The Innocent Flower
Page 20
“You are,” said Duff placidly. “And the fishline hung down to be within reach. So Mr. Haggerty bumped into it. He brushed his face. I did think of that later, you know. And I wondered why … er … after all there is a bathroom on the third floor for the use of ghosts. I suppose you used the same fishline method on the rocking chair?”
“Sure,” said Paul. “First we lured you to go up there. Then I ran around and yanked it The window only had to be up a tiny crack. I had a little block in there. You couldn’t notice,” he soothed.
Duff said, “I didn’t … er … notice at the time.”
Mary cried, “You monkeys!” Her eyes were boldly laughing into Duff’s, and his responded.
“Of course, we had to tell Davey to have an earache,” said Dinny. “Did you know that? I mean, that first night?”
“Sure,” said Alfie, “he had to be downstairs, too, or you’d have thought it was Davey. Going to the bathroom.”
“I’d have thought it was Davey,” said Duff slowly. “Yes, I heard you say so, although I didn’t know, at the time, what you meant Tell me, was it you, Mitch, who went down the clothes chute about midnight?”
“Sure,” Mitch tossed her head.
“It was her own idea,” said Alfie proudly. “She can do it. Only she can’t stop at the second floor. She has to go all the way down to the cellar.”
Duff had a vision of this tiny girl sliding through the walls in the dark, arms above her head, toes pointed, and, doubtless, the ballerina’s faint smile on her lips.
Mitch said, “It’s fun. It’s easy.” She looked as if she might get up now and go do it again.
“One of these days,” said Mary, not very solemnly, “you’ll gain a pound and get stuck.”
“We’ll have to tear the wall out,” said Paul calmly. Mitch smiled as if she knew what she knew.
“I suppose you sneaked up to bed while I was on the third floor?” asked Duff. “Yes, I guessed that, finally. You took a key?”
“I got locked in the cellar once by sliding down that way,” said Mitch airily. “I thought I’d better take a key. ‘Course, any old key will fit that cellar door.”
Mary’s mouth was part open.
“She did it to make mysterious footsteps,” Duff explained to her. “Does Mitch like movies?”
“Why?”
“Oh … for a minute, there was a certain rhythm.…” Duff hummed a little tune.
Mitch looked him in the eye for a moment, dead pan, and then her face broke and she giggled. “I thought somebody had a sense of humor,” said Duff. “Anybody want to confess to smoking a cigarette on the second floor while I was running around downstairs being baffled?”
“You did notice!” cried Dinny in triumph. “I thought you would. They said, go on, you wouldn’t notice. I did that!”
“Dinny!” said Mary in somewhat absent-minded reproof.
“Well, I’ve smoked, Mother. So has Paul, but he doesn’t like to.”
“The boys attended to the eggshells, I presume?” Duff said.
“Eggshells!”
“Eggshells outside my window in the morning.”
“That was me,” said Paul modestly.
“But I ate ’em!” claimed Alfie.
“Well, I boiled them,” said Dinny.
“Oh, dear! You must have had a dreadful time!” said Mary. “Such goings-on!”
“I did have a dreadful time,” said Duff without reproach. “Still, my obsession with … er … Professor Moriarity drove me to hunt for his picture. And so I found Eve’s album. Good out of evil cometh, or the moral is luck, again.”
“But did you ever find Dad’s picture?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And it wasn’t Mr. Haggerty, so you felt better?”
“I felt a lot better,” said Duff. “You see, it turned out to be the picture of a Mr. Walker, whom I’d met.”
“Walker?”
“Oh, goodness, is he Walker now?”
“Yes. He was at the hospital when I came out. And, Lord, how I should have known!”
“Why? Why should you?” they pressed.
“Because he told me all your real names.”
“He did?”
“All of them. Reeled them off with your right ages. Paul, Diana,’ Alfred, Margaret, Rosamund, David. Like that.”
“He oughta know,” said Paul.
“I guess he ought,” said Dinny. “I guess practically nobody else would be so sure. We’re quite a family for nicknames. I mean, me and Mitch and Taffy, anyhow.”
“You’re quite a family,” said Duff affectionately. “Al-so, of course, his—the woman he was with—said something that hinted at the theater. She said, ‘What is this small-town routine?’ Routine. That’s a kind of act, isn’t it?”
“I’ll bet he was acting,” said Dinny, nodding.
“Um,” Duff murmured. “Besides, he told me he worked nights. But, Lord, I saw signs of the theater in everyone. Haggerty’s act, a role he creates for himself out of sheer romance …”
“Denis is married again,” said Mary. “I thought you knew.”
