The Unsuspected
Page 8
"Oliver, show him, do. . . . Jane, dear—"
Mathilda held on to Grandy's knee. The lights were going off and on all over the house. It was queer and frightening. Jane had gone to stand at the top of the cellar steps and call out which lights went off and when, while the two men below were playing with the fuses. Mathilda held on to Grandy's knee, which was steady. She had begun to cry a little.
Grandy was talking to her. He stroked her hair. “ . . nor will we ever know. Poor child. Poor, dark, tortured Rosaleen. She was so very tense. Tyl, you remember? Remember how her heels clicked, how quick and taut she was? Remember how she held her shoulders? Tight? Brittle, you see, Tyl. Strung too tight. Poor little one. No elasticity, no give, no play. And since she couldn't stretch or change, she broke."
"But why?" sobbed Tyl. "Oh, Grandy, what was wrong?"
"Not known," he said, like a bell tolling over Rosaleen's grave. "Not known. She didn't let us into her life, Tyl. You remember? She was with us and of us, but she was, herself, alone."
That's true, Tyl thought
"I think it was in the air," he continued. "The house was waiting, days before. The storm in her was disturbing all of us, but we didn't know. Or we put it down to sorrow and suspense over you, my dear. But now I remember that morning. She was writing a letter
for me, and the typewriter knew, Tyl. It was stumbling under her fingers, trying to tell me. I felt very restless. I didn't know why.
Althea was fussing with a new kind of bread. She was in the kitchen, I remember. I felt the need of homeliness. I wanted to smell the good kitchen smells. Instinctively, I left her, Tyl." He paused.
"And of course, since it was rather a fascinating thing Althea was trying to do—cinnamon and sugar and apples in the dough—I became enchanted with the process. I'm afraid we forgot about Rosaleen behind the study door. Alone in there. Oliver was with us. The three of us were happy as children." His beautiful voice was full of regret and woe. "But there is a fancy bread of which we shall not eat, we three."
She sobbed. "When—how did you—who?"
"It was Oliver who—" he told her gently. "Noontime. He opened the door to call, and there was that little husk, the mortal wrappings—"
Mathilda whimpered. She heard the men coming back, Oliver and Gahagen. Jane too. She wished they wouldn't yet. She wanted Grandy to say one thing more, something, anything to reconcile this tragedy, to heal it over, not to leave her heart aching.
"Well, its on the study circuit, all right," said Gahagen mildly. He walked over and looked at the clock. "But you tell me nobody put any new fuse in?"
Grandy didn't repeat his denial. He sighed.
"Maybe somebody did and said nothing about it," suggested Gahagen.
"Possibly."
Oliver said, "But who? After all, we don't have servants, you know."
"Funny."
"Could the clock have been out of order?" offered Jane timidly. She was back in her corner. Her blue eyes were round and innocent, and wished to be helpful.
"It's running now," Gahagen said, frowning at it. "Who started it again after that morning?"
"By golly, I did!" cried Oliver.
"When?"
"Let me see. That night. I noticed it, set it and gave it a flip. Never crossed my mind till now."
"Don't sound like it was out of order. And it's on that circuit, all right. Kitchen, study, and this double plug, backed against the study wall. That's the fuse that went with the desk lamp when she kicked it over."
Grandy shook a puzzled head. He said wistfully, "I find mechanical contrivances very mysterious. Believe me, Tom, they are not always simply mechanical. They have their demons and their human failings. My car, for instance, has a great deal of fortitude, but
a very bad temper. The oil burner is subject to moods, and the power lawn mower is absolutely willful."
Gahagen laughed. He said in a good-humored voice, "I don't want you to think we're snooping around after one of those unsuspected murders of yours, Luther."
"Oh, Lord," said Grandy humorously.
Jane turned her ankle over convulsively. Her heel clattered on the floor. She stopped knitting to look hard at the stitches.
"It's just that it was funny and we kinda wanted to check. Er—this Mr. Howard, he—er—wasn't here at that time, was he?"
"No," said Grandy. "No." His black eyes turned behind the glasses, slid sidewise in thought.
Gahagen frowned. "Have I got this straight, Luther? Now, when he came here, he was a stranger to you?"
"To me," said Grandy, "he was an utter stranger."
Oliver said, "Nobody knew him except Tyl." He said it with smiling implications.
Tyl opened her mouth to say, "But I didn't, don't." She felt Grandy's hand on her shoulder. It said, Be still. She thought immediately, No, no, of course, not now. She leaned heavily against his knee.
"Where's Mrs. Keane?" asked Gahagen.
Grandy stepped smoothly in between Oliver and the answer. "She's gone out, I'm afraid. Unfortunately," he purred, "I scarcely know when to say she'll be in."
