THE UNSUSPECTED


Copyright © 1945 by The Curtis Publishing Company


Charlotte Armstrong


Chapter One


On a February Monday, in the afternoon, too late for lunch too early for tea, the restaurant was nearly empty. A party of stout "girls" were quarreling over the check with high-pitched, playful cries. Two men at another table were eating very fast and swap-

ping manly gossip.


A blond girl in a powder-blue suit was waiting in the lobby. She was a butter-and-eggs, sugar-and-cream kind of girl, with yellow hair, pink-and-white skin, round blue eyes. Her small nose, snubbed up at the end, might have been drawn by an illustrator of children's

books. She was cute.


The man who came in very fast through the revolving door might have been roughly classified as tall, dark and handsome. He was muscular and a trifle too thin for his expensive suit. His face had bleak and guarded expression. The girl in blue got up. They were not alike. You wouldn't have guessed from their meeting that they were blood relatives. But if you had watched them wisely you would have known them to be close in understanding, and that she was anxious about him.


She put her hand on his sleeve. "Let's get us a corner."


The mans face loosened a little. "How are you, Jane?"


"All right."


There were plenty of empty corners. They found a table against the partition that bounded the bar. "No uniform any more," she commented.


The man didn't answer. He looked across the big room with all the clean white tablecloths. It was very warm and dim and quiet, with soft music coming over the radio in the bar behind them. He looked down at five different kinds of spoons. His left hand mas-

saged the familiar ache in his right forearm.


Jane said, “I had to see you. I was afraid you'd go up there."


"Up to Dedham, Connecticut? Why would I go up there?" He drew a breath. He didn't want to talk about it. He had hoped she wouldn't talk about it. He said, "She isn't even buried there."


"No," said Jane.


"She's dead."


"Yes."


"And that's that." She began to murmur something, but he said, "How've you been?"—warning her off.


"All right," said Jane again. She had picked up her purse and was holding it tightly with both hands. "Did Rosaleen write you often, Fran?"


"Of course she wrote." He moved his shoulders impatiently.


"What are you thinking?"


"I thought maybe," he said, "we could meet and have a bite without—”


Jane said, "You're the only one I can talk to."


"Then don't ask foolish questions," he said unhappily. "You know what I'm thinking. Naturally, I'm wondering why. Why?" He spread both hands flat on the table, as if he were going to push it aside and get up and leave. "If you know why, then you can tell

me and get it over. Why did Rosaleen want to die so much that she had to hang herself?" He got it out brutally. It was what he was thinking.


Jane's pretty face began to look pinched, as if she were cold, Francis leaned back against the seat. "I want to understand it," he said more quietly. "And I'm prepared to understand it. Go ahead. And if you've got to go gently," he sighed, "I guess I can stand it."


"I've got to go slow," she said, a bit stubbornly. "Rosaleen wrote me a letter." She opened her bag and took out the letter. He could see Rosaleen's pretty handwriting, sloping back and running a little uphill.


"I don't want to read it, Jane."


"All right." She put the letter down on the tablecloth. "I don't want you to do anything but listen to me a few minutes. Fran, could you try ... not to wince away so much?"


He didn't answer, but he relaxed a little. He knew she wouldn't talk about it just to hurt him. She began with care.


"Rosaleen must have written you about her job—about Luther Grandison, didn't she?"


"That's her boss."


"You know who he is?"


"Sure. I know. He was a director for the stage and the movies wasn't he? The one who did all those wonderful melodramas years ago? Wrote a book of memoirs—famous guy."


"Yes," said Jane. "Well—" She picked up her fork and put it into the creamed chicken.


"So Rosaleen fell in love with her boss," said Francis.


Jane's fingers opened and the fork fell. "No, no, no! Lord, he's more than sixty! He's an ugly old man! He's not like that. That isn't it at all."


"What then?"


She didn't answer. She was looking at him as if she'd had a glimpse of the fantastic regions of his mind.


"Look, Janey, I said I was prepared to understand, but you don't seem to get it. I simply mean that it's been a long time and I realize what time can do. Rosaleen's been in the back of my life, the back of my mind—the back of my heart, if you want to put it that way—

ever since I can remember. We were kids. We were cousins. Everybody paired us off in the old days. But time's gone by and we've been apart, and maybe she grew up and changed. What I'm trying to tell you is that if she did change and got mixed up emotionally—"


"But she hadn't changed," Jane said. "She hadn't changed all.”


Well then, he thought, the girl who had died still was Rosaleen, unchanged. Little and dark and tense and vivid. Her heels tapped quickly across a remembered room. The way she walked, the way she turned her head, the straight set of her shoulders, her pale skin her black hair, her red dresses and her thin red mouth were alive again.


He forced his eyes to focus. "Then why?" he burst. "Then why did she do it?"


Jane put her hand on his fist. "No reason."


"No—"


"There simply wasn't anything," she said. "Now sit still, Fran. This is what I've got to tell you: First, there was something in this letter. I'll show you in a minute. Cousin Hilda had to go up there to Dedham and get—bring her—bring the body back. There wasn't anyone else to do it. Geoffrey was down in bed, sick. You were overseas. Buddy's gone. So of course I went too. All the time on the train Hilda kept saying she couldn't understand, she couldn't understand. That's what I thought you'd say. You know as well as we do how Rosaleen believed in everything. She just couldn't have done it! That's what Cousin Hilda said. And I felt that too. There are some things you can't believe, even when they happen.”


"Go on,” he said tonelessly.


"When the train pulled in, I saw him out the window. This Luther Grandison. He was out there on the platform. I took one look, and he was kind of. . . stagy! Standing there, looking tragic, and people all around, watching him! Fran, it made me mad! I had the

feeling somebody'd written the script. I—” Jane stopped.


He said gently, "What did you do?"


"I had a brainstorm. I told Cousin Hilda to pretend I hadn't come. And I went up to him after the services and asked for Rosaleen's job. I got it, Fran. I'm Grandison's secretary. He doesn't know I ever knew her. I'm Miss Moynihan."


He said, "Why?"


Jane said violently, "Because I hate him! I want you to listen. He talks on the air at four o'clock. He's a guest.”


He had turned on the bench to look on her. He seemed calm and detached. "So you hate Luther Grandison. What's it got to do with Rosaleen?"


Jane hesitated. "You know how she . .did it, don't you? And you know she left a note? You know what it said?"


"Hilda put the clipping in her letter." His voice was flat.


"Didn't you think it was funny she didn't mention a name of any of us, even you?"


"I thought it sounded sick," said Francis. “And religious, maybe."


"You know she didn't sign it?" He moved his shoulders. "Fran, I found that note!"


"You found it?"


"I mean I found the text of it, in a book.”


He kept looking at her, and his scalp seemed to lift and settle, his face changed. “Go on."


"It was copied out in her handwriting, but, Francis, it was copied. Out of an old book of trials in Scotland. of those old cases. You know, he's kind of an authority on murder.”


"Murder?" said Francis.


His voice was light and rather gentle. They were the only customers in the whole room now. The soft music from the bar was punctuated by the dick of silver, off in a corner, where a busboy was sorting it away.


Francis was thinking. Murder. One person dead, that meant. He'd seen them die in quantities, seen the flames come up like an answer from the earth beneath. Yet when it was just one, alone, that was murder. There was something a little bit quaint and out of joint in the mixed values.


Jane said, "What shall I do?"


Francis picked up a spoon and balanced it on his finger. "You think Rosaleen was murdered?" He might have been asking, Do you think it's going to rain? "By whom?" he said.


"By Luther Grandison."


All he said, again, was, "Why?"


"Read the letter."


He took up the letter; his eyes raced through. Stuff about the weather, kidding stuff about Jane and Buddy. "Who is Tyl?" His voice was different; suddenly it had become crisp and demanding.


"Tyl's Mathilda. One of Grandison s wards. He has two—two girls. They lived there with him most of the time."


"Who's Althea?"


"That's the other one—the beautiful one. She's married to Oliver Keane now. Look."


Jane's finger pointed out the paragraph Rosaleen had written in her breezy style:


The old spider makes out like money is too, too vulgar, but he had

his reasons why he'd rather marry off Althea. Some day I'll tell you

what makes me say that. It makes me mad. He's so smooth and philo-

sophical, you tend to get fooled. The last thing on earth you'd imag-

ine would be what I'm . . . imagining! Sorry, hon. Let it go until I

see you.


But her pen had refused to leave the subject. The scrawl went angrily on:


Nobody can tell me money's not like the blood in his veins! And if

he's so wise, why doesn't he know that Tyl's heart is broken? Because

it's broken, Jane, a real smash! And that's an awful thing to be in the

same house with. She's going away, thank God. And Oliver's moving

in.


I think he does know it's broken! I don't think he cares! I think be

is perfectly selfish! I think— Sorry, I'm in a bad mood. I feel like

throwing things. Excuse it, please, and love.

YOUR ROSALEEN


"Well?" said Francis coolly.


Jane said eagerly, tumbling the story out, "Mathilda was the rich one—very, very rich. Her parents both got killed in the same accident when she was a little girl. Her father lived just long enough to turn her and all the money over to Grandison. And it was Mathilda that Oliver Keane was engaged to. And only two days before their wedding, he went and married the other one."


"Althea?"


"Yes, Althea Conover, and she's not rich at all. Of course, she's gorgeous, and I guess poor Mathilda wasn't so hot. Althea's the daughter of another friend. Grandy took her in."


"Grandy?"


"That's what the girls call him. Now, here's the thing, Fran. This is the way Mathilda's money was fixed. She was to make her own will at twenty-one, and she did. But she didn't get the money then. She was to get control whenever she married! Don't you see?"


"No," said Francis.


"Grandy didn't want:her to get married. So there must have been something funny about the money."


He shook his head.


"I don't care," she insisted. "What if he'd done something he shouldn't? What if Rosaleen did find out? She'd bring it right out in the open. You know she would. She wouldn't have stopped to think to be afraid. So, you see?"


"He killed her because she knew too much," said Francis, and began to laugh. It was pretty rusty laughter.


Jane said, “I'll give up the job and go home, if you say so." Jane's tea was cold. "Just the same," she said, "if Rosaleen felt like throwing things, that's not a suicidal mood."


Francis' face darkened He looked at the date on the letter. "So a man of over sixty took hold of a lively little dame like Rosaleen Wright and hung her up by the neck? And she just quietly let him? Come, Jane."


"It's a soundproof room."


"It is?" he said.


"He could have talked the noose around her neck," said Jane bitterly. "The man can talk'" She looked at her watch.


"But hanging!" he burst out. "Why not poison? Why not-"


Jane broke open a hard roll. "If the note he got her to copy happens to talk about hanging, as it did, then maybe he thought it had better be hanging." She put butter on the roll and then put the roll down on her plate and pushed the plate away. She put her fingertips to her temples. Tm not trying to believe this. If you really think I'm crazy, Fran, I wish you'd tell me so."


He said, "Honey, I don't know."


The waiter was getting nervous. Those two. They didn't eat. Now they weren't even talking. The man had looked kinda sad and tired when they came in, but now— Cripes, the guy was boiling. Whatever she told him, it sure made him mad. The waiter went over and got himself a drink of water, watching over the brim of the glass.


Jane whimpered, "I wish I hadn't said anything. Now I've got you upset, and what's the use?"


Francis turned his head and brought himself back. He'd been thinking, when they killed yours you killed them. That's the way it was in the war. But this was going to be different. He knew he had to get the anger swallowed under, and think about proof and stuff like that, think legal. Move slowly. Be sure. Put it in the department of the brain.


"Find out," he said aloud.


"The trouble is, I don't see how," said Jane. "Fran, I know there's something wrong. I know it as I know I've got a hole in the heel of my stocking, where it doesn't show. First I guessed and then I wondered, but the longer I'm up there in that house, the better I know it! I feel it! I smell it! And still I can't see what to do."


Francis beckoned and the waiter came sidling over. Take this junk away and bring us sandwiches and coffee. Any kind."


"First you think, 'Go to the police,'" Jane was saying. "All right. With what will we go to the police? I've thought and thought—"


"Walk in," he murmured, "and say, 'I'm Miss Wright's fiance and I don't think she committed suicide. I think she was murdered.'"


Jane nodded. "They'd say, 'Why?'"


"Naturally. So I say, 'Well, she didn't compose her own suicide note.'" He frowned.


"But they say," Jane took it up, “Who did it?' And you say, 'Why, that nationally known figure, Mr. Luther Grandison, the famous director, the man who staged Dead Men Do Talk with Lillian Jellico in 1920.'" She looked at her wrist. "Oh, quick, we're missing it. Tell him to ask the bartender. The radio. I want you to hear Grandison."


"You know what he's going to say?"


"Of course I do. But I want you to hear."


Francis hailed a busboy, and Jane gave the message. Francis said, "Where were we? The police were laughing."


"Oh, they'd be laughing, all right," said Jane. "We say, 'We think he might have stolen some money from a ward of his, and his secretary found out and night have been threatening to expose him.' Then they laugh fit to die. They'd say, 'But Mr. Grandison made a lot of money in the theater before he retired. And in the movies. And his book.' They'd say, 'Prove it.'”


"Yeah," said Francis. His eyes had a kind of light behind them or deep within. "How are we going to prove it?"


"Well, there's a lawyer,” said Jane wearily, "who comes up once in a while. He takes care of everything. Grandy doesn't. I write all the checks to pay the house bills. Grandy signs them without even looking. He won't talk about money. He won't look at figures. He

pretends it's all so vulgar and distressing; says it affects his digestion. Says life should simply flow."


"Does he talk like that?"


"Oh, lordy, lordy, you have no idea how he talks."


"I've read his—"


Jane put up her hand. "Listen" The bartender had changed stations on the radio. Music was cut off. Instead, there was a voice. Jane's hand came down and her fingers fastened on his wrist. The place was quiet enough so that they could hear clearly. It was easy to hear and to understand that persuasive voice. If you began to listen, it caught you. It wove a musical snare for your attention, and then it spun a web of words to hold you, smooth words that came pouring without effort, pouring forth, delicately inflected, persuasive, fascinating.


"How many masks do we meet in a day?" the voice was saying. The cadences were full of regret and wonder, and a little relish. "How many ordinary human faces, two eyes, a nose and a mouth? The man on the bus, the clerk behind the counter, each has a secret.

And there are some whose secret is not innocent, but who must wear their masks until they die. I call them The Unsuspected."


Jane's nails went into the flesh on Francis' wrist.


"I myself know such a man." This was Luther Grandison speaking. This was his voice. "Yes, I know a man who has committed that gravest and most interesting of all crimes, the crime of murder, and who never has been suspected at all. No, he lives, and has lived

for years, wearing his mask, taken for one of us, ordinary, going about his daily business, and yet he did it! I say, he did it!" The voice fell. I say I know. I had better add that the authorities also know. But alas, such knowing is not legal proof." The voice was so

sorry. It was sorry about everything, but faintly pleased too.


"You see, with all our cleverness, we do not know how to tear the mask from his face. And, indeed, were I to give his name, he might use the law itself to punish me for what he would call libel. And yet"—in a thrilling whisper—"he did it!"


A beat of silence. Then the voice said softly, and it licked its chops with relish now, "Oh, they are among us. The Unsuspected! There's many a murder, not only unsolved but unheard of, unknown . . . unknown. You may be sure, men and women have gone to their

graves, quietly assisted, with no fuss and no bother."


The voice died. It left its audience with that delicious little shudder that Luther Grandison knew how to give them. His famous trick of putting terror into the commonplace. It was like the little touches in his plays, the Grandison touches, in which he took the ordinary, and gave it just a little flip, and it was terrifying.


Jane opened her eyes. "That's Grandy. You see?"


Francis sat still with angry white face. "The Unsuspected," he murmured. "Has he got the crust to mean himself?"


Chapter Two


"Suppose I go to see this lawyer?" His voice was sharp and angry.


"You can't walk in there and say, 'Look, folks, I want to see all the dope on the Frazier fortune.'"


"The law could."


"The law won't!" she wailed. "He's unsuspected. And, Fran, if you try to stir up something that way, I can see what would happen. He'd be ever so gentle with you. But he'd treat you like a museum piece. He'd put you in his collection of psychopaths. By the

time he got through, everybody would be so sorry for the poor young fiance, unbalanced by grief."


