'Her subconscious was putting two and two together,' said Theo, shouting him down. 'Therefore it is obvious, is it not, Ethel? You wished to kill your brother and his wife. You must have.'
Ethel stared at him.
'Because you nearly did kill them, you know,' said Theo. 'There is a deadly poison in that sauce. Don't try to tell us you never 'meant' to do it.' He put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. He looked like the sheriff in a Western.
'I , , .' croaked Ethel, 'I had no warning ... I don't
understand. . . . Please.' Her wits seemed to return. 'You mean we would have become ill?'
'You would have become dead,' said the bus driver. Her eyes popped, staring.
'Failing this,' said Theo, 'you then obviously wished to kill yourself' Theo veered to the bus driver. 'Say, how does that come in?'
'We'll figure something,' said the driver enthusiastically. ''We'll tell her what her motive was.' 'Sex?' said Theo, brightening. Mr. Gibson was speechless.
Rosemary said indignantly, 'It doesn't come in. Stop it, both of you.'
'Subconsciously,' began the artist, his bright malicious glance examining his victim. 'Theo,' said Mrs. Boatright.
'Lee,' said Virginia in exactly the same tone. The bus driver's sh6ulders dropped, his arms turned outward in a gesture of apology and relaxation. But he was grinning.
Mr. Gibson, however, watched his wife. Adoringly. (My darling, he thought, is truly kind and compassionate of heart. And if this is innocent, how sweet it is, this innocence, how lovely!) For Rosemary stood beside- Ethel, furiously defending her.
'Ethel just does not hear words when she turns on music. She has trained herself not to. She really wouldn't have heard the warning. She is not trying to kill anybody. She didn't mean to. She couldn't have. It would have been an accident. And you know it' she defied the artist, 'and don't be so mean, now.'
'Rosemary,' said Ethel brokenly, reaching for her. 'I don't understand this . . . honestly. I certainly wouldn't want to hurt you or anyone . . . honestly—'
'Of course not,' said Rosemary, caressing her as one would comfort a frightened child. 'Don't you pay any attention to these cut-ups. Now, I believe you'd never mean to, Ethel.'
Mr. Gibson thought dizzily, Rosemary and I must try to help poor Ethel . . . poor, brave, unlucky Ethel, faithless, cheated of love. He seemed to himself to pass out for a moment or two. Everybody seemed to be telling Ethel the whole sequence, and he could not bear it. He revived to find hims elf still sitting in the chair with the
bowl of poisoned food tight in his hands. He looked about him.
Now Ethel sat alone.
Mrs. Walter Boatright was on the phone telling the police department exactly what it was to do now. (It would do as she said. He had no doubt.)
The little nurse, finding nobody interested in the brandy, had slipped to the floor beside Ethel's chair and sat there thoughtfully sipping it herself.
The bus driver and the painter were wringing each other by the hand, the artist literally hopping up and down in intellectual delight and still muttering, 'Hoist! Hoist!'
'Judge not! Hey?' said the bus driver. 'The biter bit. A bitter bite.'
Jeanie had run for the door in a streak, a moment ago (now-he recalled), yelling, 'I'll tell Grandma.' And Paul, who had been hugging her, in his joy, now hugged Rosemary. (Anybody. Any soft huggable body. Mr. Gibson understood perfectly.)
He hugged the bowl and thought, Now who could predict such a scene as this? He felt delighted.
But he did not contemplate it long. Hanging onto the bowl, he plunged into the celebration, himself, in person.
A police car had slipped into the drive; now a cop got out.
He was young, and not too sure what he'd been sent here for. He approached the door of the cottage. Before he could ring, it was swinging in before him with a tremendous welcoming verve, pulled by a small, compact man with dancing eyes. This man had a slight, brown-haired, merry-eyed woman tucked under his other arm. She was smiling too, and she helped balance, between them, what looked to be a wooden bowl full of spaghetti. These two stepped back in unison, like a pair of dancers, bowing him inward.
In the small foyer, a big handsome gent was crooning into the telephone. 'It's O.K., dear. It really is! Everything is wonderful and I'll be home soon.' (The cop had no way of knowing he was talking to his mother-in- law.)
In the living room, a wiry old gentleman in a pink shirt whistling tunelessly through his teeth, and with his thin legs prancing, was enthusiastically steering the majestic
bulk of a beige-and-white-clad matron in the waltz. She stepped lightly.
Another man, in a leather jacket, crouched for the purpose of kissing the not unwilling lips of a cool little Nordic blonde who was sitting on the floor. From a tiny glass in her limp hand, something trickled on the back of his neck. He wasn't minding.
The cop's eye assessed all this. He was here, he supposed, to ask questions. 'I dunno much about this,' he confessed, lookmg at the plain-faced, middle-aged woman who sat in the midst of all the hilarity, stricken and still, staring at the carpet (as if she'd been shook, all right, he thought). 'Is she the one,' he said aside with pity, 'who got careless with some poison?'
The man at the door hesitated. Then he said, 'No, it was I. But mercifully . . . Come in. Gome in,' said Mr.