Oliver looked up, and then down. He pretended to be busy with a cigarette.
Grandy purred on, "But of course, in the morning— Suppose I ask her to drop in to see you at your office, Tom? Will that do?"
"Good idea," said Gahagen. "Yeah, do that. Couple of things I'd like to ask her. Maybe she changed the fuse."
"Oh, I doubt that," Oliver laughed.
"Well, if you'll ask her to stop by, that's fine. That'll—er—ahem." He cleared his throat.
It had all been between two clearings of his throat, like quotation marks.
When the detective had gone, Oliver said, "He was looking for fingerprints on that fuse. Now, why? What's the fuss about, do you know?"
"Dear me. Were there any fingerprints?" Grandy asked.
"No. Those milled edges won't take em. What is the meaning of all this?" Oliver looked alert. He wanted to hash it over. He liked to gossip.
Grandy looked up. "Eh? God bless us every one, I don't know, Ollie." Grandy sounded tired and sad. "Alas, I do not—I will never understand the ins and outs of electrical matters. I have not put my mind to them, don't you see?" There was something petulant in the statement, something childish, as if he were saying, "I could have if I'd wanted to. I did not choose to know."
"Althea couldn't change a fuse," said Oliver. Then his face rumpled up in the firelight. "Why didn't you call Althea, Grandy?" he asked uneasily.
Mathilda remembered with a start that Althea was only outside in the garden or in the guest house. Surely not far. She had no wrap. She had only slipped out for a moment. She couldn't have gone far. She looked at Grandy for his answer.
He said flatly, "It would have looked odd, I thought. I'm sorry, Oliver. After all, Althea out with Francis at this time—" He was looking at Tyl.
Yes, it was at least odd. Here sat Francis' bride, by his own reckoning, and only tonight was she returned from the sea. And where was Francis? Off somewhere with Oliver's bride. Or was Althea, as usual, after that which she had not? Or was Francis after Althea?
"You're damned right," growled Oliver, playing the he-man. His fingers did dramatic things with his cigarette. "It's plenty odd. Where the devil are they?"
Mathilda straightened her back. It was odd, but she ought not to feel annoyed just because she didn't understand. "Grandy," she begged, "can't we talk now? Alone, I mean. Please, darling, it's important."
Chapter Thirteen
Down in the guest house, Grandy's charming little cabin-style nook at the bottom of the garden, Althea was lying on the couch before the fire. Francis had put her there, put her feet up, touched a match to the kindling, set his stage. Now she was waiting. Her yellow skirt rippled off to the floor. The ruching at her neck made a deep square. She knew she was lovely. Her silver eyes still held the same expression of pleased and shrewd surprise. He knew he was nervous and too eager, and afraid to startle her with his need for haste.
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"Althea." She moved her body in toward the back of the couch, folded in the cascade of her skirt with one quick gesture, making room for him to sit down. His face was above her. She let her lashes hide that pleased and wondering look. The ruching moved with her
breathing. "Help me, will your Her darkened lashes lifted. I've got a problem," he said. "Did you ever wonder," he went carefully, "why Rosaleen Wright did what she did?”
Althea looked disappointed. He groped for some way to interest her.
"I have an idea. I may have found out something—"
No flare. She was looking at him rather more coldly. To touch Althea, you touched what? Her vanity. Her jealousy,
"—about someone," he stumbled.
"Who?”
"Not Grandy " he lied quickly. He dared not make that mistake now. "Not Oliver," he added. He saw her mind scrambling behind the silver eyes. And in his need was able to follow it. She gave him the cue herself. "Someone else," he said lamely. There was only one person else, and her face was lighting up. "Help me," he begged. "I can't tell you more now. It would spoil what I want you to say."
"Me to say!"
"Listen." He took her hand. "Life is a needle. It writes on wax. Your memory s got a record. And I want to play it back. Will you try, Althea?"
"My memory?"
"Only you," murmured Francis. "And that's a bit ironical, isn't it?" He gave her his self-mocking look. "It means a good deal to me," he confessed. "Something I've got to know."
He thought, I'll mystify her. I'll give her romance. I'll give her drama.
Althea raised her shoulders from the pillow. "I thought there was something queer between you and Tyl. I thought she didn't seem—you didn't seem— What is it? What did you find out?"
Francis turned his face away to keep it an enigma in the face of this.
"Maybe she didn't go to Africa," whispered Althea. It was venomous. "I thought the whole thing sounded phony. The little fraud! People with one eye and all that junk!"
Francis wondered what to do now, with this thrust of her imagination in the wrong direction. Use it. Use it, if he could.
He said, "It's the morning Rosaleen died. I want you to go back and remember. Everything. Whether the phone rang. Did you hear a sound? Did anyone come to the house?" He threw ideas at her. Mix her up. Never mind what she thought. Make her talk. There wasn't much time. She had to talk tonight, in this hour.