"Like that, eh?" The rich purr of Grandy's voice hung remembered between them. "Well, let that go for a minute," snapped Francis. "Start another way. How did he do it?"


"He's even got an alibi," said Jane despairingly. "Althea was with him. I mean, she saw Rosaleen alive, and after that Grandy was with her all the time, until they found—"


"Althea saw her?"


"Well, heard her speak, anyway."


Francis' eyes lit again. "What if we could show the alibi's a fake?"


"If we could! Fran, do you think a private detective—"


Francis let his lips go into something like a smile. "I think I'll attend to this myself," he said.


Jane moaned. She took hold of his hand, but he twisted it around and patted hers reassuringly. "We're going to have to assume he did it," he said in a moment. "Because if he really did, in fact, in cold blood, then this Grandison is dangerous."


Jane agreed. "He's dangerous."


The waiter came with their new order. Francis bit into the sandwich. They were both hungry, suddenly.


"Could I get at those girls?" he asked her.


"Mathilda's drowned," said Jane, with her mouth full.


"She's what? How?"


Jane read his mind. "Oh, no, Grandy couldn't have had anything to do with it. She started out for Bermuda and the ship went down—oh, five weeks ago. They haven't heard a thing since."


"So she's drowned. That's the rich one?"


"Uh-huh."


"She was lost before this happened to Rosaleen?"


"Uh-huh."


"Who gets her dough?"


"He does."


"Grandison?"


"Yes, that's her will. Of course, they keep hoping Mathilda's still alive. They can't do anything about the money yet."


"Meanwhile, he still controls it?"


"Of course."


Francis thought awhile. "How can I get to Althea?"


"What do you mean, get to her?"


"Talk to her. Get to know her, Well enough to ask a lot of interesting questions.”


"You can't," said Jane. "There's no way." He looked at her. "Listen, Fran; in the first place, she's a bride. She and Oliver are still honeymooning. She sticks around their crowd, besides, and it's a closed crowd. Nobody could get in."


"Want to bet?"


"No, because I know. Grandy'd never bother with somebody just nice and ordinary and civilized and in between, like you, Fran. Somebody famous, maybe. Or somebody very humble. But not you. And, you see, if he didn't take you up, you'd never get to Althea."


"Is that so?" said Francis with a kind of mild surprise. "Could I get in there as a servant? I've never tried, but I don't doubt I could be a butler, for instance."


"No servants."


"No servants at all!"


"Not a one. He doesn't believe in them. He says they'd limit his complete freedom."


"No chauffeur, even?"


"Oh, no. He drives himself around in an old jalopy. He wears an old brown hat."


"I could be the gas man."


"Where would that get you?"


"Nowhere," he admitted. He drummed his fingers on the table.


"Fran," she said, "remember, I'm in there, after all."


"You lie low, Auntie Jane." He smiled. The absurdity of their relationship amused him once more. His father's baby sister, Jane was. His cute little Aunt Jane. "You keep your little old nose out of this. In fact, maybe you'd better not go back at all."


"Oh, don't worry. He thinks I'm a dumb blonde."


"Lots of people do, and they're so wrong," said Francis. "How am I going to get in there? Couldn't I pretend to be some famous character?"


"I doubt if you could hoax him. He's such a shrewd old—"


"Never mind. Would it be possible for you to lure Althea out to meet me?"


"Althea thinks the sun rises and sets with her Grandy," Jane warned him


"How about this Oliver? What kind of guy is he?"


Jane wrinkled her nose. "Oh, he's all right. He's pleasant. He's the kind of man who understands women's hats."


"Lord."


"Of course, he thinks Grandy s practically God. They all do "


"Maybe Grandy does," said Francis grimly.


They both drank some coffee. He tried again. "Could I hire myself out to that lawyer, get into his office?"


"I don't know, Fran, I don't think you'd find anything. Surely he wouldn't let there be records."


Francis shook his head. "How did Rosaleen find out?"


Jane looked blank.


"Instinct tells me I've got to get to know Althea," he insisted.


"But, Fran, how could I lure her out? What could I say? 'Come and meet somebody who thinks your guardian is a stinker'? And if you hinted anything like that, shed go straight back to Grandy—"


"Then you mustn't have anything to do with my meeting her," said Francis promptly. "I see. And yet I've got to get at her."


"You watch out for Althea. She's got silver eyes."


"Do you think," said Francis, and suddenly he looked very old, "that any woman, with or without silver eyes, is going to bother me?"


Jane drank some more coffee. Francis was looking down. She hated the drawn line of his cheek, the too-thin look of him. This wasn't the Francis she loved, who was sure of things, the one all other girls immediately assumed to be mysterious and exciting. He

wasn't mysterious to her, not even now. She was his little old Aunt Jane, and she knew what ailed him was only sorrow, and that bitter anger he was holding leashed and ready. And God knew what he'd been through in the war, besides.


But Fran, bitter and old, missing that something wild and nimble in his spirit, that quicksilver quality. She thought, outraged, He's only twenty-five. She babbled out loud, unhappily, "I'm not belittling your fatal charm, darling. But it's not a good moment to es-

tablish yourself as Althea's boy friend."


"Let it go," said Francis irritably. Then, in a minute, he lifted his head. "Suppose I were Mathilda's boy friend?"


Jane felt a little shock. "They say—I mean, there wasn't anyone but Oliver.”


"They're so wrong," said Francis softly. He kept his head up. She saw his nostrils quiver. "How old was Mathilda?"


"Twenty-two."


"That's fine. I think I'll be Mathilda's boy friend, all upset because she's drowned."


"But Fran-"


"When did she sail on this fatal ship?"


"In January."


"From New York? Alone?"


"Uh-huh."


"Then she met me in New York. I'm a new boy friend."


"But, Fran, she went off with a broken heart. You can't pretend—"


He wasn't listening. He went ahead. "Was she here in the city long before she sailed? How long, Jane?"


"Three days."


"All that time?" said Francis, in a pleased way. "And she was alone?"


"She was alone. Don't you see, it must have been that she ran away from the situation. There was that newly married pair moving in. Althea'd copped off her man. It must have been a hideous blow."


He didn't say anything. Jane, watching him, suddenly remembered the time he'd gone out and bet his allowance on a horse race, and won enough to buy his mother a wildly extravagant bracelet for Christmas. He had just that crazy gleam, that funny high-sailing

look, as if now he wasn't going to bother to use the ground. He was going to take to the air. His spurning look. He'd get these reckless streaks, as if something in his will, or something mysteriously lucky, or some fantastic kind of foresight, would signal to him. He'd scare everybody to death. Then it would come out all right. This was the old Fran, the one she loved, with that leaping look.


"By gum, why didn't I marry the girl?" he asked, as if this were a reasonable question.


Her heart turned over. "Marry what girl?"


"Mathilda. Obviously, I married Mathilda."


"No! Fran!"


"Now, wait. Think about it. Be logical."


"Logical!" said Jane. "Oh, gosh! Logical!" She hung on to the table. "Now, just a min—"


"But that does it! She's the one with the money. See here, Jane, sooner or later won't they have to presume she's not coming back from her watery grave? Ah-ha, but when she married me, you know, she technically got control of her own money. So I'm the guy that'll be right there, asking bright, intelligent questions, when the books are opened."


Jane stuttered, "She w-willed it to Grandy."


"Never mind " He brushed her off. “I'll fix that. I'm an interested party. That's enough. That'll do it And besides—look, honey. I go up there. Most natural thing in the world. My God, my bride! I'm all upset. I want to be with her nearest and dearest. Don't I? So I talk about her. So I talk. I talk to everybody. I talk to Althea. I'm a tragic figure. Althea's going to be powerful sorry for me" His eyebrows flew up. He looked full of the devil.


"But, Fran-"


"Don't say 'But, Fran.' Ask questions. Be helpful."


"No, no. Listen." Jane struck the table with her fist. "Don't underrate that man! Don't dare! Please don't try anything half-baked. He's too smart, too terribly smart! This isn't any parlor game. You can't just go and tell a plain lie and expect him to swallow it. You said it yourself. Assume he's guilty. Then he's bound to check. He'll be very wary."


"Let him check," said Francis coldly. "Let him be wary."


Jane closed her eyes. She heard bis voice go on, now quick and excited.


"What you do is, you go back. Send me her handwriting. All you can find. Steal it. Send me pictures of her. Good ones.”


"But, Fran-"


"Got to have them. Think about it."


"There's a roll," said Jane slowly, as if he had hypnotized her, "that Althea had in her camera. She had them developed last week and they all cried over the ones with Mathilda."


“Those are the ones I want."


"But, Fran-"


“Don't 'but.'"


“Fran, you're crazy!" She opened her eyes.


"Am I?" said Francis quietly. "O.K. The point is, I intend to get in there and find out what happened to Rosaleen. Because if anybody hurt her, he will get hurt. I don't mind what methods I use, or what trouble I take, or what lies I tell, or bribes I have to pay. If this is the way you get in and find out, then this is the way I go. You can't stop me. I don't think you want to, really. You might as well help, don't you think?"


"I'd h-help," she stammered. "But, Fran, Mathilda could not have—"


"You don't understand her psychology," he said whimsically.


"But, Fran!"


"But what?"


"But everything!" she wailed.


Francis leaned back. He was smiling. She thought, He's lost ten years. He looked like a man who contemplated moving heaven and earth with bright, interested eyes. "Ask me something I can't answer," he challenged, "so I can fix up some answers."


Chapter Three


The April morning was sunny, cool and clear. Down in her stateroom, the girl with the green eyes took a last look at herself in the mirror door. Her old tweed suit was, she thought, respectable enough. She was lucky to have found it, forgotten, in the Bermuda clothes closet. The black shoes weren't quite right, but they would have to do. She had no hat. The scarf she'd knotted around her head like a turban had blown away one day on deck. She wore her gold-brown hair very plain. It was clean and shining. For the first time in her life, she hadn't felt able to spend the money to have her hair done, so she had washed it herself, carefully. A good job, she thought. No gloves. Just this old brown-and-white summer bag. She picked it up.


Her luggage had already gone, such as it was. One nightgown, one toothbrush and a bag of very expensive Dutch chocolates rattling lonesomely in the clumsy suitcase. She'd spent half of what she had left for the chocolates; each one of them was just about worth its weight in gold. Well, but he loved them so. He must have them. It would make him so happy.


She smiled, and saw herself smile in the glass. Yes, she thought, she must remember to smile. Her face had grown thinner. It was bonier than ever now. Better smile. It wouldn't do to look woebegone or exhausted. She wasn't really, except for reasons that had nothing to do with what they would want to know. Not that they wouldn't love to know the real reasons.


She turned for a last look at her stocking seams. She felt very calm. She knew exactly how to behave. She opened the door of her stateroom and walked down the corridor.


An officer spoke to her. "They're waiting for you."


"Thank you."


Be a lady. Smile. Be pleasant. Be sweet and dull. She remembered her lessons.


The officer took her into the room where they were—several men and one girl. Their eyes licked at her.


The officer said, "This is Miss Mathilda Frazier."


She said quietly and in a friendly fashion, "How do you do?"


The cameras popped off like a quick lightning storm. They flashed one after another. Mathilda stood still, her lips curved pleasantly and a little shyly.


Grandy'd told her long ago, "Tyl, you're an heiress and, for various reasons deeply ingrained in the fundamentals of human nature, my dear, that fact makes what you do several times as interesting as what other girls do. Now, Althea, being penniless, doesn't have quite the same problem. Yet Althea, with her great beauty, has her own trouble."


She shook off the memory of Grandy, sitting in his favorite chair. Never mind Althea now. The point was, he'd taught her how to handle this. Dear Grandy, he'd taught her so much. Her heart felt warm when she thought of him.


The men of the press took an impression that she was well-bred, that she was shy. One or two of them approved of her ankles. It was the female among them who realized that, although her clothes were dull, this girl was beautifully made and essentially lovely. One

of them suggested that she might like to tell her story in her own way.


"Never give them an emotion? Grandy used to say. "Look placid, dear. Placid as a milkmaid. That's the way.”


"I was reading in my room when the ship caught fire," she began. "There was an alarm, of course. I took my coat and went up to my boat station. They lowered the boat almost immediately. It was all very orderly."


She stopped and smiled the shy little smile. But it was too brief, too bare. They began to question.


"Were you hurt, Miss Frazier?" someone said warmly.


"No, not at all"


"Did you see the fire?"


"No," she said. "I couldn't see anything."


"No smoke? No flames?"


"It must have been at the other side of the ship," she said in her clear, gentle voice.


"Were the passengers scared? Any panic?"


"Not that I saw," she answered. Better leave out about Doctor Phillips, praying so loud, arguing with the Lord under the stars. And how surprised he was when his prayer was so promptly and practically answered. He'd even, she remembered, seemed a little

disappointed and thwarted, as if he d had a lot of prayer in him yet, O Lord. "We were picked up in only two hours " she said.


"Who was in your lifeboat?"


"There were twelve of us passengers, and three crew members."


"Was it cold? Was the weather bad? Did you suffer?"


"It was quite warm," said Mathilda. "It was a lovely night."


One of the newsmen was a little redheaded fellow, a fidgeter. "O.K., so you got picked up."


"The S.S. Blayne," said one of them. Somebody sighed impatiently.


"How come they took you all the way to Africa?"


"I don't know," said Mathilda. Never guess when you don't know.


"Did you realize that no message came through from you?"


"We couldn't be sure" she said a little too quickly. Be careful. Don't say too much. She went on more slowly, with a little frown, as if she were taking pains. "Of course we tried. But they wouldn't use the ship's radio. And the port where we were taken was quite con-

fused."


She looked straight at the female one. They would have no way to guess how she'd felt about it, how she hadn't really made much of an effort to get a message through. Mathilda knew now that it had been childish, that mood of not trying, that babyish, rebellious

thought. Let him think I died. Then he'll he sorry. Her heart bounced, as it always did with the thought of Oliver or even at a hint that she was about to think of him. Push it down.


"What happened there?" somebody was asking.


"At the African port, you mean? Why, just waiting, really. You see, although we had to wait so long for a returning ship, we never knew but what we might be sailing the next morning. So we were busy waiting." Watch it. Don't be colorful.


"Where did you stay?"


"At a very nice little hotel." She saw it vividly—more vividly, almost, than she could see anything else in her memory. It was brilliant in the sun, that terrible aching sunlight that had poured over everything. And she could smell it. But she mustn't say so. Nor must

she give them any hint of the brooding pain that filled all her days there under that brutal sun, the headache and the heartache all mingled together.


"But what did you do with yourselves?"


"Do?" she repeated slowly. Take your time.


"Yes, while you waited."


"We tried to be patient/' she said gently. "Sometimes we played cards. There wasn't much to read."


Their faces were getting bleaker and bleaker. She knew they wanted adventure. And yet, she thought, honestly there hadn't been anything adventurous. Or if there had, she hadn't recognized it. Maybe someday, when she was old and looked back, details such is flies and headaches would have faded out; maybe it would look like an adventure then.


"Weren't there any interesting people?" asked the one who was a girl.


"Very nice people," said Mathilda primly. "There was Doctor Phillips and his wife. He is a clergyman. There were Mr. and Mrs. Stevens—"


"No men?"


"Oh, yes."


"Young men?"


"N-no," said Mathilda. "At least not younger than about forty." Mr. Boyleston had been forty. He had only one eye, but better not say so.


"No natives?"


"Of course there were natives" said Mathilda. "Although we didn't see very much of them."


Something eager was dying out of their faces. They were giving her up. All except the red-haired man, who still watched her face as if he were searching for signs.


"But finally you got a ship, huh?"


"Yes, finally we did" she said brightly. "It took us to Buenos Aires."


"That message gave the whole country a thrill. In fact, you made Page One."


Mathilda smiled politely and moistened her lips. Was it thrilling to Oliver? she wondered with the familiar sickening lurch of her heart.


"There was a chance to fly to Bermuda, and I took it," she said, "because I have a house there and people knew me." She glanced down at her suit. Better not go into the ragged crew they'd been.


"Did you have any money, Miss Frazier?"


