The Orchid Behind the Glass

The orchid in the locked display case had been replaced. Dr. Vale announced it during the conservatory's morning inspection, holding a photograph of the previous week's flower beside a smaller, paler bloom. The valuable specimen was gone. The ordinary orchid left in its place was dying.

Only three people held keys: Vale, the head gardener, and Miri, a volunteer who cleaned the case on Tuesdays. Since the head gardener was on leave and Vale had attended a conference, the police began with Miri.

She described exactly what she had done: wiped the outside, opened the side panel, cleaned a water stain from the lower shelf. She had noticed a loose label and pressed its corner down. Vale said this was a convincing amount of detail for someone hoping to sound innocent.

Miri returned to the case after the interview. The label was loose again. Beneath it, the glass held a pale rectangle where dust had not settled. She measured it against the base of the orchid pot. The rectangle was too small.

The conservatory displayed many plants on cork blocks rather than in pots. Miri checked the photographs in the visitor archive. Six weeks earlier, the rare orchid had grown on a narrow cork slab, with roots hanging free. Last week's publicity photograph showed it in the large pot now inside the case.

She asked Vale when the plant had been repotted. He said the head gardener had done it. The gardener, reached at home, said she had never touched the specimen. Orchids could tolerate many things, she added, but burying that one's exposed roots in dense soil was not among them.

Miri brought the photographs to the police. They requested the conservatory's delivery records. The large pot had arrived four days before the publicity photograph, ordered by Vale. A horticultural consultant examined the dying substitute and found its roots had been tied to the old cork slab. The original orchid had not been stolen on Tuesday. It had died weeks before, after Vale's experiment with a new display.

He had replaced it, then claimed theft when the substitute began to fail. Miri's Tuesday visit offered a convenient date.

The conservatory suspended him pending its inquiry. Miri was asked to resume volunteering and said she would think about it.

On her next visit she brought a new label for the empty case. It stated the plant's name, the date it had died, and the conditions it had required to live. The head gardener fixed the label in place herself. This time, nobody objected to the detail.