Althea said, "But that hasn't anything to do with—"
"You mean, she was drowned by then?" said Francis bitterly.
Althea's brows drew together. He got up and poked the fire. Let the woman think any wild thing, only let her tell him.
She said very meekly, "I don't understand. What is it you want me to do?" She tilted her head back to lengthen her long white throat.
He told himself, Go easy. Forget that any minute somebody from the house may come down to see where we are. Pretend there's time. Make the most of this chance. She was willing, for this moment, and she was thrown off the real track by her jealous wish that Mathilda be somehow damaged. But she wouldn't go deep enough or carefully enough unless he held her to the detail he wanted.
"Do you remember getting up that day?"
"Yes"
"Breakfast?"
"Yes"
"With whom?"
"Grandy, Oliver, Rosaleen."
"What did you have to eat?"
"Good heavens, Francis—"
"You can remember, if you try. I want you to try. Because of something later."
"Because of what?"
"I can't tell you until afterward," he evaded.
"But there isn't anything," she said.
He leaned down, took both her hands. "Althea, please."
"All right. Coffee, toast, marmalade. That's what we had for breakfast."
"Go ahead. Play the record for me. Then what?"
Althea closed her eyes. Her fingers tightened on his. "Breakfast," she murmured. "Then it was Oliver's turn to do the dishes. I did the downstairs. Rosaleen made beds. Grandy ordered on the phone. Rosaleen came down and went into the study with him. Is this what you want?"
"Go on. Little things."
"Oliver went downtown. He kissed me and went out by the front door. He had galoshes on. One of them flopped." She was smiling, exaggerating the details. Good, let her. "Let me see. I vacuumed. I had the radio going."
"What program?"
"News," she said.
"What station?" Radio gives times. His pulse was faster.
"Heavens, I don't know. But then the Phantom Chef came on. He talked about bread. I wanted some. I went out to the kitchen and got out his book—"
"Got out his book," droned Francis.
"Had a pencil," she went on dreamily. "Checked the recipe. Got out a bowl, flour in the canister on the table. I was looking in the icebox for what it took."
"Did the light go out?" He held his breath.
"Go out? Light? Oh, the icebox light? Yes, it was out."
"You didn't see it go out?"
"No, but it was out. How did you know?"
"Go on."
He'd broken the spell. Maybe a mistake.
"Grandy came out of the study," she said slowly, still puzzling over that accurate guess. "He was talking over his shoulder to Rosaleen. He couldn't hear."
"Why couldn't he hear?"
"The radio" she said impatiently. "I had it up loud."
"Radio in the living room?"
"Yes, the kitchen end. I turned it down. He said what he had to say, and she answered."
"You heard her voice?"
"Yes." His heart sank. "No," said Althea. "Why?"
Was she defensive? Be careful.
"It was her voice, I mean."
"What?"
"No, no, I'm wrong. Not then." He struck his forehead. "Of course not, because Grandy was there. Wait now. Rosaleen answered or you thought she answered."
“I thought she answered," said Althea carefully, "and she did answer, because Grandy said to her, That's it, dear.'"
"Then?"
"I went back."
"You were still at the radio?"
"Yes. I turned it up again." Her thoughts seemed to stick at something. Francis dared not interrupt her now. A log fell in the fire, Flames murmured over it. "Burn tenderly," said Althea.
"What—was that?"
"Burn tenderly," Althea smiled. "That's exactly what he said. It sounded so silly, blurted out loud without the context. He's pretty precious, anyhow. He can't do it the way Grandy can; although, of course, he tried to imitate."
"Who?"
"The man on the radio."
"Who said, 'Burn tenderly'?"
"The Phantom Chef. He did. That's the way he talks."
"He said 'Burn tenderly/" said Francis gently. "Go on. Grandy had just, what?"
"Closed the study door." She shut her eyes again. "I said, I'm making bread.' I don't remember every word we said."
"Doesn't matter."
"I showed him the icebox light. He said it was the bulb. He'd fix it"
"Did he?"
"Fix it? Yes, I guess he did "
"Did he go down cellar?"
"To get the apples?"
"Yes"
"Yes, he got the apples. Oliver came home. We put the dough together."
Francis thought, Don't let her see the trail. Don't let her see the point. Don't let her realize what she's told me.
"Now!" he said breathlessly, and she tensed. "Did the phone ring?"
"No. No-o."
"Any bell?"
"No."
"Did you—was there a draft?"
"Draft?"
"Current of cold air."
"I don't think so."
"Someone came in the front door?"
"I don't know."
"Might have?"
"If it wasn't locked," she said.
No need to keep on with this any longer. He'd got what he wanted and covered it up enough.