"People were very kind," she said evasively. She kept smiling. Don't boast. Better not let them know that the mere rumor of her wealth had inspired enough kindness to bring them home.


"What do you plan to do now?"


"I must get home," she said. Was Oliver there? Was Althea there? Mustn't ask.


"To Dedham, you mean, of course? To Mr. Grandison s house? He broadcast a piece about you," said the female one chattily.


"'Tyl, dear, wherever you may be—' He had me bawling."


Mathilda's eyes stung. Don't give them an emotion, even a good one. She swallowed.


"I'll bet you're glad to be back," said the red-haired man, not perfunctorily, but as if he alone knew why.


"Yes, I am. Very glad indeed." Her green eyes met his steadily. You can end any interview after a decent passage of time.


"It must have been quite an adventure," said the female one a little flatly, as if she doubted it.


"Yes," said Mathilda. "I really think that's about all I can tell you. If you'll excuse me. Thank you for being so kind.” Always thank them.


"Well, thank you." “Thanks a lot." They were through with her. They made as if to withdraw, all but the red-haired man, who drew closer.


"Why are you using your maiden name?" he said in a low, conversational tone.


Mathilda caught hold of her surprise and alarm and controlled it. Just her lashes flickered. "I beg your pardon?" she murmured. She took a step away. She was afraid, if he got too close, the emotional tension she was hiding so carefully would be palpable, like a

magnetic field.


"He's waiting for you on the pier," said the red-haired man.


"Who?" She hadn't meant to ask. Mustn't get involved. This was the press. Never converse. Recite.


“Your husband," said the red-haired man.


Mathilda didn't move, didn't say anything. It took all her training to stand so still. The thought of Oliver broke through and flooded her whole mind. Could it be Oliver who was waiting at the pier?


By some miracle, restored to her? As if Althea had never so easily, so almost lazily, reached out and taken him away? Her heart pounded.


"All I'm asking is: Do you confirm it or deny?" said the red-haired man in a rapid mutter. "How about it, Mrs. Howard? Can I take that blush—"


Mathilda said, "If you'll excuse me, please." She looked full at him, although she couldn't see his face. She could feel her lips mechanically smiling.


"What goes on?" said the female one, abruptly popping up beside them.


The red-haired man was sending Mathilda a hurt, reproachful look, but she didn't see it. She said again, still smiling, "Won't you please excuse me now?"


"O.K." said the red-haired man. "O.K." But he said it as if he were saying, "All right for you."


Mathilda went and sat quietly in a corner of the deck. "Such a nice, quiet girl," Mrs. Stevens had told the reporters. "Such a little lady. Why, not the least bit conscious of all that money. We have become very close friends," said Mrs. Stevens, with plenty of con-

sciousness of all that money.


So the Stevenses came and fluttered around her, all talking at once, promising to look her up, never to forget her, begging her to promise them the same. Mathilda kept promising.


But the whole thing was back now in full force. Just as strong as if she'd never been shipwrecked and carried away to Africa, half the world away. She could see, bitterly, Oliver's face as it had been two days before their wedding day, when he had come in and been so strangely silent. She had babbled innocently along, happily, naively, all unwarned, unprepared, about who had sent what present, about such silly little things. And at last, when she'd stopped the chatter, puzzled, he'd said, “Tyl, are you happy?" And she'd been so startled. The whole thing had caught her in the throat She'd finally answered in the extravagant language she never naturally used, simply because it meant too much; she couldn't answer him otherwise. She'd turned her back and cried, "Darling, of course, I'm just about out of my mind with happiness! Aren't you?"


He'd said, "Well, don't worry," in that flat blunt voice that wasn't like Oliver at all. And when, in surprise, she'd turned around, he'd been gone. Gone.


Nor had she, even then, understood anything. How dumb! How could she have been so dumb? Stupid. Blind. Dumb. Did she crack wise? Oh, no, not she! Not dumb-bunny Mathilda, the ugly duckling with all the money.


Grandy'd had to take her aside into his study that night, with only one dim light, she remembered. Sitting beside her in the shadows, he'd told her in his gentlest voice, "Tyl, darling, I think this belated honesty of Oliver's is lucky for you. Oh, I realize that you

won't see beyond the surface humiliation and it's true. Oliver ought to have told you more directly. Poor duckling. But this superficial blow to your pride is nothing, nothing. You must believe me. Someday you will know that this is right. Someday you will know that

Oliver, however clumsily he's done it, hasn't really done you wrong."


Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But Oliver was lost and there was a whole structure of dream and plan that tumbled down. And she had to learn all over again to be alone. And why did it have to be Althea? Damn her. Oh, damn her.


All her remembered life, Althea had been there with that power to take away. Never had Tyl had a glow, a hint of success, of happiness, that Althea hadn't somehow been able to dim it or put it out. Poor penniless Althea, who was so beautiful. Tyl ground her teeth.


"Nor must you blame Althea," Grandy'd said. "You must be charitable, my dear. She was in love."


“I know," she'd answered with a proud tolerance, biting back the cry, But so was I! But so was I! And still, in April, her heart was crying. But so was I!


"Won't it be wonderful to see all our friends?" sighed Mrs. Stevens. "Just think; any minute. Won't you come around to the other side, Miss Frazier, dear?"


Mathilda said desperately, "Won't you please excuse me?"


Chapter Four


Mathilda's luggage didn't keep her long. She seemed hardly to have begun to remember how to stand up on land, when they were finished with her. She was through customs, standing in another lightning storm of cameras, and a tall man had come up to her with a protective air.


Blinded, Mathilda couldn't quite see his face, but she heard a strange, kind voice saying close to her ear, "Grandy let me come." Her eyes filled with tears of relief. She felt a gush of emotion, a sense of coming home.


The red-haired newsman saw her falter and begin to cry; saw the tall man, with a kind swoop of his whole body that seemed to surround her and guard her, guide her quickly through the groups of people and put her into a cab, very neatly, very fast. The red-

haired man ran his tongue around an upper molar. He might have been sneering.


Mathilda stumbled into the taxi. It took her a minute to find a handkerchief. The man beside her, with an odd effect of pure and scientific curiosity said, "Why is it they call Althea the beautiful one?"


"Because she is, of course," said Mathilda in honest surprise. Now she could see his face. It wasn't a face she had ever seen before. He was dark—dark hair, weathered skin. His eyes were dark, with heavy lashes. He had the kind of nose that suggests good humor,

not in the least chiseled or sharp, but boyish looking. His chin was firm. His face was thin, with no puffs of flesh. It was a formed face, the face of a man who had been, somehow, tested, although he was young. His eyebrows went up at an angle toward

his temples. There was something gay about the way they flew when he smiled.


He spoke again before she had time to form a question. "Grandy would have come down. He wanted to. But he thought it would only complicate the publicity part."


Into her mind flitted the memory of the red-haired man and what he'd said. But the thought flitted out again. "Where are we going?"


"To a hotel. I have to pick up my stuff. And I want very much to talk to you."


He did have a nice smile. But it came over Mathilda, just the same, that all this was rather strange. Grandy's mere name had been enough for that moment on the pier. But now she drew a little away, shrinking back into her own corner of the taxicab.


"I want to talk to you quite seriously," he was continuing. She began to feel alarmed. He said lightly, "I'm afraid your Mr. Grandison has been up to some plain and fancy dirty work."


Mathilda took a deep breath. Her green eyes opened wider.


The man said, "I don't know where to start I suppose it began with Jane—but of course you don't know Jane."


"I don't know you," said Mathilda coldly. "Will you please ask the man to take us to the station? I would like to go to Mr. Grandison's house by the first train."


He looked as if he hadn't quite taken in what she said. He sat still. If he'd been in a movie, you'd have assumed that the film had stuck. His eyes remained interested and alert. He made no move to redirect the cab driver.


"I haven't the faintest idea who you are," said Mathilda angrily, "and you may as well know that I will not listen to your opinions of Mr. Grandison. Since I've never seen you before in my life, I am perfectly sure you can't know Mr. Grandison anything like as well

as I do. And you ought to know better than to think you can run him down to me."


He said nothing. Something about his pose collapsed just a little as if a little air had gone out of a balloon. There was a small crumpling.


Mathilda was mad as hops. This was no newsman. She could let fly. She could be as vivid and as colorful with her emotion as she liked. She said, "Grandy has taken care of me since I was nine. He's been my father and my mother and my uncles and my aunts. He's taught me all I know and given me just about everything I've ever had of any value. All the things you can't buy. He's given me my home. He made it home for me. He's picked my schools. He's cared. He's spent thought and trouble on me. He's my family. And not because we have the same blood, either, but because he wanted to be, because he loved me and I love him. He is, in my considered opinion, the best and wisest man in the world, and anything he chooses to do is all right with me, and always will be. And if you

won't tell the cab driver where to go, I will. Or I'll scream. Choose one!”


She saw, through her anger, with satisfaction that the man had really collapsed now. At least he had fallen back into his corner and was sitting there somberly, and it was as if he were locked inside a shell of very thick silence. He was saying nothing in seventeen

different languages. He was stopped, gagged. He'd shut his mouth. Well, she thought, he'd better.


"Driver," said Mathilda.


The man got some words out painfully. "No, don't," he said. "We are to telephone."


"There are telephones everywhere," she said coldly. "Particularly in the Grand Central Station."


"Yes, but my—" He pulled himself together in order to speak at all. "Grandy sent me," he said. "Nobody's going to hurt you, you know. You don't really think so, do you?"


"Certainly not," said Mathilda with airy contempt.


"No train for an hour and a half," he said. He seemed rather indifferent suddenly. He looked out of the cab window, away from her. "If you like, I'll leave you after we telephone. You'll have to wait somewhere."


Mathilda sat back. She was still seething. She tried to remember exactly what he had said that had set off so much anger. But the phrase didn't come back to her accurately. She began to feel that she'd been too vehement. She had made a show of herself. She under-stood, now, that it had all been part of the home-coming emotion somehow.


His withdrawn silence smacked of reproach. After all, if Grandy had sent him— She cast about for some remark, something in the way of small talk, to indicate that the storm was over. She said chattily, "I hope you realize that I don't even know your name."


He did a strange thing. He put his hand up and covered his eyes, and sat very still and tense. She wondered if he had heard. "I don't know your name," she repeated.


"My name is Francis Howard," he said stiffly. He took his hand down and went back to looking out of the cab window. She could see his ear, the line of his cheek, not his eyes.


Howard. Mathilda's mind took what she at first thought was a capricious swoop, back to the interview with the press. Then she cried out, "Howard!"


He didn't look around, though he moved his head a trifle warily,


"That was funny!" Mathilda said. "There was one man who seemed to think— He said my husband— Why, that's what he called me! Mrs. Howard!"


"He did?" said Mr. Howard, in a bored, perfunctory way.


And he said no more. Mathilda stopped talking. Really, he was the limit. Certainly it was an odd thing to have been said and the coincidence was very odd. "Your husband is waiting for you, Mrs Howard." Any normal human being, thought Mathilda indignantly

would want to know all about it, especially when it was the same name. He wouldn't just sit, looking indifferently away, out of the window.


The cab pulled up. A doorman helped them out, a bellhop came for her suitcase. She knew the place. Francis guided her into the lobby, into the elevator. Mathilda stood stiff and cold. The funny thing was that just as they walked into the elevator, as he gave the

floor number to the boy, she caught a flash of his eye on her, and it was a look of both impatience and anger. Mathilda bit hard on her teeth. He had no business being angry with her, for the love of Mike! She marched down the corridor after the bellboy, holding

her head haughtily.


They were admitted to a suite. Mathilda stood in the middle of the floor. She indicated the telephone. Francis was muttering to the bellboy about trains, bags. Without a word to her, he crossed to the telephone and asked for Grandy s number. He sat hunched over the phone, his right arm dangling. The call went through without much delay.


"Hello. . . . Jane?"


Mathilda thought, Now, who is Jane? It seemed to her that he'd mentioned a Jane before.


"Francis," said Francis. . . . "Yes, she's here." He looked around at Mathilda coldly, as if to say, "What, are you listening to a private conversation?" He said, as if he were speaking in code, "Is everybody well?" Then he said, with a hint of desperation, "Jane, can you get out? And I mean now?"


"Why, no," said Jane cheerfully from Connecticut, "of course not. He's right here, Mr. Howard. Here he is!"


Grandy's voice took her place. "My dear boy, is she really with you?"


"She's here," he said again, this time with a very odd inflection. He held out the phone to Mathilda. She took it, surprised, touched, excited, and suddenly ready to weep again.


"Oh, Grandy, darling!"


"Mathilda, little duck, are you all right? You're back? You're safe?"


"I'm fine," she quavered. "Oh, Grandy, I want to see you."


"Don't cry," said Grandy. "Don't cry. God bless us every one. What a darling you are to telephone. Are you happy?"


"Oh, Grandy!"


"Tell Francis to bring you home."


"I will, I will. I'm coming just as fast—"


"Strawberries and cream, Tyl," said Grandy. "You hurry, sweetheart."


He hung up and she hung up, sobbing. Strawberries and cream was her special treat. How like him! How dear!


Mr. Howard was standing with his hands in his pockets, staring out the window.


"Grandy says you're to bring me home." She was willing to smile at him now.


He turned around. She thought, with a shock, Somethings hurt him. He's going to cry.


He said in a low, vibrant voice that startled her with its passionate appeal, "Tyl, don't you remember?"


Chapter Five


"Remember what?"


He started to pull his hands out of his pockets and then thrust them deeper instead. "Never mind. Foolish question. Obviously, you don't. You can't or you—" He came one step nearer. "Tyl, what happened to you? Were you hurt, darling? You must have been . . .

ill for part of the time. That's so, isn't it?" Everything in his manner begged her to say yes.


"No," said Mathilda. "That isn't so."


"But it must be so, and you've forgotten that too."


"I haven't forgotten anything!" she cried. "I wish you'd tell me! Who are you and what am I supposed to—"


"I'm your husband," he said sharply, almost angrily.


She backed away a little. In her mind was a vague idea of mistaken identity. "Are you sure you know who I am?" she asked gently. "My name is Mathilda Frazier. I have no husband. I'm not married."


He moved away from her, and with his hands still in his pockets, almost as if he didn't dare to take them out, he sat down on a straight chair, keeping his feet close together. He looked like a man controlling himself at some cost.


"Sorry," he said. "Let's try to straighten this out, shall we?"


He smiled. Mathilda moved to another chair and sat down it Her knees felt a little shaky. It was just as well to sit down.


"Yes, please " she agreed.


They sat looking at each other.


"Do you remember" said Francis finally, in a quiet conversational tone, "when you left Grandy's house, that Sunday afternoon last January, to come to New York?"


Mathilda nodded. She thought, But he knows Grandy. It can't be that he's mistaken me for someone else.


"You came to this hotel," he was saying. "Do you remember that?"


"Yes " said Mathilda. "Yes, of course I did. Not this room."


"You were in Seven-o-five," he stated. The number seemed right to her. She could not have recollected it, but she recognized it. "You had some supper sent up," he went on. She nodded. "But a little later, about nine o'clock, you went down to the lobby."


"No " said Mathilda bluntly. Not at all. It was not so. She had crawled into bed to read. She hadn't been able to read or sleep either. She remembered getting up to look for aspirin, waiting for drowsiness that would not come, the desperate tricks she had tried to play on her own mind, the getting up at last to sit by the window holding her head.


"So that's where it begins," the man was saying.


"Where what begins?"


"Your forgetting."


"But I— What is it you say I've forgotten?"


"You came downstairs about nine o'clock," he told her, "that Sunday evening. You were pretty distressed; you were feeling pretty sick about Oliver."


A thrill of dismay and excitement went through Mathilda. How did he know that?


"So you were restless and you came down to get something to read. It was a kind of excuse to get away from your room. You hated to go back. You drifted across the lobby toward the grillroom. That's when I saw you."


Mathilda said, "You couldn't have seen me. I didn't leave my room that Sunday night."


"Please," he begged. He closed his eyes. "You made me think of flying," he said in quite a different voice. "You made me think of the sky or a bird. You're like a Winged Victory in modern dress, but with better ankles. You've got such a tearing beauty, Tyl—you're windblown. It's in your bones, your long, lovely legs, the way you walk, your face, your nose. The molding of the upper part of your cheek, around the outside of your eye. I've dreamed about it. And how that dear old soul, your Luther Grandison, can be so blind as to call you his ugly duckling and never see the swan! Why, Tyl, don't you know you make Althea look like a lump of paste?"


