December 9
When Rosalind arrived at her office the following day, she collected her messages from her secretary and began returning the calls she had missed the previous day. By eleven she had managed to touch base with all her assigned writers who were currently working on a project.
At noon she went to the closet in her office and took out her coat and a Bloomingdale's shopping bag she'd brought with her from home.
"I've got to run some errands," she told her secretary. "Hopefully, I'll be back by two."
Six blocks from her office was a jeweler's shop, the owner of which was known throughout New York for his expertise in repairing the movements of clocks and watches. When Rosalind walked into the shop, she recognized the man behind the counter.
"I don't know if you remember me," she began, "but we met at a party in the Hamptons last summer."
The jeweler thought a moment and said, "You're a writer or publisher or something like that."
"I'm an editor."
"That's it. What can I do for you?"
"Someone gave me this as a gift," she said, taking the wooden advent calendar out of the Bloomingdale's bag.
She explained the problem with the unopened drawers and concluded by saying, "I was hoping you could tell me how to get the others opened without waiting."
"Let's open the case up and have a look."
He got a small screwdriver from his workroom and removed the back from the calendar. He whistled in appreciation when he saw the intricate gears and levers.
"It's a beauty. Whoever designed this movement was a genius."
"Yes, but can you get the drawers open?" she asked anxiously.
"Not without smashing the calendar to pieces with a sledgehammer. This thing is built like a tank, and everything inside is run by a computer chip. I've never seen anything like it, but it looks as though it might be designed on the same principles used in a time lock on a bank vault, only on a much smaller scale."
Rosalind thanked the man for his time, wished him a happy holiday and returned to her office.
Before putting the shopping bag with the advent calendar back in the closet, she opened drawer number nine and found a miniature bottle of perfume sometimes given out as samples in stores. It was Opium, her favorite scent, but how did her secret admirer know that?
