'Everything's under control,' yelped Lee, who was waving a sheet of paper. 'The marines have landed! We did it, after all!' He pounded Mr. Gibson on the back rather violently. 'No sting! O grave, where is thy...!' he babbled.
'Tell us!' screamed Rosemary, over the noise, 'one of you--'
'This Jeanie child,' roared Theo Marsh, 'this Jeanie is so sound and intelligent that I am lying in the dust at her feet. Fool! Fool, that I am. My life! My work!' He snatched the paper from the bus driver.
'But what—?'
The nurse said, 'Well, tell them!' Then she told them. 'It was Jeame who asked Theo to draw the face he'd seen.'
'And he drew it so well,' cried Jeanie aglow, 'that Grandma recognized her!'
The paper was thrust under Mr. Gibson's nose. A few pencil lines—a face, a beauty.
'Mama said it was Mrs. Violette,' yelled Paul, 'and I couldn't believe her. I never thought she was so darned lovely.'
'Have eyes ... and see not,' droned the artist. His hair stood on end. He held the drawing in both hands and moved it softly to and fro. 'Has she ever done any modeling?' he crooned. 'These exquisite nostrils!'
'But what,' gasped Mrs. Gibson, 'What happened!'
'Virginia called up her house.' explained Lee excitedly. 'This Violette, or whatever. And it was this Violette. Some sister or other was there, and this sister says, 'Yes she had it.'
'This sister ha—?'
'Mrs. Violette had it!' boomed Paul. 'She's gone to. the mountains. She took it with her! But Mrs. Boatright called the police ...'
Lee said, 'And she's buddies with the high brass. She told them what to do, all right.' He spanked Mrs, Boatright on the shoulders. 'Hey, Mary Anne?'
'They will stop her car,' said Mrs. Boatright calmly, 'or truck, as I beheve it is. We secured the license number. An all-points bulletin. The organization is quite capable.' Mrs Boatright was beaming like Santa Claus, for all her calm.
'So you see!' gasped Virginia. 'She's not going to use it en route. How could she? So you are saved!'
Ethel stood there. 'Furthermore,' said Mrs. Boatright, looking around as if this were a committee, 'I see no reason, at all, since there has been no catastrophe, for any further proceeding. Justice will not be served by publicity or by punishment. Mr. Gibson is not going to kill himself. Nor will he ever do such a thing as he did. I do believe that I convinced Chief Miller ... If not, I will.'
'You did already,' cried Lee. 'You beat it into him, Mary Anne. Believe me, you were superb! So All's Well that Ends Well! Hey? Hey?'
'Hey?' joined Theo.
Rosemary made a little whimpering sound of relief and staggered and drooped into a chair.
'Is there any brandy?' said the nurse anxiously, observing this collapse vsdth a professional eye.
Ethel stood there. She had no idea what was happening. She understood nothing. 'Brandy in the kitchen,' she said mechanically, 'left-hand cupboard, over the sink ...' Her face went into a kind of social simper. She expected to be introduced to them all.
But the nurse ran toward the kitchen with the bus driver on the end of her arm.
The telephone rang and Mrs. Boatright rolled in her swift smooth way to answer it.
It was Theo Marsh who turned, elbows out, chin forward, eyes malicious, and said loudly, 'So this is Ethel? Lethal Ethel?'
'Really,' said Ethel, turning a dull red, 'who are these people!'
Mr. Gibson, trembling in every limb, had fallen into a chair himself. He realized that Ethel was completely at a loss. She. was not on the same level as the rest of them. She couldn't understand their swift communications. She'd been insulted besides . . . But he could not speak, for he was saved who had been doomed, and he tingled and was dumb.
Rosemary said weakly, 'We were just going to tell you—just a min—' She gasped to silence.
There was a silence as they all understood this with surprise. Ethel did not know?
Mrs. Boatright spoke into the phone, 'Yes, he is here. . . . But may I take a message—? The Laboraory? Ohy I see. But it has been found, you know, and no harm done at all. . . . Oh, you did? . . . No, you couldn't have known at that time. ... I see. . . . Oh no, it was never
loose upon the public. That was just an error. . , .' She went on murmuring.
Out in the kitchen the nurse found the brandy with dispatch, but then Lee, with enterprise, embraced her. They stood in a clinch. A green paper bag lay on top of the other trash in the kitchen wastebasket. The bottle, with King Roberto's picture on it, stood upside down on the counter. But they whispered, and they were not looking at the scenery.
In the living room, Theo bared his particolored teeth at Ethel. (Mrs. Boatright was too busy on the phone to restrain him, for now she was calling to have a car sent.) So Theo said, 'Ethel herself? The dead-end kid? The doom preacher? The amateur psychiatrist?'
Ethel looked as if she would choke.
'I cannot see,' she cried, hoarse with rage, 'why a perfect freak of a strange old man is permitted to come in here and call me names! Until somebody in this room makes sense, I intend to eat my dinner, which—' her voice