Mathilda heard what he said; she heard the words. But her mind went spinning off into confusion. How could he say such things? How could such things be said at all? She tightened her fingers around her purse. She felt a little dizzy. She was used to people

saying kind words about her looks. It was because she was so rich. She told herself that this, too, must be deliberate flattery, because she was so rich.


He opened his eyes, he smiled. His voice sank back as if it had begun to tire. "Maybe I'd better make it plain right away. I fell in love with you, Mathilda, but you didn't fall in love with me. I knew that. I still know it. If you only had, maybe you wouldn't have for-

gotten."


Mathilda took hold of herself. She dismissed the thought that someone must have gone mad. It wasn't helpful. She must think better than that. "Why are you trying to make me believe something I know is not so?" she asked quietly. "I do know, because I remember every minute of that time. There is nothing I've forgotten. I haven't been hurt or sick. I know exactly what happened to me in this hotel while I was here, and everything that has happened since. There is no gap." She straightened her shoulders. "I thought at first you might be honestly mistaken. You'd somehow or other got me mixed up with some other girl. But now I see you aren't mistaken, Mr. Howard. You're just lying. I'd like to know why."


He shut his eyes to hide a brief gleam that baffled her. He groaned. He took his hands out of his pockets and held his head for a moment. Then his hands fell, relaxed and open, and he said, "My poor Tyl. Don't—don't be upset."


But Mathilda was thinking hard. "What about Grandy?" she cried. "Grandy knows you! Does Grandy think—"


"Yes," he said. "I've been—well, I've been staying there."


Mathilda got up. She was furious. "So that's why, is it? You've wormed your way into Grandy's house! Are you trying to cheat him, some way? What was it you said? Something about dirty work? What are you trying to do to Grandy?"


"My dear—"


"Using my name! Using me!" she stormed. "You probably thought I was dead. Didn't you?"


"Perhaps I did," he murmured. He was sitting still, watching her anger almost as if it couldn't hurt him personally, but he was curious about it, examining it, studying it.


"You'd better tell me right away what you meant in the taxicab. About Grandy."


"I was being facetious," he said in a monotone.


"Oh, nonsense! Who's Jane?"


"Jane is Grandy's secretary."


"Where's Rosaleen?"


"Why, she's . . . not there any more," he said. "If you'll try to listen, I'll tell you what I meant in the taxicab." And she caught again that faint hint of antagonism as he looked up at her.


"If you please," said Mathilda grandly in her coldest voice, and she sat down stiffly.


"I was simply making small talk," said Francis. "I was going on to tell you how Grandy hijacked those strawberries."


"I don't believe you. Why did you all of a sudden act so collapsed? You crawled into the corner—"


"What you said," he murmured wearily.


"What?"


He made an effort. "You said, I don't know you.'" Mathilda was silent. "If you will try to accept this weird business that you and I remember the same period of time, the same place, entirely differently. If you will just for one brief second imagine me sitting there,

with my wife, my lost girl, found again. Trying like the very devil not to break down and bawl. Trunking in my innocence that you understood, that we were putting off the real—greeting, shall I say?—until we could be alone. And then, without any warning whatso-

ever, you say—what you said. I don't know you. I haven't the faintest idea who you are.'"


Mathilda swallowed hard. "Have you been hurt or ill lately, Mr. Howard?"


He got up and went back to looking out the window with his back to her.


Mathilda said with malice, "My father left me a great deal of money."


He swung around. She controlled an impulse to cringe. But he was smiling. "Why, so did mine," he said pleasantly. "I'm nearly as rich as you are, sweetie pie." Astonishment crossed her face and he laughed. Then he came nearer and spoke very gently. "It was just

love," he said. "I'm sorry you don't remember."


The bell rang. It was the porter, come to get the bags. He touched his cap. "How do, Mrs. Howard."


Shock sent Mathilda out of her chair. She crowded back against the desk. She was frightened now.


"Just a minute," said Francis. "Jimmy, will you do us a favor? Just tell Mrs. Howard when you last saw her."


"Why, lemme see, back in January. Last I saw her was Wednesday morning, right after the wedding. You gave me—"


"But I'm not married!"


The man looked distressed. "Honest, I never said anything. I never— I'd like to say I'm glad you got back safe, Mrs. Howard," the man stammered.


Mathilda turned away. Behind her, she knew Francis was giving him money. She heard him say, "Forget about this, Jimmy. Mrs. Howard's been ill."


She clenched her fists. So that would be his story. And she couldn't make a scene here, in front of a hotel servant. Or anywhere. She couldn't run to strangers or cry out that he bed. Not Mathilda Frazier. Not the long-lost heiress. No, never.


She must get home. Get to Grandy, who would know what to do. Just hold on to what she knew to be so, remember that he was lying, trying for some unknown reason to—to do what? Never mind now. Keep controlled. Get to Grandy as soon as she could.


But, she thought, it's not the truth. That porter is lying too.


She said, quite calmly, when the man had gone, "He was bribed."


Francis made no answer. She said, with more anger than she wished to show, "I dare say you forged a marriage certificate. Why don't you show me that?"


"Because the bride keeps the marriage certificate," he said slowly, "and I imagine you . . . lost it"


"No papers?" she sneered.


"Some," he said. "Look here, Tyl. Don't—hate me. Don't. I'm not trying— Please, can't we try to be a little bit friendly about this?"


He really did look upset and distressed, but she said coldly, "I think we'd better go to the station."


"Very well," he said.


She started toward the door. She stopped. "What papers?" she demanded. He shook his head. "I want to know how you managed to deceive Grandy!" she cried.


His face went black with emotion, suddenly. "Look here" he said roughly, "you hurt. You don't seem to know it, but I'll be damned if I see why I have to ... be hurt. Either you listen to my entire story, let me tell you the whole thing, all that happened, all you've forgotten—which seems to me the fair thing for you to do, by the way—or well say no more about it m see you to the train. And good-by. You can divorce me, get an annulment, do whatever you like. Ignore the whole thing. I'm not likely," he stated bitterly, "to want to marry anyone else for a while."


Mathilda hesitated. She thought, I don't understand. Her mind rebelled at its own confusion. It seemed to her that this man had been forcing her into confusion, and she wanted to fight back. She wanted to feel clear, to understand better. It was a way of fighting. She went back and sat down in her chair.


"Very well. Tell me," she said.


Chapter Six


"You were, as I said, standing near the grillroom. I saw you. I made up my mind to have a try at picking you up." He was speaking bitterly, bluntly and fast. "It worked. You were lonely and upset. You needed to talk to someone. We went into a corner of the bar and you did talk. You told me all about Oliver and Althea and what had happened to you. You were hurt, then; so hurt, my dear, so heartsore." His voice warmed, "I don't suppose you

realized at all what was happening to me. I don't suppose you really saw me that Sunday night.


"I was someone to listen. A stranger, who wouldn't care, you thought, who wouldn't tell. Who'd listen and be sympathetic, and go away taking some of your trouble with him just by virtue of having listened. It didn't work out that way, because I fell in love, and I am a very persistent fellow and I would not go away. I'm afraid I hung around. We were together Monday. Had lunch. Roamed around. In the evening, we went back to our corner in the bar. This time, I talked. I told you I was in the Air Force, but I was being let out. I told you quite a bit. You listened. I wonder if you heard."


Mathilda closed her eyes, squeezed them tight. But when she opened them, he was still there, still talking.


Tuesday," he said, "well, on Tuesday, in the morning, you said you'd marry me."


"Why?"


He took her up quickly. "Why you said you'd marry me, I . . .don't know. You never said you felt anything for me but just . . .comfortable in my presence. It was one of those half-cold-blooded things. I knew I was getting you on a rebound. And, Tyl, darling, I knew perfectly well that there was a little bit of a nasty human wish for revenge in your heart."


She frowned, but her heart had jumped in surprise.


"Oh, yes, that was obvious," he went on. "But I was going to get you on any terms at all. So I was pretty unscrupulous. Who am I to take a high moral tone? And you—honey, it was babyish, but I understood, still understand. It wasn't so much revenge on Oliver, the

poor sap, but on Althea, the louse." He grinned.


"I—I see " said Mathilda dazedly. He leaned forward. His eyes searched her face. "No, no," she said. "No, I don't mean that I remember. It just sounds— It didn't happen, but you make it sound as if— I can see it might have."


He said, with an unfathomable expression in his dark eyes, "Thank you, Tyl." He went on, "At ten in the morning, Wednesday, we were married."


"It can't be done!" she gasped.


"It was done," he said calmly. "Are you thinking of all the red tape? It wasn't so bad. You already had your blood test. You had been all set to marry somebody else."


She winced.


"I had only to get a certificate from the medical officer. And they waive the waiting period, you know, for men in the service." He took something out of his pocket. "We got the license Tuesday. I do have a copy."


Tyl looked and saw "WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK. MARY FRAZIER. JOHN FRANCIS HOWARD."


"That's not my name."


"It's your second name," he said gently. "Or so you told them. It was understood that you didn't want publicity. The newspapers would have had fun with all our haste."


She thought, But why White Plains? Why not New York City? She would have asked, but he was talking.


"Even now, it's been kept quiet, Tyl. Grandy and I agreed to that. Nobody knows except a very few. Oliver knows, of course, and Althea."


"Oh?”


Mathilda felt hysterical. It was so funny. What he was saying. Oliver, all this time—Oliver had thought her married to somebody else. So had Althea. Romance, tragedy, love and death, and Mathilda in the middle. All the while she'd been playing dull bridge with filthy cards, slapping at the flies, Althea had been believing this wild yarn. Mathilda put her thumb in her mouth and bit it. It was too funny, too terribly funny.


"And as a matter of fact, that porter was bribed. He was bribed not to say anything about us. My dear, you bribed him yourself. That's what he thought you—"


Mathilda said, "Could I have a drink of water?"


He got her the drink quickly. He was watching her as if he cared how she felt.


She said, "But I got on board my ship at noon on Wednesday."


"You remember that?" he murmured.


"Perfectly," she snapped. She was annoyed at a little demon of glee that kept thinking of Althea, outdramatized. She put the glass down, feeling calmer. "I was quite alone," she said.


"When we got back here after the wedding," he said, "there was a message that I had to report immediately. We figured that it would be better for you to go on, that I would go see what the hell, do what I could. I was optimistic. I said I'd fly down after you. I even thought I might make it as soon as you did." He paused.


"I won't go into how I felt. I thought, after all, I had you legally, and for the rest I had, more or less, planned to wait-if you understand me." He sent her a queer, tortured glance. "But now it looks as if I haven't got you at all."


She took up the glass and tilted it. "Is there more?"


"Some," he said. There was Grandy. You hadn't told him."


"Why not?"


"I think you rather liked the idea of a dramatic fait accompli, for Althea's sake."


Mathilda squirmed. He was making her out a blind little fool, a hurt, silly child. Her face burned because, although it wasn't true, it had a strange possibility to it, an accusing possibility.


"Well," he went along easily, "you didn't know what to do. Finally, you sat down and wrote him a letter-the last thing you did before I took you to the pier." He had a letter in his hand.


"A letter to Grandy?" She felt proud of being so rational. "How does it happen he hasn't kept it?"


"Because of what it says!" cried Francis impatiently. "My God, Tyl, you forget! We thought you were drowned. The letter was . . .all I had."


She thought, I can't catch him. He always wiggles out with a sentimental answer. She unfolded the letter.


The letter was not only in her handwriting; it was in her words. The turn of the phrases. There were even some that referred to family matters, such as saying "a Julius," when you meant a myth. An old story about a man named Julius who never came. Nobody could have known how to use that word! The letter was signed with her

own cryptic formula. "Y.L.U.D. Your Loving Ugly Duckling."


"You took that to Grandy?" she asked, and her voice trembled. "He believed it?"


"Yes," said Francis gently. "Yes, of course. But I didn't take it to him until late in February. You see, the news about your disappearance came while I was still at camp. I got out of there so fast the red tape is still bleeding where I cut it" He grinned.


Her heart jumped. The grin was more terrifying than anything else he'd said or done, somehow. She realized that this was a man of great force, very much alive, a strong man, a consequential human factor. And here he was, claiming to have let his life and affairs

revolve around her. Nor could she imagine any reason for it.


"I was frantic. I couldn't find you. Look, Tyl," he said boyishly, "what else could I do? I had to go where Grandy was, because if by any miracle you did turn up, you'd let him know. And listen, my darling—"


"I have been listening " said Mathilda. She raised her head. "Have I heard it all?" She stood up. "I don't know how you managed that letter," she said steadily, "but it's all lies, just the same." Fight him, her instinct said. "And I would like to see," she said boldly, "if you please, the man who married us."


He had been watching her intently. Now, when she lashed out, he didn't flinch. Instead, his face softened. "Good," he said. "I'll have the bags sent over to the station. We may just have time."


A maid in the corridor called her "Mrs. Howard." Mathilda stammered something. The clerk downstairs leaned across to say in a warm undertone, "Welcome back, Mrs. Howard."


Francis led her across the lobby. He was looking down, smiling a little, a smile not exactly triumphant, but rather as if he hoped she wouldn't be angry that he was right.


"You're very thorough," she said stiffly. But she was scared.


The headwaiter?" he asked. "Shall we find him? Or shall we go into the bar?"


"No," she said. "No more, not these. ... It was a minister?"


"It was a minister."


"I want to see him."


"I'd better phone," he said, and left her. The lobby floor was billowing a little under her feet. She thought, He couldn't bribe a minister or make him lie.


Chapter Seven


When Grandy opened the door of his study to go forth, Jane could see from her desk down the long room to where Althea was languidly dusting the floor. Althea wore a blue denim coverall and her silver-blond hair was tied up in a blue scarf. She wore gloves—dainty ones, too—and now Jane saw her fold her hands around the handle of the dust mop and lean picturesquely on it. Althea dusting the living-room floor was something to watch, a picture. Althea made the most of her opportunities in Grandy's servantless house. She never missed an opportunity to be a picture.


And Grandy, thought Jane, with his dramatic sense. It was like living in the middle of a movie all the time, to be in this house with the pair of them. The way he opened the door of the study. Not merely so that he could go through it into the next room. No, there had to be a flourish, a significant sweep. He opened the door as if he were blowing a fanfare for himself.


"Mathilda is in New York," he chanted, "even now." He seemed to be tasting each word. "I spoke to her on the telephone." The way he said it, the warmth and wonder he could pour out with that voice of his, made you reflect what a miracle the telephone was, pay mental tribute to Alexander Graham Bell, realize the strides of modern civilization, all in a flash, and then go on to consider the infinite pathos of human affection, and, somehow or other, also the gallantry of the human spirit in die face of the infinite.


Althea said, "Was Francis with her?" She had a clear, high voice. She articulated well through her pretty, small mouth, with a precise, rather strong-minded effect.


Grandy put his ten fingertips together in pairs, tapped his mouth with the long triangle of his forefingers. "Oh, yes," he said, "and I think . . . spaghetti!" The lines around his eyes crinkled up shrewdly. "I shall begin my sauce. Yes, spaghetti will be exactly right. Both friendly and delicious, but not distracting."


Althea made a slow, wide circle with the mop. "They'll be here for dinner," she remarked. It wasn't a question. It wasn't a comment. It was as if the thought in her mind had got expressed accidentally.


"Flowers!" cried Grandy.


"Let Jane do the flowers," Althea said. Tm just out of a sickbed. I decline to get my feet wet."


"The rain is only in your sulky little heart," said Grandy lightly.


Oliver, standing in the arch, asked suspiciously, "What rain? Whose heart?"


The minister's house was one of those city brownstones with a high stoop and a double-doored entry. The white lace curtains were spotless and crisp. The paint around the window frames was neat and newly done.


A servant opened the door. Her face broke into welcome. "Mr. Howard and your bride!" she said. "Oh, the doctor will be glad. I'll tell him."


She went briskly down the hall to tap on a door toward the back of the house. Francis was whispering in Mathilda's ear, saying that the servant had been a witness. To their wedding, he meant. Mathilda couldn't speak.


