looking for it. And I didn’t buy much, so...” I broke off, thinking.

“What is it?”

“That box of glass slides. The stereopticon negatives? Did you look at them?”

“Just a glance. The tints are reversed so I couldn’t tell much.”

“Do you have a stereopticon viewer?”

“A couple of them, why?”

“I want you to go through that box of negatives carefully, to see exactly what they are. But don’t do it in your shop. Take them to a public place, let’s say the Hampton Mall cafeteria.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

“I have to check something first. I’ll meet you there in an hour. But don’t dally at your shop. Get in and get out. Whoever searched it didn’t find what he was after. He might try again.”

After Karla left, I took the two stereopticon slides I’d put aside in my desk and held them up to the light.

There was nothing remarkable about them. They were duplicates of the same shot. A boy, ten or eleven, leaning over, lacing his shoes. And I realized what had bothered me about the picture earlier.

There was a radio on a coffee table in the background. A Deltrola, chrome front, naugahyde body. Very stylish, quite collectable.

But it didn’t belong there.

Stereopticons were popular in the late nineteenth century, for parlors, public slide shows. By World War I they were gone, replaced by the movies. Collectors prize the slides because they offer a clear view of the past, a window into the Victorian era.

But the radio in this shot dated from around nineteen fifty. So what was it doing in a stereopticon negative?

Obviously Jerome Potter had taken these photographs using an antique camera. But why?

And why make two negatives of the same shot... but they weren’t exactly the same. The angle was slightly different. And that was the answer. 3-D. The pictures were three dimensional.

I made a call to Mamie Szmanski to ask about the View-Master reels I sent her. And got a major chewing out. She used language I’ve never heard outside a locker room.

Afterward I sat at my desk, thinking, as the afternoon faded into dusk. I didn’t turn on the lights.