“No,” said Duff. “Of course, after I recognized him, I knew he had been busy having a minor accident. And his interest in all of you was kind but … vague. Somehow, I didn’t suspect him any more. Meanwhile, of course, I had gone past the picture in the album that was really significant. The one with the round flower bed. I went back to see if it was the same. It was.” Duff opened his hands. “I don’t think there’s any more to tell you.”
“You found out Mr. Haggerty’s really a reporter, huh?”
“Mr. Haggerty is ambitious. He’s pretty fiercely romantic about it. I expect he is trying to be suave. Mr. O’Leary, of course, is a nervous man who fastened his faith on Dr. Christenson. Too absorbed in himself, he was, to stop reading up on symptoms and listen to our troubles. Until we touched on mental troubles, of course.” The kids all looked very wise, and Duff smiled to himself. “And Mr. Severson is a Mr- Patrini. He’s been caught again and will, we hope, have justice done him. The ghost is gone. All clear?”
“I guess so,” sighed Alfie in regret. “Gee …”
“Who wants a coke?” said Paul.
“Mother, can we have some of those chocolate cookies?”
“The sky’s the limit,” said Mary. The kids clattered off to the kitchen.
“Luck,” thought Duff. He leaned across, as if he couldn’t help it, and touched Mary’s hand. She twisted her fingers up for a moment in a miniature handclasp and drew them away.
“Denis …” she began.
“I haven’t asked …”
“But let me tell you,” she insisted, and then she brooded a moment. “You asked me whether he was a handsome rascal. Well, he was. He was fun. He was full of whims and impulses and charm. He used to like us to drop everything and run off to do something gay or silly. In the middle of the night or in the middle of the morning or any old time. He’d take a notion to drop everything that was sober or dutiful—he’d say the hell with it.
“In those days there was such a thing as servants. So I’d often go. This was my mother’s house before it was mine. I had old-time reliable servants. I used to go.
“But he was always running away, dropping things, saying the hell with it. Wanting to wipe out the past and start over again, somehow. He thought that was adventurous. Living dangerously or something. I don’t know.”
She was silent a moment “But it got so darned monotonous!” she wailed.
“What?” Duff sat up.
“I must be queer,” said Mary almost angrily, “but working at things, and keeping the same line, and building up and hanging on, that just seems to me more interesting than being so goldarned carefree. I never minded a little care! I like it!”
Duff laughed out loud.
She seemed satisfied that he’d understood, so far. “I know,” she went on seriously, “you thought it was strange I had no pictures.”
“No, I …” Duff stammered. “Perhaps it
was because you didn’t want to be reminded.… I … Eve did the same.”
“Not at all,” said Mary crisply. “You see, Denis hated snapshots. He avoided them. All his pictures were taken professionally for professional purposes. So … well, he took them with him when he left. You see, some of them were young. He couldn’t bear to give them up. I didn’t care.”
Duff bowed his head.
“But I loved him for quite a while,” she said quietly, “as long as I … as we could. And the kids are so fine. They’ve got some of his best in them. I still think kindly of him. He lives the way he wants to live. He saw I couldn’t, any more. I live the way I like. Do you see? I suppose we still … love each other as much as we can. But it’s better from afar.”
Her eyes were clear and calm and confiding. Duff said, “Thank you, Mary.” He looked very peaceful. “And, of course, you had your children,” he murmured, “to love and to raise and to keep you interested. And you put out of your head any idea of marrying again.”
“But I had to,” she cried. “Who’d want to marry a grass widow with six children!”
He smiled.
“Oh,” she cried, “I didn’t mean … I didn’t want … No.”
“Mary, darling, I do love your children. They’re charming in themselves, and they’re part of your charm, too. But I love you most There was a beautiful lady in my dream, Mary. Paul said maybe it was some dame I was in love with … ‘or your mother or something.’ That was when I knew it was his mother, the most beautiful dame he could think of, or I, either. Marry me. Or at least let me hang around while you examine the idea, now that I’ve put it in your head.”
Mary said, “Oh, please … I didn’t …” Then her blue gaze came up, and she melted his heart with her lovely sincerity. “Mr. Duff …” she said. “I mean, Mac … MacDougal … You must know you have made it absolutely impossible for me ever to tell you even the shadow of a lie. I … I like you very well. I know you love the children. I will examine the idea. I can’t help it. It … startles me, now. But I think … if you do mean it … after a while … I’ll … we’ll … you’ll … Oh!” she cried, “You know what’s going to happen!”
Duff didn’t say whether he had known. But he knew now, and he gathered her in.
Meanwhile, the kids came back from the kitchen and stood in the archway with their coke bottles, watching with solemn eyes.
“My goodness,” said Dinny, very innocent and unperturbed, “did the ghost show up again? Or what?”
“You go to bed,” said Mary, “the lot of yez!”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1945 by Charlotte Armstrong
copyright renewed 1972 by Jack Lewi
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4569-9
This edition published in 2012 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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