She felt the quiet of the house oppressing her. The very cleanliness, the spotless carpet, the shining wood of the stair banister, the faint smell of polish and soap, seemed inhuman and frightening. Somebody spoke from above.


A tiny elderly woman with soft, faded skin and faded blue eyes was standing on the stairs. "My dear," she said in a lady's voice, "we read in the papers that you were safe. How very kind and thoughtful of you to come."


The strange woman came all the way down into the hall and her hands touched Mathilda's. Her tiny hands were ice cold.


Francis said, apologetically, "She's been through a good deal, Mrs. White."


The woman's eyes narrowed. They looked at Francis very intently, very searchingly. They seemed to cling to his face, to pull away reluctantly at last. She whispered, "Poor child."


"She would like to see Doctor White," said Francis, and Mathilda had a strong sense that he was suffering.


"Of course," the woman murmured. They followed her in the track of the servant, who had vanished. This woman tapped, too. on the same door, and then she opened it. For a moment Mathilda could sec only the outline of a man sitting behind a desk. He rose.


He said in a soft, powerful voice, "My dear Mrs. Howard—" He, too, came and touched both her hands.


Mathilda clutched. She was frightened. She found her fingers twined around his big hands as if she had been a child. She said, "I would like to talk to you by myself, please."


"Why, of course," he said with a certain tenderness. "Please, Hilda."


When they were alone, Mathilda said, "Doctor White, you aren't going to tell me that you performed any marriage . . . that I am the girl you married to—to Mr. Howard? Are you?"


His heavy brows lifted. "I am not likely to forget your face," he said. His eyes did not falter or change his odd look of sorrow. "You have a very beautiful face, my dear."


Mathilda was unbalanced a moment by such a strange and unexpected compliment to her appearance. Then she cried, "But I'm not the girl! If there was a girl! He's been trying to convince me, but I've never seen him before! I've never seen you! It isn't true! Please!"


He drew a book toward him and showed her the page. She saw the names again: John Francis Howard. Mary Frazier, written in her own hand. "No," she cried. She sank back in the chair and put her hands to her eyes.


"You are confused," said the minister in his soft, mellow voice. "That is a terrible feeling. I know. Won't you have faith that all will come clear to you in a while?"


She looked at him, startled. What was he trying to tell her? That she was mad?


"Try not to—dwell on it," he went on, with difficulty. "I don't think you can doubt your own senses."


"No," she said, stiffening. "I don't doubt them. And he can't make me. Nor can you."


"That's right," he said calmly. "Rest on what you remember, on your own best belief. My dear, if you are right and we are all . . .mistaken, for some terrible reason, then it must become clear sooner or later "


"But why?" she cried. "Why isn't it clear now? I'm not mistaken. I'm not sick. Why"—her voice rose hysterically—"why does everybody tell me this lie?"


He came around the desk and put his big hands on her shaking shoulders. "Remember this," he said at last: "I have known Francis before. I know that he has no wish to harm you, Mathilda. And you are not sick. Don't believe that for one second. Don't consider

it." He walked away from her.


And the blood drained away from her heart in sudden panic because something about this man was familiar to her. He was a stranger, but some things about him she seemed to know.


"Come to see me again." He seemed distressed. He opened the door to the hall. The woman came and Mathilda felt herself being led away. The woman was talking softly about tea.


Mathilda was puzzled and angry and frightened, and comforted. She felt somewhere in this quiet house a secret, a secret to do with herself. She was comforted by a queer sense that if she knew she would understand. At the same time, she resented that there should be any secret


"I won't drink tea here!" She flung it in the woman's face.


"Poor child," murmured Mrs. White.


When Francis and the doctor came belatedly through the door, she searched the ministers face for that sympathy. But his face had turned to stone. Even his eyes had changed. They no longer seemed to be seeing her. The sympathy and the mystery both were gone. He said, “I'm very sorry." But he was not. Not any more.


Mathilda thought to herself, Don't make a scene. Don't cry. to Grandy. Grandy will know what to do.


Chapter Eight


"Did you know Rosaleen Wright?"


She was startled. They had been sitting side by side on the train like strangers. She said, "Of course."


"Did you like her?"


"Of course," she said again. "We are good friends."


"Were," said Francis.


"What?"


"She's dead, you know."


"I. . . didn't know," said Mathilda finally. She was shocked out of her own circle of thoughts. "What happened to her?” she asked quietly, in a minute. "Was she ill?"


"She hanged herself," he said.


Mathilda wanted to scream. "Is this another of your lies?” managed at last. She thought she had never been so buffeted and shaken up and confused and shocked by anyone in her life. This man seemed dedicated to the business of upsetting her.


"Why should I lie about that?" he snapped back angrily.


She shook her head. She held up her hand as if to beg for an interval between the shocks he kept dealing. Rosaleen, who was such a dear, such a comfort, so much her friend, the only one Althea had never bothered to take away. Rosaleen, whose steady friendship she'd known and kept and never flaunted, lest Althea stir herself to spoil it. Rosaleen, who was so steady and so strong, couldn't be gone, couldn't have been driven desperate, couldn't have been so shaken—


"I don't believe it!" she gasped.


“Don't believe what?" He was eager.


That she'd do that."


“Now, don't you?" he said oddly.


No,"


"That's the story" he shrugged. "She hanged herself five days after you were reported lost. In Grandy's study. She stood on his desk and—"


"Oh, no!" she cried. "Never!"


"You knew her well?" His voice was warm. He must have leaned closer.


"But tell me," she gasped, "why did she? Why?"


"No reason."


"What do you mean?"


"I mean there wasn't any reason."


"But there must have been! I don't understand! What a dreadful thing!" Mathilda wrung her hands. "Oh, poor Grandy!"


"Poor Grandy indeed " he muttered.


Something in his voice touched off her anger again. She leaned forward and twisted to confront him. "There you go again. Now, why do you say that?"


He looked up innocently.


"You don't like Grandy. What is it? What are you trying to do? There's no use denying. I can tell."


"Just a minute," he said, "before you go all intuitional on me. Why do I say 'Poor Grandy, indeed'? Because it strikes me you feel sorry for the wrong person. Poor Rosaleen! Don't you think?" He closed his eyes. "You don't even try to imagine what I might be feeling. Can't you tell? You fly off the handle about Grandy. He's the one." He opened his eyes and met hers boldly, almost impudently. "Can't you see I'm jealous of that old man?"


Mathilda bit her lip. "Maybe," she said in a queer, high little voice, "you and I are just two other people."


He didn't smile. He reached into his pocket as if he'd thought of something. Mathilda brought her eyes to focus on what he held. She saw her own face, laughing.


Francis was murmuring, "Not that it caught you. Two dimensions wouldn't be enough. The beauty you've got is pretty near fourth dimension. It's motion. It's time. It's what I said, like flying."


Her throat felt dry again. What he said was babble. But this was a picture of herself that she had never seen. She thought, The camera doesn't lie. Then she thought, It's a trick.


But for the first time her imagination did encompass the impossible, and she thought, just fleetingly, What if all that he says is true? Nonsense. You might forget, but you don't invent another way of passing the same time and paste it over the gap in your memory.

She must get to Grandy. She must not look at anything any more.


When the train got in, he took her quickly to a cab. Mathilda felt a little sick and dizzy. She'd had no time to be prepared. How could she face Oliver? How could she find a way to think of him, a way to live her life in his physical presence?


Oliver had always been around. Such a nice guy, such fun, always around, always willing to go swimming, to play a little tennis. Always ready to gossip or just chat. Oliver had no driving energy toward a purpose of his own. Nothing ever interfered with his availability. What he did for himself, work, if any, was always done unobtrusively, of second importance in his scheme of tilings. He was always around. One grew to depend on it.


Oh, she thought, he would be there now. Married to Althea. How to face Althea? How to hide this as she had always hidden Althea's power to hurt her? Ever since they were little girls, and Tyl's feet and eyes were too big for the rest of her, and she was unsure and shy, Althea, full of grace and pretty poise, had always been watching with her shining eyes. If Tyl had a friend or began an awkward progress toward something less lonely, Althea would manage to slip between and dazzle the friend away. Perhaps she never meant to do it. Perhaps she couldn't help it. No good. Tyl's heart wasn't ready for charity yet. How could she face them?


She was astonished to hear Francis say, "Take it easy, Tyl. He'll be feeling brotherly and a bit miffed. He thinks you're mine."


"Is Althea there?" she asked painfully.


He hesitated. Then he said, almost pityingly, "Why do you let Althea throw you? Don't you know she's envious of you? Always has been?" and while Mathilda gasped, he added savagely, "Althea's been tight in bed with la grippe, but she's up now."


Mathilda didn't understand that savage tone, she didn't understand him, but she felt softened toward him.


Grandy's portico. The big white front door.


Oliver said, "Well, Tyl!" He took her hand. He kissed her cheek. She felt nothing. The moment was blurred. There was Althea, standing back in the hall. She wore yellow. She was exquisite. Her oddly shining gray eyes weren't looking at Tyl at all.


A blond girl in a black wool frock who had the face of a baby doll smiled at her and went running down the long living room, calling, "Mr. Grandison!”


Tyl waited where she was for Grandy. She saw him coming—the arrogantly held gray head, the beak of a nose, the lively eyes behind the pince-nez, the unimpressive body with the fat little bulge of a tummy, the thin legs, the biggish, awkward feet.


She began to laugh and cry. He was purring. His beautiful voice that seemed not to need any breath came pouring out in endearments. Through her own tears, she could see in his black eyes the eternal spectator, who viewed with such lively interest and delight this dramatic and emotional moment in which he took part. He was just the same. She threw herself into his arms. She felt so safe. It was wonderful to feel so safe.


Chapter Nine


Never afterward was Mathilda able to put the ringer of her memory on the moment that changed anything. It was like the tides on the beach. The sea would be coming up on the sand. Later, one was aware that it had begun to go down instead. But the moment of change escaped, couldn't be remembered, was not noticed at the time. So it was about Oliver.


There was a familiar hubbub. Grandy thought she was too thin. "My poor baby, your eyes are bigger than your face!"


Althea said, "That suit, Tyl!" with shocked disgust.


They introduced her to Jane Moynihan. Grandy had a visitor in his study who must be dismissed. He trotted off down the long room again. She saw Francis follow, saw him stop, halfway down, to speak to that pretty little girl named Jane. She saw Althea, watching.


Mathilda remembered later that she was able to turn easily and look Oliver square in the face, finding it the same friendly face, the same sandy eyebrows. Suddenly she could see the white walls of the African town in the sun. The waters of the oceans of the world were crisscrossed with the vanished tracks of the ships of men. She thought. I've been away.


He said, "Gosh, Tyl, you'll never know how I felt!"


She thought, I'll never care.


The tide had turned. It was going out. The strange thing was that it must have turned before this, and she hadn't known. But it was true; she didn't care any more how he felt, how he had felt or how he would feel tomorrow. The agony of caring was gone. Maybe

shed beaten it out of herself by caring so much and so hard. She felt very tired, as if all the sleep she'd lost over her emotions about him had accumulated in a reproachful cloud. It hadn't really been necessary.


Something must have gone out of her face, because Oliver could tell. She could see him persuading himself that he was, on the whole, relieved and glad. She saw right through. It was like watching the wheels go around in an insignificant toy. It was fascinating, but not important. Then the weariness lifted and Tyl felt free and lively. Her body felt light.


She said gaily, "Where are my things? Where do I go?"


"You re in the gray room." Althea was approaching with her mannequin's walk. "I'm afraid we took your old room, darling. Naturally, since it was always the nicest"


"Yes, I know," Tyl murmured. She was amused. It seemed to her that Althea was suddenly transparent too. Oliver picked up her suitcase. There was a little silence among the three of them, because Francis' two bags with his initials on them were there on the

floor.


It came into Mathilda's head to tell them, then and there, and yet she didn't. She ought to have said, "I'm not married to Francis." But something was wrong with her mood. She couldn't have said it without giggling.


"Fran's been down in the guest house," Althea was saying.


"Oh, leave them," said Tyl carelessly. She was too much amused, too tickled, too giddy with inner mirth to tell them now. She ran upstairs. Her feet felt like flying. Althea came pelting after.


"Lord, Tyl, you are a skinny little rat"


Mathilda was burrowing into the gray room's clothes closet. She found a green wool dress. In the eye of the beholder, she thought. In a pig's eye.


"I've got good ankles" she said, muffled among the clothes. The knowledge that Althea couldn't hurt her made her dizzy.


Althea had sat down on the foot of the bed and her shining eyes that caught and reflected the light as if they had been metal, like silver buttons with black centers, were fixed on Tyl as if to read her very soul.


"What on earth happened to your hair?" she cried.


Althea's own hair was a soft silvery cloud of curls, cut short, swept up, every tendril blending charmingly with the whole effect. Mathilda shook her brown mane, which hung free to her shoulders. "I washed it myself," she said defiantly.


Althea's delicate eyebrows trembled with pitying comment. She touched the nape of her own neck with a polished finger tip. "I've been down with the grippe," she said, and sighed. "I've been miserable."


"Too bad." Tyl bit her lip. Laughter bubbled inside. She could hardly keep it under. And I've been shipwrecked and rescued and half around the world, she thought, and it's eating you. Oh, it's eating you.


Althea said, with grudging admiration, "You re a sly one." She sloped gracefully back on one elbow. "Where did you find this Francis of yours?"


Mathilda, in her slip, let her bare shoulders fall a little.


"A millionaire," complained Althea. Her voice verged on a whine, "Really, Tyl, you scarcely needed a millionaire. It doesn't seem just and fair. Look at Oliver and me, poor as church mice, both of us."


And it's eating you, thought Tyl. "I know what you mean," she said aloud, flippantly. "Maybe we ought to shuffle and deal again."


She saw, in the mirror, Althea's dainty body stiffen, saw the painted lashes draw down to narrow those gleaming eyes. What ails me? she wondered. She was treating Althea to a taste of sauce, as she had never dared before. She thought, It's true. She is envious. She always has been. She thought, But I ought not to let her go on thinking I'm married. I mustn't be childish.


She said aloud, "There's something you don't know about—"


"Is there, indeed?" said Althea acidly. "About true love, I suppose?"


Tyl picked up her own turquoise-handled hairbrush and made her mane fly. She thought, Just for that, you can wait. And again, suddenly, she wanted to laugh. Her mouth began to curve. She had to control it The whole situation was so totally turned about. So ridiculously altered from what she had feared. For it wasn't Althea who had the husband Tyl had wanted. No, It was Althea who wanted the husband she thought Tyl had. Althea had her silver eyes on Francis.


Chapter Ten


Inside the study, the man named Press waited. He stood looking down at the floor.


"Now, as I said," purred Grandy, "I don't intend to repeat such a broadcast. They came around, you know, and I had to claim a good deal of poetic license. But you needn't worry. You are still unsuspected. As I said. And don't come here. I'll be in touch with

you from time to time."


The man had a very round head and wide-spaced dark eyes. He looked up. The eyes had no hope in them.


"Don't you know" said Grandy ever so softly, "I rather enjoy playing God?"


The man named Press barely nodded. His eyes were still hopeless.


Outside, in the living room, Francis smiled politely at the blond secretary. "Had to tell her the yam," he said, as if he were saying, "Hello, how are you?"


Jane's pretty baby face was a perfect mask. "Oh, no," she moaned.


"Something's going to bust any minute. Pray I get hold of Althea before it does. Who's in there?"


"That man Press. The same one."


"I'm going to tell Grandy the duckling's lost her memory."


"Why?" Her pleasant smile might have been sculped on.


"For time," he said. "To tempt him. Be ready to get out of here,” he murmured, brushing by.


"Oh, Fran," moaned Jane.


Grandy s study door had a little whimsical knocker on the living-room side. It knocked back at you if the word was to come in. This was because the study had been completely soundproofed, so that Grandy s genius could work in quiet. Francis opened the door

when the signal came.


"I thought you had company, sir," he said.


The visitor must have left by way of the kitchen. Grandy was sitting at his big light wood desk. He touched his pince-nez with his long-fingered, knot-knuckled hand. "No, no. Come in."


Francis walked across and sat down in the visitors chair. He followed the precepts of good acting. He tried to think only of and within the frame of mind he was to seem to be in. He was a hurt, bewildered, rebuffed, humiliated and worried lover. At the same time, he mustn't miss anything he could glean from that face, that somewhat birdlike countenance, with its beak, its thin mouth, its black, brisk, bright and clever eyes.


"What is the matter?" asked Grandy, reacting promptly.


Francis looked up, surprised, looked down, "I don't know how to tell you,” he mumbled. "I'm afraid I'm—" He rubbed his hand over his face, hoping it wasn't too theatrical a gesture.


Grandy stirred. He fitted a cigarette into his longish holder and slipped the holder into the side of his thin mouth. "Don't be tantalizing," he said. "What happened?"


Francis looked at him stupidly for a moment "I don't know," he said at last, roughly. "Mathilda doesn't— She says—"


"D'ya mean she's. . . out of love?" Grandy inquired.


"She was never in!" he flung back. "No. Worse. She doesn't know me."


"What do you mean?" Grandy didn't show any shock, except that the gray hairs on his head seemed to rise quietly, and stand straighter, at attention.


"I don't know," insisted Francis, "I suppose its—I don't know what it is. She just plain doesn't, or can't, or won't remember me."


"How very extraordinary," said Grandy in a moment.


Francis was able to watch, somehow, without looking at him directly. He kept his own eyes down, and yet he knew that the expression on that face was alert and tentative. It was more plain curiosity and excitement than anything else yet


Francis said, Tm sorry. It just hits me, now. What am I going to do? I don't understand things like that"


"Do you mean you believe she is the victim of amnesia?" purred Grandy.


"Must be," said Francis. "Or whatever you call it. I don't know, sir. I don't know anything about anything. All I know is, I went to find her, and there she was and she didn't know me. She says she hasn't been hurt, or sick, or anything like that. I don't know what

to think. I'm not thinking."


The hell I'm not, thought Francis. He got up and walked over to stare out of the window. It was a good thing to do, he'd found when you were trying to think while being watched.


What did it matter any more how desperate this throw was? He was close. He knew nearly enough. There was such a little way to go. And if Althea hadn't taken to her bed with a grippe and if Oliver, with his ridiculous fuss, hadn't made it so plain that Francis

was not admissible to the sickroom; if he hadn't been thwarted delayed—why, he might have been finished by now, and able to come out into the open and let things burst. And if that little mutton-headed heiress hadn't jumped down his throat at the first word about her precious guardian, if he'd had the least hope that she wouldn't go blabbing immediately, if he'd been able to talk to her, tell her what he was doing, how much he knew, explain, ask her to help—


He saw now how foolish he'd been to think he could explain to her. To think that any perfect stranger could shake her deep-rooted faith in a man she obviously loved and adored. He might have known. Althea was the same. Bright-eyed Althea was blinded by

Grandy. He knew better than to try to approach her with such frank and open tactics.


He wondered why he'd been led to think that Mathilda might be more approachable. Just hope. Just wishful thinking. Well, he'd seen quickly enough that it wouldn't work. And he hadn't wanted things to burst.


There was Jane for one thing. He'd made a mistake to mention her name. He hoped Mathilda wouldn't begin to wonder about that. No, he couldn't have confessed the whole crazy device then and there, and risked Mathilda rushing to a phone and risked Grandy finding out that Jane was . . . Jane. Not when Jane was here alone. Not when he had been too far away to stand between. Grandy was too smart. He could put two and two together too fast.


Well it would burst now. Any minute. Unless, by this stubborn acting, he could muddle them enough. It was a nasty trick, a mean, cruel trick on the poor lad. Geoffrey had said so. Geoffrey hadn't wanted to go on with it. He'd been ready to balk. But when he saw

how close it was, how sure Francis was now, and when he was reminded of Rosaleen—


Besides, sooner or later, the silly kid was going to be in danger herself. Blindly devoted to this evil old creature, she would never see what he was up to until too late. Wasn't it up to Francis, then, who knew all about it, to guard her, even from herself? Fancy thinking, maybe. A fine, high-minded excuse. There was some truth in it, although he didn't like it, didn't like any part of it.


But he had to make this desperate try. And at the back of his mind was the thought of the trap it set, the temptation. Grandy just might-just might pretend to be taken in long enough— After all, it would be very convenient for Grandy, in many ways, if there turned out to be something a little wrong with Mathilda's mind.


Grandy was being rather unnaturally silent. Francis turned around. He said, "What do you think? Ought I to fade out of the picture? Just to go away somewhere?"


Grandy was gnawing thoughtfully on his holder. His eyes were veiled. Francis thought, He must be pretty sure I'm a fraud.


Grandy said gently, "We certainly must do nothing at all in a hurry."


Francis felt a faint ripple of relief.


"She doesn't remember? She really doesn't remember?" Grandy crooned in his wondering way. "It's all gone out of her mind, you say? She feels she never saw you?"


Francis shook his head. He hoped he looked miserable.


"How very extraordinary," said Grandy again. "Poor duckling. Poor Tyl. You must have frightened her this morning. She's timid, you know, and shy, the little thing."


Francis thought, Nonsense. He'd fallen into the habit of checking this man's statements against his own evidence. It was very easy to let yourself go along with Grandy. You had to resist him. He thought, I saw her spit fire. She's got plenty of guts. That yarn I told

was well told. She might have gone to pieces. She isn't even little. She's a good-sized young woman. Even so, the picture of Tyl, forlorn, pitiable, lingered in his mind.


He said aloud, "I tried not to frighten her. I will do exactly what you say, sir. Believe me, whatever you want me to do for Tyl's sake will be done, sir. Anything. Divorce?"


Grandy flicked him with a glance. Then he began to speak in his mellow, rich, butter-smooth voice: "How curiously we are made. Is it possible? The needle writes in the wax. The needle of life writes in the wax of the brain, and the record is our memories, Does the needle lift from the wax and leave no record? Or does a fog come down? What can we say? Do you know, I think the miracle is not that we sometimes can forget, but that we remember so much, so well."


Francis thought, And I've got to get the record out of Althea's brain and play it back. He shook himself away from the hypnosis of Grandy's image. What is this? Is the old bird nibbling?


"I do think," murmured Grandy, and Francis braced himself for the verdict—"I do think, dear boy, the wisest thing—" The soundproof room had a dead atmosphere. Sound behaved queerly. Silence closed in fast here. Grandy let a little hunk of silence fall. "—wisest thing to do is wait," he said.


Francis sighed. He couldn't help it He hoped it would pass in character.


"Yes,” said Grandy. "Let time pass. Let us wait and see. We will not inundate her with proofs or with evidence."


O.K. We wont, thought Francis. But will you be checking on me some more? He knew there had been some checking, Jane had been sent; Oliver had gone. Maybe others. Would Grandy check the story further or was he already sure that the whole fantastic untruth that Francis was telling was untrue? Francis thought, I'm not fooling him. Can't be. Why does he bide his time, then? Because he doesn't know my motive? He wants to find out? The one thing he can't know is that I care about Rosaleen. He thought, Never mind why. Time is what I want. He hardened his heart. Mathilda would have to suffer.


"Yes, let her rest," said Grandy. "Let her realize that she is safe at home."


Francis stood up. Safety wasn't a thing for him to think about. "Right," he said.


Grandy called him back with a motion of the cigarette holder. "Your marriage, as I understand it, was merely, . . legal?"


Francis said, "That's quite true, sir."


"You will stay on . . . in the guest house?"


"Naturally," said Francis.


Chapter Eleven


Grandy s house stood on its own acre. It faced the westernmost street of the small city, a street that was almost like a country road, and its gardens spilled down a slope back of the house. Grandy said he had managed to have all the advantages of open country and yet escaped the need to do without city services. He claimed that his house was poised on the exact hairline of geographical wisdom. Grandy was full of theories about everything.


The house was not large. It was adapted to him. To the left of the hall ran his long living room, where he held court. On the south wall, a blister of glass was used for plants and porch furniture, and continued to the second story, where it became Grandy s exquisite

and rather famous bathroom. His kitchen—another famous room—was directly at the back of the house. His study was not large—a one-story piece of the house tucked in between the kitchen and the living room. The dining room lay north.


He ran the entire establishment without servants. In the kitchen, he would preside over a collection of quaint copper pots, garlands of gourds, strings of onions, mixed in among all the latest gadgets in chromium and glass. He kept there a chefs hat which he wore

seriously. Meals in his house were rituals in which the preparation of the food was just as important as the eating of it. He would bustle about and illuminate the proceedings with lectures in his fascinating voice. His lore, his stock of old wives' tales, was inexhaustible.


Mathilda came down in the green dress, and there he was in his cap, doing delicate last-minute things to the sauce. Oliver lounged against the wall. Francis was dusting glasses with a towel. Jane was setting the table.


Althea, on a high stool, was timing the spaghetti with Grandy's big round silver kitchen watch. She was still in her yellow gown—some soft silk with a wide skirt. She wore a lot of yellow. It was odd and striking on her. It gave a gold-and-silver effect and was arresting when black velvet would have been obvious.


Grandy came to embrace Mathilda. The big spoon waved back of her shoulder. He smelled of talcum and a little garlic. He beamed tenderly.


"Grandy," she murmured, close to his ear, "I need to talk to you. I have things to tell you." She knew it wasn't a good time, not with the sauce at the stage it was.


"I know," he crooned in her ear, "I know, dear, I know." Mathilda felt sure then that he did know. It didn't occur to her that he had been told, but just that he knew somehow. "After dinner," he murmured. "Let us be alone, eh?"


She was convinced that they must be alone while she told him. "Yes," she said eagerly, "alone."


He looked into her eyes. How anxious he was, how tender, how wise! Yes, he would know, of course. He sensed it already. She was quite safe. There was no hurry.


They trooped after Grandy, who carried the deep wooden bowl of spaghetti as if he held it on a cushion to show the king. But Grandy was the king too. There was candlelight. Mathilda at his left, then Oliver. Althea at the foot. Then Francis. Then Jane. Happy family. Mathilda felt gay. No hurry; and, meanwhile, it was all so terribly amusing.


There was Oliver, on her left. A mild man, married to dynamite, and he didn't know what to do, she could tell. He was a mild man, a little man, in spite of his size, a drifting kind of creature, willing to be available and kind. But he didn't know what to do about the

flagrant behavior of his bride. He fluctuated between stern anger and the determination to put his foot down, and another mood, a conviction of weakness and the tired thought that it didn't really matter.


But Althea, in all her glamour, was down at the foot, being a young matron with such amusing reluctance. And Francis, beside her, was looking very gloomy, very much subdued. Mathilda was glad to see it. She felt it was only just that he should have to sit

at the table with the ax hanging over his head.


At the same time, she felt a surge of violent curiosity about him. What was the man up to, this Francis Howard? What kind of man? Well-bred, you could tell at table. Really quite attractive, if you liked that dark type, that lean kind of face. "Fortune hunter." She

remembered her formula. She looked at his clothes. They were in expensive good taste. But if money wasn't his motive, what could it be?


She thought; angrily, as she'd been taught to, All that stuff about my beauty. She thought. If he thinks he isn't going to be caught out in his lies— If he thinks I wont find out what's at the bottom of them— She caught a suffering look from his dark eyes, and she smiled a little cruelly.


Francis asked Jane for the bread. The little blond girl looked as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Tyl's green eyes took stock of her.


Nobody had even mentioned Rosaleen. Rosaleen was gone, although she had sat on Grandy's right hand in her day.


But they began to ask Mathilda questions, and she left off her puzzling to tell the tidbits she'd saved for Grandy. About Mrs. Stevens' drinking spells. About Mr. Boyleston and his one eye at the bridge table. All at once it seemed funny and rather gay. Besides, it burned Althea up.


Down at his end, Grandy listened. And his black eyes were restless and shrewd. Once he said, "Poor Tyl" in the middle of the laughter and watched her face sadden obediently.


Francis saw it too. He thought, Damn it, the kid looks intelligent. Can't she see what he does? He directs her. Plays on her feelings like an organ, the old vulture. The beautiful bones of Mathilda's face haunted and reproached him. He was miserably tense and

unhappy. He wished the dinner were over. He wished he didn't have to sit here, looking soulful, when what he would really like to do was to smash in that beaming hypocrite's beaming face and snatch Mathilda and shake some sense into her, and then take Jane and get out of here. Damn such a game!


Althea's little foot was in his way under the table. He brought his own foot to rest, touching hers, and let it stay. Damn such a game, but if you have to play it, play it!


When Mathilda had done, Grandy went to work and changed the mood. He brought sea mist into the room, gray, fast, lonely danger, salty death. He made them remember the coral bones of those lost at sea. He told one of his favorite ghost stories.


Tyl began to look less vivid. She sobered and shrank. The wild mood, the free feeling ebbed away. After all, she was only poor Tyl, plain little Tyl, with all that money, who could never trust anyone very much. She'd have made a lovely ghost, a sad little green-eyed ghost with a broken heart and seaweed in her lank brown hair. She might have come to haunt them. She shivered a little. She saw Francis looking at her with scorn.


Scorn! From that quarter! She straightened her back. She said adoringly, "Oh, Grandy, it's so good to hear you talk!"


Francis trod on Althea's toe. "In the guest house. After dinner. Will you?” Her silver eyes were both surprised and delighted.


Chapter Twelve


"I think they just stepped out, Mr. Keane ," said Jane. Jane was the shy little outsider all the while, the one who made the obvious remarks and did the right thing.


Grandy looked at Mathilda, took the dish towel out of her motionless hands.


"Fine thing," Oliver said. He was trying to look very black. He seized on the state of Althea's health. "She had that cold. She oughtn't to be out."


Grandy said, "Poor Francis," gently, watching Mathilda.


She was wildly puzzled. Why was Grandy watching her so? What did it mean if Francis and Althea went out to the garden? Why "poor Francis"? Why Althea, anyway? She had a nightmarish feeling that the others knew what she did not know. She rejected it fiercely. Not so. It was she who knew and they who had been deceived. And the quicker she made it plain the better.


Grandy said, "Shall we—"


She thought he meant that they would talk now. “Yes, now," she said. But the doorbell rang.


"There now, answer the doorbell, Oliver. Please, dear boy. Who can it be?"


They went into the long room. Grandy took his chair by the fire. Tyl took her low chair at his feet. Jane, who had followed them, went a little aside, picked up a bit of knitting and put herself meekly into the corner of a sofa. It was just as if Grandy had composed the picture, directed the scene. Even the firelight flickered with just the proper effect. Luther Grandison at home. Curtain going up.


Oliver came in from the hall. "Its Tom Gahagen."


Gahagen was the chief of the detective bureau, a small, lean, nervous man with a tight dutiful mouth, but a friendly face. He listened with an air of waiting, while Grandy enlarged charmingly upon Mathilda's miraculous return from the sea. Then he said,

clearing his throat naively, "As long as I'm here, Luther, there are a few questions. I thought it would be all right just to drop in and talk it over. Didn't want to make it formal, y'understand?"


Grandy nodded. "About poor Rosaleen?" Then he appeared struck to the heart by his own forgetfulness. He took Mathilda's hand. "My dear child, forgive me. You don't know—"


"Francis told me," Mathilda said.


"That's your husband?"


Mathilda's eyes widened. She heard Grandy say smoothly, "Yes, yes, her husband. . . . What did Francis tell you, duck?"


"Just that she—" Mathilda couldn't continue. She was shocked because Grandy had said Francis was her husband. She'd had it in her head all along that Grandy, somehow, knew better.


Gahagen said, "Very sad, the whole thing. Sorry to bring it back to mind, but there's a point we've just come across. Funny thing, too."


Jane's foot in the small black childish shoe rested on the floor, but only the heel touched and the ankle was tight. No one could see Jane's foot. Her face was calm and her eyes cast down, watching her work.


"You remember," Gahagen went on, turning to Grandy, "that day, along about early afternoon, some of the newsmen got in here?"


"Yes, yes."


"Took your picture?"


"Did they not?" sighed Grandy. "Yes."


Gahagen's eyes went to the mantel above their heads. "One of those shots was right here in front of this fireplace. That clock's electric, ain't it?"


"Yes, of course." Grandy's voice was sirup sliding out of a pitcher.


Gahagen said, "I'd like to have a look at your fuse box, Luther. Want to see what arrangement you've got in this house."


“Why, Tom?"


The detective slipped away from Grandy's bright and friendly gaze. He chose to explain all this to Mathilda. "You see," he told her, and she couldn't wrench her eyes from his plain, kind face, "the girl got up on Mr. Grandison's desk in there. You know his ceiling hook—the one he had put in for hanging special lights? She—er—used that, y'see, and stepped off the desk, like." Tyl felt sick. "Well, it isn't pleasant to think about, but she couldn't help it—kicking, y'know. Her leg got tangled in the lamp on his desk, pulled it

over, wires came out of the bulb socket."


"So they did," said Grandy. He sounded politely puzzled.


"What we figure now," the detective said, "is that she must've blown a fuse. Blown a fuse when she kicked the lamp, see?"


"Is that possible?"


"Certainly. It's possible all right. Couple of bare wires, they're going to short-circuit. I'll tell you why we wondered. That electric clock up there was showing behind your shoulder in this picture, and it was all cuckoo. Gave the time wrong. It says twenty minutes after ten. And the picture was taken after two o'clock in the afternoon. We know that."


"The clock was wrong?"


"Lemme look at it, d'you mind?" The detective got up to examine the black, square modern-looking clock. "Yeah, see? This one is the old kind. It don't start itself."


Mathilda was near enough to Grandy to feel him suppress an impulse to speak. Oliver spoke up impatiently. "No, of course it doesn't. You have to start it after the currents been off. The new ones start themselves."


"Anybody cut the current off that morning?" asked Gahagen. "Was the master switch thrown at all, d you know?"


Oliver said, "Not that I know of."


"Nor I," said Grandy. He edged forward in his chair. "I'm not sure that I follow you, Tom. What are you getting at?"


"Gives us the exact time," the detective said. "That is, if it does. Y'see, there was no power failure that day anywhere in town. We've already checked on that. So it must have been something right here in the house made the clock stop, see? Now I'd like to look at

your circuits, eh? If this clock actually is hooked in on the same circuit as the study lamp, why—"


Again Grandy suppressed something. Tyl had a telepathic flash. Who'd told Gahagen about the clock and the circuits? The kind of clock it was, what circuit it was on? Because he wasn't wondering. He was checking.


"I don't understand," purred Grandy, "about the clock. But something's wrong with your thought, you see, Tom, because the lights worked."


"Yeah, we know." He nodded. "Lights were O.K. when we got here. So there's this question: Did anybody put in a new fuse?" Oliver was looking blank.


"If so, who?" said Grandy softly. "Fuses don't replace themselves. I really—"


"They don't," said the detective. "If a fuse'd been blown, somebody knew it. Somebody replaced it. None of my men did." He waited, but no one spoke. "Well I don't suppose it's important. Still, I oughta— Where's your fuse box? Cellar?"


"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.


"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.


"What is it?" she demanded. "What are you thinking?"


He shook his head. Althea said tartly, "And now you're going to be a little gentleman and tell no secrets."


Francis grinned at her. "That's right."


She settled back on the cushions. "Tell me something," she asked lazily. "Are you as much in love with Tyl as you . . . made out?"


He let his eyes look startled, and make a tiny negative sign. He felt he owed her that. He turned to the fire. He was thinking he'd have to send Jane in to New York tomorrow. That meant one night more. He was thinking he'd better remember to be dejected, not let

excitement show. For the old man was keen.


What Althea was thinking, he neither knew nor cared. Her hand was warm in his, and from time to time he pressed it. He was thinking of Mathilda. A little while and he could explain to her and beg her pardon. He could explain why he'd had to go into that song

and dance about love. Because the story made no sense without it. He'd explain. Then he was thinking of Rosaleen, of her gallant little figure that seemed to diminish with the days, as if she were traveling away from him toward a horizon beyond which she would

someday vanish entirely. He was thinking that sometimes she seemed to be looking back at him. But when it was done, when he had finished his task, then she would turn her face away forever.


Chapter Fourteen


"Grandy, can't we talk now? Alone, I mean. Please, darling. It's important." Mathilda hadn't seen them come in.


"What's important?" drawled Althea.


Oliver turned around to look at her, and his face flushed vividly with anger. Francis was a dark background, where the firelight and the lamplight barely touched him, as they stood there, just inside the room from the kitchen.


"Where have you been?" exploded Oliver. Her insolence set him off. The anger was genuine.


"Oh," said Althea, "talking."


"Talking about what?"


"Nothing worth repeating now," she said, and yawned daintily. “I do think I'll go up to bed," she said in the awkward silence. "After all, my first day out of it."


"Yes, do," said Grandy hastily. "Do, dear."


Jane got out of her chair. Mathilda thought she saw a glance pass between Jane and the white blur of Francis' face. "I think I'll say good night," said Jane primly. "Good night, Althea. Miss Frazier. Mr. Grandison, Mr. Keane." She murmured all their names politely.


All but one. She forgot to say good night to Francis. Mathilda thought it was odd. There was something in that forgetfulness that assumed he was different; either he didn't matter, or he would understand, or, thought Mathilda, he mattered most. Nobody else seemed to notice. Nobody else seemed to notice that she'd said "Miss Frazier."


"Good night," they said to Jane, raggedly.


Grandy said benignly, "Good night, child."


Jane showed them all her pretty smile and went away, withdrawing from the family, sweet, pretty and dutiful.


Althea stood where she was, looking strange, as if she'd been only half waked out of a hypnotic state or as if she were sleepwalking.


"Good night, Althea,” said Francis. His voice had no caress or even much meaning.


"Good night," she murmured.


Oliver said, "Good night, all." He hadn't even a special word for Tyl, the returned one. He didn't even look at Francis. He was furious. His fury had a female quality. Oliver was in a tizzy.


"Now, Oliver," said Grandy with remarkable clumsiness.


Oliver bared his teeth as if to say "Keep out of this." He took his wife's arm to pull her along, but his hand slipped. The gesture was pitiful and ineffective.


"Oh, Oliver, don't grab at me," said Althea crossly.


"Very well," said Oliver. He was shrill. Tyl wanted to hide her eyes.


Althea swayed a little, standing there, looking down at Tyl. She wasn't very tall, but she looked tall at that moment, and slender, and mysteriously malicious. Tyl's heart contracted with a little fear.


Althea laughed softly. "Well, Tyl, you're back, aren't you? All the way back."


She bent her silver head and Grandy kissed her. She walked down the long room, vanishing into the dark at the far end. In a moment, Oliver snapped on the light in the hall and she was outlined in brilliance briefly. Then she was gone.


The three of them, by the fire, were silent until Francis threw his cigarette into the flames decisively.


"I'll go back to the guest house now," he said, with no emphasis at all. Tyl looked at him, but his face was turned away.


Grandy said softly, quickly, "Yes, yes, of course. For tonight."


Mathilda got up. She didn't know whether she wanted to run or fight it out now and smash that lie, this heroic suffering pose of his that lied so expertly. She looked at him with her anger and her suspicion and her resentment and her defiance in her eyes. But as he moved closer, she didn't shrink away. It came to her that she was not afraid of him. She would enjoy a good fight, a good, bold, hard-hitting clash.


"Don't run," he said surprisingly. But when he stood over her very close, although he didn't touch her, she could tell that he wanted to, and not so much with love as with pity. "Good night, dear," said Francis. He sounded sad. They were not fighting words. The words were lonely.


Mathilda still stood there when he had gone. She couldn't understand. Couldn't understand. The only thing that explained him was the lie he told. If he really were in love— But he was not! He was a stranger.


"Grandy."


Grandy was all huddled in his chair. He looked shrunken up, his hand shaded his eyes.


She knelt down swiftly. "Grandy, what is it?"


"This house," he said. "Tyl, is it talking? Do you feel . . . something wrong?"


Her throat tightened. She cast a quick look behind her.


"I don't like it." Grandy rocked his shoulders. "Oh, no, I don't like it."


Tyl said, "Grandy, there's nothing. But there's something I've got to tell you."


He pulled himself up and smiled then. His hand came to cover hers warmly. "Darling, I know. I must lock the doors. Run up, sweet. I'll come. I'll tuck you in, eh?"


She nodded. She went upstairs slowly, grasping the banister too tightly. She could hear Grandy below, moving briskly, locking the doors. Whatever the mood had been, he'd thrown it off. And this was her home. Surely it was safe here. There could be nothing here to fear.


She went into the gray room and found the switch, but she didn't press it. She crossed quickly to the window in the dark. Was that a sound?


Outside, the night was not too deep for her to see a figure in the garden. Was it only this morning, she wondered, that she had first seen that figure, that man's shape? Only today?


The sounds were faint. She knelt and hid her head behind the curtain. She could see another figure, climbing down the trellis from the roof of the kitchen porch. Only she could see it, only from this room. Climbing down! Out of Rosaleen's old room to the porch roof, of course. That Jane! Her blond head caught a little light from the sky. The two figures met and shimmered in the dark and seemed to dissolve into shadows.


Tyl sat back on her heels. "My noblehearted lover!" she said. "My suffering bridegroom! Oh, brave good lonely soul!"


Chapter Fifteen


"Jane." Francis held her by the shoulders. He spoke in a low tone that wouldn't carry. His face was just a blur. "You've got to go to New York tomorrow." He shook her with his impatience. "Make it your day off. Disappear and leave a note. It doesn't matter if he

doesn't like it Get away early."


"What do you want me to do?"


"I've got it!" he croaked triumphantly. "I finally got Althea to talk about it Listen, see if you don't get the point. We know the clock stopped at twenty after ten." He let go of her shoulders.


"Fran, I've got to tell you—"


"Not now. Wait. So the fuse blew at twenty after ten that morning. Now Althea says that Grandy came out of the study and was closing the door of it behind him at the very minute when the Phantom Chef fellow was on the air—the one who gives out recipes,

you know, Jane. She remembers something he said. Jane, it gives us the time! Don't you see?"


"I see. I think I do."


"The fellow said 'Burn tenderly.' Remember that. Two words. Write them down. They take records of those programs. They must have taken a record of this one. Pray they have. You've got to go to the radio station and find out. Maybe they took a record there. Or if they didn't, sometimes the client does. Find out who pays for that program. See if they took a recording. Try the advertising agency. Try everywhere. Find that record, Jane. And then make them let you listen. Make up a yarn, anything. Don't you see? If you can

listen, and time the thing, and spot the very minute when he said, 'Burn tenderly' —“


"Un-huh," said Jane. "Uh-huh."


"That'll be the proof we're looking for. Proof! If the time is different from what I expect, then we're all wrong, and we'll know it. Jane, we can't be wrong. And if those words were said on the air that morning any time—even seconds—after twenty after ten, then we've got him! Got enough to go to the police. Because that would mean she was dead—" He drew away in the dark. "Oh, God, Jane, she kicked that lamp over while she was dying, and he stood there watching her!"


Jane said, in a minute, grimly, "That'll do it"


"Yes," he repeated wearily, "that'll do it."

"HI go into town. I'll find out." She might have been taking

her oath.


"Yes, you go in." He wished the night were over. He wished it

were morning.


Jane said, "Fran, Gahagen was here."


"What?"


"Yes, and I—"


"What did he want?"


"He was asking all about the clock. He looked at the fuses too."


Francis groaned. "Did he say how the police came to be wondering about that?"


"No, he didn't say. But I think he knew, all right."


Francis groaned again. "The old man is keen. Damn! Why did this have to happen tonight?"


"How do you suppose Gahagen knew that you were the man on the telephone?"


"They could have traced the call. I couldn't help it. I had to check; had to know whether the police had found a blown fuse or noticed—"


"They never would have noticed," said Jane loyally. "You found the newspaper picture with the wrong time on the clock."


"But I wish Gahagen hadn't shown up tonight"


"Fran, what's the difference? We've got it now. All we have to do is check."


"Yes," he said.


They were whispering in the lee of a great mock orange. The night was still around them. Chilly. Francis shivered. His scalp crawled. He wished it were morning and Jane on her way.


"Fran, tell me." She clutched at his arm. "What about Mathilda? What happened?"


"Mathilda doesn't matter," he said desperately.


"But what did you tell Grandy? What did he say?"


"I told him she was balmy. He—I don't know. I imagine he's wondering, right now, what I'm up to."


"You don't think he believed you?"


"No, I don't think he believed me," said Francis bitterly. "I'm good, but I'm not that good. I think he doesn't understand and he's lying low. I hope he doesn't get his mind clear until tomorrow."


"Poor Mathilda," breathed Jane.


"Tough on her," he admitted. He could tell Jane. "But, honey, what could I do? Go on trying to tell her that old precious is what he is? And have her run to him with all we've got, so far? So he could block any move we'd try to make? Don't think he couldn't. Or could I bow out and say, 'That's right, ma'am. I'm lying. Must have had a brainstorm. So long.' And leave the job unfinished? When we were so close? I couldn't do a thing, Jane, but what I did. I felt like a heel."


"She must have been staggered."


"She's got a lot of fight; she can take it. She's got to! A few confusing days. Jane, how the old mat's got those girls under his spell! Svengali business. I don't like it. He's had Mathilda thinking she's a poor little unattractive dumb bunny for years and years."


"She's not," said Jane dryly.


"She's certainly one of the most beautiful creatures—" said Francis irritably. "But no, she'll take his word for it! I don't think she knows, herself, what she is, or ever will know until she gets away from him."


"So if we get him, she'll be free."


"Yes," he said. "That's the only way I can look at it."


There was a slam of sound. Somebody had slammed the back door. They froze in the shadows and turned their faces furtively. Someone with a flashlight went around to the garage. The overhead doors rolled up. In a moment or two, they heard a car start. It was

Oliver's. It plunged down the drive and they heard the gears clash, as if the hand that shifted was in a mood for bangs and clashes.


"Oliver?"


"But what—where's he going?"


"Hell for leather. I don't know." Francis took a step as if he would follow and see.


"He was simply furious with Althea. They must have had a fight."


"Quite a fight," said Francis.


The car's noises died away, leaving the night to its old chilly quiet. Jane shivered this time. "Better get back." She turned to look at the quiet house that had just erupted and spit out an angry man, and now lay biding its time, to explode again with some evil or

other.


"Yes, you'd better," said Francis with sudden urgency. "Look here, we forgot something. Grandy may not know about the radio voice, but he does know one thing. I should have seen that. He knows the icebox light went out when the fuse blew. He knows, because

Althea told him. That's what tipped him off, in the middle of the morning, that a fuse had been blown. He trotted right down cellar and fixed it. Now, she didn't see the light go out—"


“If it was out," said Jane. "And if it was really Rosaleen's death that put it out, Fran, haven't we got proof already? Can't we use that? Use it now, tonight?"


"No, because it might have been the bulb burning out, after all," said Francis wearily. "He'd wiggle out that way. Jane, I—"


"What's the matter?"


"God knows what hell do!"


She trembled. "What?"


"I hate to ask you to lose sleep when you have so much to do tomorrow. Jane, watch Althea's door."


"Watch?"


"Because Oliver's gone," said Francis. "Oliver isn't there. She's alone. And Gahagens tipped off Grandy. Get into the house, Jane. It s not—I don't think it's safe."


"You don't think he'd— Not Althea!"


"No?" said Francis. "Rosaleen was young and pretty, wasn't she?"


Jane said, "Oh, Fran!"


“If you see anyone," he told her, "flash your lights, I'll be around."


As one, they turned and almost ran into the darkness to the kitchen porch. He boosted her up the trellis. Mathilda's window was dimly lit. The house stood whitely over Francis. The night, he thought, was getting colder.


Chapter Sixteen


"Now," said Grandy, "now were cozy." He sat in the big yellow chair, and Tyl put herself on the yellow ottoman at his feet. They were together in a little pool of light from the tall lamp over them. The room was warm. It had an expensive smell. She'd had time to get out of the green dress and into her own long warm robe of rose-colored wool. The soft fabric felt luxurious along her neck and arms.


"What's troubling you, duck? Now you shall tell me all about it."


"Just that Francis is a liar!" she burst out promptly. "A terrible liar, Grandy. I don't know the man! I never saw him before! The story about my having met him and got married to him—it's not true! Every bit of it is just made up. Because I remember exactly what I did in New York those three days. And he wasn't in it. So it's all a big elaborate he!"


Grandy's black eyes narrowed.


Mathilda felt her temper rising. "Just about the biggest mess of lies I ever heard!" she cried. "Why, he had the bellhops and the hotel people all primed to say they knew about it. Even the minister, Grandy. And that letter to you! I never wrote any such letter. I

couldn't have. Because it didn't happen. And that license business in the wrong name. It's just a fake! It must be!"


"Hush," he said.


"But you believe me? You do? Don't you?"


"Of course I believe you, Tyl," he said. "Of course, darling. Hush


She sagged forward, put her arms on his knees and her head down. "But did you ever hear of such a thing? Why it's—" She wanted to cry.


"Extraordinary," said Grandy. "It's perfectly wild, Tyl."


“I know!" she cried. "I couldn't make a fuss! I had to get home! Grandy, what in the world can we do about it?"


"To think he fooled me," Grandy said sadly. "To think he fooled us all."


"Oh, darling, I suppose you couldn't help that," she soothed. "The letter was so well done. I know. But it's a fake, just the same. Grandy, what I can't understand is, what's he doing all this for? And what shall we do? You'll throw him out, won't you?"


Grandy said nothing.


"What do you think?" she cried.


"Oh, poor child," he said. "I was thinking what a dreadful day you've had. Poor darling, it's a wonder you didn't begin to think you were out of your mind."


"I pretty near did," she confessed.


"It was wicked."


"Yes, it was," she agreed, her eyes smarting with a rush of self-pity. "You don't know how confusing it was. I had to keep telling myself to hold everything and wait, because you'd fix him! And you will, won't you, Grandy?"


"Oh, yes, I'll fix him," said Grandy. She made a little satisfied sigh. "You see, duck, we did feel so dreadfully sad. And he seemed to feel the same. Quite as if he'd known you. I want you to understand—"


"Darling, I don't blame you."


"But I blame myself," said Grandy. "To think we pitied him and let him stay! Of course, he must have supposed you would never turn up."


"He thought I was dead. He thought I'd never come back to tell you he was lying." She nodded.


"We must ask ourselves," said Grandy, "what he wants here."


A car roared out the drive and off down the road. Grandy's pince-nez fell and dangled on the cord. "Dear me, what was that?"


"A car," said Mathilda impatiently. "Grandy, what is it about Althea? Why did they go off together?"


Grandy said, almost absent-mindedly, "You see, Tyl, Francis told me that you couldn't remember him."


She was amazed. "He told you? When?"


"As soon as you came. While you were upstairs."


"Before dinner?" her voice squeaked.


"Yes, right away."


"Then— Oh, Grandy, you guessed it was all a he. You did know."


"Why, yes. I knew."


Mathilda sank back, puzzled, bothered.


"What I assumed was that his disappearing with Althea was a part of his act," said Grandy, shifting in the chair. "He was your poor, flouted, forgotten lover, and of course he had to be comforted. Althea's done a good deal of that sort of tiling," he mused—"comforting Francis."


"I imagine," said Tyl faintly. She thought, Althea would. Faint

color came to her face.


"Althea s impulse was to be kind," said Grandy, "and it was kind."


She thought. But Althea's impulse isn't to be kind. That's not so. She said, "Jane has impulses too. She climbed out her window just now to meet him in the garden."


"Eh?"


"Oh, yes, I saw them."


"Jane?"


Mathilda nodded. She thought, How many women does he need to comfort him? Her cheeks were hot. "More part of his act," she said.


"But what's the act designed for, eh, Tyl?" Grandy looked both shrewd and stern. "I think we must know that. We must find out Yes. You see, I told Francis we'd—er—wait."


"Wait?" Mathilda looked at him, surprised. "Wait?" she cried again, indignantly. Yet she wasn't as indignant as she might have been.


Grandy said, "Because I wonder what he's after, and I'd like to know. Yes. I'd like very much to know."


"So would I." Mathilda felt a little flustered, a little lost.


"You see, duck"—Grandy leaned toward her; his voice took on its old persuasive richness—"the thing's so delicate. We don't want it to be spread around. What fun the newspapers would have if you swear one thing and he continues to swear another. And to do with love and marriage. Oh, Tyl." She looked at him doubtfully. "And yet"—he changed his voice, watching her face—"I should adore to kick him out of here very fast and very hard in a spot where a kick would take the best effect, eh? Perhaps we will do just that. Yes, I think so." Then he said crossly, "What does the fellow want? Did he say anything at all, duck? Any little thing?"


She shook her head. "I haven't the slightest idea," she said. "At first I thought he must have wanted to get in here to get close to you. Because he wanted something from you, Grandy. But I—" She shook her head again. She remembered Francis had said he was jealous. "I don't think so any more. I just don't know."


"A very mysterious article, our Francis," mused Grandy. "Now, what could he want of me?"


Mathilda moved her hands, pulling her robe together nervously. Tomorrow they would lack him out like a dog, and he would deserve it. She lifted her chin. Serve him right. She said aloud, "Maybe you're right"


“Eh?”


"Maybe, if we waited, we could find out what he's after," she said weakly. She thought, What am I saying this for?


"Let us go slowly," said Grandy thoughtfully. She had a sensation of relief. They both relaxed, as if a decision had been taken. But Grandy had another thought. "Naturally, duck, you dislike him. I could see, at the table—"


"Naturally," she said.


“Therefore , if he annoys you in any way, if even his being here or anything he does—”


Mathilda tossed her head. She thought, I won't let myself be annoyed.

Grandy said, with sudden, almost boyish pleasure, “But isn't it the damnedest thing!” and Mathilda looked at his twinkling black eyes and she laughed.


“It certainly is,” she agreed. “Oh Grandy, I feel so much better now.”


“Don't you let him make you think you've had amnesia,” scolded Grandy fondly. “Don't you let him shake you, duck. Or undermine your confidence. No. He shan't do that. Not if I know it!”


Grandy kissed her. He went out. The door fell softly closed. She stood quite still a moment. It's all right. It's all right. Of course, it's all right. She slipped off the rosy robe. Grandy believes me. Mathilda brushed her teeth very thoroughly and vigorously. She put herself to bed with great decision and firmness. It was almost as if she had to prove she was firm and unshaken.


Grandy's beautiful bathroom, a bubble of glass and luxury, had been designed and built for him by one of his famous friends, an architect of the modern school. It had been installed for some four years. Before that, Grandy had for his own the bath between his room and the garden room, which bath now served the garden room alone. The connecting door to Grandy's room had been locked and forgotten.


So it was that Jane, sitting in the dark with her eye to the faintest crack at the edge of her own door,k where she had just not quite closed it, saw Grandy come out of Mathilda's room, the gray room, go up toward the front of the house and enter his own place. She did not see him come out again, as indeed he did not, for she watched until dawn.


But Althea, gargling her throat, heard his tapping on the locked and bolted door.


“Grandy?”


“Slip the latch, chickabiddy. Are you decent?”


Althea slipped the latch. “I'm decent,” she said sulkily.


He stood in the half-open door, looking at her with a worried frown. “Oliver?”


“Oh.” Althea slashed at the rack with her towel. She had a white satin negligee pulled tight around her hips. The wide sleeves were embroidered in silver. "We had a fight. A regular knock-down, drag-out."


Tm so sorry" said Grandy. "So sorry, dear."


"Hell get over it," she said. She looked angry to the point of tears.


"Was it because of Francis?"


"Such stupid nonsense!" cried Althea.


"He thought-"


"I don't know what he thought, but I can guess. Just because I wouldn't tell him what we were talking about."


"But why not, chicken?" Grandy moved in a little, all benevolence, all loving concern.


"I might have told him if he hadn't been so nasty." She sniffed. "Oliver gets on a high horse and he's just unbearable."


"Then it wasn't a secret?"


“I don't know," she said thoughtfully. A funny cruel little smile grew on her sulky face. "You know, Tyl's a sly one."


"Tyl?" Grandy showed his innocent surprise.


"Francis didn't tell me much," she said, "but he's all upset." She turned away to reach for her lotion. Grandy didn't move. "Such a lot of jealous nonsense!" she stormed. "So Oliver's gone of for the night, and let him! It'll do him good! After all, if Francis wanted me to talk to him, why shouldn't I? Francis isn't very happy."


"Why shouldn't you, indeed?" murmured Grandy mildly. "But you're upset now, chickabiddy, and you mustn't be. It spoils your pretty face."


Althea looked into the mirror.


"Better sleep " said Grandy gently. "Better try to sleep it all away."


"I know," she said. She turned to him repentantly. "Oh, Grandy, you're such a sweet—"


"I want you to sleep well," he said, petting her. One hand on her silver hair, he reached in his pocket with the other. "Some of your little pills, darling? They'll help you."


"Yes," she said. "Grandy, sometimes Oliver's so stupid."


"There," he said. "There. There are these little adjustments."


She took the pills childishly, a lot of them. He held the glass of water for her. She turned to dry her lips. "I hope I don't dream."


Grandy went around the sides of the glass with a towel slowly. He put the glass in her hand. Automatically, she set it in its place.


"Latch the door, chickabiddy. Sleep well." His beaked, beaming face, alight with loving-kindness, remained in the door a brief moment.


"You, too, Grandy," said Althea affectionately. She flicked the latch.


Grandy slept well enough. Jane s head ached where she rested it against her door. Francis, in the garden, was cold. Mathilda had dreams. Oliver, down at the country club, couldn't sleep at all. Althea slept and dreamed no more.


Chapter Seventeen


The sudden and unexpected death of Althea Conover Keane, caused by an overdose of sleeping tablets, was called an accident Tom Gahagen was handling the case himself. He had them all together in Grandy's study, late that morning. All. that is. But Jane Moynihan, who had gone off to New York early. She had been on her train before Oliver came home. It was, of course, Oliver who came home in the morning and, finding it impossible to waken his wife by pounding on the locked bedroom door, had got in

through a window finally, and found what there was of her.


Grandy sat behind his desk, and Mathilda's heart ached for him as, indeed, it also ached for poor white-faced Oliver, for poor Althea, for the dreary day, for herself, for everything. Grandy's hands shaded his face and he kept looking down at the polished wood, too desperately sad to raise his eyes, even to answer questions.


In this privacy, Gahagen at first said he assumed it was suicide. There was the fact that she had locked herself in, locked the hall door after Oliver when he had left her, about midnight The connecting bathroom door to Grandy's room was bolted, and had been for years. She was securely locked in. She had wanted to be alone. The stuff she had taken was available there in her medicine cabinet. Althea had been fond of dosing herself. Locked in alone, obviously she took the stuff herself.


Added to this was her note. "Darling. Forgive me, please do," it read, and it was signed boldly with her big sprawling "Althea," of which the last two letters trailed off insolently, as if she assumed it wasn't necessary to be legible. Everyone would know.


A sad and cryptic little note, it was. Francis had found it on the floor, after Oliver had got in through the window and cried out and opened the door, and Grandy had rushed in to stand by the bed and look down at her. In all the confusion, Francis had seen the paper fluttering at Grandy's slippered feet, stirred, no doubt, by the breeze of his passing.


"Now, I'm mighty sorry," Gahagen said, "but I've got to ask you if anybody knows why she'd have wanted to do a thing like this?" The silence fell in a chunk, as it did here, in this unnaturally sound-proofed atmosphere. "What did she mean— 'Forgive me?"


Tyl thought, But that was what she always said. She remembered Althea's easy, charming "Forgive me's." Something she, herself, could not say at all. The phrase sounded to Tyl, in her own mouth, pretentious and wrong. For Althea it had been so easy. "Forgive me for not telephoning yesterday." "Forgive me for splashing your dress." "Forgive me for not listening." Gahagen wouldn't know how trivial a matter could call out that phrase. She felt too heavy to make the effort to tell him so.


"Who's the note meant for?" he was insisting. "Who's 'darling'?"


Oh, anybody, thought Tyl. Everybody.


Grandy answered as if he tolled a bell. "Surely she meant 'Forgive me for what I am about to do.' God help me, I was afraid."


"Afraid?"


"I don't like to say this now. Yet it's all I can think of. It obsesses me. I had a warning "


"What do you mean, Luther?"


"Premonition. The house felt wrong. She was not right. Not herself." Grandy took off his pince-nez and rubbed his nose. The homely gesture punctuated his talk. It was as if he'd made a homely gesture to reassure himself.


"Was it something she said, Luther?"


"No, nothing she said. Nothing she did. Nothing I can describe. It was . . . the lurking death wish that lies so secretly in the heart. . . . Oh, my house," groaned Grandy, "my poor tragic house." Tyl felt the world would come apart at the seams.


"Sorry, Luther," said Tom Gahagen. "You know I'm sorry. Got to ask a few questions, get it straightened out." He shifted uneasily.


Grandy said, "Don't mind me, Tom." Then, in tones of pure heartbreak, "I am wondering, of course, what I ought to have done that I left undone."


"Aren't we all?" said Francis in a queer, harsh, angry voice. It was as if he'd been rude. Grandy's gentleness reproached him.


Oliver said monotonously, "We had a quarrel, a dumb, jealous quarrel. She'd been out in the guest house with Howard, and I didn't like it So we said a lot of bitter, nasty stuff and I slammed out of here. She wouldn't tell me what they'd talked about, and I wanted to know. I thought it was my business. She said it wasn't."


The careful voice broke. "It couldn't have been over me that she did it. Because I didn't matter that much to Althea, and that's the truth."


It didn't sound like Oliver. He'd been shocked into honest humility. Tyl could have wept for him.


Gahagen looked at Francis. "What were you and Mrs. Keane talking about so long?" he asked with cold precision.


Francis said, "She was in no suicidal mood."


"What d'you mean?"


"She was in no suicidal mood." He repeated his statement quietly. "I spent a good while last evening talking to her, and I would have known."


"What were you talking about?"


Francis shrugged. "As a matter of fact, I was telling her my troubles, and she was very kind," he said smoothly. "And she was not thinking about suicide."


Gahagen's glance passed from one young man to the other. His thought was transparent on his tight face. A triangle. Jealousy. Trouble. No way to get to the bottom of it.


Grandy said softly, "We can't be sure that note was not just a note she'd written some other time. Perhaps this was an accident.... Is that possible, Tom?"


Gahagen examined this soft suggestion and thought he understood it. Some tangle of emotions here that could not be publicly explained.


Mathilda spoke up at last. "Althea did use that phrase, 'Forgive me,' such a lot"


"She did. She did," murmured Grandy. "You're right, Tyl. So she did."


"You don't think it was a suicide note at all?" Gahagen sounded tentative, as if he might, in the end, take their word for it.


Grandy said, "Not necessarily. Quite possibly, it wasn't.”


Francis said coldly—almost as if he knew, Tyl thought—"She didn't commit suicide, Mr. Gahagen."


"Then you think it was an accident?"


Francis didn't answer.


But Oliver's new and bitter voice said without drama, "I'd rather think so."


There was one of those silences.


"She was," said Francis firmly, insistently, even loudly, "in no more suicidal mood than Mathilda is right now."


Heads turned. What an odd thing to say! Gahagen's brows made puzzled motions.


"I'd like you all to look at Mathilda," said Francis easily. That is, his voice was easy; his arm, hanging over the back of the chair he sat in, was dangling with an effect of being relaxed. But there were two hard little fines near his mouth that Jane would have recog-

nized.


"Why should we look at Mathilda?" purred Grandy. He had himself looked up at last. His black eyes were narrow behind his glasses. He looked wary and alert and as if he were listening hard, trying to hear more than Francis' quiet voice as it went on.


"Because I don't care for these suicidal rumors," said Francis. I don't like premonitions after the fact. I want all of you to look very carefully at Mathilda, and if you see anything . . . ominous, then let us arrange to take very good care of her." Francis opened his hand,

looked at the palm, turned it over, let it fall. "Since two pretty young girls have died in this house," he said, "I'd just as soon there wasn't any third one. So take a good look at Mathilda now. And if she's in a dangerous mood, let's have nurses in and watch her. Let's

take no more chances."


There was silence—rather a strained silence. Tyl shook her head. "I don't understand."


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